Name John Watts | Role Author | |
Books Power of the V, The Rollin 80's | ||
John S. Watts, Jr., also known as John Boy (born March 9, 1959), is an American author and former drug dealer who is best known for his autobiography The Rollin 80's and Power of the V.
Contents
Early life
John Watts, a.k.a. John Boy was the eldest of eight children living is South Central, Los Angeles, California. After his father refused to work, the family was forced to look into welfare as a means of support. In 1970, when John Watts was 12 years of age, he found himself hustling on the streets to help provide additional food for his mother and his younger siblings.
In 1978 he formed a dancing group called The Robot Brothers that consisted of his two youngest brothers and himself. They performed on The Tonight Show hosted by Bill Cosby and even The Gong Show. Their performances generated enough money to help keep a roof over their head and food on the table, but in 1981 his brother Chris decided to leave the group and joined Crips, a notorious street gang in Los Angeles. Chris' departure ended the group.
Soon after, John Watts found himself needing to generate income. The easy way was to make a quick entry and exit into the drug game. John stole three hundred dollars from his mother's rent money and used it to purchase 3 grams worth cocaine from a local drug dealer. A few months later John rented a small one-bed apartment in L.A.'s Westside and turned into a Crack House. Nine months and two million dollars later he stopped and walked away from the drug dealing business. He moved his mother into a home he purchased in Pasadena Hills California.
Watt's desire to leave the drug dealing world was evident. In 1985 he opened a hair salon in Inglewood, California, his first legitimate business venture. His business venture came to an end when his salon later caught on fire and burned to the ground closing his business. Being determined not to give up, John Watts took his $133,000 insurance settlement and used it to open his second business which was a club in Marina Del Ray in 1986. The club business was successful until 1988 when an individual was gunned down inside his establishment. Customers started to stop coming to his establishment and once again John Watts found him losing money.
In 1988, Watt entered into a drug deal that went bad when he met with so-called drug dealer. The deal was to purchase 225 kilos for $3.2M. What he thought was a legitimate deal turned out to be a set up by the Lennox Sheriff's department. John Watts was arrested and sentenced to six years in state prison.
After serving 33 months, John was released back the streets on March 29, 1991. John, still determined to help support his family, opened up his own Home Health Care Agency in Culver City, California. After being in business for 13 months his business was closed after Medicare accused him over billing his them an estimated $5 million. On Labor Day 1994 the FBI served him with an indictment for Medicare fraud charges. On May 2, 2000, John was once again sentenced to 42 months in Federal Prison. He was also sentenced to 78 months for income Tax Fraud.
Career
While in prison John S. Watts Jr. wrote 39 books and once released from prison he wrote one additional book. In 2012 one of his best friends, Ice-T invested $20,000 into John S. Watts Jr. publishing company. He has also written six movie scripts, 21 business plans and ideas, and four reality shows. Currently, Watts has launched John Boy Entertainment which consists of three upcoming reality shows including 'Your Daddy Knows Best' and 'Life After Prison'.