Danny Jones Podcast - #21 - FBI's Most Wanted Con Artist | Matthew Cox

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Matthew Cox is a true crime writer who was sentenced to 26 years in Federal prison for identity theft and mortgage fraud. One of his most popular stories "Once a Gunrunner" was even turned into the feature film "War Dogs" starring Jonah Hill.  Mr Cox was also featured on his own episode of "American Greed" on CNBC.  Matthews website: https://insidetruecrime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Where you are back on the podcast today with Matthew Cox. How you doing? You're well known for making over $12 million through mortgage fraud. We're sentenced to 26 years in prison. And now you're a true crime author. Right. Is that, that's, yeah, that's the nice. Does that nail it pretty well?

Yeah, that's pretty good. Okay. You also have an entire episode done about you on American Greed. Is that the name of the show? Yes. American Greed on CNBC. Yeah, there was one on Dateline too, but it's nowhere. You got to be pretty well known to be on American Greed.

I mean, you had to have done a pretty big time crime to be on that show. Yeah, well, 12 million is big, right? Yeah, the number. 12 million is a big number. Well, it's... Is that the most amount of money that you made over the, or that you acquired over that period of time? Kind of the federal, like, it's, you know, it's difficult to determine exactly what the

number is because the government kept shifting the number. But it's basically, the FBI at one point had said that the mortgage company I owned had done like 40 million in mortgage fraud. But you keep in mind, too, that that's, it's misleading. Because if you have a. $100,000 alone, $100,000 alone on a piece of property that you bought for $110,000. There's no real dollar law. So they're counting that as $100,000 in fraud.

Well, I didn't get any of that. So the mortgage company, they were saying at one point they were threatening that they were going to charge me a $40 million in mortgage fraud for the mortgage company that I owned. And then there's multiple frauds. So it really, the numbers really that I'd always kind of heard was 15. million but 11 and a half 12 has i've heard 26 somebody was throwing around 26 you know so but 12 is 12's good 12 i didn't see 12 yeah so you know it's misleading so what what what was your plan with all of this in the beginning what what what inspired all of this and what what was what how do you get into that because you're probably doing well what was your long term plan business first or is it just

thinking about that like that man the joker when he says do i look like i have a plan I'm just a dog chasing a car. If I caught it, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Yeah. No, I mean, I had no plan. I opened a mortgage company. I was a mortgage broker. I was basically, I got a degree in fine arts.

Were you a legit mortgage broker at any point? Man, I mean, initially I went into it. I got my license. I was going to be a mortgage broker. I started being a mortgage broker. I had full intentions of being a legitimate mortgage broker. my very first loan. I go into my manager's office.

We lay the file down. She goes through it and she pulls out one piece of paper and sticks it to the side. I don't really necessarily even know what fraud is or even how you would go about committing fraud. I'm just trying to close loans. She doesn't. She goes, okay, it's perfect.

And I go, well, she goes, you didn't even look at this, did you know? I went, no, she says, this is a verification of rent, VOR. Right. And I went, okay, she goes, this girl was 30 days late about 11 months ago on her rent. And I went, oh, Jesus, I didn't even notice that.

And she goes, yeah. And I go, oh, my God. So I'm thinking right now, based on an underwriting guideline, she doesn't get alone. And she goes, so, she pulls out some light out, undoes it. And she goes, just go ahead and get rid of it, make a copy of it. And we'll put it back in the file. You'll be fine.

You guys can stand alone. Yeah. And I went, I said, well, that's, that's fraud, right? And I go, that's fraud. And she goes, keep in mind, keep in mind like Ford Motor. car is looking for my truck. My credit cards have been shut off. I mean, I'm behind on my mortgage.

I mean, I'm in desperate. I'm in dire strait. So, you know, she said, look, worse that's going to happen, underwriting, underwriting catches it. She goes, and maybe you get fired. Maybe they just don't close the loan. She said, you're nobody's going to jail. And I went, you know, she said, do what you want to do.

She's nobody's looking for my car. And so I grabbed it and I whited it out. I made a copy, stuck it in, sweated bullets. for about five days, five days later, boom, the loan's ready to close. I go down there, the girl signs the paperwork, I get a check for $3,500. Yeah. I mean, I'm ecstatic. Yeah.

Wow. I mean, $3,500. I'm like, 29 years old. That was a ton of money that got me back on my feet. And I, the next thing you know, I'm closing four loans the next month. I'm closing six loans the next month. Wow. The next month it's eight, then it's 10, then it's 12.

they make me a manager of the Brandon office and then that mortgage company got shut down it had been maybe six months and keep in mind too at that point when I kind of realized what's going on it got to the point where you walked in and it's like all the numbers work but you only made $45,000 last year

but if you made $55,000 I could get you a loan so I mean it's not like... So you just put $55 change the change of W2. I have a degree in fine Arts. I changed W-2. I send it in. I pray that they are not going to ask any specifics when they call to verify the employment. Keep in mind, the verification of employment comes to me. I change that to say 45, or to say 55, just like the W-2. It closes and boom, it closes. There's a check for $3,000,

$4,000. At that point, it just seems too easy then, right? It does. Too good to be true. Right. Nobody's... In that industry, so many people were doing it. And that was, that was a pre financial crisis. So that's back in, this is back in like 1999, 2000. So I'm like 29 years old. And by the time I opened up my own mortgage company, if you basically,

if you walk through the door with a pulse, I'm getting you alone. Yeah. You got a house, you don't have your down payment? I got it. We'll take care of that. You know,

you wash cars. You've never claimed taxes. It's not a big deal. Not a big deal. Don't worry if I got you. We'll slam this loan. Yeah, if I pull your credit, it's questionable I can get you in a house. I got you. Wow. I mean, you know, just to get them in there and, you know, maybe they make a few payments. Maybe they make all the payments. Right. So that's the problem is that that's a mortgage, that right there, if that's a $200,000 loan, well, that's $200,000 in fraud. I only got a broker fee at that point. Right. But what happened was very quickly, I ended up with a

staff underneath me that were just guys doing that. So we're all rehabbing houses. We're buying houses in Ebor City, Tampa Heights. We're fixing up houses. We're selling those houses. We're getting our own people loans. And we're committing, you know, a massive amount of mortgage fraud. I mean, at one point, I probably had 14 guys working for me. You know, it was always in between like eight to 14. And there was really only like half a dozen of them that were any good anyway. Right. You know. And what's so. funny about it is like most of the guys that worked for me all still work in real estate like they're all around really oh yeah so so i'll see somebody i remember i saw somebody who was on my my indictment

this is when i was in the halfway house a girl that was the best broker i'd ever had she was amazing and i saw her i was in the halfway house i was on my way to work pull in to behind her and Dunkin' Donuts. And she looked right at me. She looked right in the mirror. She goes, she does this. Keep mind, she's thinking, this guy's getting out of prison in 2030.

So I'm not supposed to be out of prison. So she does this. I can see her. She's got the mirror right here. And she goes, like this. And then she backs up. Like she's hiding from me. I'm still staring right at you.

Yeah. If you're staring at me, I'm staring at you. So I'm looking at her like, you know. And I kind of, I do this to her. And she goes, and I mean, It's just she never, she didn't, I thought she's going to get out of the car. She's going to say, hey, what's up? How are you?

Nothing. Of course, she also is like the manager of a bank. And you certainly don't want to be associated with me if you're a manager of a bank. Hell no. And you're also listed on an indictment that you just were never prosecuted for. Oh, shit. Right. So, you know, I've got all these people that are around that are like, hey, man, what's going on?

How's it going? What's going on? And they all want to hang out and talk, but only to veering degrees. Yeah. So, well, I own that mortgage company. Right. Like I said, I own the mortgage company. And at some point, one of my mortgage brokers left and opened her own place, she and her husband.

And she was doing what's called a, she got involved in what's called a straw man scam, which is where, let's say, I get Danny to buy a house from me for, um, I can buy a house for $500,000. I put $100,000 in it, fix it up. I get Danny to buy the house from me for a million dollars. So there's 400,000. I give Danny 200,000. I take 200,000. Danny just rent it out and make the payments. But Danny can't make the payments.

He can't make the payments on that house because it won't support a renter at that amount. Maybe he makes a couple of payments. Well, what happened was she worked with a group of investors that bought multiple properties, four or five properties. They pulled out like half a million, a million dollars to a million dollars. She made 40 or 50. $50,000 in ridiculous broker fees, and the loans all went under.

When the loans went under, these guys weren't even making the first payment. That's called a first payment default. What happens is the lenders start investigating. As soon as they investigate, they realize right away it's fraud, because she's making W-2s, pay-stub, she's creating documents. So it doesn't take much to uncover that. Right. They uncover it. They track it back to her.

The FBI shows up. They say, they talk to these guys, these guys cooperate, everybody's cooperating. She cooperates. I know the whole thing's happening, but I'm not that concerned because we're friends. Well, what had happened was I had run several of my loans through her because I couldn't run the loans through my own company

because I own the company. It's not an arm's length transaction. And so anyway, those loans were rental properties and stuff. No payments had, no payments had been missed or anything, but it was not an arm's length transaction. And the FBI came in and she wore a wire on me. she and her husband wore a wire on me. And they said, hey, look, the FBI is asking questions about you.

And I went, oh, my God, you didn't tell them this, did you? You didn't tell them this. So I start saying, I just bury myself, not realizing she's wired. Halfway through the conversation, I realized it. And I said, oh, man, this is, that's fucked up. I got up and I left. FBI contacts me. I end up hiring an attorney.

And I gave him, like, $75,000 to plead me out. So he pleads me out for $75,000. So he pleads me out. I accept a plea deal. well, there was no dollar loss. So if there's no dollar loss, you don't have a record, you're not going to go to jail. So there was no even potential dollar loss, which means it, you could have. You didn't lose the money, but you could have.

There was no potential. So I get three years paper, but I can't, now I can't own the mortgage company anymore. That's an issue. Yeah. Because that's how I made my money. I was married. I had just gotten a divorce. My child supports a couple thousand dollars.

I gave her, whatever. It's like, with everything combined, it was like $100,000. So I'm just wiped out. So I'm starting over from scratch with no real way to make any money. And by that point, I'd figured out how to make fake people. Does that make sense? Fake identities. Well, yeah, there's synthetic identities, for example.

What, I figured I want to start buying houses in Ebor City, fix them up and sell them. The problem with Ebor City and Tampa Heights area is that the, the dollar amount so low, you're dealing with lower middle class people, and they tend to switch jobs, they have bad credit. You know, they don't have disposable income, so they tend to have bad credit. So the issue is, I bought a house, I fixed it up, I go to sell the house, two or three of the borrowers that want to buy the house can't even qualify. So I'm either committing fraud to try and get them to qualify. It's an issue. Right.

So I realized right away, even if you commit fraud, you'd be shocked how many people like, everything's good, you've committed fraud to just to massage the loan just to get it to close. and the people would still sabotage it. They quit their job three days beforehand. So the lender calls, and the one thing you did have was a job, the lender now calls, and you don't have a job anymore. So it's like your credits jacked up. You don't have a down payment.

You have no job. You have no rental history. I mean, this is just bad all the way around. I mean, you're basically, I don't even know why I'm dealing with you at all. And that's kind of what it got, it came to the point where I realize, I don't really need these guys. If I could figure out how to just create fake borrowers, then I'd be in a better situation.

And so that's what happened was I had a woman come in earlier, like a year earlier, and she'd come in and she had perfect credit. But when I got her W-2s, the social security number didn't match her W-2s, and the name was slightly different. And what she told me she'd done was she'd gotten divorced

and her husband had stuck her with a bunch of bills and she needed to get her electric turned on so she said she was using her maiden name she switched back to her maiden name and she used her son her like two year old son's social security number and went in to get her the electric turned on she said this is my name

this is my soche this is the address so they don't have the old address she didn't want to use the old address she did she had a new soch She had a different name. So it was so different, it created a new credit profile. And so she explained it to me. And I went, I don't understand.

You've got like 700 credit scores. You've got a car loan. She was, yeah. And I said, using your son social security number. She was, yeah, about two years ago. And I went, you've got a Dillard's card. She was using my son's social security number. I said, you've got this.

And she said, yeah, she said, so what are we going to do about the W-2s? And I want to switch them. I put the new social on. there. Right. And bam, she got like 100% financing. She bought like a $150,000 house and it was perfect and everybody's happy. Well, I mean, I was happy. I clearly was fraud. Right, right. Everyone's happy except the feds. Yeah, they made, I don't know. They're not very happy. I don't know. But so what happened was I had realized that that was something. And what happens is ultimately I end up figuring out how to get social security to issue social security numbers for kids that don't exist.

I started making fake birth certificates for kids that are like 10 months old. Because if you say that the child is, let's say, over 12 months, you have to show up with the baby. I don't have a baby to show up. Right. So that's not going to work. Right. So I said, okay, well, 10 month old. And I have a degree in fine art.

So coming up with the actual birth certificate was pretty easy. Yeah. I played with it. I ordered the security dock. How did you create it? Yeah. How do you make it back then? I'm sure you're not just typing up on the computer like nowadays.

No. Well, there was Photoshop, but I didn't use Photoshop. What I mean, what I did was I'd gotten one from South Carolina in the name of another guy, and I ordered the security paper, you know, where you copied it, says void if, void if copied. So I ordered the security paper, and then I just made a template that I would run the security paper through a copy machine, and it would lay out the template, and I just typed out in Word exactly what it was supposed to say. Okay. So now I just print, I'm printing on it.

So I've got these papers, these first certificates with templates, and I'm printing new information on them. And I would get a, I got a, what do you call the seal? Yeah, yeah, you know, you can't go in and say I need a seal for. Put the stamp in it. Right. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. But the problem is is you can't do that.

Like I can't go in and say, hey, I need one for Hillsborough County Vital Statistics. Right, yeah, they don't do that. They will do that. you do instead is I said I need one for you know Hillsborough County vital record or vital what I say no virtual records office or something which is kind of close and then I took sandpaper and sanded it down a little bit because they look worn now for a while anyway and then I use that and of course they don't check them it's not like they're holding them up feeling out they don't look at that they just look to see if they're grab it like that and they go okay thank you and you need a shot record so I had to make a shot record

so I made a shot record so then I just went into social security number social security Sorry, and I said, hey, my name's Joe so-and-so. I gave him a driver's license, fake driver's license. They looked at the, a little more complicated. Anyway, they looked at the documents. They checked. They go, you're right. Your son doesn't have a social security number.

I go, yeah, I know. And they go, okay, well, we'll go ahead and order one. They'd ask why. They'd say, was he born in a hospital? I'd go, no, no, he was born with a midwife. Mm-hmm. I remember the first, like, the first one I did was for, um, anyway, anyway, uh,

I ended up, it's irrelevant. The point is, is that I did it. They ordered the thing, 10 days later, bam, I get a social security card. Right. And I started ordering these. First, it was in real people's names. And then I started using the names, like I used Lee Black, the name Lee Black. Did you ever see Reservoir Dogs?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I used Lee Black. I used Brandon Green, James Red, William Blue. Oh, man. David Silva. So, so.

I then turned around and I went and I started buying houses and e-board. So I paid, I made the, I would get everybody secured credit cards. So everybody gets three secured credit cards. I barely put anything on them. And I make the minimum payments. So you've got a $300 credit card, a $200 credit card, a $200 credit card, a $500 credit card. And they have very little money, $20, $30, $40 on each one. Well, in six months, the credit bureaus generate credit scores.

So now you've got, these guys come out of the gate, $7.10, $7. credit scores. So you've got a 720 credit score. Well, the minimum credit score back then to get a 95% loan was 620. So they've got 710. And they've got employment for two or three years because I'm making the W-2s and pay subs. And so they've got canceled checks because I was able to figure out how to make it look like a canceled check. So I'd make 24 months canceled check. So I'm sending perfect packages in. So what I did it was I turn around. And I went, I bought, sort of buying houses in Newport City. I would buy a house for $40,000.

And I'd buy, and I, in the name of, let's say, Alan Duncan or Branding Green. So I buy it for $40,000. And that's somebody you created up. Completely fictitious person. So I then turn around, it's a synthetic, they call them now, they call them, like back then I just, it was just a phantom borrower. Okay. But now they call them synthetic identities.

Okay. So I turned around, I would go to public records. I was dating a girl at a title company, and she explained to me. me that if you paid the additional doc stamps, document stamps on a sale, then the sale shows up higher. So I bought it for $40,000, but if I pay an extra $7 to $900, it'll show up for $160,000. You have to do the math, but $160,000 or $140,000 sale. So the house I just bought for $40,000, now looks like I bought it for $160 or $200 or $190, whatever I want. I based it off square footage. I started saying, okay, $110, $120 a square foot in Ybor City.

Yeah. So I'm buying houses that are 1,400 square feet that are appraised, that I'm, and I'm buying for 40, recording the value or the sale at 190, 180. But I bought one in the name, Brandon Green, one in the name, James Red. So I've got one here, one here, one here. So I started buying them all over. What happens is when you send out the appraiser, the appraiser goes in and says, man, what a piece of garbage house this is.

I cleaned it up a little. bit. But he'd be like, this is a rough area. And I said, yeah, you bought it for $190. Yeah, yeah. This whole area is going up. Yeah. They go, yeah, I know, but Jesus. And he goes, well, you know, there's comparables everywhere, though. You know that house over there sold for $190? That one over there sold for $200. And you own them all. Of course. Right. You're telling him the whole neighborhoods going up. That's insane. You have the ad, of course. And so I write down the addresses for him. He's like, yeah, I'll check that out. Comes back. He's, I can't believe it. I got you an appraisal. for $190,000.

That's crazy. Thank you so much. Well, then I take that. I send it into the lender. The lender says, yeah, well, I mean, there's documents that have to support it, of course. So I have supporting documents because, of course, I'm making those documents. Yeah. And if they need it to be verified, well, I'll come up with a cell phone.

Right. Or I'll come up with a landline or a website. Whatever I need to come up with, I'm going to come up with. I'm doing fine arts. I'm fairly creative. So, you know, I'd come up with a document. and the verifications, and since I'd been in the mortgage industry, I knew what they were going to ask for.

What are they looking for? What's the tax ID number? Where are they going to look for it? How can I piggyback off of a real tax ID number on a W2, and they won't verify it? Or if they do try and call it, they'll go online and they'll look it up in what used to be the business white pages. Well, you can go online and put your business on it.

So now they're calling a cell phone that's in the name of a guy that doesn't exist, to verify it or there's something called HQ. Have you ever heard of HQ? There are these offices that you can rent. They'll be on like the 30th floor down, some building down to offices. Well, they'll also, for 40 or 50 bucks, they'll answer your phone, they'll forward them.

They'll collect your mail. They'll forward your mail. So it seems like you've got a real deal of business. Yeah. You've got a real business, real and business card address. So these loans start closing. I buy them for 40, fixing them up for 10, borrowing 150,

walking away with $100,000. And each guy, I'm buying at least five or six houses. So you're getting about a million dollars with the loans. You're walking away with $500,000. Wow. And that worked like a charm for a long time. How long did you do it for? About two years.

About two years. 11.5 million is what we borrowed in about two years. And every time the loan would go through, the first payment would always default? No, no. Oh, of course, I'm not an idiot. I mean, I would pay three. year. I'd pay three, four, five months. Sometimes I'd rent them out. Sometimes I just, if the place was so trashed, I just make the payments for at least three or four months. Keep in mind, too, I'd then

turn around and I'd borrow personal loans. I'd then get about $30,000, $40,000 worth of credit cards, because now this guy's got multiple mortgages. He's got perfect credit. So now I can borrow, I can get a bunch of credit cards. I get a bunch of credit cards. Those guys were worth about $600,000. So I pulled the money out, you know, and we would do really just stupid things, you know. I had like a drawer filled up with socks that I'm never going to wear. I've got 60 pairs of underwear that, you know, it's just just stupid. You don't even know what to, you know, you know, and I'm thinking it's going to last forever because I'd figured out that when they would go into foreclosure, they'd start going into foreclosure,

they'd start sending letters. And I'd get the letters, and I would, I would take an article from, like, let's say the Tampa Tribune, of a five-car pile-up or a 20-car pile-up, and I'd re-type the entire. entire article and I'd put insert my guy's name James Red into the article and it'd say James Red was life flighted to Tampa General Hospital and so I would print out the article on newsprint and make a copy of that then I'd write a letter from James Redd's sister and saying listen my brother was in an accident here's the article highlighted the doctors say even if he wakes up from the coma he'll never work again you might as well go ahead and forked

close on the house. And so they just stopped sending in the letters. Yeah. They just foreclosed. They just, they make a few phone calls, but they get that letter. It's over. They take the house back and they never come looking. So it worked really well. Yeah, sounds like it. So for a long time. Crazy. You got to make sure you cover all your ends and stuff, you know. Yeah, I did, you know, I, I, I, there were one or two times when, for instance, there was a, a buddy of mine, uh, he's in Tampa and still in real estate. So I won't mention his name. He was in charge of making the payments on this one guy. It was like, look, I'm juggling. Right. You're, you're, you're in your handsful.

Eight people. Yeah. Everybody's sharing in the profit. You got 10 grand from the last one. You got 20. You got 15. You know, I can't be expected to make all of these payments. Yeah. Keep up with them. Right. So here, here's red. You're going to make the payments for it. No, I remember it was, it was Alan, Alan Duncan. It was Alan Duncan because it was one of my first ones I'd done. And he's about to foreclose. So I'm like, here's Duncan. You make the payments on the house we just bought, which was like the last house. We're going to make a few payments. All of them are going in foreclosure. So he didn't make the first payment. And I remember the mortgage broker, she comes to my house and she says, oh my God, who was it? Who was it? Oh, my God. Oh, South Star Bank? South Star Bank, I don't know if they're still around, but South Star Bank just called.

they can't get a hold of Alan Duncan. They said they know that the bank accounts are fake. They know, like they just started, we know this, we know this, we know this, we know this. You've got a problem. So I find out, I go to the guy, the guy said, what happened? And he says, oh my God, I forgot to make their first payment. I didn't know what was due already.

So I get them on, I get Sal Star on the phone. I call up and I say, listen, this is Alan Duncan. I need to just talk with, you know, this guy. I forget what his name was. I say John's, Mr. Johnson. And they go, oh, he's in a meeting. I said, well, this is Alan Duncan. I assure you he wants to talk to me immediately.

Please interrupt the meeting. It's extremely important. So the secretary interrupts. And boom, they put me on the phone. And it's their head of fraud department, some lawyer, and like a vice president of the bank. Wow. And they're like, okay, Mr. Duncan. And I'm like, yes, they're like, okay, well, we've spent quite a bit of time looking over your,

you know, your file here. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. And they said, we got a $140,000 loan to a man that doesn't exist. Because we know you don't exist. And I'm like, okay, well, listen, I'm not sure where this is coming from. I mean, I understand I missed a payment. It's, I'm putting it in the mail today. We should have this all to. Oh, no, it's too late for that. It's too late for that. And so I went, okay, well, let me catch up the payment. And he's like, no, no, no. He's like, look, you know, we're going to submit this to the FBI. We're going to do a full investigation. You're going to end up. I remember he kept saying like a something like a six by six or an eight by eight concrete box. I remember he kept saying that.

You're going to end up in an eight by eight concrete box. And anyway, I said to him, you know, they were real cocky about it. And I'd been caught before. I got caught one time with two million dollars. But the loans had already been part of the package had already sold the household bank. And the lender didn't, he wasn't willing to push the issue because it was several million he was going to be on the hook for. So he just continued to sell the paper. And so he let me off. And came back and told me to keep sending loans.

This is when I own the mortgage. But these guys were cocky. And I remember thinking, so as we're talking, I was like, okay, they're really cocky about this. And so at one point I said, okay, I don't understand. I said, aren't you guys concerned about getting your money back? I mean, I'm trying to give you your money back here.

And they said, oh, we'll get our money back when we foreclose on the property. and I went, oh, I said, now I get it. You think that your $140,000 alone is attached to a property worth $180. And they're like, right. I said, no. Now things, I could always like, now things are going to shift in my favor. I can feel it. So I said, okay, let me explain what I did.

Do you have the appraisal in front of you? Yeah. So they, I'd send them obviously our appraisal. they've done what's called a desktop review where they review it, but they don't actually go out to the property. They just review it. They have an appraiser review it. And I explain, look, take a look at comp number one.

That's owned by a guy named Lee Black. Comp number two, you know, James Red, comp number three, you know, David Silver. And I explained what I did. I did this, paid the docks, boom, boom, boom. You told them all. I have to at this point. I got to try and convince them. That's your only angle, you think.

Right. Right. I'm done anyway. Yeah. So I said, look, here's the deal. And so they're like, oh my God. I said, right. So I said, as you can see you now, you have a piece of property that I bought for $40,000.

I paid an extra $1,100 to get it to appraise at $180. You know, the appraiser had everybody involved. The appraiser did exactly what he's supposed to do. He didn't do anything wrong. The mortgage broker's never seen me. She did everything by the telephone. She doesn't have any clue what's going on. Every single document was provided by me.

You lent the money, your underwriters lent the money doing exactly what they do. Everybody involved in the transaction. action does what they do on a daily basis and I walked away with the money. Now, if you want to get your money back, you'll let me cut you a check and you'll agree not to contact the FBI. So we end up working out an agreement where they let me cut them a check back. And that's not the only time that happened. I've had it happen with Washington Mutual Court. We'd done like eight owner-occupied properties one time. You understand, the owner-occupied properties, like your house is an owner-occupied property. Right. If you go buy a rental property, it's a rental property.

They linge about 80%, maybe 70. Well, I had a realtor that had bought eight duplexes, all of them we said were owner-occupied with eight different lenders, got caught that time. Ended up that several of those duplexes were on Washington Mutual's credit lines with different lenders, and Washington Mutual ended up with all of them. And they figured out, we've got three, not all eight, but they had like three. So their lawyer contacted us, said, look, this is what you did.

this is illegal, this is this, this is that. And of course, they don't even know that the W-2s are fake. They don't even know how bad it is. So I convinced them to take like $30,000 less money to just let us refinance them. And the lawyer accepted that. He was okay with that. Really? It's insane.

That is crazy. What's stopping them from taking the check and then turning you in? Yeah, I mean, and that happened. You know, I've got a story when I was on the run where I actually had to go to a lawyer. I didn't trust the guy. So I actually went to a lawyer. and keep in mind too that they've caught me they're getting the money back I mean it doesn't necessarily make them look good either

nobody wants to be a part of fraud and you don't want like the one guy which was a pinnacle bank where they'd caught me with a two million this guy doesn't he doesn't he and even said to me look nobody wants the FBI going through their files right because the got to think of the industry at that time was so dirty right and it probably opens up for multiple other people like you who are doing the same right who knows what they're doing right right on top of that well what ultimately happened was Allison

Arnold the girl with a brown hair and that Yeah, in the American Greed. Yeah. She and I we were dating and she, we decided to do a scam

and Now this is after all this is over. Oh yeah, no, I'm still, we're still, I'm still on Tampa. Oh, okay. I'm still running, you know, I'm consulting with the mortgage broker. broker's business. I'd sold it because I couldn't own it anymore. So I had a buddy of mine named Dave Walker who was running the company.

So I'm still going in and committing fraud on a regular basis. Does Dave Walker have a pulse? I don't know what happened to Dave. I mean, he wasn't a... Oh, no, he's a real person. It sounds like a made-up name, right? Right, right, right. So does Danny, you know, so does Danny Jones. Yeah. That's a pretty good, generic one.

Yeah, it was very generic. We did a loan and she she dyed her hair black and she was pretending to be a person named, a real person named Rosita Perez. And so I didn't have any fake, any women. And Rosita Perez, a broker that I knew, she had said that this woman had somehow or another wronged her.

They'd got into a fight. She hated her. She'd cost her $10,000 in damages to her house. Whatever the case, maybe. I don't know how she'd. justified her, I justified it. But somehow another, Allison, we decided Allison was going to impersonate her.

And I made a fake license. And Allison, the woman, it was a real picture of Allison. She dyed her hair black. She goes into the closing. We had several closings, about half a million dollars with a closing set up. We bought a house. We satisfied the loans on the house.

And Allison was, Reside Prez was going to borrow like half a million We had several loans set up on the same house. And she goes in the first one, and she gets a check for like a hundred and change. I know what it was, 110, $120,000, something like that. So she gets it. The next loan she goes in to close, she signs a paperwork, but the woman looks at her and she says,

you don't look like your picture. Yeah, I saw that in the American degree. The picture was her, though. Or, yeah, yeah. It was her. Oh, really? Yeah, that was what was so strange. The picture was Allison.

But Allison had changed her hair, like a couple of days beforehand. She dyed it black for the photo and then dyed it back. And I remember going, what are you doing? Why would you dye your hair? Right. You know, and she's like, I'm like, your name is Rosita Perez. You know, and she's like, she's like, oh, it's fine. It's still my picture.

And it was her picture. Yeah. So it was like, yeah, okay. You know, there's any number of reasons her name would be Perez. Okay. Although she's pale, green eyes. Now she's got brown hair with blonde highlights and she goes in. and the woman has an issue with it,

and they put a, they put like a fraud alert on the check. Because the woman starts making phone calls, and she finds out very quickly that the property was supposed to be in someone else's name. We'd change the name of the property. She calls another title company. It unravels very quickly. Yeah.

And a buddy of mine was running a scam in Orlando, and he had a bank account. And so Allison couldn't open a bank account. So we gave the check to this, my buddy, he ends up putting it in his bank account. He gets a call a couple days later from, well now, but keep in mind, there's a flag on, a red flag. It's been, there's like an alert on the check.

So they get alerted and the bank calls him and says, hey, by the way, can you come in and sign the back of the check? Because I did sign it. Yeah, but because it's over $100,000, we need to witness it. And so I remember he's going to the bank and I said, I called him and I said, hey, what's going? He said, oh, the manager called me. He needs me to come in. I go, no, no, I says something doesn't sound right about that. Never heard of that.

I've cashed. Or I've deposited lots of checks for over $100,000. Nobody's ever said they had to witness my signature. Anyway, he's like, no, it's fine, it's fine. You know, he goes in the bank, he gets arrested. So they let him go. You know, he says he didn't cooperate, you know, and start the investigation. I know differently.

But hey, he's a friend of mine, and I like the guy, and I grew up with him, and he's a nice guy, and he's in a bad spot. And I love him to death. And so a task force is put together to investigate me. And how hard is it to prove that this is a fraud? All you got to do is go on Hillsborough County tax collectors, tax appraiser's website and say green, blue, red. I mean, not the most brilliant. At the time, it seemed really cute. Right.

It just seems fun, right. Not the most brilliant of all the things I've done. So very quickly, they realized, okay. You're like the riddler or rear the safe, bro. Yeah, he's stupid. Just stupid. So I look back and I think, what were you thinking? When did you think that was going to be?

How did you think that was going to be okay? So they put it together. And months later, you know, months later, I'm dating, just started dating another girl by the name of by the name of Rebecca Halk and I just started dating her single mother Another single mother I'm single mother

Yeah I you know Really irritated about the The whole American greed single mother thing I said they had some good producers on that episode God that they really It is like spice it up a little bit Yeah but I mean it's as What I already did

Isn't it bad enough You know do we say you know do we have have to say he was also mean to children and small animals. I mean, what are you doing? It's bad enough. So anyway, so I just started dating her. And so one day, I'd day this girl like a month. Okay?

So I don't even know this girl. So I go to work one day and this guy, a sheriff's deputy that I knew, whose name was Steve Sutton, and I'd done like a million dollars worth of real estate for him, Got him to do. So he comes in one day and he says, listen, I got to talk to you. And I go, yeah, what's up, man? You know, hey, buddy, what's up? Hey, imagine how bad this day was.

I'm like, yeah, what's going on? He says, I used to date a girl on the Tampa PD. Like, okay. He said she was a part of a task force recently that was just handed to the FBI. He said the task force was on you. They're going to arrest you in a couple of days. My name came up because of all the real estate. you've done he said and she came to his house in the morning like six o'clock in the morning knocked on his door and said don't talk to cox anymore they're arresting him in a couple days holy shit so he said i just thought i wanted to tell you we're we're friends i wanted to let you know yeah he said i'm not gonna talk to you anymore i don't know what to do and i said you know don't do anything you're not going to get in trouble because you don't know anything just say you you came to me you needed a loan i got you the loan that's all you know you know you're not a mortgage broker you don't know right so he said okay

He goes, what are you going to do? I said, I'm leaving. I'm already on federal probation. Yeah, Jesus. So I'm already on federal probation for the first one. I mean, that's pretty bad. What am I going to do? The judge is, he wasn't happy the first time.

Yeah, he's pissed. I can imagine going back in on $11.5 million. That's not going to work out well for me. No. So I thought, yeah, I'm, you know, all I know about prison is Shawshank Redemption. I can't go to prison. Look at me. Yeah.

I mean, it was 15 years ago. I was a lot prettier, but dear God, I can't go to prison. I'm soft as cotton. Being pretty is not necessarily good for prison. I'm like, I can't do this. I got to go. So it was like a Thursday. Literally, the next day, I got out 80 grand in cash.

That's all I could do. We had probably a million or so dollars in the bank, but you know, you can't go in and say, give me a million. I'm sending people in with checks for 9,000, 8,000. People will start to figure it out too. And you go, hey, look, can you go cash $7,000? Yeah, Matt, I can't. They're realizing you look panic-stricken and something's wrong.

So it's like, okay, I understand. So I get out like $80,000, pack my bags. Becky happens to come by. We were supposed to go out like Friday night or something. And she sees me. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm packing my bag. What are you doing here?

She's like, hey, I'm ready. What are you doing? I'm ready to go to dinner. And I'm like, you haven't been answering your phone? I was like, fuck, I got a problem. So I tell her and she tells me, I, you know, I want to come with you. She wants to hit the road. What do you want to come with you?

Are you crazy? You've got a son? And she's like, no, you don't understand. She said, basically, you know, he'd basically been raised by his father. I brought him down here. I can't handle him. He's been picked up twice after curfew. He got caught smoking pot.

He's failing his grades. he was going back in December anyway, or at the end of, you know, it was going back anyway, I'm sorry, at the end of the school year, it was December, like the first part of December.

And so I'm going, I don't, okay, well, we don't even know each other. I'm like, no offense. I remember telling her, I, look, this is never going to become love for me. You know what I mean?

It's been a week and, I mean, it's been a month, but, you know, this isn't happening. She's like, look, I don't care about that. She said, look, you don't even,

and I was like, you have a normal life, you have a family. Remember, me, she said, you don't even know why I came to Florida. She said, I got caught stealing, she had caught stealing money from her boss, which was a casino lawyer. And he didn't turn her in because, and she was using the money to gamble. So she owed him like 10 or 12, 15,000, something like that. So she, he says, look, I'm going to send you to Florida to work for the dog track.

He didn't turn her in because she's sleeping with him. Doesn't want to be. It doesn't want to the wife to find out so he sends her to florida she meets me i'm going on the run she wants in yeah so you're an adulterous thieving yeah you know so all attributes by the way wow she's perfect basically you're just like you guys a solid argument so she comes so i say okay you know you can come with me so she comes with me we go straight to atlanta she rents a house we remove take the I assume the guy who owns the house's identity. And I borrow like $400,000. And I pull the money out.

We pull the money out and we take off. So now we got about $400,000. We have $80s. So you rented the house from, you rented a house in Atlanta. Right. In a neighborhood in Atlanta. Right. And then how did you get the $400,000?

Well, $100,000. Rented a house for like $190. It was valued about $190. Okay. So the value of that house was $1.90 if it was, okay. Right. So we're paying whatever it is, 13,400 a month in rent. And so what I did was I went downtown and he had two loans on the house from Bank of America.

And I created a satisfaction of mortgage. Remember I told you I dated a girl who worked for a title company. So I know how a satisfaction, what a satisfaction looks like. So I create a satisfaction of mortgage. I then go back down and I record it. Well, what happens is if you have a mortgage, for instance, your house. right now. You've got a whatever, $200,000, $300,000 mortgage on the house to, let's say, Bank of America. Okay. Well, when you pay that off, how does public records know it's paid off? Right.

Bank of America gets their $300,000. What they do is they then create a satisfaction of mortgage. They then mail it in with $7 to Hillsborough County. Right. Or what are we, Pinellas or something? Pinellas County Public Records. And they say, hey, the mortgage that was taken out to Danny Jones on this day for this amount of money is satisfied is hereby satisfied with this loan number or whatever number is hereby satisfied the guy who owned this house had no clue that his mortgage was now satisfied oh no no two of them wow so he has no clue and all i did was make a fake ID i'd figure out how to make like a fake ID so i don't even have a real ID at this point i just made a fake one i mean i did i started going what what happened was i realized look making the fake ID is a problem you got to use the laminants you have to get you have to overcome the the issue of the of the hologram.

I mean, you have to rewrite. It's a pain in the ass. Yeah. So it's much easier to just go into the DMV and get you to issue a license in, in somebody's name. To get them to print it for you. Right.

So they print it up. So it's easier to just steal someone's identity. So I very quickly realized that. But at this point, I needed his ID. So I made, I didn't even have his real middle name. So I just made up like, it was like the middle name. I was like, Sean. So I end up making a name.

I don't have his real date of birth. Keep in mind, I just need to go in and get a check. I don't even have his social security number. I just need the same name on the ID because I'm borrowing from hard money lenders. So they charge like 14% interest. Right, right. And so matter of fact, those guys, a couple of them were on American Greed. Yeah.

There were three. One lent like 110, one lent 150, another one lent 150. The total came to like 400,000 roughly. And how, when you get the loans from the hard money lenders, they can't see that there's other hard money lenders giving you loans? It's called a shotgunning scam. Shotgunning. And so what happens is you do it so quickly.

You apply with multiple lenders and you close within a day or two of each other. Okay. And if you do that, what happens is the documents are prepared at the title company. You sign, you get your check. Well, a couple of days later, when they've got all their paperwork, work done, they mail it in. So these things get mailed into public records saying this loan, there's a new mortgage on this property, please record it. And here's the payment for that. And they go, okay, so public records puts it down and they go, okay, here's the address. Here's the folio number.

Here's this. Okay, boom, record it. Two days later, another one shows up. Yeah. Wow. They go, okay. Same thing. There, boom. Just put it in. Another mortgage. Two hours later, boom. Oh, same one. Keep mind. This woman has, She's doing this. That's all she does. All day, yes. So she doesn't even recognize the number. Even if she did, it's irrelevant.

Yeah. You're allowed to have three or four mortgages on the same property. She has no idea what it's valued at. It's a recording system, not a verification system. They simply record documents that are mailed in that you pay for. And so they get it, boom, record it, record it. So I've got $400,000. I go open a couple bank accounts.

I deposit the checks. I remove the cash. And that's a funny story. This is a funny story. So I go in, I get a real driver's license, right, in the name of a guy named Scott Cugno. So I got a Scott Cugno driver's license, real license. I have this real Soshe, everything. So one of the checks I had issued to Scott Cugno for 29 grand.

So I go into SunTrust. I walk into SunTrust and I say, hi, I'm Scott Cugno, I need to cash this. And the guy goes, $29,000, why don't you just deposit in your own bank account, Mr. Cugnow? And I said, well, because my bank account, you know, I'm in Georgia, it's in Florida, I'm going to hold it for a few days. And I need the cash.

Okay, well, okay, well, it's really odd. And, you know, okay, well, here's my driver's license. Here's my, here's a credit card, driver's license. Here's my social security card. Yeah. I'm good. You need a thumbprint? Thumbprint.

I'm already wanted. Yeah. So, you know, he's like, okay, well, go ahead and have a seat. I have a seat. my cell phone, give my cell phone is, my razor phone. My razor,

the razor, motor roll razor is there. And Becky's sitting in the car. So I wait. The guy comes out and he says, okay, this is like the president, well,

the, whatever, the manager of the bank. He comes out and he goes, okay, he said, look, why don't,

I don't understand, what do you need the cash for? And I went, I said, we're, I cash checks. I said, I'm a general contractor.

I just did a job for somebody. They paid me with this money. And I have to, I said, I typically write checks to the guys that work for me, and I cash the check. So they don't have to go to check cashing companies. And he goes, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. He knows something's wrong. Right, yeah.

Right. He just can't figure it out. Right. He walks off. But I'm not leaving. Yeah. If something's wrong and you start asking those questions, you would leave. Most people would leave.

But I know you can't. I'm thinking he can't. He's not going to figure this out. Yeah. So the phone rings, boom, boom. Phone rings. I pick it up. It's Becky. She goes, hey, she said, what are you doing? What's taking so long? I went, calm down. The guy is, he's a jerk. You know, he's being a jerk about it.

He didn't want to give him the money. Well, then leave. I go, no, I can't leave. I said he's checking on stuff. So she goes, well, I go, look, look, calm down. She's all nervous. Yeah, if the cops show up, you see two, if you see two cruisers pull in, call me. Yeah. I'll run out the back. You meet me at the 7-Eleven down the street. Right. So she's like, okay, okay, hang up the phone.

A few minutes later he comes out, he asked some other question. What about this? What about that? I'm like, where'd you get the check? I said, I got the check from the homeowner. And he goes, okay. And I said, wait, I don't understand what's taking so long. I said, it's a cashier's check written from your bank.

Yeah. The money's good. He's like, no, the money's there. It's just we have to. There are certain protocol we have to go through. I said, okay, okay. So he leaves. Phone rings again.

What do you? Let's take it so on. I don't know. The guy's a dick. I don't know what to say. He's taking forever. He's checking. Checking on what?

I don't know. Comes out again. And I said, hey, what is taking so long? And he goes, well, we're trying to,

he said, turns out that the name of the guy is Michael Shanahan. That the guy that owns the house. And I went, oh, keep in mind, I'm Michael Shanahan. Right.

You're Michael Shanahan. So I went, okay. And he says, and we're just trying to get a hold of Mr. Shanahan. He's the guy you did the work for. I said, right? He goes, we're just trying to verify the check with him.

They're now trying to get in contact with Michael Shanahan. Wow. Who I've pretended to be using this zone. Right. And I've already signed for the check. I borrowed $400,000. So I'm like, Jesus, age Christ. So the phone rings again, it's Becky.

Boom. Hey, what's going on? She goes, what is taking so long? I said, he's trying to verify the check with Michael Shanahan. It was complete silence. Oh, shit. And she just suddenly goes, get out of that behind. I'm like, I can't get out of the bank.

I'm walking out with the money. If the cop show up, call me. And I hang up the phone. So I'm sitting there. The phone rings again. I look at the phone. I don't recognize the number. It's the bank.

It's the bank. I pick up the phone. I go, hello? They go, hi, Michael Shanahan. This is Jennifer from SunTrust Bank. And I'm like, she's right behind you. She's behind the window behind the tubicle right behind you.

I'm in a glass cubicle. Oh, man. You're looking right at her I'm like, I'm like, yes. And she goes, hi,

we have a Scott Cugno here at the bank. He's trying to cash a check that apparently you had issued off of a refinance that you made. And I go, yes. We just need you to verify the amount

and that it's Mr. I go, yeah, I believe it's Scott Cugno. I'm pretty sure it was for $29,000 even. And she's like, that's right. And I appreciate it.

And thank you very much. And I'm, real quick. I said, how did you get my number? This is numbers. on the list. She goes, oh, we called the title company,

and they gave us the phone number. Had she called information, she'd have gotten the Michael Schen. The real guy. But she called the title company because they did have, that's where they banked. Right. So she called them, they gave her the number. They called. I said, okay, she's, I hope it's not a problem, not a problem, no big deal. Thank you very much. Boom, hang up the phone.

Sorry. Wow. So, yeah, so the guy walks out five minutes later, counts out $29,000 and stares at me. And he gives me the 29,000. And I remember I'm cautious, but I'm also feeling real cocky. Oh, yeah. So I stand up and he goes, Mr. Cugno, he said, I'd like to let you know, I feel very apprehensive about this transaction.

I go, really? What is it exactly? I mean, that was stuffing money in my pocket. Yeah. What is it exactly? And he goes, he said, I can't put my finger on it. And I go, I'm sure it'll come to you. And I walk off.

I get in the car, tell Becky what happened. I'm like, you're like, I'm going to be. Oh, holy shit. Drive off. I mean, she's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I never even tried to cash a check for that large. Ever since then, it was always under $20,000.

It was always under $10,000. Wow. Because over that, they give you, they investigated it more. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know, but that, keep in mind, I had been doing like $9,000, $7,000, $8,000. No problem. No problem.

And then I, one time I finally went, you know, this is taking forever. I'm just going to start. What do I care? They can fill out of CCR. I don't care. Call the IRS. I'll be going. gone before they show up.

So I didn't care, you know, which was a mistake because had he made just the wrong call. It's just luck. Oh, yeah. And they call you when you're in the bank. That's crazy. So that's insane. We got all the money.

We take off. I, we left with the 400,000 change. What did we do? What did we do? Oh, yeah. No, it was more than that. You left the house in Atlanta. Yeah, because.

Where's your? Where did you go after that? Well, you know what's funny is I totally neglected to mention the other, like, we borrowed my, we'd also gone into Tallahassee and done the same thing in Tallahassee. Oh, really? But that was uneventful. It was just a regular old, regular old scam. It was more than, we had more than 400,000.

So why is it only 400? Oh, that's right. There was that other one. It's pretty bad when you start going to start forgetting about the 100,000 you stole here, or the 200,000 here. And you're like, that's right. Now what happens And I feel bad about that

Don't judge it I see you He's judging you Yeah He's got this look like this What happened to the actual Michael Shanahan Oh my house?

Very upset Michael Shanahan So is he out of all that Like His house is now paid off Well Yeah they don't look at

But it's not really paid off So what actually happens What happens is He can claim against The title insurance Okay You know And that's one of the things

That I You know It's like I very easily justified in my mind, I'm just borrowing money from the bank. And I never really thought I was screwing over those people that own the house. Because of insurance. Because they have, I always got title insurance. And for example, the guys in the in the show, American Greed, they talk about how one of the guys got paid back from the title insurance and the other guy says he didn't get paid back.

Now, it's my understanding that all of them had gotten paid back. But in the show, he said, he didn't get paid back. So he may not have been paid back. I'm not sure how that's possible. I mean, the title policy... Could have been produced that way. Well, I think maybe they just fought it. But I mean, look, you've got a title policy that that ensures you against fraud. One of them is, or clouded title, whatever the case may be. It was very clear that it covered fraud. He should have been paid back. Now, whether he was or not, I don't know. He says he wasn't, he's not listed, as far as I can tell, on the people that I have to pay back.

I believe that the title agency that he got the loan from probably paid them back, but somebody owns that agency, and I probably owe them the money. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, look, somebody somewhere got dicked over. Right. So I take the money, we take the money. We go to Charlotte, North Carolina. How much money do you have at that time?

I don't know, like five, six hundred thousand. Cash. Right, in cash, in a little duffel bag. You ever see those guys? It's like half a million dollars. It's a huge. It's like, it's pouring out of the bag.

Are those in ones? Is that stripper money? Because that's not in 20s and 150s, you know. It's not that much money. So we go to Charlotte, we go downtown, we rent a place, uh, amazing condo downtown Charlotte,

like a couple thousand dollars a month. And 15 years ago, that was a lot, a lot. Yeah. Charlotte was amazing. We lived there. We got new cars.

So we're driving. having like brand new infinities and and what did Becky get she had two cars. Keep this going. I'm going to pee real quick. All right. Sorry. I told you I could go on and I'm giving you. I'm giving you the, this is like the condensed version.

Yeah, this is good. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that's the best type of guest to have honestly. Oh, is it? Oh, yeah, for sure. I'll just talk and talking. No, it's ridiculous. The stories are super fascinating.

So you guys are living in Atlanta at that time? No, no, no, no, Charlotte, North Carolina. So we go to Charlotte. You know, we set up there, we hang out for like a month or so. Yeah. I think we ended up going on vacation. We went to, where we go. What's the plan at that point?

There's no plan. You're just rolling with it. I mean, the plan is get $3, $4,000, something like that. And, you know, and, you know, and, I don't even know. Take off, retire, invest it in real estate, do something. You know, and you're just going to bounce around, build up as much as you think you can. The plan was, don't get caught and go to prison.

Yeah. So I, in Charlotte, that's where we got a tremendous amount of plastic surgery. I think Becky had already gotten like a boob job or a breast job. What's the politically correct version of? Boob job as far as I know. Boob job. That's what I call them. So she got, you know, what she called the twins.

So she got a boob job. Then we went to Charlotte. We got, I got a, she got surgery again. Additional surgery like liposuction, that sort of thing. And really, to be honest, she was smoking hot anyway. You know what I'm saying? She had the whole pink thing going on. She had the short haircut.

She was cute. She probably weighed 110 pounds. She probably weighed 115. when I met her. Now she's got five pounds of silicone and she's down to 110. We're jogging. We're working out. We've got great clothes, great cars.

I think she mentioned she's got she's got Rolexes. She's got diamond. She's got everything. She wanted. But the money's going. Yeah, it's fast. You buy a $60,000 vehicle, another one for this. Even if you finance them, it's $20,000 down.

We don't have really any credit at this point. We're just starting credit over. But we'd figured out, I'd figured out that how to get fake IDs, or, sorry, real IDs, but in fake people. Right. What happened was we were sitting at a light one day. And I was like, the problem with this whole situation is that, for instance, I'd started using other people's IDs. I ran an ad in the newspaper and people would call up to, to, because I realize I can't make a fake ID. I can't get pulled over by the police and give them a fake plastic ID, a fake ID.

they're not going to make it back to their car a cop's going to go okay that dude's you're done get out you know he's a bank okay but not a not a patrolman so I realize we need real IDs and so when we were in Atlanta

we started acquiring real people real IDs and what I did was initially I put ads in the newspaper for it was like a home loans available good credit bad credit no problem you pay a couple hundred bucks and you get 20 calls a day for four or five days.

Yeah. And people are calling up to try and get home loans. And it doesn't matter if they have good credit or bad credit. I just need you to have a driver's license. Right. You just want some info. Right. So I start asking questions.

And I've done it a thousand times. You know, I've taken a thousand applications. So it's, you know, hey, name, date of birth, social security number. Where do you live? What's your data? What's your, how many kids do you have? You know, where do you work? What's your phone number?

What's the address? Rambling right off. And then you get to the last page, which is like, it's a, a bunch of statistical questions for the federal government. And then as you just add one or two in there, where were you born, what county and state were you born in, what's your mother's maiden name.

By this point, they're just answering everything. Yeah, they spewed all the info out. They don't realize, in the course of answering 30 questions, you've given me enough to steal your identity. Wow.

So. And that's what you did with a homeless guy, right? Right. Well, initially, it was real people. But one of those guys was a guy named Michael Eckert. And Michael Eckert had told me specifically When I was asking all these questions at the very end He goes, oh wait a minute

He said, I'm a felon No, he's not a felon He goes, he said, I just got my driver's license back. No, he said, I think he did say I'm a felon. He said I'm a felon, but it was like a, it was a DUI. And I went, do you have a driver's license? He goes, yeah, yeah, I just got it back like a year ago. And I thought for him to have lost his license and be a felon,

he had to have lost it multiple time before it becomes like a felony. Yeah. at that time, I mean, I'm pretty sure that's how it works. So I just remember thinking, you're a felon from a DUI for some reason. Or even if it wasn't from the DUI, I'm assuming it was. I'm thinking, what if he loses a license again?

I could be driving around with the guys. I could have a car, two cars, an apartment, credit card, everything in a guy's name. Because see, what I would do is I would pair them with social security numbers that were recently issued. I would go straight into social security number and get a social security card issued to Michael Eckert.

and I'd get a whole new credit profile based on him. New address, new everything. Lots of people had the name Michael Eckert. I changed the middle name slightly. Boom, credit profile, 700 credit scores. So buy a bunch of, buy a car, house, whatever. My point is, is that I'm driving around. What if I get pulled over?

This guy's got a DUI. I go to jail. I get fingerprinted. I'm done. Right. So, and Becky and I, we talked about that multiple times. What if you get, what if you get grabbed? And I was like, look, worst case scenarios at this time,

I don't know if this is how it works now, but this was 15 years ago. I was like, worst case scenario is if I get grabbed and they bring me downtown and they fingerprint me, they won't run the prints right away. They only run them right away through Aethus if your identity's in question. Give them my identity won't be in question because I have a real driver's license. So if it's not in question, they're going to fingerprint me. You can get me, I'll get, it'll be something stupid that I get arrested for. So you can easily get me out within 24 hours. you get me out before they run my prints and we're gone.

And she was like, okay, okay, okay. Because a lot of these small towns and stuff, they don't run your prints right away. They do them in batches or they don't, you know, it wasn't back then. There was no, it wasn't the digital scanner thing. They're printing you. So even if when they did have them,

they don't necessarily run them. They get charged for running them. And your identity's not in question. So we talked about that. Anyway, my point is I started stealing the identities of real people. but one day we're sitting at a red light and I said what we need is an identity of someone who doesn't isn't really using their identity

and she's like what I said I don't know she's like mental patients something what I was like she's people about people that died and I said no because when you die it gets registered so that they can get the death benefit of $250 and so Social Security knows you're dead so it shows up on your credit profile so I can't use though it's no good

you need permanent IDs and I went she's like well like who and I went And there was a guy standing there holding a home, you know, hungry will work for food. So I don't go like that guy. Yeah. That's just the bum? I would say, yes. So we pull over.

I go up to the guy and go, hey, man, what's up? He's like, what's up? I said, can I ask you some questions real quick? I'll give you 20 bucks right now, five minutes. He's, yeah, what's up? And I start asking him questions. Do you have a felony? Do you have a driver's license?

How'd you lose your license? Was it a DUI? Was it, you know, and it wasn't. He didn't have a DUI. It just expired. He doesn't have a car. How would I get a DUI? Right.

You know, I've been arrested multiple times. I don't have a felony, though. I have a bunch of misdemeanors. So as you start, so I came up with a statistical survey form where I went around and I would question homeless people. I was trying to get their information to try and determine where we were going to,

where the Salvation Army was going to open their next homeless facility. We just keep a guy 20 bucks and say, of course you've taken a survey for the Salvation Army. We're trying to determine where we're going to know, where we're going to open a, our next homeless facility. That's what you're telling. Yeah. And they give them 20 bucks and I take their information. They have no clue. And then I turn around. I order their birth certificate. I order their social

security card. I order their high school transcripts. I order everything. I then turn around. I go into a state where they don't have a license. I go into DMV. Hey, just moved the state, lost my license. Here's my proof. I would register a vote in their name, get the card within a couple of days. I just, I registered, here's my voter's registration card. Here's my birth certificate. Here's my, uh, social transcript. And I've, obviously, I'm a resident of the state. Sometimes I would say, have a, sometimes I'd have a lease for my apartment in the guy's name. And they would go, okay, great, stand over there. Take a picture. Bam, bam, bam. You got a driver's license. They just print you out the driver's license. I then turn around. I go straight to, to, um,

straight to the passport office. What, not straight. A couple days later. go straight there. Here's my birth certificate. Here's my driver's license. And they take all the information down. You pay like a $55 fee. They mail it in. Two weeks later, you get a passport.

So I mean, so what happened was once we moved from Atlanta, we went to, I mean, we're going everywhere. We're going to, you know, we're going to Las Vegas. We're going to, we go to Jamaica. We're going to where else? I mean, we're just traveling all over the place. Yeah. So. So I remember we went to Las Vegas and we, this is, okay, listen.

What time? Well, how much time do we have? We got all night. This is a good story, bro. Yeah, all night, man. This is a good story. We got plenty of time. You're going to allow this.

This is, this is, and it's horrible. And I feel bad. I'd like to say, I feel bad about this. Okay. So we go to Las Vegas. So Becky can see her son. Yeah. And we give, we hand over some money.

and, you know, she's handing off money to family and making everybody happy. And she's buying presents and doing all the things that's going to make her feel good. So while we're there, I said, look, let's get, let's, let's get to do some surveys. Yeah. So she goes, oh, my God. So we drive to an area and there were so many homeless people. I was nervous about getting out and pulling out. That's the first place I thought of with homeless people.

I'm like, that'd be perfect, Las Vegas. Well, and I didn't want to pull up, but I didn't want to pull up. I didn't want to pull out a lot of money. So I was like, man, there's just too many of them. Oh, yeah. So she goes, okay. So we go to another place. She got bombarded.

Well, she went, she goes, okay, another place. She goes, how about these guys? There were a couple guys sitting on a park bench. And they were pretty clean cut. They were so clean cut. I thought, they may not be homeless. So I got out and one of the guys gets up. He goes, yeah, what's going on?

I said, hey, do you mind taking a survey real quick? And this happened all the time. And they go, nah, I'm not interested. I pay $20 cash right now. You're going to give me $20 cash right now. Right? takes three minutes, 17 questions. Yeah, man, what's going on?

I started asking the questions. You know, his name, Gary Sullivan, date of birth, social security number, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're going on the thing. I asked, you ever been arrested? No, like hesitation and give you their social? No. Really? No.

The few guys that did hesitate, I would always go, um, go, well, I have to have it. And I'd say, well, okay, I look at them, I'd go, okay, well, what would I do with it? And they go, well, you could steal my identity. I go, do you have good credit? Right. They go, no, I got shoot credit. I go, well, then what good would it be? Yeah.

And they go, do I go, do you have a bank account? No. Okay, I don't understand. And if you don't want the $20, it's fine. It's not big deal. I got somebody. You're a guy behind you. No, no, no, wait a minute, but okay, here it is.

But I remember now I want to see the Social Security card because I don't think you're going to give me a bad thing. Fake number, yeah. It's not got to see it. Yeah. So, anyway. Gary Sullivan gives me its information and as we're going down the list and I start out,

there's random questions I would ask. You ever had a passport? How many states have you had a driver's license in? Which state? When was the last time you were gainfully employed? Do you have a felony? And the guy goes, no, I don't have a felony. He goes, I've got misdemeanors.

And I went, misdemeanor. Yeah, he goes, yeah, for prostitution. And I went, okay. I went, okay, well, you mean solicitation. because, you know, in my mind, guys get charged with solicitation. Women were buying a male prostitutes. Right. Didn't even occur to me.

And I went, you mean solicitation? He was, no, prostitution. He was, I offered to blow a undercover cop for 20 bucks. Oh, my God. And I went, really? He goes, yeah, I've been arrested a few times for it. I went, oh, okay. I said, wow, I, okay.

And he goes, yeah, he said, well, you know, 20 bucks. Wow. So. And you gave him a survey for 20. Times are tough, man. A survey. How the fuck you. I'll take a hundred surveys.

A good day for that guy. I remember I said, he said, that's what I thought you were here for. And that's what they're hanging out there for. And I went, he goes, this is basically an area where sex traffickers hang out. Oh, shit. Becky knew that. She's sitting in the car laughing. I'm like, unbelievable.

So I take his information, and I leave, get in the car. She's telling me talking about my boyfriend, like, oh, what your boyfriend said? So we leave. We go back to Charlotte. We set up. We're all happy. I figure, okay, well, we need some more money. I got to get a couple.

I got to get at least a million dollars on the next one. We do. So I go to Columbia, South Carolina. I buy a couple houses. And one of the houses I buy is a house for 200, it's like 230,000. So basically I just got a realtor. And we drove around houses and I just put contracts on, owner financing. I need you to owner finance.

I need you to owner finance it. And you put five houses, five contractors. contracts on five houses, at least one or two of them come back and they want to talk about it. So one of the realtors comes back and says, my clients are, he's a, he's a doctor, and they're moving to Atlanta, and they're interested in doing the owner financing. And I said, okay, cool. So I said, okay, so I'll give you guys 10% down on a 200 and, I think it was 225, a $225,000. So I'll give you, give you 25 grand down. So, and you owner finance. $200,000. They had a mortgage on the house for $200,000. So it's called a wraparound mortgage.

Okay. So they're going to give me a mortgage that wraps around their mortgage. So I pay them, they pay the mortgage company. Got it. So we go to the closing. We have a closing. And I think Bridget Brown is on the American greed. She, I think she's on the American greed.

Pretty sure she is. I remember her. Yeah, I remember there was three girls on there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this was a little. Dr. Brown's wife. Okay.

And so we go to the closing. We go to the closing and we just have a, it's just a quick closing. I mean, later on when I watch, oh, okay. America agreed, she says that she talked about how she'd had her identity stolen before. And she says that my eyes got real wide and, you know. Is that the lady with the kid? Yes. That's in the show.

Absolutely. So. The sick kid, right? Yes. Yeah. So we go to the closing. You know. I do remember her saying that.

I don't remember my eyes getting wide, but I remember thinking, oh, okay. You know, I'm just in and out. Right. We're not hanging out. We're not making friends. I'm not asking any personal questions. She mentions that we sign.

I leave. I now own the house in the name of Gary Sullivan's name. So I then turn around and I go and I go downtown a week or two later and I satisfy the loan on the house in their name, the one they had. And I satisfied the loan that they had in the name of like federal credit union or something like that. Federal, yeah, it was like federal savings credit union or something, bank. And that's when I started signing like the mortgage, the satisfactions with like cartoon characters. You remember, like I signed it with like the name C Montgomery Burns, which once again, I thought that was extremely cute.

Yeah. Did not play well in front of the judge. No, definitely. A couple years later, he, no sense of humor about that at all. Yeah, didn't you leave some sort of like paper mache statue in somebody's house? That's actually not true. I did leave it. And the guy said that I left the paper mache statue in the middle of the living room, like screaming.

Right. I was taunting him or something. But I have a degree in fine arts. Yeah. Fraud is not a full-time job. We're jogging. We're working out. We're doing rock climbing.

We're going on vacations. We're still bored. Yeah. And one of the things I did was I made like a paper mache guy and I was working on it. But by the time we started getting the money out, I didn't finish it, have time to finish it. And I couldn't fit it in the back of the vehicle we were driving. So I left it in the garage. When he shows up at closing or at the...

That was pretty creepy to me on the show. It made it soundless. You were like... What's funny is that when it ended up at sentencing, And on the shows, it's that I left it in the middle of the, he says, when I walked in, I left in the middle of the living room. And the entire house was trashed. We had a bed upstairs in the master bedroom. We had no furniture.

The house wasn't trashed. We'd had the carpets actually steam clean before we left. So there was nothing too trash. So it was like, you know, it's like, look, I'm already in a bad spot here. Can you please not say that? I know you're tweaking it a little bit to make it worse, but it's already bad. Right, right. You know, so it's always the tweak of the, and he left it here and he was taunting me.

No, it was in the garage. Right. Along with the back seat of the vehicle we were driving, because we had so much crap. We could pack it. We had to pull out the back seat. Anyway, but whatever. Like I said, it's the same thing. It's like saying you're a murderer.

It killed 13 people, and he said, oh, it's not true. I killed 11. You're still a scumback. Yeah, exactly. So it doesn't matter whether I did leave it. It was there. Still feel like the house was clean. But anyway, so we get, we borrow, we go to the one house.

I satisfy the loans in public record. I then turn around. I have no credit. Gary Sullivan has no credit. Okay. But I have a house worth $210,000. So I turn around and I go to multiple banks and I borrow money. I borrow $19,000.

from one bank, one 96 from another bank, one eight. Against that house? Yeah. So I borrow like five loans. It's like 900,000. And I borrowed another 400,000 on the other house. So it's $1.3 million. So then I go to all the closings within a few days of each other.

Now, one of the loans I'd closed was with B, B&T Bank. One of the loans I had applied for it was with BB&T Bank. I applied for the loan. Well, the loan officer went on vacation. So she went on vacation. and didn't process the paperwork. So by the time we close all these loans, I closed the loans,

I then turn around, I've opened up like six or eight bank accounts. So I'm putting a couple hundred in each bank account, and I'm varying the balances by swapping out cancel checks so that the balances don't just drain. They're shooting up and down and up and down until they drain it completely. So I'm not having any problems taking the money out. So I'm taking the money out $9,000, $9,000, you know,

there's plenty of banks. Yeah. I'm just driving back and forth. This is my job. I drive back and forth and I pick up 30 to 60 to 90,000 to 20,000 every few days. I drive back and forth and the money's piling up. And then one day what happens is BB&T's loan officer comes back from vacation and she says, hey, she calls up Gary Sullivan, Mr. Sullivan, guess what?

We're ready to close. Well, it's been two weeks since I started closing. So if they were to now check the public records, they're going to see that there's mortgages showing up. And they sent an abstractor down there to physically look at public records. I can't have this woman send anybody down there. She's like, oh, we're going to close. I'm like, well, did you already do the abstraction? She says, oh, yeah, they're going down like today.

Oh, fuck. Well, that's a problem. I'm like, okay, well, listen, I already closed the loan, so let's not have her go down there. And she's like, okay, no big deal. I'm like, well, please call the abstractor, make sure she doesn't go ahead. Oh, no, she's down there anyway. I understand, but let's go ahead and stop her from going ahead. What can you say?

I'm panicked. Where is she? I'm headed to go right. Yeah, exactly. Stop her. I'm going to go slash your tires. But I'm thinking it's going to be okay. Yeah.

So one of the things that happens in the meantime, by the way, is that the other house that I had, one of those lenders did a loan. They did a loan on the second house, and they caught that they were in third position. So that's a loan for like $180,000, $170,000, something like that. And so I get a phone call saying, hey, is this Gary Sullivan? I said, yeah, it is Gary Sullivan. And he says, listen, my name is, you know, let's say, Mr. Thompson from Washington Mutual. And we caught a $150,000 or $160,000 loan on that house.

Oh, okay. He said, and it turns out that we realized that there's another loan on the house. We're in second position, and this is an issue. And we're contemplating calling FBI. I'm not sure what you want to do about that. But I wanted to see if there was an explanation. I said, okay, well, wait a second now, Mr. Thompson. Let's talk about this.

It's not get crazy. It's not, you know. So I said, look, let me call you back. I think what's in both of our interest is that we get Washington Mutual's money back as soon as possible. and he says, well, I agree. So let's work on that. So I drive to my corporate lawyer in Columbia, and I explain the situation to him,

and he says, so you're saying you've got four or five loans on this one house? I'm like, yeah, it's like 400,000. He goes, what about this other house? And I said, oh, I've got like $900,000 on that one. And he goes, okay, well, Gary, that's a problem. And now I've got two lawyers. There are two lawyers, and they're like,

this is the problem. My immediate problem is paying these guys back the $1,60. Right now. So let's pay them back to 160. And he goes, okay, we can, I'll, I'll call the guy. So he calls up and he says, listen, you know, 160,000. He can work this out. Let's work this out.

And I said, okay. And, you know, we go back and forth and I'm like, look, he wants 160. I'm like, look, I'll give him the 160. He's like, whoa, they also want the prepayment penalty. I'll pay the prepayment penalty. Okay, well, they also want the first month. Well, that's ridiculous. It's only been a week.

I'm like, I'll pay the first month payment. Right. Come on, man. Just pay him everything they want. Right. So they come up with whatever, 165. I forget that the number. So I say, okay, okay, okay.

So he hangs at the phone, he says, great. You got to go get a cashier check. I remember they wanted me to go into the bank, like a Washington Mutual Branch and bring them, I said, I'm not going into Washington. That's not happening. Right. So I said, I'll get a cashier check and bring it to you.

He goes, okay. They write up an agreement where they agree that it's a, it's not a criminal matter. It's a creative financing error. and that it's a civil matter and that it's being taken care of. So they fell out the paperwork. No big deal.

They fax it back and forth. I sign it. I remember the lawyer, this is the funny part about this, is that the two lawyers are sitting there and he says, okay, well, what are we going to do about the other mortgages? And I go,

what do you mean? He was, Gary, you've got multiple mortgages on all these properties. And I went, right, right? And he said, well, this is an issue. He's what if these other lenders find out about the mortgages? and I went, well, I leave town. And he goes, and he said, no, and they laugh. They go, Gary, that's not going to work.

They've got your day to birth. They have your social security number. They're going to find you. And I go, you're assuming I'm Gary Sullivan. Right. And the look on their faces was just like. Yeah, they didn't even think of that. Right.

And he goes, well, we'll cross that bridge when it comes out. I said, that's right. Let me get the check. That's right. So I go get the check. I come back. I give him the check. And I remember he said, okay, well, I need money for my fee.

And I said, well, what's your fee? It's a couple hours work. And he goes, I think $1,500 is good. I said, okay. So I pull out, start counting out cash. He goes, well, we typically, I don't take cash. I take a check. And I said, after what you just heard, you take a check from me.

Yeah, right. And he goes, I'll take cash. He pays them. That's good. They're good. We're all happy. I keep pulling money out of the bank. Becky's happy.

Becky and I decide once we pull all the money out because we're close to getting all the money at this point I've been pulling out money we got six seven hundred thousand dollars out of the bank we still have a chunk of other money we've got we've got a chunk of money so so we're we've decided we're going to move to Houston Texas so she's moved to Houston Texas she lives in Houston now downtown Houston amazing building and so she's in Texas and yeah she is already in Texas yeah she was in Texas so I go into the bank one day I go into Wachovia I walk into Wachovia as Gary Sullivan typically when I walked in a place I only had information on me that was specific to that person right so you don't get it mixed up Right.

Happened to have a, I happen to have a Michael Eckert driver's license in my, my wallet. I walk in, I go up to the teller, I say I need nine grand in cash. She goes, okay. She turns around, she goes, I got to get authorization for that. I said, no problem. She walks in the back. Five minutes go by. I'm standing there.

The whole place is crowded. Next thing I know, boom. somebody pulls my hand behind my back, pulls the other hand behind my back, I turn around, there are these massive, massive sheriff's deputies. I mean, I'm 5'6. I'm 5'7 with a good pair of shoes. I mean, these guys are huge.

So I'm like, hey, they go, hey, they said, hey, they grabbed my ID, and they said, you're being detained. Mr. Sullivan, you're being detained. Come with us. They put the cuffs on me. They walked me in the back. Everybody's staring.

They sit me down in the manager's office. I'm sitting there. And I said, well, what's this about? And they go, all we know is to detain you. Five minutes later, a detective shows up. They were waiting for the detective. I heard detective, I thought, okay, FBI. Because I knew the FBI was already looking for me.

And by this point, when I left Atlanta, the Secret Service had gotten involved. And the Secret Service had placed me on the Secret Service's most wanted list. Because the Secret Service deals with Aggravated with identity theft With anything to do with the With the infrastructure of currency or money of any kind Okay You know

Which is a lot of banking Right They basically took over a massive amount of the FBI Once the FBI kind of shifted towards terrorism Okay They took over a massive amount of that So So

You know they're looking and so anyway I go back I'm waiting I'm handcuffed the detective walks in I'm thinking FBI Secret Service they walk in the guy says he walks in and he says hey Mr. Sullivan you know I'm whatever his name was

you know Richard I'm John Richards Detective Richards and I say okay and he says we were you know we were contacted by Wachovia's the head of Wachovia's fraud department we understand that you've got multiple loans on a piece of property that you borrowed money from. One of the loans you took out was from Wachovia, and you've got, you have, he goes, you've got three loans on one piece of property.

I actually had six loans on that piece of property. So I know they've only caught three. Yeah. So I looked up and I'm and I go, I remember, I said, is that illegal? And he went, you know, I don't know. And I remember right then thinking, I'm walking out of here. Yeah. I'm good.

All I've got to do is convince this guy. I can get out of here. And he goes, you know, I don't understand. under arrest. I go, I'm not. I feel like I'm under arrest. I show him the cuffs. He goes, oh, yeah, can you take those off him? So they take the cuffs off. And I said, what's going on? He goes, I don't know. Let's get Wachovia's head of security on the phone. They get him on the phone. He started saying, this guy is running a shotgunning scam. He's borrowing so many mortgages on the house. We couldn't catch it in time. And he's removing all the money in cash. And he said,

you're removing all the money in cash? I said, I am removing in cash. And he said, why? And I said, Well, because I work for a day labor company, and I had, I pull out my, I have a, I have a little business card. Day labor, it says I'm a site manager, Gary Sullivan, site manager, labor on demand. And I said, what happens is I said, we cut these guys checks and they have to go cash the checks and they charge them like 10%. So I usually just cash their checks for them. I said, I mean, I don't know if that's illegal.

And he goes, no, that's nice. That's fine. I'm like, oh, okay. So the guy says, listen, he this, he that, he's got multiple first mortgages. And I went, okay, well, I read every one of the mortgages I took out. None of them said first mortgage because it's actually the placement of the mortgage that determines whether it's a first second or third mortgage. And not, it doesn't really say anything on the mortgage. So he's like, he's like, you know, oh, that's the best.

So he's, I'm unraveling his little thing that he's trying to convince him. And I'm saying, no, no, I read the things. It didn't say, why didn't he take them all out from the same bank? I said, well, you know, I don't know. I came to Wachovia. I know Wachovia knows they're in first position. So I said, I borrowed a first mortgage from Wachovia. I told them that I needed like half a million dollars.

So the loan officer at Wachovia had a friend at, and I go, shoot, what was the name? What's the name of the other lender? And he goes, and he tells me, oh, SunTrust. I'm like, right, SunTrust, and they gave me a second mortgage. Well, the girl at SunTrust said she could give me additional money for a second and for a home equity line of credit. This guy, that's not a home equity line of credit. He's lying. And I'm like, look, this is what happened.

Then I signed that, and they gave me the money, and I don't understand. What did I do wrong? And he's like, yeah, I'm not sure what he did wrong. I mean, it sounds to me. I go, sounds to me like they got a problem with the bank. Our loan officers didn't do anything wrong. So he's screaming. And then he goes, look at his ID.

Look at his ID. And he goes, okay. He looks at the, I only had an ID, not a driver's license. Because I had a vehicle that was in the name Michael Eckers. So I didn't need a driver's license And he goes, yeah He goes, it starts with zero zero zero zero He goes no no our

Our ID start with zero zero zero zero He goes, it's a fake ID He goes no I ran him through NCIC It's his real ID He is Gary Sullivan And I went oh now I'm not Gary Sullivan I go come on man What are we doing here?

What are we doing? And he goes So you already got that guy Count missed At that point You already know You're like your gold Getting out here

Oh the two Sheriff's are still standing there. Deputies are still there. So he goes, he's screaming and hollering, and he's telling him to calm down. I go, look, man, I think they got a problem in the bank. I wouldn't know how to do this. I said, I work for a labor company. What I'm going to trick the bank out of half a million dollars?

Come on. I own two houses here in the area. And he goes, that's right. He says, yeah, he owns two houses. He, yeah. So he goes, look, I don't even know if he's committed to crime yet. I'm going to bring him downtown. We're going to fill out a police report.

And I'm going to see what the district attorney says. He hangs up on me. guy. Guy's furious. I get up to leave. And he says, Gary, this is a South Carolina ID. Do you have a driver's license? And I went, I do, but it's in Nevada.

I don't know if Gary Sullivan has one in Nevada. Right. I have no clue. He's a homeless. Right. Homeless guy, right. Homeless, yeah. You know, prostitute.

Yeah. Yeah, right. So this, so the, the, the, he's given a reach around. So the detective says, he goes, oh, that's right. He goes, you're from, I forgot, you're from Las Vegas. And I right then remember that he had said he pulled me through NCIC. So he knows Gary Sullivan's been arrested twice for prostitution. Oh, shit.

So I thought, no. I looked over at the deputies and these guys are glancing at each other, smiling. And I thought, son of a bitch. I don't think you're a male prostitute. I was a male prostitute a few years ago. And I went, fuck. And the guy goes, one of the cops grabs the ID and says, I'll check to see if he's got a driver's license. He walks off.

He comes back and he says, yeah, he's got a valid driver's license in Nevada. And the deputy goes, he checks out. He says everything's good. It's valid. He goes, yeah, yeah, it's valid. He says, well, it says he's five foot 10. And they all look at me and I go, well, fellas with a good pair of shoes. And they go, ha, ha, Gary, follow us back to the police station.

so I'm driving back to the police station with the cruiser behind me and the deputy's car in the front of me my phone rings and it's Becky and I go hey what's going on and she says oh my god I've got like 40 missed calls by the way oh my god what are you doing what are you doing I said okay I

you're not going to believe this I said I just got detained I'm being driven back to the police station I have to fill out a police report and I explain what happens and she goes get on the interstate, get out of there, get out. I said, I can't, there's a cop behind me, I can't. I got to play this out.

I said, listen, five minutes ago I was in handcuffs. I can do this. I can get out of this. I'm good. She says, you don't understand. You're number one on the Secret Service's most wanted list. They just raised you to the number one. She said, you got to get out.

I said, look, I can't. I can't. I said, look, the worst case scenario is this. I'll get arrested. You get me a lawyer. Get me out. She goes, I'm not getting you out on bond. I'm not getting you a lawyer.

she goes, I'm not risking everything I have to try and get you out of jail. She's got all the money. Oh, fuck. So I'm going, so well, I guess I better not get arrested. Yeah, right. So I hang up the phone.

I go in there. I fill out the police report. I wait. He won't let me wait in his cube. He says, can you wait in the hallway? I got to go talk to my, whatever, lieutenant, whatever. Right.

I wait in the hallway. In the hallway, there's all of these posters, there's one color poster, which is my Secret Service's most wanted poster. A picture of you. A picture of me. Now keep in mind, I've had plastic surgery. With their real name on it. Oh,

Matt Cox. Yeah. Now keep in mind, I've had plastic surgery by this point. I've had liposuction. I had a nose job. I had what's called a mini facelift. I got porcelain veneers. I had two hair graphs. This isn't my real hair. Really? Yeah, it's from the

back of my head. It's my head. It's my hair. I paid for it. You know. You did all this because I did not want to go to prison. Okay. So you wanted to alter your, yeah, looked on purpose to avoid being caught. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Okay. I'm not sure what else I would, like, I don't know. I don't know if you, you mean vanity? Maybe you just. Oh, no, it's definitely vanity too. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I'm a straight narcissist. I got, you know, there was there was room for improvement. Right. So if I could have made myself taller. Right, you would have paid for that too, right.

And you can, but. Can you really? Oh, yeah, you can get, there's like two different ways. One, they extend your legs. They actually break your legs, and then they have a thing where they actually extend the bone. And the bone grows together, so it's a slow process. Oh, shit. So the other one is they take like a piece of coral, and they actually cut it and they slip the coral.

Either way, you're immobile for several months. Yeah, fuck that. Okay. My problem was that Becky was. Do you actually look into doing that? Yeah. Really? Becky, listen, I'm all in.

Yeah. If I'm doing something, I'm all in. So Becky was a lunatic. She's bipolar. She wouldn't take her, what was the medication they wanted her take? Like, she'd take it for like a month, get better, and then she'd get off of it. And then she'd be like a lunatic. She'd had the police called on me twice, like woke me up in the middle of night, screaming.

And the police come, and I laughed and the cops show up. And I'm not there. And they're like, look, if somebody was, if two people are here, or somebody's got to go to jail. Right. So I'm like, she's going to get me arrested. This happened twice. So I can't have her watch me for three months while I'm laying in bed immobile.

That's insane. Who knows what she'd do to me? Yeah, that ain't going to work. So at this point, we're not even together anymore. I got in her, we both have two separate apartments in Charlotte. She lives in a condo, and I live in another condo, both in downtown Charlotte. it. So I'm terrified of her. She's got all the money because she's afraid I'm going to leave her, which I would have. I mean, there was multiple times I tried to leave. She'd call me up and beg and

plead, come back, come back, come back, please, I'm sorry, I messed up. I messed up. I'll take the medication. I'm going to, I'm going to be better. I'm sorry. I love you. Please don't do this. I can't do this without you. Okay, fine. I'll turn around. I come back. So at this point, she's now, I go in there. I'm in the police station. She's not, she's telling me she's not going to pick me up if I get arrested. The detective goes and talks to the lieutenant. He comes back. What about your poster on the wall? It was on the wall, but it's among a bunch of, but I mean, literally, imagine this. As I look over and I see it, he walks up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. He goes, you ready to go? I'm like, oh, my God. So, so ready to go. So we walk

off, we get in the elevator, we get downtown. I don't know if you've ever been a police station, but, you know, like, I couldn't have left. Like, to get, they have like a code in the elevator, to get down, to get up. I mean, there's all. all these doors. You're not leaving. You're not getting in and you're not leaving. So I'm just, I'm done.

They were behind me. They escorted me there. I mean, they got to let you out. Right. A lot of people are like, why didn't you just take off it? And what?

They're behind me. I'm not, you know, I'm not a race car driver. I can't outrun the police. I can't outrun the radio or the helicopter. I have to go to the bank. Right.

And then they're like, well, when he walked off, why didn't you leave? It's a done. I can't get out. I'm not an escape artist. So he walks me out and he lets me leave.

I get in the car. I go to leave. I pick up the phone. She's been calling. Pick up the phone and she's first thing she says is, I go, I pick up the phone. And listen, I lay in you. I just start screaming at her.

She's like, I was on my way. I'm putting everything in the car right now. I'm coming to get you. I'm like, I'm lying. Yeah. So anyway, I remember she's like, Okay, okay, you're going. Great, get on the interstate guard.

I said, no, no, I'm going to go to a couple more banks. What? Straight from the police station. Straight from the police station. I go to two more banks. I get out more money. The third bank. How much money?

Not much. 9,000. Okay. You know, 8,000. Yeah. Next one I walk into, I see the person that's fine, and they look at me and they're like immediately go for the phone and I realize, okay, no. Turn around.

I get in my car, I leave. One of the girls runs out and watches my car as I leave. Just like right now in the tag. Holy shit. There was more to it than I did. It's getting hot. I don't know. So I leave, go back to Charlotte, pack up all my stuff in a U-Haul van, leave my car in the parking garage, and I drive all the way to Houston.

I get to Houston. Becky and I get into this massive fight. Argument, just say an argument. And it started because I said, look, I mean, I got there. I was like, you know, I said, look, I said, I need to check out. real estate, figure out where I'm going to live. She's like, oh, you can't stand that idea of living with me, can you? You can't stay with me for even a few weeks.

I'm so disgusting. You can't. I'm like, what the hell is going on? What are you doing? She's screaming and hollering. Then I, this is in the car. I remember we getting the elevator. We're going up.

There's some girl in the elevator that was like amazing. You know, have you ever been with your girlfriend? And you're like, you see some chick and you're like, oh, guy, look away. Don't look. Becky's staring at me. You can feel her staring at you. Yeah, she's staring at me. over here and I'm just like

this is so bad she's already borderline insane right she's gonna snap right the elevator door opens I walk out and I remember she goes oh you just love to fuck that skank wouldn't you I remember thinking she's probably a very nice yeah hell yeah what are you doing you know you know the girl's like did she say skank

so we go in we get to this huge argument in her apartment and I say look I'm just I'm done I'm leaving and I said we're splitting up the money and she's we're not splitting the money. She says, I'm keeping the money. I don't know what it was, six or seven hundred thousand dollars.

And she's like, I'm keeping, I'm keeping the money. And I went, no, no, no, we're splitting it. I'm leaving. And I remember she said, no, no. She goes, no, she said, you can go somewhere else and commit another, do another con. I'm stuck. I can't do what you're doing. And so I went, okay, well, what do you think's fair? And she said, I think $10,000 is fair. I think $10,000. What am I going to do with $10,000?

I can't get an apartment and I can't do all the things I need to do. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I'm going to bust tables? Come on. Let's be reasonable. So we start arguing back and forth, back and forth. Finally, she says $100,000. So I go, okay, count out $100,000.

She gives me $100,000 and I leave. And the American Greed episode, they say that she, like, went in the shower. Right. And I left your phone on the bed or something? Oh, yeah, they said you left. When I left my phone, because every time I tried to leave her before, she would call me and it would guilt me into coming back. And this time, I remember thinking, no, no.

Yep, she can't guilt me now. I'm done. It's over. You take the $100,000. I leave. And the only reason was because she was saying she's not going to pick me up. Yeah. So you weren't going to pick me up. Right.

We're done. Yeah, you already know you can't trust her. I can't count on her. So we're done. So I leave. How much money you leave her with? It's probably $500,000 she probably had. Jeez.

So she's good. Yeah, she's straight for a while. She went and got a job or did whatever. She could be okay for her. She could buy a house. She gets longer that money. So anyway, we leave or I leave. I get my car.

I drive. And on my way, this was another huge mistake of mine. On my way, I stop into like, I drive through like Baton Rouge or something. And I get a track phone. And I call home. And I call a few people. And I'd every once in a while I would do that when I was somewhere else. I'd call just to check up my mom, my dad, you know.

So I call. and I call a friend of mine and she says, look, call the FBI agent, see if you can turn yourself in. At this point, I'm pretty strung out. I'm pretty exhausted. I've had a bad couple days. So I'm thinking, okay,

so I call the FBI agent, name was Candice Calderon. Candice is like a law enforcement zealot and really, really did not like me. Just despised me. I don't know why. Everybody else was very pleasant. So very professional.

Candace was just vicious to me. And so I remember, I called her and I said, hey, my name is Matt Cox. I understand you wanted me to call you. And she's like, oh my God, yeah, Mr. Cox, we've been looking for you. I said, yeah, I understand that. She said, yeah, I need you to turn yourself in. I said, no, I'm not going to do that. And she said, well, let's talk about this.

And she said, I go, well, what am I going to get? How much time? And she said, well, I mean, that's not really how it works. You turn yourself in. Then we determine we take that into consideration. I said, yeah, I'm not. Yeah, right. That's not going to have.

I'm not doing that. And she goes, well, I can talk to the U.S. attorney and see if he can recommend something. And okay. So she's like, you do understand we're going to catch you. And I go, I'm not sure how. She says, well, I mean, let's face it, she's eventually you'll get pulled over by the police. I said, I've been pulled over by the police. She goes, well, you'll go to get a ticket.

You'll try and hand them. A driver's license. I said, I've handed him driver's license. As a matter of fact, I've gotten like four tickets in different people's names. I actually went to traffic school as another guy recently. I'd gotten like three tickets in his name. He was going to lose his license. I had a car in his name.

I had to go. Jesus. So, plus it was eight hours I didn't have to spend with Becky. Right. So I'm telling her this. And she's like, you know, oh, you know, you're so cocky. She said, you think you're not going to get away. You know, eventually you'll get caught.

you'll get you'll you'll you'll she said you'll go home to see somebody somebody will recognize you you'll get pulled over you'll somebody something will happen i said listen nobody's going to recognize me said i've had multiple plastic surgeries i mean you know and if you actually look at the pictures of me i mean i look vastly different they actually anyway it's another story point is is i'm like look nobody's going to recognize me i got multiple driver's licenses i've got passports in other people's name. I've been in and out of the country. I said, there's nobody in Tampa that I want to see. So unless we work something out, you're never going to have this conversation with me in person. And so she says, okay, she calms down. I remember she said, what she said? She kept calling me

sweetie. Listen, sweetie. And she goes, I remember she said, you don't realize how close we are to catching you. She's, we're 90% sure of where you're at. I go, yeah, well, only 100% count, sweetie. and she was just like oh she hated me but see she was cocky and I was copy and I shouldn't have been like I shouldn't have you know just gotten down there and started being snide back to it

but she was so arrogant right you know and arrogant people hate arrogant people I can't you know so I really her her condescension was just like so we go back and forth back and forth by the way when I was eventually sentenced this is brought up in front of the judge

and instead of me calling to turn myself in and try and figure out how to turn myself in and get a try and work out a deal, it turned into Mr. Cox constantly called the FBI and mocked them. What are you talking about? I called a couple times. So anyway, I hang up the phone. And when she says, she goes, okay, I'll call you back. I'll wait a minute. I'll call you back. She was just leave your phone on. I go, no, I said, because I'm going to shut my phone off. She goes, just leave your phone on. I went, I said, no, you're probably tracking this phone right now. you're trying to triangulate it or something.

And she goes, she says, oh, get over yourself. She goes, you're not that important. And I remember thinking, yeah, she's right. Who do I think I'm nobody? They're not trying to track the phone. It's just stupid. Come to find out when I later ordered the Freedom of Information Act, they were tracking the phone out of Baton Rouge,

and they'd actually sent two U.S. Marshals to the 7-Eleven where I'd bought the phone, where I was sitting talking to her on the phone. Really? So it just so happens that I hung up the phone and I turned it off and told her I called back in a couple hours and I got up and I got in my vehicle and started driving. So I was driving when I called her back a few hours later and I called and she said, look, I talked to Robert Moszikowski, which is the U.S. attorney here in Florida and Tampa. She says, I can get you seven years. Seven years. And I thought, that's seven years.

And she doesn't even know about the other stuff. I already told her, look, there's other stuff you don't know about. She was, yeah, but if you come in first and you tell us about it, we don't charge you. We'll take it into consideration. So I thought, if I tell her about the money and this and that, I might be okay. Anyway, I was like, I'm not doing seven years. And she says, look, we can maybe work something out. And I go, okay, well, what about in Atlanta?

What about for Atlanta? And she's like, well, you need to turn yourself into Tampa. So we start going back and forth, back and forth. And eventually, like, what about the Secret Service? She's like, look, you need to turn yourself into the FBI in Tampa. Just come back to Tampa. And I went, well, yeah, but I'm closer to Atlanta. Maybe I should just turn myself in Atlanta.

And eventually it comes out that I'm like, look, I've mentioned Atlanta several times. You won't even address it. Did you talk to the U.S. attorney in Atlanta? And she goes, finally she says, no, I didn't talk to the U.S. attorney in Atlanta. I can only speak for Tampa. I go, so the seven years is only for Tampa. And she goes, yes. I said, oh, yeah, we're done.

We're done. I wouldn't believe you if you told me water was wet. It's over. And I just chucked the phone out, out the window. I kept on going. I go all the way back. I have to stay at a hotel, whatever. I end up going back to Charlotte to get my car.

I don't have a vehicle. I'm driving a rider truck. Wow. So I dropped the rider truck. We'd emptied it, by the way. We'd emptied it. Now Becky has all my furniture. She's got like $50,000 with a furniture and all the money.

Yeah. So I've got like my clothes and $100,000, which is not a bad start. I admit. And I have a certain skill set. So I'm going to be okay. But I have no. My ID, like I have an ID that's questionable because she knows, for all I know, she's calling up saying, hey, this guy is traveling on this. I don't know. So I can't, everything's tainted.

So I go back to Charlotte. I drop off the rider truck. I take a taxi back to the apartment where my car's parked. And I remember thinking I'd gotten several phones on my cell phone from the detective to Michael Eckert. So he'd put together that Gary Sullivan and Michael Eckert were the same person. So I know they've probably tracked me back to Charlotte. So I go there, I see my car, I look around, and I remember thinking if the car's okay, they haven't been here. They're not here. So I get the car, I drive down the parking garage, I pull out, I go across the street, across the street from the apartment complex, from the condo, whatever place that I'm staying in downtown Charlotte. And I go to Starbucks.

I need a Starbucks. Pull my car up to Starbucks I've got a Infinity, the two-door sports car Infinity like a super, you know, G something. So,

brand new. So I pull up, I get out, I go into the Starbucks, I'm standing there, I'm waiting, and I see two people from the leasing office

and they're giving me weird looks. And it was like the sixth, fifth or sixth. And I remember thinking my rents do on the first, but I hadn't paid it because I'm leaving. Mm-hmm.

And I'm looking at them. They're really, they're whispering to each other. There's something going on. There's a real issue between the two of them. But I'm not thinking anything. I just picked up my car. If anybody had tracked me back here, I'm good. So I missed them.

So finally, one of the people leaves. The woman, the female leasing agent walks out the back. They call this guy's order. He gets the order. He's got in his little styrophone tray. I get my order. I walk outside. He follows me.

I get in my car. What I didn't know, the time was that the female leasing agent had gone across the street and gotten the U.S. marshals who were currently interviewing people at the apartment complex. They are now running back to the Starbucks. So I get in my car, and when I get in my car, the guy is sitting there and he starts screaming. He's right here. He's right here.

And I look in the rearview mirror and the marshals are running on foot running. I had already started the car, so I just hit the gas and I just drive off. And they're standing in the middle of the street and they call. I actually have a Freedom of Information Act that says that they had called and put out a Bolo for, you know, for, you know, for, for you on your car, be on the lookout for. Okay. And the name of the tag number of the vehicle. Yeah. So I went straight to a homeless facility, not even half a mile away.

I pull over. I have no, okay, I'm terrified, but I've got to get some IDs, and I saw a few guys standing outside. So I get out of the car. I walk straight over Listen, it's not easy to find like a 35-year-old 36-year-old White guy who's homeless. If he was African-American,

fine. They're everywhere. If I was 50, if a 50-year-old white guy, 60-year-old white guy, you could find them. But we're talking about a 35-year-old guy. So I see these three guys. I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to pull over. That's him.

Pull over, walk out. Hey, my name's John. I'm Salvation Army. I'm doing a survey. I take the survey. I end up getting several IDs I think Walter Holcomb

One of them was a guy named Joseph Marion Carter Jr. And I went by Carter. I didn't want to go by Joseph. I'd be Joe. I don't want to be a Joe. I'm not a Joe.

Joe's a kind of guy that's kind of a tough guy. He could, you know, you can puke in his car. He's cool. He drinks with you. You know what I'm saying? I'm not Joe.

I'm not a Joe. Carter. I don't want to be. I don't want to be Marion. I'm going to pick on. I don't want to be a junior. So I go with Carter. So I go with Carter.

I immediately drive to Nashville, walk into Nashville, go to Nashville, go to Green Hills, happen to see a guy. I immediately get a cell phone and I get a business card made for manufactured funding group, which is who I said I worked for. Drive through Green Hills, see a guy putting a sign in the front yard of a house, which is actually a duplex.

Green Hills is a really nice area in Nashville. See him. I get out. I walk over and I say, hey, I'm new to the area. I'm looking for a place to stay. And he goes,

okay. And I walk in the place. I come back. And he says, it's great. And I say, hey, here's my business card.

I don't really have a reference right now. Is there any way I can give you double the security deposit? I don't really have any credit. I don't know. I don't have any idea what this guy Carter's got. I don't know. I still have to go get a kid's social security number issued. So he said, so the guy looks at me, I remember they looked at me, he goes, you look like an honest guy.

And I remember thinking, I'm going to do well. Do I really? You dumb motherfucker. I am going to do well here. So he said, give me the first month security, sign this. No problem. By the end of the day, I got my electric water. By like the next day, they turned the electric water on.

I'm good. I've ordered furniture. I then drive. I then. within a week I've got a driver's license I ordered all of Carter's information I get all the information

I get a driver's license I drive the car back to Charlotte I leave it in long term That same car? Same car all the way back Not worried about getting pulled over in that car? Terrified. Why don't you get rid of it? I don't want them to find it in Nashville Okay so I drive it all the way back

Park long term get on a plane Fly back Go immediately buy a new car no credit convince them to give me a new car 20% down get a new car go back

driver's license passport completely set up within a month or two I'm buying houses again all over again I borrowed

3.5 million in Nashville wow I meet this girl named Amanda she's amazing and oh, man. Anyway, yeah, she was like 25. At this point, I'm 26.

No, she's 24, I'm 26. No, I'm sorry, what am I saying? She's 24 and I was 36. Okay. I turned 37. We dated for about a year. We, you know, we traveled all over the place. We went to, gosh, we went to Italy.

We went to Croatia. So you're doing this all over again. You're making money. Yeah. I have to have like $100,000. I'm broke. So I pull out a bunch more money. I meet Amanda.

Amanda's amazing. And we're doing great. And I remember we went to Venice. And it had been about a year. And by this point, it's by this point Becky's been arrested. Oh shit. Becky is a gangster, by the way.

I was just about to ask what happened to Becky. Becky gets grabbed. What happens with Becky is she ends up confiding in a family member where she's the general vicinity of what she's at and that she's currently in beauty school so her family member calls the Secret Service says she's in a beauty school in this city she's wanted to yeah still yeah but her family member you know she it wasn't like she was malicious she just you know wanted her back yeah so they come in guns drawn the whole thing on her.

Get on the ground, get on the ground. The Secret Service agent told me the whole time from the moment they handcuffed her to the moment they got her all the way back, she bitched and moaned the whole time saying, I don't, my name is Rebecca Sue Hickey. I don't know who Rebecca Halk is.

You guys made a mistake. You're going to lose your job. You've embarrassed me. I'm going to sue you. I'm going to. So she just played that card the whole time. Oh, scream in the hall. They said all the way up to the point when they put her hand down on like the scanner.

And she goes, okay, all right. It's me. I'm Rebecca Halk. What do you want to know? Holy shit. And I remember thinking, and he was like, it was like an hour. They said, I mean, she was. They're like, it's you.

We know it's you. So what did she tell him once she got caught? The first thing they said is, where's Matt Cox? And she said, I have no clue. He left me like a year ago. and so they're like damn she didn't know where I am yeah so at this point

I'm borrowing money at this point what's happened is Amanda and I are one day sitting in the dentist office and she picks up a a Bloomberg business week and keep in mind the St. Petersburg Times which is now the Tampa Bay Times

there's a guy like Testerman Jeff Testerman Okay yeah they did roughly 35 articles on me Tampa Tribune did articles The what was it The Chicago

Tribune did them They did a whole series Called the Fugitive The Atlanta Journal Constitution The I mean It just goes You know

So it's It's everywhere At this point Datelines putting together A segment I was in Fortune Magazine Did a whole segment

On Becky and her take Of the whole Womanizer Manipulator You know That whole thing. The, the, the, forcing

boob jobs, forcing her to leave her son, you know, just, are you serious? So, you know, a bad guy, you know. So anyway, it's, uh, so I'm with, uh, Amanda and we had, I remember we were going through the, um, Mediterranean. We were on, uh, took a cruise.

So it sounds rough. Doesn't it sounds like a rough life. I remember looking over. over at Amanda, my, at this point, she's like 25, I'm like 37. She knows what you're doing in your whole deal? She knows. Yeah. And I look over at her, she's 25 bathing suit.

We're on a European cruise ship going through the Mediterranean. Oh, you're living the good life. And I'm like, this is so worth it. Yeah. Wow. It wasn't, by the way. It wasn't worth the prison term. But I remember thinking this is one of those moments.

Yeah. This is amazing. People are calling me, you know, Mr. Carter. Yeah. I'm walking through passport. It's like, smell the roses. Yeah, I'm walking, well, I'm walking through passport control. Boom, hi, Mr. Carter.

Are you giving them a passport? I mean, it's like James Bond. You feel like James Bond. When you walk into, when you walk into Bank of America, and you give them a bunch of false documents, and they're calling you Mr. Black. Yeah. And they give you a check for $250,000,

and then thank you for ripping them off. Yeah. You walk out like, this is, this is, this is better than the money. Yeah. Forget the money. It's a thrill, right? Living in a movie.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. It really is. And, you know, right up until that sentencing. Yeah. So anyway, what happens is Amanda and I start seeing a girl. Amanda lives with me. Yeah.

We start seeing a girl. I dated this girl. Like one time. And Amanda, you know, you're with a girl. And, you know, eventually. they start saying you ever been interested in being with two women and I'm like of course like you know hell yeah I'm like no I would never do that I you know have you ever done that I'm like yes once it's bumpy and awkward it's just it's just it's not my thing and and she's like really I'm like no

of course I'm course yes yeah she's like do you would you be interested I'm like absolutely of course you know I was like actually I said no no baby but I'll do it for you out of love for you Yeah. I'm not interested. Yeah. But I'll do it for you. So anyway, we start seeing this girl. She comes over every once in a while. And what ends up happening is Amanda finds out that

Dateline's coming out. Dateline's going to do a one-hour special. And now I realize I just can't stay here anymore. You know, I like the United States. I didn't really want to leave the United States because I know, I knew how to, basically I knew how to run a scam in the United States. I don't really know what it's going to be like in another country, but I know I can't stay here.

So we've got a few million. We've got, unfortunately, we have a million or so, at least in real estate. So the money's all over the place, but we got some money. So we decide, look, we're going to get a couple, two, three million dollars out, and then I'll take off. I've got a month or so. I've got the real estate. I satisfy all the loans on everything I have.

We start borrowing. We start having people get cash for us. one of the things was this the girl she ends up getting Amanda ends up asking her to cash some checks I don't know that that's what sparked

the conversation but somehow or another Amanda ends up telling her why she's like you understand he's leaving he's going to Australia we already researched done the research on Australia you can become a at that time you could become a permanent resident alien

you didn't have to actually get fingerprints or anything you could go there you get a driver's license you get a lot, even though you can't work there, but you can open a business. So you have to show up with like $200,000. Well, I'm showing up with millions. Yeah. So I'm good. So we decide I'm going to go.

Amanda's going to come with me. And while we're pulling out the cash, it ends up that this girl contacts the secret service and negotiates a reward for turning me in. And she turns me in and one day I'm coming back to the apartment. We'd had a robbery, like a home invasion, a couple nights beforehand. So I pull up, I get out of the car. About the same time, I'm on the phone with Amanda. Amanda tells me, oh, my God, I think something went wrong.

And I'm like, what do you mean? She says, I just got a phone call from this other girl. Her name was Trina from Trina. And she's asking me where I am. She's asking me a bunch of questions. She asked if I was at the office, like, didn't want her to go to the house. And she was, I think she may have done something. I'm like, done what?

She didn't know anything. And then Amanda's like, I think I fucked up. And so I'm like, what do you mean you fuck? And I'm getting out of the car and everything. And, you know, realizing she's not really telling me, but I'm realizing something's wrong. And that's the Secret Service show up and guns and get on the ground, get on the ground. And I just remember blanking out. Like, I didn't even get on the ground.

I'm just like, just... Yeah, you just weren't expected it then. But you knew that was it. You knew that was the end. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, then I lay down. They like, he was, get on the ground. The guy gets all the way up to me with the gun.

He's like, and that's the first... Like, there's so many people yelling. I just kind of like, blanked out. I remember he goes, he comes right up to me. He goes, get on the ground. And I was like, oh, oh. So I get on the ground. They cuff me, picks me up.

They hold up the poster and they're like, is that him? He's like, it's not him. He's like, no, it's him. It's him. So they kind of go, okay, his enemy goes, yeah, definitely him, it's definitely him. So he's like, hey, Mr. Cox, he said, we've been looking for you. You are Matt Cox, right? And I went, yeah, Matt Cox, yeah.

Unlike Becky, who went gangster all the way. Yeah, immediately. Okay, you got him. Yeah. So, yeah, so, wow. They drive me back, and I eventually, I end up doing Dateline. Because when I got caught, the government asked me to be interviewed by Dateline. So I was interviewed by Dateline.

And, you know, they started off saying I'd stolen $26 million. And we argued for a while until I got them down. Wow. And then eventually the PSI, which is your pre-sentence report, that they said that there was $9.5 million in loss. I argued about that. I got it down to $6 million. And I ended up getting sentenced.

And I was sentenced. I thought I was going to get 12 years. And instead... You took a plea for that? I took what's called an open plea, which means you get whatever the PSI says. Well, my lawyer looked at the PSI and she said, well, we can figure it out. You do this, this, this, this.

She's like, you're in between 12 to 14 years. Okay. I understand. So we go in thinking 12 to 14 years. Plus, I'd done the interview for Dateline, which they said they were going to consider substantial assistance, and they were going to reduce my sentence. They were going to put in something called a 5K1

to reduce your sentence based on this interview they asked me to do. Technically, a 5K1 is for cooperation against your co-defendants, but I don't have any co-defendants. Becky's been caught. Everybody else in Tampa

has either cooperated and been sentenced or was not subject to be indicted or they were going to indict them, but it had been so long it hadn't happened. So I just did, the interview. You know,

not that, not that I wouldn't have cooperated and didn't fully intend to cooperate, I'm ready to cut anybody's head off to get out of this. Yeah. I'm no, I'm no gangster.

I mean, you got these guys that are like, I'm going to do the time. I did, okay, well, you do that, bro.

But I'm not interested in having my son call another guy dad or have my mother visit me in prison for the next 10 years because I want to act like I'm some kind of tough guy. I filled out paperwork. Yeah.

You know, that's the extent of my car. I filled out some paperwork. I borrowed some money. There's no guns. I'm not getting into a shootout. But there's just nobody. It's not possible. So I do the interview and they said they'd reduce my sentence for it.

Well, I get in there. I'm thinking 12 years. I got a PSI says 26. And then the night before, my lawyer's like, yeah, but this doesn't apply. This doesn't apply. Don't worry. We're going to talk in front of the judge.

We're going to get that knocked off. She seemed very confident. And plus you're going to get your sentence reduced. Well, then, night before the U.S. attorney says, yeah, I'm not going to reduce the sentence. It's not enough. So I go into sentencing and my lawyer argues in front of the judge and judge just says, no, I disagree. I disagree. I disagree. I think that applies. I disagree. I think that applies. I disagree. I disagree. I think that applies. So every time he says I disagree, that 12 years keeps going up to 26. Wow.

To 26. He sentences me to 26. I get 26 years. And where is this? In Florida? This was in Atlanta. All of my cases were consolidated. In Atlanta. Tennessee, Atlanta, South Carolina, Tampa were all consolidated there. Holy shit, dude. 26 years.

It was a bad day. That was a bad day. Yeah, what is that day like after you get sentenced for 26? I mean, talk about, like, if I really set... Are you trying to talk your way out of it still somehow? What? Afterwards? Anything, yeah.

After the sentence you. I'm done. Yeah, you give up at that point. Well, you know, you always hold out hope. You know, doesn't mean? Yeah, definitely. Like, if you can't psychologically, I couldn't sit down and say, oh, I'm just going to do the time. Yeah.

I've got, you know, I'm, look, you know, it doesn't sound good. I'm a schemer. Mm-hmm. I'm always looking for an angle. Yeah. I'm always trying to figure out how to get around something, through something, over something. You know, I'm trying to figure out something. So I'm trying to figure out how do I get out.

out of this. Yeah. But that day, when you get 26 years and you're walking down, you know, that hallway, I mean. Right, you're trying to just digest all that. It's a bad thing. I mean, talking about just being just fundamentally just fractured to the core. I mean, I tell you right now, I've never, you know, and based on like, might be talking

about it, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, you know, it's a lot of laughing and joking and I'm very proud of myself. Yeah, and good stories. And it's the narcissist in me that finds it comical and funny. And it's very surface. You know, I don't, like I said, I don't really think about the fact that the Browns had to go through hell trying to fix their house. I told myself they're just going to fill out some paperwork. It's going to be fine.

I don't think, I don't really focus on those things. I compartmentalize them. But, you know, that day, I mean, just fractured. my psyche to the point where if I even think about it or focus on it at all, I mean, just, I'm just like an emotional mess. Wow. And going, you know, doing all of those things and then going to prison and then I was sent to a medium because I had so much time.

Well, there's supermaxes, which is like where terrorists go. Nobody goes there. So there's pins. And the pen at Coleman, they have two penitentiaries. And then they have a medium security prison. and they have a low security prison and they have a camp. It's a woman's camp though.

So I went to the medium because I had so much time. And I mean... And it was nonviolent. The medium? No, no, I mean, your crime was a nonviolent crime. Right, I was going to say, listen, the first day when I show up,

yeah, what's that like? I get there. And as soon as I get there, I get my room, like I meet my celly, and I would say, people hear that, and they think it's what you're the guy. You're so meant.

cell mate, you're selling. So I meet my cellie, Mexican guy. Hey, man, what's going on? Oh, you just get here? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I meet him and I'm walking downstairs and I remember all of a sudden they start screaming lockdown, lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. And my cellie runs up to me and he says, hey, hey, hey, he said, celly, celly, you got to go in the cell now. We've got to go in the cell. I'm like, okay, what's going on? And we walk into the cell when we go in the cell. I'm like, what happened? What happened? He said, oh, someone got stabbed on the yard. And I went, someone got stabbed in the, he was in the recreation yard, somebody got stabbed. And I go, my God,

someone died. And he goes, no, no, no, he just got stabbed up a little bit. Stabbed up a little bit. You can understand the different, the world you're in. You're like, stabbed up a little. I mean, it's like, it's like, it's a jumbo shrimp, you know, and it's just a complete contradictory. I'm like, that's where you are now. Yeah. You don't talk to, day one. Oh, this is day one. Listen, I'm at, I'm at, I sit at, I'm sitting at, you know, you go into the cafeteria and you sit down and guys are like, oh, you just get here. Yeah. All right. That's if they talk at all.

Most people just don't even really talk. They're just, you got guys. I complain. I got, well, I just got 26 years. And the one guy's like, yeah, I got 30 for selling, you know, a little bit of crack. The other two guys are leaving in a pine box. They're like, yeah, life, life. So I can't even bitch about my time.

Right. Because this guy got 30 for selling, for bringing a gun to a $10 crack deal and gets 30 years. these two guys are never leaving alive. And so how do you even complain after that? Wow. So, yeah, it took three years before they sent me to the law. You lived like a king for so long. You made so much money.

You traveled the world. And all of that, you get 26 years compared to a guy who just bought some dope at the wrong place at the wrong time. And he got more time than you. That's crazy to think of. Yeah, well, what's not sure. What's crazy is that I remember watching TV, and we were watching the news one day,

and I'm sitting there watching, and this guy had drowned his, like, 11-year-old niece. He was babysitting her, and he drowned her on purpose. And he pled guilty to 13 years. And I remember thinking he got half my sentence for drowning. He killed somebody. On purpose. Yeah, she was playing in a pool,

and she'd splashed him and he told her to stop and he got pissed and he drowned her. And I remember just thinking, wow. So, you know, you can debate the amount of time. You know, it's all relative. Some people would say it wasn't enough. Some people would say it was too much. I feel like it was too much, but then nobody's asking my opinion. Right.

You know, I'm biased. So, yeah, it was, it was a, it was bad day. Bad day. Wow, man. Well, how long is this? We did about two and a half hours. Are you serious? Yeah.

That's a good place to end it, I think, for this one. You got to trim on 30 minutes off of that. No, that's good. We'll let it roll.