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Ex-con mentors youth to stay on the right path

Posted at 9:03 AM, May 24, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-24 09:03:22-04

A man who spent almost 20 years in prison is now working to help stop young people from going down the wrong path.

Wednesday Mario Bueno was invited to the First Presbyterian Church in Lansing to deliver a motivational message to kids.

FOX 47's Cryss Walker was there.

It's been four years since Bueno was released from the Cooper Street Correctional Facility in Jackson.

In just a few years Bueno has made many accomplishments.

He’s earned an accounting degree from Wayne State University, wrote a book and started the non-profit, Leaders Under Correct Knowledge.

The organization helps to train and mentor at-risk youth.

“I try to remind young men of their greatness, you know, because I think that as older men we're failing to do that,” Bueno said.

At 16-years-old Bueno says he robbed and killed a man and spent 19 years in prison.

The motivational speaker says he's now a reformed man on a mission, to keep kids from making the same mistake.

“I understand I was hurting others because I was hurt,” Bueno explained.

“We all experience the trauma but it’s not what happens to you, it's how you respond to it.”