LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) — This next story takes us on a journey from a prison cell to a successful CEO.

One New York entrepreneur is transforming lives through fitness, while tackling one of the biggest challenges faced by former inmates.

When Coss Marte left prison in 2013, he had just $40 in his pocket and a dream born in a 6×9-foot cell.

Now, he’s not just running a successful business, he’s created a model for second chances that’s catching the attention of lawmakers across the country.

In a small gym on New York’s Lower East Side, transformation happens daily, but not just the kind you’d expect.

“This neighborhood was very drug infested back in the ’80s and early ’90s, and I saw that as an opportunity when I was a kid, because we grew up with not much, you know, in a tenement apartment,” Marte said.

Marte is the founder of CONBODY, a fitness empire built on second chances, but as a young kid in the city, his life looked much different.

“I wanted to be rich, I wanted to be rich and how you were, and I did, and I made over $2 million when I was 19 years old, you know, with my delivery service,” he said. “It was a system, you know, and that was the past. And I got incarcerated for that.”
He was arrested and arraigned as a kingpin.

“When you go into prison, the first thing that they do is strip you and bathe you and they take shots. It was the first time I got any medical results. They said if I don’t start eating correctly, that I could probably die of a heart attack,” Marte said. “They were like, yes, within five years, you could die of a heart attack.”
He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

“Yeah, in the prison, you never know how much time you could get on top of time, you know. And so I seen people stuck there till today, you know, for just going in for one or two years,” he said.

In the confines of solitary confinement, what seemed like an ending would become his beginning.

“I lost 70 pounds in six months in a prison cell when I was locked up, and I basically just kept working out, you know, until I reached my goal,” Marte said.
The other inmates saw his results and asked him to start training them.

“So I helped over 20 inmates who was over 1,000 pounds combined,” Marte said.

Fresh out of prison, sleeping on his mother’s couch and struggling to find work, Marte returned to the park where he used to deal, but this time, to train as he did in prison.

When a passerby asked to join, he saw an opportunity. Not too long after CONBODY was born and a movement followed.

“One in three black men will be incarcerated. One in six Latino men will be incarcerated. One in 17 white men will be incarcerated. We think about violent crimes, but I could have been a bar fight, or somebody just slapped somebody, and now is assault,” he said.

Through his businesses, Marte has built a space where fitness meets justice, where transformation goes beyond the physical.

“So when somebody comes out of prison with $40 and a bus ticket and they do a bus stop nine hours away halfway, and you go to McDonald’s, and you spend $20, and now you’re in the city with $20 what do you do? You take the MTA, you spend another $5 you know, $6 now, right? And then you left with $14 in your pocket. When you wake up, you got to go get food stamps, you know, you got to sign up for Medicaid, you know, to try to survive,” Marte said. “How do you start from ground zero and give a person a humanistic opportunity? I have 72 employees right now and it’s working, and mostly all formerly incarcerated or have family members in the system.”

“We train inmates there to do what we do here. So when they come out, they have a clear direction,” Marte said. “I’ve been able to really work on political regulations to read changes. I testified in front of the Senate, in Albany, over here in New York, and then the Congress in the U.S.”

He said he doesn’t worry about going back to his old life.

“No, no. Solitary confinement and Psalm 91 He who dwells in the shelter the Most High will rest in the shadow Almighty, I will say, Lord, He is my shelter and my fortress, my God, and who I trust. And as I read those words out of that Bible, you know, and that cell just made me believe that there’s a process that I have to follow, you know, and I just need to trust it. And as long as I trust it and do it the right thing, that everything’s going to work out no matter what you know,” he said. “My meals are going to be provided, my clothes is going to be provided. I’m going to have a roof on my head, you know. And if I don’t, then I’m going to get there, and it’s going to work out no matter what you know. So I’ve had situations where I had five guys sleeping in the gym, you know? Because the shelter system was worse than prison. You know, they were losing their people, breaking their locks and taking their clothes, and now they have no clothes, no uniform, to come to work with. You know, so making those decisions as a business owner is, it’s, it’s hard, but I don’t even for me, it’s not hard. It’s just like, I’m just going to continue doing the right thing.”
In the same neighborhood that has seen his darkest days, Marte has built something remarkable, a place where fitness meets justice, where transformation goes beyond the physical.

“For me to grow up in a tenement housing, sleeping head to toe with my siblings, to be here on this spot is, this is a dream come true, growing a community,” he said.

He said he wants to help the community because it’s the right thing to do. He has a process for how he on boards new workers.

“Yeah, so we have an internship program. People go through the internship program for two weeks that it’s eight week internship, six weeks of it. They working in hand here to become, try to become trainers. We also have partnerships. The guys are even waiting outside from second you foundation shout out to Hector, because they really train the individuals on how to become personal trainers, and really certify them and push them through the test. And so that’s that’s magic, you know, to really transition somebody from the system right out and like, they get a paycheck in a week. They know that they have somebody that’s going to help them, you know. Get that step up, you know, and stay out, you know. And that’s what, that’s what’s most important, because I can’t save the world, but everybody else is saving each other,” Marte.

He said he has a message for people out there who may have walked in similar footsteps as him and now they don’t know what to do.

“Everything is temporary, you know? And so even those bad times when you think life is over, you can’t keep going, that moment is going to change, and it’s temporary, so just wait and breathe and keep going,” Marte said.

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