News: Colby -Fiesta Corp. goes from boom to bust (Feb 1982)

Contact: Kathleen E. Englebretson
Email: kathy@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Outlaw, Perkins, Byrnes, Ricklefs, Firnstahl

Wausau Daily Herald (9 February 1982)

COLBY -- (by Jim Elliott) The United States flag waves in the breeze over the nearly-empty parking lot and snow banks try their best to hide the company sign.

Things have changed at the Fiesta Corporation, Colby's former rising industrial star.

Production was halted at the plant in October, a move that put up to 138 workers out of work at that plant and at four smaller ones in Spencer and Hancock.

The situation today is in sharp contrast to the warmer days of summer, when the Colby plant was operating 20 hours a day, with about 60 people busily pumping out heaters and air conditioners under multi-million dollar contracts with the U.S. Army and Air Force.

But on November 10, the company filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Eau Claire for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. With creditors lining up to collect at least $2.7 millions in debts, future prospects for the once-buzzing young company don't look bright.

Nobody's publicly saying what happened to change the fortunes of the Fiesta Corp. around so drastically. But there is no doubt that the company's colorful president, J. Raymond Outlaw, is positioned solidly in the center of the storm.

In Milwaukee, FBI Agent George Perkins said, "We can confirm that we are conducting an investigation of fraud against the government against the Fiesta Corporation and Raymond Outlaw, its chief executive."

Perkins would give no details about the probe, but said Outlaw is aware of the investigation.

No charges have been filed. and U.S. Attorney John R. Byrnes, Madison, said the next grand jury isn't scheduled until February 23. If any federal charges were to be filed against Outlaw, they would have to come before a grand jury.

Outlaw has become a controversial figure in Colby and in other parts of the country, where he has had a checkered career.

The 37 year-old Outlaw left North Carolina to join Fiesta as a sales representative in 1976, when the firm was located in Hancock, in the sand country south of Stevens Point. The company made picnic grills then, doing about $400,000 worth of business a year.

A good salesman, Outlaw managed to sell more more grills than the company could produce, and wound up buying Fiesta under a handshake deal -- He would have to pay only if he made the firm profitable.

Outlaw accomplished that objective -- at least for the short term.

He had a plan: drop the picnic grills and go after something big. He found it in federal defense contracts, a field that was more accessible to him because with Cherokee blood in his veins, he qualified for special advantages as a minority small businessman.

Next he needed a plant. He quickly found there were plenty of people trying to attract industry in Wisconsin. He met with Tom Ricklefs of the Marathon County Economic Development Council, who in turn introduced him to Paul Firnstahl of Colby.

Firnstahl and his wife had a private firm, Community Industrial Developers Inc., which raised funds through the sale of Debentures to attract industry to the small town on the western edge of Marathon County.

"We put a little of our money together to build a building, then we located an industry," Firnstahl said. That industry was Fiesta, which had a brand-new 36,000-square-foot building to its specifications.

Fiesta was given an attractive lease, with an option to buy. And Outlaw did buy it, in July of 1981, and in his own name -- not Fiesta's. He now leases the building to the corporation.

Firnstahl declined to say how much he was paid, but said, "We told him this was the cost of our building. We did not try to increase the price to Ray at all."

Today, Firnstahl said, the building alone would cost upwards of $25 per square foot -- or about $1 million.

So Fiesta had a fine, modern plant at low cost. and when Outlaw obtained a contract with the Army in 1978 to build portable heaters, he was in business,

After the first contract order was signed, others soon followed. Government orders eventually amounted to $9 million with the Army and similar ones with the Air Force totalling $7 million. The heaters are valued at $2,280 apiece, and the air conditioners are worth $4, 498 each.

Everything was rolling right along. But then the government stopped its payments to Fiesta this year, and Fiesta skidded to a halt.

The government stopped its "progress payments" to Fiesta, mainly because deadlines for software such as instruction mauals were not met, according to ab Army spokesman.

Fiesta also owes the Internal Revenue Service more than $166,706 in withholding taxes.

It now appears that whether Fiesta reopens or not depends on whether the firm can settle its differences with the government -- and the key to that settlement apparently hinges on J. Raymond Outlaw.

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News: Fiesta Corporation #2 (1982)

Contact: Kathleen E. Englebretson

Email: kathy@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Outlaw, Firnstahl

---Source: Wausau Daily Herald (10 February 1982)

Outlaw, J. Raymond

J. Raymond Outlaw doesn't scrimp when it comes to his surroundings.

He lives in a $500,000-plus home in Hillsborough, North Carolina, about 15 miles out of Durham. Called the Twin Oaks Ranch, his 100-acre spread includes a 17-room house, a 3,050-square-foot caretaker's house nearby, and a rich hardwood fence around the entire ranch.

Or consider his opulent office at Fiesta Corporation's Colby headquarters. It is furnished with fine paneling and wall paper. A bearskin rug and several stuffed animals are displayed prominently. A private restroom, with a show, is also included.

A viewer can't miss the huge diamond ring on his finger.

And it has been reported that he gave a man in North Carolina a new Lincoln automobile as a way of expressing his gratitude?

It seems incongruous then, that his firm is in federal Bankruptcy court, listing debts of $2,7 million and undetermined assets.

What ever Outlaw has accomplished, he's always done it with a flourish.

In an article published last May in the Durham, North Carolina Morning Herald, Outlaw revealed somethings about his life that he later said even his children hadn't been told.

Like the fact that their father, the same man who is the president of a Wisconsin company and had been paying himself $50,000 per month, is a convicted armed robber who served time in a South Carolina prison.

The paper reported that Outlaw, as a young man from a poor family, was a fighter who quit school in the ninth grade and later got kicked out of the Army. Outlaw said he hustled cards and pool for a living before getting caught for breaking into a cabin to get whiskey He got probation that time, it was seven years in prison for armed robbery.

It's old history, but it's true, Outlaw told the Daily Herald reluctantly in a phone interview from his North Carolina home.

Now 37, Outlaw says that the incident occurred 18 years ago and he is trying to put that part of his life behind him.

In fact, when he filling out an application from the Small Business Administration, he now admits that he lied about his criminal record.

"I didn't think it was their business. I paid dearly, and my family paid dearly," he said. Now, he says, the FBI is investigating him and that effort to hide his past is the reason.

"I asked them (the FBI) one question," he said. "If I was not an ex-convict, would the case still be open or would it be closed?' He said it would be closed."

Outlaw commuted to Colby to oversee the operation of Fiesta but hasn't been there much recently. In an interview last spring, he told the Durham paper he changed while in prison after he started to read the only thing available-- the Bible. The change was noted by J. W. Strickland, assistant director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, who was warden at the state prison in Columbia when Outlaw was sent there.

At first Outlaw was a problem inmate, but then he changed dramatically, Strickland said. The warden took an interest in Outlaw and helped arrange for a work-release job at a hardware store. It was there that Outlaw discovered his ability as a salesman.

The hardware chain sent him to manage two struggling stores in Raleigh and Durham, where he turned the businesses around. But his first business problems occurred when he started Hillsborough Appliance Center, then invested borrowed money in a new type of fishing rod designed by a relative.

Both enterprises failed, and Outlaw left Hillsborough in 1976 with debts of $250,000. Those debts have since been repaid, according to the Durham paper, which it said it checked with the banks involved in that action.

In 1976, he joined Fiesta as a salesman, and within a short time became the company's owner and president.

"Ray is very outgoing," says Paul Firnstahl, a Colby industrial developer who built Fiesta's building.

"He's a promoter, and no promoter will be content sitting in the background. But his promotional desires may have exceeded his abilities."

At the time Outlaw was considering a move to Colby. Firnstahl checked on his financial statements. "Even though they were not real good, sound ones that financial institutions like to see, they were such that we felt he could make a go," Firnstahl said..

Firnstahl, who is production control manager of the Packaging Corporation of America container plant in Colby, also knew that Outlaw had a line on defense contracts because of his minority status as part Cherokee Indian.

That lineage along with the belief that Ronald Reagan would be elected president led Firnstahl to look more optimistically upon Outlaw's business proposals. With Reagan's well-known views on defense spending, " the potential was definitely there," Firnstahl said.

However, Firnstahl didn't check into Outlaw's personal background, and thus did not know he was a convicted felon. It might not have made any difference anyway, he said, because Outlaw had apparently changed.

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News: Fiesta Corporation #3 (1982)

Contact: Kathleen E. Englebretson

Email: kathy@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Outlaw, Uren, Wittmeyer, McMahon, Firnstahl, Ricklefs

---Source: Wausau Daily Herald (11 February 1982)

Fiesta Corporation #3

The federal government's policy of giving minority businesses a break came in handy for J. Raymond Outlaw, president of the Fiesta Corporation.

And the small company got further favors from a small Marathon County community that was trying its hardest to attract new industry.

Outlaw's great grandmother was a Chrokee Indian and that is enough to qualify his business being "owned and managed" by a minority in the eyes of Small Business Administration (SBA) and other federal agencies as well.

According to Joan Uren of the Madison SBA office, Congress passed a law several years ago requiring that the government, when issuing federal contracts, make a "best effort to give a given percentage to small businesses that are minority owned, controlled and actively managed."

Under subsection 8 (a) of the law, firms owned and managed by minorities who can show they have been discriminated against socially and economically in business practices will receive special "set-asides" from contracts with other businesses.

That program is intended to assist minority businesses in becoming self-sufficient. Once they are competitive, they are released from it, Uren said.

Fiesta Corporation is an "8 (a) contractor", she said. And yet, it has not received any contracts that way, said Anthony McMahon, branch manager of the Milwaukee SBA office.

"All the government work they got was on a competitive basis," he said.

Jim Wittmeyer, a public affairs officer for the Army, also said that none of Fiesta's three Army contracts were set-asides. The first contract was written in 1978, but the other two were made in 1981 and are still pending, he said.

(Outlaw told the Daily Herald that he has participated in more than 3,000 federal contracts, some big and some small.)

If Fiesta didn't get the contracts through the set-aside program, how did Outlaw's Indian heritage aid him?

All federal agencies have targets to meet when it come to dealing with minority businesses, McMahon said, They try to let as many contracts to such firms as they can.

The agencies sill must consider a firm's capability to do the work, quality of the product and price. But if they establish a track record, as Fiesta apparently did with its first contract, it opens the way to bigger contracts the next time around, McMahaon said.

Outlaw claims his Indian background did not have any impact on Fiesta's current government work, but could have had an effect on future contracts.

So with a future apparently bright with federal contracts, why is Fiesta in financial trouble?

It's a question that many in Colby are asking.

Fiesta's groundbreaking on August 3, 1979, was a time of great hope for Colby's 1,100 residents.

Today those people are "Very disappointed in the outcome of Fiesta," said Paul Firnstahl, who was directly involved in bringing the firm to Colby, "A great many of our local people were banking on it to bring a boost to our economy."

Firnstahl, who heads Community Industrial Developers Inc., built the Fiesta plant and leased it to the young firm before selling it to Outlaw last year.

In addition to providing Fiesta with an attractive purchasing package, Firnstahl did the company another big favor too.

"We had a hiring bee which we advertised in the local papers," he recalled. He and his wife, Loraine, sat from 5 p.m. to midnight Friday and from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. the next Saturday taking more than 500 applications for jobs. They had expected around 100.

Applicants came in from Spencer to Medford and from as far east as Wausau. Mailed inquiries came in from all over the country, with applications eventually numbered about 700. Firnstahl felt his donated time on behalf of Fiesta was well worth it.

"We felt we should have a very strong selling point in the future," he said of the response, "And it's still true today -- there is no problem with a capable work force."

At Packaging Corporation of America, Colby's biggest employer, the turnover rate is less than 3 percent per year, which Firnstahl, who is production control manager for the company, called an "exceptional" figure.

"I felt very strongly that this company could have made it here in Colby," Firnstahl said. "And when we have circumstances that seem to be surfacing, that indicate poor business practices, it gets me pretty angry...it's a letdown for basically everybody in lieu of all the publicity about government contracts and the shipment of goods.

In particular, he recalled a TV interview Outlaw did on August 28, 1981, when a huge Air Force cargo plane flew into Central Wisconsin Airport to pick up a load of Fiesta's heaters. The Daily Herald prominently displayed the story, with a photo, the next day as well.

At that time, Outlaw spoke enthusiastically of the $9 million contract that the firm had acquired with the Air Force and said the firm was negotiating for an additional $14 million worth of business.

On that occasion, Tom Rickelfs, executive director of the Marathon County Economic Development Council, said the future looked good for Fiesta.

The company has a good reputation with the government for meeting quality standards and deadlines. Richlefs said he was told by a government representative during the airlift.

Why then, is the factory idle today?

Joseph J Petrillo of Washington, the bankruptcy court-approved lawyer in the Fiesta case, told the Durham, North Carolina Morning Herald that government regulations may have tripped up Fiesta, a fate, he says that is not unique to small companies trying to get a share of the nation's defense business.

Very few small business are equipped to handle the government paperwork required or even to begin to know how to do it, he said.

Outlaw told the Morning Herald that the government's General Accounting Office had thoroughly investigated Fiesta.

"They didn't find us 100 percent Kosher," he said.

"They found out we hadn't been keeping corporate minutes, They found other problems. I figured I was 100 percent owner, so I could do what I pleased, I couldn't."

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News: Colby - Fiesta Corporation #4 (1982)

Contact: Kathleen E. Englebretson
Email: kathy@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Moore, Gettleman, Outlaw, Ricklefs, Hittner, Kubasta

---Source: Wausau Daily Herald (12 February 1982)

Fiesta Corporation #4

When a company goes bankrupt, those who loaned it money are often left sitting in the cold when it comes to getting their money back.

That's what some of the creditors of the Fiesta Corporation, Colby, fear might happen to them now that the company has filed for reorganization in the federal bankruptcy court in Eau Claire.

Creditors have filed for a total of $2,7 million from the firm, which in addition to its headquarters in Colby has two plants in Hancock and two plants in Spencer. Final assembly and painting is performed in the Colby plant; the Hancock plants are a "valve line" plant and a metal fabrication plant, and the Spencer buildings are used for storage and shipping.

Though the other plants closed down in October, the Hancock plant had been producing some small orders. Jim Moore, manufacturing engineer for Fiesta, said the plant would be closing down this week but is expected to go back into production soon.

Among the seven largest unsecured creditors, who are not protected by mortgages or other forms of security, is Wausau Steel Corporation.

Bankruptcy court files show that Wausau Steel is owed $38,868.

Wausau Steel is among a number of companies who are claiming a total of $1,971,133 in unsecured debts. The creditors include MKI Industries, Chicago, $350,141; VBM, Louisville, Kentucky, $144.072; Thill Inc., Oshkosh, $127,056; Flexfab Inc., Hastings, Michigan, $115,554; and Stolper Industries Inc., Milwaukee, $83, 877.

There is a trail of other Marathon County firms among the unsecured creditors who are owed lesser amounts.

There is another $728,569 in secured debts, of which the Security State Bank, Colby, is listed for $322,841. Other creditors include M&I Peoples Bank, Coloma, for $229,890, and First American National Bank, Wausau for $2,880.

Then there are the priority debts, which take precedence over all others.

Those priority debts include taxes -- $166,706 in withholding taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service and $36,762 owed to the state of Wisconsin -- and salaries of $9,870 earned by employees within three months of the date of filing for reorganization.

"it is possible for all debts to be taken care of, but there's not too many bankruptcies where everyone comes out whole," said Chad Gettleman, a Chicago attorney who represents the creditors committee, composed of the seven largest creditors, including Wausau Steel.

"We are monitoring (Fiesta's ) operations and have retained an accounting firm to attempt to ensure the committee and all unsecured creditors that the operations that are currently going on are being done, prudently," Gettleman said.

The committee is trying to account for all incoming and outgoing funds. Fiesta, meanwhile, is required to report to the bankruptcy court twice a month on all cash receipts and disbursements and is supposed to file a plan for reorganization by March 10, a deadline that can be extended or shortened.

At a meeting in Wausau on December 16, the committee cross-examined Outlaw, questioning him about past, present and future operations of the company.

Privately, one attorney has already told his client company to write off the loss because he doesn't expect it to be able to collected more that $100,000 it's owed.

"When I see $1.8 million of creditors lined up and no assets the guy (Outlaw) has that I could nail down, I tell them to get out," said the attorney, who asked that his name not be used.

Although the Marathon County Economic Development Council was instrumental in bringing Fiesta to Colby, there are no public funds tied up in Fiesta.

"There are no financial incentives from us. We try to work out problems, like with water connections, but we don't have anything to do with financial inducements," said Tom Ricklefs, executive director of the council.

The Security State Bank, Colby, is owed $322,841 on a mortgage, but it has collateral in the form of equipment and inventory. The bank's attorney, Peter Hittner, Schofield, said the bank is attempting to work with Fiesta and is not "pulling the pin and hollering wolf."

The bank has the option of petitioning the court for a release from an automatic stay against creditors attempting to collect from Fiesta. The stay was handed down by the bankruptcy judge as part of the reorganization procedure.

Hittner said the Colby Bank has no plan at this time to do that, but will wait to see how the company's reorganization plan will handle Security's debt.

But another bank, M&I Peoples Bank, Coloma has filed such a petition, That bank has a mortgage of $229,890, covering Fiesta's Hancock plant, machinery, equipment and inventory.

The Coloma bank has also asked the court to subpoena all records of payments "to and for the benefit of Outlaw," said its attorney, Tom Kubasta of Wautoma. He said he would drop his motions if a trustee were appointed to watch over the company, but that hasn't been agree to by Fiesta's attorney, Daniel Zazove of Chicago, Zazove in turn, has asked the court to dismiss the Coloma bank's motion and quash the subpoena.

Except for the Coloma bank, Fiesta's creditors appear to be waiting to see how the reorganization plan will affect them.

Outlaw says that he's far from broke or finished with Fiesta.

In an interview with the Durham, North Carolina, Morning Herald, he said he has taken steps to get the firm back in operation. Because of government investigations of his business, the government has withheld large payments on his contracts, leaving him in a cash-flow bind.

That, he says, has resulted in delayed payments to his suppliers and creditors.

Currently, he says the firm has "total liabilities of about $7.2 million. We have total assets a little under $11 million. We have a positive net worth of about $3.8 million."

"I'm not broke," he told the Morning Herald. "I'm bent like hell, but I'm not broke. I still have $29 million backlog of work. We've sold over $800,000 in contracts this month (January)."

However, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon said Thursday that the Air Force on February 5 notified Fiesta that a $6,471,520 contract was being terminated "due to delinquency in required delivery times."

The Air Force signed a contract on March 30, 1979 for 1,706 portable heaters, with an option to buy 300 additional units, said the spokesman, a lieutenant who asked not to be identified by name. That option was exercised, bringing the total to 2,006 heaters. But 1,311 heaters were never delivered, or remain outstanding, the lieutenant said.

He said a review of Pentagon records shows the Air Force has no other contracts with Fiesta of more than $10,000.

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News: Fiesta Corporation #5 (1982)

Contact: Kathleen E. Englebretson
Email: kathy@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Outlaw, Firnstahl, Petrillo, Moore, Gettleman, Hittner

---Source Wausau Daily Herald (13 February 1982)

One might think J. Raymond Outlaw would be scared to death by the financial picture of his company, the Fiesta Corporation. Although Fiesta has filed reorganization in federal bankruptcy court, Outlaw seems a lot less worried about the future of his business than the creditors who are lined up at the company's door.

"I've got all the confidence in the world," he said in a phone interview when contacted at his Hillsborough, North Carolina home. "The only reason Fiesta wouldn't survive is because of bureaucrats."

Although the company's main plant at Colby was nearly deserted during a reporter's visit on January 28, Outlaw said in the February 2 interview that the staff was restructured and operations there were back to about 20 percent of capacity.

Paul Firnstahl, who built the building that houses Fiesta's headquarters in Colby, said the plant was about a month late.. But he said the delay was caused because Outlaw changed his mind on a number of things inside the plant.

"We've called some people back to work and we're back in production," Outlaw said. "I expect by the first of April to be back in full production."

However, a check with Colby officials that same day revealed that only a few salaried employees were on hand at the plant and no hourly ones were working at all.

A source close to the company said the two Hancock assembly plants had just finished up some work, but were now closed. He said those two plants should be back in operation soon.

Outlaw said the company has $11 million in assets, and that even with liabilities of some $7.3 million, it sill has a large net worth. The only real problem is a shortage of cash, he said.

"I've been out many days trying to get additional financing," Outlaw said, adding that he didn't yet have such financing arranged. He's also trying to renegotiate his Air Force contracts to make them more profitable, he said.

What happened to the company that in August was pleased to report that it was shipping out its portable heaters by Air Force cargo plane?

According to Outlaw, the firm got caught in a "loss contract" in which it produced over-engineered heaters at a loss of $1,000 apiece. It then sold the Federal government spare parts worth $1.2 million at a cost of only $954.00.

"Believe me, that hurt," Outlaw said.

Joseph Petrillo, the Washington, D.C. attorney who is the court-approved bankruptcy lawyer in the case, agrees with that assessment.

Petrillo told the Durham, North Carolina Morning Herald in January that the renegotiation of both contracts is important to the future of Fiesta.

"If you can solve the difficulties with these two contracts, Fiesta Corp. is a very viable company," he said.

However, on Thursday of this week, an Air Force spokesman said that the contracts had been terminated and that Fiesta had been notified of that on February 5. In addition to its contract problems, Fiesta also fell six months behind in production, Outlaw says, partly because the plant wasn't built on time, its spray painting booth was not completed on schedule, and the supplier did not meet their timetables. There were also management mistakes, he admitted.

"Anytime you deviate from the plans, you'll have delays," he said. Furthermore, the company did not move into the plant right away after it was built, Firnstahl said.

Jim Moore, Manufacturing engineer at the Colby plant, said the firm "got a little behind" because of changes in the ventilation and electrical systems. The finishing touches were still being put on the plant when Fiesta moved into it in February, 1980, Moore said.

As a result of delays in meeting deadlines, and because investigations were being conducted by the General Accounting Office and the FBI, the government held up its payments for four months,

"We just got a fairly large check last week," Outlaw said.

Outlaw says that he had made some personal sacrifices in an effort to keep the firm in production, One of those measures was to reduce his salary to $24,000 a month - it used to be about twice that amount, he said.

If the company goes bankrupt, he'll go bankrupt, right along with it, Outlaw says. He is personally guaranteeing the notes of the company, he said, and, as the firm's only stockholder, has money of his own invested in the company.

Chad Gettleman, attorney for the creditors' committee monitoring Fiesta, said that ordinarily corporation stockholders are protected from its creditors claims. Thus Outlaw would not necessarily go bankrupt if Fiesta does. Gettleman said he did not know if Outlaw has personally guaranteed the notes of the company.

What is Outlaw's assessment of the future of Fiesta?

"I haven't even begun to fight yet." Outlaw said, adding that he's trying to get political help in fighting his case.

Outlaw says his competitors for government contracts are claiming that Fiesta has violated the "Buy American Act" which allows defense contractors to buy only 40 percent of its materials from outside the continental United States.

And the Small Business Administration, from whom he obtained a $150,000 loan, is angry with him because he failed to list his past criminal record on one of its forms, he said.

Fiesta buys "quite a bit from Korea" and gets its diesel engines from England because there are no diesels of less than 10 h.p. produced in America, he said. And yet the Air Force's specifications call for just such an engine, he complained.

Outlaw maintains that he obtained $23 million worth of contracts with the Army and Air Force strictly through competitive bidding, and that in the process his lower prices saved the taxpayers and the government more than $4 million.

"There's been that much difference between my bid and the next highest ones." he said.

Colby was a key to that difference, he admits.

Outlaw says he was able to deliver his products cheaper by assembling them in a more remote area, thus escaping the higher wages demanded by workers in large cities. His workers were also much more productive, he believes,m partly because the working conditions in his modern plant were good.

"I also owe a lot to the Security State Bank (in Colby)," which he said was sticking behind him. The bank's attorney, Peter Hittner of Schofield, agreed the bank, which has a $322,00 mortgage was attempting to work with Fiesta.

The same is not true of the M&I Peoples Bank in Coloma, he says.

One point in Outlaw's favor is that he's never gone bankrupt before, even though he's been to the brink. He left Hillsborough, North Carolina, in 1976 owing $250,000, but subsequently repaid those debts. Actually, the bank had already written off what he owed as bad debts, but he hired a lawyer to get them back on the books so he could have a clean record, Outlaw says.

"I've had to fight for everything I've had," he said, recalling his poor childhood on a cotton far. "I have to fight right now too; every day I get up I have to fight. I'm on the phone all day long."

He said he's trying to get a full pardon from the government of South Carolina for his armed robbery conviction to "wipe the slate clean."

He vows that Fiesta will continue, and that he has no intention of getting out.