Locked In with Ian Bick - I Hunted America's Most Wanted Fugitives as a US Marshal — Then the Agency Destroyed Me | Robert Ledogar

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

Robert Ledogar spent over 30 years serving his country — first in the Navy then as a Supervisory Deputy US Marshal for the Eastern District of New York. He spent decades hunting down and capturing some of America's most wanted fugitives, transporting federal prisoners including El Chapo during his trial, and running some of the most dangerous operations the US Marshals Service has ever seen. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, Bob pulls back the curtain on what it really looks like to hunt fugitives in New York City — the process the stories and the cases he'll never forget. He opens up about transporting El Chapo on Con Air and what that experience was really like. And then he tells the story nobody inside the agency wants told — how after 30 years of unblemished service he stood up for a female deputy marshal being harassed and assaulted by her own colleagues — and how the agency spent the next four and a half years trying to destroy him for it. Fired two months before retirement eligibility. He fought back. And in August 2021 — he finally won. _____________________________________________ #USMarshal #ElChapo #truecrimecommunity _____________________________________________ Thank You To CASH APP For Sponsoring This Episode: Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/6pao71et #CashAppPod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. _____________________________________________ Connect with Robert Ledogar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-ledogar-276277146 _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 US Marshal Who Hunted Fugitives and Worked the El Chapo Case — Robert's Full Story 01:00 Growing Up in Queens and the Early Life That Led to Federal Law Enforcement 03:00 The Early Influences That Set Him on the Path to the Navy and Eventually the Marshals 06:00 Navy Service and What Desert Storm Really Looked Like From the Inside 08:00 The Investigative Work Overseas That Prepared Him for Everything That Followed 11:00 Transitioning Out of the Navy and What That Career Change Really Required 13:00 Joining the US Marshals Service and What That Process Actually Looked Like 15:00 Marshal Academy Training and the Early Days That Defined His Career 18:00 Learning to Track Fugitives and What That Education Really Looked Like 21:00 Task Forces and How His Responsibilities Expanded Into Major Operations 23:00 Working Big Cases and the Surveillance Tactics That Most People Never Hear About 26:00 The Most Memorable Fugitive Capture Stories From His Entire Career 29:00 The Challenges of Probation Violations and What That World Really Looks Like 32:00 Supervising Warrants and the Team Dynamics That Define the Job 35:00 The Realities and Risks of Arresting Fugitives That Nobody Talks About Publicly 38:00 Transporting Detainees and What the Court Logistics Process Really Involves 41:00 Bounty Hunters Escape Attempts and the Stories That Still Surprise Him 44:00 High Profile Cases and His Connection to the El Chapo Investigation 47:00 The Investigative Successes and Lessons That Defined His Career 50:00 Probation Halfway Houses and the Escape Attempts That Kept Him on His Toes 53:00 What Working With Different Agencies Actually Looks Like From the Inside 56:00 Serving Warrants in New York City and What Makes That Environment Unique 59:00 The Big Arrests That Required the Most Due Diligence and Preparation 01:02:00 Balancing Duty Family and Legacy After a Career Hunting America's Most Wanted 01:05:00 His Honest Reflections on the System and the Personal Lessons That Changed Everything _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My guest today spent nearly three decades as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in New York City, hunting America's most wanted fugitives, transporting Al Chapo during his trial, and running some of the most dangerous operations the Marshal Service has ever seen. And then, he stood up for a female colleague being assaulted by her own team, and the agency spent the next four and a half years

trying to destroy him for it. His name is Robert Lediger. He fought back, and this is what nearly 30 years of service to his country really looks like. Where'd you grow up? Originally, Queens, a small town called Broad Channel, which is right south of JFK Airport, Howard Beach, and it's a little island attached by two bridges for Howard Beach and Rockaway Beach. So I born and raised there.

It was a little, it's a, you know, like you know the area here, it's just you're on the water. It's great. You know, and you don't even think you're in New York. What was your upbringing like? I had a great, great childhood. Me and my, I have a younger sister, my mom and dad. small, small neighborhoods so everybody's related to our friends, you know. I went to Catholic grammar school, went to Catholic high school, and played sports,

you know, typical local, local stuff in like the CYO or whatever it's called, and baseball, football, hockey. And I still have the same group of friends that I had when I was in kindergarten. Like, there's still like five guys that were the best of friends ever. And even the girls, like the girls I grew up with, and we all still keep in touch. You know, it's funny that you meet people today and like, oh, my best friend's from college. Like, what? My best friend's from kindergarten.

What was your parents' background? What did they get into for work? My dad worked for sanitation and odd jobs here and there. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom and did a little, worked in a grocery store, laundromat in the neighborhood. We were very tight. You know, my mom was, my house was always like, you know, Grand Central. Everybody from my sister and me, we were all our friends were always there and, you know, playing on the block or just, we didn't have, video games were just starting back then, like Atari, you know, that was it. And, you know, good times.

There was good times growing up and where I grew up. Big water people we were, are still. I live in Florida now, so I got to be surrounded by the water. But I grew up, I had a boat my whole life, loved it, loved being out on the water, and it just continues on today. What were you interested in becoming when you were a kid? When I first started out, I don't think I always wanted to be a cop. But back in the 80s, you know, I grew up watching Miami Vice.

So I freaking love that show, man. I thought it was the coolest show ever. I mean, you can still watch it now on Netflix. You know, you watch you. Like, this was a great show. And it was me and my dad would watch it. My mom would always make fun of us for watching. My sister didn't care.

And that made me want to be, and I didn't understand the different types of police that were out there. You know, local cops, state cops, federal agents. So I'm like, I'm going to be a federal agent. And I always thought, you know, Miami Vice, those guys were like DEA or something. And I'm like, I'm definitely going to be DEA. knowing in high school that I wasn't going to go to college, I enlisted into the Navy early. It was a delayed entry program, so my parents had a sign for me to sign up. So I was 16 when I signed up for the Navy, 17 when I went in, right out of high school.

And I did almost seven years in the Navy. And I went into a program in the Navy called Master at Arms. and it was like security, police. And, you know, you're always misguided by your recruiter. When you go into the middle, everybody has the same story. Like, my recruiter screwed me. And my recruiter screwed me, you know, and he was from Rockaway originally. So he said, I wanted to go in.

I'm like, look, I want to drive boats, not understanding like the big ships or anything. I'm like, you guys have little small Boston whales. I can drive them, no problem. I can just drive them, you know? And he's like, yeah, definitely. hooking me up with that. And he's going to get me what's called an A-school, you know, right after boot camp. I went to boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. And after that, I went to an A-school, which was called quartermaster. They chart the path of the ships. Like, you have to know numbers.

I failed out before I even got in there. I'm like, I can't do this. I don't, I'm going to, it's going to be embarrassing. Like, I can't figure it out. And then I became a Boatson's mate. I was down in Pensacola, Florida for a year or so, and was the commanding officer's duty driver. Like, this is, you know, like, it just happens. You know, things just happen. So the commanding officer took a liking to me, and that's when I fell into the program of Master at Arms and got me into that school. And from there, I got promoted. So when it is an E3, I got promoted to E4.

But after the school, when I graduated, you know, there's a catch to it. Deadwood Storm was starting and I went my orders were to Bahrain over by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, right there in the Middle East during Desert Storm and I'm like, holy shit you know, like you're scared, but you don't know what's going on and I'm like, all right, I'm going to be security. I wound up being base security. We had a Harbor Patrol unit there

and an investigation unit which fell under then NIS, the NIS, the NIS, Navy Investigative Service. Now it's NCIS. So I did base security for probably a month to three months, you know, learning patrol and that. But I got friendly with the guys that worked investigations. And it was called CID, which is the command investigation division. And those guys, you know, I guess pick me up, you know, put me in there. And I was so young. And I was so young. And I learned from two of those guys how to be a cop, so say, you know, in the military and how to be an investigator. And I just loved it.

I loved doing that stuff, you know. And my mother hated it. Hated it, man, because I didn't wear a uniform. So we wore civilian clothes. And I would grow my hair longer. And here I am in Desert Storm in civilian clothes during a war. into war and working investigations. And you had theft going on, some sex crimes going on.

We had all ships coming in there. You had every branch of service coming in there. And the biggest one was people would stealing, you know. And it was anything like soldiers or military people or even civilian contractors stealing, you know, war souvenirs or taking stuff that you can't bring back into the country. Like you just can't take. Like, you can't. and even stealing stuff from the community,

like going to the suks, they call it, or something, stealing jewelry, like cold and getting court. And you're like, all right, we have to investigate this stuff, but you have to work with the local, local so-called law enforcement. And they were BP at Bahrainian Public Service officers. And they also were like their military, was the police over there.

So I was there for 14 months after Bahrain. I then went to Italy. I went to Sardinia, another island called La Mottalena, which is off the mainland of Italy. So I went there as an investigator as well. In Bahrain, I got promoted again to E5. And went to La Mada Lena, and I was there for two years as the command investigator, and a small little subtender base over there. and worked investigations.

Everything from drugs, sex crimes, theft is always theft over there in the military, some stupid stuff. Disorderly conduct, drunken disorderly stuff, you know. And this is back in early, early 90s, so this is all serious, you know, offenses. And then from there, I left and I went to Little Creek, Virginia, Virginia Beach, as an instructor now. And like, I just worked investigations, all this. And I'm in Virginia as an instructor

doing shipboard security engagement tactics. I've never been on a ship. I don't even know the language, like, how to speak on getting a ship. When I was in LaMont-Alena, I would have to go onto the ships that were there. And even in Bahrain, I would have to go on to ships. Like, you have to salute the ensign with the flag

on the back of the ship. I didn't know this. You have to ask permission to come on the ship for like the officer that's on duty there, like all these things. But I wore civilian clothes. I had like everybody thought I was an NIS agent, which was great. It was a great cover. Until reality comes and you go back to the States and, you know, like, no, you're wearing a a uniform again. You got to cut your hair and you better respect the ranks above you. You're like, oh, wow, this is going to be a problem. And it was for me, it was a little tough. And so I become an instructor teaching security tactics to security teams that are on board a ship if they're ever overtaking by terrorist or bad people, which was great.

We had a training vessel in Virginia, and it was an old oiler, and it was all cleared out, and we were doing paintball gun training on there. So this is before it got the way it is today. This is back in the 90s with paintballs. Great. It was so much fun. So much fun. And on top of that, I was an instructor also for firearms qualifications where we did this tactical shooting. And then from there, I knew, like, I wasn't going to stay in the Navy, which the Navy was great. I loved it. I had a great time. But I always wanted to be a federal agent. And when I was in Virginia, opportunities were coming. And you get these teletypes that come over that all these police departments are recruiting or federal agents were recruiting. and I started, you know, signing up for them.

And it was the Marshal Service that came to Virginia and had this program called Operation Shining Star recruiting military guys with backgrounds and to join the Marshal Service. And I knew I was going to get picked right away just with my background. And then you had to take a fit test. It's like, okay, nope, we're in the military. We have to do this every six months. So I got selected and picked up to go into the mall.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Glenn as a marshal. How old were you when you first joined the marshals? 75. 24 or 25. Was that considered young for a Marshall? I think, I don't know. I think so.

But we had some college age guys and girls there as well, similar to my age. And yeah, it probably normal age 24, 25, I think. Yeah, they were getting, their priority was college graduates, you know, and they were getting, like in New York, you get a lot of guys or girls that graduate. from John Jay College. So, and they came out to the marshals. What did you know about the marshals going into it? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

I, um, I went in my own mind. I made the decision. I'm like, whoever called me first, I'm going to go. I wanted to go to DEA, but they didn't call. And, um, the marshals called. I'm like, all right, I'm going in. And I remember telling my dad, I'm getting out of Navy. I'm going to be a marshal and hit him going.

The hell is a marshal. I'm like, I'm like, the federal agents. I'm going. And because you get bamboozled by, you know, your Navy recruiter bamboozle and then the marshals, they bamboozle you too. Like, this is the greatest job ever, you know, everybody's going to be working, investigations, hunting down fugitives. Bullshit, bro.

Everybody's going to court. You're transporting prisoners and you're going to court with a prisoner, especially if you're in the big districts, like New York. California, you know, Florida. That was it. So when I got to, like in the academy, they all, constant PT training,

you know, push-up, sit-ups running, getting yelled at, firearms training. And back when I went through, we all had 357 revolvers. Like, so you got to speedload a revolver. It's silly. But it's historical stuff.

And you're still bamboozled by the instructors. down there, which is funny as hell. Like, they were trying to fail us in physical fitness when my whole class was military. I'm like, we can sit in the push-up position for seven hours. Like, and we're all young guys and girls. Like, okay, this is nothing, you know. We can run for five days.

Like, we've all doing this. And then the range, like, okay, the problem we all had coming from the military is we were, like me, I was carrying a 45. So going from a semi-automatic to a revolver, it's a big, big change. And then they thought, are you going to be working a street? You're going to be doing hits, arrest and fugitives going out, you know, man-hunting. Like, okay, okay, I'm going to do all this stuff. And I got to Brooklyn. They were like, no, man, go put a suit on.

And you're going to court with a prisoner. And you don't know the court system, you know, but you learn it. and you're going up for an arraignment, initial appearance, a status hearing, a guilty plea, a sentencing, God forbid you got picked to sit on a trial, which they suck. You know, you're sitting there for six, seven, eight hours, you know, babysitting the prisoner. So you know. Do they give you specialty training about how to track down a fugitive or do any of these protection type stuff?

Yeah. But then you learn it more on a job because you have to come to a different district and you're working in New York. So you learn from the guys that do that. So, yeah, in New York, I did all the basic, you know, court, transport, and then I fell into doing warrants. And I actually, you know, I can talk a good talk. You know, I'm from New York.

I knew my way around. And thank goodness the guys and the girls that worked warrants, they took a liking to me. And there was a couple of guys that took a big liking to me and taught me the way, you know. It was one guy Craig Kane that, you know, know, show me how to work, you know. And then there was other guys I worked with, too.

Like this guy Lenny DePaul, who became the chief of the whole task force in New York, you know, they grabbed me. And they were like, hey, you can work this stuff and do it. And I had a fun doing it. And you work with, you do rotations until you can pick it up and start doing it. Then you start to graduate. Here's your own cases. Start working it, you know.

And back then, well, no, even today, you have to use your imagination. You know, we had some good case. I had some great cases to work. We had some good techniques we use. You know, a lot of it is going out on the street, though, and interviewing people. You have to do surveillance. Surveillance sucks. You're sitting there for hours, you know, hoping that that address is where he or she is going to be at.

You have to interview people, family members, friends, jail records, you know, you always find out who's visiting, who in the jail. And you get out. And Marshalls, we have. had, you know, the best ways to get information. I mean, everybody that's wanted by the Marshal Service, we're already in jail. So you're on probation. So we get everything from probation officers, and that's what primarily we went after, guys who violated their federal probation, you know. And then we had the task forces, which just exploded throughout the country, and they're great, and we work with local police departments and other federal agencies, and they turn cases over.

over to the Marshal Service to start investigating the fine fugitives. I mean, all we're doing is looking for people. And there's so many techniques out there. I mean, we all know it. I mean, the best was cell phones. Back in the day when I started, though, it was beepers. You know, you had to get somebody's beeper number and then try to find out what payphone they were calling from.

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promotions provided by Cash app, a Block Incorporated brand. Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Now, you're hunting any, it doesn't have to just be a federal probation violation or someone that fleed. It could be any type of crime that gets reported because you would see like a list of most wanted by the U.S. Marshals. Right. So most wanted by the U.S. Marshals, yeah.

But you have to be, it's a federal crime, felonies, no misdemeanor. Back in the day, we used to have some misdemeanors and like, what the hell, what they call? Military deserters, we would go after them. But then when the Marshal Service, it just became well known and better. And we had better programs created. And the creation of the task forces were huge because then we would take on felony cases from state and local jurisdictions. And then working from there. Yes.

Okay. Oh, so that's when the task force formed that. Well, it wasn't it? Well, yeah, in New York, it's the biggest task force in the nation, New York, New Jersey, regional future task force. So we would get all the big high profile felony warrants from New York. But before that, too, we would get, there was a memorandum of understandings with different departments and smaller jurisdictions or smaller districts working with local cops. They would turn over their cases. because they didn't have the resources or the abilities to go and really hunt people down. Aside from just hunting down fugitives, what else would the U.S. Marshals be responsible for? Today they got bigger. They do a lot of protection details now, and you'll see a lot of marshals on different cabinet-appointed personnel now. Wittzek, we do that, judicial security for the court houses, federal judges, U.S. attorneys. Seas property, you know, when the government comes and takes some of your stuff. Prison of transportation, sitting in a cell block, the airlift.

That was the biggest things that I was used to in Brooklyn. Now, what's the difference between U.S. Marshals and Secret Service? Secret Service protects the president and their own protection details with the vice president. and they investigate financial crimes, fraud, you know, money laundering, but then that'll criss-cross over to, like, the FBI can pick those cases up. Secret Service, if they have a warrant for somebody and they don't have the abilities to investigate the location, they'll turn them over to the marshals and we'll work those cases. So you guys are trained to actually investigate a case and present charges?

No, it's we're just going. The charges are already there. looking to charge somebody, we already have the paperwork. You know, you already committed to crime. Another agency or organization investigated that, went to the U.S. attorneys, went to a district attorney, got a complaint, got a warrant, and now you're wanted. So that's what we're going after. We're just looking for you, the person, the body. How long does it take to get on that list? What list? Of being wanted. So say, like, the FBI is looking for someone, they get the warrants, you know, maybe they go out for a week or two, then does it get

passed on to the marshals? The FBI won't turn over cases to the marshals. It's just, I think it's an ego thing. But I worked hand in hand with the FBI when I was in New York or was at Long Island with the MS-13 task force. We worked great together. They had so much work going on. They couldn't go out and arrest people. So they would turn cases over to us. They don't want to at all. I think some agencies internally have timeframes to turn a warrant over to the Marshal Service. It's all part of the MOUs, the memorandum of understandings. But legally, no.

There isn't like set in stone. It's suggested or recommended, you know, to turn them over to the Marshals. Once you guys get that paperwork, what happens? Listen, every warrant that comes into the Marshal Service is always a bag of shit. It's always garbage. So, like, if it comes over, it's been stepped on. So, like, the DEA work cases. They worked it.

You know, the guy knows he's wanted. They've already blown up addresses, cell phones, people, interviews. It's garbage. So you got to get, you're getting dirty working that case. Now you're just looking for a, you're using your imagination. You're looking for an inside to get somebody, catch somebody. So it's the same thing, like federal probation, you know. So like if you violate your probation, you know, for back in a day, I don't even know if this is a violation anymore, smoking weed.

That was the biggest things that would come down to me from the probation officer was like, oh, this guy, you know, pissed dirty urine. You know it. The probationer knows it already. he or she is already on the run. So, like, they drop their phone. They're not staying with the girlfriend. They're not staying with the mom. Or the girlfriend and the mom know that they're going to get violated.

So they're on the run. So, but the probation officer already stepped on it by calling the offender going, hey, we're going to get a warrant for you. Why are you threatening the guy telling him that? Just be quiet. So. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg,

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Can you walk us through like a memorable case that you've hunted down? Listen, I was part of some big, big cases, and being in Brooklyn, you know, everything's coming through there. The one for me that was so rewarding, in a way, is we were going to, I was, I had this case and it was a probation violation because he didn't report to probation. prior charges to that he was in jail for drugs, probably cocaine, whatever, got it, and started going out, working it, and it was a while going back and forth, back and forth to the last known address, which was the offender's dad's apartment, somewhere in Queens.

And we finally had a break in the process. And it was me and my partner, Craig King. And we went there and were interviewing the father. We're all-time, you know, mafiatized in New York and everything. Gentlemen, perfect gentleman, sitting there talking to him, unless it's in the house and entertaining us. You know, he knows, you know, we're trying to throw anything on the wall or make it stick to catch his son.

And he's not going to give up his son. So my partner's talking to him for a while. They're going back and forth. And I'm snooping around his apartment. And I look over on the side and there's cards, like Christmas cards. So it's probably around Christmas time. And it takes the one down. And it's a picture of his son who we're looking for.

And maybe the wife, a girlfriend and a kid. And he's like, yeah, that's, you know, his name was James. And I'm like, where is this? He's like, I don't know. You know, it's an old card, whatever. So whatever we were able to break something in a way, Craig tells me he's like, write down the number on the back, because it was a CVS printed out picture.

He's like, we can find it out with that number. I'm like, okay. So I do. We write it down and that. And this was, you know, in the 90s now, late 90s, we don't have cell phones to take a picture of it. You know, you don't, what am I going to bring a Polaroie camera in there with me to take a picture of the picture?

and try to steal it, this guy's going to know, I stole it, you know, you can't. And he didn't give it to him. Like, can I have this? No. Okay. So we go back and we leave, we thank them, the whole thing, and leave there and go there to see a CVS, happens to be a CVS somewhere in Queens. We stop in there and go in where they make photos.

Remember back in the day where you get photos printed at a CVS? It's going there, we give the guy the number, and he's like, yeah, he tracks it down, He's like, oh, this guy, this is in, this office where it was printed is in West Palm Beach, Florida. But like, really? Yeah. And he goes, yeah, and it's only a couple of months old. We're like, holy shit, this is great. So we go back, we make phone calls to Florida.

Of course, we all, the marshals nationwide. So we call down to the marshals office in West Palm Beach, tell them what we got going on. They're like, all right, we're like, this is the, here's, we have pictures of the guy. So we're sending paperwork back and forth. The marshals down there go to the CVS, show a picture of our fugitive. They're like, oh, yeah, we know this guy. They're like, he comes in here all the time. He's like prescription, whatever it is.

And like, they just had photos the other day. They got newer photos of my guy, the guy we want. So they get it. They're like, oh, he works at the bar restaurant club down the block. You know, he's there every Friday night. So we find out the guy's chat. works out. He's a muscle head. I'm like, oh, shit. You know, they're going to have a tough time. So the marshals wind up, they're like, we're going to go out at nighttime to go get this guy, you know.

So they do. And they go out. It was like a week later. And they're sitting on the club, the bar. And that night I get a phone call. They're like, hey, man, one under. We got him. I'm like, get the hell out of it.

They're like, yeah, he's bouncing at a bar. He's like, he wanted to fight. They're like, he resisted a little bit. And then he was like, I, you know, gave it up. And they're like, how the hell do you get me? And I'm like, whatever they tell him and that. That was the, that was using your imagination and investigating, you know, being persistent. you know and being able to talk, you know, and getting information.

And that paid off. And it wasn't even a major case. Like this guy, you're on probation, bro. Just go report. You could have been in Florida on probation, but worked out like a maniac. He would have definitely beat the shit out of a few people. But he was okay. And taking steroids.

So you're going to pop no matter what on probation doing that, you know. And you don't have a legit. job, you're bouncing. It's all cash. And being our probation sucks, you know. Do you find that most these guys that do end up fleeing or willing to do whatever to stay, you know, free? Yeah, because they're going to get hit harder, you know, with being out so long. You know, you're going to get hit with doing what all your probation time and more so, because it's going to be new criminal activity jumped up, popped on top of you. So. Now, do you pick and choose which people you pursue more? Like, if it's just a probation violation, are you guys giving that the same treatment as, say,

someone else that's wanted for a crime and they haven't done prison in time yet? Yes. Yes. It's all serious. And in New York, for me in Brooklyn, like, I work cases, you know, as a deputy marshal. And then I was promoted. I was a supervisor. And I was very fortunate, man.

I went back and was the supervisor of warrants in Brooklyn. for 10 years. And that's like a, that's a prestigious, you know, titled position. Like, you got to earn it. And the people who came before me that were the supervisors in Brooklyn are like, you know, they're legends, you know. So we got great cases. We had a great reputation there.

We were getting good work. And all the guys and girls that worked in warrants wanted to be there and were cases. if it was anything from a probation violation to a homicide, it was important, you know, because it was, you don't know what's going to happen. You know, the guy wanted for homicide could be the easiest person in the world to arrest, but the guy wanted for probation could go down with a fight. You know, so you're treating each one as a major player and very serious. And it's scary. You know, it's scary working, it's scary work in a street as a cop. And I wasn't a cop so say, like wearing a uniform or out there, because you're a target. You're a walking

target. And it's scary as how, for me, because I have the experience as being a marshal, you know, going to look for somebody that knows that they're wanted. And, you know, there's no talking your way out of it. You know, you've got to get arrested and you're going to go to jail. As a marshal, how did you feel about bounty hunters? I laugh at it. It's a, you're not. It's a, you're not. It's a, you're not. It's a, you're not. It's a impressive that they make good money out of it. But New York, you really didn't have big bounty hunters. And their system wasn't there. We would have guys come in, you know, from out of state and stuff. Like, who are you guys? Like, what is this? And very rarely would they contact us to marshals looking for people.

So I didn't really interact or work with bounty hunters. But I just, it's funny. Do you think that someone always gets found and just a question of time? Um, the only, the, the, yes, yes, yes, yes and no. Um, more so yes. It's, it's when a fugitive, who's a major player in whatever crimes he did and what, what he was part of, what criminal activity he was part of of, like, maybe gangs or the mafia, um, or international crimes. That involves a lot of money. I had one guy I was looking for, and he was tied up at a Long Island, and he was caught up with maybe some Albanians, and this was a black guy.

And when we would go look, you know, going back and back to his parents' house, looking for him, tracking him down, had nothing, nothing on, nothing at all. and however we came about information, they were like, listen, he's dead. They killed him and they threw him in the swamps in Louisiana and the alligators ate him. I'm like, that's the greatest story I ever heard. I'm like, how do you even track that down? You know, for real or false? But that guy was never, nothing was ever found of him. Nothing.

And with technology today and knowing he had tattoos. all about them. We knew the tattoos, where they were, facial recognition, DNA, nothing. So you got to believe, in a way, you got to believe that story that he was murdered with the criminal activity he was part of. And they were like, that's it. We threw him in the swamps in Louisiana and he got eaten up by alligators. So like, holy shit. But a case like that, I'll never come off the list, will he? No, he's always on there. Always. Nobody comes off. Nothing. If he's. you're never arrested, you don't come off. And that was one thing in New York, we were trying to fight, like, guys were on probation and they're, like, we know they're dead, but the warrant

wasn't cleared. Like, there's people that are dead that are still on a wanted list. Shouldn't the warrant automatically get dropped, though? Or is it up to the court system? It's up to the court. You have to go to court. You have to file petition to get it dismissed. But probation officers aren't doing it. Everybody else isn't there. It's like, who cares? So you've got to answer that too. Like we get the Marshal Service get audited. We have all these warrants here. There's no way to guys, 123 years old.

It's dead. Stop. But you have no records to prove it. There's nothing out there. Sometimes you do get death certificates from if a family member pushes it through and be like, here, you know, my dad's dead. Stop. And it does happen. It does happen.

And you do that work and that due diligence to get it cleared. Now, once you find the person and you deliver them to a. Are you done with the case or do you stay with it through trial or whatever happens in the post, you know, proceedings? No, well, the marshals are stuck with it until they're sentenced and sent to jail. But me as an investigator who arrested the person, now we bring them, we arrest them, bring them in, you have to process them. You have to call a pretrial to come down and interview them. Defense attorney comes down and interview them, whatever, whoever's from legal aid. and then you go get arraigned on the warrant.

Either you get put back on bail or on probation. Bail, because you have a new charge, or you're remanded. And then once you're remanded, the marshals then have to transport you to MDC or MCC and then bring you back and forth for court appearances. Because it's technically the marshals that made the arrests, so that's why they're the ones responsible? No, any federal arrest. anybody soon as they get arraigned and they get remanded to the marshals, it's the marshals that have to do all the work with presenting you to court. Oh, because they're not technically in BOP custody yet.

You're not in BOP custody until you get sentenced. So all the guys that are awaiting trial in, say, MCC when I was open or MDC Brooklyn, that's your responsibility? Yeah, yeah. Isn't that kind of a nightmare? It sucks. It's the worst part of the job. It sucks. There's nothing exciting about that.

you know and you have to you do u.s attorneys get once it's like you're given a court date after you're arraigned then the u.s attorneys have to put in in Brooklyn i don't know if it's everywhere it's called a 475 you give you produced it has to go to the marshals and goes to BOP and you have to be put on the schedule and then you order the prisoner the night before the next morning the Marshalls show up at MDC at, you know, six in the morning to go into R&D and get you, you know, you have six, eight, ten marshals show up with vans that are all caged out or prisoners or buses carrying, you know, the U.S. mail boxes filled with handcuffs or leg ions and belly chains and the padlocks, and you go up there, and it's always one marshal that does the paperwork.

And back in the day when I did transport, I always just want to do the paperwork. I didn't want to deal with it. And you'd have to go to whoever in BOP, and it's always a supervisor there. And they would have a list. You'd have a list. You'd go through everything, and then you start, you go to the cells, right? And you're in a holding cell in R&D, and they're small. It smells.

Everybody's pissed off. People are tired. Yeah, so loud. And it would be a marshal and an officer from BOP at the door. You open up the cell and you're already outnumbered, right? There's always 20 to 30 in a cell. Then you have to go to another cell. The women are in a different cell. And you just call on people's name, you know, like Smith, come up.

Like, all right, what's your number? And you'd ask everybody, what's your marshal number? And they would have to recite their number, be like, okay, go. And the best is when we get a prisoner would come up. And I don't even have court today, Marshall. You'd be like, really? You want to do this right here? I'm like, you don't want to come?

No, I'm not coming. Okay, good, no problem. We would love not taking people to court because the count goes down now. And the ones that always got, you know, did my terminology. The guys who always got chesty with me, you were going in for a proffer. You're coming to meet with the U.S. attorney or you're, you know why you're coming. You spoke to your attorney and the proffer set up. So they were always the ones yelling and scream, like, this is bullshit.

I'm not even for court. Okay. You just screwed yourself because you were supposed to have a proffer and probably work out whatever deal. You're probably going to get a plea deal or whatever. And be like, no problem, don't do it. And then we would come back in. The U.S. attorneys would call it. down, be like, why don't you bring him in? He said he didn't want to go. He said he didn't have

court. He resisted. He didn't want to come. We should have brought, no, I'm not fighting a guy to come in and screw him if he doesn't want to take care of himself. And then we would have guys that would try to fight. Be like, I'm not going to court. Okay. And then you'd call back, especially if it was somebody who was on trial, that was the biggest ones. And you call into the office, back to the district, and the ops supervisor who controlled courts that day, be like, hey, this guy, Mike Smith told us to fuck off. He doesn't want to come. He's got trial. Yeah, we know that. We're beyond that thing. They're like, no, he's come. Bring him in. We're like, we're going to fight. We're going to go hands on. Okay. Bring him in. Sometimes it would take

two, three, four marshals to grab you and you knew not to do anything. Other times guys would be like lined up, ready to fight, and be like, try to talk, try to go a little hands-on, and then if it was going to get vicious or call it off and be like, True does, make a judge give us a court order to physically restrain them, that we're going to get hurt. And then we're screwed. Now you've got to go to a hospital. You got to get a fit.

This one got hurt. And very rarely did we have anybody try to. get chesty with us or man up. Very rarely. It's heard of, yeah, there's some fights going on. But in Brooklyn, where I was very rarely, you know, I think the marshals there, we were, we were well known, well respected, and we were good with anybody who was getting arrested. Like, it's just a process. Now in today's world, they'll just do a virtual hearing, probably for someone like that. Well, yeah, right. That all happened. Yeah, that happens too. but a lot of it kicked off after COVID.

And I don't know, I wasn't there when that all happened. But I wish I was there when that happened. That's great. Now, the process you were just describing to transport people, that hasn't really changed much because I was through that system in 2016, 17, 18, and it was just as bad and lengthy. They come with the, even in a digital world, they're coming with paper and clipboards and everything.

Do you think they do that intentionally to make it like a miserable process? Yeah, well, it's silly, right? Because you would, and I was on, I was on the market. is when you were in. So yeah, right, we would have to go there and, like, a guy would come out with all his paperwork. Like, what are you doing? You're coming in for a status hearing. Nothing's going to change. And if you were a lawyer, if or a scholar, you would know your case inside and out. So you bring, and we would just like, go ahead, bring all your shit, but I'm not carrying it. Like, and those guys would come with pillowcases of paperwork. You're like, what is this? And then

you would catch stuff in there. Porn magazines, photos, or things. It's, how do I know I'm coming back? Where are you going? Are you getting transferred? You would know when you're getting transferred. Box up all your shit and it's getting shipped out somewhere. But, yeah, they would try to impede the process, so I say. You ever have someone try to escape during a transport?

No. No. No. And the only thing that, like, I was in New York, in Brooklyn, and part of El Chapo. So that was the biggest thing that came up, though. like, oh, because you saw all these movies that, like, he paid so many people in Mexico, but we're not in Mexico, man. We're in New York.

We're in Brooklyn. We're in America. Like, it's not happening. So we had, the Marshal Service had this special group, which is so silly, the SOG they're called, special operations group, which I'm so against it. So against it. I'm against it with all these other federal agencies as well, like with these SRT teams and these special, the SWAT teams.

I am so against it because I worked a street and I worked warrants. I'm SWAT. I didn't call my, the Marshal Service Special Operations Group is in Louisiana. What the fuck are they going to do for me in Brooklyn? I'm going to wait 12 hours for them to fly up here to hit a door and arrest somebody or to go on to search for people. So, but we had to have them come up to New York and transport El Chapo to the jail, to MCC. And it was so, you know, and there was a lot of threats out there, and there's a lot of Hollywood going on.

And, you know, just everybody was a lot of disillusion with reality, you know. But we did what we had to do. and we had NYPD, state police, other federal agencies there. We had DEA, FBI, Homeland Security, Marshals. The courthouse was locked down all the time. The transporting was insane. They were shutting down to Brooklyn Bridge. So you talk about New York people getting pissed off.

We had Harbor Patrol out there because you went over to Brooklyn Bridge, and you had aviation out there. The money that was spent on the one guy, to think that he was going to escape. And like, if you ever met him and seen him, he's smaller than me and he's older, totally out of shape like nothing. And he had the best security detail ever.

And his trial went on for months. Yeah, yeah. So you had to do that five days a week. I mean, not including holidays, four days a week at the minimum. Yeah, I didn't do that. I was in warrants, but I was part of the case.

But that's insane. Insane. I'm saying. Do you think anyone could have even pulled off to free him? No. Even with minimum security. No. No. Especially like, let me tell you when I did it back in the day and even the guys when I was working and how it is. And you see, you, you know, when Marshall's transport, you're not, I don't care who the two Marshalls ought to drive in the van. They're squared away. You know, they might not look it and everything. Like we had to listen to guys in the back. So, you know, Marshall put on Kiss FM. No. We're putting K rock on the whole time. That's it. Or they got to, like, doing the airlift. Marshall, I got to go take a pee. Come on, man. We just left the courthouse, you know, stop.

And you'd have to stop and make, like, guys, pee on the side of the road. Like, what are you going to do, you know? But no, I'm telling you, I am so, I am today confidently impressed with the jobs that I was part of and did with the men and women I worked with is unbelievable. I cannot believe that nobody ever escaped from our custody and nobody ever tried to get to escape somebody, you know, to break somebody loose. So surprised. How do you find suspects treat you once you catch them? In the beginning, if it's a lot of it's, I've had a lot of incidents where we're hands-on

the fights, we're fighting to get you. But when it's respect. And that's such a ghetto term, respect. you know, but it's an understanding, you know. I had a good reputation, even in the jail with guys and on the street. Like you stand out as a cop. Like I worked in the 7-5 and the 7-7, downtown Brooklyn, you know, like they knew we were the cop. But you say hello, you say hello.

You know, like everybody knew you had a job. I was always good with the guys and girls we arrested. Always. I never had anyone file a complaint against me for abuse, police brutality, stealing anything, nothing. And it was very unheard of in where we worked. You know, because it's, there was no need. You know, it just didn't happen. And compared to what you see on TV or the movies or that bullshit that they made, you know, to sell a story. I mean, but you know, you know, you, you, you know, you, you know, you, you, you know, you, you, you know, you, you, you know, you, you, you know, you, you, you know. Marshalls. You've seen how they work. I used to love that movie with, what is it, Tommy Lee Jones? Oh my gosh. That was my first ever Marshall movie. Really? I just can't watch them. I can't. I can't even watch, you know, like I say in Brooklyn, like look, they filmed Boren Order, Blue Bloods, you know, those shows, NYPD Blue, all those shows back in the day outside of Brooklyn, like down the street there. They would do different shoots of it. So, and when I was working,

and back then you'd, like, some of the storylines you would see from this show. It's like, oh, I arrested that guy. Like, that's what the show was about, the people we arrested. You're like, and I would, it was always so funny when you were, you'd arrest somebody. Like, I'm like, oh, you must have watched Law & Order last night, so you know what's going to happen here, right? Like, how this whole system works out. And it just never, like, don't think you're a lawyer or, you know, you're, you're innocent. And we just decided to show up at your house and arrest.

What do you think was the number one charge you went after people for, you hunted fugitives for? Ever since the implementation of the task forces that came out, that increased the workload for violent crimes, like gun charges, shooting, more gun possession, gang-related stuff, drugs. locally, you know, but it would have a, the NICS was because they were part of the task force and we had the MOU. But in federal cases, the marshals, the biggest one is probation violators, whatever their past history was. And federally, that was usually drugs back then. and fraud cases, you know, finance crimes that are big money. And those people would go on the run that the fraud individuals? Yeah, yeah.

Just because they have a probation violation or if they wanted by who the IRS or secret service, you know, for money laundering or wire fraud, if you got money to hide and you can get away, go, but we're going to go. You got to go overseas. You're going to go to Venezuela, you know, or Vietnam. Go ahead. You know, but you usually get caught. Did you ever look at some of these probation violations and say this is silly? Like that was, oh my God. I still, yeah, every day, every day. It was a joke. I mean, really, because you smoked weed, you viol your probation or, and you feel bad for the guys on probation. And I worked, we worked with probation every day. And I'm like, these guys, the offender is so screwed because you're trying to get a job, you're trying to go out there

and work, and you can't get anything because you have all these restrictions on you. And then you have to come see your probation officer every Tuesday at 10 o'clock in the morning. You really think a job that hires you from 7 to 3 is going to let you leave every day, you know, every Tuesday at 10 o'clock. You know, you got to leave it. You can't come in because you got to take the train to get to Brooklyn, all these things. So it's a pain. Until you are part of it and you work it and you see it, you don't realize it's such a pain in the ass.

And it's a messed up system. Now, I talk to a lot of guys that will have state probation violations, and they pretty much are able to go to another state set up shop. If it's minor, they normally don't, you know, get into new trouble and get extradited. But is it different on the federal level if you have a federal violation? Is it not as easy to pack up and move to a different state? No, I think it's very easy to leave to go to a different state. And because there's probation officers, federal probation officers nationwide. So they would just transfer your case.

Say you're here in Connecticut, but you want to move to Kansas. Okay. Yeah, you get approved for whatever. And what are you going to do when you're in Kansas? Like, well, I got family there. I'm working for, you know, public works. And this is what I'm doing. And, okay, when you get there, you have to report to probation

at the courthouse there, wherever, and the same system. Like, you got to, you have a curfew or, you know, you got to urine test every time and show your pay stubs. So it's not. No, I mean, like, is it easier to flee on the state level than it is the federal level? Because the federal violation could, you know, catch up to you in any state. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's easier to flee on a state level than a federal level. Yeah. Yeah. If you look at it that way, yes. What do you think about probation overall? Listen, it sucks. I never went to jail. But I can tell you right now, like, I've seen the system.

And if there was any way to do like another six months in jail, instead of going on probation, I would do that, you know, because I would not want to be on probation because I think it's harder than being in jail. Like, yeah, you're in jail. Yeah, your world ends and it sucks. But probation is, it's insane restriction on you. It's insane.

And for what? You know, you're okay, you're on probation for, you know, three years, five years, seven years. Okay, for what? You just did your time, you know, agreed upon time. You did time. And now you've got to come out. You're going to be, we've got to, you know, bring you back into society. What?

You only went to jail for three years or five years. Society has not changed that much, you know, for whatever. I could see it. You know, you get out after 20, 30 years and you're older. You can't get a job. You've got to go through an indoctrination to go back into society. Yeah. And but look, why is that my?

responsibility as a taxpayer or a Laura Biden citizen to help you. Better yourself. Like, you're the one that committed this crime and got yourself jammed up. So what is you're, I'm responsible now? So there's a little, you know, there's a lot of questions on that, on how to assist them in the process can be better. but it and if it's going to be because you're on probation and there better be things set up better instead of just you know fend for yourself but you got to come in here every Tuesday and pee in a bottle

would you get guys that would flee the halfway house yeah they were the worst man i would see that all the time when i was in the halfway house that was the word there was it yeah and we had a great relationship with we were every day we would get a notice in a halfway house you know like they um they failed the guy you know, you have to come pick them up and bring him back to MDC. I'm like, and you would go there and they'd be like, he just ran out the back door. Like, I'm not running after this guy. And we'd have marshals run.

Like, what are we doing, you know? Or they just wouldn't show up. Or they'd show backup drunk on drugs or get into a fight with his staff. Meanwhile, it's BOP people that work there. And I'm like, why are you calling the marshals? Why don't you just restrict them and then have BOP come get him? You're still a BOP prisoner. So it's a stupid relationship.

But yes. And then we finally had a better relationship with the guy who ran the halfway house in Brooklyn. He was a good guy. I forget his name. And I'm like, look, we're going to come. Keep the guy locked down. I don't care. But I'm not coming every day, sometimes twice or three times a day, to pick up a failure from the halfway house.

And then they're running. Or it was always an issue. And I'm like, we're coming. on Thursday at 10 o'clock, have all five or six them in a room and we'll come grab them, guys will go over there and get them. And then eventually, we had a, the guy who ran the halfway house, God, I forget his name. And he was, we became friendly, work wise. And he's like, hey, would you come over here and do a briefing every week they would have, which have new people come in? And even for the guys who were still there, you know, tell them that it's not worth

getting violated in the halfway house, that you're going to go back to jail. And if you go on the run, now you're screwed because the marshals will take that failure notice that BOP sends out to have you taken back to MDC. Now we have to take that failure notice, go to the U.S. Attorney's Office, and get an escape warrant.

Because it's down as you escape from jail, but you walked away from a halfway house. Then we'd have to put that into the system into NCIC as a federal escapee. So now, you know, you get stopped by NYPD on a traffic stop. You're a prisoner escape. That's a huge, the flags are going up. They're like, holy shit.

So like, over nothing because you went back drunk, that it can go, it can go south real quick. What about how arrest escapes? Do you get those? No, I never had anything like that. No. No. And I think the house arrest only, they're very few. And then they have to do private security, come and check on them or probation and

pretrial and put the ankle bracelet on you. So no, I never had anything like that. So do you think that that's a pretty effective model then, as opposed to say pretrial the detention if you're not getting that many calls for, you know, house arrest escapes? Well, yeah, as you put it that way, yes. but what did you get arrested for? And are you looking at time? You know, like really does...

I believe in the system. I believe in law and order. I don't believe that every crime needs... You need to serve jail time for. And there's an exception to everything. But if you're definitely committed to homicide, rape, kidnapping,

hardcore violent felony crimes, you're going to jail. and it's going to be hard. But as far as like admin crimes, like, you know, fraud case, money laundering, you're going to get, what's the purpose of going to jail when we just want the money back? And then why are we giving all this money to the government

and not to the victims? So it's a lot need to be changed on that part. So yeah, what's the purpose of, you know, like, you better off doing, starting to do time to go out on bail. But I don't know. Like I've never had that, I didn't have that problem. What about prison camp escapes? Because there are a couple federal prison camps.

They walk away. They walk away. Yeah. Stupid, right? Why? Yeah. Dan Barry. I mean, I was at the, you guys have Otisville in New York.

Yeah. Would you get calls for that at all? Yeah. But that would go to Southern New York up, it's Manhattan handled up there. Yeah, they constantly had, it was almost like walk away from the halfway house. You know, but now it's escape from jail. But I think most guys would escape to come back, though, because that's what we used to do at Oxford in Wisconsin.

We would leave to get food or people would leave to go, you know, hook up with their wives or girlfriends. But if you get caught, yeah, if you get caught, then it's escape. Yeah, then you get the five years. Yeah. But if you don't get caught, it's just out of bounds if they catch it, you know. But that's what guys do. It's at every camp.

Of course, of course. And I remember there was one in Virginia. I don't know where in Virginia. But whoever, they had somebody walk away and the case was out of Brooklyn. The original charge was out of Brooklyn. I remember them calling us up. Like, this guy escaped. I'm like, what does this have to do with Austin?

It's in Virginia. Well, the original charge is up there. So we had to deal with getting a warrant because it was a Brooklyn case. It was very confusing until like the proper channels got involved with the U.S. attorneys and the BOP and that. But it was just, yeah, I never, I don't understand it. How hard was it when you first started behind the scenes dealing with different agencies when technology wasn't as sophisticated as it would become? Dangerous. On the job, dangerous because nobody properly talked to each other. So like if the marshals, you turn a case over to us, it's our case now. You can't investigate that anymore.

But some guys would still start to be working it. And you can't because it's going to be a blue-on-blue incident, you know, out there. other times that we've been out on the street and like you go up, you're in the projects and I'm on the 16th floor and then you're watching DEA come up to go to the 14th floor. You're like, what's the hell are you guys doing? Yeah. We're looking for this guy. Well, we're looking for this guy. Well, if you get them, you know, going back and forth.

But with technology coming out and everything, you're able to plan better and set up better, you know, jobs, so-called. Like we would say hits, whatever. And guys, the way it was, it's created now with the different departments and units out there, there's better communication amongst different police to know what's going on out on the street. How hard is it to say server warrants in a place like New York City? You have traffic, you have apartments, you have just navigating that. I couldn't imagine. Well, I don't know.

You did bring it up when you watch the movie U.S. Marshals when they're showing to one skit. He's like, I got the lights and sirens. is going to go and I'm going nowhere. Of course you're going nowhere. That just irritates people in New York, right? If you put the, like, where are you going to go? You can't, you can't even go on the opposite side of traffic. You know, Chris, it's just, it is what it is. Like, we had, um, here, an example. This was another big case. The guy's name is Andre Nevesant, rested here in Connecticut. This guy was wanted in New York for double homicide. He killed his girlfriend and his sister, savage. That is a legit savage right there.

He had a New York State parole warrant. NYPD had homicide for him. And I want to say ICE was involved too because he was like from Trinidad, Tobago or something. And then the marshals, us, we got the case. And it was, I think it was originally out of southern New York because a marshal and air was working it and it was so stepped on.

It was destroyed. And I remember people like, oh, he's in the Bahamas or he's there. We're like, whatever. So it was Labor Day, after Labor Day weekend, I'm in the office in Brooklyn.

And we have teletypes and you get notifications and it would print out and tell us like, hey, this guy was arrested, the name, ma'am. There's a seminarity. It's an A.k.a. to this FBI number. So our guy Nevisan's been arrested before. So he has an FBI number. He's in a system. And it's me and an Army intel officer who's assigned to work with us in warrants through the National Guard, the program. He's looking at the teletypes and he's running the FBI numbers. to see if it's related to any of fugitives from Brooklyn,

that maybe we have to put a detainer on somebody was arrested. So he's doing, it's called due diligence. You have to do these checks. Pulls it up and it gets, and I'm the boss. I'm a supervisor. And just he and I, it's after Labor Day. And he's like, hey, man, this guy, John Scott, this is Andre Neveson.

I'm like, no, it's not. He's like, I'm telling you, it's Andre Neveson. They're saying he was arrested. on a traffic stop in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Like, really? He goes, yeah. He goes, he's like, hey, there's a lieutenant in Bridgeport that's in my National Guard Reserve Unit. He goes, I'm going to call up there and see. Send him a picture of our guy and see if it's him. All right. As he's doing that, my office, there's guys in there planning the transportation detail to El Chapo. This is going on also in New Brooklyn.

And the guy doing the due diligence, doing the research, the investigation, if it's Andre Neveson, makes contact with Bridgeport PD, they're like, yeah, this guy gets stopped all the time. And we seized the car this time because he didn't have a license plate or insurance, whatever it was. And here's the address. So he's like, can you send us a picture of who you arrested? Yeah, it's our guy. He's lost like 200 pounds, looks nothing like what he looked like when he went on the run. He was a gigantic big guy. We're like, holy, but you could tell the facial structure.

He's like, it's definitely him. So now we're looking like, and you're getting, it's stress, you know, good and bad. It's adrenaline going. You're like, oh, my God, this is a big case. It's one of the Marshall's top 15 most wanted, double homicides. aside, most wanted out of New York. This guy's been profiled on. America's most wanted a dozen times.

And the case is so stepped on. Like, it's every, all the so-called best investigators worked at. So I'm like, we're looking at it. And now it's like one o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday. So I go in and I see my chief and I'm like, you're not going to believe this.

And I'm telling him, like, we're going to arrest Andre Neveson. He's like, bullshit. I'm like, okay. Leave. Go back. Now I got to call the Marshals in Bridgepoint, Connecticut. So we know a guy's there. I'm telling them all this stuff. He's like, there's nobody around. It's 1 o'clock after a holiday.

So I'm like, can you get some people? I send them the photos and send him this. I'm like, here's the address. You know, where he is. He's like, all right, he goes, not that far from the office. He goes out, calls local Bridgepoint PD guys. They start setting up on it. He's like, calls me back.

He's like, dude, it's him. He goes, he's sitting on his, the front porch. He goes, but there's somebody in the house with him. I'm like, all right. He goes, listen, he goes, this is one of the more. She goes, I'm waiting for more backup. I'm like, for sure, definitely. Got it because this guy's wanted for a double homicide.

He's been on the run for 10 plus years. And he's in, we're thinking he's overseas somewhere. So he's like, I'm waiting. I'm like, all right, no problem. So it's me and the guy I work with his name is Alex. And we're just like, you're pacing back and forth waiting. And an hour later, you know, it calls me up. And now in the meantime, while I'm doing that, I have to call other people and make notifications like this is happening.

And people are excited. Like, oh, my God. So I have guys from New York that are like, we're heading to Connecticut. I'm like, all right, it's going to take you five hours now, you know. They're like, well, we're going to transport them back. You know, we're not going to let them get arraigned in Connecticut. It's partnering states. We can bring them right in. I'm like, okay. So we tell the guys in Connecticut, I'm like, hey, guys are coming up. They're heading up. And as it's going on, a couple minutes later, the phone call comes over. And let me tell you, as a cop, it's a great thing.

And he's like, hey, man, one under. We got him. I'm like, holy shit. This was a garbage case, totally garbage, huge case profiled a lot. And I remember walking in my chief and being like, we just fucking arrested Andre Neveson. And he's like, holy shit. Now, for us, the Marshal Service and in New York, that was huge because we had El Chapel going on in Brooklyn, and now you just resented a Marshall's top 15.

Huge thing, which was a garbage case. And it was profiled on America's Most Wanted show. So my chief couldn't be in happier. People were just so impressed. And it was all doing the worst part of the job of due diligence, you know, follow up, research like that. But just the error of release and error always because he was like it's the perp Andrene Evanston. He was like, look, my name's John Smith.

It's not me. It happens all the time. I'm not that guy. Blah, blah, blah. And he's able to bullshit his way out from the Bridgeport PD. Wow. But then we got him. We got him.

And he was in there with his daughter, who I want to say was 11 or 12 years old. And the baby mom or girlfriend had. had no clue of what this guy's background was. And they were flipping out at the cops from arresting him. And then it just happens. Now, a guy like that, how is he treating you and talking to you guys once the dust is settled, the arrest is made, he knows he's caught? To the certain detectives that were working a case and were talking to him, he's like, man,

you got, he goes, you know many times you guys fucked up by not arresting me? He goes, I was caught a hundred times. He goes, all those tops, traffic stops. He goes, and you went here, I was never there. Like, he had a history of what we were steps behind him. But also, what's the psychology behind him wanting to stay so close? Like, Connecticut, you're going to pick Connecticut out of all places? Why not?

There's people that live right next to police stations. I guess it's what's that saying? What's that saying where, like, you're in a place where they least expect you to be? Yeah, I really think like that. Yeah. It just happens. It's just, there's no rhyme or reason. There's no answer. I don't know. If I ever had to go on the run, I would go to like Arkansas, like in the middle of nowhere. So you've got to go overseas. You got to go to Venezuela and we're not going to extradite you, you know. I mean, even those places, I feel like you're still going to get killed.

Killed or you're going to get caught. Look at that drug trafficker that had millions of dollars that they just called. Yeah, but he went to Canada. That's true. Or he's from Canada, right? No, but he was in Canada. Like, okay. Of course you're going to get extradited back. And you can't stay there forever. I mean. Why?

That lady who killed the New Jersey State Trooper went to Cuba and she spent her whole life there. She's still there? No, she died eventually. But yes, and they couldn't do nothing. Couldn't extradite her, couldn't go over there and get her. And you can't do all these crazy things that you hear people do. Like, oh, we're going to get a black bag and kidnap them out of the country. You know, our politicians will lose their money.

over something like that. But do you think it's harder for people to escape now, even to get out of the country with the way technology is? Yes. Yes, I do. And for a criminal mind, I don't know. You know, there are some guys that are out there that are just so smart that can do it. You know, that can know they're going to get arrested, but, you know, have plans and

things set up in place to go. Can it happen? Yeah. I guess timing's a big part of it, too. Every day. Every day. But then also, I mean, these airports, the facial recognitions is insane. You get in pop, but if you go out on a private jet somehow,

they'd go from, start hopping from country to island to country to island, you're on a cruise ship. And there's so many ways. Now, speaking of jets, we were talking about conair off camera. I had an experience on conair. I'd love to hear it from your perspective because the marshals run Conair. Right. It was the marshals.

and BOP is involved in that too, big time. And at one point it was ICE too, I think, that ran it a lot. But as far as running it, yeah, no, the Marshalls, we had to do a, I did so many runs from Brooklyn upstate to the spot where it was. And if it's still there, I don't even know if it, I think it's still there. I don't even know. I know I went to Stewart Air Force Base. Yeah, so it was in Stewart, but then we would have even.

charter planes that would go to white planes or Teterboro, you know, and move prisoners. I mean, even on private, I mean, our commercial flights. We're doing extraditions everywhere, you know, and the travel would have prisoner on a plane. It's a pain in the ass, man. But yeah, I don't, I,

it was the so-called con air, like the big jet, the big airlines. They were seized planes. you know, and pilots were, you know, government employees and you go on, it was crazy. Like they had the, what the eye bolts in the floor, you know, and even on the side, in the shares, and you're fully shackled going. And whatever, you know, separation cages in there smelt. It's horrible.

It was quite the scene, you know, pulling up on the tarmac. BOP brought you to the plane and the bus. and then it just surrounded by marshals. From all over the area, because you had Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, sometimes Pennsylvania, everybody meeting there. And it would be BOP from the jails, right? MDC, MCC, Otisville. And then you would have marshals from all over. And the marshals are always showing up in vans or cars to grab somebody.

and then we had up there and do it you had state troopers state police doing an outer barometer out of area security wind up like you didn't even know all the stuff that was in place there and everybody's walking around armed to the tea you know and it's it you don't think it's going to be like that right you always think it's so much different then all of a sudden you're like this is it this is how we're going to do this like prisoners walking back and forth, Marshall's walking back and forth, BOP guys walking back and forth, just turning the body over, getting paperwork, you know, and... They have the big wheelie carts of the chains because they noticed everyone has to...

Well, that's heavy stuff, man. But you have to trade shackles, I guess, for whichever one you take, they exchange it. And, you know, that's a funny point. And only Marshalls and BOP will appreciate this, is that you always bring your worst equipment to exchange it out of, you know, because you want to. wanted to get better equipment eventually. And you know me, right? How many times were you, were you handcuffed and their handcuffs were rusty, you know, dirty? Like, these things even work, you know, like they were all cuffed up than that. But yeah, you would, you would,

you wouldn't unshackle anybody there. They would just give you another set. Like if I had to trade you off to somebody in Jersey, the marshes would just give me a full set of restraints for you. That was the deal. It's like trading baseball cards. Now, because everyone is shackled and chain down, if a plane goes down, there's no chance of survival? I don't think so, right? They don't take into account that. It just seems crazy. Listen, not some deep talks.

I don't know, but it's the same thing when we transport in the car. You know, what if you go off the side of a bridge, right? In New York, there's a lot of different tollways, you know, going through. What if you go off the side and you've fallen to? a river or something, you're going to die. You're going to drown or something. Car explodes. Like, you're shackled up.

There was, like, duct tape on the plane, on the plane wings. What is that all about? It's an old plane, man. Because it's a lot of money to repair them and get a new plane. Those planes were old. They're old, yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Now, the marshals, I noticed, they all carry on the plane, but they're, like, these big

contraptions where it's, like, fingerprinted or something. Like, they're secure. Four, what, weapons? Yeah, weapons. Yeah, I don't know. I never did the, I never flew on it, so I don't know what that's all about. And the only thing you would get is like, come on, don't watch the silly Conair movie and think that that's what it's like. Oh, it's not like that kind of.

It's like, come on. Yeah, where everything's like locked up. Yeah. And it just, that was a nice plane. Of course it was, right? And then. That was high end. That was sophisticated.

What do you think was one of your most memorable experiences as a Marshall? like a story I'll never forget. I mean, I had a good, I had a tough career in there, you know, a lot of exciting work. And, you know, I think the biggest one is like some of the cases I arrested, like the guy, James, I told you about, you know, with getting his photo and clear in the case of Andre Neveson was huge. And then in the end, being part of El Chapo. I mean, that's just historic, you know, and I was part of it. And it's a proud feeling, you know, and it's recognized everywhere. It's funny.

It's like I had a guy, a guy used to work with, and he just told me, he's like, man, for me, for me personally, he's like, man, you're a legend in that office. And you think of the thing, like we talked back at the things I did with the programs I put in place, like having guys that are locked up on detainers or hold in Rikers Island. and you know what a pain in the ass it is to take somebody out of Rikers Island? You know, it's a pain in the ass. Like, we would order the guy up the night before. Us, Marshals, you have to go to Rikers Island. You know what pain the ass it is to get on Rikers Island? You have to turn your creds over, get a stupid ID card, go over the bridge, find the jail,

whatever one is, because there's eight different jails on there. Go there, and then there's buses. lined up for the court run or detectives are there to take somebody out or different agencies are there and you're just like you're there for hours hours at end and then you forgot about then there's shift change there's a lockdown it doesn't stop then you can't make it up like it every day and you're sitting there and you're like you I'm not a correction officer but I have knowledge of it and you learn you're like on the gate on the gate open CEO comes out he's like you gotta wait, man. I'm like, I'm just

want that guy right there. He's two feet, just hand him right over. We've got to go through the paperwork. You're like, you know where he's going. So, it was me and a couple of other guys that did it, and it was just one guy. It was

a guy from Rikers Island. His name is Bobby Ellis. He was a lieutenant or a captain, whatever they're called. So, very smart man, good friend of mine. And he's like, listen, he and a couple other guys were deputized as marshals to be on our task force. And they would get us great information from guys that are on the run network in Rikers Island. He goes, we have so many local guys in Rikers that are wanted by the feds.

He goes, and this comes down to managing now. He goes, when these guys time is up or released on bail, they can't get rid of them until they contact the marshals or the other feds. Like, hey, your guy's cleared. You got to come pick them up. They just can't let them out on the street. So we're like, all right, we'll be there tomorrow or the next day. And like, they still have to hold them. So he's like, listen, I can bring this guy who worked at Rikers, he goes, every day I can bring over two to five guys.

that are wanted federally and get released from the jail. And he did that in a way because it's saving New York City money by getting them prisoners out of there because they have to pay. And now we're clear in cases. So we were able to put a program together, which I think this was the greatest thing ever. And like I had to run it by my chief listening. I'm like, this is going to work.

and it got so big that the marshals from southern New York were calling me to like, hey, we have four pickups at Rikers Island on a writ or a detainer or a new warrant. I'm like, they're like, I'm like, I give it to me. And I would send it to my guy in Rikers, the CEO, and we put it all together. He would bring him down because it's easier and better for him on Rikers. to tell his own people, I'm going to pick him up tomorrow morning. And he could go at any time and get them whenever he wanted

in between his own people in Rikers. Time-consuming, money, everything was beneficial to everybody. So I said now we're partnering up with the marshals in Manhattan in southern New York. Then it went to Connecticut. Then it went to Jersey.

Then it went other feds around. They were hearing it from me from the U.S. Attorney's Office. They're like, oh, ATF, we have a trigger lock case on a local guy who was arrested. We'd have gone. Now we're going to bring it, dismiss the charges locally and bring him over to the feds. So we got a detainer, a warrant for him. We're going to take him on a trigger lock. I'm like, well, give that to me, and I'll have my guy bring him over, and we'll process them

and go through the whole system. It's a partnership now. And it's all numbers, and it benefited everybody. I, in my office, and even in Southern New York, Connecticut, especially if somebody was wanted in Connecticut, and they had to, they would have to send Marshalls from Connecticut to Rikers Island to get the guy and bring him back up to get. I'm like, no, send me the paperwork. I'll get them.

I'll put him in MDC, and then MDC on the next airlift will bring them upstate. or when you guys have to do a jail run to pick up two or three guys for court for Bridgeport, you can pick up the guy that we picked up from Rikers two days ago. And he's just en route to you guys. So that why, like it's, you, I think you get what I'm saying with the transportation and the paperwork in that. But a lot of people don't understand it, but it comes down to management on how to do that and money. And I was able to pull that off with a couple of other guys. guys. And it worked for years, amazingly. And then when I left the Marshal Service, it went to

shit because people wanted to sabotage it because I put it together. Like they were jealous. I'm like, and now they're screwed because now they have to go to Rikers Island and pick up a perp, you know, and do that. Was there ever someone on your wanted list that you were like, I need to get him before I retire? You have one guy, Frank Matthews. I don't know if I sent you that one. I told you about that one. So Frank Matthews was part of American Gangster, that movie, with Frank Lucas. Frank Matthews went on the run back in the 70s with his girlfriend and was wanted for cocaine, heroin, all that. And yeah, that's the only guy. I still have like a poster of him whatever. They wrote books about him and everything specifically did stories. And we always heard that he

was in Bermuda or something, and he's, he's definitely dead by now, of age. He's never been caught, never been caught, no. Wow. Huge, huge. He shouldn't ever went out on bail, but he did. And I remember getting in touch with, if you remember from the movie, the cop who became a lawyer, became Frank Lucas's lawyer, Richie Roberts. And he's in New Jersey.

And I spoke to him. And I'm like, hey, can I, you know, I'm calling about Frank. He goes, I know what you're calling about. Like, he's gone. You're not getting him. He's dead. And you knew, we just knew. but you can't improve it.

And I was like, well, can I sit down with you and Frank Lucas just because it had been historic? And he's like, yeah, whenever you want, he goes, but we're not coming to Brooklyn. You've got to come to Jersey or wherever they were. I'm like, all right. And it just didn't never paned out. I would have liked to just sat down with them to talk. But it just never happened. And another, you know, memorial thing for me is, or a special thing for me, is El Chapo.

And it's so funny because my wife, when the Narcos shows came out on Netflix, she was obsessed with watching it. I'm like, oh, my God. And she would hear the names on the show. And she could recall me on the phone talking to the marshals that worked with me. that were involved in the case those names of those bad guys like of certain people and it would blow her mind

and during the trial of El Chapo just because it was El Chapo my wife came in to sit in the trial just to experience it and she got to see them in person like this and was blown away

scared to death but you know it's only You know, experience. One of those guys that testified against him, one of the brothers, Jay or whatever, is very active. He does talk to, like, law enforcement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've talked to him on LinkedIn before, and he does interviews, like, masked up and everything. But he's very all over the place, but he keeps things very secretive.

Like, you'll be talking to him, and then he disappears for a couple months, and he hops around and stuff. Really interesting. And then you have a lot of, like, the mob guys that have left, like, witness protection and are now very out there on social media and stuff. or they've gotten kicked out. Sammy the Bull? Yeah, you have like Gene Borrello and you have all these guys that have testified or have gotten kicked out.

I think Sammy the Bull got kicked out because he got arrested or I don't know. Yeah, and I think, I don't know if he signed out. I met him once when he went first in the program and with that guy from Manhattan had to bring him to Brooklyn for something and just to see him just, what, you know, what's so impressive, you know?

The guy is a savage. You know, when you really look at it. I mean, do you think people are still, like, killing witnesses in today's world? I don't know, man. I don't know, because you don't hear everything on the news. You only hear certain things. Whatever movies are put out, everything's so far-fetched. I mean, the whole world stopped because they did that Savannah Guthrie mother missing.

Are you kidding me? Like, and you still have Finder? you've really didn't find her so it whereas in Arizona did she go walking into the woods or something and get you know eaten up by walls you know did she fall down a sewer drain and you know did something happen but with the way that we are today with surveillance and cameras and technology couldn't find anything that's true I mean but there are some cases I don't know if you're familiar with it but like the Jennifer Dullo's case I just had the sergeant on that was the investigator they never found her body.

Which one is it? No. That was the one where the husband allegedly killed her, Photos Dulus. He was represented by Norm Patis, the attorney, and he killed himself with the car and the exhaust and carbon monoxide poisoning. Oh, really? But he allegedly killed her, and then, yeah, the body's never been found. Well, it's like, look, I had an experience with that, too, with the guy I talked about earlier

that, you know, they said that he, they killed them. in Louisiana and the alligator datum. That could happen. Yeah. That could really happen. But you never, we never found it. But the Guthr thing is crazy. Like, especially in today's world, how is this, it's 2026.

How is there just no trace? Yeah. In such a short period of time. Because she got reported missing like 10 hours later or whatever. And that's nothing. That's nothing. That's not a long time. But I don't know.

I think there's something shady there. But then it goes dark. I mean, you watch the news all the time. Like, all of a sudden, you know, yesterday was the end of the world because, you know, Trump was going to bomb Iran and he's doing a press release outside where they're building an extension onto the White House. Okay. That's it.

That's the biggest news in the world right now is going on and there's so much more happening. Yeah, one day we're on the brink of war and then the next day. Everything changes. It's very, like, glamorized. Yes. In a lot of ways. Yeah. Was it hard for you to leave the job at home,

especially in a career like yours where there's always someone, you know, being hunted 24-7 or, like, can you just clock out at five and not worry about it? Me, no. And me, no, in that answer is I had a different type of job. And I look at everything. I don't Monday morning quarterback. I've been involved in a lot of stuff. Big cases.

And I was a supervisor. I had a lot of responsibilities. I was responsible for a lot of. A lot of guys and girls that were going out making hits, making cases. So you're on call 24-7. It didn't matter. I loved it. I loved the adrenaline, the excitement.

The whole, it was glorious. You know, it was rewarding, you know, especially when you arrest somebody that's really wanted, you know, and you really believe that the person did commit that crime. and the guys and girls I worked with were just great. You know, they worked their asses off. My wife gave me a lot of flexibility with things. Me and my wife have a great relationship. I've been married almost 30 years.

Wow. And, you know, she supported me the whole time. My parents support me with everything I did. I, you know, the guys and girls I work with, I mean, I'm still friends with so many of them today. I made a lot of their careers, you know, with the work they did. and entrusting them to do things. It was my chief, he and I are great friends that entrusted me to run the Warren Squad

and do things. And, you know, you can't. You're getting called all the time. You know, people want it. It's 24-7. But you've got to have, you know, you've got to want to do that job. You know, it's not like,

I don't understand when I hear about, cop suicide or alcoholism or drug use or anything. I don't get it, but I was never that type of cop. I wasn't a patrolman. I didn't have hard-ass leadership on me breaking my balls about stuff. And I wasn't like that with the people I worked with. We answered questions, you know, just tell the truth. Like, these are the cases we're working. This is what's happening. And yeah, like some cases are more serious than others. you know look I worked one case and look I had a heart at the end of my career I got screwed big time

and one of the cases they tried to screw me on was this girl her name was Angie Vu and listen I know your listeners will look her up after we talk about her you'll look her up she was a playboy model and she was wanted for the Hague act which is international kidnapping parental kidnapping And she had temporary custody of her daughter and was allowed to bring it back to the States. And she was with a guy who lived in Massapequa, who was an idiot. And she wound up, she was the sexy Asian DJ. and she had the daughter. The father of the daughter is from France.

So she was supposed to bring her back to France because that's where Maine custody was. And she didn't. And the father filed the petition for the Agaq, which got approved. So that goes, it's internet huge. And it came into Brooklyn because it was part of EGAC.

Eastern District out in Massapee or in Long Island. So the U.S. attorney now called me and one of the, it was one of the chiefs of the U.S. attorney, she's like, listen, this is serious. It's parental kid. And you're scared. You feel, you feel for it, you know? And then you get it. She's like, and this is who the subject is.

You're like, holy shit, you know. So now you've got to put it together and they're like, look, we got to get this as quickly because information, information was developed. immediately that the lady Angie was from Vietnam. So she was going to take, not go back to France, but take the kid to Vietnam. And over there, there's no extradition treaties. So she would have been clear, you know, now,

but now you want it anyway. But anyway, we put it together and we're like, all right, this is the address we've got to go to. So I get a bunch of people together that night to do an early hit morning. I'll only hit in the morning. and we go there and she's gone. And we just missed it by like 15 minutes. We're like, holy shit.

So the guy she's with in Massapequa, we got all the information out of him. But now it's morning rush hour traffic from Massapira to get to JFK. And she's got a 15-minute head start on us and we're screwing around, getting more information. So now I got to call, teams that are out on the street, where are you, where are you? Because the priority is to get

that girl, the little child. So it's going south, right? It's going to shit because nobody's available to get there. So now I have to call CBP at the airport, which we have great contacts at the airport and we're there every day making a rest. So I call the chief I know there. And I tell him what's going on. He's like, all right, this is the name. He's like, all right, this now, technology developed better now. Now we're in like 2017, 18, maybe before that. And he's like, email me everything. So now you can do it off your phone.

You're like, holy shit, this really works. So I started sending him everything. He's like, yeah, no problem. We found her. Yep, she checked in. She cleared the ticket counter. We got up, she went through with passport. We're going to let her get to the gate.

And then we're going to grab her. I'm like, all right. So they're doing it. Now people are going. Now I have women that work for me. They're like, we're going to the airport. I send the females to go get her credit to the female and a female child. And CBP grabs her for us. So like we have her. And I remember the guy calling me back to Chief. And he was like, listen, she has like eight pieces of luggage. You got to take it all. I'm like, fuck, man. You don't want property. So I'm like, no problem, we'll get it. So I got to call one of the girls who works for me. And I'm like, listen, you have the minivan. Take all the luggage.

We're going to unload it to her lawyer or her husband from Massapequa would turn everything. She's like, I don't remember arguing with them. I'm like, just take everything. Thank goodness we took everything. And they got her. And the marshal, she calls me. She goes, I have the girl, Angie, and the daughter. I'm like, all right, how's the daughter?

Seven years old. I'm like, shit. So they're like, what are we doing? I'm like, you have to keep them both in the car. Don't, you know, you sit between them. Don't handcuff the mother in front of the door. We're nice. You know, we're nice.

We go beyond. And it's not a violent crime, you know. So they do that. They bring her into Brooklyn. Now, in Brooklyn, you're in the courthouse. So we have to separate them. So we had this one lady, her name was Helen, who worked for us. She was like the secretary.

She's like your mom in the office, you know. She's a sweetheart of a woman. So she comes in, boom. She's got donuts, cookies, everything for this little girl, whatever. Like, I didn't know. I didn't have a kid, you know, and we're all, it's all type A personalities, you know. You're alpha and everybody's aggressive. So, and then two girls at work for me, they were taking care of the girl, to Angie, they

were in their process and they're talking to her, telling her what's going on, going back to the daughter, talking to her. And then federal defenders provided a female attorney on the case, too, to make it a little bit more easier to come in to talk to the daughter, see the daughter, all that. The U.S. attorneys, they were ecstatic. Now the husband, not the husband, the father of the child, was in, just got to New York. Well, I'm like, really? So I'm like, all right.

And trying to figure out what to do. And this is all on me now. I'm the supervisor. I'm screwed. So they're like, you have to call child protective services and turn the kid over to the, I'm like, I'm not doing that. I'm like, this kid's going to get the, this kid did nothing wrong. Like, why? And you know CPS in New York.

So I'm like, can't, let, let turn it. The father's not here yet. Well, let's drag our feet a little bit. Why are we moving so quick on this whole? process. So we did. And the judge on the case was like hesitant to turn the child over to the father. And we had to get the courts involved in the Hague at court, like special court to be like, no, we authorized that to turn it. Like that's what's supposed to have been happening. And like, well, the daughter's going to be upset because she sees her mother not here in New York.

I'm like, looking at the, like, who are you to make these opinions about things? But this is the problem. So I'm like, I'm not turning her over to CPS. I'm like, lock me up. I don't care. Like, it's not happening. Especially when you saw the child, like, you're not going to survive. And it finally, the U.S. attorneys pushed hard and it finally going.

And we were able to turn the child over to the father. But the father was a gentleman, and he stayed in the office with us for like hours, like understanding how. terrible the system is. But later on in a few years now, what happened to me was I, in my career, later in my career, during COVID, which I had defended a female coworker that worked for me who was being sexually harassed and bullied by some coworkers. And I defended her and went against the guys that I work with.

you know my story is all shit but a couple of things there there was some good stuff that came out of it that I did become successful and I got my retirement after they fired me but I have an appeal still currently after six years still

with the Merit System Protection Board because it's a disaster but my own agency went after me off of allegations that some guys made against me and no evidence whatsoever, but, you know, the government can, they can speculate and they make opinions and they cherry pick words and they go on fishing expeditions. I love all these

terminologies. But the best is the Marshall Service, my own internal affairs, to that lady Angie Vu, I had pictures of her in my phone and she was a Playboy model, in my government phone. And they turned around and they said, well, you kept those pictures for self-gratification. But what does that mean? What does that mean? Whatever with these pictures and I'm putting them out to whatever, we're the Marshal Service. We're the leaders at cell phone tracking.

You know where these pictures went. And now they're saved in the cloud that you all paid for, you wanted. And they were used as evidence for identity. of knowing who this person was. And you knew it. And I go, it was, the photos were put in the case file. And we're all adults. It's not sex offense crimes or nothing like that.

But yeah, that was my, my own agency did that to me while I'm defending a person who's being sexually harassed. And I just, we arrested a person, that person who kidnapped her child. I'm like it's so, but you know the government, the shit they pull. I mean, it's even the same thing you see every day, whatever your political background is, but would Trump going after him with these things, or would Congress having a slush fund to pay off sexual harassment complaints? So it's just.

I mean, I think it's weaponized on both sides. It totally is. I don't think it even matters whether you're Democratic or Republican. Look, if they went after Trump, and then they went after Trump, and then they went after Letitia James or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both ways. They went after Hunter and then it's all weaponized.

You know, I see what they did. Well, look then you went after Trump's kids because he was on the plane. I'm like, and now I think the funniest thing is I was just watching something this morning, the highlights of it. They're going after, was it, Sean Duffy to transportation guy? Oh, you took your family on prepaid vacations for the government. Or they went after Cash Patel because she went to the Olympic hockey game. If I was still a marshal and I could go into the Olympic hockey game, you're goddamn right.

I would be at the Olympic hockey game. The whole system's corrupt. There was just this mayor running for governor in Connecticut who she dropped out because it came out that she had $200,000 of personal type expenses over 10 years on the city credit card. You're telling me that no one else does that. It happens every day. Yeah. But what's the, you know, okay, it's all fraud.

everything is fraud. I mean, with the government, they tried to go after every guy. This is our own internal affairs. Did you misuse your government car? You know, everybody misused it. If the rules that you're coming out with today, then nobody should have a government car. I think they just pick and choose who they want to go after. I mean, I look at my case, you know, they wouldn't give me a deal.

Right. You know, they wanted prison time. And I was a case that was less than $500,000. First time offense, I'm 19 years old. It happens when I'm 18 and 17, and you go through a whole jury trial and all of that for what? I can answer that. I can answer that. It's easier for them to prosecute and push for you than to really work on some other cases. Crazy.

Because I feel that personally on myself, because I'm like, you went after me, my own agency went after me as if I was. I'm sorry, as if I was a criminal, as if I, you were asking me questions, and I was in charge of evidence, and I was a custodian of that. I was, I was audited and clear, past, but now you're asking me if I'm, I steal drugs, I take drugs, and I sell drugs from the evidence that we seize, but why would you ask me that question and not want to have a clear, answer. And I'm a government employee. Make me go get a drug test immediately. You can do it right there. So you would think, for me, this is me now, you would think my own agency would want to clear that allegation against anything, good or bad. If it came back that I, okay, oh, you're doing

heroin. Okay, then arrest me and fire me and do whatever you got to do. Instead, you just leave it in limbo and leave it out there. So that's where you come back hard. If you're research my my my my my cases like that and that's why I like coming out and saying like speaking in this stuff like but I spoke my mind when I was a cop also and that's why I'm very I guess passionate to say that I'm not a Monday morning quarterback because I laugh now at these men and women that go on TV that are retired but talk about how bad the system was But it was bad when you were on the job. Well, when you were part of it, what makes you so much better today because you're retired and you have your money coming in that you're courageous enough now to speak up badly of the system?

So I laugh at that. And that, you know, that's a long, ongoing talking point you can make with anybody, you know, especially, you know, the politicians or the cops or. lawyers. What do you think is the most important lesson your careers taught you after everything you've seen and done? You know what? I don't think I should have ever been a cop. And I was daydreaming in that question. I don't know why. And I daydream it to myself. And it comes more now because when I was being investigated by my agency internal affairs, I was also being groomed and looked at as a presidential appointee to be the most. in Eastern New York under Trump's first administration.

Oh, the head U.S. Marshall? Yeah, yeah. Wow. And like I am not politically savvy. I'm not a scholar or a lawyer. You know, I just, I try to do the right thing. I don't think, I speak quicker than I'm thinking. You know, like I should watch what I say sometimes.

But my wife says I'm a habitual line crosser, and I love that title. So I don't care. I don't think I should have ever been a cop where I grew up on the water and with my friends and I remember saying this when I was being interviewed for a presidential spot they're like if you were not a marshal or a cop what was your dream job

I wanted to be a boat racer driver and I operated to drive a boat and I'm like I could have drove offshore speedboat and had an awesome life. Like, that's it. And I look at my friends that I grew up with, and they would have been with me. Like, I have two other guys that would have been in the boat with me,

and then two other guys that are so smart that they could have figured out better equipment and technology for us to use. And then we would have just had all our friends partying all the time. So that, that, um, But what I fell into is being a cop. It's like I said earlier is because of watching Miami Vice.

And I thought the guy, Crockett, was so freaking cool. And I'm like, I could do this shit. And I wound up kind of being like that in New York because as a marshal, you know, you work, so say undercover. You know, I work the street. You know, I wore regular, you know, you're out in regular clothes. had unmarked cars.

I mean, we drove around for a long time with like seized drug dealer cars. I mean, I had a Mustang. I had a Chevy pickup truck. I mean, it was so cool, you know. So that, you know, I had a good career. I had a hard career. Very proud of the accomplishments I did. Of course, so many things need to change, you know, and you've seen that too.

even your guest and not your interviews. You see people like, I think it you, it's, I think being a cop is a great job. The problem is politics, lawyers and judges that oversee everything a cop does. Because listen,

I'm not taking advice from freaking LeBron James on how to be a cop, like, are you kidding me? And I'm not taking advice from, you know, the lawyers that are trying to give us to you. Like, stop it. Like, just, here are the facts. That's it.

Why are we trying to manipulate anything? And, but as far as cops lost a lot of power. And just in New York itself. Like, remember, as a kid, like, you got pulled over by the cops. If you were nice to the cops, they would let you go. Now a cop pulled you over. You got to get a ticket. No matter what.

Well, all the body, I'm not a fan of body cameras. of, you know, taken away, you know, powers from cops. And now look at cops out there today. Like, come on, you really need, you know, the reason you're calling the police is because something bad's happening. So you need somebody to come in there and like, all right, we really need to beat people up with baseball bats. Like, it's that, you know, right?

Well, Bobby, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Oh, thank you, man. Yeah, I love your energy. You're such a great guest. It was great. it. Yeah, I appreciate you. And safe travels back to Florida. Yes, sir. Thank you. Awesome.