Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was an Undercover Cop — The Cases I Worked Will Shock You | Jeff Pike

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Jeff Pike grew up surrounded by law enforcement — his father was a sheriff and later a Deputy U.S. Marshal — so from the time he was 13, he was visiting jails and crime scenes instead of playgrounds. Following in his father’s footsteps felt inevitable. After becoming a game warden in Virginia, Jeff transitioned into undercover police work, where he took on some of the wildest cases imaginable — from major drug operations to male prostitution stings and violent street investigations. As his career grew, Jeff joined the sheriff’s department, working deep inside the criminal underworld. But over time, he began to see the other side of policing — the corruption, the internal politics, and the moral conflicts that come with trying to do the right thing in a broken system. Eventually, he made the difficult choice to walk away from law enforcement altogether and start over as a private detective. #UndercoverCop #LockedInWithIanBick #TrueCrime #PoliceStories #LawEnforcement #RealStories #CriminalUnderworld #crimedocumentary Thanks to AURA FRAMES, BLUECHEW & PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode: Aura Frames: Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/LOCKEDIN. Promo Code LOCKEDIN BlueChew: Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code LOCKEDIN. Visit https://bluechew.com/ for more details and important safety information Prizepicks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Connect with Jeff Pike: https://www.tiktok.com/@jwpike1616?_r=1&_t=ZT-91sAU3s5f0H Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Rogue Cop Origins: Early Law Enforcement Adventures 08:36 Growing Up in a Police Family: Roots, Pressure & Influence 16:56 Inside Crime Scenes: Childhood Around Violence & Chaos 27:17 Becoming an Officer: Game Warden Training & First Cases 45:56 Going Undercover: Transition Into Deep-Cover Operations 53:17 Life Undercover: High-Risk Strategies, Busts & Crazy Stories 01:04:12 The Toll of the Job: Stress, Lifestyle Damage & Family Sacrifice 01:12:03 Male Prostitution Stings: Wildest Operations & Shocking Encounters 01:18:53 Motives Behind the Badge: Personal Demons, Taboos & Truths 01:22:27 Exposing Police Corruption: What He Saw on the Inside 01:31:42 Trauma From the Job: Haunting Crime Scenes & Mental Aftermath 01:36:39 Walking Away: Leaving Policing & Becoming a Private Investigator 01:41:12 Today's Law Enforcement: Lowered Standards, Problems & Red Flags 01:46:09 Hard Lessons Learned: Advice From a Lifetime in Law Enforcement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. I've become sort of known as this rogue guy that's not a associated with anything, but he's taking people to jail. What's the hardest thing about undercover work, in your opinion? Hooked them up by myself, no backup, no cage in the car. I grabbed them both by the handcuffs, drugged them probably 15 feet to my car. When you're doing undercover work, did you ever feel bad getting close to someone only to

kind of betray them in the end? I bought a lot of dope, a lot of guns. I've dealt with bikers, gangsters, rednecks, motorcycle gangs. Jeff Pike grew up watching his dad, a sheriff and U.S. Mars. chased down criminals. By 13, he was already walking through jails and crime scenes, but when he followed on his father's footsteps and became an undercover cop, he discovered the truth about the system he thought he knew. Jeff, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. I appreciate the invite greatly. Yeah, thanks to Brian Kelly for connecting us and

making this happen. Sure. And I met you yesterday, and you got to tell everyone the gifts you brought to the studio. I brought some, um, uh, from my history. of growing up when they tore our local jail down, I scavenged. So I brought Ian one of 13 jail trays, authentic from the 70s, a little bit of moonshine, some autographed memorabilia from the U.S. Marshal. I guess that was about it. And your dad was the former U.S. Marshal? Correct. He was the U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Virginia. And prior to that, he was a sheriff from my county. And so your whole family's law enforcement background? Yes. My family's been in the U.S.

law enforcement continuously since 1964 up until now. My nephew is a sergeant within RICO County, PD, which is a suburb of Richmond, Virginia. Where'd you grow up? I grew up. I was actually born in Biloxi, Mississippi when my father was cycling out of Vietnam. So I was born on Kiesler Air Force Base, and then my mom worked for the CIA in D.C. So they met and made the decision to, for her her to end her career with the CIA. She was recruited back in the day. They would come to rural Appalachia where I'm from in southwest Virginia because they felt like the people from there would be less likely to be detained from Russian influence or somebody would infiltrate the community. And so she left her career. And then my father began his police career when I was six months old.

Did you have siblings or was it just? I've got one brother who's 13 months younger. than me. He's retired. He was the longest serving chief of the Capitol Police in Richmond, Virginia. You weren't kidding where everyone in your family was law enforcement. Yeah, I mean, it's, we've worked on every level from a town, county, city, state, federal level, every level. And in my career, I've probably done a little bit of everything prior to my private investigation career that you could imagine in law enforcement. What was your childhood like? You know, it was kind of interesting in that I would say up until I was 11 or 12 years old, it was the typical, your dad's the cop, you know, you sit in the police car or you may go down to the station with him. You know, it's in an era where, you know, me and my brother did go to the firing range where there were cops there.

but it really accelerated when my father was elected sheriff in that you could not replicate today the things that me and my brother were exposed to. We were working in the jail. We were doing dispatch. We were going on calls. We were going to very serious crime scenes as 13, 14-year-old guys. You know, I did my first shakedown in a jail at probably 13 or 14 years old. When I say Shakedown, we got locked in, just like your logo is. You know, search the commodes, the cracks.

And it was kind of this enigma with the inmates that it's those pike boys. They know all the hide and play. And we grew up around it. So we just got exposed to, you know, some crazy stuff growing up, some horrible crime scenes, you know, just a very, odd upbringing in my teen years, you know, for example, we were, we would beg to ride with my father. And he would pile us in his police car with him. And, you know, one time I remember we got a, he got a call. And a gentleman had a chainsaw accident. And we pull up big house, look like the Walton's house in the country.

1950 Dodge pickup truck sitting there And the whole tailgate is Looks like red paint And this gentleman had been using a chainsaw And it caught him right in the neck And basically cut almost this whole head off And so they'd taken some pictures and whatnot And they called the funeral home

To come pick up the body And a guy named Garland Gross Close He was the funeral home director And we were standing there and he looked at me and my brother and said you pipe boys grab a foot i grabbed a foot my brother grabbed a foot we helped load the body didn't think a thing about it was just sort of these weird things that you know it's rural Appalachia different time uh and we would go to these crazy calls and be just tagging around with our dad do you feel like that was pushed on to you or did

you actually no we beg for it me and my brother begged for it uh we wanted to be caused We just, you know, if my dad was going out or sometimes it was almost like the Andy Griffith show or Mayberry on steroids. We were hanging around. We were with our dad. And if something went down, he was a very hands-on person. So he went on calls. He didn't just sit in the office. You know, he was readily available to the public.

And we would just go on these bizarre calls at times that, you know, you. You know, if you talk about it today, I think it sounds like this atrocious, terrible thing. But in our mind, it was sort of like a family business. And we really, really wanted to do it. And, but not pushed on us at all. What did your mom think about him exposing you to this lifestyle at a young age? I think a lot of it was kind of kept quiet from my mom. Not if it was hidden.

I don't think she realized the extent of what we were seeing. we would just go, hey, we're with that or something to happen. You know, there was one time we went on a call. There was a guy that had some mental issues. We show up at a call. There's shit all in the floor, dead dogs, dead cats, a mess. This guy's laying in the bed. The family calls.

He lived in like a shack house kind of thing. Everybody was gagging, throwing up. And my father was there. and said to one of the deputies, go get a can of gas and call the fire department. And there were these glass insulators where the power line went. And he took a shotgun and shot those insulators off to cut the power lines and threw gas in the house and sit on fire and burn it to the ground. Now, when you tell that story, it sounds terrible, terrible, like some monstrous people

were doing things. But the whole neighborhood was like, thank God. The family's like, thank God. and there was nothing else you could, there was no other remedy. And of course he got his help and whatnot. The guy, it was so nasty that the guy never changed his socks. He had like 11 pairs of socks on. And when they took him to the hospital and stuff to commit him,

the two pairs closest to his feet were embedded in his skin. And they had to surgically remove the fibers from the socks. Of course, he got committed and got some help, but kind of those weird things that when you describe it to people now, it sounds just outlandish. Now, it's also very different from what the public thinks working as a sheriff where you have so much power and it's a small town as well. Sure. And, you know, again, a lot of the sheriffs now are the traditional things that happen now. You know, the sheriff's kind of a figurehead. He's never out. You know, my father was engaged a lot. He was in a couple shootings. You know, I remember one time in high school, me and my brother are sitting in high school, and they had the big speaker on the wall.

Principal Carney comes in and says, Miss such and such, send Jeff Park to the office. And I show up there and there says my brother. So what did you do? He's like, I didn't do anything. We go in, the principal's smoking us, pipe. You pipe boys sit your asses down there. Your daddy's done been in a shootout.

done killed a man down the road. I just want to let y'all know because I know how rumors are around this school. We were like, can we get out of school? We want to go to the jail. We want to go see what happens. He's like, hell no, you ain't getting up. And this is the way the conversation was. It was not what you would think of today of what you should do, but that's what happened.

And he's like, your daddy's done killed a man. Y'all ain't getting out of school. And he kept saying, your daddy's done killed a man. I just want you to know he killed him, but he's okay. and me and my brother went back to school. We went back to class, and it was just like another day in the life of whatever. And we got out of class, went to the sheriff's office, found out exactly what happened. But it was just this weird upbringing.

By the time I was 18 years old, I had been on every kind of call, been around the jail, been around dispatch, all that stuff. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com.

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Amazon. At a very young age. How would other kids treat you in school? You know, it was very simplistic life. You know, there was parties where people drank beer and stuff, but there was not a lot of meanness or, you know, people picked on each other in that era. But, you know, I think they just treated us like anybody else. Everybody knew our father was the sheriff. We didn't get any favors.

You know, nobody was scared of us. It was just that. was the Pike family business, just like your dad may be in the insurance business or the car dealership business. It was just our family business to be in law enforcement. How would you have described yourself back then? I would describe myself as, you know, I was six foot five, 135 pounds, track runner, not a ladies man whatsoever, didn't have any girlfriends, friends, you know, kind of just trying to fit in, you know, awkward. Not a very good communicator probably.

A lot of my friends that remember me from high school would say, you know, a much different person because of age and life experience. But, you know, probably the typical awkwardy kid, you know, did okay in school. Wasn't like a scholar or anything, but, you know, made my way through it. What do you think was the most important lesson your father taught you as a kid about law enforcement? That because of his spot, I was no better than anybody else. And I'll give you a good example. A friend of mine had a motorcycle.

He told me not to ride my friend's motorcycle. He left to go to work, knowing that I was probably going to ride the motorcycle and wait it. And then I rode the motorcycle, and I got a ticket from my father. and his words from him was that because you're the sheriff's son, you were no better than anybody else. And, you know, in that era, the ticket was like, I think it was a $15 fine and $10 court cost, but $25 to a 16-year-old kid was like a fortune. And it was the big talk of the town. You know, the sheriff gave his own son a ticket. But I think that was a very good, I haven't had a ticket since.

Do you think those kind of lessons still happen today? the law enforcement? No, I don't think so. I think it would be a rarity. I think there's probably it's the opposite of that. I feel like there is a lot of favoritism and breaks and different standards. If you're family members in law enforcement or of power or position, you know, I think there's a lot more favoritism. And it's totally opposite from when I grew up as far as my family personally. So do you graduate high school or what happens? I graduated high school. I got married early. I wanted to go into law enforcement. It was very difficult then. You would have like maybe a department would have like five or ten openings and they'd be two or

three thousand people apply. So my first jobs was in the insurance industry and I did investigations for them. Car crashes, fires. Early on, I started with a very small company. So I kind of trained and worked on the job. Back then, they would give opportunities. I did go to community college for police science. But I did mainly insurance stuff to make money. However, my father was sheriff. He didn't believe in nepotism.

But they did allow me to work part-time as a deputy, but I got zero pay. other than they had to pay me like, I think it was $35 a month to have me on the liability insurance. So I worked about 20, 25 hours a week for free as a deputy, uniform, gun, trained on patrol, doing different things. And I did that part-time in conjunction with my insurance investigation work. How would part-time work for you? As I was available, I would say I could work on Saturday or Friday night or whatever. And I mainly would work like Friday evenings, Friday evening into early morning, Saturdays. And it depends on what was going on.

They would assign me to somebody or just kind of a feel-in person. Every year I tell myself, Ian, this Christmas, you're going to be thoughtful. You're going to plan ahead. and every year I panic at the last second and end up buying somebody a gift card like I'm a distracted cashier at CVS. But this year, I actually broke the cycle. I skipped the panic and gave an aura frame.

Because let's be real, the people we're closest to are somehow the hardest to shop for. My mom, she already has everything. What am I going to get her? Another candle? But she loves pictures. And with aura, I could send photos straight from my phone right to her frame, no matter where I am.

She loved the one I got her so much last year that she still sends me videos reacting to new photos when they pop up. If you've got someone in your life who deserves something personal, something that actually means something, load that frame with memories they'd want to see all year. Here's what makes it the easiest win of the season, unlimited free photos and video. All you have to do is download the ORA app and connect to Wi-Fi. You could pre-load it before it ships so the frame arrives already filled with your favorite memories. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visitingoraFrames.com to get $35 off

or his best-selling Carver Matt frames, named number one by wirecutter by using promo code locked in at checkout. That's a uraframes.com promo code locked in. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get in time for the holidays. support the show by mentioning us a checkout, terms and conditions do apply. How come you couldn't just go full-time? Oh, I could, but my father was like, it doesn't look right for my son, for me to give him a job,

and for him to get paid, and the nepotism part of it, he just did not want that appearance. And everybody knew that I'm most likely, I was continually to apply for jobs outside of the insurance industry, and it still allowed me to kind of do law enforcement. However, I just didn't, had not gotten hired by anybody at that time. But was it like an in-demand job? Oh, yeah. I mean, if there was an opening, unlike today, the first law enforcement job I got, there were 12 openings, there were 4,000 applicants.

Oh, so that's what he was worried about. Well, he just, he didn't want, he didn't want the perception of him. hiring a family member, that was sort of the norm in rural Appalachas. You know, the sheriff was sheriff and then his son would become the sheriff or his cousin worked for him or his brother worked for him or the brother-in-law. A lot of that still goes on now. But for my father, he did not want that to be his reputation. So what was it like to be a part-time deputy compared to when you were just a kid not as an actual officer going to these crime scenes, doing the police work. How different was it for you? You actually did more. You know, you were on traffic stops. I mean, as a kid, I was on traffic stops,

I actually pulled over cars, actually wrote the ticket, actually went to the door on a call. As the kid, even though we were very exposed to things, it was more like a ride-along for a citizen. When I was a part-time, it was more hands-on. You know, you actually were engaged and more involved in general work. So what happens next? So I'm putting in for jobs, putting in for jobs. And the first one I got picked for was the state game warden, Virginia State Game Warden. It was not my first choice.

Again, there were 12 openings and 4,000 applicants. And I got picked. A lot of people, that's their dream job or whatever. But in Virginia, everybody goes to the Department of Criminal Justice Services certification. So once you get any law enforcement job, you get certified. And so once you're certified, then you have much more appeal to be hired. So I was like, I'll take this to get my certification. And, yeah, it'd be interesting, you know, game warden.

So I get hired, go through a 28-week academy, and then we had to do, I think, another six weeks in specialty training. So I did boat training, hunter safety training, survival training, operation of full-wheelers, jet skis, a lot more focused for game ward and stuff. and then you would be assigned to counties. And I got assigned to Fairfax, Allington, and Alexandria, the most populated counties in the state of Virginia, suburbs of Washington, D.C. Why do you think they picked you out of all those applicants? And you barely had experience except for being part-time deputy?

You know, I don't know. I mean, but the shocking thing of that is I'm like, why are they sending me to the most metropolitan place in the state for a game warden? So they did have boating. They had the Potomac River. But as far as hunting and all that, no, they had none of that. And it was very antiquated then the Game Commission in that they had a dispatch, and it was only Monday through Friday and shut down at 5 o'clock.

And I had been used to working by myself. When you work in rural areas, you work a lot by yourself. Big areas, no backup. So they send me there. You know, the state police is there. Fairfax County Police is there. And I'm kind of this enigma. And I'm sure people looked at me as a joke.

Some people thought, you know, I'm like a park ranger or whatever. And they had never really been exposed to a game. because it was so metropolitan such a populous metropolitan area and there was at times nothing hunting related going on I had all this free time to kind of freelance

so like the first week I was there called two armed robbers coming out of a 7-11 I was getting people with DUIs I was getting narcotics cases and there were a few incidents that happened and I become sort of known as this rogue guy that's not associated with anything, but he's taking people to jail. And one of the first problems was my communication.

You know, I had an incident where I went to this park and it was a big lake. And I'm coming out of the place. And there's a Hispanic guy rolling a keg of beer down the road. And I knew there was a distribution center up the street. I'm like this dude's stolen this and he's drunk as shit. And I get out and he kind of scuffles with me a little bit and I get him down and handcuff him. And I had no communications with anybody. And I wanted to call somebody to help transport him.

And these park maintenance workers were there on a golf course and I said, hey, you guys go down to the office? Can you call the county and tell me there's a game warden down here and I need some help and will they send a unit out to transport for me? And a couple of weeks before I'd flown with the air unit, I could do different things. I would go visit the air units and whatnot and fly. So these guys go down to the office,

and the lady calls the county dispatch and says, there's a game warden down in the parking lot, and he needs some help. That's what she said it. Well, they interpreted it. I was down on the ground, and it was bad, and I needed help. And they had some code like Signal 1 or something. I don't recall what it was, which meant it was bad.

Everybody had to go. So I'm standing there. This Hispanic guy. He's drunk as shit. He's cussing. He's, you know, hooked up. And I keep hearing these sirens. It's like, damn, something bad must be happening somewhere.

Like, me, I'm a dumb ass. You know, I'm rural southwest Virginia. And I could hear the air unit come. I was like, dude, there must be a pursuit. It's got to be something. bad. The Fairfax County Air Unit, tree topped, it seemed like 20 feet off the trees, banks around, and I'm thinking, they just know I'm on a call. They're just looking at me. So I'm standing there just waving at them like some goof. The first guy shows up, he is Jack,

gets out, what's going on? What's going on? I was like, what is happening? He's like, they called a code one on you. I was like, what? No. No. No, I just needed somebody to transport. Well, within the next day, Fairfax County called and said, we're putting a radio in your car. State police captain calls me into the headquarters, and he's like, Pike, you can get killed up here.

You're roguing around by yourself. Your dispatch closes at 5 o'clock. Nobody knows what you're doing. You're pulling over cars. You're poking around. You're taking people to jail. You're doing all this shit by yourself. you're going to get killed.

And he said, I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to give you a state police walkie-talkie. And so it was this very bizarre thing. And then from Fairfax, I got transferred to Henry County, Martinsville area, taking tons of people to jail,

a lot of dope. It was more, there was a lot more game stuff and whatnot, rest of a lot of boat DUIs. There's a lot of partying around these. recreational areas. So, you know, the criminal stuff, they were used to the game wardens calling somebody else in the hamlet.

You know, if I caught somebody with some dope, I did the charge. If I caught whatever it was, I handled it. And there, I got my first taste of corrupt organizations involving a drug arrest I had where some guns and drugs were stolen, but I can talk about that a little bit later. So I was kind of, I was doing my thing, but it was not law enforcement enough for me. It was not law enforcement enough for me. So then that's when I got a call from a chief of police that wanted to know if I wanted to work undercover. And that was my first foray into serious undercover work.

I'd worked a little bit, but not a lot. It's almost like you put on plain clothes. You were going to do something little special for the day. That was my first time. into what I would call deeper undercover work. Can you tell us exactly what a game warden is and the responsibilities? A game warden is a police officer. They actually call them conservation police officers.

There was game orders that didn't like it because people didn't think of them as police. You could enforce any law, just like any other police officer. You had state jurisdiction. But your primary task were like hunting, you know, hunting, trespassing, spotlighting, you know, shooting deer at night, boating, fishing, people catching too many fish or killing too many deer or things like that. So they wanted that focus. Also, there's an aspect of it that was okay for me. I did it.

Some people really got into it. You know, you did hunter safety classes. You did boat, you know, I'm a boating safety instructor. So you taught people about boating regulations and boat operations and boat off. operation or hunting safety and things like that. And that's pretty much their task. Tell us the 7-Eleven story. The 7-Eleven, I was there the first two weeks. I'm kind of this, you know, in the middle of a metro area. It's, again, anybody that's listening, knows what Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria is. It's city. Pull up into front of a 7-Eleven, two guys run out,

and some guy goes, they just robbed the place. And I took off and I tackled one of them and got him and the other one skirted around. And again, at that time, I didn't have a radio. And I told the guy at 7-Eleven, I said, call 911 and tell somebody to come here. And a bunch of people came and they did a perimeter and then called the second guy. And they were kind of like, who's this? And we had a patch that had like a deer on it and a turkey and a fish. And they were like, what the fuck is this guy?

I was like, they said he robbed a place and this and that. And County came in. They were like, okay, you called them. And we got it from here. And so it was just kind of these weird things that would occur to me. As a Game Warden, what do you think was the strangest call you ever received relating to like the animal aspect of the job? Oh, gosh. Probably, you know, there was some incidents that I was involved in, like probably one of the weirdest calls that just went from innocent to crazy.

sent to crazy. I was in Henry County, Virginia, and the lake I worked, it was Philpott Lake, and it bordered Patrick County and Franklin County. And there was a campground and boat ramp on the Franklin County side, and I got a call for lost boaters. And I had to drive around, and when I got there, there's a pickup truck in the lake. And there's a guy in a bathing suit up to his waist and water and a girl in a bikini, and they're arguing, standing in the water.

And there was a guy there, and they had a canoe, and it was roped onto the truck. I was like, I got a call for it. They were like, that's them. We thought they were lost, but they're drunk, and they've been drinking moonshine on a canoe. So I motioned them, get up here, get up here. And I told the guy, they're drunk in public.

You end it, you can't let somebody leave. There's no ubers, taxis, anything back then. So you're showing your butt. You don't run the truck over into the lake. You're going to hook them up for drunken public. And as soon as I said that to him, the attack happened. The dude attacked me. The chick attacked me.

And I was fighting him. And when you fight people that I fought naked people. But when you fight semi-naked or naked people and they're wet, it's hard. And he starts attacking me. I'm punching him. He's punching me. And the chick latches on to the back of my arm, biting. She didn't just bite and let go.

She bit and latched on. And at that point, he was grabbing my gun. And so I punched her, broke her nose, knocked her to the ground. I had a magalite. Conked him, 30 stitches. He hits the ground. and this fight had been going on two or three minutes. And it sounds kind of brutal like I'm just, you know, fucking people up.

But it was bad. And hooked them up by myself, no backup, no cage in the car. I grabbed them both by the handcuffs, drug them probably 15 feet to my car. I put him in the front seat, through her in the back seat. and I went 80 miles an hour, 25 miles with my right arm with him pressed up against the passenger side driving. Mike between my legs. Franklin County, I'm coming in. Can somebody meet me at the door?

And I roll in and they had a jailer this big jack guy. And they pull them out. They're bleeding. I got blood on me. I'm like bit, scratch. scratched the neck. I'd been punched in my cheek. I was a mess.

And that jeller was standing there. His arms was as big as my thighs, and he was just jacked. They drug him out, and he looked at me, he said, Pike for a skinny little game ward, and you fuck them people up. I was like, dude, they almost kill me.

I was like, this is bad. So I had to call my lieutenant and sergeant, Lieutenant Carl Martin, Sergeant Jimmy Blanks, they came. They're looking. they're like, they got to go to the hospital. And they were looking at me. They're like, you okay?

And I said, I'm fine. My lieutenant Carl got along great with him, but he was pretty gruff. He's like, they need to get tested for AIDS and shit. And Pike, you better get tested. You're going to get tested too, because I don't want them to accuse. You've been fucking a whore down here. And I already had the shit before you got bit or poked or whatever they did to you. I was like, oh, geez.

And then they go, what happened to their knees in the top of the, their feet and their toes. I was like, I don't know. What are you talking about? All the skin and they're on the top of their feet and toes and these was rubbed off. I was like, oh, I had to drag them across asphalt to get to the car. They're like, what? I was like, there was no backup. What am I going to do? Stand there and wait forever. And it sounds terrible. But this fight, you know, I was not, I didn't get in a lot of fights. I mean, I've been shot it 20 times. I've been robbed once. I've been stabbed, almost stabbed three or four times.

I would really push it compared to the day where I see some of these videos and the criminal stuff I've reviewed. People are real quick on the trigger and I was not. So the alternative is shot the guy?

Should I have done whatever? I'd rather be in a physical altercation and they survive and later we went to court and they apologized. they knew. We were like, yeah, we sawed that guy and it was pretty bad. All right, fellas, you know what time

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this point? No, not so much. You know, when I worked undercover, I would have nicknames from the drug dealers, but not really. You know, I was known, I think primarily as the the guy that poked around. You know, I didn't do, a lot of the cops I worked around, they, they weren't very diligent, and they, you know, they were waiting to eat lunch, and, you know, they wouldn't pull over cars if it was late, or, you know, I was the sneaky, not to do anything legal, but I was the guy that poked around and looked around and pulled over cars and was fairly, not aggressive, is the right word, proactive, you know, looking and checking on things, and which tended to leave me to find people and catch people.

So do you, when you get the undercover gig with that police department, do you leave your job as a game warden? I left my job as a game warden, and they wanted me to work undercover. They sent me to two little week-long schools, and then you kind of just wing it and learn it. And, you know, I'm the kind of guy that, you know, I had to put a uniform on to look like a cop. And it's kind of a not a very good lifestyle, so you end up dropping a few people. pounds, you know, get your hair long or whatever.

And I don't have the tattoos. And a lot of you see these undercover guys. And for me, I'm like, eh, that guy kind of looks like a cop. I'm the kind of guy that when I would get rough looking, everybody would go, that's like a felon. That's the stereotypical guy that would commit a crime. And I look creepy. My eyes look different.

You know, I just had this look of, and I would do a few things. Because growing up, I had these fantasies that you want to be an actor. So I looked at it as my chance to be an actor. And I could write, direct it, script it, wardrobe. But at the end of the day, you were successful in that you called somebody, and your reward was you didn't get your ass beat or somebody didn't kill you. So I did that stint and was pretty successful. And then my father was leaving his sheriff to go to the parole board.

so I had my opportunity to go back to With County and work as a deputy. And I took that spot to go back. And I worked undercover there a little bit. And I looked so different and weird. I actually bought drugs in the county that my family seven generations from and grew up in. And did that. During those times, I would get exposed to some of the corruption and nonsense in the narcotics investigation world and voice. and I decided after my father left we had a sheriff that was not very good and I was going to run for sheriff and I did that and didn't win and I had to go to a friend of mine ran the regional jail which was I don't know I seven 800 people maybe more in it and he gave me a job he said Jeff I know you won't stay and I was I was

worked there until I transitioned into my very super, what I call super undercover. But while I was a deputy there, I worked motorcycle patrol. I did drug interdiction on the interstate. My biggest load is 137 kilos from a 70-year-old grandma. Tell us that story. You know, I was doing drug interdiction. That basically means that you don't really go on calls. And you're kind of, you're pulling over a lot of calls on our, or our, or, you know,

our county, we had 60 miles of major interstate. They intersect at 77 and 81. And you're basically, a lot of people think that you're profiling race, but you're actually looking at behavior. So you're pulling over lots of vehicles, and if you study it and look at it, you become used to say what's the normal traveler and or what's weird going on.

and you need to be able to communicate with these people. Most all my big loads were consensual searches. This particular case, I was sitting in a median strip and a trooper pulled up and he said, Jeff, are you writing tickets or are you looking for dope? And I said, I'm looking for dope. If you were writing tickets, there is quotas. You had to write so many tickets. You had to write 20 tickets a day, which is not hard.

And I was not a nitpicker for tickets. I didn't write the exhaust, the tent. I might pull you over for it, but, you know, it's pretty easy on interstate. You clip people, they're 20 miles over. He pulls in, I said, I'm looking for dope. And Ford Taurus came by, and this little lady's driving it. Don't ask me if it's psychic or whatever. I'm used to it.

We had our windows down. I said, hey, I'm going to go look at this car. Take off, get up behind it. and the tags are expired. Got my probable calls. Light it up, pull it over. Here's this little old lady. And I'm talking to her and I said, give me your license.

She's from Boston. And I noticed there's luggage in the back seat with airline tags on it. And I said, it's a rental car. I need to see the rental agreement. A lot of these things are common sense. I look at the rental agreement. And I said, who rent at the car? She couldn't tell me the name.

Who does that? And you have to engage people in conversation because most people don't think beyond the initial lie. So if I ask you a question, you lie and I elaborate on it, it's very noticeable that you're trying to figure out to expand that lie. I said, wow, I said, you have luggage ticket or airline tickets on this luggage. She said, yeah, I flew from Boston to San Diego. and I said, and you're driving back across the country? Yeah. Again, that doesn't, it's not the norm.

And I said, what do you have in the trunk? She said antiques. Well, what she didn't know was that I collect and love antiques. And I said, and I have her out of the car at this point. And I said, what kind of antiques? Man, I love it. Her name was Laura. And I would always engage people usually with their first name.

man, I love antiques. Girl, what you got? And she put her hand to her face, and I could see the vein thumping. And her hand was shaking. She went, uh, it's just, uh, it's just antiques. And I knew, I was like, but her appearance was in my mind, I'm like, it's all there, it's all there, but this is grandma. And what I normally would do with people when they'd hang up or,

to kind of to let if people think you already know. I said, Laura, right now, girl, I'm going to be straight with you. I've been sitting back there waiting on you. They've already told me what you got. I've been waiting on you. And right now, ma'am, is your one chance. If you don't help yourself out, you're going to have some serious problems. And she went, oh God, they loaded the truck.

I don't know what to do. am I in trouble? And I'm like, oh shit, I'm thinking like a little bit. I don't know what's in there. Pop it, 137 kilos in the trunk. And it was wrapped. It was packaged really cool in that they had wrapped it in saran wrap and then rubbed axle grease, which has a really strong smell, and then rewrapped it in saran wrap.

And you could hold the package without getting grease on you. And, you know, we call the DEA. they come and snatched her and did a control delivery to Boston. And the gentleman that was kind of running the operation, he utilized, it's kind of like, what's that movie, The Mule? It was similar to that. Everybody was older. Nobody looked apart.

And apparently it was a major supplier to the Boston, I'm sure it went to New York and wherever, all up in here, courier. She got paid $30,000 a trip. She did four trips a year. They would fly her to San Diego. They would show up with a rental car. Here's the keys.

She would come back across the country. Sometimes she stopped in Vegas. She told me sometimes she stopped in Brant. She sightseed back. When she got home, she paged them. I'm back home. They would show up with $30,000 cash. She would hand them the key.

And then they would contact her next time they had a load. That's crazy. I literally interviewed a woman who is a lot older now. Her name's Jody. There was a Jody Trip episode that used to do this for the cartel. And she did a bunch of loads and then she got away with it. She stopped doing it and lived her life after that. But it's the same thing you're describing. Yeah, exactly. But what you're looking for doing, drug interdiction was one of my favorites. It's kind of like a cat and mouse and being sharp on your game and looking at stuff. And, you know, I did a bit of a big. variety of things. You know, I would have, the reason I'm an expert witness in a lot of categories is the sheer numbers I would do when I worked as a police officer. And then I worked at the regional jail and then I got a call from a friend of mine that's now an ATF agent and he worked for the city of Lynchburg. And he said, Jeff, we're looking for somebody to go like really undercover. And would you be interested? And I said, absolutely, I'm working at the jail, man. you know, not to be mean about CEOs or whatever.

It just was not my thing. And in the jail, you know, I did booking, transport. The superintendent there at the jail, they're like, Jeff, we don't have to train you. We know you're not going to stay. You'll work well until you go somewhere else. So I talked to the chief of police in Lynchburg. They're like, and I had been through enough to a little bit more corruption stuff.

cops stealing dope, cops hooking up with informants, cops telling informants about stuff, and, you know, some serious things. I mean, I had bought, by that point, I had bought dope where they killed some people the next day at the same place I went to. There were people ended up, cops ended up in prison because they were telling the informant stuff. They were stealing dope. They were using dope. going back to the Henry County where I worked, the sheriff and 12 deputies got indicted for stealing dope and guns. They stole some of my dope on a bust I made.

They were stealing from evidence. The Commonwealth attorney had called and said, Jeff, do you have a destruction order for the drugs? And I was like, yeah, what's going on? Well, I think they destroyed it, but they can't really find it. Later on, the sheriff gets sentenced to federal prison and these deputies,

and they were stealing, and they loved me because I arrested a shitload of people, and a lot of times they had guns. And they were stealing all that. But I told the chief, I said, you know, I've dealt with a lot of idiots and people compromising me. It's wondering I'm not already dead.

I said, absolutely, I'll do it. But I'll only do it on a couple reasons. And he explained to me, they had a cop try to do it, and he got scared. and there's an aspect of law enforcement, there's guys that are scared of their job. They won't pull over cars at night.

You know, if they're not got backup right there, they won't do it. And I wasn't like that. It wasn't like I was on a suicide mission, but I did my job. Wasn't scared. I didn't want to get killed, but I did my job.

I was more enthusiastic about catching somebody than probably for my own safety. You know, and that's why I would push it in incidents where somebody pulled a knife on me and just want to shoot them you know i'd conk them in the head or you know do whatever i had to do to survive it um you know the people that shot at me i would circle around as night whatever and get them i didn't just shoot back i'd give up or i call them uh and i had some really close calls and every time i got shot at everybody missed but anyway i said i would do it but under these circumstances only one or two people

know and we had all the logistics set up and I went down in the middle of night at a bus shop the chief showed up the clerk that had to swear me in and my one handler who works now for ATF and I had an apartment but my ruse was I lived out of motels which we could utilize and they swore me in and they were like you have to qualify with your firearm. And I was like, okay. And so I went and qualified. The range guys were pretty strict.

And they had, I can't remember, like a Barrette or a grok, it looked like a cop gun. And I said, no, I don't carry that. I carry a five shot 38. Well, you still have to qualify with that. It's like, dude, a five shot revolver with a standard police qualification. No, no, I'm like, I don't know. I don't even have speed loaders. So we went to the range to qualify, and you had to pass an 80 or better, and I usually shot 90, 93.

I'm not a huge gun person. You know, I qualify decent. In the daytime, I shot like an 81. I was like, I'll never pass this at night. This thing looks like an explosion going off in my face. You got to try. So I think I scored like a 73, and they were like, you can't carry that. I said, well, I can't carry a cop gun.

I said, you know, y'all don't understand. And I'm pretty hard at it. I was like, fuck it. I won't carry a gun. So I started my undercover career and whatnot. I was never armed. I had a knife. They never regulated knives.

So I had a friend that was into martial arts and all that shit. And he showed me some things with a knife. And I was like, well, they don't really regulate a knife. Anybody can carry it. I guess I'll just have to knife fight somebody. I don't know. I don't know what the fuck y'all want me to do. But I didn't carry a gun.

I can't carry this gun the first time somebody sees it or you get patted down. So I said, screw it. And so I started my career of super undercover. Didn't do informants. Didn't want to do informants. Don't trust informants. Don't know who's screwing who. Who's doing what?

Cop, whatever. And they would give me target areas. And they were like, the first stuff that I did, they were like, the cab companies are dirty and they're working with the drug dealers and uh there's certain areas of the city and again because i had these fantasies of being an actor you know i'm going to fix this figure it out and then stay you know do this production of drug dealer drug buyer and uh so i was like okay i'll figure it out so i would go down to the motel and uh get a room and call them and call for a cab.

And the cab would show up and say, can you take me to the liquor store? I'm traveling. I'm a construction guy or whatever. I had long hair. It looked like shit. And they say, yeah, I go in to the liquor store, and I get a little bottle of liquor, crack it.

You can't drink. I mean, you could drink like two beers. There's a couple rules that you don't want to do. And I had those set up too. I said, if I do this, somebody's going to have to drug test me, come and get a piss test every two weeks. weeks. I don't want anybody saying I'm using drugs. You don't screw the chicks informants or any of that.

And so I would like throw it up, spill some on me. I would go, dude, I'm looking to party. Sometimes there's a woman driver, cabby, sometimes a man. You hook me up. So they take me to the bad area in the cab and it was like I was a shoe in. And I would buy crack. And I'd do that two or three times. Then I'd go back in my vehicle that was all wired up. and i start buying they're like yeah that's sometimes they call me cornbread white boy i've been called the N word uh every stereotypical thing you can imagine and they start selling to me and uh then they would tell me to go to different crack houses and uh i would go in unarmed in a crack house with the bolts going across the door uh nobody to help me nobody get me nobody to save me. And the hardest thing about it was keeping your adrenaline down so it wasn't noticeable. So again, I guess to kind of get your mind around it, I was like, I'm going to be an actor,

playing this part. You know, at the end, I was like, dude, I got the crack, I got the Coke, I got whatever. They were selling guns or whatever. And I just won the Academy Award for pulling this shit off, you know, whatever. You know, just kind of do these things in your mind to kind of get it off of. the adrenaline pump. And I was making all these cases. And my handler said, because they would submit the reports to the prosecuting attorneys, and it didn't have my name or anything. And they're seeing these cases or getting generated. And he calls, and I mean, like, I would go out and make

10 or 15 felony cases in a day. And I was like, dude, this place is awesome. I mean, this is going to be crazy good. And they were like, we get a call from the prosecuting attorney. You're targeting the too many black people. I was like, well, that's who's dealing and this or that. Well, they want some diversity. It's like, okay. So I start going to the country western cowboy bars.

And I'm singing karaoke and hanging out and whatever. And I kind of changed my story of what I did. I went in a bar, different bars every night for two years. almost. And as you well know, the bar culture, you know, you get in, you buy a few drinks, or you hang out enough, they'll go, just no wait. Number one, he doesn't look like a cop. Cops aren't going to spend this much time coming in here, and you start making friends.

And so then I started busting a different demographic. It was also a college town, so I'd go to the college bars, and I'd pull my hair back in the man bun and kind of be the hipster guy. and I was making those cases. And then I would run across some cops out and an assistant Commonwealth attorney out doing stupid shit at the bars. And I was like,

cops doing this or that, we'll take care of it. Assistant Commonwealth attorneys out at the bar doing some stupid shit, we got to take care of. You've never seen those two people again. They weren't interested in catching them. They were interested in. then somebody's watching, don't ever go out again.

And I realized right then it was better than what it was, but it was still the politics and nobody was, you know, really concerned at times of certain situations. I made a lot of cases, and they're like, okay, we're going to end the super undercover, and then I went to narcotics and vice, and then that's when I still would do select buys. You know, I look bad. Then they would want to use me in prostitution stings.

And that's when at times I was a male prostitute selling myself. You know, I busted a lot of women prostitutes. That was the norm. But I have not met. I worked with another guy that did it with me, but I'd never met a male officer that had posed as a male prostitute. and to sell themselves. Met plenty of women officers that do it,

but I never met a male. So I was kind of like, hell yeah, that'd be cool. You know, I'd like to, I like the diversity of trying different things. Listen up, everyone. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. It is the holiday season, the best time of the year for sports, bowl games, basketball matchups, playoff pushes. It's all happening at once.

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prize picks it's good to be right what happened to the cab case how did you bring them down the cabs i end up busting it got so they were so trusting of me that i could go and i always use my first real name undercover you'll get called it some people may be good at that but i'm not so i always use my real first name and fake last name so the cabbies love me so much and i was such good for the business because the cabby's got a cut of the drug deal money. And we would listen to their radio. They would monitor their radio. It got so good that I would call in and they would tell me to do this.

I would go, Jeff at the Comfort Inn, I need a special. And they would dispatch. Jeff's at the Cab Place or at the Comfort Inn needs a special. They would either bring the drug dealer to me or they would pick me up and take me to the drug house. And all the drug houses that I did, we would document it. And then later on, they want to hit them with attack teams. And they were trying to figure out how to do it.

I said, let me rent a box truck, U-Ha. I'll leave the back door open. Let me go buy some dope there. And then when you're ready to hit it, put the tag team in the back, and I'm good to go. So I prepped these places to do that. and but at the end of the day, the cab companies all got in trouble, and I forget all the shit that they involved conspiracy

to distribute distribution of narcotics. A bunch of bars got in trouble. And then two, during this period, they had an alcohol beverage control officer to call me on the phone, female, and she didn't know who I was, and they were like, we need to school Jeff on more of the administrative stuff, you know, the bartenders drinking. Obviously, the bartenders are selling me dope.

That's easy. But there was a lot of administrative things of, you know, underage sales, people too drunk and they're leaving. And so a lot of those people got in trouble. So, but when we went back, like I remember one house we hit and I took the U-Haul and it was a major house. A lot of dope got caught, stolen shit, stolen. stolen guns. And as I'm driving, I can hear people yelling in the back. The attack team, they're falling all around, pull up, we hit the house.

They had a helicopter at zooming around. And I'm like, oh, Jack, oh, wow, this is great. After it was over and done with, everybody was pissed at me. It's like, what's the attack team was mad because I had rocked them around in the back of the U-Haul. One of the captains was in the helicopter and got sick and threw up. And so everybody was sworn to secrecy over that. They were more worried about that than Jeff Pike, unarmed, doing dope deals. That's the kind of silliness that you would run across or happen to you.

Now, you're making all these busts in this area and you kind of stick out like a sore thumb. Don't people get on to you or recognize you at all? No, I mean, when I'm doing it, no, I look like crazy looking. And I never had a problem. You know, I see these people do interviews, and, you know, they're like, I was on the edge. I never had a problem. And I did these weird things like, you know, again, I looked at myself as being an actor. You know, I've dressed accordingly to whatever part I was playing.

I let them kind of come to me and let it naturally happen. You know, there's a not rumor. A lot of drug people think you've got to ask them away if they're a cop, they got to say. So I have to say, are you a guy? cop. I was like, shit, I ain't a cop. You a cop. Now we got that out of the way and we'd still do the deal. But no, I never had a problem. I had a friend that was a magician. My big problem that I worried about was if somebody, and you could use drugs if you thought your life was in danger. So I don't smoke weed, but if I had to hit a joint and somebody's got a gun

to my head, I'd do it all day long. I didn't want to do crack, cocaine, or any of that shit. So I had a friend that was a magician. And I know it sounds stupid and simple, but I was like, dude, I got to do some coke or whatever. You can show me some hand tricks or whatever. So the couple times I got close to somebody like, you need to do whatever, I had long hair, and I would lick my hand right here. And he was like, the key is they're looking at this hand, but they're not really seeing what you're doing with this hand.

So I had long hair. and if I did a line, I bend over, and I'd sweep it with a wet pinky. And then I got, oh, my God, and just this obscure or absurd other reaction. And they're looking here and they're looking at my face. I'm wiping it on my pants. And I never did it. And, of course, I got drug tested every two weeks. I wanted that.

I wanted it because I had been around enough where cops were getting accused of using drugs. And some of them did. And I knew that. and I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to be any question. All my cases, I think I had to go to a jury trial, and they were both convicted by jury. I think I had one bench trial, which is the judge hears it. He was convicted, and the rest were that everybody pled guilty. When you're doing undercover work, did you ever feel bad getting close to someone only to kind of betray them in the end? It wasn't a portrayal part of it that I felt bad about. It was to get the inner, um, you get this inside look at their lifestyle. And a lot of times there were kids around or they were nice people.

They were just messed up on substances. And no. And then after the fact I had several times I've had people said, you know, thank God you busted me. You saved my life. I looked at it from a public safety standpoint and to also help them. It was so bad. you're either going to be dead or go to jail.

That's what's going to happen to you. If you go to jail, you may have an opportunity to get yourself squared away. But as far as being like, I can't believe whatever. No, I looked at, number one, I'm going to catch them. And then the next thing is public safety. Then the next thing is you may save them. It may be that wake up call that they need. And then, you know, that's just kind of the way I looked at it.

What's the hardest thing about undercover work, in your opinion? The lifestyle, you're, you know, you're not eating good. You know, you're kind of up all the time. You know, you're doing things that you normally wouldn't do. You know, I'm not a drug buyer, you know, I had to do it. Not a male prostitute, but I got to do it. I don't, you know, I'm not picking up chicks on the street, but I do it. you know it's just the the yin and yang of it you know i'm a jemin so it's like twins so i got the

conservative uh normal twin and then i got like the evil twin i guess or the one that's capable of pulling that off and it is kind of scary maybe mentally to know that you can blend in that world and you can look like that, you can act like that. I think that's kind of weird, you know, are you really, is there something twisted about you that you can pull that off? Or in my mind, again, hey, I had these fantasies being an actor. Hell, I ain't going to make it in Hollywood, whatever. But it's my little chance to kind of pretend or role play.

And I think maybe that helped me mentally to make it. an adventure, but super dangerous. A lot of people I worked with, they're like, dude, I can't, just wonder, I got robbed one time working undercover. You know, I just never had any problem. I look so unlike a cop, and that's the key, I think, the first thing. And then I didn't talk like a cop. And from where I'm from where I'm from, I can really dumb down the accent a lot more.

and just a new cop speak from growing up in it. Certain ways, certain mannerism is down to your shoes, the way you looked. It depends on what you're portraying. But I could really, hey, I'm here. Y'all got some dope. Are y'all straight today? And it would just, cop going to sound like that? Tell us that robbery story, getting robbed in undercover.

The robbery story was pretty cool in that I had pulled up to buy some crack off these people at this crack house. and they had this like fringe guy that was there. And I pulled up and I dealt with one guy. I got it on video. And I pulled up and I was buying, I think, $100 worth of crack or some shit. And so I got the money out. And the one guy is like getting the crack to give to me. Sometimes they would carry it in their mouth and then spit it in my hand or just hand it to me.

And it's kind of wannabe. is sort of hanging on, hanging around him. Well, he runs up and just snatches my money. I was like, fuck that, dude, just took my money. The legit drug dude is like, no, man, you're fucking the shit up. Well, they start beating the shit out of him. I was like, what the fuck? I was like, come on, man, give me my crack.

He took my money. He's got my fucking money. And the guy's like, gives me the crack. And I was like, y'all need to kick his ass. He fucking just stole my money. And they're like, you're fucking shit up. You're fucking it up, dog. And they're like stomping on him to get my money from him.

And I was like, out. I got to go. I'm gone. How do you know when to reveal that you're a cop? Like in a moment like that, couldn't you have just revealed you were a cop to kind of settle that situation? No, unless it's like what I would say, super life-threatening. But I never was in. There was plenty of people that were armed.

I mean, I bought stolen guns. I bought a lot of independent, you know, because I was. I worked inner city. I worked redneck rural Appalachia, trailer up in the hollah. All them people is armed. I really fit in good. Yeah, but I didn't really have a problem. Even in the black community, I did well there.

The redneck kind of country people, they're all armed. You know, I really did well there. But at some point, they just decide, you know, just like the last one I did. they're like, they didn't want me to do a whole lot because that means work for the prosecutors. You know, somebody comes in with a bunch of cases. That means work for them. And I think that's a lot of the motivation or reason why some things don't go as big as they should. Because nobody, the infrastructure that's got to, you know, prosecute this or deal with the paperwork,

they really don't want to. And when you get to working with some of these people, There's a lot of people that just aren't motivated. They're, you know, dude, I want to do as little as I can. You know, do we really need this guy making, you know, however many cases means more paperwork and whatnot. So I think a lot of that drives when they say we're done. You mentioned you got married. How hard was it to have a relationship and a family during undercover work?

It was difficult because when I did, when I did go home, you know, I looked terrible. a lot of people at small town and rural there's people that thought I was actually on drugs my mother thought I was on drugs I looked that terrible I was gone a lot and it's probably my contribution to the divorce

when I finished up with my police career and was able to stay home I realized that was not what somebody wanted me to be around that much And so it ended abruptly. And I'll just leave it at that. It's not of my doings. And I'll just leave it at that to be respectful.

But, you know, I was gone a lot. And I was very career-driven, you know, even with my business today, you know, I work a lot. But that's, you know, in my mind, I wanted to be a provider and take care of things and take care of my family. But at the end of the day, you're gone a lot. It was very noticeable if you went out and, you know, you got your family there. And then what's, what are they doing with this? You know, they're the all-American looking family. And there's this guy that's hard to describe how it looked.

I mean, terrible looking crackhead, dope head, dope dealer, whatever you want to call it. Give us your best undercover story. Best undercover story. Probably work in male prostitution. I mean, you just don't have that. I mean, I bought a lot of dope, a lot of guns. I've dealt with bikers, gangsters, rednecks, you know, motorcycle gangs, whatever. But working male prostitution was odd in that not only did you catch shit from the cops of like,

this is crazy and making fun of you, but then, you know, and I don't want to catch shit. You know, I knew people that were gay. I didn't really know anything about being gay. And I worked with a partner, and he was a black guy. Stuart Mack, this passed away. I have to shout out to Stewart and his family. And they were like, there was a park, and it was next to a Little League field.

And apparently this was the place for the male prostitutes and people that were into that. And they had some young kids walk in on some guys having sex. and they're like, we need this cleaned out. The Little League parks there. I don't care what gay people do or whatever, but you probably don't need to be doing, whether it's straight or gay, doing it in the park,

in the bathrooms where there's kids could walk in. So we need this knocked out. So I was like, dude, I don't know much about gay stuff. So I went and bought a pink shirt. Stewart had these tight jogging shorts, like the jogging pants, but they were shorts. And they were like, go down to the park and y'all are the prostitutes.

It's like, okay, so we went and, dude, we were a hit, man. Stewart got more business than I did. They liked the black guys. And Stewart had a real big ass with these tight shorts on. I had my pink shirt. And they were very easy to catch compared to the girls. The girls are very educated. They've been arrested a lot.

The guys were, like, desperate. And all the guys I call were married. They call me home wrecker. Some of the other cops was like, that's nasty. And what you're doing, the conversations. They would show you their penis. One time I showed my penis to a guy. I really called a bunch of shit over that because when he saw my penis,

he said it was the most beautiful penis he'd ever seen. The cops give me a bunch of shit over that. I was like, dude, he's an expert. He's giving, you know, whatever's going on with this guy every day. He's an expert. I've never had a chick ever say, I've never heard a girl say, any penis look beautiful.

I was like, dude, that's a compliment. But you really caught, you know, in the macho or cliqueish law enforcement world, there were a lot of people that were uncomfortable with that.

You know, their manhood or what else. I was like, you know, that's part of, that's awesome. Dude, I can pull that off.

That's freaking awesome. So give us one of these examples of one of these cases. Of the prostitution case? So, like, I had a guy, he was a produce manager at a major grocery store, and apparently he frequented it quite a bit. And so I would go up to the car, and I was like, hey, what are you looking for? And he was like, his thing was, I like sucking dicks. And I said, you know, $25, you suck my dick. And you need a furtherance of the act.

So it's an exchange of money. A lot of people want to exchange money. you need an explicit description of the sex act and then a furtherance. A furtherance would be an exchange of money or you go from point A to point B to do it. Or a lot of times with the girls I was like, hey, show me your butt, your boobs. And the guys, I was like a furtherance if they'd hang up on me, it's like, let me see your penis or dick. And he was like, and I had went around to the passenger side. and I was like, hey, let me see what you got going there.

And he's like, no, I'm ashamed of it. I'm ashamed of it. And he's like, let me see yours. I was like, no, let me see yours first. It's like fucking kindergarten shit. And I was like at one point, and I'm in my mind process and the legalities, I was like, well, what's the difference of me showing my dick to me buying crack? You know, you're still whatever.

It's part of the thing. So I whipped it out. He went, dear God, it's the most beautiful cock I've ever seen. I will suck it so hard. I will suck it so hard. We're on the wire and we had a word. We always had a word to say to come get them, to come bust us. And he was real heavy.

And I said, now let me see yours. He whipped it out and it was teeny, tiny little. It was awful. I mean, one of the sayings where I come from, it looked like a mouse buried up in a haybell. I was like, oh, that's sad. It's sad. He had to pull his stomach back to even show it.

So I said the word. The first vice guys that showed up, one of them was just shaking his head. It's like, that's the nastiest shit we ever had to listen to in our life. It's like, dude, I mean, what? It's what you want. And, you know, we've got to bust these people. And again, you know, I would talk to him afterwards. And I was like, you know, nobody's upset or weirded out that, you know, if you're gay or whatever.

I mean, I didn't give a shit. It's the means that you're doing it. You know, straight or gay, just like the female prostitutes, straight sex, whatever, you know, you don't want that out. You know, you don't need to be doing it at a Little League part. You don't need to have kids walking in on it. You know, nobody wants that. I don't want my eight-year-old, nine, ten-year-old kid walking in on this. And so, you know, the purpose of it was to drive that away.

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Now, these men that had wives, what was the psychology behind them? Were they just, you know... You know, Ian, I asked. a few of them. And, you know, like, some of they were married. They had wives. And they were like, it was our, it's like our fantasy or fetish or, you know, they didn't want to, you know, they had lived a normal, traditional, sexual relationship, man and woman.

But it secretly being gay was their thing. And whether it was family or somebody's mama died. would be ashamed of them. I don't know, but a lot of them was like it was sort of our kinky fetish. You know, we'd like to kind of do this on the side, but we still want our traditional wife or traditional family. It was very bizarre of some of the sexual things that you would run across in my career of what people would like to do.

And it's their thing. That's fine or whatever. But sometimes they would do it in a dumb way and do it. it in ways that would get them in trouble. You know, you like masturbating, don't be masturbating down at the park, or you like to, don't do it in the movie theater, or don't, you know, do it around some kids or whatever, common sense stuff. I mean, if I like having sex, I'm not going to do it in the park or whatever where somebody, you know, can see it. That's actually a whole thing, though. That's like a fetish. Oh, yeah, absolutely. What do you think was the weirdest request you got

from a man? You know, they either wanted to give me. I think that was odd for me that their thing was to give and not receive. And it seemed to be like that was more the thing for the people that I saw. But, you know, I saw like one time I was doing a road check in a middle of nowhere and a national forest during hunting season, the guy rolls up and we kind of hear. hid and would pop out because you're not supposed to have a loaded gun during hunting season in the National Forest. Guy pulls up, he's wearing high heels, he's got on the thigh-high panty hose

with the garter of clippy things. He's got a flannel shirt on with a bra. The bra is stuffed with panties. He had some kind of cheap perfume that he'd sprinkled all over him, and he had a bunch of pawns in the seat, porn magazines, and he'd been drinking a little bit. I had to get him out and give him field sobriety test. I was like, dude, you got to take the high heels off to do this. He wasn't legally over the limit. And I said, dude, I got to ask, what? And he's like, it's just my thing.

I like dressing up like this. He said, I want to have big tits. So I stuffed my bra with the panties. And, you know, you kind of, you feel bad for the guy. I mean, that's his thing. He was so ashamed. I was like, dude, I'm not here to judge. Just don't be drinking and driving.

You know, have it. I don't care. He's not killing anybody. But you can't be out drinking and driving and doing it. So I think that's probably one of the weirdest ones. Now, we always hear about men hiring women and even the men hiring other men. But what about women hiring men? Do you have any of those cases?

No. No. I have never. had any any other than I've traveled I traveled one time to the Dominican Republic and they have a huge

sex traffic sex tourism industry now when I was down there and they would have there was a specific name for it and I forget what it was but a lot of especially European women older women maybe not the most

attractive women you know they would go there and pay to have some hot Dominican guy that's, you know, jacked or whatever, to hang with them for a few weeks or whatever time they were there. That's the only time that I ever heard of it, knew it, and you kind of see it. You'd see the older lady, she's not the best, and there's some, you know, Jamaican-looking Dominican hot guy with her, and they had a name for it, and there would be people at the bars,

like, that's whatever they called it, and that's what's going on. That's the only time I ever dealt with it or saw it. So now you leave undercover and go to narcotics with the Sheriff's Department? No. So this time I left the Sheriff's office, went to this bigger city, worked narcotics vice, now I worked patrol, and I was still traveling. So that's when I started to start my own business as a private investigator.

All right. Now, before we get there, tell us about the corruption you witnessed firsthand. The corruption I witnessed was across the. board. I mean, I've seen cops, and some of it is not really incompetence. I've saw people lying in court. I've seen people sleeping on duty, having sex on duty, hooking up with women. It was women having sex in police cars, having sex in the police station, cops filming women having sex with them in the police station, domestic violence, theft. Gosh, theft from the evidence lockers, you know, drinking on showing up on stuff and they've been

drinking on duty, you name it at some point, I had seen it or dealt with it. When you say corruption, it was all up to the level of stealing drugs and guns to advise and informants down to the incompetent stuff, sleeping on duty, drinking on duty, having sex on duty. There was one department I knew of. Their joke to play on each other. They would masturbating condoms and put them on the dash or steering wheels of the other cop car,

the other cop's cars as a joke. It's how twisted they were. Just the gamut of ignorance. Why do you think this goes on? I think it goes on because you have certain people to get hired that shouldn't be a police officer. Then they have a lot of freedom. Some of them aren't doing their job.

I never got bored doing my job because I was the guy that was out poking around. I wasn't working about Sally, who's the waitress at the truck stop. A lot of these guys are like that. Ego, a lot of guys are married. So the time that they can mess around is when they're working and you have this super freedom to do these kind of things. The standards have been lowered in the past, few years as far as hiring people.

I think that just exacerbates the problem. But, you know, when you grow up in the cop culture, you know, there's these misgivings of it's a state trooper. It's an FBI guy. It's a whatever. And they can do some of the dumbest shit. And it's almost like people, the general public, get lulled into, well, it's a state trooper.

That can't happen. or that's a cop, they would never do that. They would never lie in court. They would never fabricate anything. And but, you know, being kind of, and I didn't really fit in with the clicks. You know, I fit in with the good, hardworking, proactive cops. And you would have that click. But the sorry ones, yeah, you had to deal with them or whatever.

I just didn't associate with them. What was the worst thing you witnessed another cop do? Oh, gosh. worst things, I mean, it's hard to answer the question. What's the worst thing? Is the worst thing hearing a cop calling somebody the N-word? Is the worst thing seeing a cop smack somebody in handcuffs? Is the worst thing seeing, you know, a cop sleeping on duty or a cop that you know that's stealing or hooking up with an informant? There's multiple horrible things. And then you find out quickly, because I've made a complaint twice on police for doing things that were

ignorant, you learn really quick. Even though you're a cop, they will lie out of it. They will deny that it ever happened. There will be other cops that will take up for them. And you will pay a heavy price, a heavy price. You will be made fun of. You will be given every stupid call. A lot of these guys were hooking up with the dispatchers, so they'll get them to exact revenge on you. They won't show up to help you on a call. And I was in a tattletel people. The things that I complained about were fairly serious. But you learned that and then upper level administrative people, they didn't want to hear that.

They don't want the publicity from that. So you're like, keep your mouth shut. keep your mouth shut. And, you know, and that's some of the reasons why I got out of it. You know, I would see these things. And a lot of these people really put me at risk, especially with informants. And, you know, I had bought drugs from convicted murders and hardcore people that would kill you in a second. And these people didn't give a shit about me.

They didn't care about me. And, you know, you would just see it ran the gamut. You know, what's the worst? The sheriff and 12 deputies stealing dope and guns. What's the worst? A chief of police having sex with underage girls and his department taking women back to the PD and fucking them on camera. You know, cops showing up drunk at a crime scene.

And they're the evidence tech. And somebody's got to take them home because they're drunk. You know, somebody physically abused. and somebody. I never saw anybody like getting really jack to stop it. You know, I've said to people, what did you do that for? That's done. It's over with.

But, you know, it'd be the instant thing that you couldn't stop. Somebody got smacked or somebody gets called a name, the N-word. And, you know, I just didn't want to be that cop. And I would talk to my dad about it 40-plus years in it. And he said, Jeff, a lot of times you just have to accept. there's really nothing you can do about it other than be the best police officer you can and know that you would never do that and try to lead by example and not fall into that realm of doing those kind of things.

Even though you were personally built with really tough skin and exposed to brutal crime scenes from a very early age, what's one crime scene you responded to that will still, you know, haunt you to this day? or you'll remember forever. Oh, God, there's so many. I mean, I went to a domestic where a lady was shot by her husband. She had the protective order in her hand. I went to a scene one time where a guy was run over by eight tractor trailers, and we had to call it after we picked up what we could,

we called the fire department, and they hosed the road off. When I pulled out, you ever driven in mud, and you pull off from mud to pavement, and you hear click, click, click, click. it was guts and shit in your wheel well. And that accident, it was a tractor trailer two miles down the road. It pulled over, a fuel line got knocked out. And the guy was like, I hit a deer. And I pulled out as late.

I ain't a deer. It's a human. There was a chunk of the guy hung up and had messed up the fuel line. He had to stop. People hung. Suicides used to, I would think suicides are one thing that I always remember. and the notes, the bizarre notes. I've been to hangings, jumpers, shooters,

but they would, and sometimes they would have these bizarre notes of why they did it, what their last concern was. Like, one guy's like, bury me in blue jeans to give my guns to a certain person. Another one went to, a lady was like, I hope I didn't mess up the wallpaper on the wall. You know, more of those bizarre. kind of things, but there's nothing that really haunts me. Again, maybe for me mentally to get over it, not really get over it.

I always try to learn from it. I'm like, okay, you probably don't need to drive a motorcycle or a car like that, or you're going to get killed. When I use a chainsaw to this day, I don't think about, I think about the guy that chopped his head off. I've been to some terrible motorcycle wrecks. People lost their legs, pulled up on scenes where I thought, well, shit, that's all in the road.

No, it's blood and the guy's legs laying over here. Or the chick's arms chopped off. I mean, there's so many, but there's not one that, and it sounds callous, like nothing, you know, I've seen people shot. I've had people die in my arms. You know, when people died and I was there, always in my mind, maybe to justify it,

I was like, I'm glad I was the guy that was there. because some of these people really don't give a shit. It's just like, well, got to go on this call. It sounds very terrible to say that, but that is the reality with some people. I was like, I'm glad I'm the guy that was there. I gave it, you know, doing the CPR, I did the best I could.

I comfort them in their last moments. I'm glad that I had the ability to be able to try and be the guy. I would, it sounds arrogant. I would want, if I was in a bad spot for someone like me to have that mindset to show up, to do it instead of the goof that's like, oh, well, it's just another dope heads, got killed or whatever, you know, to do death notifications to family members. You know, they're terrible, but I was like, again, it may sound arrogant, but to justify things in your mind, I was like,

you know, I'm glad that it was me, and I know that I gave 110% to do it compared to other people I worked with, that I knew didn't give a shit. They didn't give a shit. And that's just the honest truth about it. How did you process that mentally? I think you just, you look at it like, what did I learn from this? And in life, you know, you did the best you. can or you do the best you can. You know, I just don't have the nightmares or like, I'm waking up with PTSD and all that. I mean, I just never, you know, and sometimes, and I may catch some shit. I think a lot of that's overblown.

You know, the worst nightmare I used to have was like showing up late for cord or I miss cord. Or if I had to use my gun, it wouldn't work. but mainly was I miss court. I don't know mentally what that says about me. And I swear to God, I'm not callous of, I've seen some terrible think kids dead, whatever. For me mentally to get around it, I was just always like, you know, you learn from it.

And I would go, I'm glad that I was the one because I know I gave every effort, everything that could be done. Even the mean things that happened to me, glad it was me because somebody would have shot and killed them just like that. Instead, I fought with them or punched them out, even though they had a knife. If I had a... We're almost halfway through the year, and a lot of people are running on empty without fully realizing it.

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I think more about the people that died in my arms, not in my arms, but I'm right there. You know, with the knife I carry today, I've cut people out of the seatbelt and they were still alive and they're gurgling and doing these things that they do at the end, you know, and you're there, you're trying, you know, there's nothing else to do or there's a gunshot wound. You're trying to do your best and you know it's, there's nothing you can do. I think I'll go back to the suicides is, you know, a lot of times they're younger people. And you read the notes and you're like, wow, they were worried about breaking up with a girl or life was that bad that they would jump off a 200 foot bridge. What are you thinking about in those last 200 feet of your life? Or the ones that would hang themselves. And I would think, gosh, was that quick and easy?

Or, you know, I've been to drownings and drownings where the bodies stayed under for a little. bit before they floated up and you would see that mess, bloated bodies and crayfish coming out of them or the body over the bank and there's maggots all over them and they're breaking apart when you're putting them in a body bag. You know, you think about those things, but I wasn't like I was, again, I was like that's part of the job. That's what I'm here for. You know, I want to be that guy that's there to do it right to investigate it correctly and not

cut corners. So you make the decision to leave policing and start your own business. Was that a hard decision for you to make to walk away from something that you were involved with for so long? Yeah, the scariest part about starting your own business is that I knew I got a paycheck every two weeks. And it was guaranteed. And unless you did something stupid and got fired. So, you know, you take this blind leap of, I'm going to start a business. And, you know, I want to do everything.

You know, I do the marketing, the accounting, the actual work. all these things that come along with it. But I had people that I knew who were in the insurance industry, mainly in the coal mining and coal trucking and railroad business, and they would say, Jeff, we have trouble getting investigative work done in this rural part of Virginia and West Virginia. If you start a company, we can give you some work.

So I started doing that, and his coal business, and the coal industry went down. By that point, I had expanded in me, meeting a lot more attorneys. I was getting expert witness qualifications in multiple states. I was doing work for people all of the United States. I do a lot of work for people in Los Angeles, all over the United States. And so it went fairly smooth, but it seemed like as the industry would transition from one thing or the other,

I had expanded to a level where I had a lot of diversity. You know, I do a lot of different things. And when one thing's slow, something else is busy. And then I started doing some nationally known murder cases that involved, and two murder cases that involve corruption. One involved an inmate. One involved a state trooper who committed a triple homicide. He was a trooper and a deputy. And I exposed a tremendous cover up with that.

also worked a mentally handicapped inmate that was taken to shower by five guards and some brutality going on in a prison. So you opened up a private detective business for the audience to know? Correct. It's called complete surveillance and investigative services. Do you miss policing? Do you miss policing? I do.

I miss the instant gratification of helping people. Do I still get to help people now? Yeah. But it was like every day as a cop, you could go to work. And whether somebody was lost or their car was broke down or they needed even the most littlest things, or you caught somebody breaking in to somebody's house, or you called somebody that stole something from somebody. You had this satisfaction, like, wow, went to work and I caught that guy or I stopped this. It was this instant, I don't know, gratification, satisfaction.

satisfaction that you were actually doing something. You were doing something with your life and doing something that you could recognize like every day. You could see it. How did your dad feel about you leaving policing to, you know, go into the private detective? Well, my father, you know, he at that time had become the United States Marshal, which is a presidential appointee. He was one of 93 head United States Marshals. There's 93 in the U.S. There's two in the U.S. There's two in Virginia. He was the Western District, U.S. Marshall. And he said, I agree with it, you know, and I had to travel a lot.

You know, I have a large piece of property that I purchased when I was young. I was having to do a lot of these jobs and travel a lot. And I just wanted to be more at home and enjoy the area that I grew up in. and he said, I agree with your decision. And he also agreed that law enforcement had kind of taken a different turn, and it was very limited in how much money you make. And as a business owner, you had an opportunity to be extremely successful in a different way. And it still let me do a little bit because I do a lot of criminal defense work.

I still, I'm doing sort of the same thing, but in a different, in the private sector. Is there something you feel like you missed out on in life because of your dedication to law enforcement all those years? You know, I didn't go on a lot of vacations. I worked a lot of overtime, you know, family, Tom, you know, the norm, you know, working the holidays. You know, I missed Christmas every, you know, and that's the norm. I'm not crying about it. That's just, you take that job.

You're going to have to deal with it. But I don't look back at it. I look back at it. It was an adventure for me. It got me the credentials to do what I do now, especially in my criminal defense work. It allows me to be qualified relatively easy as an expert witness where I can offer opinion instead of a factual witness. What's something the public needs to know about law enforcement that they don't know now?

I think the problem with law enforcement now is nobody wants to do it. They have openings and the standards are being lowered. Maybe people will give me a bunch of shit over that, but it's the truth. When I got hired, if you had a DUI, you ain't getting hired. You written a bad check. You're not getting hired. My vision, you had to have 20, 30, uncorrected. You had to be so tall.

You couldn't be obese. you could there were the standards were so strict and they could do that because there were so many applicants now a lot of the departments instead of working short and keeping the quality

they lower the standards just to fill seats and when I did the Austin Lee Edward State Trooper catfish and cop case where he pretended to be a 17 year old online, went to Riverside, California with his gun and badge, cut the mother's throat, suffocated the grandparents, kidnapped a 15-year-old, gotten a shootout with the cops,

then killed himself at the end of the day. HR departments for the state police and the sheriff's office? Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. L.A. Thomas gets hold of me. I get hold of the guy's polygraph. It's in a file out there I brought to your studio. in the polygraph, which is an early on process of law enforcement hiring.

He admits to drug use. He admits to cheating on classes in college. He admits to financial issues. A couple of these things are minor. Another thing that would have kicked me in the day. If you left a job and didn't give a notice, he admits to that. But he also admits into this polygraph. They've been committed to a mental hospital for trying to kill his father.

And they still hired this guy. His gun rights had been revoked, and they still hired him, hired him and trained him. And he goes on to perpetrate this crime. Of course, there's nothing wrong here. And so when the Riverside cops called the sheriff's office, the reason they knew he was a deputy because I had the sheriff's office printed on the gun, he lived in an adjacent county. They sent two deputies in the night.

across county lines to take who knows what out of his house no search warrant no listing of any evidence uh take whatever i'm sure that there's anything and this guy was sick and he was he was not only texting this girl he was texting multiple girls and he had some depraved you know i'd like to shit on you when we're having sex i want to piss in your mouth i want to do all this crazy shit bizarre pictures of himself, you can guarantee you if there was anything derogatory that was in there, it's long gone. So again, this guy couldn't go to Walmart and buy a gun, but he gets hired as a cop. But there was nothing wrong, and when I exposed it with this polygraph, then they came up

with the narrative of, well, the sheriff's office said, well, he was a trooper. We assumed he was okay. even though the domestic committed to the mental hospital occurred in their county. It occurred in their county. They were the responsible party for the emergency custody orders to have him committed. The state police, their version was human error. Somebody hit F2 instead of F3 when they did the gun check on him. This is bullshit.

It's in handwriting. A polygraph human sat there. He answered these questions. It's in the report. Why did the polygraph guy not go, this guy's a nut? Why didn't the polygraph guy tell the background check guy? No. The state police hierarchy.

Oh, these are the elite. We personally reviewed all their file. Nobody review shit. Rubber stamp. And guess what he does? You know, the brutality of that kills his family, sets a house on fire, kidnaps the girls. Thank God the girl survived.

And there is a huge lawsuit that's pending for 2026. in which the sheriff is going to have to go and answer some of these questions. Wow. What's the most important life lesson your career has given you? Life lesson. About the time you think you've seen it all, you hadn't. You're going to see something else. There is nothing that would shock me.

Life lesson, work hard, never give up. You know, I was never successful with. every job I put in for. I ran for political office. I wasn't successful. You don't let the bad times define you. You learn from it. And, you know, you keep trying no matter what. And, you know, try to see the good in people, but understand that, you know, there's evilness out there. But you can't live paranoid. You got to still live your life and try to use some common sense. Jeff, I appreciate you coming on the show today. No worries, brother. I appreciate you greatly. Yeah, this was such an exciting interview and the audience is going to love it. I appreciate it.