Locked In with Ian Bick - Corrupt Undercover Cop Reveals His Crimes, How He Got Caught & Survived Years In Federal Prison | Jamie Buford

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Jamie Buford, a former undercover officer with the South Bend Police Department, saw his career take a turn when he was sentenced to 154 months in federal prison. Once involved in narcotics investigations, Jamie shares his story of corruption, law enforcement's challenges, and the choices that led to his conviction. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he talks about the lines between justice and crime, the pressures of working undercover, and life behind bars. #corruptcops #UndercoverCop #TrueCrime #PoliceCorruption #CrimeExposed #HowHeGotCaught #FromCopToCriminal #prisonstories Thank you to FACTOR & LUCY For sponsoring today’s episode: Factor: Visit FACTORMEALS.com/FACTORPODCAST and use code FACTORPODCAST for 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. Lucy: Let’s level up your nicotine routine with Lucy.  Go to HTTP://LUCY.CO/IANBICK and use promo code (IANBICK) to get 20% off your first order. Lucy has a 30-day refund policy if you change your mind.  Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Connect with Jamie Buford: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamiebuford_1?igsh=cDZlbWNicndzMnhn Email: [e-mail] Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: https://www.ianbick.com/shop Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 Growing Up in South Bend, Indiana 00:07:56 Lessons from Childhood Bullying and Protection 00:15:46 Importance of Weapon Safety Training 00:23:48 Changes in Crime Trends Over the Years 00:31:31 Prosecutorial Discretion and Charges 00:39:18 Upgrade Your Nicotine Experience with Lucy 00:47:15 Handling Evidence with Integrity 00:55:33 Officer Down: A Dramatic Encounter 01:04:03 Unexpected Confession: The Caller Knows Too Much 01:12:10 Undercover Cop's Dilemma 01:20:28 Drug Possession Allegations and Legal Challenges 01:28:27 The Complexities of Legal Plea Bargains 01:37:17 Undercover Challenges Post-9/11 01:45:00 Meeting with Federal Agents 01:51:48 Navigating Gang Dynamics in Prison 02:00:55 Navigating Police Interactions: Avoiding Conflict 02:06:58 The Full Story Revealed Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jamie, welcome to Lockton, man. You're from, what, Utah? No, I'm from Indiana. Indiana. Indiana, South Bend, Indiana. Utah is near there, though, right? No, Utah is a little bit further west. Yeah, several states, yeah, and north.

I've never been to Indiana before. Yeah, Indiana, we're actually, right, University of Notre Dame. You know, they're playing for the national championship here, go Irish, you know. So, yeah. Yeah, I had some friends that went to Notre Dame. That's, like, a pretty top school. Yeah, it's one of the premier conference. colleges, universities in the country.

Yeah. Amazing. And they've done a lot for South Bend, too. The city has a lot to be grateful for having Notre Dame in their backyard. They've done a lot for them. And you grew up in Indiana? I did. I grew up in South Bend.

Okay. Who'd you grow up with? So I grew up predominantly on the west side of South Bend. When I started off, when we first moved to the neighborhood, it was predominantly Hungarian, Polish, and this was back in the 70s. But then they started. integrating the neighborhoods. That's when they started integration into the school systems. And so the dynamic of our neighborhoods started changing. And it became more predominantly black

as people passed away or moved out. And because the school system, we lived right by school. So it made it easier for families, low-income families to move in and be closer for their children to get educations. Would your parents do for work? So my father worked at a company. Back then, the day, it was the Bendix Corporation, which was the biggest manufacturer there in South Bend. They had somewhere around 10,000 employees at one time. It was amazing. They had all kinds of military contracts,

and it just, it was a huge, I guess you kind of related to the auto industry in Detroit, what Bendix was to South Bend. It was just employed most of the people there. Did your mom and dad stay together? My mom and dad stayed together until I was about 15, 16. Then they divorced. They got back together way later on in life.

But that's in that ballpark. What do your mom do for work? My mom was just a stay-at-home mom and a hairdresser. She had like a hair studio. My father had converted a front porch area to her hair studio. Any siblings? I do. I have a brother and a sister.

Were you the middle child? No, I'm the oldest. You're the oldest. Yes. Big shoes to fill. Yeah, it was, yeah, a very big shoe. especially with my father. That's kind of my position that he held was, you know,

take care of your brother, take care of your sister. So that's what I did. How would you guys say you grew up financially, middle class, poor, rich? We were probably middle class, lower middle class. Because my father, you know, he was pretty much sole income. So my mom did what she did, you know, to help make ends meet. How would people describe you as a kid? You know, man, I was just quiet.

I had a lot of friends. Like I said, the neighborhood that we lived in had become predominantly black. There was some Hispanic families weren't as prominent back then, but you had some that had come in with the migrants that would come in and work in the fields and stuff sometimes. So they would get transplanted over the years. And that's kind of how most of the Hispanic population grew in South Bend. And, of course, it changed as time went on. But originally that's how it started. So most of my friends back then were predominantly black or Hispanic.

Hey, what's up, everyone? It's Ian Bick, your host of Locked in. And I just want to say thanks for tuning in to today's episode. Real quick, if you love what you hear, drop a comment on YouTube or Spotify. Or leave me a review on Spotify and Apple. It helps me keep the content coming. And bonus, I actually reply to every single comment. Yep, it's really me.

All right, enough with the shameless plugs. Let's dive into today's crazy. episode, but before we get started, I've got to give a huge shout out to our day one sponsor Factor for sponsoring today's episode. Head over to FactorMeals.com slash Factor Podcast and use code Factor Podcast to get a massive 50% off your first box plus free shipping. I'll tell you more about why I'm obsessed with Factor later in this episode, so stick around. Did you have plans for like career-wise at a young age?

Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? No, I didn't. at that time, man, we were just kids. Things weren't the way they were now, you know, where there was so much planning. We went to school, we had fun, you went out, played football. You know, we had our own neighborhood. We had a vacant field. We called Acorn Stadium.

It was like our football field where we spent a lot of our time, all the guys from the neighborhood. And did you go to public high school? I did go to public high school. Yeah, I started off in South Bend. And then we moved to a small town located next door, Mishawaka. And I attended Mishawka High School there. Did you like school? Um, yeah, my, I have a little bit of ADHD, I guess.

My brain was always going. So I was thinking about different things. But one of the things that happened after we moved to Mr. Rock was I got involved in martial arts. And so that kind of consumed my life after that. What drew you to martial arts? Taekwondo. It drew me, I guess, just because I've always been competitive, a competitive person. I played football and wrestled.

But the martial arts allowed me to be, it was more focused on what I could. could accomplish and not having to depend on other people. As if you're playing football or wrestling, you know, you're, you're working on a team. And of course, wrestling is one-on-one. But the martial arts allowed me to expand further than that. You could involve wrestling. You could involve just the taekwondo and there were a plethora of other things that you could, you know, sink yourself into if you enjoyed them. Did you go off to college?

I did for a little bit. I didn't go off to college. I just attended college a little bit around home and worked. What were you doing for work? I was basically just working with my wife, she was my girlfriend then, her family had a business. I kind of worked with them for a little bit, and I was waiting to get on the police department. So you already knew at that point you wanted to join the police? I did know, and so I wasn't really trying to find anything to sink my teeth into.

I just knew when I got to be 21. I would be able to put my application in, and hopefully I would move on with that. if things didn't pan out, obviously I would have headed in another direction, sales probably, marketing. I was interested in that type of stuff, so that's probably the area I would have went to. Did you have a major at college or you were just doing it just to do it?

No, just doing it to kill some time. My wife, when we were together, well, my girlfriend, we lived together. She moved out when she was 18. She's not my wife. But she was going to school for nursing. So she was busy doing her schooling. I was working, paying the rent. and she was taking care of her schooling and working at the hospital part-time.

So why law enforcement? Why'd that interest you? So when I was younger, I didn't have a real big interest in law enforcement. Kind of my background, my life is kind of, I don't want to say violence, but I've had a lot of violence in my life. And that kind of evolved into wanting to protect people. And that started with my brother. we would get, you know, as the school became predominantly black, there was like five white kids in the school.

So during that time period, you know, it's kind of like it's not much different than now as animosity towards one another, how they've divided the climate with animosity. It was kind of everybody trying to find their foothold, right? So some days me and my brother would get chased home from school. And when that happened, my father would just, you know, I'd have to go back out in the yard

and confront the guys that chased us. and he would stand out there and he had made me fight him. And so that kind of, I developed kind of my, I guess, fighting skills and protecting skills. Because if I fought the kids, my little brother wouldn't have to. So that kind of evolved into later on watching out for other people, neighbors and stuff like that. Why would they go after your brother? Man, back then, I mean, and it's the same with kids that live in low-income neighborhoods. I don't think there's really like a rhyme or reason.

If you drive around any low-income neighborhood, there's going to be kids that just bully on other kids. You don't really know why. I mean, you could say it's because of the skin color or because of the way they dress, but some kids are just bullies, right? And so the kids that were bullies would pick on the people that were weaker. So, you know, we couldn't stand there

and fight a large number of people. You know, we only lived a couple blocks from the school. So if we could make it home to our front yard, you know, that was home plate. But then my dad would be waiting. He would see what happened. He would like, no, that's not how it's going to happen. If these kids are going to chase you home, you're going to go out there and confront it.

So he kind of taught me that to, that was one of the few good lessons my dad taught me, but it was just to meet things head on, right? And it was just you'll find out that's kind of why I'm here doing this podcast. But that was the lesson that I learned is, you know, there's going to be confrontations, there's going to be things you're afraid of, but you have to meet them head on and you have to overcome those things. some days you win, some days you lose. You know, I didn't win every fight that I had to go back out there in the front yard and do.

I lost some, but I learned from those as well. You know, you don't give up. Did you have any family in law enforcement at all? I had a second, I guess he was kind of a second uncle. He was in law enforcement on South Bend back then. And his brother was in law enforcement too. So that was kind of the only thing I had in law enforcement. Had you watched any like cop shows?

Is there anything that was out back then? No, back then there wasn't a lot of coverage. I saw the police officers interact in the neighborhood. And so in that setting, like there was a lot of violence. Like when I talk about a lot of violence, like when I was 12, maybe 11, our next-door neighbor, he was an 80-year-old guy. He owned a roofing company, him and his wife. And she had actually been a Holocaust survivor.

She was Polish. So they didn't speak very much English. But his wife had ended up in the hospital. So one night my father heard noise, woke up the next morning, and a guy had broke it into his house and beat him to death and robbed him. And, you know, just an old man living by himself. And this guy comes in and forever, I think a guy, the guy got like a television or something, and they ended up catching a guy in Milwaukee.

But it was, you know, that. And then I had a Spanish teacher. When I was in the seventh grade, wake up to go to school one morning and find out my Spanish teacher had been shot overnight and killed. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And so it was those kind of things. You see the police come. They try and take care of things.

And so you're watching these things. And you can either choose whether you care about, you know, that they're doing anything or you can try and watch and you can see that the comfort that they're trying to bring and the good work that they do. And that's kind of, I kind of gravitated towards that, hey, I like to help people. They're here to help. but it never really solidified to me that, you know, I want to be a police officer. And all that kind of changed in 1988.

We had taken my, took my wife to sign up at school, Indiana University there in South Bend. And we came back to her house. And when we came back, her brother was there, very distraught. And we learned that her step-sister had been murdered. And so that turned into a whole case of its own. After that and seeing what it did to their family and her case going on unsolved for a long time, I decided, you know, that I was just going to try and get on a police department and just try and I've seen what this can do to people and just try and get a police department and do that. And I guess my ultimate goal was to try and maybe do what I could to contribute to maybe help solve that case someday, you know, those.

a lot of stuff that was going on with that case. And at the moment, it seemed like there weren't any good chance to solve it, which they did eventually solve 20-something years later. You wanted to be one of the good guys? Yeah, I did want to be one of the good guys. I don't know if I thought so much as like one of the good guys is somebody that just get people that did bad shit off the road and help people. It wasn't so much like a good guy thing, you know.

I guess more of a helping guy or protecting guy kind of thing. What did your siblings end up doing? Just working. They just went their own ways and did their own jobs and they have their own lives. They didn't go the path you went with law enforcement. No, not the one with law enforcement. No, I didn't have any other, no other relatives in law enforcement besides what I already stated. I was kind of like the lead into that, you know, which now I have other family members there in law enforcement.

So I guess I was kind of like the pioneer that way. How'd your parents feel about you joining the force? They, I don't, my mom, I guess, wasn't really excited. She was worried. But they just thought that if this is what I wanted to do, then, you know, go ahead and try it. They had that they were kind of, they were, they were a little bit worried. The relative that was on the police department, he had had a terrible experience. He was getting ready for work one day.

They were at the neighbors. and he had asked his son. His son was older. Obviously, he had taught him about firearms and stuff like that, but he had said, hey, I'm going to work. He asked his son to go over and get his pistol for work. He was at the neighbors. He was going to walking out to his car.

So this must have been something that they had done before, but his son went in and got the pistol. And his son was sitting in the bedroom, and instead of grabbing the weapon and taking it, he started dry firing it, playing with the pistol in the, a bedroom. Well, at the same time, his sister was walking down the hallway on the other side of the drywall, and the fire, the gun went off. And it just, wrong place, wrong time and hit his sister and killed her. And that pretty much ruined his career after that. He, he was off for quite a while. He

tried to go back to work, but he just was never the same. So they ended up moving him to the motor pool. And I think he finished out his career from there, but it was just a tragic, tragic situation. He was still able to work? He, well, here's the sad part is he went to work, but they found out that he wasn't carrying any ammunition. In his, back then they had revolvers, he was just carrying around an empty revolver. I just think it had messed him up so bad that way that, you know,

at that point they, instead of getting rid of him, they moved him to the motor pool so he could still retire from the department. I'm surprised they never charged him with anything, though. Charged the son? Well, with letting him have his son use the gun, or they never found out of him. He wasn't letting him use the gun. I think it was just he trusted that his son would get the firearm.

And it was probably something that they had done before. And when you're a police officer, like, people, and that's one of the things people think about is when you're a police officer, you're not like a regular person. The way you would handle a gun or a weapon in your family is different than the way I would handle a weapon in my family as a police officer. Because it's there all the time. It's out all the time. So the younger, you can teach your children about the dangers of the weapon, how to handle the weapon, what the purpose of the weapon is.

Then that's something that they have to deal with growing up. So why would you not? It's the same as their cell phone nowadays. It's the same as your car keys. You got to know how to handle things when you drive. You got to know how to drive, right? You don't just throw somebody in a car and send them out their way. So when you're a police officer, your family needs to know about this because it's a tool that's in the household.

unfortunately, you know, and that it's the mindset that you live, you know, you can run in. A lot of guys, they put their guns in a lockbox. Back then, we didn't have the keypad lockbox and the technology that they have, you know, and they didn't either. They just had a drawer or a box and they had their weapon in it. Do you know what happened to the sun? Yeah, he was never right after that. It caused him a, I don't, I think he just lost touch with reality after that, which, you know,

You know, how could you blame him? I mean, that's a hard thing to come back from. Definitely. Bring us through training, what it was like once you actually got accepted in, and you had to go report for training. So in Indiana, it's 12-week academy. I think it's longer now. The academy is down in Plainfield, Indiana,

which now they're doing smaller academies around the area. But back then, everybody went to Plainfield. And that's where you went for your 12-week. Monday through Friday you were at the academy on the weekends you came back home and then there were different stages of the academy you would have legal self-defense firearms training hand-to-hand combat training and then you know it's kind of it's kind of semi-military in the way that they would treat you would have your uniforms you have to march down to the chow hall for meals bunk had to be you know your room had to be squared away that

type of thing. Was there anything that you didn't expect during training? I can't really say that there was anything I didn't expect. I really didn't know what to expect when I went since I had not spoken. But the way it worked for us, the group that I got hired on, they were very short on manpower when we got hired on. So there were 10 of us that got hired on in our group. And I think there was a group before us and after us.

But at that time, they put us, they were so shorthanded. And there was a time period of waiting for the academy. that they had to put us through a mini police academy at the station, and then they put us on the street with a veteran officer. So we were riding with veterans officers. We were writing with veteran officers and learning about the job before we went down to the academy. So we had a few months of that before we went.

When you joined, did you have like an end goal, like what you wanted to become and work your way up to in the department? When I joined, I didn't at first until I guess I went to the academy me and we had the different people come in and talk. And we had a guy and narcotics officer come in and talk. And he was talking about his position and a homicide investigator. So I knew those were the areas that I wanted to gravitate to, especially homicides since my sister-in-law's case, you know.

But I guess those were the two things that I wanted to gravitate to. Bring us through your first day on the job, what that was like. So my first day on the job, I was assigned to midnight. And I mean, It's just, you know, you're nervous. And back then, things were different than they are now because now you have to worry about how you talk to people and you have to worry about the things that you say,

well, back then, that's not how it was. When you got in the car, they just straight up told you, keep your mouth shut, don't touch anything, don't talk to anybody, look straight ahead and do what I tell you. And, I mean, they were that blunt about it. And it didn't matter who you ride with. And so, you know, you get in with these, especially the midnight guys, they were a little bit more,

the rougher bunch, you know. So you would get in the car and you would sit there and you'd keep your mouth shut and you'd go to scenes and you just stand back and learn. I mean, obviously, if something broke loose, you're going to jump in here and help it. They want you to more just stand there and observe until they tell you to do something. And you find out the importance of that later on. You know, at first you're thinking, oh, again, I'm going to jump in and help. But there's a reason why they're telling you do those things. Are you ready to optimize your nutrition?

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Breakfast and grab and go snacks so you're covered from the morning to night. Please join me in thanking Factor for sponsoring today's episode. Eat Smart with Factor. Get started at FactorMeals.com slash Factor Podcast and use code Factor Podcast to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code Factor Podcast at Factor Meals.com slash Factor Podcast for 50% off plus free shipping. shipping on your first box. Don't wait, fuel your body the right way today. Now let's get back into today's episode. Were you happy with your choice, like on the first week of the job, to join the police department? Or are you questioning it at all? No, I was not questioning it.

I was loving it. From the time I got hired on, it's a great, it's a great police department. They have a lot of professional people there. They always have. And I was very excited to be there. I never, I was not doubting anything. I knew this is, I knew, I knew, I'd made the right choice. When was the first time, like, your life was ever in jeopardy on the job? Or, like, a dangerous encounter or anything like that? Well, I mean, realistically, man, your life is always in jeopardy when you're a police officer. A lot of people, you know, that's one of the things that are always saying,

oh, an officer made a routine call, right? But when you're a police officer, fireman corrections officer, your life is always on the line every day when you wake up. But there are scarier situations. There's heavier things that you have to deal with. and I'm not really sure the first time that I can recall my life was in danger that was quite a few

but I guess just going to practical calls, pursuits, being in a pursuit for the first time would probably, I would say that was probably the first time my life was in danger because you're in a police car, you're chasing somebody, you're going to excessive speed limit,

you don't know what that person's got up in that car and what they're capable of. You're blown through red lights. You're blown through stop signs. And any minute, you could get creamed, you know? And it's happened. I was in pursuits where that did happen to police cars. And so that was probably the first time that I realized that my life was in jeopardies

after pursuit and your adrenaline slows down. And you're kind of thinking, okay, processing it all right, what happened and playing it back. And you realize at any moment something could have happened. typical or common crimes in that area during your time? So back then, and I say back then, it's just I'm comparing now because the time before our surveillance, home surveillance and home detection has become so popular, there were other crimes that were more prevalent. You had a lot more robberies, rapes.

Of course, homicides have gone up since then. And you have a lot of car thefts and I was talking about, but we had a lot more rapes and robberies back then, I think, than what you see now. Now you have a lot of one-on-one street crime and violence, and so the things have changed a little bit. And we had more of that once the crack epidemic started in South Bend, things turned very violent in South Bend after that. And I have to go back because when you ask me about life being in danger,

so six months after being on the Police Department, I was transferred from the Midnight Uniform Division into the Narcotics Division as undercover officer. and that's where I stayed for the remainder of my career. Is that normal to get transferred to undercover that quickly within six months? No, it's not. And I'll be really honest with you and tell you how I did that. And that's basically how it happened.

They needed somebody that looked Hispanic back then to fit that role in narcotics. I'm Cherokee Indian and Hungarian. And, you know, dark and pleaded. A lot of people mistake me for being Hispanic. And so that's kind of the role. they said, yeah, this guy will fit in here. I did interviews. They said, yeah, we like the way you talk.

And so I got that position. And that's the reason why I was moving there that early. Was there a whole other set of training you had to go through once you got into that position? Oh, of course. Narcotics, undercover narcotics work. It's not like anything you could ever experience in the police department. You know, the uniform guys, they deal with the day-to-day calls. and handling those types of situations.

And then the homicide guys, of course, they deal with the death and the aftermath of things, right? And with the family's, well, with an undercover officer, you've got to learn to blend in with people. You're going into people's houses, a lot of times unarmed. You're befriending somebody, knowing that at the end, you know, it's going to come out. You deceived them.

And so in undercover work, it's a totally different, spectrum. So yeah, there's a lot of training that goes into it, but it's also a lot of on-the-job training. And a lot of some people aren't cut out for it. We had a lot of people that came in there that weren't cut out for it. They didn't make it. But we had a lot of good undercover officers as well. Why do you think you were cut out for it? I think what helped me is growing up, my environment growing up. I grew up on the streets, so I was comfortable in that it's setting. So when I would go into a house, it was just it was just something I was used to.

You know, you would go into a lot of these intercity houses to buy drugs. I had been into a lot of inner city houses growing up. I had a lot of friends that grew up poor. I had a lot of friends that lived in a violent dynamic. So for me, when I went into those situations, I was already, there was no surprises I already was aware, you know, what was going to happen. What was the toughest aspect of that job for you? The children.

The toughest aspect of that job is sitting in a house when there's bugs. crawling on you and the children and you're watching a little kid sitting with roaches on him or sitting in a dirty diaper that he's been sitting in for a day. And you're here to buy drugs and as bad as you want to pick up that kid and just bust that person right then,

the integrity of the case needs you to just keep moving forward. So you have to just put it in your mind that, okay, I'll deal with that situation when this is all over with. but that was the hardest part for me was the children and just I guess how

disadvantaged things are you know you get to you're really living in the life of those people when you're in their house you know you're sitting in there sometimes eating dinner with them you're sitting in there talking to them you're watching how things play out and in a sterile environment

right when you're not in that environment it's easy for you to sit back when you're the captain or when you're the prosecutor and you decide how you're going to charge these people and what should happen to them, you see it from a paperwork side. When you're not sitting in there watching what's evolving in real life, it's totally different. And the reason I say that is there was a lot of cases where back then there was a lot of mythology with the drug dealers and the people that dealt in drugs where they thought if they could just ask you, hey, you're not an undercover police officer area and you'd have to tell them like you're yeah you have to tell them the truth like

no I'm not undercover cop or yeah I am undercover cop they really believe that you had to tell them because somebody had spread this rumor right or you would go into a house and um I can remember there's one occasion I went to a house so I could walk in I'm supposed to meet this guy to buy drugs so the CI takes me to the house um we had made a buy one time I come back uh by myself now so there's a female she's got a couple kids there The house is a mess. And the guy comes out of the back bedroom that I'm supposed to buy the dope from. And he's not really sure, you know, he's got this guy sitting in here.

Last time he sold it to me through the CI. This time, he's, you know, should I make this? So I can see the questioning in his mind, right? So I'm trying to talk to him. And he tells the female, he's like, here, he gives her the dope. She gives it to me. I give her the money. And she hands the money back to him.

All this is right in front of me, right? So that's how much this. this guy cared about him. This is his cousin. But this is how little he cares about her and her children. He's putting her in harm's way because he's worried about himself going to jail. So he's sacrificing her to make the dope deal to me. And then he gets the money from that. And hence she makes 20 bucks on that deal, right?

Maybe to buy her kids some diapers. Maybe to buy some food. I don't know. So I go back. And at the end of that case, when everything was all over with him, we busted that guy, when it came time to charge everyone, they wanted to charge her with a class A felony for selling me that crack cocaine.

And I, you know, I didn't feel that that was right. And that's what I talk about when you look at things from a sterile environment and you make decisions versus real life when you're in the moment. Yeah, she committed a crime. She sold me the drugs

and she knew she wasn't supposed to. But she's living in this situation. At the moment, she's thinking about making 20 bucks to feed her, kid or whatever and this guy's taking advantage of her you know it's just it's no different it's a different form of abuse man it's a financial form of abuse so i didn't feel you know those are the type of things i would do i would get upset about those things she didn't need to receive the harshest felony you give her a lowest level felony put her kids you know put her through parental training help her get back on her

feet and let her work that charge off and drop to a misdemeanor or something if she follows the process, right? And in my mind, that's how things ideally should work. But, you know, other people see things differently. So those were the things that I battled with when I was doing that job. How much discretion did you have with the prosecutors with charging, not charging? Is it different than being a normal patrol man as another cover cop? Yeah, it is. So with patrol, you go, you get called, let's say I get called to an auto theft case. I get out there. So I break into my car. You get there, you chase the guy. You follow all the steps. you file the paperwork. The prosecutor's going to look at it. They're going to review it and

they're going to say, yeah, we're going to charge him with X, Y, and Z. And sometimes the patrol got to be happy with that. Sometimes, you know, you didn't get enough stuff in your paperwork, so they're not going to charge you with that. With narcotics, it's different because I'm actually sitting down with you as the prosecutor. I'm saying, hey, this is how the case went. I'm able to give my feedback on what I think this person should be charged with. Did they cooperate? Yeah, they cooperated. So I think we should do this, you know, knock it all the way down, giving probation, whatever. Your discretion, you have a large realm of discretion there. The guy didn't cooperate.

Okay, then the guy is not going to, you know, he's going to get stuck with what he's going to get stuck with. And so those kind of decisions were made at a desk after the cases were done. How often do the prosecutors take your recommendation? Pretty freely because they know, they know how, I mean, everyone knows how the game is played, right? Especially the prosecutors. They want to keep things rolling freely.

They're not trying to be tied up in court all day. If they can work this out in a process where they can work it down to a plea where everyone's happy, get everything wrapped up, they've got the drugs off the street, they get the bad guy off the street, you got some guns, some dope, you know, off the street. Then they're happy with that. So, you know, as long as you're not making them look stupid and you're not setting them up for failure, you know, you're being productive. Your cases are the way you say they are, then they're going to,

trust you. How is undercover work moving into that position affecting your relationship at home with your girlfriend? So now we were married at this point, my wife, and it affects it a great deal. And that's one of the biggest things. When you first come in a police department, what they tell you is, hey, you know, now they have a little bit more help, right? But I think it's still the same mentality. even though they offer more services, I think it's the same mentality. So when you first come in, the older guys pull you aside

and they're like, hey, look, you want to come in, even at the interview, when they interview, they said, why do you want to become a police officer? And they're like, and please, we don't want to hear you say because you want to help people. Because everybody says that, right?

I want to help people. And so the older guys, they pull you aside and they tell you that. They're like, listen, we know you have this thing that you might think you want to help people, but the reality of it is is you're going to see things,

the person that you are today, you're not going to be that person tomorrow. And you keep everything bottled up. You don't talk to anybody about it. You don't need to share that with your wife. You don't need to, you know, you're going to be tore up enough so you don't need to take that home and tear your family down. Work is work and home is home, right? And you go have beer. You have to work, you get off shift, you go drink, have a couple beers with the guys,

and that's how you deal with things. You talk amongst each other. So automatically, there's a wall that's being built in a really, in your relationship because you're trying to keep these things that you see at work away from your family. So you're not allowed to share those things with your family. So what happens is the wife, she sees that you're slowly becoming the different person than you were when you first met, right?

You're a little more quiet, maybe a little more agitated, a little more paranoid. She's not understanding why these behavior changes are happening. And so now she's starting to wonder, okay, what's going on? Why aren't you talking to me? So now she's got a fear because you're not talking to her about these things. So there's a dynamic that starts. And I think that's where with firefighters and paramedics and law enforcement, the divorce ratio is so high is because these walls are built early on.

And it just, you know, falls apart from there. And instead, it should be communicating with each other. Hey, some things you're not going to be able to tell, man. Some things you just can't. Some of the things that you see are so horrific that there's no way you could go home and tell your wife what you saw. You could say I saw something bad today. I don't really want to talk about it. And they might try and, you know, keep priding you a little bit for it.

But you can just say I had a bad day and, you know, leave it at that. But you need to share something, right? Some days you might go home. Some guys might go home and they might just break down and ball with their wife because of what they've seen. but a lot of guys just kept it locked up inside. And I hear a lot of guys talk about compartmentalizing. I hate that word. You have a lot of people talking about that.

You have to compartmentalize things. Well, what happens when you do that is you can only bottle so much so long, and it keeps building up and building up and building up until it's got to release. And it doesn't matter how tough you are. What kind of guy you think you might be? the toughest guy. At some point, you're going to hit a breaking point where all of that stuff that's built up and that you've seen is going to come out and you're not sure how it's going to

come out, but it is. And you'll see that with a lot of these things that are caught on tape where officers are pummeling somebody or an officer kills himself or dies in a car crash. There's a lot of things driving drunk. There's a lot of ways that this comes out, but you don't even see that that's happening in the moment. Had you witnessed any of those things that you were just describing when you were new on the force, like maybe corrupt cops or officers dying or anything like that? So we didn't have, there were, the corruption was, South Bend Police Department was very low on corruption.

They had, they did have some incidents. Some of them involved undercover officers. And it wasn't anything like what you see in the movies. But, and yeah, we lost officers, good officer. And I had a friend on a job that committed suicide as well. So I've seen all of that through my career and the devastation that it causes. So we had our officer that lost his life. Paul de Gooch was his name.

Amazing officer. A 16-year-old kid, the kid that he had stopped before that had been in trouble. Kids on a stolen bike. So he's driving behind him, you know, waiting to get the kid when he gets off the bike. The kid jumps off the bike, runs up on a porch. Paul runs to grab him. Kid turns around and shoots him and killed him. several times

and so that that struck home because we were both younger guys then he was an amazing guy worked hard, great father he just survived a terrible traffic accident not long before that

working two jobs coming home and then this happened and so that was devastating and then I had another friend that was he was going through divorce. I'm not really sure what caused it.

There were no really outward signs. He was just a high-strung guy. And one day, you know, we're going to go work in Notre Dame football game. You could work traffic at the Notre Dame football games, and he committed suicide. And so, you know, you live through that stuff and you see it and the devastation that it causes. Were there resources available for you to help cope with that? man, back then there were no resources.

If guys found out that you were talking to a counselor or psychologist or something, you were shunned. If you were on any kind of medication, you were shunned because that just wasn't how things were done. You know, you were supposed to hold things together, keep it bottled up, and not talk about things. And so, yeah, you know, it's

the grief counseling for the, when the officer involved shooting happened, yeah, there were people that were there to talk. But still, it's the same thing. You know, you talk about what a great guy he is amongst each other. I'm going to get through this. We're going to, you know, we're going to grow from this. But guys aren't really running out to seek help in a counseling setting.

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Had you ever seen fellow cops get arrested? I had not seen anybody get arrested until my arrest. I was the first officer that I experienced with that. but no, I had not seen any fellow officers get arrested. Now, what was your favorite aspects of undercover work? Like your favorite cases to work? I think I don't really have like a not favorite case. I mean, as long as I was able to get in there and I think it was more outsmarting them.

You know, outsmarting these guys. We had a lot of guys during that time that were coming in from Chicago and Detroit into South Bend because the highways they intersick there, 80, 90, and 94. So you come in from Chicago and Detroit into South Bend and the surrounding area, and a lot of the gangs were coming in and selling their dope. So, you know, I like to outsmarting those guys. You go in and a guy's like, I don't know if I should sell to you, you know,

and you win him over, and then he makes the deal, and one sudden you have him, you know, but really all it boiled down to was the money. You know, it was anything special that I did. They just could not refuse to. turning down the money. I wish I could give myself credit and say I was a great actor. And I, you know, I charmed that guy, but that's not what it was. They just were greedy and the greed would catch them. And so that was, you know, I guess it was that aspect. And just, you know,

but I worked hard at my job, too. You know, you were talking about discretion with the prosecutor's office. So one, a problem that a lot of departments have is they get stuck in the same thing, the same methods, how to do things. And there's a lot of, they're afraid to move forward and look outside the box, right? I was always trying to find the next best way. How can we beat these guys? What can we do to outsmart these guys? If a guy's coming in town with a load of dope, how are we going to figure this out? You know, in my department, I was one of the first guys, cell phones, you know, before your time, the first cell phone was like this big block thing, right? Or you had a bag phone where an antenna stuck on the outside of your car and you had this bag.

Well, if you had one of those, you know, you were a big baller. And so we had those cell phones, right? So I was, we kept trying to figure out how these guys were bringing these big loads of marijuana into town. They were bringing in like 800,000 pounds on a pretty regular basis. And so I went to a school. And they were talking about these subpoenas that you can subpoena to people's cell phone records. So when I came back, I kind of put this program together where our targets, I could subpoena their cell phone records. And by doing that, when I got the records, I could track basically their movements, which they're doing now with wires.

But back then we didn't have that. So basically, I could track these guys all the way down to Texas when they got there and started making their calls back and who they were making them to. And then we knew when they were coming back to the area so we could increase our surveillance on the points that we thought they were stashed in the drugs. and it worked. And that was one of the things I was pretty proud of, you know, is just being able to take what I had and make it smarter than what they were doing.

And it's just an ongoing battle, man. They're always trying out with you. You're always trying out with them. Some days you win, some days you lose. What was your typical cover story? Man, typical, I work construction. I'm selling dope. I mean, there wasn't a whole lot of,

They didn't, it wasn't, there wasn't a whole lot of interrogating you, like, you know, where do you work? What's your phone number? You know, let me talk to your boss. There's like, yeah, what do you need this for, you know? And, hey, I'm just trying to make some money, man. I'm trying to live like you. I'm trying to, you know, I want to do the same thing. I want to wear that gold necklace you're wearing, man, or drive my car, you know.

And I've got my construction company. I want to expand my construction company and I'm trying to flip this over, you know. And once in a while, you'd have those guys that be like, you know, why you try this, man, take a hit of this. you just throw it back on them. I'm like, man, do you use that stuff? And he's like, well, no, man, I'm selling this stuff, you know? Okay, well, then why are you asking me to do it?

That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to sell this stuff. I'm trying to, if I start getting hooked on that stuff, what's going to happen with my business? And that usually worked. Sometimes a little more, people were a little more persistent. The people that were more persistent were like the crack heads or the, you know, the people that were actually using a drug

when you're trying to get in and make a low-level buy from them so you can work your way up. Those were the guys that were geeked out, oh, man, try this. try this and they would try and force it on you. It was just so they could get a free bump or, you know, everybody wanted to be Tony Montoya, you know. Montana. Montana, whatever, from Scarface, yeah.

Everybody wanted to be Scarface, man. I was so sick of doing warrants and seeing Scarface paraphernalia everywhere. It was ridiculous. Really? That was common? Man, it was crazy. People have, it's like the old people collecting Elvis. These people will collect Scarface stuff.

You'd have Scarface plates, Scarface banners, Scarface posters. There's everybody with Scarface, man. I'm like, what is going on here? What was the weirdest thing you saw in a house when you guys were doing a bust? Oh. I don't know if we ever saw it. I mean, there's not really anything that's weird, man.

It's a lot of just trash. You know, people that are on drugs, it's just a lot of trash they collect, you know. And now some of the nicest stuff that I've seen is we busted some guys from El cart that were a neighboring, it's a neighboring city. And these guys were like huge marijuana dealers. They had a huge operation going. And by time we busted these guys, when we did the search warrant, I think we got like 400 grand out of a safe there. And their house was like a Harley Davidson

store. Like you walk in there and they had anything that you could find in a Harley Davidson store, these guys had it in their house. It was unbelievable. But that's what they spent. spent all their money on was they had Harley Davis and bikes, multiple bikes, nice cars, and then all of this unbelievable stuff. When you do a bus like that, how hard is it to resist taking that money? Like, you know, slipping a stack for yourself. It's all unmarked, you know, just there. You know the way our unit worked, man, is we had, our unit was really good. Our leadership was really good. So you never really had an opportunity to like grab a stack of money and put it in. You worked in teams. You know, you two go search this room. Um, you're going to, these guys were

handling the evidence. As soon as you found your evidence, you bagged it, you took it over to the evidence guys. They labeled it. They sealed it. So there was never, there was never an opportunity to do that. Now, did some guys have temptations to grab a stack of money and, and do that? They could have. Um, my mindset at that time, I never thought that, um, grabbing a stack or grabbing dope because I had I guess over time established a resentment from where all that stuff had come from.

That dope and that money. A lot of people they see the back end of that where the stuff you get some dope and you use it, you sell it. But on the front end of that word all starts and how it gets you, there's a lot that goes on in between that and a lot of people are

traumatized because of that. And that's kind of the thing that fired me up to do my job is thinking about all these people that it affected and where all that stuff came from. And I think a lot of guys thought the same way. What were some morals you had as a cop? Like principles, rules you wouldn't break? The morals that I had as a cop, the principles I had were treating people fairly. I tried to treat people the best I could. Some days, that's not so easy. And if I could help someone out, I would help someone out.

obviously not taking any drugs, not taking any money. Those were morals that I kept. Just pretty much all of those things that you hear people complaining about police officers, I think a lot of police officers have those same morals. There's a lot of things that people accuse police officers of. They're not happening. It's happening in small numbers, but if you base that on the large number of officers versus what you see on television,

that's where the dynamic hits. You know, television makes it seem like it's so, easy to do these things and it's not. How long were you on the force for before you had your incident that would lead to your arrest? 92 in 2005, I started being investigated, I believe. So, I don't know, 13 years, something like that. What happens after 13 years? So it wasn't what happened after 13 years.

It was what happened during the 13 years. and what happened during the 13 years was the work of working undercover started wearing on me a little bit. I guess I sort of feeling a little bit depressed, a little bit under the weather, you know, just not myself. I worked out all the time.

I was having some marital issues with my wife, but these things, you know, started eating up on me. So my wife was like, you know, maybe you should try and get on some antidepressants. Those were kind of new. Those were the new thing that they were pushing back then. It was well-butrin and Zola. She's like, maybe you should try and go talk to the doctor, see if you can get on that.

That might help. So I went to my family doctor and told him what was going on. And he said, yeah, you know, I can get you on some medication. He goes, well, how much are you drinking? And I said, you know, I mean, a couple beers a week, which is a humongous lie, right? I'm working undercover. I'm drinking every night. that's the way you that's the way it is in life when you work undercover I'm drinking every

night big mistake so by not being honest with you know he prescribed me the medication so I started taking these antidepressants and I'm drinking and man it is not good so I'm going through this and then in 1999 a guy who was kind of like a second father to me. He was 60-something years old at the time, but I'm working and he gets fired from his job. Him and his wife go to this American Legion, VFW, whatever it was. And he gets all drunk there.

He gets into a disagreement with a guy. He runs home, tells his wife he's going to get his gun and he's coming back. So he goes and gets his gun. He comes back. Obviously, she's frantic. She called police because she'd never seen him like this before. And police get there. And he's got like this little 410 single shot deer gun. But he aims at the officers and they shoot him and kill him. So I don't know this until the next morning. The next morning I get woke up by my brother. And he tells me about what happened. And I was just, I was devastated. You know, I couldn't understand just like his wife and his daughters how this happened.

I knew the guys that had shot him. So I couldn't believe that he would actually point a weapon at officers and do that. He was not that kind of guy. He was very grounded individual. He had owned his own business for a long time. And I think more or less, after I thought about it, it was more like just a suicide by cop type thing. I think he was just at the end of his wits.

And that's what he chose to do. I don't know. I wasn't there. but it built up a lot of animosity in me. You know, I had his wife calling me, and she's like, you know, why did this happen? Why did they have to kill him? You know, just sad things that anybody would say when that happens, right?

And then there's these guys that I work with, and I see them all the time, and I know that they were involved in the shooting of this guy that meant a lot to me, and not that I blamed them because I wasn't there for the shooting, but it still caused, it still caused something in my mind to just crack a little bit, I guess. So I increase my drinking.

I'm still working. I start thinking about maybe I should find a different job because this isn't, you know, I talked to my boss about getting out of undercover work. And he was like, you know, why do you want to do that? You know, you're doing so good here. You're going to have a career here with advancement. going back to uniform, you know, you're just pushing a B car. I didn't tell him the things I was going through mentally

because you don't talk about those things, right? You just keep them, you try and hold it all together. So I'm increasing my drinking. And then I started getting, you know, I start falling apart, really. So I realized I need to quit drinking. So I cut back on my drinking. And I'm thinking, you know, all right, I can get the drinking under, control and I'll just keep working. So now I'm working a little bit and then you fast forward a

little bit more. We have a undercover Christmas party every year and it's for guys that are former undercover officers and present undercover officers and you, we would meet at a hotel, they'd have a suite and we would, you're away, you know, you're away from everybody. It's just guys that worked in that environment. So I had not been drinking that night, thank God. And I left around midnight, I think it was. So I'm driving back home, and where I'd lived at that time was kind of on the border of South Bend, Mishawka.

And back in those days, you had South Bend had their own band for the radio. Mishawka had their own band for the police radio. So you never really, you wouldn't interact with each other. Well, I always kept my police radio on scan Whenever I was in my car, I had my radio on all the time Just in case something would pop off And I haven't been nearby So I have my radio on scan

And I hear this communication go out About officers down in Mishuoka And so nothing ever happens like that in Mishawaka It's just, it was a very safe place They had a small amount of officers back then Very quiet But there's some chatter going on the radio About something going down

And I hear them say officers down but there's like a panic when they say that, right? Because when an officer goes down, there's limited things you want to broadcast out because you worry about the public hearing, and you don't want to put any falsities out there. So I call on my phone to the radio room, I said, hey, I just heard something about officers down to Mitch Walker.

They're like, yeah, we don't know what's going on. This is the address where they called it out from. They're crying for help. So my cousin had lived that area, so I go over that area. I'm in an unmarked car. I pull up. And when I pull up, the first thing I see are a bunch of Mishawaka Squad cars scattered around.

And I look over and I see an officer laying on the ground. And I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck? You know? And so I get my gun out. I run over there and there's an officer down. And this officer that I know, wonderful guy. I check his pulse and there's nothing.

So I look down on the block. and I see about four blocks down, there's an ambulance sitting there. So I call on the radio, an officer down, I need a medic, you know. Well, they come back to me on the radio and say that the ambulance isn't coming down because the area is not secure. So I get kind of an argument with the dispatcher because the ambulance is down there, he's not coming down. And I'm looking at this guy. I check his pulse again, and it's apparent that he's deceased. and so now I'm thinking I'm just going to run down there

and commandeer the ambulance and bring it down because this isn't how this is supposed to go down, right? Officers down, everybody's supposed to come, you're supposed to get there, get this guy to the hospital, and even if he's passed away, that's the respect he deserves, is to get him to the hospital, and, you know, you work on him, even if there's nothing to work on, you work on him

until he gets to the hospital and they declare it there. That's just how it's supposed to be. So I stop and I freak out. for a minute because I don't want to leave his body there. And there's nobody else around at that moment. And what happened was they get a call for an unwanted person. They show up at the house for the unwanted person. There's three officers at the front there talking to this guy.

A girl answered the door, tells me there's an unwanted person. Now you've got a group of people that kind of form on the inside of the house of the door. There's a male white standing in the back. They don't know that this guy just got released from prison, not too long ago. And so they're just normal Mishuoka police department house party call. Well, this guy realizes they're coming in and for whatever reason, he pulls out his gun, he's carrying a gun, pulls it out, shoots the first officer in the chest. That officer, really big guy, really great guy, he stumbles backwards. The officer that I'm taking care of,

Roberts, he goes in to tackle this guy, and at that point he shot in the top of his head. So a third officer that's there returns fire, clips the guy, they pull the officers back, and what happened was Verkler then turns and he takes off. It was Verkler and Roberts were the officers. He takes off and he's like runs towards his car in an alley. He's hit in the chest bad. And so the other officers dragged Roberts away. Well, then they form back up to go in and get the suspect.

And I think what happened in that confusion is when they ran, they went in to get the suspect, they know that Berkler's way over here. And I think whoever pulled Roberts away and had checked him, they realized he's passed away, apparently. I'm hoping that's what it was. And he, they go back in. I pull up shortly after as they're going after this guy. So now I'm taking care of Roberts. Verkler's being rushed to the hospital. These guys are doing what they're doing at the house.

And I got no ambulance coming for him. So that's the whole layout of the thing. So now I realize I can't leave him there. He's passed away. So I just sit there holding his hand, you know, basically tell him I'm sorry. You know, I'm sorry. I can't get you out of here. I'm sorry.

Apologizing to him. And I look up then and there's a neighbor that's standing there. And the guy's just looking at me and it looked like he's ready to cry. And I'm like, man, can you get me a shit? sheet please and he's and so he runs in and he gets a sheet for me and uh he comes back and i cover him up because i don't want people now people are starting to gather on i don't want people to it isn't a spectacle you know so i cover up a few minutes after that um some of his other officers show up because now the word is out that they've got officers they've got officers down some of his

guys show up i tell his guys what's going on they stay there with the body and i leave um i leave there, I go down to Miss Chihuacca Police Department because in our situations, I know when our officers were down it's common courtesy for joining departments to come help you out. And so they had a small department. I went down there and I talked

to their guy that was on staff. I called our chief. I said, chief, this is all happening really fast. Or I should say the assistant chief, this is all happening really fast, but this is what's going on. They're going to need guys over here to help because it's a mess. You know, a department that is a small department.

they're not used to this day they lose two guys in one night so he's like yeah yeah you know we're gonna take care of it call captain so and so you know and so I did and um that moment right there man

that moment the guilt that I felt for not getting that guy out of there and I don't know I can't explain it I can't explain what I was feeling at that moment but that guilt it just sticks with you man and that stuck with me for a long time

even nowadays I'll be driving and I'll start thinking about that. And just that he deserved better than that, you know. And it was nobody's fault. It was just, there was a lot going on for a department that wasn't equipped to handle that. And I just wanted him to be there. I wanted his family to know. Not that I ever spoke to the family, but I, if anyone, if it ever came to that, I wanted to know that he was, somebody was there with him while he was laying there until his friends.

got there and his friends got him in that ambulance and got him out. And so that was kind of a, that's, after that, things started going downhill, um, a lot for me. I was, my drinking increased again. I started, um, doing things that would harm my marriage. Um, I started being more careless about if something would happen to me. I put myself in more riskier situations. and I started actually thinking about, okay, I'm just done with this. You know, I'm done with what I've seen, you know, but I was scared. I was like, okay, how would I do this? You know, if I was going to kill myself, how would I do it?

I got my family, I got my kids. And so then one night, me and my wife were in the house, and this was maybe a year after that, my downfall progressed pretty quick here but um we hear what appears to be shots fired outside of our house which i'm thinking that can't be right somebody shooting outside my house so i look outside and i see a car shooting down the road but i don't see anything i'm thinking uh just some kids or something right go to bed and uh wake up the next day to realize that my uh house has been shot up and And so that's what we heard. The noise that we heard was in my house being shot up.

And where they had shot up was the stairwell that my wife had just carried my kids up a short time before that. And so I'm like, this is insane. So I make a report, call you in for them. They come. They take pictures. The tech takes pictures, removes the slugs.

And I go to my captain, and I'm like, hey, what's going on with this? he goes, we're going to put everybody on this, we're going to find out what's going on, right? So I think it was a couple months go by and nothing. Nobody's hearing anything about it, nothing like that. And I'm sitting up at night waiting to see if anybody's coming back.

I'm worried about my family. And then I'm sitting at my desk in narcotics, and I get a phone call. The secretary gets a phone call. She passed it back to me. He says there's a phone call for me, so I answer the phone. And it's a female black.

And she's like, hey, you know, is this Sergeant Jamie Beaufort? I said, yeah, this is Sergeant Jamie Beaufort. And she says, you know, you don't know me, but I know where you live. And she tells me where I live, what my house looks like. She tells me and my, what car, my undercover car looks like, what my wife drives. So now I'm like, well, how do you know all this? And she was, well, I know this because my boyfriend is the one that shot up your house. Now, she's telling, this is the first I'm hearing this of anything, right?

And I'm thinking, okay. And I said, why are you calling me about this? and she said, the reason I'm calling you is because I just got home today from work, found out my boyfriend, found my boyfriend's dope in the house. He was selling dope out of my house. I took the dope and flushed it down the toilet. And when he got home, he started shooting at me. He was madder, so he started shooting at her, right?

So she calls me, and she's not calling me because she cares about me and my family. She's calling me because she wants to get his butt, and this is how she's going to do it. She knows something, and this is her way to do it because she's afraid of him. So I go to my captain. and I'm like, hey, I got this phone call. It's from this so-and-so. She's saying this, and this is who did it.

Let's go get his ass. And my captain's like, hold on a minute. I'm thinking we're going to go out, snatch this guy up. Even if you don't have all the pieces of the puzzle, right, snatch him up so he knows we know who he is. So I don't have to sit at home worrying about him coming back shooting on my house again. There's a big difference of, you know, telling the guy, hey, I'd rather you know that I know it's you.

And now I can build my case around that. That way, me and my family can sleep at night, right? You know that the eyes are on you. But my captain was like, well, wait a minute. You know, we got a lot of intel on this guy. He was a big drug dealer. And we got a lot of intel on this guy. And, you know, we could put a drug case together on him.

I'm like, are you serious? And he's like, yeah, well, I think we should go that route. I go, no, I don't think we should go that route. But that's the route. We went to the chief. The chief's like, hey, do you want me to get your family in a hotel? And I'm like, no, I'm not moving my family. This guy's not running me out of my house, right?

That's my pride. That's my cop pride right there. This guy's not running me out of my house and putting my family in a hotel. Really, what I should have said was, yeah, chief, you know, thank you for the offer. I'll put my family in a hotel for a while and then we'll see what goes on from there, right? But I wasn't going to let anybody run me out of my house. And so now, I was a very aggressive narcotics officer, right?

And what happened over a time period in our narcotics unit is we had a night shift, we had a day shift. The night shift handled all the undercover stuff, day shift handled the major crime stuff. Well, over the course of the time, our major crime unit had become more of like a guys getting ready to retire unit, right? We were a metro unit, so we had guys from South Bend and Mishawaka, St. Joe County. and there were guys that were coming back there that were at the end of their career and they just wanted kind of an easy place to come back, they'd come make some buys,

they could, you know, relax a little bit and wind down their career. Well, drug unit is not a place that you come back to wind down your career. You need hard charges, you need people that are going to go out there and bust their balls every day. So these guys that were entailed with

doing this drug while had an informant that could buy from this guy. but the pace that they were moving wasn't the pace that I was happy with so they're like you know yeah our guy can't reach him you know he's putting our guy off a little bit there was always some seem like there was some excuse and maybe that's because in my mind you know I wanted to be done right now so I seem like maybe that's why I think their case drug on a little bit longer right but then it turned into all this guy is going on vacation and all this stuff so more more months had went by and it just

I was getting angrier and angrier. And that's really what it led up to. It was just I was drinking. I was already thinking about, you know, ending everything. I'm at my wits end, really. And I'm out drinking one night. And there's a couple of guys that were on the county. They were in a warrants unit.

Now, these guys, I knew these guys. One had been in the narcotics unit a long time ago. And I had kind of kicked him out of the unit. And he went to get on this warrants unit in the county. The other guy I knew, we never really hung out or anything like that. And they call me and they're like, hey, because by then everybody knew for the most part who we were looking for. I called some of my friends and told him, hey, this is what's going on.

If you've got a reason to pop this guy, pop him. So they call me and they say, hey, we know where so-and-so's got a stash trailer. It was a trailer. And I'm like, well, where's that? Because he had a trailer that everybody knew about, but then now he had this stash trailer. that these guys find out about. And they call me and they're like, it's out here and it gave me the address.

And I'm like, okay, well, you know, we're trying to make bias in this guy. So just, you know, lay low. I don't want to screw this up. You know, if you don't have them for something else. And they're like, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. So I'm sitting, I'm out here drinking. I should be home, right?

I should be home in bed. I'm off work now. But I'm not. I'm out here drinking, getting, now they've told me this. I'm getting mad, getting angry. And I'm like, this guy shot up my house. My wife and my kids are there. He cares nothing about that.

And, you know, I don't know what it was, man, but something snapped in my head. I just, so I drove out there. It was late at night. I drove out to that trailer. I went in a back window. Didn't know if the guy was in there or not. Didn't care. I was going to retaliate some way, right?

Go in the back window. Well, when I get in there, the trailer's empty and the place is tore to hell. And I'm like, what the fuck? That's what it was, right? But that's what I see. So now I'm thinking, I ought to burn this freaking place to the ground, right? But because I just want him to know. I want him to know.

I know who you are. I know that you shot my place up, right? and I don't. Instead, I just grab a bunch of shit, go it out and throw it in my car. You know, his, it was like shit off the floor jacket. I rip a big screen TV off the freaking wall. And I come around the corner and down by the bathroom,

I see this little, it's like four ounces of Coke laying there, right? And I'm like, and I'm fucking taking that too. And this is how out of, you know, this is how much anger I had. right. I just want to, I just want to this guy to know that I know who you are. And it doesn't make sense now.

Because like I said, you know, we're in a sterile environment, so you can't even comprehend that rationale thinking, here I am a cop, never done anything like this before what I'm doing, right? And I just snapped. I was at my wits end, man. It was just everything was, it was all that stuff that I've been going through,

this was the accumulation of it. So I grab it. and I get out of there. Well, the next day, when I sober up and I come to and I have the what the hell did you just do type moment, right? I know it's the end. I know my career is over with. Nobody had, you know, they hadn't caught me,

but I knew in my mind that my career was over with because of what I had done. And now I had to figure out, you know, how I was going to wind it down, right? because when you asked me earlier about what were some of the lines that I didn't cross, I just crossed that line, right? And so I started thinking, okay, how am I going to do this? Well, I had an informant at the time.

I had a couple of informants that play into this, but one of my informants I had had him for a long time. He was a young Hispanic kid. He was working off charges. But he was like the breadwinner for his family. And when you're an undercover, officer. Sometimes you have informants. They're just informants, man. They just, they're working off their charges or their crack kids. People calling all the time because they want to make dope money,

so they'll call it being informant and they'll make some dope money. You know what they're doing. You know, they're making bias for you and they're going to take that money. You pay them and they're going to go buy drugs with it. Nobody's fooling anybody. But there's some informants that you build a relationship with. And this is one of the kids, this kid I built a relationship with. And so I learned about his life, you know, and he was just a goofy, kid he was you know he was always like trying to get over on me and it would crack me up because then I would catch him getting over on me you know and he'd apologize and you know we would go from there but he'd you know go make his buys or whatever but uh this kid like took

his mom didn't work they were illegal immigrants his dad didn't work he had a 16 year old sister and he was just making ends meet for his family so I said I'm gonna go give him miss dope tell him to sell it keep the money for yourself, I'm going to go blow my brains out, and that'll be the end of it. You know? And as goofy as that sounds, it made sense in my mind at that time.

You know, I was going to... I certainly wasn't going to sell the dope. I certainly wasn't going to do anything with it. I should have never grabbed it in the first place, right? Or should have done the toilet in the trailer. I should have never been in the trailer. But, and that was my mind, that was in my mind. That's what it was. So I go give it to the kid.

I'm like, here, man, take this, you know, go sell it. And do whatever you want with it. I'm out of here, you're done working with me. And he's like, what? And so I drive and I'm taking, I take care of some other things. I think about how I'm going to take care of some things with my family and stuff like that. And I had this little derringer. It was a two-shot derringer.

And I was, but I was still wondering, man, am I going to have the nerve to do this, right? So I am over in South Bend. I'm driving down Portage Road. And it's kind of a hood area. And I empty, at the red light, I empty the rounds out of the Derringer. And you could pull it back. You could fire twice or could file one shot at a time.

So I empty the rounds out of the Derringer. And I pull the first click, pull it back once. And I'm just like, my hand's shaking. And I kind of put it up to my head, you know, and it clicks. Right. And I'm like, fuck. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this for real, man. So right then when that happened, I put the gun down and I hear this, whit, and I look in my review mirror, right?

Because I'm in my, I'm in this undercover camera, right? I'm like, and it's in this, I'm not doing anything. I'm sitting at a light. And it's a freaking state trooper behind me. Now, state troopers never are in the city pulling cars over. You know, they know they stay out on the toll road. They stay out in the county, but they don't come into city because too many bad things can happen. But now all of a sudden, man, this state trooper out of nowhere shows up.

And he's stopping me right at this intersection. So he comes walking up to the car in his uniform. He's like, oh, yeah, can I see your license registration? And I was like, what did you pull me over for? Or what he stopped me for? And he told me some story. Really, what he thought was I was a thug. He was going to make an easy pinch.

And, you know, I said, he goes, I need your registration. I said, listen, man, I'm an undercover cop for South Bend. I go, and I'm going to that house right over there to make a buy, and you've probably just messed that up. I just done this with the gun, right? And I'm just wanting this guy away from me. So the guy's like, you got ID? And I go, yeah, I got ID.

And I show it to him. And he goes, hold on a second. You know, he doesn't know any better. So he takes my stuff, goes back to the car. A few minutes later he comes back with this piece of paper in hand. How many discounts does USA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount.

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He's like, yeah, you're just pretend like I'm giving you a ticket. They might be watching. I'm like, yeah. So he leaves, and just for show, you know, I go down. He tells me, good luck, be safe. So I go, I turn, and I park my car. And I'm like, that's the craziest thing that's ever happened, man. What are the odds of that, me doing this, right?

Well, I look down to get my bullets. to put back in my Derringer, and the other round is still in the gun. So if I would have pulled that back the second time and pulled that trigger, I would have blown my brains out right there at that red light. My family would have never, nobody would have ever known what the hell did he just do? I would just, but this guy's out of nowhere, pulls up, stops me, a state trooper nonetheless. and disrupts that whole thing.

So now I'm shaking a little bit, and I'm thinking, man, if that isn't God, trying to tell me something, right? So now I'm thinking about what's going on. I go back, I call my old informing up. I said, man, I need to get that stuff back. He's like, what? I go, yeah, I need it back.

So I go back, I get the dope back from him. I drove over there's a farmer's market in South Bend by the river. I chucked the dope in the river. And I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do now, but killing myself is not an option anymore. But now I've got myself into this hole. So when you go back to the other two guys that had called me

and told me what was going on, where the guy was. Okay, so I did not know this. These guys had their own thing going on. And there was a little more to the story than what was going on with them telling me just, hey, we found the address. And the reason why the house was ransacked was that, you know, they had gone in, they had done this, and they had already done their own thing.

I think they were just telling me to let me know that, hey, we know where the guy is and not thinking that I would go over and do what I was going to do. So they had gone in and tossed this place. And I find out about this later on. and I asked them, you know, what's going on? Well, they, there were some other things that they were involved in. I don't know everything they were involved in.

I never wanted to know. Some of it, you know, was proven. Some of it wasn't proven. But I don't know, I don't know what all was their situation. But I knew when they were talking on a wire, they were talking to someone that they thought they could trust and the guy was wired with the feds. And that's how they were talking.

And it came up, my name came up. that I had went over and got in this place because I had told them what had happened, right? And so that's how my name got on the wire. So the feds take that information and they start this little backdoor investigation on me from that information as well as all the other stuff that these guys are talking about on the wire. So there's a lot more going on. So at the end of the day, I got the, They came in, they rounded us up.

This was several years later, a couple years later. Their investigation went on for a couple years. They had rounded us up, and me and the other two guys, and there was another guy that was involved on their end that they rounded up. And they lock us up, take us to Lake County, which is by Gary area, terrible, terrible county jail. They put us in the shoe there for a detention hearing. We got lawyers that had come in and talk to us.

We go to our detention hearing. The feds present their case, but it was so outlandish what they had presented that the judge was like, no, I'm not holding these guys. I'm going to release them on bond. So they released us on bond. So what happens is my charges that came out were my first charge was possession of cocaine, nine ounces or less or whatever. And they came out with this nine ounces because the guy that owned the trailer eventually started cooperating. with him and told him the amount of dope that he had in his house. But it was no, mine, I never had any nine ounces of cocaine. So, uh, the feds charged me with that alone. Well, they get a hold of my lawyer and they say, hey, we want to know if you want to cooperate against the other guys. And I said,

I don't know anything about the other guys because I don't know. And I seriously didn't know anything about the other guys. And, but they were lumping our stuff together. So the fed say, uh, okay, well, you don't want to cooperate where we're going to supersede you on a gun charge. And my lawyer's like a gun charge. He calls me like, hey, do you anything about a gun charge? I'm like, no, I don't know anything about a gun charge. So they do. I'm like, they're full of shit. So a couple weeks later, I get a superseding indictment, a 924C gun charge. And what happens we find out is they first go interview the informant and he tells him, yeah, he brought me the stuff. And yeah, he picked it up from me. And I never saw it again. That's his story. So they interview this guy.

three more times after that. And then it comes down to, oh, yeah, when he showed up, he had the dope and a 38 handgun and a box of ammunition. And that's so they charged me with that. And I'm like, a 38 handgun and a box of ammunition, for one, I've never owned a 38 handgun, 30 caliber handgun in my life. And why would I have a box of ammunition sitting in the car?

Why would I have a gun period with a kid that I've worked with forever? And I have no reason to display a handgun to this kid, right? Right. I have my duty weapon, which was probably under the seat of my car, which is where I carried it all the time under my seat. But he would have no way of seeing that, right? So they're basically like, they tell my lawyer, yeah, well, you know, even if we can't prove anything about the handgun, he took an oath to be on duty 24 hours a day. So the chances are that when he showed up there to deliver that dope, somewhere there was a gun. So that's what they charge me with. How they even get a hold of that informant?

because when I talked to my seat, I told the one kid about, yeah, he was on the wire. Yeah, and they talked about that on the wire. And because we had been drinking, and I was telling him, man, this is what, I was, I was still shocked by the story with the state trooper. So, and how that all played out.

So I was telling this kid. And anyway, so they talk about that on the wire. That's how they know about this kid. So they come back and they ask me, now they've got the superseding diamond on me. They come back and they ask me again, do I want to cooperate? And I said, no.

But this time I was really upset because I was furious about this second indictment and this whole bullshit about the gun, right? So I tell them no. And they're like, well, we're going to supersede you again then on another gun charge. And so I just didn't, I told my lawyer, we're done talking, don't,

I don't want to hear anything more from them, period, about cooperating or anything else until we go to trial. So, I don't know, a few weeks a month after that, I get another superseding indictment for another 924C because they said, well, if you had a gun when you dropped it off to him, you must have had a gun when you picked it up from him. So that's how they got their second gun charge on me.

Well, on a 924C, I wasn't familiar with this, but maybe you are. The first time they charged you with a 924C is zero to 25 years. The second 920C is 95 to life. So, and that runs all consistent. So you have to do the 25, then you do the 25 to life, right? So now that's what they're charging me with. So my lawyer's like, you know, what do you want to do?

He's like, you know, my lawyer is like an old mobster lawyer. You know, this guy, he's close to Chicago there. He's like, what do you want to do, kid, you know? He's thinking on a state level that it's 10 years, the max is 10 years I can face. I said, I'm not going to do anything. We're going to go to trial because the things that they were saying aren't the facts. The facts that they have were they didn't mention anything. about this kid shot at my house and I was going to retaliate. The way they posted this was I was a

renegade cop. I just went and broke in this guy's house because I knew that he had dope in there and I got the dope and I was selling the dope. That's how they played this out to the public. And that's not what happened with my situation. So, and this is actually the first time that I'm even telling this. Nobody even, they never had made this public. This is the first time that I'm telling this whole situation. And so they never made that part public. So they just kept it like I was, because they needed that for their investigation. They needed to sound like that.

When we filed paperwork to separate from the other two, they used all of that to hold us together. So they couldn't have this outside story about, even though it was acknowledged to my unit, I'm sure the federal agent that investigated it was privy to all of this. He never mentioned it one time. So that's kind of how. that all got tied in. And so now they've superseded me twice.

They've got these guys. And we play it all out for the next several. You were taking off the job for the next several years. They're doing all these investigations. They're investigating all of my cases, hundreds upon hundreds of cases where I've turned in an amount of drugs and money and weapons. Not one time did they find any money missing, any drugs missing, any weapons.

missing. Not one time during this whole investigation, did anybody from the outside come forward and say, oh yeah, this guy, he was stealing from me. It wasn't this amount of dope. It was this amount of dope. Nobody came forward and said that. I had no additional charges from outside cases added to my case where people were saying that. Were you on paid leave or on paid leave? I was on paid leave. Oh, so they still paid you those years. Yeah, they still paid me. Yeah. How did your wife react to this? My poor wife, she was, she didn't know what to think. And I wasn't telling my wife because how could I tell my wife? She was the new, right?

Well, she knew I was off the job, but I couldn't tell her the whole situation. I couldn't tell my wife I was getting ready to blow my brains out. And even though I should have been able to, I couldn't. I had too much pride for that, right? So I couldn't tell my wife that. I just kept saying, it's going to be okay. It's all going to work out. We're going to go to trial.

We're going to beat this. And, you know, in the back of my mind and in my heart, I was like, you know, I knew the truth. and but that's what they were having on. The prosecutors and the FBI agent were hoping that I would go forward and cooperate on these guys, which I didn't know anything about their stuff, and I did not want to know anything about their stuff. So they must have been very corrupt for the feds to get involved. I don't know what their level of corruption was.

There was enough going on that they were doing things to attract the attention of the feds. Because this is small scale. Yeah, but it's, but it's, public, it's police officers, so it's not small scale. Because anything that has to do with police officers is huge props for the federal prosecutors and the FBI agents. So there's really no small scale when it comes to police officers. It's just the fact that when the feds come in, I think they're used to the way they work,

and I've worked with feds a lot in task force and stuff like that is, you know, they come in, they hit you with a bunch of charges, they know somebody's going to cooperate. And the problem that they had with this situation was I wasn't cooperating against those guys. They weren't cooperating against each other. So they had nobody cooperating. So they were actually having to go out there and start doing all this work. Nobody was saying anything. We were all going to write it out till the trial.

Yeah, but small scale in the sense where they probably wouldn't have picked up this case just pertaining to you if you didn't get caught on there. Like you were a bystander that got caught up in this. If they would have never spoke on the wire, I would have never come to light. I would, two things would have happened probably. I would end up dead, one way or the other, or I would have just drank myself to death. I don't know. You know, I don't know.

But it's juicier headlines for them, three corrupt cops in the department. Yeah, three corrupt cops in the department. And so that's, and they, you know, the public corrupt case. And what happened, what was so bad for us is the FBI agent had farmed around for prosecutors to take the case and he had been shot down a lot. So he took it over to Hammond, Indiana. And the way the one prosecutor told our lawyer was, you know, I went out to lunch.

I came back one day in this case was sitting on my desk, you know. And the other prosecutor was just a young gun. This guy had been like a court clerk. And now this was his big chance. So he was hell bent on doing what he was going to do. So, yeah, so that's how I ended up getting jammed up on my case. What ends up happening? How much you take a play did?

is this, these guys over here are facing drug and gun charges and charges on some other things. And one of them is facing additional handgun charges for stealing guns and selling them, that's they were accusing him of. Okay. So they're facing different charges than I'm facing, although we're tied into this trailer thing together. So we take it all the way down to the wire to our court date. So the Friday, our trial starts on the Monday. On Friday, they call us, they want us all to meet at this lawyer's office.

So we all meet at the lawyer's office. And they're like, hey, the fed's called. They're going to, if you guys all plead to, they dropped one of the gun charges on me. So now I only was facing one gun charge and this dope charge. I'd get 70 months. They were going to drop all of the, they dropped the whole second. case on the guy with the guns that they accused of stealing, running the guns and selling or whatever.

And the other guy was going to get 75 months or something. And but we had to plea that day. And so I was like, no, I'm going to go to trial. And because in my mind, I was still stuck on the thought, they were lying about the guns. And that's which they were. And I thought, at least if nothing else, I'm going to go to court and I'm going to get that cleared up, right?

and my lawyer pulls me into a separate room. He's like, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? And he's like, yeah, he goes, I want to tell you, if you're going to go to trial, I'll go with you to trial on this. He goes, I got no problem. He goes, but you've got to understand about these predicate factor things. And the predicate factors are in the Fed system.

Let's just say they did this to Rod Blagojevich, that used to be the governor of Illinois, and they do it for a lot of people. But let's just say you, Ian Bick, I charge you, I'm prosecuted, and I charge you with 10 things. You go to trial and you kick my ass, but you, and you get found guilty of only one thing. And that one thing carries maybe a five-year sentence.

When it comes time to your sentencing, they can put a memorandum in. And all those other things that you got found innocent of can still be used in your sentencing to enhance your sentence. Yeah, that happened to me. So that happened to you? Yeah. So my lawyer tells me that. And he goes, I had a client who got off on all this charge he was facing two years. and they used all of his predicate factors

and he ended up getting 20 years in federal prison and I'm like, what? And he's like, I just want you to know this. He goes, the plea that they're offering you, he goes, I know it's wrong. I know there was no guns. I know this is wrong. But the plea that they're offering you,

I would tell my own son to take, you know? He's like, because what they're going to do to you is they're going to crucify you one or the other. He goes, and even if you beat this, they're going to find another reason to retry you. He goes, and then what? You're out of money. You're going to get a public defunders.

defender, how do you think that's going to be? And so, I just sat and I thought about it for a while. And I just thought, and he said, and they're going to drop the second trial, the second case, they're going to drop on the other guy. But it has to be a deal. All three, you have to do it. So I said, okay, I took the deal. And a lot of people, they don't understand that because they're like, I would never plead

guilty to anything that I'm innocent of. I would never please. Well, when you're facing 40 years in prison and you have a family, don't ever say what you would do until you're in that situation, you know? You can try and be a tough guy and go fight it in trial. But me and you both know how that works out in the feds and what happens when you lose in trial, you get clobbered and you, they bury you. So I chose the plea, the 70 months.

was already over with. Being a cop for me was already over with. I had stretched it as long as I could before this all happened. And I just wanted to get it over with. So the other guys took the plea. The third guy, he was reluctant to the very end. He's like, no, no. And he was the guiltiest.

He was the one that had the worst to fear, right? And he was like, no, no, I'm going to take charge. okay, well, you do what you want to do, but I'm taking the plea. So he talks to his wife and he ends up taking the plea. And so we all take our plea. We sign off on it. They release us to go home. So we go home.

We wait to get sentenced and the next phase of our life happens. And there was more that went on with that later on. I had a second indictment that came down after that, but that's a little bit of a different story. But that's what happens. So then we go to, you know, home, wait for our sentencing. And you end up getting the 70 months. I end up getting the 70 months.

And so I get the 70 months. They ship me off to what happens was when I go for my sentencing, they made it seem like, oh, I'll be able to turn myself. They were still, there was a lot of animosity because I hadn't cooperated and because some of the things I had said to them, they felt pretty disrespected. So they had made it seem like we were going to be able to self-serreacted. be able to self-surrender.

But when I went in there for my sentencing, designation, recommendation, the prosecutors brought up at the very end. Well, Your Honor, we made a mistake. Since he pled guilty to a firearm charge, we have to take him into custody. And that's what they did. They took me into custody right there, right?

My wife's like, what the hell? I was like, just go home. I'll call you when I can call you. And then they transferred me off to a little county jail and eventually I ended up in MCC Chicago. Oh, I was on MCC Chicago. Oh, yeah. I was on the dorm floor.

Yeah, you were probably 23 or 26. Yeah, I was there for two weeks going, waiting to go to Wisconsin. They took me on a bus to Oxford. Yeah, transit. Yeah, you guys have a long bus ride there. Where did you do your time in? Where did I do my time? Yeah.

So from MCC Chicago, I was sent to West Virginia, Morgantown, West Virginia. And that's like a camp type setting there, right? So I was in Morgantown, West Virginia, and that's when I received my second indictment, which they already knew that they were working on. And they threw me in the shoe there. I came back for my second indictment and back to Chicago, stayed there. And then I was sent to Texas. What was that second indictment for?

The second indictment. This is the payback indictment that they got me with for not cooperating. So when they were doing their investigation, they were talking to the one guy that I said that had the worst to fear. What he decided to do was he decided after that to wear a wire. And he decided to go around to everybody that he knew and start talking.

He'd been wearing a wire way before we knew it. He was a realtor too as well as an officer. So he went around to all the officers that he knew trying to stir up dirt with them, all the realtors and mortgage brokers that he knew trying to stir up stuff with them to get cases on them. And because at that time, now we all three were together, right?

I had never hung out with these guys really before, but now we're all three in this. So we would go out and drink our sorrows away sometimes, right? And, of course, things, we were talking about things. And I was talking to him about one of the guys that we had done. We had all done a case together. After 9-11, I don't know, it was maybe a year after 9-11. one of the guys had an informant who said he was buying weed from a Muslim guy that owned a gas station in town. So I had asked my informant, I asked several informants if they knew this guy.

And I had one informant that I worked with and he said, yeah, that he knew this guy. So we had done a couple of buys and it didn't work out with the guy, but we were still waiting to make another buy. So the one guy, he worked across the street at the bank and he knew this guy came back and forth all the time to do. do his deposit. So he reported to the bank. He reported to FBI that maybe they should be watching this guy. So he reported this to the FBI and to the bank and so we're still trying to make buys on this guy. Well, my informant, who I had been doing a lot of good cases with, but he had a bad drug problem. He would stay clean for a while, then he would get bad again. Well, he calls me up one morning and tells me that, hey, man, I'm going and I'm robbing this guy and, you know, I'll call

you when I'm done and blah, blah. He was just, he was fried on meth and, um, here I went at the time. So I called him back and I was like, what are you talking about? So I call these two guys and I'm like, hey, so and so said that he's going over to try and rob, uh, the gas station guy. I said, um, I'm flying over there right now. If you see him and I gave him description of his car, what it looks like, I go get him stopped, right? We're looking for him. So we go over there. I end up in the area. They were working part-time job. So I knew they were in the area. They're in the area looking for him.

We're looking for him for him for a little bit. And there's nothing. We don't see the guy. We don't hear anything. So I keep trying to call the guy much times. No answer, no answer, no answer. So finally, about three or four hours later, he calls me. Which we do hear.

Eventually, I hear a call go out of an attempted robbery at the bank. So this guy calls me, and I'm like, where are you at? And he goes, I'm at home, man. I need you to come over here. He's crying in the phone. I need you to come over here. I need to talk to you. I go, are you, I said, are you your mom and dad's?

And he's like, yeah, I'm in the basement, man. So I go over to his mom and dad's house. And he tells me what he did. He went over there. Hi. He had been going over there on his own talking to this guy and working out his own thing. Well, the guy was on his way over to the bank. And this kid decides that he's going to rob him.

He was, he struck out on his meth. So he's going to rob the guy. So he tells me about it. And I said, well, did you rob him? And he's like, no, he ran into the bank. I just pepper sprayed me. He ran into the bank. And that's what happened.

The guy tells the story that he's going over to the bank. Some guy rides up on a bicycle. That's why we didn't see him as he was on a bicycle. We're looking for his car. He rides him on the bicycle and he pepper sprays this guy. And then he gets scared and runs. He doesn't even try and grab the money. He just gets scared and he runs and takes off on the bike.

and the guy goes into the bank and the guy is depositing his money. And the teller's like, hey, what happened? He goes, I don't know. Somebody sprayed me. I don't know if they tried to rob me or what they were doing. So they called the police just as a precaution. The police come. And so this kid, I'm like, he tells me the same story.

And I'm like, look, man, this kid was a good informant. Just a couple weeks before that, we had gotten two kilos together. From my house, he gave me information on two keys of Coke. I got my unit together. It panned out. He was doing a lot of good work for me. And his dad was a pharmacist, really good kid. But he was just messed up, man.

So I was like, okay, man, listen, you got two choices right now. He goes, I said, I can either take you to jail right now or you're calling your dad down here in the basement. We're telling him what's going on, and he's getting you in rehab right now. I mean, he's got to pack you up and you got to go somewhere right now. I go, those are your only two options, and this is the end of the road for you. So he's like, okay, so we call his dad down in the basement. we tell his dad what's been going on

and what he's done and these are his two choices so his dad says okay takes him puts him in rehab they go up to Michigan somewhere near Detroit and he puts him in rehab so now fast forward

to my second indictment what happened was they charge me when I'm getting ready to leave to go to Morgantown the counselor called me up there and I go up to the stairs up there where the counselor's office is and he says, hey man, he goes,

who have you pissed off? And I go, what are you talking about? He goes, you fucking made somebody mad. He goes, I've never heard of this shit before. And I go, what are you talking about, man? He goes, yeah, I got a second indictment here for you that says you're being charged with attempted Hobbsbacked robbery interfering with interstate commerce,

aiding and abetting is what it was. And I go, what is that? And he goes, I don't know. He goes, I've never heard of it before. And so I call my lawyer. And my lawyer is like, what is that? And I go, man, I don't know what it is. I've never heard of that charge.

So he does investigation. And this charge is from the stagecoach era. When people used to rob stagecoach, that's when this law came into effect. Basically what it says is anything that is transported on the road, anything, bubble gum, gasoline, toilet paper. All of that is interstate commerce because the rubber is on the highway and it becomes interstate commerce. So when that, my informant interfered with that guy's money going into the bank, and I knew that my informant did that and I didn't arrest him, that I was aiding and abetting him interfering with interstate commerce.

And that's how I got my second indictment. They should have just left the B. You were already in prison. So it was aiding and abetting for interstate commerce. I was the only guy that I ever met my whole time locked up with that. But yeah, so anyway, it gets worse, man. And they charged me with another gun charge because they say, that I was driving around looking for him

that I had a gun on me, the same thing as they did before to me with the other gun. So they hold me in Morgan Town in the shoe. They bring me back to Chicago. I go to court. We get in front of the judge, and the judge is like, are you serious?

You know, he's basically like, is this, your charge this guy with a gun for driving around? And did anybody see him? They're like, no, your honor. Nobody ever saw him. He was like, did anybody see a gun? And they're like, no, your honor.

And he goes, so if I'm in Ohio driving around, and I've got a gun in my car and you're accusing me of a crime that happens in South Bend you're going to charge me with a gun because I'm driving around with a gun in the car but nobody has seen me and I've been threatened to be and they're like, well, yeah, Your Honor.

So at that point I'm thinking, man, you know what? Maybe I could fight this thing or whatever, you know, and have a chance. And they're like, you know, but if he fights the gun charge, we're going to take away a plea deal that we're offering him and we'll just take it a trial. And then I knew I was screwed. So did give you more time?

They did give me more time. On top of that? Yeah, they gave me 150 months total, 156 months. But the judge said, oh, thank God, he allowed it to run consecutive to. So you got an extra 35 months. Yeah, I got extra time, yeah. It was an extra 80 months, yeah. That's crazy.

Yeah. And so, but it was payback. It was just payback for not cooperating. But it was also payback because they didn't know, you know, they didn't want to admit the whole. And I, and so what happened was they wanted me to come. They brought me from Chicago. So my lawyer was like, hey, the feds want to meet with you. They want to talk to you.

So they brought me back to, they brought me from MCC over to Ham in Indiana to someplace over there. I was in the van. But the marshals transported me. They sat me down and like, hey, we want you to, we want to ask some questions about some other officers. And I was like, well, I'm not going to talk about any other officers. I don't know anything about any other officers. And they're like, yeah, we think, you know, maybe you can help us out with something. Because basically what they did was they had.

officers that they were looking at that were maybe were doing minimal things like double-dipping on jobs or some stuff like that. But they wanted me to give them just something that they could open a case on those guys and go investigate them and ruin their lives. And I didn't know what those guys were doing. I mean, what am I going to tell you that, yeah, I saw this guy doing this when he should have been doing this so that you can go and just start. That's because that's how they do it.

They just get you in there. They start their investigation. and they hurry up and lock you up because once you're locked up, you can't fight your case from the street and they just want to make you sound as bad as possible, right? So why would I ruin anybody else's life? I said, I'm not cooperated with you guys.

So like, okay, well, and I said, and you guys know this bullshit charge that you hit me with, you know I wasn't driving around anywhere with any gun. You know that I didn't put this kid up to this that I was, you know, he goes, well, the kid, he did keep saying that you said you were going to lock him up. And I said, yeah, I told him I was going to lock him.

I said, yeah, of course I told him I was going to lock him up. He just tried to rob somebody. I said those were his choices. Get clean or get locked up. They knew this. They said it to me, right? But they still locked me up because it was payback. Crazy.

And so that's what happened, man. That's how I got in trouble. Did they send you to a low or after the camp when you got re-indicted? No. What happened was I went to Texas, which is a medium. low. And that's where I started my time. Did they keep you in a separate unit?

Because you were a former cop? Did who keep me a separate unit? No, I didn't want to keep me in a separate unit. Oh, you said put me out there? Yeah. Did they give you an option? Yeah. For protective custody?

Yeah, when I first got to MCC Chicago. And that's another thing, too, man. I mean, I know a lot of guys, you know, they get on the podcast and they get out there and they're like, yeah, you know, cops is bad for cops in prison and blah, blah, blah. And I can't speak for every prison, okay? I can only tell you about the mindset I was in when I went into prison. And when I went into MCC Chicago, that was the first place. As soon as you get in, right, they interview you, SIS and interviews you.

I'm sure they did the same thing with you. They want to know your background. I told them a law enforcement, okay, well, you can't go up to the floor right now. You're going to have to go to the shoe first, and we've got to make sure that there's nobody up there that you know. And I'm like, okay, so they put you in the shoe. You're down there for a couple days. They do their investigation. They're like, you want to go up to population.

I'm like, yeah, I want to go up to population. I'm not staying in this. It's a shit hole in there in the shoe, right? So they put me up there in population. So I'm up in population, and you know how that is. It's a transit. So you're in there with guys, white collar crime guys like you that aren't facing a whole lot of time with guys that are doing life that are back on appeal or going from one place to another. So you've got a bunch of people that know you.

And it's segregated. You know, you've got the Hispanics that are staying over here, the blacks are staying over here, and the whites that are staying over here. And that was my first time experiencing that, right? So I get in there, things are going fine, and they're bringing in new chains that come through. And, you know, people don't know chains or the buses, they call them chains. They bring in new guys that are in transit. Well, one day I come down, and there's a couple of guys, and I recognize them. I busted both of their asses.

And so they see me, and they're like, what's up, you heard you were here? You know, and I was like, yeah, I'm here. And they're like, yeah, oh, boy, got you. They're talking about the guy whose house that I had broken into, right? They're like, we heard, you know, what happened and everything. And they start talking a little bit of shit to me. Like, I mean, I think they're thinking because I was wearing a uniform out there, just because I was wearing a uniform, that that's not really who I am,

how I represented myself when I was out on the street, right? Or when I was busting on my cases. So they start talking a little bit slick to me or whatever. And I was like, look, man, I said, I don't know why you guys are even talking this crazy stuff to me. I said, but I'm getting ready to go down to a lawyer visit. And since I was, I said, I wasn't going to say anything to you guys. But if I come back from my lawyer's visit and you guys are still on this floor, I said, we're going to have a big problem.

And they're like, what? And I'm like, you better be ready when I come back up from my lawyer visit. Because that's the mindset that I was in. I was already pissed off from everything I'd been through with the feds. I was pissed off at myself. I figured I wasn't going to come out of prison alive anyway. And I was just ready to mess somebody up. And these were going to be the first two dudes that I messed up.

So I go down to my lawyer visit. I'm coming back up on the elevator and we stop on this floor. And the guy's like, well, this is your stop. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, I got to cuff you up, man. I'm like, are you serious? He goes, yeah, man, there's some dudes up there that said they can't be around you. And I was like, what do you?

So they put me in the shoe. What happens is those two guys, those two tough guys, as soon as I went for my lawyer visit, they go up to the counselor and tell him, oh, yeah, you know, he threatened us. and, you know, he can't be up here and blah, blah, blah. So they locked me up. And they leave me in the shoe for, I don't know, it was several days until they moved those two clowns to another floor, shipped them out.

Then they put me back up in population. And I didn't have any, everybody up there knew I was a cop, but I wasn't a snitch. And that's what they cared about. The dude that I was next to was like an old mobster. Like, for real, Chicago mobster. This guy was funny, man. And he said that to me.

He's like, look, man, after a couple days, you know, we're together. He's like, you know, we all know you're a cop, Jamie. He goes, but you didn't tell nobody. So, you know, not them saying it's great that you're a cop in prison, but you didn't tell nobody. And so, you know, everybody's good with that. If anything, they probably think you're a gangster because you're technically have that title of like a corrupt cop.

Yeah, I'm not sure what's rolling on with their minds. But you know how people, you know, in prison's a whole different game, man. And everybody, you don't know what's going on in anybody's mind at any given minute. And but I knew that at least had the respect from them that I did. didn't say anything, right? And I wasn't trying to get anybody's business. I worked out every day, read a lot, minding my P's and Q's, didn't touch anything I wasn't supposed to touch. And, you know, I just did my time like they were. And then eventually they shipped me off to Texas. Did you have a similar experience there? No, so in Texas, Texas is a different ballgame because when you

get there, I was at Bastrop, right? And so I go to Bastrop, and when you get to the dorm, You got the white guys that are there, the black guys and the Hispanics, and they're all waiting for whatever you represent to come through the door. And they're like, hey, where are you from? Who are you running with? And I was like, I'm not running with anybody. I'm independent, man. And they're like, okay, that's fine.

You're going to go to this room tonight with the CEO, and then you can find the independent guys tomorrow. And they were just clicking up with the guys that were clicking up with their gangs. and the gangs there were the Texas Aryan Brotherhood and the dirty white boys were the two white gangs

and those were some those some Hells Angels that were there but they weren't really they were just a couple guys and they were by themselves but those were the two main gangs and those were the independent guys so I met

you know I met with the independent guys the next day and I'm talking to this guy and he's like where you come from man you know and he's giving me the hard guy thing, and I'm like, this is my story, this is where I came from. He's like, okay, yeah, man,

but we're going to have to see your paperwork. And I'm like, that's no problem. My PSI's in my mail. I always, you know, they had told me when I first got there, the guys at MC, makes sure you carry your PSI with you. So I'm like, okay.

So he's like, when you get it, you bring it to me and show it to me, and if it's all good, you know, we're all good. Because you know how in the, well, I don't know, you know what, but there when you go into the chow hall, man, it's segregated like the other prison, maybe it's where you were at too,

but all of the blacks sat at certain tables and the gangs at their tables, the white sat at a certain table, Hispanic sat at a certain table, sex offenders sat at a certain area, and then it was a Christian table. And the dude's like, you know, if you saw good, you can sit at the white table,

you know, where the white guys are, the independent guys. And I'm thinking, I'm going to sit wherever, I mean, I'm not going to sit at a gang table because I'm not going to disrespect those guys, but I'm not, I'll sit at the white table if I want to sit at the white table, right? So I go sitting at the white table

and some guys are talking to me and blah, blah, blah. So a couple weeks later my paperwork gets there. I get it. I get my PSI. I go out of that dude's dorm, knock on his door, because we had cells, right? He's like, hey, come on in. Hey, man, my paperwork's here. And he's like, oh, it is? And he grabs my paperwork.

And he's like, he goes through my paperwork. He's like, okay, man, and he looks. He sees I didn't get any cooperation, nothing for cooperation. You know, it didn't snitch. He sees my time that I got. he gives it back to me and he's like okay man you're all good

and I'm like okay where's your paperwork and he's like huh and I'm like yeah you ask to see my paperwork now where's your paperwork he goes oh I gotta find it and now I know they're on some bullshit right and I said look man I said I don't know everything about prison man I just got into prison my first time

I said but if you're gonna ask me for my paperwork and I got to prove something to you you better damn well have your paperwork right and he's like yeah yeah I'm gonna get it to you man he goes I'll get it to you and, you know, I turn around and I walk out because that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, if you're going to come confront me about something,

then you better have something comparable, right? And that's just, but that's how things are there. You know, that's how things are in prison. And not that I was no tough guy, I didn't think I was going to whoop a bunch of people, but at the same time, you weren't going to come jerk me around. There were some guys that went in there

and it wasn't so good for them. but I just, I had already been to the shoe when I got in Chicago and I was in shoe, when I was in transit a couple of times. So I already knew what the shoe life was like. And I'm like, it's miserable, but I can do my time in the shoe. I'm only seeing my wife and kids twice a year anyway because my poor wife is working trying to take care of things on the outside. And she saves up money.

And then she bringing my kids to come see me wherever they were globe-trod me, right? So I'm thinking the worst is worst. If something happens here, they're going to put me in the shoe and they're going to send me off somewhere else. My wife will come visit me there. And that was kind of my mindset. And so I got my cell. After the guy that left, they had more seniority me.

He went home. So I had control of the cell. And then I picked who my cellmates were, which I picked a Hispanic guy and another white guy, older guy, to sell with me. So I didn't have to worry about things. It was an independent Hispanic. This June, the world comes to Los Angeles.

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But, you know, there's a whole plethora things that go on during that time. What was the most surprising thing you learned being on the other end of the spectrum of the criminal justice system? So from being a cop to an inmate? Yeah. The real thing that shocked me was how many inmates watch cops. I could not. That shocked me, too. Believe it.

Love after lock up all those shows. Man, dude, I saw, I don't know how many fights. I almost saw a breakout because some guys wanted to watch cops and somebody was messing with the TV channel or whatever. and I was sit in the back row because for people out there that don't know some people probably have told it or whatever TV rooms are very segregated so there

there was like a line where it started for black guys and they had their TV white guys they had their TV and then everybody had their time slot and what they wanted to watch or whatnot and these guys are

I would sit back there and laugh because I'm like now these guys are off drugs they're in an environment where they're halfway mentally right and they want to sit when watch cops and most of the time they're cheering for the cops. They're like whoops ass, yeah, he deserved that. And I'm just sitting there going, shaking my head because I can't believe it.

And so that was probably one of the funniest, you know, funny, not funny things that I saw in there, you know. What year did you get out of prison? 2019. I was so fairly recent a few years ago. Yeah, 19. I got out at the end of 19 and I had my three years of probation. And that's really why I'm on the show now is because it's all been in my plan to do what I'm

getting ready to embark on. But the first thing I needed to do was get back with my family because I had been gone for so long and when I got back, I needed to get back in my family's lives, my children's lives. And so I've spent from 19 up until now doing that, trying to reestablish myself in my children's lives. And they're all grown up, you know, when I left. They were little kids, and I came back and they're grown up, you know. And so that was, that's, that was that part of it. Now I'm at this stage in my career where, or my life, where I won, your platform offers something

that's rare. There's a lot of people that just have law enforcement podcasts or they just have a lot of the prison stuff, but you kind of co-mingled the two. And that's kind of what I'm hoping to do is be able to talk to law enforcement officers, be able to talk to inmates, and let them both experience what's going on with the other. You know, a lot of times I would chase people in my law enforcement career, you would catch a guy and you would be like, man, what'd you run for? I wouldn't even have, I was going to write you a ticket because I was scared of going back to prison, man, I'm on probation or whatever. I mean, that simple thing could have turned into a deadly situation fast.

And you're always thinking, yeah, right, this guy's scared away. But now going to prison and seeing how these guys think and the worry that they have, I can wholeheartedly understand how they panic and they run because they don't have a driver's license or they're worried about going back to prison. Some of them can't afford to go back to prison, right? And so by opening the eyes to both sides about what could be going on in that person's mind, just like when the police officer walks up your car, For all of the people out there, there's a lot of, when I got out of prison, there was a lot of things I had to learn, but how common sense is gone by the wayside.

If a police officer walks up to your car and asks for your license registration, the worst thing you can do is start going off about I don't have to give you anything. I don't have to tell you anything. I don't have to show you anything. You're disrespecting me because things are only going to go sideways from there. If you don't like the way an officer stopped, you were treated you, drive down to the police station. when it's all over with and make a complaint, talk to the supervisor, make a complaint. If there's something wrong and they squash the ticket,

then they do that. But to get into an argument with an officer who, you don't know what his last call was, the last call he had, he might have been fighting with somebody for 10 minutes for his life, and now he pulls you over, so he's still jacked up on adrenaline, and now you're giving him guff because he asks you for your driver's license, right?

Or the 100 videos he's watched of officers that walk up to a car on a traffic stop, and one second a guy is arguing with him and the next second the guy shoots the cop in the face and he falls down. So these are things that are going on with a police officer's mind when he's approaching your car. So he's got things going on in his mind

when he approaches this stop. You've got things on your mind because of past experiences. Nothing good is going to come to that if you cause a disturbance. So just cooperate, get whatever citation is nine times out of ten if a cop pulls you over and it's no big deal, he's just going to let you go.

Make sure you're not wanted. and then if things go sideways from there, if you got something in the car, you know you got it. You're going to run, you're going to get. You cannot run a radio, and you can't outrun those cameras that they have everywhere now. So that's kind of what I'm hoping to do.

This next stage in my life is talk to officers, talk to inmates, and see if I can't make both sides aware of what's going on since I've been on both sides of that fence, you know? And in the meantime, I wrote a children's book for kids, and it's about separation anxiety because the wife and the kids,

when men go to prison, are the real victims, right? They're the ones that are suffering, and there's a lot of trauma that's caused from that. And so the only way that you're going to stop all this cycle of violence and a cycle of prison lockup is if you start working with these children at a young age and try and help them through this trauma

so that they don't grow up and repeat the same cycle. And so I'm hoping to get some of that information out there too. Did any of your cop colleagues from back in the day still talk to you through your prison sentence and even after? I had one really good friend sent me a book every birthday, sent me letters. I had some that I think were afraid because of the policy on the department as you can't associate with a felon. And then I think there were a lot that, and that was the really hurtful part, is there were a lot that bonded. into the whole thing about that they actually thought I was doing all the stuff like the Fed said that I was out robbing the drug dealers or I stole this dope to sell and make money or

whatever and and that they would they all the cases that they've been on with me all the things times that I put my life on the line for them all the times that they know we had large amounts of money large amounts of cash never took anything that they would think that about me without at least come to me and talk to me about it. At least come me and say, hey, man, what really happened? I'm not going to tell you the whole story. But I'm going to tell you, hey, man, when it's all over with, I can tell you, but it's not what they're saying, you know, at least pay me that respect. I would have done the same thing for them. If guys got in trouble, I would have went to them, hey, does your family need anything? You know, not one of those guys, no matter what you

thought about me, not one of those guys went to my wife and said, hey, do you need help with something? And for her, my kids. So, you know, when you're an officer, you have to remember that is when things are going good, everybody's your brother. You know, you're watching out for each other. But when things go sideways, who you can count on, it's not going to be who you thought you could count on. It's going to be somebody that comes out of the woodwork that, you know, you didn't think that they would be the one to step up for you. But that's how it works. And, you know, that was a really painful part for me.

What's the hardest thing about being a felon now for you? If there is anything mentally. You know, the hardest thing I think is just when you go for a job, you know, when I see people out and, you know, they look at you different. People that I run across that I know, you know, they have that sense about, oh, yeah, you know, you've been to prison and that kind of thing. But I don't really let that bother me too much. I don't really, I try to just live my life, man, as productive as I can.

I have my family, so I'm happy for that. There's not too many things that bother me, you know. I got registered to vote. There's, you know, you just got to keep moving forward. I mean, obviously there's things that I'm not going to be able to do. And you just have to work around those obstacles and keep moving forward. I think there's like 23 million felons in America or something like that. And, you know, the president of the United States is going to be a convicted felon.

No matter what you think about that, right or wrong. but at some point, things have to start changing for people that are convicted of felonies. And I'm not saying, you know, rapists and murderers and, you know, high crimes like that. But these other people that are locked up for drugs and low-level stuff, things have to start happening where those are taken off their record. They can come back to society as normal people, that they can start gaining back some of their pride, open up doors for jobs for them. things are going to have to change, you know,

and that's, I really don't see the other way around it. What's the life lesson you want people to take away from hearing your story today? The life lesson that I want to take people to take away from my story is just watch your decisions. And really this is going out to law enforcement, first responders. There's a lot of first responders that struggle with the same thing that I struggled with. there's a lot of military vets that are struggling from the same things I struggle with

and the choices that you make have a reoccurring effect on your life that can be devastating if that trooper had not if God had not sent, I'm saying if God had not sent that trooper to stop me and in the middle of what was happening with me

you know I would it would have been devastating for my family they wouldn't have had any answers they wouldn't have known any of the grief that I was going through they would have just known that I shot myself sitting at a red light and that's how my story would have ended and the rest of their lives they would

have been traumatized by that if you need to talk to somebody talk to somebody there's no shame in that don't be afraid to confide in a friend your spouse a counselor don't try and hold everything on the inside and if you get to that point where you think that this is your last day there's so much more life that's ahead of you yeah there's struggles but there's so much good that's still ahead of you Jamie, thank you so much for coming on the show today, man. Yeah, thank you, Ian. I appreciate it. Yeah, you did a terrific job sharing your story, and it was a great conversation. Well, all I don't know that, I just know that my story is my story,

and it's just getting it off my chest like that for the first time. Now everybody knows the whole story, not just the story that was, you know, presented to them. Absolutely. Yeah.