“Dopesick” hero on justice, faith, and work
Jordan Raynor sits down with Rick Mountcastle, Assistant Attorney General, Virginia, to talk about how his experience with Dopesick shows that we have no idea the impact God will produce through our work, how God calls his people to do uncomfortable things to advance his Kingdom, and why the gospel should produce fearlessness in all believers.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every week, I host a conversation with a Christian who is pursuing world-class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work.
I could not possibly be more excited about today's guest. His name is Rick Mountcastle, and today he serves as the Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia. But if his name sounds familiar, it's probably because you've seen Rick, or at least the actor who plays Rick, in Hulu's hit miniseries Dopesick, which, if you've had any conversation with me over the last six months, you've heard me talk about because I cannot stop talking about this brilliant show. Essentially, it's a dramatization of true events exploring the opioid crisis in America, specifically by focusing on Purdue Pharma’s massive fraud in marketing Oxycontin.
And today's guest, Rick Mountcastle, was the lead federal prosecutor fighting against that injustice. So, we sat down, we talked about that story and talked about how his experience with this show Dopesick shows that we have no idea the impact that God is going to produce through our work. We talked about how God calls people to do uncomfortable things to advance the kingdom. We talked about why the gospel should produce fearlessness in all believers. My friends, please enjoy this terrific episode with my new friend, Rick Mountcastle.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:02:03] JR: Rick Mountcastle, welcome to the podcast.
[00:02:05] RM: Thank you, Jordan. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:08] JR: Yeah. Hey, so anytime I have a guest, like you on who serves in the public sector. I always want to invite them to issue the standard disclaimer that these are your own personal opinions. So, you want to take a stab at that?
[00:02:22] RM: Yes, sort of the legal fine print, so to speak. So, anything I say during this podcast are my personal opinions and views, and are in no way related to my current position with the Virginia Attorney General's Office.
[00:02:38] JR: Of course, the lawyer is going to make that disclaimer at the top of this.
[00:02:42] RM: Absolutely.
[00:02:43] JR: I love it. So, Rick, if people recognize your names these days, it’s likely because of this miniseries that was released last year on Hulu called Dopesick. We didn't even talk about this when we connected before. But had you seen the series?
[00:02:57] RM: I have seen it. I actually worked fairly closely with the producer, director, showrunner, Danny Strong on it. The way that came about was I had retired from the Department of Justice and US Attorney's Office at the end of 2018. And all of a sudden, I started getting calls from different media folks about this old case that I completed, like 13 years ago, previously, or so. And so, Danny wanted to meet, so I met with him and he talked about this idea for this miniseries that he had. I told him that, “I'll work with you on it, but the reason I'm doing that is because I want the truth to be told, and the true facts to come out.” So, during the course when he was making it before it was publicly screened, he sent me advanced copies, advance views of it.
[00:03:53] JR: Screenings, yeah.
[00:03:55] RM: Screenings, yes. So, that I could watch it and provide any comments.
[00:03:59] JR: What do you think of the show? The final product?
[00:04:02] RM: I thought it was very good and very compelling. I was glad that he accurately portrayed our investigation and portrayed the personalities of myself and my partner on that case, Randy Ramseyer. And in particular, I think the takeaway from the show was the humanization of people who are addicted to opioids. To me, that is the main point point I hope people when they watch it, take away from it.
[00:04:29] JR: I have never known somebody – I should say this, I've never been close to somebody who's really suffered with an addiction to opioids, and I can't remember what episode of the show it was. But there was one episode where what you just described happened in spades, where you just felt for these people in such a deep way and it was so disturbing. I remember we went to bed – my wife and I watch TV before go to bed every night. So, we turn off the episode. We go lay down in bed. I've got three young daughters and I just like cried out to the Lord. I was like, “Lord, please protect my children from evil.” I don't know that a TV show has ever led me to pray so fervently for something in my life. It was wild. So, I think the show definitely accomplished that. And I just got to say, I just think it was an extraordinary piece of art. Like I have been talking about this show, nonstop, since I first watched it. I just thought was terrific.
[00:05:28] RM: I agree. I think it was. And I told Danny, I went to a screening in Washington, DC, he invited some of us down there for that. And I told him that I thought it was a brilliant piece of work, because it's a dramatization. So, the way things are depicted is dramatized for TV. But the underlying facts of the investigation, what we found what was being done by the company, those are true, they are there. And I've spent a lot of time down in coal country, and I found, to my surprise that even the coal mining scenes and his depiction of coal mine and how they work and what they do and what they have to go through, I mean, just hit the nail right on the head. So, and I thought he also, the other thing was, I thought he displayed Christians in a very mature and thoughtful way.
[00:06:22] JR: So, this is what I wanted to ask you about. This was the shocking thing about the show to me. And a lot of this was told through your character, right? They talked a lot about your faith. Did that surprise you that that stuff made it into the show?
[00:06:37] RM: Well, here's the thing, and this is how great God is. So, when I was talking to him way back in the spring of 2019, it was probably about three or four hours sit down, he recorded it. I allowed him to record it. And at some point, towards the end of that discussion, I said, “Oh, hey, by the way, I just want you to know that Randy and I never cursed.” Because you know how TV is and the salty language. And that opened up a conversation about, “Hey, why is that?” And I said, “Well, because I'm a Christian.” And I was able to kind of witness to him and tell him my story about how I became a Christian, and why and how things changed for me.” And afterwards thinking about that, I said, “God, you're so great to open up a door that I would not expect normally, to talk to this guy that produces from California, who produces TV shows.” I would not naturally enter into that kind of conversation with that person who I just met, right? But God provided the opportunity.
[00:07:40] JR: I love it. Yeah, you basically saw an opening, you were like, “Hey, this guy is going to try to tell the story of me, my character. And he needs to know we don't curse.” And it just naturally led to the follow up question, which gave you an opportunity to share the hope that you have in Christ. That's amazing.
I want to come back to that in a minute. But first, I want to lay some groundwork from our listeners who maybe haven't seen the show, right? So, for those who haven't seen it, tell us about the work you were doing at the time that this story starts to unfold.
[00:08:12] RM: So, the case begins in like 2001 to 2002. At that time, I was with the US Attorney's Office in the Western District of Virginia, in a satellite office in a small town called Abingdon, which is in the far southwest corner of Virginia, a few miles from Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky. They all converge with Virginia right there. And that's coal mining country. It's in the Appalachian Mountains. And I've been there since 1995.
So, one of the problems we had down in that area for you know, there's a long-standing issue with prescription drug abuse. One of the things our little satellite office of three attorneys in that far corner was looking at, we were prosecuting cases involving prescription drug diversion, opioid diversion, and we had a project where we prosecuted several doctors, and that would have been in the late 1990s. So, during the course of that, those prosecutions, we saw that this drug, new drug called oxycontin was becoming widespread. It was being prescribed very frequently and we were receiving information from local law enforcement offices that indicated there was a huge spike in property crimes that were related to people who were addicted to oxycontin.
Trying to get the means to buy it off the streets is fairly expensive. It was a dollar per milligram or so, and there were 10, 20s, 40s, and 80 milligrams, and later a 160 milligram pill that was developed. So, each pill would be anywhere from $10 to $160. And then we also heard anecdotally, that pharmacists were complaining about the marketing tactics of the Purdue Pharma sales reps.
And so, Randy and I were sitting around after work one day talking about these things. And I know I felt a duty to our community to look into this, so we just decided, “Hey, we need to open a case. Why don't we open a case and kind of look and see what's going on here with the company?” And that's sort of the beginning of that.
[00:10:25] JR: Yeah. And you guys worked on this case for how long, Rick?
[00:10:28] RM: So, it's probably all told from beginning to end, roughly five years.
[00:10:34] JR: Wow. Okay. And you guys were totally outmanned, totally outnumbered, out budgeted, I'm assuming, by Purdue's team of lawyers, right?
[00:10:42] RM: That would be a fair statement. Yes, because it was basically, Randy and I, in a small office, we had other cases. So, at the beginning, it was sort of something we tried to fit into our normal schedules. And one of the things we had to do was, the federal law enforcement authorities down in that part of the country are very sparse, just small satellite offices of two or three or four at a time. And so, we had to try to put together a team of investigators to work on the case. And I ended up calling a friend of mine that I worked on a case with from the Attorney General's Office of Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and asking for him to help staff and he provided two full time agents.
So, that was kind of the beginning of it. And of course, there was Purdue, the drug company, had hired a very large law firm in DC, and they had deep pockets and, you know, a fairly substantial number of attorneys working on it. So yeah, I think it would be an understatement to say we were outgunned. And looking back, it’s sort of the David and Goliath story, right?
[00:11:54] JR: Totally. Yeah, it’s the David and Goliath story of the pharmaceutical world and justice. But in the end, you guys were able to see a victory. What in the end were you guys able to prove and convince these executives at Purdue Pharma with?
[00:12:10] RM: So, the technical conviction was for what's called the misbranding of a prescription drug. And in essence, what we actually proved was what the company said about promoting the drug by lying about its addictive and abuse qualities.
[00:12:33] JR: Yeah, because the line that they kept repeating was that less than 1% get addicted to the thing.
[00:12:40] RM: Yes. And they also had this language in the label that had been approved by the FDA that said, the late absorption as provided by oxycontin tablets is believed to reduce the abuse liability of a drug, which if you really think about it, it's completely nonsensical. Okay. It doesn't really say anything, but they are words that they used to support their promotional pitch, which was, “We have a drug, a new drug, it's a pain pill. And guess what, unlike all the other pain pills out there, all the other opioids out there are a drug because of its delivery system, its delayed release system is not addictive, less than 1% of people get addicted.” And, “People who are abusing it won't like it, because it's not abusable.” And those were just complete lies and fabrications and they knew it. And that's sort of the upshot of what we were able to prove, resulted in the guilty plea by the company. And then three executives pled guilty to related misdemeanors.
[00:13:44] JR: What are the consequences for Purdue?
[00:13:46] RM: So, Purdue ended up paying a total of $600 million in penalties in the form of restitution to government health care benefit programs, forfeitures, and fines. And the executive, the three executives, they were put on probation. They ended up getting excluded from working in the pharmaceutical industry for 12 years each. So, that was kind of the basics of it. And the thought at the time, our thought at the time was, “Hey, we've shed a light on this problem with the way this company is promoting this drug. We've shed a light on the fact that this drug is very abusable and very addictive, and things are going to change” And of course, things didn't change the way we would have liked them to change.
[00:14:36] JR: How do you deal with that spiritually? That's got to be a huge battle, right? You get this win. You have identified this injustice and some of these paid consequences for it. But you know they're going to do it again, if not this company, another one, right? It's whack-a-mole and you can never win. How do you wrestle with that in your prayers with God? How do you deal with that, Rick?
[00:14:57] RM: So, that's sort of the dilemma, especially if you're in the business of law enforcement and prosecution, that happens all the time, right? You go out there and you prosecute somebody, and then two or three others jump up and take their place. And so, the way I've come to terms with it is this, that I'm not going to change the world, right? I don't have the capacity to do that. Only God can change the world and change people's hearts. But maybe what I can do is go in and make someone's life better. And if I do that, for one person, even that, the tremendous amount of effort it took to do this case, if I do it for one or two people, then it's worth it, number one.
Number two, I really don't have – that's why we have to rely on God because we're just a little small piece of the universe here, and we don't really know what the wide effect of our actions are. Only God knows that. We go, and even if you were wanting to witness to somebody and and help them come to Jesus, you don't know what effect you have, and you plant a seed and then you have to rely on God to grow that seed, and we may never know whether a person that we were trying to reach and trying to tell the good news to. We may never know at what point they've accepted Jesus in their hearts in their lives. And so, you have to just have faith that God is going to take care of those things. And God will let us know if he thinks we need to know about it.
[00:16:30] JR: Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a great perspective. So, in the show your fictitious self, played by the great actor Peter Sarsgaard, said that you converted to Christianity at the age of 40. Number one, is that true? Number two, what's the story there?
[00:16:45] RM: That is true. So, I look at my life as two different parts.
[00:16:49] JR: New creation, right?
[00:16:51] RM: Yes, new creation. But it's not like, an instantaneous boom, I woke up one day, and I'm now a Christian and hey, everything's changed and everything's different, right? It's a process. So, my first 40 years was I grew up without God in the household. No religion, no discussion about God. People who relied on religion, went to church, who had to do all those things, they were weak, and couldn't make it on their own and that's just a crutch. And we don't need that. That's sort of the way I grew up. The only time I remember even having exposure to any kind of a church was our next-door neighbor, would take me and my sisters to Sunday school and church on Sundays. And was for the three or four years we lived in Maryland. But other than that, nothing.
So, of course, I lived my life for my first four years for myself, that was it, it was, indulge myself, be out there, do whatever I wanted to do for myself, serve the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, pride of life, all those things that Satan holds out there for you. I was all in on that. That of course, when you do that, if you're just focused on yourself, you're not very nice to other people, even people that you're close to, you don't treat them well. And at some point, leading up to my 40th birthday, it hit me that this was not right. I was not living right. I had heard a number of people, someone that I heard, it was fairly close to me, had mentioned at one point that, “Hey, you know, what's missing in your life is you're missing God in your life.” And that kind of stuck with me in the back of my head.
And I had come to kind of a crossroads in my life. I was kind of going off on my own and had an opportunity to leave. I was in DC at the time, Washington DC and out of the blue, an opportunity came up, a phone call from the US Attorney in Western Virginia, asking me if I wanted to consider coming down to Abingdon, Virginia, a place that I would never have on my own thought about coming to. But that door opened and I thought about and said okay, “I'll come down there.” And at the same time, I was reconnecting with Stephanie my wife because I had met her on one of my travels to Knoxville, Tennessee where she lived. And we started reconnecting and talking by phone, kind of redeveloped a friendship. And I said, “Well, the other thing is Abingdon is only two hours from Knoxville, Tennessee. So okay, I'm going to go do it.”
I had started visiting churches too before I left Northern Virginia, DC area. The kind of visiting Him, sitting through the service and then hitting the back door before – that kind of visiting. But there was an interest, God was calling, I think. And so when I got down to Abingdon again, I started saying “I'm going to go to church on Sunday and find out what this is all about. Why do I need God and does he really want me?” And I remember when Stephanie and I were about to get married, and I was standing at the church in Knoxville in the sanctuary, looking at the altar and just a quiet voice, just a quiet voice said, “Do you believe?” And I said, “Yes, I do.”
So, that started this journey of my second chapter, from the age 42 now, that's the next 26 years of my life of just trying to – 40 years of bad habits. You don't get rid of those overnight. So, I'm still a work in progress.
[00:20:31] JR: Aren't we all? I'm curious. So, you were already crushing it in your career, right? If you look, Rick Mountcastle up on LinkedIn, it's like promotion, after promotion, after promotion. How did your conversion, maybe not immediately, but over time, how did your conversion to Christianity change how you thought about your career and your work?
[00:20:51] RM: When I look back, I see, you know, God was there even when I turned my back on him. Even when I was spitting in his face, because I know that it was God who opened the door for me to go to Abingdon. Okay. And God was faithful, and there even though I didn't know him, which is something that blows my mind when I really think about it. And so, one of the things that I think what he had instilled in me, I don't want necessarily the limelight. But like everybody else, I like, sort of people, the accolades, right? People say, “Oh, he's just the best that this or the best at that and he's getting awards and all that.” So, I secretly like that. I didn't like to be flashy about it. And so, part of I think my motivation, before I came to Jesus was, “Hey, I really want to get those accolades. I'm going to work real hard. I’m performing.”
[00:21:48] JR: Yeah, you were performing. I've struggled with this throughout my whole life. It's like using what – because I found that in this cultural moment, work and success at work is one of the most impressive things to other people, right? It is the thing that enables us to win credibility with other people and that can be positive and negative. So, yeah, you fall into this trap of constantly performing so that you can be seen as unique and better than, and all those things that really at the root of is just pride. So, that's something you and I share in our stories.
[00:22:24] RM: Yes, I think a lot of people share that. So, your motivation means a lot. But at the same time, God allowed me to be successful and he allowed me to develop these habits that involved hard work, and being analytical, and all these good habits that are coming from this bad motivation. I got allowed that. So, when I became a Christian, it became one of those things. Well, now I'm not necessarily performing for other people. It became one of those, I am doing this work, because I want to help people. And I'm going to give it my best shot.
Because the reason I was with the Department of Justice for 32 and a half years was that, and I've told other young lawyers this, that's a job, one of the few jobs that I can see in the legal profession where you can go to work every day and have the opportunity to affect someone's life in a positive way. And so, that's how I then began viewing how my motivation changed.
[00:23:26] JR: Yeah, I think that is the change for most people. It's really beautifully said, and all throughout Scripture, God tells us that he cares deeply about our motives for work. I always think of Genesis 11 and the Tower of Babel, they're using their work to make a name for themselves. Something I've done before, something sounds like you did before. And God says, “No, I'm going to scatter you across the nations.” And then in Isaiah 60, which is really, I think, the reversal of the Tower of Babel, all of the nations are coming back in a central city, this time, the New Jerusalem on the New Earth, but they're coming with their work products in hand, right? I think part of the message here is, “Hey, work is so good. God's going to redeem every square inch of creation, including people including the earth, including the work of our hands, because motives matter to him.” So, he still appreciates the work, right? But motives matter deeply to him, and that's what he's going to redeem. That's a great, great example.
So, you're working in justice before your salvation, you work in justice afterwards. As you start to learn more about the God of the Bible, I'm just curious if you're like reading all the Scripture, and be like, “Man, God cares a lot about justice”, and whether or not that helped you just really double down on the profession and getting really good at what you did in service of others.
[00:24:43] RM: It did. What I'm laughing about, though, is that if you look – my wife works for the Internal Revenue Service. So, if you're looking in the Bible in the New Testament, the two most reviled people in Jesus's time were tax collectors and scribes or lawyer. But I really found fulfillment, if I didn't feel that what I was doing was helping people, even if it's one person, one victim at a time or one person at a time, or keeping the community safe by taking someone who's dangerous off the streets. If I didn't feel that I was doing that, I wouldn't have stayed. So that really, I worked really hard. I mean, it was a minimum of 50 hours, usually 60 or 70 hours a week through my whole career as an Assistant US attorney, and that's what kept me going.
[00:25:36] JR: Yeah, totally. Now I get it. You mentioned this meeting with Danny Strong, the creator of Dopesick, this four-hour session you have and at the end, you start to talk about your faith. I found it fascinating. I touched on this before, but I want to go a level deeper. I find it fascinating that so much of that made it into the show, because so many times you see these stories being told by Hollywood, and they strip a lot of the faith of the characters out of the story, right? There's this great book called Unbroken years ago, about this guy named Louis Zamperini, and it talks about his faith right in the book, and they go see the film, and none of that is in the story. So, I'm curious why you think Danny made your faith in the show such a critical component of the story? Because I mean, it's talked about quite a bit in the show.
[00:26:25] RM: Yeah, that's a question I need to ask him. But in my conversations with Danny, I've had numerous conversations during the filming, he called me up and wanted to make sure what they were doing was factually accurate, and et cetera, et cetera. And I've had a couple of conversations with him afterwards. But one of the things that he is very much interested in doing, because he also produced and I haven't seen it, but he produced an acclaimed, I think it was HBO series called Recount about the 2001 election and the recount.
[00:26:56] JR: Yeah, it was really good. I remember this.
[00:26:59] RM: Yeah. So, he's very much interested in historical accuracy. And in terms of the underlying facts, and I think he's also very interested in what motivates people. So, I think that, speculating right now, because I haven't had the chance to ask him about that. I think that that's one of the things he was interested in, “Hey, what motivates these prosecutors in the small town to take on this giant company with these hordes of high priced, the top legal talent in the country. I think that's part of what he likes to do is to delve into those motivations.
[00:27:37] JR: That's interesting. Yeah. And that's certainly the case for you. I love that that came through. So, all throughout the show, I think it's interesting, we're watching the Sackler family, this family that owns Purdue Pharma, essentially, paying off people, left and right, so that they could sell more Oxycontin. And there's this scene towards the end of the show, I can't remember what episode where they come to Richard Sackler, CEO of Purdue, and they pull out a picture of you, I don't know if this is factual, but they pull out a picture of you, Rick Mountcastle, and your partner, Randy, and they say, “Hey, listen, these are the enemies. These are the guys that are trying to bring Purdue Pharma down, but you can't pay him off, because these guys are Christians.” They attached that you can't pay him off due to your faith. As you watched that scene, what were you feeling? What was going through your mind as you watch that unfold?
[00:28:30] RM: For my part, I think that was substantially accurate, although I don't know that scene ever happened. But I would not have been surprised if they had files on all the people that they knew of on the investigative team. But I thought as a statement, that was probably pretty accurate in that, because I was not interested in my personal gain. It was not “I want to get a job in a big law firm, I want to get a job or working for one of the, you know, this big pharmaceutical company.” So, I thought that that was, from my perspective, that's a pretty accurate statement, and that's probably pretty accurate for most Christians who are true Christians who are not motivated not by monetary gain or personal gain, but are motivated by trying to do God's work.
[00:29:18] JR: Yeah. I was interviewing the Enron whistleblower a couple years ago, who's a serious Christ follower named Sharon Watkins. She's actually here on the podcast, great episode.
[00:29:27] RM: I was interested in that. I listened to that.
[00:29:31] JR: Yeah. So, she said something to the effect of like, the reason why there aren't more Enron cases – one of the reasons why there aren't more Enron scandals and collapses in the world, is that God has faithful believers as his eyes and ears of these places to stop injustice, right? And as I was watching that scene with a picture of you and Richard Sackler, I just thought, “Oh, man, this is a really, really beautiful picture of that.” God placed you there for a purpose, many purposes, but this is one of them was to help stop this gross injustice from continuing in the world. Have you reflected on that? How has that shaped your worship, and I don’t know, just your prayers and conversations with the Lord?
[00:30:15] RM: Yeah, so Jordan, here's the thing about all of that, because when we've finished the case in 2007, moving on to the next case, next set of cases. And so, 13 years later, to have this case, come back up in the way it did, and to have, what I call my 15-minute window of fame, I had to ask myself, I had to ask God, “God, this is, obviously your doing. 13 years later, and now, I'm getting calls and people want to interview me, this is not my doing. This is God's doing. So, God, you have given me these 15 minutes of fame. And I need you to tell me how you want me to use it for your benefit.”
So, that's really I think, it may not be directly answering your question. But to me, that is the impact that I'm feeling now from the work I did 13, 12, and now, it’s 15 years ago. That’s the real impact. And this is obviously, God's work. So, one of the things I've felt like I've had to guard against is the pride of life. It's like, I am famous, and people are calling me and they want to hear from me. And so, I have spent a lot of time reflecting and asking for God's help for me to use this in the right way. So, that's one thing. The other thing is, okay, so I've come to the conclusion that one of the ways I want to use this fame for whatever purpose I can discern, and hopefully it's part of God's purpose is to reach out to the families who have been victimized by opioid abuse, and to support them and to speak on their behalf to the extent that I have. So, that is the purpose that I have discerned. You know, again, it's going to God and saying, “God, this is you're doing, help me not to use it, for my benefit. Help me to see what you want me to do with it.”
[00:32:05] JR: Yeah, it's just a great reminder that we get really good at what we do. We get masterfully good at our craft. It puts us in halls of power. It's Proverbs 22:29. Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings. But of course, the temptation then is to use that power that accompanies vocational mastery for our own sake, rather than for the common good, right? And for service of others, all about pouring out whatever power we have. It's interesting that you're in the thick of that right now, now that this show is becoming a big deal, and this story is kind of being resurrected. That must be a weird experience.
[00:32:47] RM: Yes, it's surreal. It's very weird. And not something that I'm comfortable with. But the other thing that I've learned, in my walk with Christ is that if you're a Christian, and you're going to do God's work, God's going to expect you to put yourself into uncomfortable positions. That's the definition of being a Christian. That's a hard thing to grapple with sometimes.
[00:33:10] JR: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's spot on. I'm curious that when you were in the thick of this case, especially that five-year span, did you think you were going to win? Because it felt pretty – maybe this was just the dramatization of the show. But it felt pretty hopeless. It felt like there was a real chance the Sacklers would get off scot free. I don't know. Was that going through your mind? And if so, like, how did that – what did your prayers look like during this time, as you were fighting this uphill battle?
[00:33:40] RM: I never felt, and I guess this is probably because of part, in part because of my faith. I never felt like it was hopeless. And again, God, I think this is one of the things that He did, or one of the gifts that He gave me, I could see the path to where we needed to get to early on. I always thought that our biggest adversary was going to be the organization we worked for, the Department of Justice, knowing how Washington work back then to a great extent even works same way now. So, my prayers were more along the lines of, “God, please give me time to go to church. Please give me time to spend with my family. How do I balance the amount of work I needed to do with those obligations that were important as well in my life?” So, that would have been, I think, really at the forefront of my mind back then.
[00:34:36] JR: Yeah, obviously, you had to make a lot of sacrifices.
[00:34:38] RM: Yes. I remember. So, in 2005 at the second half of the case, as we were trying to get things completed and wrapped up. In 2005, I moved out of our little strip mall office into the location where we had all the records and where the investigators were operating out of and I was out of my office for almost two years, from beginning of 2005, to the end of 2006. And one of the things I was doing was probably working seven days a week. And so, on Saturday and Sunday, I would get up at four o'clock in the morning, go to the office, so I could get in six to eight hours and then have time to – and then on Sunday, I would go home and get ready and go to church with a family.
So, it was a matter of adjusting my lifestyle, to try to fit everything in, and that was a real challenge that was – I know, there was prayer involved there. Also, I do this all the time praying for God to give me strength to do what was necessary to go places that were uncomfortable to me. So, that's kind of a constant, where I was praying, I'm uncomfortable doing this, and so I prayed for about – beforehand, I prayed, God help me through this. This is so uncomfortable. But I feel like this is what you want me to do to participate in this and just to speak about my experiences. So, help me through this.
[00:36:04] JR: Yeah, I love it. You're currently the Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia. And again, I've mentioned it before, but if you looked at LinkedIn, your career trajectory is crazy. Promotion after promotion after promotion. This is called The Call To Mastery. I believe that if we believe our work matters to God, we should care about doing it really, really well. Clearly, you're doing your work really, really well. What have you found to be the keys to really honing your craft, Rick, and getting better at what you do vocationally?
[00:36:33] RM: If you've got the right motivation for what you do, then you're able to focus on doing the work and doing the right thing. If you know you're doing what God wants you to do, you get the stamina to go the extra mile. So, those are the things that I think my faith has helped me in my profession.
[00:36:54] JR: That’s good. I always love asking world class performers across a bunch of different occasions what their typical day looks like. So, for you, the moment you wake up, the moment you go to bed today, what does a typical day in the life of Rick Mountcastle look like?
[00:37:09] RM: Well, first of all, Jordan, I don't know that I'm a world class performer at my field.
[00:37:12] JR: I knew you were going to say that.
[00:37:15] RM: I'm not a judge. I'm not, you know, a huge law firm running a government agency or any of that. And I'm also at the tail end of my career. I'm at the point where I've already retired from one job, and I'm probably going to retire soon from another job. But my day now looks quite a bit different from what it did when I was working at the US Attorney's Office.
[00:37:35] JR: Let's talk about that. That'd be fun. What’s the typical day look like during this period of time that we’ve been talking about?
[00:37:40] RM: Yea, it was up at early. I usually got to work at 7:30 in the morning. So, up early. And unlike a lot of your guests, especially the ones that have been Christians all their lives, I rarely had time for a devotion in the morning. So, I'm just a normal guy. I'm just trying to make it through the day, I'm trying to get to work, and I have all these things on my to do list and I bang them out.
Now, fortunately, during my career with the US Attorney's Office, especially with the Purdue case, I was with a number of other Christians, which is kind of unusual in law enforcement, government law enforcement field. So, there were two or three people that I work closely with that were Christians. And so, part of our discussion oftentimes would be about God and, “Hey, why do you think such and such happened,” and, “Had to be God had to be involved.”
[00:38:33] JR: That’s so interesting. That's such a rare experience. That doesn't happen.
[00:38:37] RM: Yeah, it does not happen, from what I could tell. But I think God knew that I needed that support. And so that kind of conversation took the place of sitting down and spending 15 minutes to half an hour, going through a devotional. And so, I think we had basically conversational devotionals on a regular basis. My work would go until 6, 7, 8 o'clock at night. My wife, in the beginning, I would call and say, “Hey, I'm going to be home in an hour.” And after a period of time, when I call, she said, “Okay, you're not going to be home for two or three hours.”
[00:39:10] JR: She learned how to interpret.
[00:39:12] RM: Exactly. And then it’s home, I'm getting up early tomorrow so I got to go to bed early. That was it. More recently, like in the last few years, I've tried to spend more time in the word actually. I'll do a one year, read the whole Bible program through Bible gateway.
[00:39:29] JR: Yeah. Alright, Rick, three questions I love to wrap up every conversation with. Number one, in general, which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others?
[00:39:41] RM: Oh, Jordan. I'm just an average guy whose years of work where I go to work and read all the time. I didn't find time to read outside of work. But what I do love his music. In particular, I really love reggae music. Once I became a Christian, I discovered a number of gospel reggae artists. One of the artists who I have given away CDs of is a lady named Avion Blackman, who is the lead singer and bass player for this gospel reggae group called Christafari.
[00:40:19] JR: This is amazing. This is the best answer to this question, ever. This is so good.
[00:40:26] RM: I told you at the beginning, I’m just an average guy and like I said earlier, I want to learn much as I can from the Bible and just fitting that time in is about all the time I had. So, not able to read a lot of the other authors. But I do love music. That's funny.
[00:40:42] JR: Alright, since you’re a music guy, I got to ask you this. I was thinking about sharing this story before, I decided not to, but maybe now's the time. Do you know the story about this musician named Sixto Rodriguez?
[00:40:54] RM: I don't.
[00:40:55] JR: Oh, my gosh. So, I just watched this documentary film, that won best documentary at the Oscars, I don't know, about 10 years ago. The film is called Searching for Sugarman. And stick with me listeners, there's a poignant point, I think, at the end of the story, but Rick, you’ll love this.
So, this guy, this Mexican-American musician in Detroit, in the late ‘60s, and he records an album, big name producers, people who produce Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, like whatever. And these producers are like, “This is the guy. He is a better songwriter than Bob Dylan. He's going to be an enormous hit.” They released his record, and not a soul buys it in the United States. Like they asked these guys in the interview the producers, like how many copies like legitimately, do you think they sold? Less than than a hundred, like six copies.
So somehow, one of those few copies that was bought in United States, somebody took on a plane with them to South Africa, way far away for Detroit and the bootlegged copies of this record. And for 30 years, this guy has become a phenomenon in South Africa, outselling the Beatles, and Elvis, and Bob Dylan and all these people. And all the while he had no earthly idea. He had no clue. He quit music. He went to go work as a construction worker, loved his work, like went to work just in hard manual labor. And then 30 years later, somehow, they track this guy down and they call him up. They called up this artist named Rodriguez, like, “Hey, you're bigger than Elvis Presley in South Africa.” Isn't this amazing?
[00:42:38] RM: Wow.
[00:42:38] JR: So, he gets on a plane, he and his daughters, and they go to South Africa. And he plays six shows. He tours. And they have footage of the show. And the people are just screaming for 10 straight minutes, when he comes on the stage and he plays his concert. And I was tearing up watching it and I'm not wanting to tear up on movies. But here's why. I think that's a beautiful picture of what we will experience in heaven and eternity when we are working through the things that the Lord. Most people are never going to see the work that our listeners do today. But even if there aren't 10,000 people in the audience, there's going to be an audience of one who's applauding. We make it to an eternity and have done the work of the Lord in this life. I was blown away. You've got to go watch this, Rick. Everybody else listening. It's an unbelievable story.
[00:43:30] RM: What's it called again, Jordan?
[00:43:33] JR: It's called Searching for Sugar Man. And you can find out I watched on Amazon Prime, and maybe on Netflix. That's great. Alright, Rick, who do you most want to hear on this podcast?
[00:43:42] RM: I'd love to hear Avion Blackman tell her story. And this because she's the daughter of a guy named Garfield Blackman. She's from Trinidad and Tobago, and Garfield Blackman, whose stage name was Lord Shorty, he invented Soca Music. He became very wealthy. But at the height of his career, he was searching for spiritual fulfillment. And he decided he gave it all up to follow Christ. I read somewhere that he took his personal possessions, his jewelry and clothes and all that threw him in the sea. And took his family of 23 children including Avion on to the jungle, where they lived in a small house with no electricity, or running water, to study the Bible to sing gospel music. That’s kind of where she comes from. And to me, that's a fascinating story.
[00:44:32] JR: That’s a pretty fascinating story.
[00:44:33] RM: Of God actually – and I can't quote the Bible, but the story of the guy that came to Jesus and said, “What do I have to do to get to the kingdom of heaven?” “Give away all your stuff and follow me.” And he went away sad. And that's kind of – I can't imagine whether I would – I don't know that I would be able to do that. I find it fascinating that that her father was somebody that did that and now she has taken that experience growing up and is spreading the word through music. I'd be fascinated to hear her.
[00:45:07] JR: That's really good. We'll reach out to her. Last question real quickly. What's one thing from our conversation today, Rick, do you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?
[00:45:16] RM: Yeah, as a relatively new Christian, becoming a Christian at the age of 40, I think it's important to recognize and accept that God will want you to do uncomfortable, non-conforming, and unpopular things to accomplish his purpose and to show His glory. And we have to be prepared to do that.
[00:45:37] JR: Amen. So well said. Rick, I want to commend you for the exceptional redemptive work you have done and are doing to the world for being committed to mastering your craft as a prosecutor so that the Lord can use you in such powerful ways, and thank you for being willing to share your story with us today, my friend.
[00:45:54] RM: Thank you, Jordan, for having me.
[OUTRO]
[00:45:57] JR: Now, you have two new things to watch after this episode. Got to watch Searching for Sugar Man. You got to watch Dopesick. Seriously though, watching Dopesick, I just think it's one of those beautiful pictures of how God uses you and me in every square inch of creation, working outside the four walls of the local church to accomplish his purpose, to make this world look more like the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Thank you guys so much for tuning in this week. I'll see you next time.
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