Locked In with Ian Bick - Private Investigator Shares Crazy Stories Of Fraud & Dangerous Situations | Mark Farren

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Mark Farren, a seasoned private investigator, discusses the thrills, dangers, and outrageous tales that come with the job. From covert operations to heart-pounding encounters, this episode offers a captivating glimpse into the hidden side of the justice system. Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Connect with Mark Farren: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-j-farren-cli-ccdi-cpii-cifi-scla-b484a9159/ Mark Farren would like listeners to consider donating to Last Assault and Ameba: Last Assault is a program in the Dominican Republic, which is an international non-profit which provides life skills training and mentoring to the youth which gives them an alternative to a life on the streets.  The program is centered around teaching self discipline through making and obtaining goals, using boxing and MMA as the medium.  The money is used for equipment and building a safe space to train and socialize to keep kids from getting involved in gang life and the like.   Ameba is a non-profit which helps inmates "behind the wall" in federal institutions who have no outside resources with things such as allowing them to purchase needed supplies, make phone calls and send emails family, and get some legal work done without having to be in debt to another inmate or owe someone a favor.   Anyone who wishes to donate can mail a check to: Last Assault/Ameba, c/o Scrooge & Marley Investigating, PO Box 122, Hainesport, New Jersey 08036 or Venmo @ScroogeandMarley and I will get the money over to him.  Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:56 - Becoming a Private Investigator 00:10:35 - Starting Scrooge and Marley 00:16:25 - Uncovering Insurance Fraud 00:21:49 - Private Investigator in the Criminal Defense World 00:27:19 - The Importance of Defending Those Accused 00:32:48 - Witness Tampering and the FBI's Leverage 00:38:23 - The Reality of Being a Private Investigator 00:43:57 - A Scary Situation in Camden 00:49:19 - The Loneliness of Criminal Defense Investigators 00:54:41 - Being Treated as Less Than Human in the Industry 01:00:10 - A Man Defending Himself in Court 01:05:56 - A Suspicious Encounter on Market Street 01:11:17 - The Chasing Game with the FBI 01:16:33 - Delayed Medical Response in Prison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Who available at this payment? PH 71529, PH7159. One of the things that private investigators do is serve processed, like serve court papers for civil or whatever. So, you know, I knock on this door and I see this dog in the back and the guy opens a door. And I'm like, oh, there's a dog. That's a big dog. And the dog barks.

I'm like, that's a mean dog. And before he gets to the threshold of the door, I was like, get your dog. I'll shoot him. I'll shoot him. Join us today for an adrenaline-fueled ride as we dive into the world of Chris. criminal defense investigation with our guest, Mark Farron, a seasoned private investigator. Discover the thrills, danger, and outrageous tales that come with the job. From covert operations to heart-pounding encounters, this episode offers a captivating

glimpse into the hidden side of the justice system. If you enjoy the Locktonin podcast, remember to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, subscribe to the Ian Bick YouTube channel, and share your favorite episode on social media, or with a friend. You can also stay up to date by following me on my Instagram, Ian underscore Bick, and shoot me a message or DM on thoughts of who should come on the show next or any ideas for the show.

I try to be as responsive as possible. Now, sit back, relax, and get ready to lock in with Mark Farrin. Did you see that Netflix documentary about the BickCon kid? No. It just came out. Johnny's interview to him yesterday. And it reminded me a lot of me when my documentary came out because it was like a total tool bag.

And then it's just interesting to see that perspective. Yeah. But he ended up not getting any prison time. And at the end of it, they're like, so how are you paying your restitution, the money, this and that? And he was like saying, I just bought a house. And he was just like alluding on the TV that he has all this money that he like hid. That stashed away.

Yeah. And he snitched on his co-defendants. And it's interesting. And now they're doing like when I get a lot of people that they'll resolve their case. And then I got two types. of people. One is the people that reach out while they're fighting their case and they're like, oh, I want to come on the show

and I'm like, listen, take it from personal experience, do not come on the show until it's resolved. Then there's actually three types of people because then the second type of people is the ones in jail that want to come on the show and I won't touch them because I only do my interviews in person. Right, right, right. And it has to have a motivational aspect like of

how did you overcome it. Right. And then the third type is the people that just conclude their case and immediately want to come and blab about everything that they didn't. It's just It's nuts. Yeah, yeah. But that's the world we live in. But Mark, thank you for coming on the show today, man.

Thanks for having me. I'm really stoked. I'm a huge fan. Awesome. How long have you been watching the show for? Well, it was mostly TikToks before, and I didn't think you were a chomo for the record. I thought it was a joke. Because you were like, when I spent time in prison, I was like, this kid was not.

And then I thumbed through your videos, I was like, oh, maybe he's legit. You know, so it took a little bit of vetting. But I guess maybe about a... a year for TikToks and then maybe it was over COVID. I forget when it was, but only recently did I discover you out of podcast and I've been listening to you nonstop at the gym, cleaning, doing laundry, you're in the car, you're always on because I want to catch up on all the episodes, you know? It's so cool that you're a professional in the space that knows what a chomo is because

I don't think my lawyer do what a choma was in the beginning. I mean, a lot of people don't, but I'll ask like, um, prosecutor. or defense attorneys, and they're starting to become familiar with that term now. It's just a very niche, a very, I don't know, industry term, I guess you would say, because like, out of pocket. That came from, you know, the prisons. And, well, you know, I'm not on that time. You know, so it starts in the little culture, and then it starts making its way out.

So I guess Chomo now is getting outside the prisons and more into the, the lexicon of every day Yeah, I think social media definitely changed that. And actually, I didn't even really hear the word chome was till later on in my prison sentence. But now that it's on social media,

it's everywhere. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. Once a word hits, you know, it's like, because, you know, you get the people that, that want to try to fit in and, you know, so they start,

what's the specific lingo I got to use to, you know, and then, you know, everybody starts using it, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Mark, it's interesting that you're here today because you are our very first private investigator on the show. Hopefully you have more. After me, there's a lot out there. Yeah. And this case is definitely personal for, or this interview is personal for me because I had a PI that we were talking about outside on my case and I went to trial. So it'll be an interesting conversation.

And, you know, we won't bore our audience with like the early life of you, which we had talked about. But I do want to know why you did get into becoming a private investigator if you want to give a sapak story. Yeah, I kind of stumbled into it. The girl I was dating at the time who I ended up marrying and then divorcing, she had a friend or a guy who, a regular at a bar. And he'd be like, Mark's got a, he was a PI for a national firm. And he's like, yeah, I got to get him on board. Got to get him on board. And finally I took the bait.

And it got hired there. and it was an insurance fraud investigator. So that's how I got my start is this guy just gave me a job in this large national firm. And we would work for like, so insurance companies are required to have what they call an SIEU, special investigative unit to root out fraud. So the insurance companies that don't want to keep them on staff, they hire these nationwide or regional companies that have investigators that do all their fraud investigation for them. So some of the big carriers, I forget who they are now.

They'll come to me. But so that's where I got my start. And then so there wasn't enough work to go around. They lost Ace. Ace was a big contract for them. It's a, you know, the big insurance company that, you know, if you travel, they'll send a plane to bring you back home if you get sick or injured or something like that. those huge carriers, they lost that contract.

So, you know, there's very little work. And then they set me up with a regional company. So I was working for both of them at the same time. And so not making a lot of money, really. Like the way that these big companies work is, you know, they charge the market value of a private investigator. But then they take 75% of the hourly rate to cover their overhead and all that. stuff. So, um, which leaves the investigator, the one doing the work with like pennies, you know, so I had to work for those, uh, I was working for two different companies doing insurance fraud.

And, uh, I never thought I'd go out and get my own license. I was like, what, why? Why would I go out and start looking for my own clients when these people, these big whales can just feed me work. And, uh, but the work was getting less and less and less. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, And one of them wanted to bring me on to a different unit full time. And so I told the other company, hey, I'm going to leave. They offered me. I just, you know. And then they're like, well, no, we're, we want to keep you.

We'll pay you this. And then so I told the other company, they're going to pay me that. Then there was a bidding more for me. And that was the first time I realized, like, hey, I have value, you know. Like, but before that, it was just. Like, I'm just an investigator. You know, I'll go out, do my job. Nobody, I'm not going to make a big name for myself in this industry.

But then it's like they wanted me. And it was like, maybe I do have more value than this. And the guy who told me, the guy who I eventually went with, he was like, if you stick with me, you'll make the most money you've ever made. anybody nobody has ever told me they've never made enough money working for me

like okay and that turned out not to be true he just it was just it wasn't about the money it was they just weren't treating their employees fair you know so there was this I met this attorney I can't tell you how I met him because

that's his stipulation but he's a personal injury attorney and we're going through this situation and he says, hey, you're a bright guy, you're a young kid. If you, once this situation resolves, you come to me, I'll give you three cases.

But just walk into my office, I'll hand you three investigations. And I thought he was pulling my leg and sure shit, as soon as the one situation resolved, I was like, hey, I didn't reach out to him. He reached out to me. Hey, it's over. the ink is dry

stop by I'll give you three files so I can't work do my own work as a PI I have to work under the company license so essentially I got this company I was working for this big client in Philadelphia

and they ended up screwing him over so I did those three cases and heard nothing about a year later they give me a call hey, there's a police involved shooting. A kid in Trenton got shot by the cops.

We need an investigator, but why don't you come by the office? We'll give you the details. And I asked him, like, what's the, how come I haven't heard from you? And they said, well, your company would, you know, they didn't give us your report. You know, you didn't do any of the workforce, this is what they thought. So, you know, we just, we cut you off, you know. you weren't we gave you these we trusted you to do these cases you now

and I pulled up on my computer here's the report I don't know why my company was withholding the reports from and he said well if that's the case I'll work with you I won't work with your company so if you start your own company

you'll have all the cases you want and then I think it was 48 hours later I had Scrooge and Marley formed. I had an LLC. I had a bank account. I had all that stuff. And then so for a while there, I was working for two insurance companies and then for personal injury attorneys on my own. And your business was formed. Right. Why did it got called Scrooge and Marley, right? That was a good name that stuck out on the email when you reached out to me. Yeah. So it's a again, a long.

the redemption lines, people forget that Scrooge changed in the end, right? So people think, you know, of Scrooge as greedy and filling the coffers. And I was like, you know, that's not what I want my business to be about. I would just want to do good work for good people. That's it. And I love Christmas. And I wanted a second name, but it's only me. So that's kind of how formulated, based on the principle of, you know, based on how Scrooge was at the end of the story, charitable, helping people who needed help, you know, giving the shirt off your back, not worrying about money, you know, just philanthropy. I mean, not that I have millions to give, but that's really the heart and soul of it is, you know, every person has value

and I'm only here to contribute to their life, not take away. You notice you kind of went from chasing the bad guys as an insurance investor to then defending the bad guys. Granted, not everyone's bad and not everyone's guilty, which you still have to defend the best of your ability. But it's interesting that it switches. Right. And it was an easy transition because so when I was working in the insurance field, I was, I was, I knew what to do and I knew the questions to ask, but I didn't know why. And when I started asking why, it's like, well, why do we ask this question?

And it boil down to it's all contract law. It's all based, you know, because you sign a contract with your insurance company. This is our responsibility. This is your responsibility. And the contract says you will not lie. You know, when filing a claim, you'll be 100% truthful. or, you know, like the stuff Trump is going through material misrepresentation. So, like, they insure you based on the information you provided.

If you lied about any of that information, that's a breach of the contract. So once I learned there's contract law behind, I'm like, that's what I got to study. So there's this American Educational Institute. So, you know, different industries have different designations for things. things like, you know, if you're a nurse, it's RN, BSN, and then certified emergency nurse, CEN, all those letters after your name, right? So this, they offer the insurance industry self-study for all these designations, senior claims law associate.

There's, you know, automobile claims law associate, workers comp claims law associate. And it's all based on the laws that develop. in the insurance industry. So I called it too broke university because I was too broke to go to law school. So I would study these.

They give you your books in PDF. I would convert the PDF to a Word doc. And then I set my computer up to read it to me. So as I'm driving, because I covered New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware,

all those states doing insurance work. As I'm driving to New York, you know, an hour and a half, half two hours, I'm studying by listening, you know. My computer's reading the books to me. So, you know, you learn all those principles and, you know, you become an expert in the insurance investigation for the insurance company, but who's filing the claim against the insurance

company is usually plaintiff's attorneys, right? So someone who is injured in a motor vehicle accident. They get an attorney. That attorney sues the person and their insurance company comes in to represent them. So it's the same investigation. Like, I know the stuff that the insurance company is going to look for that makes it a bad claim. And attorneys don't want bad cases. So I was able to take my skills as an insurance investigator and be able to tell the attorney like, hey, listen, it would be good, but I found X, Y, and Z. It's a bad claim. You know, or if I found, there was a guy who tried to sue the Rainforest Cafe, which in Atlantic City, which is owned by a billionaire, right? With, and the building that the Rainforest Cafe was in was owned by Trump.

So part of the building came off and he claimed that the building fell on him. And he's like, major paydates. Trump and Rainforest got two billionaires owned. this freaking place. I'm going to going to, so his attorney hired me to go out and investigate. I found footage of him walking, you know, the boardwalk, picking

up a thing, picking up a piece, rubbing it all over him, scratching his head, and then laying down and like, ah, it hit me. Call 911. You know? So, you know, using the skills as the insurance investigator, I'm like, yo, if the insurance could, I was like, I just sent him

a picture of David Acres, like kicking a football. And David was the kicker for the Eagles. I said, hey, in regards to this client, you know, punt him, get them out of here. You know, this is fraud 100%. So it does seem like it's going from one end to the other, but it's the same investigation. Yeah, that's a process. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer?

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a one, two, three, four. Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that kid cat bar. Give me a break, break me off a piece

of that kid cat bar. Have your day and we're, give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that kid cat bar. Have a break. Have a Kit Kat.

Yeah, yeah. What's like one of the most extreme cases of insurance fraud you've kind of like uncovered. Because we always hear about like insurance fraud cases all the time. Yeah, yeah. So there's got to be one that like sticks out that was like ridiculous that they tried to pull this off. So I mean, mostly with arson's, well, it's a house fire, right? But after the investigation is deemed in arson, those are those are usually the most like,

how did you think you were going to get away with this, you know, with all the signs? and all that stuff to test for chemicals and one out. But the most absurd one I had is this guy in Browns Mills. He claimed his toilet backed up and flooded his house. And he had, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't in the most prestigious section of town. It wasn't, you know, it was a rental home. He was somewhat unemployed. So it's not like he had a lot of money, but he was claiming all these burberry baskets, I guess.

I don't know. They're kind of rather expensive baskets that he had just piled in his living room. And, you know, I was like, how do you have all these burberry baskets? Oh, well, my mother-in-law sells them. So it's like, and I'm thinking, okay, maybe he went and, you know, got these baskets and put them in there. but you really can't prove that so the insurance company is going to have to eat it. And I'm like, all right, what else is damage? He's listing off all this stuff.

And he's like, well, I threw this out. I threw that out. And he's like, look at this. This is a sleep number mattress. This is thousands of dollars. It's utterly ruined from the sewage and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, he's like, I have pictures. And he was like, can I get them to you?

I was like, well, yeah, you could text him to me. We could, I could hook my computer up to your phone. We could drop the pictures into file. and we'll put it in the, we'll give it to the adjuster. So he did that. We hooked his phone up and he selected the pictures he wants and throws him on my computer. And I mean, this, he would, it would have been like a $15,000 claim. And so when the interview, the interview takes like three hours, go back home, I'm doing my report.

I'm going through the pictures. And there's all this property in there. but the last one was a video and I click on it and I was like oh that's a penis and I close out of it and I'm like but they were on the bed that's in the loss like this claimed in the loss what day was this video taken so I click on it and you know they're doing their thing or whatever and I make sure that the bed and and all that stuff is in it by the way no burberry baskets in the bedroom nothing I mean just dirty socks and you know the fucking Coke cans And I look at it, and it's two days after the flood that they're on this bed, make it a porn. So a porno ruined their whole insurance.

100%. Did they go to prison? No. So here's the thing with insurance. The insurance company denied the claim, but I had to call the adjuster, and I was like, hey, you know, the interview went well, but, you know, here's this situation. and, you know, there's a video of them fucking on the bed, like, two days after this alleged flood. And the floor's not wet, mind you.

Like, you know, so that's the information. And he was like, well, he had to formulate a plan to, you know, not embarrass them, not be like, you know, hey, buddy, you got to, you know, keep your dickpicks yourself. But so the way it works in the insurance world is the insurance. the insurance company will refer it to the state fraud prosecutor. So if you got a file that you think is prosecutable, you give it over to them and then they decide if they're going to prosecute. And then if they do, then you're in it. You've got to testify and do all that stuff.

But the insurance company really has no remedy outside of suing the person. and they're already filing a claim for, you know, money that they don't have. What are you going to get out of them? You know, for most of the claims. When I was in the prison camp, I came across a lot of arson cases, like guys that would torch this one guy that got a 10-year sentence, most normal guy ever. And a part of me and half the camp think that he wasn't even guilty,

but he torched his business on fire and then got a bunch of money for it. And then they found out that it was fraud, allegedly. But it just, he's such like, this guy. guy would not break a single rule at the camp. He was the prison librarian. Like, it kind of makes you think maybe he was set up, I don't know, but it also like, those are like the serial killers you never expect to. Right, right, right. But it was, you'd see those cases all the time. Yeah. It was insane. But so now present day, you're a private investigator in the criminal defense world. Right. So walk us through a case. Like say you're representing, or say like a lawyer

calls you, he's representing a drug dealer or somewhat and someone like that, maybe a crazy crime and they're going to trial. What's the whole entire process like on your end? So all my, I used to do work, a lot of work in Camden, which is the poorest city in America. Like it always makes number one most dangerous city, most crime, you know, poor city. and that work was was very fulfilling but I've moved mostly over to federal criminal defense so the way the the public defender system is set up is if there's a conflict of interest or some other specific circumstances with the public defender you know there's 10 co-defendants and the public defender's picking up four of them they got to go to out

outside counsel, private attorneys on what they call the CJAA panel, a criminal justice act panel. You know, they farm it out to them and then the government pays for that attorney. Then that attorney will then hire me. So, you know, usually I just get a call. Like, hey, I picked up a new case. Can you meet me at the FTC at 12? You know, we're going to go meet with this guy, find out what's going on with the case, blah, blah, blah.

So usually it starts with meeting the client inside the FDC. And a lot of times the attorneys will send me on my own and like, hey, find out what's going on, give me a report back. So I then get back up to the CJA thing. I then get paid by the federal government as an investigator under the attorney. So the federal government paid to investigate, to arrest, to house in jail, to prosecute, and to defend this one person. Like, it's insane. The amount of money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If not millions in some cases. Yeah. I would say probably my whole case costs them a couple million dollars with the workload. I would believe it. Yeah. I would believe it. Like, especially with financial crimes because you need all those financial experts. They might outsource some stuff.

The amount of man hours in it, I mean, and with me, my cases are budgeted. So it's like, you know, you could spend up to $2,800 without getting a budget. And then after that, if you think it's going to be more work, you know, say, all right, this case, we're going to need like, you know, 15,000 or maybe 8,000 for investigative services. But I'm locked in to that price. So it's like one of the things I didn't like work for the insurance company. is, hey, this investigation needs A, B, and C. Ah, the insurance company don't want to pay for it. We're not doing it.

Well, then what the fuck's the point to doing the investigation in the first place? Like, you know, I might as well just shit in a box and send it to you. There's the investigation, you know? Like, but being on my own, yeah, I have X amount to work with. I don't have anybody telling me, no, we're not going to do this. So even though it may sound like a lot, wow, $15,000, $15,000 for $1,000 for one. case, it probably did $40,000 worth of work.

You know, so, but, but, you know, it's about the client and it's about defending their, their six-member right to a fair trial, right? So I don't get hung up on that. It's like, all right, I'll take what I can get and just go balls to the wall and work for this guy, you know? Do you ever, when you meet the client, say, I don't want to take this case because maybe you think he's guilty or, or any reason you don't, whatever it could be, do you ever turn down a case once you meet with the client?

The, no, I mean, I turned down cases working for attorneys. Like, and that's the freedom I have of have my own licenses. Like, if you're a dick, I'm not going to work with you. Like the attorney and investigator, they got to work well together. You can't, there's certain attorneys that I just won't work for, you know, I don't care. You pay me $100,000. I don't give a fuck. I'm not taking your case, you know.

usually with the clients so the toughest one of the toughest cases I had to you know reconcile about taking was a group of kids in Philadelphia there was a raid on the house that you know there was a street gang whatever a couple murders back and forth the cops raided the house right two in the morning whatever a philly cop ends up getting shot and killed because these kids were firing at the cops through the door, right?

And I was like, man, I don't know if I want to take this. Like, that's not how you play the game, right? You're caught. Fucking, why are you shooting at these people? But then I thought to myself, would I, if the roles were reversed, if it was a cop on trial for shooting somebody, would I take that case? and if the answer is yes, I would have to take this case. Like, you know, I don't judge the case. I don't do value judgments.

I don't say, well, this goes against my morals and my principles, so I'm not going to help you. It's a, my job is to help, right? So unless the, and investigators and attorneys don't always get along with their clients. At the FTC in Philadelphia, nine times out of ten, attorneys and clients and investigators and clients are shouting at each other across the table. Like, it's sometimes a very tenuous relationship. But, you know, I don't care how he treats me or, you know, what he did or what he's accused to doing.

My job is to be the investigator, and nine times out of ten, I'm going to take that case. I would never, everybody is entitled to a defense. And I know so many other people are going to say no. And I, so many times in my life have looked over my shoulder and nobody's been in my corner. And my philosophy is if somebody needs someone in their corner, I'll be in their corner. When they turn and look, I will be there. They might be fucked. They might be going to jail for the rest of their life or prison for the rest of their life.

And, you know, it's hard to wrap your head around, but they are asking for help now. You're also not, you're also not spinning a case like a public or like a lawyer, a defense attorney would do. You're just developing the facts and presenting it. Correct. So I guess in a way it's not necessarily defending the person that's being accused. You're just developing the facts and handing it off to someone. Exactly. Coming up with supporting evidence.

Because, you know, in court, it really. doesn't matter what the truth is, right? It matters what the evidence is. So the AUSA can take a set of facts. That's, you know, two pieces of evidence and create a narrative around that. Is it true? It really doesn't matter. Like that's what they're going to tell the jury. A defendant can take, you know, two pieces of evidence and, you know, come up with a version of events surrounding those two pieces of evidence. and tell the jury a story about that, right? So, but ultimately it's upon, it's upon the jury to weigh what the evidence is.

Like, you can have the best defense in the world, but if there's no evidence to support it, you're kind of screwed, you know? And that's where a lot of the tension comes in. It's like, you got to, you know, you have to go out and find this person and get them to say X, Y, and Z. I was like, well, I can't get anybody to say anything, but I'll interview them. I'm like, but you got to understand that. So you're trying to tell me there are two people involved in this conversation. You and this other guy, John Smith.

And John Smith is going to, if he admits to it, he takes the blame for all the shit they're charging you with. And you want me to go to John Smith and get a statement that said he did everything. And that's impossible, right? But you go out and you do it. You find John Smith. You try to interview him. I forget where I was going with that. Right.

So, you know, I make my efforts. Nine times out of ten, I'll come back. John Smith ducked me. He didn't want to talk. Or John Smith is cooperating with the government, whatever. We have no evidence. It's you and that person in that room having that conversation. We have nothing to refute him other than your word.

It's tough. And to put it in perspective, the U.S. attorney, when you go to trial, the U.S. attorney has FBI, IRS, DEA, whoever, as their private investigators interviewing people. Right. The defendant, such as, like, say, myself, has a private investigator like yourself. I'm not allowed to talk to the witnesses that they are, but you are allowed to approach those individuals and get, maybe it could be a different side of the facts where the interviews don't match up. Have there ever been scenarios where, like, you're reading a statement? from, say, an FBI agent when they provide those statements and then you interview that same person and it's completely different? I wouldn't say completely different.

The problem with the 302s is what they write. That's a number of the form that they write their investigation summaries on. They're worded in such a way that is so favorable to their case. and you can have a person that says, well, yeah, I did say that, but I didn't mean it like that. But nine times out of ten, it doesn't matter because this person who said it doesn't want to say anything to contradict the government's theory because the government is always in a position to leverage. They have all the leverage in the world. So like with your case.

If I, you know, you had that one guy that, that said, hey, he's going to New York in, in gambling or whatever. Now, if I found that one witness and said, hey, it sounded so much better in my head in a second. Like, I, you know, here it is. If I, I don't know why I'm blanking. Hey, I know that you're doing this illegal activity. Unless you give me a statement that says, Ian Bick was not going to New York or whatever, I'm going to prosecute you for your drug dealing, right?

That's witness tampering on my end, right? But if the FBI is like, hey, you want to work with us, you know, we'll help you out with these other. That's not witness tampering. That's the most fucked up thing about the system. You don't know how many people that I talked to on my case afterwards where they're like, yeah, they said if we didn't cooperate, we would never get money back, we would get looked at, whatever. Exactly. Which is why my business partner flipped.

That's screwed up in the system. That's like the biggest. All the leverage, you know. And it's like, my hands are, I always joke around and say, not that being an FBI agent's an easy job. But I mean, it's stressful. It's one of the hardest jobs out there. But I always say if I wanted an easy job, I'd go work for the federal government. I'd be an FBI agent.

It's just so hard to do our job with, you know, the efficiency that the FBI does it. When our hands are tied with situations like that, like it's illegal and unethical for me to hold something over a witness's head. I have to go to this witness, you know, and pretty much. lay it all out and say, um, we rely on the kindness of their, their own heart, you know,

will you help us out? We don't need, we don't need you to, we don't want you to lie. We just need the truth and we just need, and then they'll tell you the truth. And I'm like, all right,

now are you willing to testify? Absolutely not. If you subpoena me, I'm not saying anything. Right. Right. Exactly. They go to Canada and avoid the,

or, you know, they tell all their, you know, friends at work and all their, relatives. Oh, no, no, no, he moved to Alaska, you know. And they just avoid you, you know, but the government is like, hey, if you don't show up for this appeal, we could arrest you, you know? How extensive do you go with hunting down a witness that you know is integral to the case? Like, I remember talking to my PI and she was like, yeah, these people don't want to talk to me,

but she kept trying. She'd show up at their house. Like, at what point does it go into like, I'm going to get her or something if I keep showing up at this person's house? Yeah, well, I mean, you go until you can't go anymore until time runs out, you know? Like, I mean, if you're up against a trial deadline, like, there are times where I only got in touch with the witness that as trial was going on, I had to send an Uber to go pick them up and bring them into court, you know? Like, you just, you never stop until you get a definitive no because, you know, once they tell me I don't want to talk. to you, I can't keep going back. You know, whereas the FBI is like, hey, I know you told me, you know, you don't want to talk to me anymore. But I just got this one question for you, you know, once they tell me no, that's it, you know.

Now, you're with that witness all the way through the trial, right? Like you're helping prep them, you're waiting with them in court. At least in my case, my PI was with them the whole time. Yeah, I mean. So an attorney can't talk to a witness because then they become a witness of that conversation. That's kind of, that's why they need a neutral third party, like an investigator, to relay the information. And, you know, so yeah, we are, we're in touch with them the entire time. If they need a ride to court, we're the ones that go and pick them up, you know, unless there's somebody at the law firm that, that can do it.

Or, you know, we arrange for the Uber. Yeah, we're it. We're the middleman between the attorney and everyone else in the case, yeah. Have you ever watched suits? No. Maybe it compares to other law shows, but is it like getting dirt on other parties, too? Is that part of the job? Like finding if someone's cheating on someone or if someone's doing this just to get as much ammunition?

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it doesn't matter how much, I mean, they'll walk people in in the orange jumpsuit and black box handcuffs. You know, black box was invented by an inmate, by the way. I always find that interesting. Yeah, an inmate invented the black box that, you know, it says box that they put between the two handcuffs on the wrist. So, you know, you can't pick it or whatever. Yeah, it was invented by an inmate. Every time I see it, I'm like, it just blows my mind. I always think of that.

But, you know, they'll march them in. in cuffs with two marshals behind them, sit them in the witness thing, and then they'll spill the beans. And you were locked up for the same thing, correct? Yes. And what was it that you did? Well, I did this at the other thing. And it's like you know they're lying and you could call them out on so many different things. And you know, and you were also sleeping with his wife, correct?

Yes, I was. You know, and it doesn't matter most of the times. But you do it. You know, you get as much information as possible. I mean, anything that's pertinent, like, you know, I don't necessarily need to know that, you know, his kid shoplifted a candy bar or something, you know. But, and I do this, you know, when I'm looking through discovery all the time, like, my girlfriend would be like, what are you looking for? I don't know. But when I know it, I'll see it, you know.

So, yeah, any little breadcrumb, you do you. try to develop it and I always run it by the attorney because although I work for the client really um for the person going on trial I'm kind of bound by what the attorney deems appropriate you know like he may tell me not to do something like uh don't go don't go down that rabbit hole of you know his other criminal history or maybe not the criminal history I mean that's just standard but like don't go down the rabbit hole of his mistress um because he may not, it may be detrimental to the defense. It may be detrimental to the trial strategy.

It may be, you know, so, you know. But yeah, you, anything you could find, information is king in the PI world. So, you know, you're looking at databases. You're looking at old arrest records. You're getting their old police reports on everybody, on the client and on potential witnesses. What do you think the biggest misconception with, like,

TV and movies is about a private investigator? Because a lot of people think private investigator, you're sitting in a car with the big lens and the camera and you're doing like some snooping. Is it like that? Is it not? What are the differences? Being a private investigator is like being an airline pilot. It's hours and hours of boredom with moments of sheer terror. So it's boring.

It's a lot of research. It's a lot of pounding the pavement knocking on doors. at least for what I do in criminal defense. There are surveillance guys that, you know, I saw a six-foot-four surveillance investigator. He could disappear inside of a Kia. Like, you will not know that he's there and he'll be recording you the whole time. I don't know how he does it. I get bored.

I start interrogating squirrels. I can't do surveillance at all. But it's, it's, you know, a lot of people think James Bond. it's more Aaron Brockovich, you know, it's more digging for information and canvassing and knocking on doors and, you know, if there's, say, a shooting and the government has like three witnesses, well, where were they during the shooting? Let me go there. And you go and you stand where the witness was standing. Could they actually have seen it at the same time of day? So it's, and daylight savings fucks me up all the time.

I'm like, oh, there's plenty of light here. And then I realize there's a daylight shift in time. And I'm like, fuck. So now I've got to find something to do for an hour. And then go back and look with the same lighting conditions. So, I mean, it's not, we're not putting, we're not holding up little antennas and tapping your phone calls. You know, there's no real big tech. there's no super database where, you know, it's like,

and hence. Yeah, yeah. So it's a lot of grunt work, really. How are victims receptive to you when you show up at their door? Maybe family members, the victim themselves, anyone on the victim side when you're showing up to talk to them. How are they treating you? It depends on the type of case.

if it's usually financial crimes they've gone on for so long and they've talked to so many people and you know that person just wants their pound of flesh and you know they'll tell me you know they'll either tell me the story and tell me exactly what they think the person did and nothing favorable for us and so sometimes they'll just say you know get lost go away I'm from Jersey so it's a lot of go fuck yourself you get the fuck out of here you know uh but the the murders and rapes that any anything with sexual um charges sex charges those are almost instantly i'm i'm shut down you know um if it's a if it's a phone call a lot of door slammed to my face a lot of hang-ups on the phone and you know me being me

me, like, you know, they'll hang up, you know, I'll call back. I think we got disconnected, but I just want to, and then, you know, they hang up again, you know. So, I mean, it depends on the case. I mean, it's 50-50, whether someone's going to chew your head off or threaten you, like, you know, if you don't get off this porch, I'm going to shoot you. Yeah, have you ever been putting any dangerous situations, like anyone pull a gun on you or anything like that? A dog chasing after you. That's funny you mention a dog. So

I'll tell the dog story in a second But the The biggest asshole pucker I had Was there was a shooting in Camden And the cops arrested this guy All they had was like a grainy Surveillance footage from a distance It was a fat guy with a beard

Right that's pretty much all you can make out And the client was a fat guy with a beard And He's I didn't shoot this guy, and shoot this guy and shoot this guy. Finally, I get in touch with the person who got shot, right? He was released from the hospital. He's like, yeah, you know, I'll talk with you. Meet me at the McDonald's in Camden at, you know, 1130 p.m. And, okay, got to go.

You know, because if I don't go, my daughter doesn't eat. If I go and die, my daughter eats for life. So I see no downside to not going. So I get in this car. He's in the passenger seat. there's a dude in the driver's seat. You know, they pat me down for weapons, whatever. They're like, all right, get in the car. And they start backing up. And I'm like, all right, I'm about to get a hold in my head. And I'm going to be in the Cooper River floating down.

They'll find me, I don't know, South Philly somewhere in about a week. And I didn't have a gun. I just, I had, you know, had he pulled a gun, I would try to fight, you know, like to grab the gun or something. that was probably the scariest situation because here's this guy who got shot. It turns out it was by this guy, but he wanted to give a statement saying he did not shoot me. And I was like, I just need the truth. Like I don't, I'm not asking you a lie or anything. He's like, all I know is so and so did not shoot me.

And that's all I want the statement to say. I'm like, perfect. I type it up. I was like, does that look good? Yeah, that's it. He signs it. They drop me off. I get out of the car and just walk away.

I'm waiting to hear gunshots, but nothing. But in that moment, it's scary. I'm driving around Camden at midnight in the back of somebody's car. I have no idea where they're taking me. And at that point, I didn't have a concealed carry. So, you know, it's like even if I wanted to bring a gun, I couldn't, you know. Do you carry now? Yeah.

So everybody can carry now with the new decision, the Supreme Court decision, where they said it's unconstitutional for states to restrict your right to conceal carry. Before that in Jersey, it was a May issue state. So everybody had to apply to the, I'm not sure if everybody had to apply to state police or maybe their town. The state police is the police force in my town. So I had to apply through them. And then, you know, I had to type up a letter of need and jump through all these hoops and it goes in front of a Superior Court judge. And then the Superior Court judge will sign off on it. So, you know, I told them the dangers of the profession, certain circumstances that I faced. And before the Supreme Court, a couple years before the

Supreme Court decision, I was able to carry concealed in New Jersey, which was crazy because, like, less than 1% of the entire state population who was, you know, non-law enforcement, were issued concealed carry permits. Every time I got pulled over, you know, I would, if anybody needed to know that I was carrying a gun, it was that officer right then, right? So with my license, I'd give the concealed carry, and it was like a fucking unicorn. They'd call their partners. Like, all these cops would come

around, like, hey, let me see that. You got to get, how did you get this? Did you ever have to use your firearm at all? Pull it out? No. Which brings me back to the dog story. Yeah, let's hear the dog story. The

some of the things that private investigators do is serve processed, like serve court papers for civil or whatever. Like obviously for federal criminal defense, it's a lot of subpoenas, you know. But these are mostly civil suits. You fill the time. Like, everybody does it, right? So, you know, I knock on this door and I see this dog in the back

and the guy opens a door. I'm like, oh, there's a dog. That's a big dog. And the dog barks. I'm like, that's a mean dog. And before he gets to the threshold of the door, I was like, get your dog. I'll shoot him. I'll shoot him.

I'm, only an asshole with a gun gets bit by a dog. I was like, I am not getting bit by this motherfucking dog. And he's a big ass dog. And so the guy calls him back. And then it turned into the sweetest fucking dog. He's like wagging his tail. and, you know, whimpering and stuff. And I'm like, but that's really the only time I took my gun out is for this big fucking dog that ended up being a baby.

Yeah. What does your family think of your line of work? Like, I see this in like public defenders, like in movies and TV shows and even in real life where like when those public defenders or criminal defense attorneys are representing the bad guys, family members feel some type of way. Even in my line of work, people are always like, why are you giving someone like that a platform? or this and that. And just like you said, they deserve to have a defense. Well,

the people I interview deserve to have their stories told. So what do you say to your family members if they do give you any flack? Or even people that are just normal people that say, that's your job? Well,

I only have, doing this kind of work, it's kind of hard to trust anybody, right? I have maybe four people that are close to me, right? That I actually let in. My dad does fucking saint. Like, that man's been in my corner nonstop, no matter what.

He was in the military for 30 years. And so he's Mr. Strict by the book. And me on my coat of arms for my company, instead of a crown, I put a jester's cap because I'm a ballbuster. I joke around. Every court needs a jester. Might as well be me, right? So we're totally opposite ends of the spectrum. But no matter what bullshit I've been through, that man is.

is always there. So he'll make, I don't want to say value judgments, but value judgments about the person I'm representing. And like we had this, a Marine, he wanted to wear Marine pin on his thing, on his jacket during trial. And, you know, I was like, hey, dad, next time you're on base, can you pick up a Marine pin he wants to wear it? And he was like, was he dishonorably discharged?

I was like, yes. And he was like, well, I don't like it, but I'll do it for you. You know, so he has his opinions and he's Mr. By the Book straight-laced and I'm Mr. ADHD out there, you know, just flying by the seat of my pants. He's really the only one I care what his opinion is and he's done nothing but support me. When I started my business, you know, he was retired. Every time a new case would come in, I'd give him the stuff. He'd set it up in my system for me and help me. out. But outside of that, it's very lonely. Nobody really wants to be associated with you,

you know, not even other investigators. So, you know, a while ago, when I, before I met my girlfriend, I was on dating apps. And I got to the point where after I matched with somebody, one of the first things I would tell them is, I'm going to get this out of the way out front. I'm a criminal defense investigator. You know, I serve on the defense team for people accused of crimes. I don't need you to like it,

but I just need, I just need you to support me. Gone, ghosted. Like, it was so, there's so much vitriol from, I can't believe you do that. You help the bad guy. There are so many cops getting shot and blah,

all this. Yes, I understand that. But like, I'm not in it for that. I'm in it to, you know, for the sixth men, right for a fair trial. Like, this is my passion. This is what I want to do. And they just berate me. It's interesting that you have those thoughts because that's kind of like what goes

through the minds of the people that are convicted or are accused of crimes go through, like similarities like that. But then, of course, you have the woman that find us attractive because of the bad boy stuff. Yeah, yeah. You know, but. But I don't even get that. I'm not even the bad boy. I'm the boy helping the bad boy, right?

Yeah, like I remember when I started dating and going on Tinder and stuff, when I got out of prison, there was half that, you know, were attracted because they were in, they knew who I was. And there was curiosity. And I'd have girls be like, oh, my professor just presented about you in class. And then there were girls who had no idea who I was, go on a date with them, whatever. And then they'd find out and you don't hear from them. Yeah. It's just that's what it is, you know. But the world has changed so much.

much than the last four years. And I think COVID had a big impact because it made platforms talking about prison more popular. Now people love those creators that are talking about it. And it breaks down the stigma too. And that's a good thing. You know, it's like, you know, I never ask, if I run into somebody who's been into prison, you know, at a Wawa or whatever, you know, I never ask, what did you do? I say, what did they say you did? You know, I, it's kind of my way of saying like,

it doesn't matter what it is, but I, you know, I support you. And you're hopefully a different person now. I don't care about any of that. You know, it's hopefully more people start to think like that. Like, yeah, that's something in their past, you know. You know, people can forgive cheating, you know, like, oh, well, yeah, he did cheat on his wife 10 years ago and they got divorced and now he's a different person. And why can't it be the same with fraud?

Just because somebody's been to prison? Well, like, why you got to treat them as if they're not a human? That's my biggest thing. And prosecutors and not all, some prosecutors and FBI agents and cops and troopers, other PIs will just not treat me like I'm a human. Because a lot of PIs are retired police, some federal agents, mostly local and state. and they're like you do criminal defense like won't even kick me work like we kick work back and forth hey i can't handle this like like not even ask for a work sample like hey uh you know i have a personal injury case can you send me one of your cases obviously black out names and and all that so here this is what i do this is the work that

i do not nobody even thinks to give me work or asks for my work product like what kind of work can you do it's just he's a criminal guy we're not talking to him but you know I don't need to be part of anybody's club do you do civil cases at all yeah the personal injury so not like divorce

or dating or like oh no no no where you saw like my girlfriend cheating on me I need to hire you find it out I could care less how many men she's fucking that has no impact do you get calls like that though about yeah could you do this

sometimes most I don't advertise I only work for I know how much work I can handle. I only work for a certain amount of attorneys. And there's just fierce loyalty to these attorneys. They get the priority. I don't, if they refer me to another attorney, you know, I'll take their work if I can.

But I don't do, I don't have a website. I don't advertise that because the public is fucking crazy. Like, I would, they'll have you on the phone for two hours telling you every way in which this person wrong them. And it's like, I just need you to tell them. me what you want me to do. Like, what are you looking for? Are you looking like, like, what's the make or break on this? Like, is it if he's driving a certain car? Is it if he's at a certain house? But I really don't trust the public because they could be like, yeah, it's my husband and and he's cheating. And, you know, I just need to find out what house he's going to when it

couldn't be her husband at all. And then now you're, you're like turning over information that you found out. Like, oh, and this is where she's going. works and then like two days later she finds she comes she turns up dead like I just people getting divorce even if it is legit they're fucking crazy they are

they project their vitriol for the person onto you when you it's like hey we're not seeing him with anybody you know that's bullshit I know he is he probably paid you to tell me that and it's you know What was the other point with that?

I forget. What do you think's been one of your most interesting experiences as a private investigator? I mean, there's a couple proud moments as I saw people representing themselves in federal court. Like a dude stands up in a suit. I've been talking to him for like two years in the FDC. They wear yellow jumpsuits now, by the way, for the visitation. room. You've got to come down. You can't wear your khakis or your oranges anymore. They make you change out of those into a yellow suit. I wonder why that is. I have no idea, but now I can't

fucking wear yellow into the FDC. Why would you wear a yellow? You used to wear a yellow? Yellow tie. I mean, yeah, I'm Mr. Color coordination. Yeah, yellow tie and maybe, you know, I don't have any yellow jackets, but it's like, that's what I was thinking. You're wearing a yellow Walking in like a bumblebee, like a curious George's owner, right? But I mean, that's annoying, you know, getting in the FTC. You can't wear any of the colors. You can't wear, you know, any of the colors of the jumpsuits, khaki green, whatever. But yeah, meeting with this guy for like two years and he ended up getting rid of the council.

That's an interest case. But if we do like cases later, I'll tell you about that one. but he stood up in court and was representing himself. And it was like, almost like that scene in any war movie where one guy stands up and charges the enemy and just gets mowed the fuck down. Like it seems like it took forever, but it was in slow motion and you see all the bullets hitting and the blood splattering. But you play it in real time and it's like he stand up and got shot down. He just on his opening argument, so he had standby counsel appointed. And I stayed on as his investigator.

The judge approved me to stay on because I had to, you know, get legal research. Like, I mean, I wouldn't do the research myself. He would have to tell me, like, I want legal research on this case. And then I would have to find a investigator who has ex-exempt. to the library and they got me the articles and I'm okay here here you go that's it like I wouldn't go out and freelance and do his legal research form but um during his opening argument he he stood up and just every other word objection objection objection and just shooting him down in front of even one of the jurors uh he ended up taking a plea second day into trial um and then rescinded his plea but that's

another story. And one of the jurors on the elevator after they were dismissed, he was like, that man didn't stand a chance. But it was such an awesome moment to see this man like take his defense into his own hands, you know? The judge needed standby counsel to be there in case they needed to jump in. It's like, all right, the ship's going down in flames. You're not adequately representing yourself. You two attorneys take over. And of course, you know, I was there because I, I, was kept on but that was he's it sent shivers down my spine to see like yet this is what the founders were talking about it's like um you can to get up and speak for yourself to the jury and like said he didn't stand a chance because he didn't know procedure and all that stuff and he was saying

some things that the judge had barred him from saying um but that was a cool moment um and then And two not cool moments where two times I was illegally detained by law enforcement, one was the FBI and one was a prosecutor in Camden County. So I don't know if we want to go into depth. Yeah, let's hear how do you get detained by the FBI? So there was a case with a lot of co-defendants, right? There were like 10 people on the indictment, like maybe one had died. And there was a cartel connect. They had a Sicario come in from, I think it was Mexico.

Because there's a series of drug deals gone bad and they had to get rid of this guy. The cartel did. They're like, well, he stole our shit. Let's take him out. So all these other people that were affected by it enter into a conspiracy to take this guy out. and I was one of the, I was a defense investigator for one of, uh,

the people charged who had the least involvement in it. He like literally the man went to eat tacos one day, heard about it. And then a couple weeks later, they're like, hey, we're going to go, uh,

we're going to go, uh, get this guy tomorrow. And nothing to do with the planning. Um, and he was like, oh, I'd like to see his face.

It shows up and now he's, now he's in big Sandy. Um, So our guy was getting blamed for something that cartel member did inside the house. The cartel member may have done inside the house. We just know it wasn't our guy, right? And our guy took a lie detector test, was asked direct questions about this specific incident inside the house. And he passed.

I did not do this. He's like, I will take the heat for whatever it is I'm charged with. And a lot of inmates are, there's a lot of integrity, believe it or not. It's like, you know, they get accused of stealing something. And they're saying you stole that. I'm not a thief. I'm a drug dealer. I am not a thief.

And it's kind of mind boggling to some. Like can't wrap their head around it. Like to a lot of people, a criminal is just a criminal. But it's like, you know, he's right. He's not a thief. You know. and don't label him as a thief. So the cartel guy was pleading.

They just, they don't cooperate. They take a plea. They get their years. Then they go back to Mexico. But we needed to, we wanted to be in the courtroom to see if he took responsibility, if the government was putting responsibility for this one incident inside the house on this guy, or if he would have claimed responsibility because when somebody pleases,

the federal government gets up and says he is taking responsibility for A, B, C, and, you know, lists all the stuff that were this person's actions who's taking the plea in this overall case. So it's a public hearing, open gallery, anybody can go in, nobody's checking IDs or anything.

So I just sit in on the plea to, I'm sorry, to see what he's, taking responsibility for what the government's putting on them. And right before the hearing started, the AUSA and FBI agents and Marshalls walk in. And I'm in the gallery. I'm just, you know, I'm reading a book or writing notes, whatever.

And when the AUSA asked me, what's your role here? And I said, I'm just a neutral third party. It's my role. And she's like, okay, because the judge is probably going to ask and said, okay. Like, I'm not going to answer any questions I'm not asked, you know? So shortly after that, I was thinking to myself, the judge asked me, I'll tell the judge, you know. Nobody asks me my name yet.

So the judge comes in, says, I would go through the whole thing. Afterwards, they go out in the hallway, and I wait a couple minutes. And as I'm leaving, I should have known right then, they were all in a little circle and then two guys broke off. and one guy went to the stairs. I think there was the FBI agent and went to the stairs and one guy went to the elevators. It was at the courthouse in Philadelphia,

each floor has two different courtrooms. So once you leave a courtroom, you're either going to the elevator or you're going to the stairs. So I take the elevator down and, you know, I got my phone back and come out on a market street and it's actually kind of weird because two blocks to your left is Independence Hall

where everybody was given their rights and I'm leaving the building where they take your rights away. And I got to pass the building where Thomas Jefferson sat down and wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and all. It's so weird. It's so surreal. So anyway, I make a right. And I'm walking up. I forget the number of the street.

I just get a feeling of something behind me. And I don't know why, but I don't know why. but I turned and I looked. And then I don't know if you're, it's an old show, Trigger Happy TV. They would dress actors up in big dog costumes, right? And then they would get on the asses of people walking in New York. And when the people would turn around,

these people in big dog costumes would. And that's exactly what it was. Like I turn and look over my shoulder and two guys with their hands in their pockets. Like, look in a little. around acting like they're washing windows like doing something you know I'm like all right so that's a little weird so I I go and I look at their hair and I look at their shoes because you know people will change their facial hair they'll change your clothes very rarely do they change their hair in shoes so I'm like all right bald guy black hair blue bobo's brown boots got it and I keep walking a little bit

then I do a tickle it's it's a performing in action gauging me the response, right? So mid-block, I cut over to the left to cross the street. And I'm like, let me see what these guys do. They walk up to the next intersection. And I'm acting like I'm on my phone. Then they cross over to my side. And so I'm like, okay, they keep my eye on them. And I crossed back over to where I had started. Now, they're kind of diagonal to me. And then I, they, if I were to go straight through them, I would get to my car. I'm parked outside the lot, in the outside lot, outside of FDC. So, I'm like, fuck, I gotta get to my car.

So I know if I turn around, there's probably going to be more people there, right? Honestly, I thought these people were from the cartel. This guy is, you know, pleading. A cartel member is pleading. Now someone's following me. And I'm like, what the fuck? So they're over on the corner.

I pass them. As I'm passing them. I act like I'm on the phone, but I'm recording them because if I do get shot, at least my dad will be able to see the video of the last two people who were following me. And then I just start evading. Like I go up a couple blocks and I turn right at the Constitution Center. And, you know, I look back and I'm like, all right, I don't think they have direct eyesight on me. so I pick up the pace a little bit and then I pass a parking garage for the constitution I'm like I want to come out of there so then I make another right and I fucking book it into the Constitution Center

and a security guard there because the mint I guess is right there or the Federal Reserve or something there's a security guard she was watching me and I'm like great now I'm fucked but I run into the Constitution Center as a security guard I was like how do we get back to my car through that elevator

Great. So jump on the elevator. Well, there's a staff door that was locked that I thought was the elevator. So now I'm like trying to, I'm sure the video is fucking hysterical of me just trying to. So I get down. I could not find the garage to fucking save my life. And I'm walking in all these staff areas. And I'm like, you know, how do I get back to the car? And he's like, oh, out that door. I walk out the door.

And it's a balcony. It's just a balcony with nothing else there. I'm like, what the fuck? So I finally get to the garage, come out, and come out where I want to, and I'm like, okay, if somebody was following me, I think I'm good now. I didn't know at the time that they were the FBI, and they immediately went in behind me and when it's looked at the cameras to see where I went. So at least they had like a general direction, I guess, of where I was going. And then the roundhouse in Philadelphia is right near the FDC. It's like where they hold, you know, county, anybody locked up in Philly who's going to county or whatever, they go to the roundhouse.

So I book it to the roundhouse. I cut through all the police cars and come the back way through the lot. And I get my car. I throw my shit in my car. And every investigator has a piece of shit car that squeaks and, you know, is dented up and everything. 300,000 miles on it. So I jump in my piece of shit Volkswagen. I started up and the only way to get out of the lot is the same credit card that you got in with.

And I put it in and it's like invalid card. Invalid cards. It's like this can't be fucking happening to me. Invalid card. So what was happening during that time was my bank for some reason, they did it with like 2,000 customers. For some reason they kept issuing new bank cards like every two weeks. And whenever they did that, they would cancel your current card. And it would happen at the most random times, and it was happening now.

And I'm like, as well, I asked the guy, I'm like, hey, can I pay you cash? No, we don't accept cash. You got to call customer service on that little box there. And I'm like, fuck. So had that not been the case, I would have got out of there. They would have got my tag anyway and caught up to me eventually. But at the time, I'm still thinking it's a cartel, right? Or somebody not friendly to my client or me.

So I'm sitting there squatting down, like talking into this little box, like, I have a car, I have cash. I just can't get out. I need something. And then I hear, like I was smoking a cigarette and I hear FBI, let me see your hands. And the cigarette just like, boop, you know, drops out of my mouth. I put my hands up. Because like at that point, you know, you don't, you do what they say. as they say FBI. You just do what they say. So they're patting me down, looking at my trunk,

whatever. But it turns out it was the FBI. And we get into the shouting match, you know, about, they're like, why the fuck were you evading us? I was like, why the fuck were you following me? They're like, oh, this is a sensitive case. We, you know, we didn't know if you were the cartel. I was like, this is a sensitive case. I didn't know if you were the cartel. Like, so it ended up being a bunch of idiots chasing each other around Philadelphia. But, you know, we didn't know. But there was just like back and forth until they figured out who I was. They're like, what's your name? That's the first time somebody asked me what my name was.

So first of all, if I was in the federal courthouse and a marshal or an FBI agent was like, hey, what's your name? I'm going to fucking tell them. Am I legally required to give them my name? I don't know, but you're asking me. I know you're an FBI agent. I know you're a Marshall. I'm going to tell you who I am. I was never asked who I am.

All I was asked was, what's your role here? I'm just a neutral third party. Oh, neutral third party. What's your name? You know, like, so, you know, we have a lot of back and forth, a lot of misunderstanding. And they're like, I forget all the back and forth, but, like how do you know what was these guys or how do you know what was us following you? Which guys were following you?

I was like, these two guys. And they're like, all right, you know. They're like, well, how do you know? I'm like, because I looked at their shoes because I know tomorrow at Wawa, if I were to duck these guys tomorrow, if I see blue boboes and brown boots, I know I'm fucked. Like, oh, blue bobo guys here. I'm about to get a hole in my head.

You know, and I'm pretty sure I told them, you know, you're not supposed to do this. Like, this is, I didn't feel that it was right. But at the same time, I'm not going to, you know, file a complaint or whatever, you know. But the guy's like, you know, well, I can't do surveillance. And I was like, neither can I. Like, that's the funny thing is like, guys like us, we can't do surveillance. But so we get everything all cleared up. There was a couple more things back and forth.

And as they were leaving, I was like, hey, guys, by the way, I have cash. If any of you can pay for my parking and I give you all of them at the same time, I'm a neutral third party. I was like, fuck. But one dude, they disappeared. And then one dude, older guy, bald, he ran over. And he was like, do you really need to get out? I'm like, yes. I got to go pick up my daughter.

And he was like, all right. And he was a good dude. That's funny. Yeah, yeah. You were probably scared shitless. Think of the cartel of Sicario's after you. Yeah, 100% during the, I was relieved when it was the FBI. I was like, you know.

So another thing you were telling me when you came here, and this is like I've always, like I've wanted someone on the show to talk about this, is you just happen to be an EMT in your part-time job. Yeah, yeah. And you have gone into a prison to get an inmate before. All the time. Give us one of those stories of going into, like, what that process is like. The health care in prisons is atrocious, especially in emergent situations.

I've been doing it since 97. Not once have I shown up to a call in a prison. I'll take that back. Only a handful of times have I actually gone in in a reasonable amount of time, like a natural response, whatever the residents outside of the prison would get. There were a couple times where people just got knocked the fuck out. We're tits up in the middle of the pod. And we had to, you know, they had to lock everybody down.

We went up into the pot. But mostly they're in the infirmary. But it takes so long from the time the inmate gets to the infirmary. By the time they see them in the infirmary to the time they got to clear it with the doctor on call. And then there's a bunch of calls back and forth. And by the time we get to them, it's like an hour, two hours old. So somebody is having a heart attack for like two, two and a half hours, sometimes longer. But if it's a guard, we're there before the supervisor knows pretty much.

You know, it's so convoluted. So when an inmate gets hurt or is having a medical incident, they don't just call the 911 immediately. It's got to go through a process. Yeah, which is rather annoying because they know the process. They know that once they call 911, they're going to have to black box this guy, leg chains, you know, the wraparound arm chains. Even if he's having a heart attack. Even if he's knocked the fuck out, which I'll get to in a second. Oh, my cat.

But they never have them ready. And like, I'm not upset that I'm in the prison for 30 minutes. I'm upset that they could care less about how urgent this situation is. like you need to have him ready to go so we could just pick him up and put him on our stretcher. We don't need him to walk over. We lift people for a fucking living. Like our backs are already blown out from all the fat people.

Like we don't care. We'll pick this guy up. We'll put him on the stretcher. And we got to get him out of here. We got to get him to a hospital. There's no sense of urgency on the sense of at least NJDOC that I see. And we respond to Fort Dix federal correctional. Which is where I was.

Right. So there's that aspect. And a couple things to go along with that. At FDC at Fort Dix, there was an overdose. And the guards are like, no, no, no, it must be wine. It must be wine or something because they don't have heroin in here. I'm like, he woke up with the narcan. Like you have something in here that is not alcohol.

You know, they couldn't believe it. But it wasn't me. of another crew went to FTC or not FDC what is it FCI FCI FCI FCI FCI FCI for a cardiac arrest and the guards and this is a

unwritten rule and I've heard it 10,000 times nobody dies in prison if there's a cardiac arrest they'll call an ambulance and they'll do CPR and they'll be like get the fuck out that's the only urgency is when they're dead which boggles my mind.

Get them on your backboard. Get them on the stretcher. Everybody helping out. And get them out because they want them to be pronounced off-site. So even though they've been dead for like an hour. So they show up to Fort Dix. And I mean, this guy must have died overnight. I don't know what the story was.

But they're like, you've got to take them out of here. Nobody dies in prison. They're like, you got to keep them here. We don't transport dead people. We only will take them. There's a difference between cold and dead and warm and dead. If you're warm and dead, all right, fine. You know, it might be relatively recently.

If you're cold and dead, there's nothing we can do. We're not God. We're going to leave you there. And the medical examiner comes or whatever. But there was a whole pissing match. They locked our guys inside. They wouldn't let him leave without the body. Like our chief had to end up going there.

And at the time, that guy, he ended up getting fired. but he was a hot head and he went out there and screamed out everybody but ultimately we left the body there you know and at Garden State I think it was one of the times we had to go up

into the where the cells were this guy's gorked he is like tits up on the ground vomit everywhere obvious head injury and the guards are all standing around and I said

well what happened to him like did he just done fall out? Like, did you get hit with something? Was he complaining? I think he was he was trying to jump out the window, I think.

And I'm like, a fucking window. What window? Like, there's no windows in prison? And I look over and it's just, you know, those medieval archer windows

that are angled and it's only like a small. And then I look at his head and he's got, it looks like horns coming out. Like he's got a massive fracture in the, in the front of his, skull. So I don't know who did it, whether it's the guards or the other inmates, but somebody took this man's head and try to shove it, try to fit it through that window in a fit of rage. They cracked his skull. Unconscious, gorked, done, right? Well, they black box him in everything.

We get him on the stretcher. We get him out. The medics couldn't get a line in because of the way his arms were. He's unconscious, so it's not like he could put his arms in a position of comfort and then they they just cuffed him however his arms went they couldn't get a line in either in and over here or in the top of his hand so like hey we need to uncuff him to get a line in and the guy's like nope it's our policy every inmate stays cuffed um you know we can't have any inmates escaping i was like what what escape look at this guy he he has whatever brain matter he has is probably dripping down the back of his throat right now Like, they just don't get it.

But, like, they don't understand that this man needs drugs so they can intubate him and all that stuff. And it's a human life. They just say, nope, our procedure says he must stay cuffed. That's crazy. 100%. So when you guys get the call that you have to go to the prison, you get in the ambulance, you go there. What happens when you show up at the gate? Are they searching you guys and holding you up there?

Are they letting you right in? Um, we don't get searched, but our, um, they had a policy for a while where, you know, no cell phones. Um, I'm like, no, fuck you, dude. I, I'm not going to go into this prison where my radio doesn't work because it's a dead zone, right? Um, if I need help, I need to call it. And I can't trust you guys. I can't, I can't trust you guys to color within the lines even. Like, I'm not going to trust you to call for help for me.

You know, so that's always an argument. Not so much anymore. But I'm like, we just need one phone. One phone so we can call whoever the fuck we need, whether it's the town cops, whether it's our dispatcher, whether it's our chief. This is our line of communication. But they don't, back in the day,

they used to open the bags and whatnot, not so much anymore. Because we're going right to the infirmary, getting the people, and then coming right back out. And there's a whole slew of guards around now. And the guards are coming in the ambulance with you? They're sending someone with you. One of them does, yeah. Who's armed, I'm a presuming.

Yep. Yep. So obviously no guns are allowed in jail. So, you know, it depends on the facility we go to. Sometimes you go to their front door. Sometimes you go to the back place. That's more minimum. And then there's one mid-state where you actually got to pull through. a fence. It's like a Sally Port kind of thing, but open. And then that fence closes. They search

around the vehicle with a mirror. They should have a dog there. And I think about it. And then one opens up. The other one opens up. Then you pull. So that's a little bit of a pain in the ass. But for the most part, we just, we go in and. Yeah, that's how like the tension centers are where you go in. They shut one gate and then they close the other. And then it's in like that. Are you ever worried about like someone trying to make a prison escape? Like you ever like this is like the movie, someone's fake in a hospital thing. No, I mean, you know, if they want to blow up an ambulance, you know, blow me up. Well, they wouldn't hurt you. Yeah, they would just be trying to escape for themselves.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, with my luck, you know, their accomplice will kill me in the process, you know. Because, you know, we wear uniforms, you know, and we have badges on. Even though it's got the star life and stuff, like, you know, my luck, somebody will think I'm a cop, you know. That's funny. But, you know, they need just the other night I was there. And they didn't have the guy ready. It took them like 20 minutes to get ready. They had to go find bigger cuffs.

They had to go find a bigger outfit, all this stuff. But while I'm in there, 25 minutes, the 30 minutes or whatever it was, I heard, I must have heard the word face sheet 10,000 times because they always print out the details in case there is an escape. It's got the guy's SBI number and, you know, tattoos and, you know, pictures of his face. I heard the word Face sheet. You got a face sheet? Hey, where's the face sheet? Face sheet, face sheet.

We're leaving the prison and the guy in the back It says, oh, hold on, can you go ask the guy because they always have a trail car? Can you go ask my partner if he's got a face sheet? You've got to be fucking kidding me. If this man does not have this face sheet

so I ask him Hey, you got to, oh, you know what? I don't. And I told him, I was like, this is fucking bullshit. We're the only ambulance for three towns. We got to fucking, you guys got to get your shit together. Like, they can't even do that right, you know? And then we get to the hospital.

They had a face sheet. It's for the wrong fucking guy. It's like, seriously. Like, do you guys really fuck footballs in there? Like, a bunch of monkeys? I don't know. So, but, yeah. You live quite an interesting life.

It's not as interesting as this sounds. It sounds exciting. Yeah, it's But Mark, thank you so much for coming on the show today, man. Yeah, no worries. It's been a pleasure talking to you and getting this insight and hope to have more private investigators on the show. Hopefully this opens the door to getting more people,

more professionals, industry professionals, to kind of like talk about their experience and whatnot. Yeah, that'd be great. There's tons out there. And if the two best private investigators are someone who's, well, they wouldn't be working as a private investigator maybe as a paralegal, someone who's been incarcerated, who's working on your case, or a female investigator.

Female investigators, by default, are just as good as any well-trained male investigators. So just anybody out there, if you have an investigator on your case, hope that they're female or hope that they've been incarcerated before. Or you. Or me. That's right. Awesome, man. Thank you.