the hospital, and killed three. he was charged with three counts of manslaughter for the deaths of kirby brown, and 40 james shore, and 49-year-old liz neuman. james ray joins me exclusively, and this is the first time he has spoken since he went to prison. your career was rocketing. were you a nice person then when you look back on yourself? do you look back on yourself with a certain degree of disgust, perhaps, at your actions and recognize there was a character trait in you that you had a change? there was definitely character traits in me that i had to change, and there still are. i don t know that i would say disgust, you know. i am human. to go from that kind of wealth to getting wiped out, and
it s a pleasure. since you were out of prison you haven t really been in public all that much. why did you agree to be part of this documentary? what part of your story do you want to tell? well, there s a couple things. first of all, i think there s a lot of people in this country, if you look at what happened in the last election, what s happening in our economy and business a lot of people are having difficult times. all of us who were involved in that tragic accident are having have had difficult times. you know, certainly i have as well as everybody else involved. and what my hope is, is that people who view this can say, hey, if he had the resilience to get through that maybe i can do it, as well. the families of the three folks who died, curvy brown, james shore, liz have said they don t feel you ve taken adequate responsibility for their deaths. how do you feel about what happened that day? i have taken full and complete responsibility for what happened. i ve done eve
i ve done the time. and you know, i think it s really important for me to communicate that james shore, liz newman and curvy brown were heroes. they re not victims. they really believed in something. and to me that s heroic and i hold that in high regard. i think it s disrespectful for them to be portrayed as victims because they really believed in what they were doing, and in life, as an entrepreneur, you ve got to be willing to give everything you have. and it s dif cult. it s not easy. they died in a sweat lodge in your retreat and you say that was an act of sacrifice for them, that they gave everything they had? they obviously gave everything they had. none of us could have foreseen. there s a much bigger story here than what even told in the documentary. it was kind of glossed over in the coverage by media, it was not wanted to be heard by the
to drive back to phoenix to catch a flight. two participants were dead and one was hospitalized who later died. why didn t he stay? you have to understand that despite his efforts on the day it happened, he was detained by the authorities. at that point it had become an investigation. you know, they really didn t want they being the authorities didn t really want him involved. larry: they didn t want him around? they didn t want him around. anytime there s an investigation i m not faulting the police for this. they don t want the suspect, so to speak, to be mucking around in their investigation. larry: all right. the three who died, kirby brown, james shore and liz newman, had he met them? oh, yes. liz newman had participated in a number of events before. larry: he could face 37 years in prison? i haven t counted it up, but he would face some real jail time if he got convicted. larry: what s the defense, brad? what s the angle?
they re looking for the kind of balance, motivation james provides. larry: he told new york magazine he left arizona the morning after the sweat lodge tragedy because he had to drive back to phoenix to catch the flight. two participants was dead. one was opt ihospitalized who l died. despite his efforts on the day it happened he was detained by the authorities. at that point it had become an investigation. and, you know, they really didn t want, they being the authorities, didn t really want him involved larry: didn t want him around? any time there s an investigation they don t want the suspect, so to speak, to be sort of mucking around in their investigation. larry: all right. the three people who died, kirby brown, james shore, liz neuman, had he met them? oh, yes. liz neuman had participated in a number of these events before. larry: he could face, what,