4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2019
⏱️ 16 minutes
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0:00.0 | Today's episode originally aired back in April, but it's still one of my favorites, so we thought we'd give you one more chance to take a listen. |
0:13.0 | Before I tell you the story of Brandon Flood and how he became the most unlikely secretary of the board of pardons ever appointed in Pennsylvania, just meet him. |
0:24.0 | I've heard you call yourself Erkall Brandon. |
0:27.0 | Yeah, the two personas. So it's the regular Brandon who can be profane and has his natural foibles and then it's Erkall Brandon. |
0:37.0 | You remember Erkall, right? From that 90s sitcom, Family Matters, The Nerd, The Guy with Glasses and Suspenders. |
0:44.0 | You wear a bow tie like every day, right? |
0:47.0 | Yeah, yeah, ironically every day except Sunday, the day where I should probably have a bow tie on. |
0:53.0 | For years, these bow ties helped Brandon keep a secret. |
0:58.0 | People usually perceive that my true background is completely different than what it is. |
1:06.0 | The secret was Brandon's rap sheet, the decade he spent in prison for selling drugs and carrying guns. |
1:13.0 | When Brandon talks about having two personas, it doesn't just mean on the clock Brandon and off the clock Brandon. |
1:21.0 | He's talking about the tension between the mild manner bureaucrat he is now and the fiery teenager he was before. |
1:29.0 | It's a side of himself he's only just started to talk about, even though he's been in state government for nearly a decade. |
1:36.0 | I want to be judged based on the quality of my work, content of my character. |
1:41.0 | We all harbor our own biases. |
1:44.0 | So when you hear something about someone that completely blows your socks off or causes you to view them to a different lens, you tend to treat them differently. |
1:55.0 | The objective was always to get as deep in the state government before I revealed my story. |
2:02.0 | Now this pardoned ex-con has become the secretary of the board of pardons in his home state, the face of clemency in Pennsylvania. |
2:13.0 | I wanted to know how Brandon got where he is today and whether a former inmate is going to run this board differently. |
2:19.0 | I'm Mary Harris, you're listening to What Next. Stay with us. |
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