Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Pastor Ricky Sinclair; he’s Pastor of Miracle Place Church in Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. And if you weren’t listening yesterday get the tape. Ricky came from a good middleclass family from the view point of meeting his material needs, but his parents were alcoholics. He fast followed their example not only alcohol but started smoking; then marijuana and drugs; shooting heroin and he became a dealer he got arrested several times. But he’s in that fast lane and he’s decided that he’s going to do a real big deal. He has a Mexican drug smuggler come up and this guy’s got something like 30 pounds of marijuana and the next thing he knew he’s there with his young wife, and he’s young himself he’s only like 22 years old. He’s got a young son he had to you know when you do well you have a lot of money; when you don’t do well you’re struggling. He used the bath towel for the diaper for his son he’s living off a pint of watered down milk per day. They were splitting one turkey-ham sandwich for all three of them. And then all of a sudden bomb the police are there the SWAT Team and they ram into his apartment and they bust the door open. And they put him down on the floor and they say horrible things and his wife is there and his little boy is there and they haul him off to jail. And he thought that he was a real con artist by this time; he came up with a fictitious name; but they figured out who he was. Because as he said on yesterday’s broadcast “There’s no honor among thieves; he was turned in.” And so you figure you’re going to post bail and what happened next Ricky.
Sid: Well, what happened was here I am in the New Orleans Jail; there talking one of the 7 people that were busted with me, of course told them my real name. I told them that my real name was Kent Douglas Smith; and then one of the seven that was busted with me in the house said “No, his name if Ricky Sinclair.” They searched through the computer and found out that I had a warrant that I was actually running from charges from another city. So what they did was they ended up extraditing me back to St. Francisville which was where I was running from charges earlier. Then they started talking about giving me a life sentence because I’m busted with distribution of cocaine, marijuana and Diazepam, which is Valium1982; busted again in 1986 with distribution of marijuana running from those charges. Got busted again in the house they found 14 pounds of marijuana. They found Ecstasy and charged me with possession and the attempt to distribute. Now they’re talking about giving me a life sentence because I’m a habitual offender of 6 felony drug charges against me. And so I’m facing life; I’m scared to death now. What I’ve seen is I’ve seen my whole life pass before my face; 22 years old facing life sentence. Now lights come on; revelation hits me; reality really hits me that life is not about a fantasy life is real; it’s not about partying and drinking and drugging and scheming and scamming and hooking and crooking; while God is looking and booking. Life really has validity, it has purpose; it has vision and I started asking myself “What is the purpose of life? What in the world am I doing in a place called planet Earth? What am I going to do with my life?” I’m facing life now; I’m 22 years old and I’m scared to death. So I got some rabbit in me Sid; I called my grandmother and my grandmother always used to come bail me out and get me out of a lot of trouble and when I called her this time St. Francis was mad at me and they set a million dollar bond on me; cash bond on me. Because I had enough land to actually bond out and so they made it a cash bond.
Sid: Now why would you get life in prison?
Ricky: Six felony charges; drug charges.
Sid: Hm.
Ricky: So when you pass the 3rd fel… the 3rd felony they try you as a habitual offender. That means we slapped you on the hand a couple of times, you don’t want to learn your lesson; we’ve given you an opportunity to change your life; you don’t want to change; you’re a repeat offender; you’re a habitual offender because you’re a habitual offend we’re going to just throw you away. And that’s what they were threatening me with. So here I am facing the life; facing going to prison for the rest of my life. I end up escaping; and so in St. Francisville jail I ran out of the jail. I’ll never forget I got finished finger printing me and booking me in and they took my mug shot. And as a matter of fact my mug shot is on the front of my book; that’s the transformation that took…
Sid: And by the way I’m looking at that Ricky and when you say the word transformation I can see his mug shot of what he looked like and it’s just step by step in what he looks like today and that’s amazing.
Ricky: That’s the light; it’s darkness to light is what it is Sid. You can look in my eyes on the guy on the right side of the book. Because the guy on the left is caught up into drugs and the party scene and doing his own thing under the curse; under the curse of sin. And the guy on the right side of the book is the guy that is living for the Lord and living for God and you can see the light of God in his eyes. And that’s the transformation; so here’s that guy on the left he runs out of the jail after they finish fingerprinting me and taking my mug shot. I knew the lay out of the jail because in 1982 I had done 8 ½ months in that same Parrish jail; I knew the layout of the jail I was a trustee there. And what I did was I asked them if I could wash my hands the bathroom in the front of the jail was right by the door and as soon as I got into that bathroom I’ll never forget; I had a pair of flip-flops on and a black Harley-Davidson t-shirt because I was cool back then. And I took those flip-flops off and put them in my hands and when that jailer turned his head I hit that door as hard as I could and out across that field I went. I had the flip-flops in one hand and police officer had a pair of cowboy boots on. Jumped over the graveyard fence and down into the woods and into the woods I went running. And about 2 hours later here comes the bloodhounds and the helicopters. Now here’s…
Sid: Helicopters for you?
Ricky: Yes sir, I had two major chase teams; I had all the State Police for the state were out there chasing me.
Sid: Now wait a minute this was in the movies; this isn’t supposed to happen in real life Ricky.
Ricky: And that’s what I said and I was the hunted, (laughing –and then making hound dogs sounds). Listen I’m a country boy and when he’s on your sent I’m scared to death; running adrenalin flowing through my body. I wanted to say that when I got into the woods and I was about to die after the first two hills I crossed over. I wanted to say “Everybody turn your head I want to get back into jail; I just teasing,” but it was too late then Sid. You know Sid sometimes you do things and you wish you wouldn’t have done them but it’s too late and you have already done it and now you’re desperate. Now you’re in the situation and you don’t have any choice you just got to keep going forward and that’s what I did.
Sid: Now you’re running through the woods barefoot; what’s going on with your feet; what you running on?”
Ricky: Sid I ran through briers that were that were 5 and 6 and 7 feet tall; the briars literally took the skin out from between the toes. And all my forearms were raw; my feet were like solid stickers. They were like 100’s of stickers in both of my feet and then I ran figure 8’s because I had the bloodhounds on me and what do you do when you got a dog on you? Do you climb a tree absolutely not he smells you he’s on your trail. So I started doing figure 8’s because I deer hunted before and old bucks used to make circles and run their scent right back into itself and trying to get the dogs off of them. And so I started doing some figure 8’s and I went down into the creek and walked up the creek in the water and climbed the vine out of the creek. And ultimately somehow; I don’t know how either the dogs were no good but ultimately I got the dogs off of me and I made it to a place where the blacktop road was down by the Mississippi River where I was going to try to cross the road and then cross the Mississippi River. Before I could get across the road the chase team started setting standards out. So I ended up laying 4 days and 4 nights 25 feet from the chase team guard line and the ants eating the coagulated blood out from between my toes. Every muscle in my body hurt and ached and here I was laying under some briar up on a cliff trying to get across that road and there was no way to across there. And I laid there 4 days and 4 nights and I passed cotton mouth up by 3 days; my tongue was like welded to the side of my mouth. Listen, this is the reality Sid; this is the reality of drugs. It’s not a party; it’s not fun; it starts out to be you think fun; it starts out to be having a good time. But what it ends up to be is bondage. What happens is that you finally grow up one day and you start out as a kid and ultimately one day you graduate high school and then you take on a family. And then you have responsibility and you got to get up and go to work. You got to pay your house note and you got to pay your car note and you got to take on the responsibility to take on your wife and your kid and now you’re not even thinking right. You’re caught up with a stronghold with bondage that’s in your life; it’s called drugs; it’s called alcohol. And by the way alcohol is a drug.
Sid: Ricky hold that thought. You know Mishpochah he spent 56 days out in those woods. What happened to him shouldn’t happen to anyone.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth