RALPHY Dominguez is stitching his life back together — one alligator-skin wallet at a time.
The Bronx native, who recently completed a three-year prison sentence for running drugs between the city and Maine while on scholarship at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, has launched a new startup business selling $300 wallets handmade by former inmates.
A boutique in ritzy Wilton, Conn., is already selling the wallets, and Dominguez says he’s in talks with a second store, in SoHo. The brand is called Pen & Pistol.
“It embodies me and the hardships I faced coming home from prison,” Dominguez, 28, said. “There are hundreds of thousands of people coming home with the new, relaxed drug laws. They need jobs.”
Dominguez hatched the plan with his mother after taking a leather crafts class in prison. He was drawn to the class because she ran a leatherwear store on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village when he was growing up.
“I always had a passion for making things with my hands,” Dominguez said. “I got that from my mom.”
Dominguez was a standout student and athlete at South Bronx High School and scored a full ride to Wheaton, where he made the dean’s list two consecutive years.
He thought he was invincible, but he was wrong.
“I started doing drugs, drinking and partying too much,” Dominguez said. “Then I started selling drugs. By senior year, I was making $200,000 a year selling drugs.”
The fast life caught up to Dominguez when cops stopped his car on the highway, arrested him and hit him with trafficking charges that threatened to put him behind bars for 20 years. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.
“In prison, I learned how to structure my life better,” he said. “You can re-create yourself in prison.”
Dominguez says he couldn’t land a job after prison because of his rap sheet. His break came in May 2013, when he was accepted by Defy Ventures, a Manhattan-based nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated men start their own businesses.
Pen & Pistol is based out of the Bronx Business Outreach Center in Hunts Point, a new version of the city-supported Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator, which opened in 2012.
“Ralph’s mission is very focused on giving people who were left out of the economy a chance to get back in,” said Joe Carrano, who manages the center.
Dominguez’s wallets are superpricey, ranging from $339 to $469, and his use of alligator skin may put off some animal lovers.
“The price reflects not only the quality but the story behind our brand,” he said. “Would you rather buy a Louis Vuitton wallet for 900 bucks made in China for two bucks or a wallet made in your backyard by people who are reinventing themselves?”
