Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was Arrested for Bank Fraud — Then Spent $500K on Lawyers & Beat the Feds

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Ryan Bloom grew up in a good family in Oklahoma with dreams of becoming a dentist. Life took a different turn and he built an electrical contracting business instead. When the business lost a major contract he turned to a small bank for help — and got pulled into a high interest invoice lending situation that ultimately left him owing over $2 million and forced to declare bankruptcy. Ryan thought everything he was doing was completely legitimate. Then the feds came for him. He was indicted for bank fraud — and discovered the prosecutor had a conflict of interest with the bank. He fought back. He spent almost $500,000 in attorney fees. And he beat the federal government. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, Ryan breaks down the complete story — from the business collapse to the bankruptcy to the federal indictment to the courtroom victory that cost him everything financially but gave him his freedom. _____________________________________________ #fraud #TrueCrime #arrest _____________________________________________ Connect with Ryan Bloom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdbloom _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Businessman Hit With an FBI Raid and Bank Fraud Indictment — Then Fought Back and Won — Full Story 01:57 His Early Life and the Family Business Roots That Shaped Everything 03:14 His Career Aspirations and the Dental Detour That Changed His Direction 04:36 Joining and Growing the Family Business and What That Really Required 05:47 The Family Feud and the Collapse of the Business That Followed 06:32 Pivoting to Oil Gas and Entrepreneurship and What That World Really Looked Like 07:52 Launching Pathfinder HDD and What the Industry Landscape Really Looked Like 08:44 Building a Thriving Construction Business From the Ground Up 10:14 The Challenges — Interest Rates Failed Deals and the Layoffs That Followed 11:14 His Pivot to Electric Vehicle Charging Stations and What That Decision Required 12:26 Getting Hustled and the Cash Flow Crisis That Changed Everything 14:03 His Dependence on Bad Clients and the Lessons That Came With It 15:23 Banking Relationships and the Financial Squeeze That Defined That Chapter 17:40 The Breaking Point — Reserve Accounts and the Road to Insolvency 19:52 Winding Down — What Filing for Business and Personal Bankruptcy Really Required 22:38 The Aftermath — Creditors Liquidation and What Came Next 25:44 Family Rebuilding and the Grit That Got Him Through the Hardest Times 29:44 The Personal Bankruptcy Process and the Impact It Had on Everything 33:22 The Legal Fallout — Depositions and the False Accusations That Followed 35:50 The Sudden FBI Raid and the Bank Fraud Indictment That Changed His Life Overnight 38:54 Family Community and What Coping With Sudden Infamy Really Looked Like 41:40 Navigating Discovery the Prosecution and What Building a Defense Really Required 43:33 Uncovering Family Drama and the Questionable Testimony That Defined His Case 47:42 Battling Prosecutors and What Preparing for Trial Actually Required 51:16 Suing for Prosecutorial Conflict of Interest and What That Fight Really Involved 58:56 Winning the Disqualification and Watching the Case Finally Unravel 01:03:21 The Dismissal the Pre-Trial Diversion and What Finally Walking Free Really Felt Like 01:07:25 The True Cost — Legal Fees and What Starting Over From Nothing Really Required 01:09:56 The Lessons He Carries and What Resilience Actually Looks Like After Everything 01:13:18 His Reflections on Purpose Faith and Family After Everything He Survived 01:15:43 His Final Thoughts His Advice and What the Next Chapter Really Looks Like _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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spreadsheets. Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. My guest today grew up in Oklahoma wanting to be a dentist and up building in business, lost a major contract, turned to a bank for help, and found himself owing over $2 million. Then he declared bankruptcy, and then the federal government indicted him for bank fraud. He thought everything he did was completely legal. He spent almost $500,000

in attorney fees fighting back, and he beat the feds. His name is Ryan Bloom, and this is what it actually looks like to fight with the federal government and win. I grew up in Oklahoma City. in a suburb, uh, Yukon. It's like on the west side of Oklahoma City. Who do you grow up with? Um, so my parents, of course, and I had one sister, uh, Katie, who is, uh, 14 months older than I am. What do your parents do for work? So growing up, my mom was a teacher and a librarian. So she was always on the same schedule that we were on at school. And then my dad, uh, and my uncle, co-owned family electrical contracting business.

That kind of foreshadowed what you would get into in a way, right? Yeah, yeah. I had other interests and just kind of in a roundabout way, you know, found my way, you know, back into the quote-unquote family business. What were you like as a kid? Oh, man, a total smart alec. Always like having conversations with the adults and, you know, just, just, always in trouble with my mouth.

Funny, you know, and just smart, curious, you know, kind of, I don't know, just, just a normal, normal kid growing up in the suburbs of Oklahoma City. Did you ever get into actual trouble as a kid? No, not really.

I mean, I made good grades. I generally minded my teachers. You know, I still remember being like a junior in high school and just kind of teasing our pregnant teacher by getting her and it's a boy balloon when we knew she was having a girl. You know, just stupid prank type stuff, but like never any real kind of trouble. What were your career aspirations? Well, so I went to college at OSU and I wanted to be a dentist. And I mean, I got good grades in all the right classes and the entrance exam. And it was really, really competitive.

The application season was because this is like during, you know, the great recession. And I got wait. And I just applied to one school. I got waitlisted, planned to reapply the next year. But I got a job not working for the family business, but working for an engineering company. And just developed an interest in infrastructure and never reapplied for dental school. That's a big difference, big change. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was definitely, you know, definitely a big pivot because, you know, in college I was super locked in, studied all the time, you know, shadowed dentists and went on a mission trip in Central America to do dental work. So, I mean, I was like pretty locked in on that and just I've just developed different interests and never looked back. Would your parents think of the switch? So they were supportive of it. I think everyone was worried that I was going to be way too bored being a dentist. Everyone knew I kind of liked to be active and tinker with things and, you know, sitting there crouched over someone's mouth all day long is, you know, can be pretty rote. So they supported that.

And then also, too, it kind of was a time that my, dad and my uncle were talking about transitioning the family business. And so when I expressed an interest in becoming the next generation, you know, it was good timing because they hadn't planned on me being a part of the family business, you know, until after I'd graduated from college. So what happens next? Oh, man. So with the family business, I go to work for, you know, I'm the fourth generation of the family business. And man, just the business boomed big time and really, really grew the company a lot over the span of a few years. The only problem was the bigger the company got, the bigger the rift between my dad and my uncle got.

And they had, there was some quiet resentment between the two of them, I think, dating back to early adulthood. and just the bigger the company got, like it, the worst that the relationship dynamic was. And so we were trying to work out kind of a business divorce from Uncle, and he went nuclear one day and pushed us all out of the company. And he and my dad end up suing each other. And it just turns into this nasty, you know, bitter family business divorce. And eventually the company just cratered. from all the kind of infighting between the two of them. So where did that leave you?

Well, I went to work in the oil and gas industry in Oklahoma City. That's big, big industry. And so I worked for some of the big oil and gas companies. And, you know, was just kind of doing the whole corporate thing for a couple years when I got the opportunity to start my own business. And what was that business? So in the spring of 2016, Google Fiber was coming to Oklahoma City. And there was a guy that had worked for me at the family business that came to me and wanted to be partners in an underground construction business to go

after Google Fiber. And I was working my job, working for this company called American Energy Partners. We were backed by billions in private equity. I was led by this, you know, kind of billionaire owner of the thunder and just kind of this larger than life, serial entrepreneur Aubrey McClendon. That's like a big name in Oklahoma City. Well, in early 2016, he gets indicted by the feds for, you know, collusion and bid rigging, pledges to fight it, and then dies the next day in a single vehicle car accident. that was ruled to be an accident. But he hit a bridge abutment going, you know, 100 miles an hour

in his car, you know, the day after he got indicted. And so at that point, kind of the writing was on the wall that I was really worried that, you know, kind of this unicorn oil and gas startup wasn't going to make it. And so that's why I decided to, you know, start this new venture with this guy that I'd worked with before. And what's a new venture? It's called Pathfurt. Finder HDD, and it was a company to install, you know, underground communication, later power lines, later electrical, you know, contracting work. But, you know, just like a heavy, heavy construction company. And who are your customers? Well, so first of all, not Google Fiber. That got canceled. So we never laid an inch of Google Fiber. And we came to work for AT&T.

big power company in Oklahoma, OG&E. We did, you know, just a lot of the oil and gas exploration companies. And then we there at the end, we really pivoted hard into building electric vehicle charging stations. So does this business become successful? Well, yeah, it becomes very successful. So it was like such a grind at first. Like it was like, are we going to make it? you know, for about two years. And then things slowly start to take off. And we had,

you know, I think our first year in business, we did 500,000 in sales, jumped up to about three million, finally made a big step change up to about a 14 million a year company in revenue at or around 100 employees, kind of at the peak. Had it sold at one point, had a letter of intent to buy it that fell through, kind of at the 11th hour over interest rates. So that was a big gut punch. But yeah, I mean, it was, it was a big success until it was a big flop. And what happens? Well, so there's kind of two things.

So the, you know, interest rates go nuts back in 2022. and that blows up the deal. You know, we had the company sold for $10 million to a buyer out of North Carolina. And then we kind of pivot and really focus on the profitability. And then the power company lays off half its contractors right before Christmas. Because again, they're kind of bracing for lower building activity because of the interest rates and kind of the economy, slowing into a recession. And so that was just a total gut punch. And I look back and we really should have just closed to the business then, like just kind of just taking our ball that went home.

But we had an opportunity to really transition into building these kind of cutting edge electric vehicle charging stations. And so we repurpose a lot of our staff into building those. The problem was we went to work for the wrong people. that just hustled us. I mean, they'd convince you on bid day that your bid really should be lower, and this is why, and it's going to be so easy. And then they'd pay you for half the project, and then just kind of leave you holding the bag on the last half. And when it was time to pay, the check printer was always broken, and there were always delays. And, you know, they'd tell you that you hit a sprinkler line and it was $10,000 to repair.

And it just, we did a ton of work in a three month span that we just flat out didn't get paid for. And I mean, it was well over a million dollars that we just kind of got hustled out of in a short time span. And it just proved to be more than we could come back from. So your business was that dependent on those electrical contractors or the electric company contractors? So the majority of our profits came from doing the utility work. And then when we transition into the EV charging stations, we were doing work for these general contractors

that, you know, generally the power company pays the bill. They expect you to pay your electric bill. They generally pay their bills. But you go to work for these, you know, general contractors. You know, we went to work for this guy, Stephen Osborne, with the Osborne company out at Topeka, Kansas. And, you know, this guy just hustled us. And you realize that every dollar he doesn't pay you is just money he gets to keep in his pocket. It's profits for his business. And so, you know, going to work for them was just the biggest mistake that we could have made to not see how risky it was to go from being heavily concentrated on a pretty dependable utility. to, you know, going to work for someone that, you know, will just flat out, you know, look you in the face and just stiff you on your bill. There weren't other utility companies you could have worked for?

So we had a small contract with a power company in Oklahoma. O'G&E's massive. So, I mean, that's virtually all the power work in the state. We had a couple crews working for a smaller utility, and we still had that going. It just wasn't, just, nothing was big enough to fill the hole that, you know, that OGNI left behind. What do you think you should have done differently looking back on it? Oh, just shut the business down. Just when the golden goose, golden calf, whatever contract went away, we should have just, we should have just closed the doors and not tried to remake ourselves into something else to keep it going.

But that must have been hard anyways, though, you know, to walk away. from something that was once so profitable, even to get a deal like that on the table, the business has to be doing well. Yeah. So, you know, we had, when we got the deal on the table, you know, we had 12 months, 12 trailing months of, you know, two and a half million dollars in cash flow, you know. So that's what drove, you know, the valuation for the business. And so we'd taken on some investment and, you know, you wanted to obviously make a return

for your investors. And then you've got, you know, 80, 200 employees that are looking at you. And, you know, you think, you know, you kind of deceive yourself into thinking that you can kind of remake this thing and kind of retool it and kind of have this big second act. That, you know, looking back, it was just just a huge, just who we chose to do business with was a massive, massive mistake. So when you switch to these new guys that you're working. for that are stiffing you on payment. How are you floating the business? How do you guys pay your

employees, your bills, yourselves? Yeah. So we had been on a line of credit with the bank that would become the quote unquote victim in this story. But we had worked with this bank for a while, been with this banker. And he pitches to us that we need to go on this business manager program. And it's kind of like factoring your invoices where they buy them at a discount, but, you know, it's marketed to us. It's different. It's flexible. You can use it for work in progress. You know, you can go take down these big projects and still have, you know, weekly cash flow to, you know, to go build these things. You know, this is supposed to be this like working capital, you know, panacea that was going to solve all of our cash flow problems. And so in that spring, we had transitioned onto this business manager platform where we could take draws against these projects to get the cash and the working capital to make the product. And that's how we were able to pay the employees. The problem was when all those customer invoices are coming up three, four months down the road. they're, you know, they're maturing in age and you don't have the ability to repay them because

you're filing liens on the Osborne company. You're sending back and forth nasty letters with these guys, you know, you're in war mode trying to get paid and trying to keep this thing going so that you can survive to, you know, to see this thing through. What was the interest rate on these loans. So they buy them at a discount rate and, you know, if you did the math on it, depending on how long they held it for, it amounts to like credit card interest. I mean, so you're paying, you know, upwards high 20s, low 30s, you know, kind of on a cost of capital to borrow this money. And so, I mean, it's also just sucking so much off the bottom line. I mean, you truly begin to feel like you as this business owner are enslaved to this product that when it's going

well, the bank is, you know, making these exorbitant, you know, fees off of it. And how much are you receiving from these loans? How much is the amount? To me personally? To the business. To the business. Okay. So originally, you would get about 87% of the value of the invoice. But then as the loan, as the portfolio is deteriorating in value, they're advancing a lower and lower amount all the way down to like 60%. And so that cash flow is really, really getting tight as you're still trying to, you know, make payroll and pay for fuel and materials and keep this thing going.

How much is the average contract? Oh, these contracts are, you know, anywhere from 80 to, I don't know, $250,000 to kind of a typical project, just depending on how big it is, how many chargers and all that stuff. How many projects do you need a month just to break even? Oh, you know, we were trying to, you know, because again, we'd slim down to probably about 40 employees or so. and so I think we're trying to do, you know, four to five of these a month, you know, is kind of a good clip. Probably four to five. We're breaking even.

And, you know, we're trying to get to about eight. You know, eight's like a good flow where there's profit, you know, and it's able to cash flow. But again, it doesn't really matter if you're not getting paid, you know, at the end of the project. It's, you're just, you're, you're, you're just like digging yourself a holding quicksand. How much would you say you have taken from the banks for these loans? Well, so the bank never loaned us more than about $2 million at a time. But over the span of the program, we advanced probably $7 or $8 million. So again, they're loaning you this $2 million, but they're loaning it over and over and over again. They're trying to turn that around,

you know, five or six times a year, that same amount of money. And so, you know, at any given time, you know, the bank's exposure to us is, you know, probably in like the $2 million range. And have you borrowed from them before? Yeah. We'd done equipment loans. We, they did our PPP loan that we used properly and had forgiven. We'd worked with them a lot.

It was like a, it was a, had been a pretty healthy relationship. So everything's going smoothly up until that point. you're keeping it afloat, what happens next, when the contracts come to an end? Yeah, so we quit working with the Osborne company after, you know, a couple months. And, I mean, it was so toxic with these guys that there were these projects that we were doing. We were building these superchargers in Nebraska. And I complained to, you know, their CEO and owner. I was like, hey, you know, Stephen, you guys have not even paid assent on these projects.

And he writes me back and says, hold my beer. And I check our bank account. He wired us a penny. Like in the Pathfinder operating account, there was an incoming wire from the D.F. Osborne company for one cent. Why? To just, just to be an asshole. To just give you the middle finger.

Why are they stiffing you to begin with? Because they, you know, it's a different reason every time. but, you know, it's, you know, they give you this form and they'd say, hey, you have to fill out this form to get paid. Well, then you'd fill out the form to get paid. Well, now we want to take retainage out. Well, we don't have retainage in this country. It's just these games every single time, you know. And then toward the end, it's really gone sour because we're complaining to their customers. You know, we're complaining to the actual owners of these charging stations. And we're like, hey, we're getting ripped off by these guys.

And so at that point, it's just like, you know, it's just this just totally toxic relationship where we're trying to finish because we don't want to give them an excuse, not any more excuses not to pay the bill. But then you'd finish and they would just still, you know, just make up reasons. I mean, just truly like make up reasons to not pay the bill. So now what's the time terms for these invoice loans? Is it, you know, like say you're doing net 90 on an invoice? Is that how long you have to pay back the loan? Yeah, so it's like they can go up to 120. And so you have to pay the bank back within 120 days?

Well, yeah. And so when the customer pays, that money goes to the bank. The bank pays the loan back down. And then you can draw back down on the program again with, you know, new accounts. So you're in a perfect world, say the customer's paying on time. There's limited amount of interest they can take because it's only that, what, 25, 30 percent over 90 days? or 120 days? Yeah.

So like you're limited in exposure technically if everyone pays on time. Correct. If everyone eventually pays even if slow, it works. But when the payment stream completely breaks down, that's when the program just unravels. It just spirals. How long until the banks start asking, hey, where's the money once you miss, you know, say the 120-day window? Yeah. So here's what's insane is, I'm.

being proactive with the bank. I'm looping the bank in on these issues we're having when the invoices are 35 days old. And I'm telling them, hey, we have issues here. We have issues here. We have issues here. Here's what we're doing. Here's the attorneys that we've hired to deal with these guys in Texas. Here's the same customer. Here's the guys that are handling Nebraska. And so I was super proactive with the bank, like letting him know like line by line. This is what we're trying to do to get these paid so that we can get, you know, kind of right back side up in this line of credit. And what are they saying? It's just kind of like, yeah, thanks. You know, I mean, there's not, it's not super tense with them. But what they are doing is they're dropping that

advance percentage. And so I'm communicating with them, hey, you're starving new cash flow to try to catch up this old problem. We're not profitable enough for you to zap 40, percent and leave us with 60. There's not enough margin in this business to be able to do that in us to succeed. And then they started doing other things. They would, if they saw that we had just any surplus of cash in our operating account, they would just take it out of the account and just pay it back down. And so there were days that's like, oh, I've got, I've got $100,000 to do this with it or take care of this or whatever. And then boom, now it's $20,000. And the bank goes, oh, well, I, you know, used your operating cash to solve this over here and, you know, it was $80,000

and we just did it. And at what point are they doing that? You must be late on the payments for them to do that, right? Yeah, they're buying, they're repurchasing these older invoices. And it's debatable. Like, you can read the contract. It's debatable if they can do that or not. But it's having the practical effect of just making this business completely insolvent,

completely impossible to operate a business with. no cash in it. And you're, you're trying to keep this thing going, but, you know, they're choking you out. And, and I'm telling them, like, guys, I'm on the verge of bankruptcy. This business is insolvent. We cannot pay our bills. I'm talking to this banker multiple times a week. His name's Donovan. Donovan, you guys are killing us right now. We're going to, we're not going to be here. And as the months wore on, like for the last probably two and a half to three months of the business even existing, I'm getting paid nothing. I'm taking nothing from this company. This company is not paying any bills of mine. I'm not getting any form of compensation. I'm literally working there for free. And I'm telling Donovan, Donovan, I'm going to have to go get a job. Like this is crazy. Like I can't keep doing this. And I'm offering him as well, I offered them. I offered them. them a second mortgage on my house to just give us some breathing room. And they had this reserve account that had over a million dollars in it. But they wouldn't let me touch it because every

invoice that we're submitting, they're putting money into this reserve account. And it's ballooned to over a million dollars. And so just imagine logging in, you have over a million sitting over here. You have employees that need to get paid. And you're advocating that, hey, this whole thing is about to melt down. This reserve account is way too high. And this is our plan to fix these invoices. And they're just hands up. Whose money is that is the reserve account?

The reserve account. It's so funny. These are like questions that as we're going through this criminal case, we're answering these questions. The banker was explicitly clear in his 302 that the reserve. that the reserve account belongs to the customer, to us, to the company. But how does that, I don't get it. They're taking off money on the top and holding it for you in like a savings account?

Yeah, in a restricted funds account where we couldn't touch it. But what is the purpose of that? I don't get it. The purpose of that is to be a, to help balance out what they see as, they see your, collateral value dropping because your accounts receivable aren't getting paid as well. And so they are trying to hold back more and more and more as kind of insurance for them, as a cushion for them, so that if you have invoices that are aging up, they feel good that they've got something there that can take care of those.

So that's their technically their collateral to give you loans. Yeah, it's their cushion. but they have to be really careful because these programs would be charging an illegal amount of interest. So they don't call it collateral. They don't call it, you know, all the normal loan terms that you'd be used to seeing on a typical promissory note, all of those are gone. And they're replaced with all these kind of unique terms that are specific to this business manager factoring, but they don't really call it factoring program.

And how do they get that, say that million bucks? Is that a little bit off of each transaction or invoice or are they randomly withdraw? No, it builds off of each. Every time you submit an account to the bank, they put part of it into this account, reserve account, and they give you part of it to operate the business. So it's like what these cash advance apps are doing. Like, you know, where you could get like the weekly or biweekly cash advance. There's all these apps.

I remember using them when I got out of prison and like paycheck to paycheck. and you can elect to put, say, like, five or ten bucks off of each fee or whatever into this rainy day fund. Correct. So it's like that. Correct. It's that just transformed under the scale of, you know, a multimillion dollar business. Now, do they give you interest on that money?

No. Is that, are they not allowed to do that? Are they allowed? How does that work? I mean, they keep that. But you should be able to withdraw it whenever you want. No, no, not. not according to, not according to the rules.

You got to understand this is built to be very, very one-sided. So anything that you're proposing right now that would be beneficial to, you know, the company, that's really secondary to the bank protecting itself. The problem is that they protected themselves or were trying to protect themselves so much that they literally just killed us. And so this all ends, not. because the bank had any concerns about how the program was being operated, but because I went to this banker and I said, Donovan, I don't have any more accounts to advance upon. And I could have. If I was a fraudster, if I was what they later accused me of, I had credit availability. I could have faked, hallucinated an account.

to take an advance on. The company literally ended because I wouldn't do that. And we had payroll, you know, we had payroll coming up. We had bills coming up. I wasn't going to let our employees work endlessly for a paycheck that was never coming. And I said, Donovan, we've got over a million dollars over here. I've got home equity over here. I'll do anything to save this business. And he's like, we'll just submit for another advance. And I said, Donovan, I'm out of things to advance. I would have to hallucinate something to advance. And we're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to wind down the business and go through bankruptcy if we can't get some relief from this crisis that you guys have put us in in response to this, you know, unpaying customer. And he just, I mean,

he emailed me back. I got the email. It's one of the exhibits, you know, and just says like, hey, we're not, like, I'm not loading you any more money. We're not touching that reserve. And I look back and I really think they wanted the business to fail at that point. Because as we learned later, there's some incentives in it for them if the business failed. And so I think it was just a their exit strategy. Our survival as a company as a business was not part of the bank's exit strategy at that point. Is this a small bank or a national bank? No, I mean, you would call it a small bank.

They've got a few locations. They're primarily based. in Oklahoma and Texas. It's owned locally. So it's, in the grand scheme, it's a small bank. So do you feel kind of like hoodwinked getting put into this program? I mean, hoodwinked going into this program is a tiny ant hill of grievances I have with this bank compared to the mountain that comes next.

But yeah, it was a horrible program for us to be on. It was predatory. It was marketed to us one way, operated another way, and then when it didn't work out like they wanted it to, you know, they fall back to yet another version of how they thought this thing should operate. We were never going to succeed on this program. It was, and again, the things that they were doing to protect themselves were making all of these fixable problems into like systemic terminal problems. And yeah, I mean, they just choked us to death. Why didn't you look at other lending options at all? So we were talking to other bankers, you know, as this is kind of going on.

And the problem you have is kind of once a business is really in a lot of financial distress, new lenders are just really hesitant to loan money. It just they don't, bankers don't want to catch a falling knife when a business is really strong. struggling like this. And so it's just almost like when a person is too sick to be operated on. It's just kind of like, man, you guys, what they're doing to you is wrong. And it doesn't make sense from a prudent banking standpoint, but we're, you're so sick. You're so sick. We can't even operate on you. Like, we're just, you just need to go home and die. So what happens? So in as like early August of 20, 23, I announced to the employees that we were winding down the business. We were going to owe them a final paycheck.

And it was going to be delayed, but I thought I had a solution for that. But I wasn't going to work them anymore. It was like I wasn't going to keep giving them work to do with knowing that there's an upcoming payday, you know, that was going to be delayed. And so we just, I mean, we wound down the business and it sucked. But on my birthday, I went and met with a bankruptcy attorney and, you know, gave him all the paperwork and filed, you know, filed for bankruptcy and did everything he said. You know, he had like really specific instructions on like, you know, how you conduct yourself and disclosures and just did everything right. Put it all in his hands and dust it off my resume and went and found another job. Now, this is personal bankruptcy or just the business? Personal and business. Why did you do personal? Because we had personally guaranteed everything.

Even the bank loans. Every bit of it. Like you're as a small business, if you want to buy a piece of equipment, certainly this accounts receivable program, all of this stuff, you're personally guaranteeing that. You're personally guaranteeing the lease on the building. You know, we had trenches and excavators and trucks and trailers. You know, this is a very capital intensive business. And so personal guarantees are just, it's just part of it.

And do you sell all those things and recoup some money? Well, the bank asserted that it had this anacondoline, that the bank owned everything. And so we disclosed where all this equipment is in painstaking detail. I mean, very, very detailed and just immaculate paperwork for everything. and the bank is supposed to go pick this stuff up and sell it, et cetera, but they just literally don't do that. And it's crazy. Over, I mean, over a year had passed. And there's this lady from a grocery store in Missouri calling me. And she's like, hey, you have equipment still in our parking lot that has sat here for over a year. I was like, can you send me a picture of it? Because at the

same time the bank's trying to say, and this didn't become a part of the criminal case, but the bank's trying to say that they couldn't account for all the equipment. And I ever send me this picture, there is $250,000 worth of equipment just sitting in her parking lot that the bank is saying is missing unaccounted for. It's sitting in her parking lot. She sends me a picture. I forward it to my bankruptcy attorney. like, hey, tell these idiots to come get their equipment.

Like, this lady's getting kind of frustrated. And then I was like, man, maybe we missed it. Like, maybe it's at the wrong app. Nope. It was literally at the address that we said it was at. And I mean, even the building that we were in was full of just tools and all kinds of stuff. And again, my bankruptcy attorney was like, hey, just hands off, just walk out the door. I think I did ask.

I was like, Jerry, can I take my office chair? He's like, yes, you can take your office chair. That's it. And so I took my office chair and just left everything there. And so even like the landlord, six months later, couldn't get the bank to come auction the stuff off. I mean, they just absolutely did nothing at all to soften their own blow by selling and liquidating. And, you know, the trustee filed a report of no distribution because they told the trustee that they had this anaconda lien that just encompassed and just truly just swore. swallowed up every asset that we had. And so there was no final accounting. There was no final

issuing of tax. And for, I mean, just all the things that you would have expected from a bankruptcy trustee and from the bankruptcy process of an orderly liquidation, none of that happened. Now, at the time of bankruptcy, how much did you owe the bank? Oh, all total probably about between an equipment loan and this program, I'm going to guess around $2.5 to $3 million. And do they subtract at bankruptcy the reserve account money? So that was unique. So this account that we couldn't touch. And it was weird.

They wouldn't even use it to repurchase. old. Like, we had disclosed to them like, hey, these, these accounts here use this money to knock these out. Wouldn't do it. No, we got to have this cushion. Well, then incredibly, two days after we cease business, they move over half a million dollars out of that reserve account. And tracking that money down on the federal case was fascinating. But so they deduct that. And so we're claiming assets. We had the assets in the bankruptcy, but then come to learn they're doing all their accounting. They're doing all their own self-help immediately in the aftermath of the business being illiquid. And so do we get credit for it?

Hard to say. It's still yet to be determined. Now, are you married at the time? Do you have a family? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, through this, I'm, you know, I married my wife, when I was 19. And so we have been married for, it'll be crazy, 17 years in like two weeks. And so we're married and we've got four kids. And I'm trying to hold all the, you know, trying to find a new job, keep the homestead and the bankruptcy and just keep going. Like, I think I had maybe five minutes of spare time to feel sorry for myself.

And then it was just like action, just action, just find a new job, you know, keep going. How is she reacting to all this? You know, when you have a spouse that is, you know, on the other end of someone's business failing. How does that work? Yeah, so she wasn't in the intricacies at all of the business. she had mostly been a stay-at-home mom for the last, you know, decade or so at that point. And, I mean, we needed money. And she had a friend on Facebook that said, hey, we're looking for professional organizers.

Come be a professional organizer. And so my sweet wife was like, honey, this is like instant. Like, I think they pay you by Venmo. And so she went to work as a professional organizer immediately. Took a couple people on an Uber ride. That was kind of a disaster. And it was just, we got to find a job ASAP. A little cool side note about her organizing thing.

She ended up organizing for numerous like high profile celebrities that may or may not play basketball, may or may not. be some MVP's of the NBA that she may have organized their shoes. But yeah, so she, I mean, it was just grit. Like it was just both of us just grit, just grit and just triage and just do what you can today to get money in the door for the family, get a job as quickly as you can. Because again, like, I hadn't been paid in months from the business. So, I mean, we are just, we are so broke at this point. What happens during a personal bankruptcy? What do you lose? what do you get to keep? What does that look like? And do you really have like zero dollars after it? Yeah. So, you know, there's like a certain amount of what they call exemptions. And so fortunately,

you can exempt in Oklahoma, you can exempt your home of any value. And that was where most of our wealth was tied up in at that point. And so, you know, if you have non-exempt assets, like, it's a bad deal for you because you're losing, you know, stocks or crypto or rent houses or whatever. your assets are. And so we're, you know, we're exempt. You know, we're exempt. We have little enough cash that it's like below the threshold that they're, you know, like coming for your cash. And so it's a lot of paperwork. There's meetings. They ask you a lot of questions. Make sure you tell the truth in those meetings. It's very important because, you know, that can spur, you know, criminality. And so it's really, I was really fearful of it. I was always like very anti, like, oh my

gosh, bankruptcy would be the worst thing ever. It was nothing compared to what came next. So it wasn't that big of the deal. And what happens to the creditors, once the bankruptcy is finished, they have to stop calling you? Well, most of them. So, you know, unless they can prove that you, you know, obtained the debt by fraud, you know, there's some exceptions. But for the most part, when you file, they can't call you anymore. There's an automatic stay that's put into place. Anything that you're abandoning, you know, like if you were abandoning a vehicle or whatever, then, you know, they're able to repossess that. And but if you're going to keep making the payment, you can reaffirm it, basically. And then, you know, all those like unsecured creditors, like it was funny, too, little

things you wouldn't expect. Like, the water company can't collect, can't collect your water bill for the couple of weeks prior to the bankruptcy. So it's like, you know, you get a couple of weeks of free water. I, you know. But, but, but, and then they're gone. Unless they oppose your bankruptcy. So the bankruptcy is over. You go and get another job.

What happens? How long are you in that like a rebuilding stage? Yeah. So, so bankruptcy gets filed in August. I start a new job in early September. The meeting of creditors. There's a lot of these procedural steps for the bankruptcy that take about six months to unfold. But I'm immediately going to work, getting a paycheck, feeding the family, really landed on my feet with a really great job.

It's paying well. I'm able to keep the family lives. You know, like we didn't have a grandiose lifestyle, but I'm still able to make the house payment and, you know, keep life normal, you know, for everybody while this bankruptcy is kind of, you know, wind up. gone in the background. And so, um, so that the bank that, you know, that things obviously escalate with, they wanted a special day-long, uh, deposition. And so I go into this deposition with my attorney and their attorneys and this banker Donovan and, you know, they just grill me for eight hours, okay? any lie, had I made one misrepresentation in that meeting, automatic felony? And they asked me about all the matters that would later form the basis for the criminal case.

They asked me about all those things. And I had a cogent explanation for all of them that later on, the U.S. Attorney's Office never could find fault with. They wanted to charge me with bankruptcy fraud, but they never could find where I had made even one false statement despite being grilled for eight hours by the bank's attorneys about all these matters of the invoices. And so they did that, and this is where I got really weird. Like, just like, and this is like a loose end. They're like, it's still loose. So I'm out at work. I go to work for this company in California.

I just spend some time out in California working. And I'm out there and I get this call from my attorney. And he says, hey, Ryan, I just got a call from this other attorney named Jeff Love. He's like, who's Jeff Love? Well, Jeff was representing an investor or a business partner that had left. And really his interest in the bankruptcy was just kind of making sure that that departing partner didn't pick up any liabilities. And so we weren't really like directly.

we weren't like really against each other in this respect. But he's just kind of making sure, you know, that none of this blows over onto this business partner that he left. And so anyway, so Jeff Love calls my attorney and he says, hey, I just want to give you a heads up. The bank's going to let Ryan off the hook. And, you know, they're not going to, they're not going to oppose the bankruptcy. They're just going to let it because it was due to be discharged in like three weeks.

the bank's just going to let it go. Jerry's like, oh, okay, that's unusual. Why are you telling? How do you know, like, whatever? Why? You know, and he proceeds to tell him. He says, Donovan Reed, this banker that you dealt with, has terminal cancer. And he's not going to live to see this through.

So they're dropping it. And of course, you know, Jerry's like, you know, that's awful. Of course, that's awful. He calls me and I'm, oh, my gosh, that's awful. Like, look, I'm not. I don't hate to hear that a guy is, you know, I hate to hear that anybody is terminally ill. You know, I was like, that's terrible. How does he know that?

Like, why that makes, okay? He's like, I don't know. I'm literally just telling you what I was told. And like this guy, Jeff Love, like, he's kind of slimy. So we're, we're couching all this and like, is this? What even is this? But then like a week later, the bank files what's called an adversary petition? basically opposes the discharge of the bankruptcy a week later.

And Jerry, again, this bankruptcy attorney, calls the bank's attorneys and it's like, hey, by the way, very weird, heard this through the great buying that, you know, what amounts to a key witness is terminally ill. We may need to, you know, depose him sooner than later if, you know, if this is true. And they're like, oh, we've heard nothing of the sort. Like, what? And so I'm asking around because, you know, I know people in the Oklahoma banking, community and people are like, yeah, yeah, Donovan. Donovan is terminally ill. That is so weird. Never, I have no clue. I still do this day. I like, I think about like what what led to that

just bizarre, loose end. Because as you'll learn, the bank, the bank did not give up. The bank, the bank was very aggressive. And so at that point, you know, if you're kind of tracked along in this rambling, you know, anecdote. We're six months post-bankruptcy filing. I'm working a good job. The bankruptcy is discharged for everyone except for the bank, and it's set for a November bench trial with a judge with a bankruptcy judge. It's totally civil, and it's to, you know, determine the dischargeability of some of these debts.

And that's what we're getting ready for. So what happens? Does it go through or? No. So we ended up when the criminal case dropped, we stayed. We were able to petition the judge in the bankruptcy case to stay or pause that case until the criminal case is resolved. And so then actually, I don't know, has it been two months ago probably? the case was reset for the same civil bench trial next February, I think.

So we're still, this business has been gone for, I mean, this business will have been gone at this point for over three, you know, three and a half years and still be dealing with fallout, you know, from this failed business. Now what happens when it's discharged, you don't owe anything? Correct. So, you know, assuming that we win the bench trial, which this winning a bankruptcy bench trial, it's, that's not a different. That's not like a really high bar. It's not like, you know, beating the feds in criminal court. We feel pretty good about that. But yeah. So if the judge, the judge can rule that a dollar of that debt is non-dischargeable, that all of it's non-dischargeable, that just, anywhere in there, they can decide. And then at that point, it's just a non-dischargeable debt that, you know, then you're on the hook to the bank for you can't get bankruptcy relief from,

you know, whatever they determined to be non-dischargeable. How do you find out about the criminal case? So, fast forward in time, and it's a Friday morning. I'm preparing to go to work remotely. I've got one son is with me in the house. He's laying in my wife and I's bed, I think, because she's gone with one of the kids. They're picking up another kid from camp. And then what's crazy too is our youngest had left like 30 minutes prior to go mountain biking or trail riding. Like we don't have mountains. To go trail riding with my wife's dad.

And so, you know, it's about 7.30-ish in the month. morning and I'm home alone with my 10-year-old son. And Alicia calls me and she's freaking out. She's like, Ryan, we thought it was my sister pulling a prank on us. And my mom, you know, my mother-in-law answered Alicia's phone because this weird number from Florida keeps calling her cell phone number. She's like, at Ryan, I answered. and he said he was an FBI agent. And my mom just hung up the phone.

I was like, okay, that's really weird. And so I look at my phone and I have a bunch of missed calls, but I have like, I like silence unknown callers, you know. And boom, I've got like 14 missed calls from this weird Florida number. And I call the number back. And this voice on the other line says, you know, Mr. Bloom, I'm Special Agent Ben Busek with the FBI. I have a warrant for your arrest and you need to come out of your house and surrender. And I was like, okay, how many iTunes gift

cards do I need to bring with me? Very funny. Uh-huh, is this a scam? He's like, no. I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard of. And my son, my 10-year-old son is like looking at me. And he's kind of hearing all this. And he thinks it's a prank too. And he has like the biggest smile on his face. Which just like really breaks me. Because like he thinks like he truly just, he thinks this is like some hilarious joke that someone's here to arrest dad. And he's like, look out your window.

And oh no. And he's like, are you home? I was like, uh, do. He's like, I know you're home. Oh, who are you? Like he's like, look out your window. So I like to pull back the curtain a little bit. Boom.

Here come three silver sedans with like, you know, the nondescript plates on them. I was like, what the heck? I mean, what's going through my mind truly is that like some neighbor has like hijacked our Wi-Fi and downloaded something weird. I mean, that's like, I'm just like, why on earth would could the FBI be at our house? I'm just, I have no idea. And so I call my, call my board bankruptcy attorney. He's getting, he's making his money at this point.

I was like, Jerry, what the heck? Like this guy says he's with the FBI. And he was like, well, I mean, check for badges. Check for a warrant. I don't, I don't know what to tell you. And so this agent had said, come outside. and nothing in your pockets, but like you need to have clothes on and shoes. And so I went outside and I opened the door and there are six FBI agents that are ambushing my front driveway.

And I'm not saying they had guns. I'm saying that every single one of them is in a defensive position behind their cars. And I am staring down six, like straight down the barrel of six government weapons. And what's crazy is in all of this, I forgot to put my shoes on. And he's like, put your shoes on. And you're, you know, you're just like, you know, like, what do I do with my hands? And so I put my shoes on and, you know, you screen, you know, get your hands in the air, hands behind your back and just runs up behind me, you know, cuffs me. And I mean, just spins me around. And I, you know, I'm headed for this car. And I mean, I'm just in shot. I like, I, it's still like, it doesn't even feel real. And like if I'm like smiling, it's just like I, I still can't believe this happened. And I was like, where am I going?

He's like, well, you're going with us. Where? Don't worry about it. Okay, can I see your badge? And, you know, he pulls out a piece of metal. Can I see your warrant? What do you check for on a warrant? He had paper with him.

And I was like, um, guys, guys, my son's inside. And looking out the window is this 10-year-old boy who is sobbing. He's in shock. He just, like, you've never seen somebody so frazzled and just messed up as this kid is. And they're like, well, can you call someone to come get him? And luckily, my dad doesn't block unknown callers. Thank goodness. because I call him and I'm like, Dad, it's Ryan.

You're never going to believe this. I'm getting arrested by the FBI. Why? I don't know. Where are they taking? I have no idea of that either. I don't know anything. I'm getting arrested by the FBI. Our son's home alone.

Can you get over here quickly? And so he takes off over there. And I mean, and they're not like, we're not like wait until dad gets there. Like, we take off. And as I learn later from my son, he goes and gets on Find My. And he's like trying to track dad, you know, through his, iPad or whatever, like, where on earth is dad going? And he doesn't know that I don't have anything with me. I mean, I just, it's just shoes. And so I'm sitting on the cuffs and this agent is like,

do you know why you're here? I was like, I truly do not. He's like, well, this has to do with Valiance Bank. Do you know anything about Valiance Bank? You remember Valiance Bank? You know, just kind of starts this line of questioning. And I was like, I, I, I am. I am in shock right now. He's like, well, do you want to talk about it? I was like, you know what? I've seen enough cop shows. No, I don't.

I want a lawyer. You sure? Yeah, I want a lawyer. All right. So we're driving down the road in the back of this car. And it's so weird because he and his, the guy driving are like really uncomfortable in their bulletproof vests. Which I thought was weird. I was like, don't FBI agents arrest.

people all the time. Aren't they in bulletproof S all the time? As I learned, this is actually kind of unusual that they're, you know, doing this in a, you know, gated suburban neighborhood. And like, I have no violent history. I don't own a gun. They released me that day on a $5,000, you know, signature. Like, I was on a flight risk. I could fly anywhere in the country pre-trial. I didn't even have to have permission. I should tell them I was going to be gone. And so I just have, I still to this day, I have no idea why they did this, you know, raid, you know, why I got, you know, kidnapped by my own country. But these guys are anxious to get their vests off. They pull over.

They just reek of body odor. Like, I, I get like still smell the body odor. And, and I'm like, hey, guys, I'm not sure I'm going to have wrists. I think my hands are probably going to fall off at the end of this deal. Is there any way I could, like, not be sitting on these cuffs? they're like, yeah, if you talk. I was like, man, that cop show, that job does that cop show. All right, suit yourself.

I was like, all right, listen, I just want my hands back. So, yeah, I'm good. And so they, you know, get me out, get my hands in my, in my lap. And this FBI agent just proceeds to tell me, listen, Ryan, you never did a project in Nebraska, did you? I was like, what? What do you mean I never did a project in Nebraska? Yeah, you never did a project in Nebraska. in Omaha or Lincoln did you.

You just made those up. Are you kidding me? He's like, what, who could I talk to about this? And I'm giving him witnesses. And like what's crazy is like, we got this in discovery. You know, I get this like little hand scratch list of like people to talk to that the defendant gave me. And he's got like these invoices. And he's just like, yeah, you didn't do this job.

You didn't do this. I was like, yes, we did. Like, what world do you live in? And so I just start according to my attorneys who listened to the audio. afterwards, I just started cross-examining him. I was like, man, did you look at the liens we filed? Did you do this? Did you do this? You did you do this? And finally, he gets tired of answering questions because I'm interviewing him at this point. And he's just like, listen, man, if you're not going to own this, like, I'm just taking you downtown. All right. It takes me downtown. And to bring

the Donovan story sort of back to loop, I was like, hey, by the way, I was like, I saw on LinkedIn like three days ago that Donovan is working at a new bank now. We had heard that Donovan was like really sick. Is he okay? And he looked at me. And I realized it was the look of the fact he didn't even know who I was talking about. Because as I'm about to find out, he got this case a week ago and made a few phone calls so he'd have something to talk about with the grand jury before the indictment.

He has no clue who I'm talking about. And he's telling me, we could have gotten you for money laundering. What could have gotten you for bankruptcy fraud, you know. Does your wife know that she's married to a swindler? You know, just stupid stuff. And I'm not taking the bait. And so, I mean, they drive me underneath the U.S. Marshals there in Oklahoma City. And, I mean, I get processed.

What do you get formally charged with? So I got charged with 18 USC 1344 bank fraud. Just one count. One count of bank fraud. That's how you know they don't have much of a case because normally they charge a lot. Well, they got there. Don't worry. We got to a superseding indictment. But yeah, I mean, I walk in there. I mean, I'm staring down the barrel of a, you know, there's a 30 year max on this single count. But, you know, from a, from a sentencing guideline standpoint, depending on what they do with enhancers and whether you plead or not, you know, this is a, this was like a five to seven year. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working. together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales,

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With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love. of quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. You know, kind of sentence I'm staring down the barrel of. So what happens next? You get released. You signed for the bail. Well, yeah. So, I mean, they appoint a public defender. I didn't have one. Hang out into jail. You know, it's just, it was crazy because it's like, hey, can I use the bathroom?

Yeah. Is that the men's room over there? Oh, I thought you were just asking me to use the bathroom. No, no, no, no, no. Like, in the marshals, I'm like, can I use the restroom? And I'm thinking they're going to take me to them. And they literally fling this door open. And I am now in a jail cell with four dudes and there's a can in the corner. And I was just like, oh, you know. And I mean, fingerprinted mugshots, cheek swab.

You know, we're in there. I'm like in there telling stories, like telling stories with my new U.S. marshals, you know, bunkeys for the day. And, you know, finally they, and I mean, I'm shackled all. all day and then, I mean, they chain me to my waist. And, you know, I'm still wearing like athletic shorts and a t-shirt. And it was kind of funny because I'm sitting there processing this out loud with my new friends here at the marshals who are getting sentenced for like, you know, drive by shooting. And I was like, why did they arrest me? Like, did they think I was

going to run? And this one kid in there and like, I've just got to, I just got to deliver it to you the way it's delivered to me. He's like, you know, with all due. Do. Spex, sir, you literally look like you about to go for a run. Because I'm wearing Nike sneakers in. You're like, I was like, you know what? That's actually a really great point. I appreciate you for let me now. So, I mean, I go get arraigned.

I mean, it's crazy. I mean, I remember the public defender is like showing me the sentencing guidelines as I'm about to hear my charges read out. And she's like, hey, I got new, good news. He's going to say you're facing 30. You're not probably just five to seven years. I was, what? I was supposed to be at work today.

My dad's out there. You know, my dad had figured out where I was at and he's there. And, you know, they don't oppose my release. And I sign and, you know, go get in the car. And I mean, my dad, he's a saint. He's got like three Diet Coke's waiting, you know, Advil, cold. And he's like, he's ready. Like, and I get my phone.

And so I, you know, I pull my phone up and I'm just like, man, like, is this on the news? Like, is it? What is this? And I mean, boom. Ryan Bloom. indicted for bank fraud. I was like, oh my gosh. I couldn't.

I still, I went home and it just, it just felt like the world it ended. I just, I woke up and it just still could not believe it. What about your job? So it's Saturday at this point. And I'm like, I got to tell them immediately. I just, they're going to fire me one way or the other. And actually, this was the second company I'd gone to work for in California. I actually got laid off from the first.

company when Tesla charging blew up. But I was at a new job. I only been there for like a month. And I wrote this email to my to it's a big company, but I was brought in to like start this new department of the company. So, you know, I'm like kind of reporting in a dash line to the owners. And I send this email. And I was just like, listen, guys, I was raised like you guys were. I this, this, and here's what happened. I'm in shock. I had no. idea this was coming and I respect your decision all around. I hope you'd give me a chance. And so they called me the next day. And like one of the owners of the company was like the mayor was a big time mayor in Southern California for a while. Like this is a very influential family,

very well established company. And I just spoke from my heart to all four of them about what this was what it meant, how I intended to fight it. And they said, okay, well, we're going to take this under advisement and we'll get back with you. And I just thought, there's just no way. Like, who in their right mind would keep this much baggage, you know, around? And they called me like an hour later and just said, hey, we're behind you 100%. And we know that even innocent people sometimes take deals and go do what you got to do. Go do, you know, and we're behind you and get to work. And so I had that job the entire time I was dealing with the feds.

I'm still at that job. And, you know, I get overtures a lot because I'm in a very niche industry. There's a lot of need for people that have really, you know, that really specialized knowledge. And it's like, we're not even having in conversation. Like, these guys saved my life. Like that whole story, this story does not at all go like it does at all without those guys having my back. It was everything. What about family friends, neighbors?

Do people kind of look at you differently or do they, you know, leave you in the dust when this is going on? So, um, so there were, I was like shocked. Nobody ever was ugly to me. and my, we had some family that I think had so much of their own anxiety about it, that it made it hard for them to be there for us in our anxiety. But I don't think, I think it just was a lot for them. But I mean, my parents, my wife, my kids, I mean, we're updating the kids. We're, I'm talking about it.

openly with lots of people at our church. And no one, no one was ever, no one ever said anything bad about it to our face, to my face. I never felt like rejected or shunned or like put down by anybody. I just, there were some people that maybe I would have expected to be right there in it with us that were not able to be right there in it with us for, I don't think, because I don't thing it was anything to do with rejecting, you know, us. But I mean, other than that, it was just this incredible support. I mean, when it was headed to trial, we had more people wanting to come than would have been helpful. Like, I was having to, like, tell people that

you, they, like, hey, you can come once, you know, kind of deal. But, but we had incredible support. I mean, we had people that would have, we could have eaten a home-cooked meat. We could have had a meal brought to us every night for 18 months if we had asked for it. We had that much support from the church, from friends, from family. The only downside was we're in this pretty small-knit, tight-knit school community, and there was a lot of gossip about it. There was an incredible rampant sharing of this link to the justice.gov press release. Because so the day after this happened, Trump got shot in the ear, which just dominated the airwaves. So it didn't really get picked up by like the news stations, but it spread because people

were texting each other the link. And so there's people that would have said that they were our friends and that I would say I feel betrayed by because they're just sending this thing out. I mean, it's spread like COVID that weekend. And even like the worst was people that I knew, but they're like, hey, how's life? It's like, oh, it's good. Just going through some trials and tribulations. You know, right? Know about what? Come on. You know, you know, I don't know. Maybe I heard something that like, maybe you were, did you get indicted? You know, it was just like, guy, just so there was a lot of that. And then in the press release, they say how many years you're facing. Yeah. Yeah. And this guy's a scumbag and he's the worst and we hate him.

I still got messages in my inbox today with people think they're like, oh, aren't you still in jail? Because the press releases say facing 120 years because they add up each count. Heck yeah. Yeah, this guy's going away for life. And so we had a we had a ton of support. And I mean, my parents were unwavering. I mean, I could show up at their house with no notice and just unload on them. Updates, strategy. I mean, whatever. Like they were, they were like on the trial team. And they were just right there with it. So how does the legal process play out? well so um so that's july and it's just like so funny because you know just these the prosecutors they're like oh this file's been building for months it's like an iceberg we're going to have you this just massive stack of discovery on monday monday comes and goes and then like three mondays come and go it's like a month before we get anything and they give us like 4,000 exhibits and they're all from the bank.

Like, we've seen them before. They're all from the bank. And then, you know, a few random 302s. And truly, the FBI did all of the investigating after the indictment. So they roll up, find some disgruntled former employee, family member, track down my uncle from a decade prior to get his, you know, gloss on the whole thing. And they've all seen this press release. And they're all, I mean, it's just incredible.

They're just parroting the press release. None of them were there at that time. And I mean, it's crazy the stuff that I'm getting back in these 302s. Like, one time I bought a Jeep and I took it to an off-road park. Paying my money, went to the off-road park, got a few scratches on the Jeep. That's what you do at an off-road park. The FBI 302 said that I bought a Jeep and trespass passed and tore up private property and destroyed the vehicle. You're like, what?

What? Are you kidding me? And then somebody else was like, yeah, you know, one time he paid an employee to bring back some unknown, unknown specimens, an unknown box of contents from Mexico. Like, I have no clue. If I've ever paid someone to bring me a box, it's UPS to ship me a package. I, like, just the craziest stuff. But the uncle was probably the best. because he like came after my mom. Like your tax dollars paid an FBI agent to go get dirt on my mom. And so it's crazy because when I was in college, my dad came to us like, hey guys, I think we should get a lake house. Like a lake house?

Dad, are we that rich? Like, we get our own lake house? because there was like a family lakehouse growing up that was old and, you know, kind of run down. He's like, well, I think we should get our own. Dad, how do we get a lakehouse? Well, my aunt, Janet, had stolen almost $200,000 from her dying mother. And we never knew if it got blown on drugs, gambling, shopping. We don't know where the money went because it disappeared very quickly.

And her siblings had caught on to it and came to her and said, hey, you've got like a month to pay this money back or, you know, we're going to have you prosecuted. So my uncle, my dad, are business partners. So my uncle comes to my, you know, dad and it's like, hey, I need money in a bad way. Well, you know, they're business owners. So like if you take money, you take money. So we got a whole stinking lakehouse when I was in college. My parents got a lakehouse in college with the matching funds that that uncle needed, you know, to get, you know, my aunt. out of trouble. They go find this same uncle. This guy, and this guy has all these big,

loud opinions about the moral compass of the family. My mother was an enabler. My mom taught me how to scheme. Like, it was this all-out assault, you know, that I was a ship without a compass, and I lived in a wicked Machiavellian triangle of deceit and lies. It was just like, what? I haven't talked to this guy in over a decade. And wait a minute, hold on. Whose wife stole from their mother? Like, it was just like crazy that like the FBI wanted like family tea in this federal prosecution. And so I'm just getting all these 302s. And, and, you know, there's a former employee talking about how the company was struggling and I bought a Tesla cyber truck. And my lawyers came back from this meeting and they're like, hey, dude, what's up with the

cyber truck when your company's struggling? And I was like, guys, cyber trucks didn't exist. No one had a cyber truck in January of 2023. Elon Musk didn't have a cyber truck. Then they weren't available for over a year. But here comes this 302. confidently stating that I was cruising around in a Tesla cyber truck. And it was like Truman Show stuff.

And there's this project where they're like, yeah, we talked to this guy and like, you guys never even contracted with them. I was like, didn't contract with them. Here's the doc you signed purchase orders. Here's the photos of our crews on their job sites. Here's this, this, this, all these artifacts. And they're like, this is crazy. We've known, this doesn't happen.

This is, we have two totally different stories. We go talk to the prosecutor and the FBI and it's this and we come in here and it's this. But weirdly, they're just talking and you have like all this evidence. Because again, to reiterate, every single transaction I did with the bank, I had proof and artifacts for. I had evidence from the past underlying every single transaction we ever did. And they're saying that these were just hallucinated invoices. And so they said, well, why don't we sit down with this prosecutor, kind of go through these, and we need to shrink this thing down.

Because right now, you know, you're facing, you know, multi-millions. I wonder if we could shrink this thing down a lot just by talking with this guy. And so they set up kind of what amounted to like a burden flipping deal where we kind of had to like prove that things were, weren't fraudulent. But we participated in it in good faith. And my guys, my attorneys at that time, they were very smart, very like street smart. And they're like, let's go through half. Let's see what this prosecutor does.

Is he going to be reasonable? And if he is, we'll move on to the second half. But if not, you know, we're wasting our time and we just need to go see a jury. It's like, all right. So ends up happening. So that happens in November. And it's, I mean, leading up to that, I went out to job sites of ours that I'd never even been to.

And they were like, oh, this guy committed fraud by saying that they dug in rock. And the client says there was no rock there. Oh my gosh. I build for rock because the foreman wrote rock down. I don't make this judgment call. And a buddy of mine from church, I'm like, hey, dude, I got some shovels. Let's go. And we drive out to rural Oklahoma and dig up rocks.

I mean, just literally out there just digging a hole and taking a video of it and making rock bags. to bring to, you know, these meetings. And so my lawyers have this first meeting with the FBI agent and with D.H. D.H. Dillbeck, the prosecutor. And I mean, this FBI agent is just like that curricature of just government incompetent buffoon. Like this guy is supposed to be investigating a white collar case. And he doesn't know what a lien is, you know, talking about. you know, talking about a white collar case and doesn't understand statements, doesn't understand accounting, didn't know that more than one invoice could be paid with the same check. I mean, just the most basic stuff. And he'd say things like, well, now at the risk of sounding dumb, and then he'd ask a question, they'd be like, no risk there. That was, that was incredibly dumb. And this guy, I mean, he's just, he's not asking the right questions. And then even, like, we got this in discovery later, he's asking the bank question.

and the bank is emailing between themselves complaining about how dumb this guy is. And they're like, is this guy, either this guy's testing me or something, because I've explained this to him 10 times. Does he really not get it? And so you just got this like, just kind of this like just totally incompetent FBI agent that knows which flavor crayon is best. and then you've got this AUSA that we dismantled every single one on the list. And then at the end of that, after a couple months of, you know, follow up, you know, checking stuff down,

he just comes back and just like, well, listen, as long as these are unpaid, it's fraud. It was like, you know, he conceded this, conceded this. But he's basically, like, become a debt collector for the, you know, for the government. And so, you know, it's just like, this isn't going anywhere. We're not going to go on to the second half of the list. This guy's not bending at all on the first half of the list. So it's like, all right. Like, we got to get ready for, we got to go to trial.

No, you said they superseded you. What else did they charge you with? Just more bank fraud or? Well, yeah. So they, so in, so in early March of 2025, I had, I'd done a ton of research. about how close of a relationship this prosecutor had with this victim bank. And I was out in Las Vegas, which nothing good happens in Vegas. But I was out in Las Vegas at a work convention, and there were some guys there that my company had done business with.

But, like, they weren't witnesses in, you know, they hadn't been witnesses. So I felt, you know, safe to talk. to them, but, you know, I went up to these guys and they knew who I was. They knew what we were talking about. They set up the breakfast. But I explained to them this conflict of interest between the prosecutor and the bank that I'm happy to, you know, go into more detail about. Well, after that meeting, they called someone who called the FBI who said Ryan Bloom's out in Vegas. throwing around all sorts of craziness. And my lawyers call me and they're like, hey, dude, like, shut her down.

You need to get home right now. D.H. D.H. D.Lback is threatening to revoke your bond because you're out in Vegas, you know, threatening witnesses. I was like, what? And so they passes or so and they're like, okay, Dillbeck wants you to agree to a change in conditions, no contact, like total gag order. Like you can't talk about this case with any would be like anybody that any would be witness, you cannot have any contact with. You know, to me for retaliation for pointing out, you know, a case of, you know, potentially. you know, soft corruption that is the foundation of this case, it was retaliation on his part.

It was to silence me for pointing out a major, major issue that he had. And so, you know, I was like, well, what if we don't agree? It was like, well, then he's going to try to rope your bond. We're going to have to go have this whole hearing with the judge. It's not going to, this is not the battle that, you know, that you want to fight. Oh, and by the way, he is going to, he's going to. He's doing a superseding indictment, you know, and it's going to be 10 counts of bank fraud. He's picked 10 his 10 favorites.

He's picked out his 10 favorites. And he's going to recharge the indictment with 10, 10 new counts. He's like, but if you agree to this, he's not going to like, you know, come after you for, you know, like obstruction of justice. I was like, that's crazy. Why do you? He can't even, he can't come after me for a search. Like, what? That's insane.

Like, I had a fruit plate with this guy. It's like, all right, whatever. You know, we'll acquies. you know, for now. And so, you know, that was, that's kind of how the superseding indictment came out. But when it came out, it did have the witness tampering obstruction of justice. Do they offer you a plea deal at all? Well, so jumping way far ahead in the story. So funny. We get these emails between Dillbach, AUSA Dillbeck and the bank. And he is just like assuring the bank that the plea is coming soon.

The plea will be here any day now. We're about to start having the plea discussion. This guy's cooked. Update your board of directors. We got this guy. All that's left is for us to figure out what the restitution's going to be. And meanwhile, we're not having any plea discussions. And so by the time a plea discussion finally happens, it's like a week before the trial, maybe two weeks before the trial. I had new attorneys at this point.

And they forward me this email. They're like, Ryan, we just got this out of nowhere. And it's a completely signed, executed by all parties plea agreement. Everybody assigned it except for me. And I wrote them back. And the first thing I said was not very polite. They're my attorneys. So, you know, this was in the brotherhood.

First thing I said, it was not very polite. The second thing I said was, you are not even authorized to reply to his email. Don't acknowledge receiving it. Don't engage with it. I'm not even willing to spend one minute even letting him know that it made it to us. Those were the plea discussions we had with D.H. Dillback. What was the offer for? Oh, to drop the witness tampering charge and to reduce it to one bank fraud count,

that he's then just going to try to turn around and use relevant conduct to push the sentenceing guideline you know up into the you know up into the I don't know he told my guys before that if I pled he'd advocate for like a three year sentence or whatever and I was just like no

like I'm not we're not engaging with this now who tipped them off it was the bank that called the FBI oh so going back to around the time that they're deposing me the bank files an insurance claim within Shurica. So banks have insurance. You know what they have insurance

against fraud. Banks don't really have insurance against messy civil disputes. They don't really have insurance against contract disputes. They don't really have insurance, you know, when like a credit, like when a deal goes bad. But they do have fraud insurance. And so the bank files a, I think they We're asking for like $2.5 million from travelers' insurance on their bank fidelity bond. And the whole basis of the claim was that, you know, a bank customer had committed fraud upon the bank. And I mean, it was basically like the indictment language. So they filed that insurance claim in December of 23. Like two days later, they call the FBI.

The insurance company or? No. the bank calls the FBI like two days later and just regurgitates everything we've been defrauded. And incredibly, it just immediately lands on D.H. D.H. Dillbeck's before and since has never prosecuted a bank fraud case. He's a relatively new prosecutor in the office. And at that point, he'd basically been doing, you know, sex crimes, guns, drugs, you know, kind of that, that type of work. he hadn't really been the lead on like a fraud case, but this thing lands. And it's not with like, it's not with the AUSAs that normally run the bank fraud cases.

It's with D.H. Dillbach. And it's just live on immediately. And there's no statute of limitations. There's no timeline. There's no need to rush. But, I mean, it's instantly. I mean, it lands at the FBI and Dillbeck is assigned. They've opened up a parallel investigation.

Like, it's headed for indictment. I mean, it's live. There is no decision to be made. This case is going to be prosecuted the second it lands at the FBI. Did the insurance ever pay out the bank? Did you find out that? Yeah. So they denied the claim in January of 2025, you know, six months after I was indicted.

And their denial was just that, you know, the fraud had to be committed by, you know, an employee of the bank, not by a customer of the bank, which was like weird because that seemed clear to begin with. But what's weird is, is in the denial letter to the CFO of Alliance, he references all these conversations they had over the course of 13 months. Like, this claim was pending for 13 months. Like, that seems like an awfully long time. And, yeah, and hey, we appreciate all this supporting documentation you've been sending

us. And so we'll get there in civil discovery on the on the adversary side, but it is like very, very, it seems very obvious to me that the indictment, the press release, that all of that that was to bolster the, and to legitimize this, you know, this, because obviously there was a decision to be made if the if insurance was going to pay on this or not why else would they take 13 months to issue a denial um you know on this bond i mean it just seems so obvious to me that that the insurance played a huge role in why it was indicted so quickly just throw caught just yolo like they they just yolowed on this one through caution to the wind no target letter no investigation just indict the guy and we'll clean it up in post and it was just such a rush. I mean,

they just had no time, no time to do anything. I mean, like I said, we got emails where the bank sent this FBI agent that actually testified before the grand jury, he got all the bank's files like two weeks before the case was presented to the grand jury. And he just called two witnesses, two or three witnesses. They're like, yep, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud. And boom, walks in, has something to say to the grand jury, walks in, gets the indictment, and cuffs and stuffs me 10 days later. So what happens? Do you make it the trial? So, so kind of, you know, going back to when the superseding indictment comes out, I hired new attorneys. And so I really felt like my local guys had kind of done a good job keeping it warm. But I did not feel good that

we were really preparing for a trial. You know, we needed to be filing motions. and we needed to be doing our own independent discovery. Like, we're putting on an affirmative innocence case here. Like, we're going to put on a more detailed case than the government was prepared to put on. And it just seemed like the work and the time wasn't going into it. And, you know, these local guys, I mean, they're bailing people out of county jail all the time. It's, they don't sit down and focus on one case. It's just kind of this churn.

And so I found these really, really awesome attorneys out of Nashville, Tennessee. called Litsen. And actually they gave me this t-shirt that says allegedly on it that I thought was appropriate, you know, to wear today. What's funny is, is I was trial prepping and I made the receptionist like, hey, can I get one of those t-shirts? And Alex Little came in and he's like, wait, what are you doing with that? Like, what are you doing with that?

I was like, oh, well, you know, and like the receptionist is just like, oh, like, yeah, like the client has for one. He's like, listen, dude, do not put that on until after we went trial, period. Like, bad juju, if you got photographed in that, that would be horrible optics, you can wear it all you want after you win. Okay. So, you know, I've got to wear that.

But, um, so I hired Alex a little out of Tennessee. And I mean, again, I mean, that was just like calling up family members and, and borrowing against my house that I'm now having to sell to, to pay them off, uh, because they're not in a position to just give me money, uh, like what it took. I mean, it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, people spend millions to get a top-notch white-collar defense counsel. But so I brought in Litson and they were just incredible and there was this new to the office. Now he's a partner named Ted Cantor.

And I mean, Ted was just like just destroying Dilbeck on motions and just pinning him in and locking him down on all these pretrial motions and things. but they raised the concerns about this conflict of interest to D.H. Dillbeck, and he was just, like, so weird about it. And, like, they just, like, he, like, he creeped him out. Just didn't feel like they were dealing. They said, I felt like I was interviewing a witness. Like, I felt like I was interviewing a hostile witness. And these guys were former AUSAs.

Like, Ted was prosecuting cases one week, and then he's working on my case, his first week, you know, at Litson. And they're like, man, this is just so so sketchy. And so basically what it happened was what got me, you know, what I, what I talked about that got me silenced, you know, by Dilbeck was. So deal back's a prosecutor. His wife was working for the OU, the University of Oklahoma College of Law 10 years ago doing like social media, marketing, whatever, just making $50,000 a year. All this stuff is public records. So like this isn't some fringe thing. I'm pulling. out like these are like public records. But her boss is this kind of larger than life, university, you know, or the dean of the college of law, Joe Harris Jr. And Joe Harris Jr. is now the president of OU. And he also happens to be one of the founders and shareholders and directors of Valiants Bank. So he's got this private investment in the bank. And then by day he's the OU president. Well, in 2020, he becomes OU's president and he takes McKinsey and three X's her wages up to about 150,000 a year, which is like an incredible promotion to be making $150,000 a

year, like three X in your pay. Well, then he becomes the permanent president and he gets her off of those poverty wages of 150 and gets her into the real money. And I'm being very cheeky when I say this. Gets her up to like 250. You know, so, I mean, I'm sorry. Like, like, 250 in Oklahoma is, that's, you know, that's 500 on the East Coast, maybe more. You know, this is good money. And so it's just insane to me that, that McKinsey Dilback has had this just huge trajectory directly working for Joe Harris. He's the one praising her publicly. He's the one promoting her. He's the one recommending her. There's all this trail of evidence. that Joe Harris has been very, very influential in the Dillbeck household going from 50K to 250K. But like that wasn't enough right before the superseding indictment was to come out. McKenzie had left briefly, came back to the university at like 210 a year, which is still

an insane amount of money. and Joe Harris in March of 2025 at the same time that McKenzie's husband is aggressively trying to nail me to the wall for bank fraud. Joe Harris recommends her to the Board of Regents for a raise of $100,000 a year to $3.10. While her husband is ramrodding a weak case, a fast case trying to like get this. quick and dirty prosecution benefiting Joe Harris's bank. And so he had told my attorneys that he was going to consult with like the advisory group within the DOJ had told the previous attorneys. And this is what I laid out in Vegas that, you know, got me in so much trouble. But he, he had told my previous attorneys that he was going to consult with Preo,

which is like professional responsibility advisory office. I don't know. Watch that. But it's like the DOJ, like, ethics, you know, kind of consultant group. Well, then Alex and Ted, this is so funny. They're like, hey, D.H, did you talk to Preo? He's like, well, I'm just going to give you the answer that you know what I'm supposed to say. They're like, what do you mean?

He's like, well, yeah, like you guys were a USA. Like, you know what to say if someone asks, you know, if you consulted Preo right. And they're like, D.H, our ethics were never called into question as a U.S.A's. We have no clue what it looks like to call into Preo. And so it turned out he didn't. He just didn't. He just, you know, he didn't do that. And so it just was so creepy.

So we're getting ready to go to trial in September. You know, we've kind of got it all ready to go. and, you know, my, my, you know, we, we, we had to put on, we, we couldn't defend part of the charges without bringing in the Joe Harris, McKenzie Dillbeck, D.H. D.H. D.H. D.H. D.H.D.A. And so my attorneys issued a trial subpoena to Joseph Harris Jr., the president of the University of Oklahoma. and he was to bring employment records, tickets to the suites, any kind of perks, whatever. But Valiance's bank, Valiance's attorney said, well, I'll accept trial subpoenas for every witness on your list, but not for Joe Harris Jr. All right. So we had, Alex has this retired. D-EA agent from the backwoods of Tennessee.

And listen, he's used to rolling up on people in South America. I promise you he can find you in Norman, Oklahoma. And so Joey is like, I mean, he's going to roll up on him at the stadium if he needs to. I mean, he's flying out to Oklahoma to serve Joe Harris in person. But then, like at midnight, the Lions' attorneys emailed Ted and said, actually change of plans. We will accept service for Joe Harris. So the bounty hunt for Joe ended anti-climactically.

But yeah, so, I mean, we were just geared up to, you know, to go to trial. And we just Dilbeck had just continued to like, honestly, like creep to creep out Ted and out. He was creep. It just, it was like, when I say creepy, just did not get the sense that they were dealing with someone who was ethical, dealing with someone who was independent at all, unbiased at all. And this fear set in that this guy was willing to trick a jury, like that this was going to be trickery and sleight of hand to secure this conviction if he needed to.

And so we filed a motion to disqualify D.H. Dillback to basically ask the judge. to intervene and rule that D.H. Dillbach could not continue to prosecute the case. And do you win that motion? Well, the United States fires back and they are pissed. They send back this scathing motion. And then the judge ordered us to reply, which is kind of weird. Sometimes it's like it kind of goes along as long as long as like the attorney. attorneys wanted to go on and then the judge, but the judge ordered us to respond.

Well, we included our response where I had dug up an Instagram photo of D.H. Dillbeck drinking Moscow mules with his next door neighbor who was another board member of the Alliance Bank. And we mentioned this in our, you know, reply brief or whatever. And so we show up at this docket call hearing. So these guys fly to Oklahoma City. we're getting ready for the trial to start in a week. And it's kind of scheduling and logistics. And Judge Bernard Jones finishes all the other cases.

And he's like, hey, I get motions in this court that are a lot of ado about nothing. And he's like, this is not nothing. Right. Okay. Seems pretty interested in this. Well, meanwhile, the supervisor, like the supervising AUSA, this woman named Jessica Perry that I looked in her eyes and saw more evil in her eyes than any offender I saw in the U.S. Marshals.

I mean, this woman truly had just, like those offenders at the U.S. Marshals all had reasons for being the way that they were and what they were accused of. She had none of those excuses, but 200% of the evil that any of those people had. And so she saunteres into court. She's watching this whole thing unfold. And the judge starts asking questions. And, you know, our attorney, and my attorney said, you know, and it's not just one relationship. It's more than one relationship with this bank.

And the judge says, yes, you raised that. I want to know more about that. And Dilbeck's like, yeah, judge, you know, and I don't remember exactly where, you know, I'm scratching my head too. And like, you would have thought in that moment he didn't know this other board member. like, Judge, these guys are crazy. Had this tone about him. And we were like, well, listen,

we didn't want to embarrass him by including this photo of these guys drinking Moscow mules. And then Delbert goes, he goes, yeah, we were hanging out together. We were next door neighbors. And the judge was like, what? And Alex is like, Judge, do you see that? And Jessica Perry, like, just a little short black hair,

little beady black eyes just sits up in her chair and just starts like just shooting lasers, you know, out of this courtroom. And so the judge starts asking for Department of Justice Policy. And Dilbeck literally looks like he has seen a ghost. I mean, he's just standing there just like what has just happened. And his co-counsel is like sinking down into her chair. And Jessica Perry's slamming her phone down and furiously writing down notes. Well, Alex Little just starts quoting.

the Department of Justice, Justice manual, like the manual for how, you know, for ethics, just like chapter and verse. And I mean, he's just like rattling it off just like out of his mind. And anyway, so then the judge finally just says, hey, you know, there's really no precedent for this. I don't have any precedent to follow, but it's very concerning. I, you know, I'm going to have taken center advisement, you know, et cetera. And so he adjourns. And Jessica Perry walks up to the U.S. Attorney's table and slams her phone and her notebook down

and starts screaming. She points at Alex. She goes, I don't know who the fuck he thinks he is. Quoting our fucking justice manual. And I mean... And I mean just like, like so out of control.

Like so out of control. And she practically grabs Dilbeck by the ear. And it's just like to the bat cave. and they got those little wooden doors, you know, that kind of separate the court. And I mean, those fly open. And there's this, you know, like retired U.S. Marshall just like sitting there. I mean, we're both doing like the baby Yoda thing of like what on earth just happened.

And I mean, I can hear her screaming. It's like echoing down the hallway. And so we leave and we're like, man, that was crazy. Like, I don't know. I mean, I guess we'll see how he rules. And I mean, maybe he will. Maybe he won't. We didn't.

It's unprecedented. Like there's like not a lot. a precedent for disqualifying a prosecutor because normally prosecutors don't tow that line. They recuse themselves. They don't try to walk up as close to the line of ethics as they possibly can and not cross over it. And so the next day I get this phone call from Ted and he can't even get the words out. He's just like, the judge disqualified him. The judge, I mean, just we couldn't even believe it.

And I mean, and he literally in his, in his order, Judge Bernard Jones order was like at docket called Dilbeck initially denied. knowing Blair Humphreys, this other board member, but later, you know, admitted with more after being presented with more information, admitted that the two had been neighbors. And the U.S., the government responded to that and said, basically, we respect your decision, but please rewrite your motion. He didn't really like deny knowing him. Can you like soften that a little bit? And the judge just like denied.

I will not. And so Dilbeck's gone. I mean, terminated. He's gone. He can't walled off. He is zapped from this case. So how does that affect your case? Well, so unbeknownst to us, there was already a trial that was scheduled when we thought we were going to go.

And so the trial got reset to October. But Alex had a brutal trial schedule. So like Alex had a federal trial in Nashville. Just weeks prior, he had my federal trial. He had a trial out in Washington State for this humongous cryptocurrency case out in Washington State. And so it became October and then October became December. And so we were just getting ready for it. I mean, it was just reset the whole thing. And so all of our expert witnesses, our auditors, our, you know, everybody, we just reset the whole thing for December, the first we get December. But then the new prosecutor, there's new prosecutor, Danielle London, which I gave her a shout out the last time I talked about this. I'm going to give her a shout out again. Danielle London, shout out to you for doing the right thing. I know it couldn't have been easy. I know you had to probably have a mountain of resistance for doing it. But thank you for saving the taxpayers money and saving me and my attorney's the burden of having to go win this thing at trial, which we were prepared to do.

but Danielle London reaches out to one of my attorneys and is like, hey, hadn't been a lot of plea discussions in this case. I'm like, yeah, well, it's kind of due to me telling you. She's like, what's the deal? And so they basically were just like, hey, like, Mr. Bloom's not pleading. He didn't commit a crime. He's never going to plead. Like, you, you put a sword to his neck and you won't get his signature on a piece of paper that he committed a crime.

And we'd like to explain that to you. if you are willing and able to dismiss this case. And so she thought about it, whatever, got back with them. They laid out some ground rules. So Ted and Alex fly back out to Oklahoma City. Hey, listen, that is a private jet charter, okay, because you do not want to pay those guys to be stuck in the airport in Dallas. So I could pick those guys.

And it was just crazy. Like, I'm working. I'm on a team's call for work. And then I, like, go pick them up from the airport, take them to the U.S. attorney's office that is in the same building as the bank. Not weird at all. And then pick them up, feed them chick-fil-A and drop them back off and go back to work, doing my normal job. But they basically just showed up in Oklahoma City and just went through these transactions one by one.

And here's the evidence. Here's the artifacts. Here's, you know, everything. Here's where, you know, Dillbeck has got this wrong, got this wrong, got this wrong, got this wrong, got this wrong. It's just plain as day. And so then they went silent for like three weeks. And then on a Friday morning, I just got pulled into a conference call with the attorneys. And they're just like, hey, they're going to dismiss your case. It's good news. Bad news, if you will. There's some conditions to it. So there's this thing called a pretrial diversion.

They don't have to say they lost the case. They get to say that they resolved it with a diversion. But just so you know, multi-million dollar fraud cases don't get resolved with diversions. It's basically like a conditional dismissal. They'll dismiss this case. You know, you've got to, it gets dismissed now, and they can never prosecute you for it. But that flips if you break any of these conditions.

And it's like, have a job. You know, pay a token amount of restitution. It's mostly symbolic. You don't plead to anything, so you don't plead guilty. You have to write a statement taking responsibility. And so I wrote a statement taking responsibility for not getting enough guidance in the implementation of this program that resulted in a civil breach of contract. Because that's all this ever was. This was a contract case.

And so I pled to nothing. If you ran a background check on me right now, it would say the case was dismissed because it was. the judge dismissed all the charges. And, you know, as long as I don't, you know, commit any federal crimes for another, I don't know, a year or so, which is easy for me to do because I have never committed one before, then they can't. I mean, they can't. So it's, it's like, it's like that the, and the underlying case is dismissed without prejudice. but we now have a agreement in place that I can never be prosecuted for, you know, this alleged scheme, if you will. And kind of just as quickly as it came, it went away.

How much do you think you spent on legal fees total? Oh, I mean, between attorney fees, private investigators, expert witnesses, you know, forensics, You know, oh my gosh. Over 500,000. That's crazy. Yeah, over 500,000, which wiped out all the equity in our house. It's like that's why we're like, we're selling the house so that I can, because like right now I'm paying interest until the house sells, I'm paying interest, you know, to these family members who like borrowed from their retirement, you know. But yeah, I mean, it just wiped out every bit of equity I had in the, I mean, I have nothing. I mean, I have a paycheck.

and my family obviously is like, you know, they couldn't take my family to begin with. So, I mean, it's like it felt scary at the time. But like looking back, it's just like, well, they, they were never going to take my family. They were never going to take my wife. They're never going to take my kids. They were never going to take my parents. So, you know, it was so awful. It was just a wait.

I mean, just hanging over every moment. I mean, my daughter had a birthday while I'd be around. for the next one. I'll be around when she graduates high school. You know, we've got two kids that we adopted and they're just the most incredible young men that are just going to do so much great for this world. But, you know, with that, we're trauma-informed parents and we carry a humongous amount of parenting workload, you know, especially with just four kids that close in age. And just like the thought that someone would, like, imprisoning me would have truly, truly permanently crippled at least two of our children.

And it would have left a nasty scar on our whole family for years over a case that never should have been brought. Do you think you could have achieved the same result with a public defender? You know, I've thought about it. So it's kind of wild. This just happened. There's a case in Oklahoma right now where a business owner was just convicted this week of defrauding the state out of millions of dollars by overcharging on improvements to the state parks. And what stuck out to me was his defense counsel.

was completely unprepared, didn't properly notice the witness and expert voices they intended to call. They didn't have this guy testify, which I think was a huge mistake. I had, I was fully ready to testify. I had, you don't practice, you don't like rehearse. Well, you know, you went to trial. You, you don't rehearse this, you know, this question and this answer. But I mean, I spent hours and hours and hours just working on cross and direct examination and getting in the flow. of answering questions. Because I was fully prepared to testify. Like, I think if they'd have said,

now we don't want you to, I'd be like, no, I'm calling, call my number. Like, get me in there. Probably would have blown up in my face. But, um, but no, and I mean, I always wanted to talk about it.

I wanted to talk about it in the car. I was like, why are you taking me downtown to an arraignment? Let's go to your office and I'll explain this to you. Um, and so could I have got, and so anyway, so this guy just just gets his butt kicked.

I mean, just gets convicted immediately. but they couldn't get their expert witness on, called up a witness and abruptly ended questioning, and it just was ineffective and weird, called some other witness up and asked some weird tangential question that just like kind of caught everybody off guard and then rested. You're like, this multimillion dollar case just ended with, you know, this guy's defense attorney just kind of, I mean, it was like, it was like cringy for me to like be sort of watching this unfold on acts, you know, these updates.

What is going on here? is this guy, you know, this guy new. And so I definitely think that if you're going to go try to win a federal trial, man, you've got to have some firepower. And, you know, could the public defender's office? I mean, they've got the resources. They win appellate. I mean, they win appeals. You know, the guy that was coming after me, D.H. Dillbeck, he had a case overturned on appeal at the 10th Circuit.

I mean, the public defender's office, I honestly think a public defender. would be better than one of these attorneys that's just trying to take as many cases as he can at a time and put his little effort into each one and just wants to kind of show up and hope that he can kind of, you know, riz up the jury in closing arguments. What happened to him, the U.S. attorney? The assistant U.S. attorney, H. Dillbach? Nothing. He's still employed? Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, I keep up on, I keep up on PACER monitor.

Yeah, I keep up with his cases. I mean, it was interesting. He had a case that just got sentenced last week. You know, the guy charges this daycare owner with five counts of fraud related, you know, broadly to federal program fraud. And he has to dismiss two of them before the trial even starts. They're down to three counts. And she goes to trial.

she loses on the three counts. But then, you know, he wants like, I don't know, $800,000 in restitution and sentencing exposure for these three counts. And her defense counsel argues that there's no loss for two of the counts. And they go back and forth. And he keeps lowering his number after, you know. And finally in the end, this lady goes to trial, loses, gets sentenced to like a year and a little over $200,000 in restitution. on a case that this guy indicted in the millions. And it's just like, you know, it kind of undercuts my feelings that this is kind of this like,

you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours kind of soft corruption deal. I'm like, maybe you're just a really terrible prosecutor. Like, you might just be really bad at this, you know, because like, what a waste of resources to put that much effort and energy into thinking you've got a big case. And, you know, in reality, you have a little case. But I don't know. I mean, he lost a jury trial earlier this year. Actually, in the time that I've been watching in the Western District of Oklahoma, they've had three jury acquittals. I mean, it's just it, they're just, they're not. I don't know. I mean, someone who would know says they've had more jury acquittals in the last three years than the 30 prior to that.

I mean, it is just, you know, it's just been a, there's a huge flight of, you know, of, you know, of expanse, you know, of, you know, of exp. experience and, you know, there's no parental supervision over there. You know, the appointed U.S. attorney is not particularly effective. And, you know, you've just got a few prosecutors in there that know what they're doing. And you've got a bunch of other ones that have, you know, the bazooka of the federal machine and they just spray and prey on people. And, you know, it just It's incredibly wasteful. I mean, I just think about how much money was wasted on this case, that all he had to do, all D.H.

Dillbeck had to do, all any, any non-reckless AUSA had to do is send me a target letter. Send me the target letter. You send every other white-collar defendant. I'd have lawyered up. I'd have come in there. I'd have shown him the deck that his co-workers saw. And he just said, yeah, this, this isn't a case. But once you indict the thing, how do you put an indictment?

How do you just put the indictment back in? Why do you think you had to go through this? Looking back on it now. Why did I have to ask that question again? Why do you have to go through this? From a personal development standpoint, I have dealt with mental health my entire life from the time I was in fourth grade. and it's just always been, it's just always been, I've always had mental health challenges. And I would have told you that if my business ever failed, I'd go find a concrete bridge abutment like Aubrey McClinton did.

And what was incredible was throughout that entire time, I had purpose. I had a reason to continue. I was not suicidal. I was not dark. I was gritty and resilient and purposeful. And as a result now, you know, again, going back to, you know, you, you, I carried with me this whole time a faith in God. But here's the thing about God. He doesn't promise you won't go to federal prison. Every single, you know, most of his followers and apostles in the Bible spent a lot of time in prison.

Most of the Bible was written from a prison. There's no promises you won't go to prison. There's no promises that, well, yeah, if you do good over here and you like, you know, take care of these kids over here that, you know, that, well, God's going to make it up over here. That's not how that works. But God does promise that he's going to be with you in prison, that God will be there at the camp in El Reno. That's 30 minutes from my house. He'll be there with the kids. He'll be there with my wife.

And so you think you got a grip on that. You think you know that. But I promise you, until you are staring down the barrel, of United States of America versus your name it was not real to me and it's very real to me now and so now I find myself

in situations where I'm stressed out but whatever happens that would have plunged me into darkness at any other point in my life and I'm just like this like gritty, resilient, battle-tested warrior

and I didn't feel brave I didn't feel like, I didn't feel like I was, I felt like I was doing the things that any other rational person would do. I didn't feel like I was like just brave. It was like, what do you mean brave? I didn't want to go to prison. That's like, this is survival. It felt like instinct of survival. But I look back now and I'm like, okay, I didn't fold.

I didn't bend. I didn't give in. You know, I did what was right. did I come on some podcasts and try to shine a light on some really, really awful things that some people have done? Yeah, I did that. But in the name of accountability, in the name of inspiring other people that you can beat the feds, you know, and in the name of, hey, in the most imperfect way, the most imperfect person who, you know, know, the chips were down for, like, God was there for us in those moments. And so why did I go through it? I went through it to prove to myself that I can get through anything and that the business didn't

define me. The indictment didn't define me. Even the victory doesn't define me. Like, I'm defined by who I am. You know, what, you know, I think about what did my kids see? You know, did they, you know, they saw mom and dad just getting up and just throwing haymakers all day long, you know, outside, not at each other. So I don't know. Why did I go through that? That's a good one. I haven't been asked that one yet. Well, Ryan, I appreciate you coming on the show today, man.

This was a great interview. Well, I appreciate you having me on. And I wish you the best in the future and everything you have going on. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's exciting. I mean, I've got teenagers to raise. We've got projects to build at work and, you know, it's just just slow, slow rebuild,

slow rebound and just try to, you know, build back differently, but also just just surrounding myself with just, just running away from people that are slimy. Like, I'd been warned that Stephen Osborne was a slime ball, you know, by his family. I'd been warned, you know, like you've been warned about people and you think, well, if I do the right thing, or I'm over here and I do the rye, you know, that I'll be okay. But, you know, what happens is, is it ends up that there's kind of this scapegoat. And it's like, well, hey, guys, we all drew straws and you're the scapegoat for kind of this big mass. And, you know, we're going to kind of put all this on you.

And so it's like, just, golly, get out of any situation that's going to have a scapegoat in the end and just, you know, just surround yourself with, with complete integrity, unimpeachable integrity, run away from self-help, run away from creativity, run away from the gray area, just stick to, you know, just fly up here and then it's hard for them to just drag you down, you know. Absolutely. Well, thank you again. Safe Travels back. Yeah, thanks. Awesome.