"I was asked to participate in a murder"

Robert Cullen is on the line.

Robert, you're very, very welcome to the show.

Um, can you tell me how much of a drug debt that you ran up?

Eh, well, uh, good afternoon, Ciaran.

Uh, so I had, yeah, I had a, had a significant drug debt.

Uh, it was, yeah, in the tens of thousands.

I, yeah, so I, I got myself into a situation where I owed a huge drug debt, and I...

See, it's difficult for me because I, I, I operated in both, in, on both sides of this.

So I have engaged in criminality.

I was also, I have engaged in, so I was engaged in drug dealing.

So I was on both sides, and I ultimately fell into, like, a deep drug addiction, ran up a huge debt.

And my family had, uh, after I went to prison, my family home was, uh, had people shoot at the house, and they, uh, they had to, had to move as a result of my drug debt.

So I, yeah, so like I said, I have operated on both sides.

And I also, I now am a criminologist, so I understand this now from a theoretical perspective as well.

Mm-hmm.

So, so I operate in multiple different sort of, uh, fields when it comes-

Yeah

... to this, uh, situation.

So, uh, what, what type of pressure was, was put on you before you went into prison and they put pressure on your family? What, what type of pressure was put on you personally a- as to how you might clear that debt?

Uh, so I was asked to engage in a, in a murder.

I was asked to take part in, uh, yeah, I was a- I was asked to participate in a murder to clear the drug debt, uh, which I didn't do.

And, uh, yeah, and-

I'm sorry, Robert, when you say participate, do you mean actually pull the trigger, kill someone?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you think about doing it?