On January 15, 1964, I came into the world. I grew up in Lake Forest Park, a suburb in North Seattle. Along with my two sisters, Julie and Christina, I attended schools in the Shoreline School District. Those schools included Lake Forest Park elementary, Kellogg Junior High, and Shorecrest high school.

In 1982 I graduated from Shorecrest with mediocre grades. Soon thereafter, I began making bad decisions. By 1984, I began buying cocaine in Miami to sell in Seattle. Foolishly, I believed that I could avoid detection by hiring others to both store and transport cocaine.