Locked In with Ian Bick - Prosecutor On Putting Chomos & Corrupt Cops In Prison | Will Flanagan

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Former Prosecutor, Mayor & Criminal Defense Attorney Will Flanagan comes on to give us the details of prosecuting the bad guys, corruption in the justice system, what it's like to be one of the youngest mayors in the country and why public defenders represent those accused of horrendous crimes. Follow Ian Bick on Instagram: @ian_bick & Snapchat: ianbick Connect with Will Flanagan: https://www.tiktok.com/@mayor_flanagan Buy Merch: https://lockedinbrand.com Use code lockedin at checkout to get 20% off your order Connect with Ian Bick: https://www.ianbick.com Chapters: 00:00:00 - Cracking Down on Crime 00:02:39 - From the Projects to Public Office 00:05:35 - The Challenges of Being a Young Mayor 00:08:29 - False Allegations and Political Fallout 00:11:05 - Facing Allegations and Career Changes 00:13:51 - From the Projects to the Cannabis Industry 00:16:34 - Becoming an attorney and career goals 00:19:01 - The Rehabilitation vs. Incarceration Debate 00:21:43 - Pursuing Justice and Prosecutorial Misconduct 00:24:20 - Dealing with Guilty but Unconvicted Individuals 00:27:13 - False Accusations and the Judicial System 00:29:58 - The Problem Officer 00:32:50 - Chomos 00:35:36 - The Responsibility of Care and Custody 00:38:16 - Relationships in the Courtroom 00:40:57 - The Influence of Bias on Jury Selection 00:43:35 - The Entertainment of Trials 00:46:44 - Challenges in Prosecuting and Defending Trump 00:49:46 - Bucking the System 00:52:28 - The Cost of Prosecution 00:55:17 - An Encounter with Federal Agents 00:57:45 - The Temptations of Public Officials 01:00:37 - The importance of doing the right thing 01:03:15 - Taking on Guilty Clients 01:05:45 - Public Defenders and the Love of the Law 01:08:12 - Public Perception and the Role of Attorneys 01:11:03 - The Consequences of Bail for the Poor 01:13:58 - The Money-Making System of Jails and County Jails 01:16:40 - The Trap of Probation 01:19:22 - The Importance of Learning from Experiences 01:22:22 - Promoting Transparency and Accountability Produced by: https://www.instagram.com/shanedanahy https://www.shanedanahy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available.

Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at Mintmobile.com. There was a nightclub in my city causing havoc in the community. But as mayor, I vowed that I was going to crack down and cry and make the city a safer place. When I closed the nightclub down, crime dramatically decreased in that neighborhood. And the owner of the nightclub was upset with me because I shut his nightclub down. One morning, I got to work early because the nightclub owner was waiting by the elevator. And there wasn't anybody around because the building had just opened.

From behind me, I heard his voice say, Mayor, you drop this. I turned around and he's holding an envelope and he opens it up. And it's probably about at least $20,000 in cash in there. He's looking at me and I'm looking at him. I said, you know damn well, I didn't drop that. Others have taken it. You take it too. I said, I'm not other people.

And please don't ever, ever do that again to me. On today's episode, we have former prosecutor, mayor, and criminal defense attorney Will Flanagan to give us the inside scoop of prosecuting chomos, how corrupt law enforcement officials plant evidence, challenges of prosecuting and defending political figures, and why public defenders represent individuals that are accused of devastating crimes. This is a super exciting episode, and I can't wait for you guys to listen. If you could please do me a favor and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to this podcast, it means the absolute world and if you're watching this on youtube remember to subscribe and drop a comment of your thoughts of this episode i hope everyone sits back relaxes and gets ready to lock in with will flanagan

will mr flanagan how you doing today man i'm doing great being here with you awesome man happy to be here i think you're um one of the uh the oldest ticotkers i met nice and your former prosecutor yeah former uh defense attorney correct former mayor Correct. You have quite the resume. Yes, all by the age of 43. I feel underqualified to be interviewing right now. You are in the arena with me, my friend.

I think this is going to be a really great conversation. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, we were hitting it off over the phone. We connected over TikTok. Yes. And then we were just bouncing stuff off the phone. And I think the audience is really going to enjoy your perspective because it's the first of its kind on this show. So why don't you take us through the beginning?

Where are you from? Where do you grow up? What was, like, childhood like for you? Born and raised in Far River, Massachusetts, a small city about an hour south of Boston, located near Providence, Rhode Island. So you get that Boston culture, you get that Rhode Island culture. And very humble upbringing, humble beginnings, born and raised in the projects, grew up on public assistance, first of my family to go to college, went to a vocational high school.

And the odds are really against me. should not be where I am today. If you look at some of the people who I grew up with, many of them are not here today. And after graduating from high school, I went on to the University of Massachusetts, graduated with a degree in sociology and criminal justice, and went on to law school. I graduated from law school. And at that time, I was like 25, 26 years old. And I was appointed as the city solicitor of time.

in Massachusetts, another small city outside of Boston. And my responsibilities at that young age was I was the city's attorney. I was the advisor to the mayor, the city council, the school board, the police department, the fire department. If somebody sued the city, I would represent them. And I did that for about two years. And then I'm doing well. I'm making a lot of connections. I'm networking. I'm getting a name for myself as being a talented young attorney. and the district attorney's office taps me. They want me to be a prosecutor for Bristol County. And I was the youngest supervisor in the history of Bristol County for the district court system.

So now I'm prosecuting everything but murder cases, you know, high profile cases, media cases, getting into the courtrooms. And I'm now also developing as a fair but tough prosecutor. And I'm developing, you know, a good name. in the community, and it's about 2009 at the time, and the city where I was born and raised, my hometown of Fall River, is going through some turmoil. You know, the current mayor is not doing so well. There's talks about voting him out. The power brokers are looking to shift and change their support. So at the age of 29, I run for mayor. And at first, nobody really gave me a shot.

There's several well-established candidates who were running from mayor. And I just hit the ground running. Every day I would go out door knocking, knocking on doors, burnt through probably two or three pairs of sneakers. Just getting out of work, court would close. Knocked doors to the sun went down. Saturday, Sunday, knocked doors. Introduce myself to people. I am Will Flanagan, born and raised in Fall River.

I want to be your mayor. I need your vote on Election Day. And I probably knocked on about 15 to 20,000 doors. That's a lot of people. Started in January, February of 2009, right up until the election of November that year. And I was elected the youngest mayor in the history of Fall River at the age of 29 years old. And to be mayor at 29 is an unbelievable experience. You're the mayor, right?

So you're making decisions, policy that's affecting the life of the residents of your city. Your public safety, education, infrastructure. You're meeting with the president, President Obama, Vice President Biden at the time, congressmen, senators, kings, queens. You're like the up-and-coming person in the political establishment. And that's 2009, 2010, winning elections. 70% of the vote, 80% of the vote, just like the wonder kid. You know, this is the guy that's going to, you know, take the city to where it needs to be.

And as the country is going through now turmoil again, 2014, 15, 16, some of the federal grants that cities rely upon are now running out, and they're running out and they're not getting renewed. So one of the major grants that I had in the city was the grant, for the fire department and employed about maybe 50 firefighters. And that grant was expiring. So now you're looking at layoffs in the fire department. So you come in a hero, but you stay long enough, you become the villain.

So now you've got to have to make tough decisions where you might have to lay off firefighters. You may have to lay off police officers. There may have to be some cuts to the school department because your operating expense, and you get this being in business, your operating expense is not meaning your revenues. You're generating revenue and it's not meeting up with the cost of doing business. There's union contracts. There's increases in the cost of living in the city. Energy costs go up. Transportation costs go up. Even the cost of a pencil increases. So the cost of doing business is increasing and your revenue's not keeping up. You're almost going off

cliff. So now there's political turmoil focusing at me in the city and people are starting, you know, saying, am I going to run for mayor? It's going to run for reelection. But there was a recall election in the city of Fall River. And with that recall election, one of the city councilors who was a strong supporter of mine ended up signing his name to the recall petition. So I had a conversation with them. I was like, why would you do that? You know, you and I always worked well together. Publicly you've supported me. I've supported you.

You've helped me in my re-election efforts. I helped get you elected. Why would you sign my recall petition? That makes no sense to me. He's like, well, why don't we talk about it? We'll meet about it. You know, we'll go over and apologize to you. So we end up meeting, and there was a late-night meeting,

on the waterfront in Fall River. And if you ever watched those movies in the 20s and things, If something bad were to take place, it takes place on the waterfront, especially at night, right? So the optics of it did not look good. But again, for me, it's an innocent meeting with somebody who I thought was my friend. I was going to meet with talk about something that he was about to apologize for. And we're both young. We work long hours, so, you know, the time and location really didn't matter to me at that particular time.

So we meet, the meeting goes well, but after the meeting, I start hearing things where the council is saying that I intimidated them and I intimidated them with a firearm, which was, I thought it was a joke at first. You know, when the police chief calls me and says, mayor, I got a city council sitting in my office saying that you threatened them with a firearm. I thought it was April Fool's Day, right? I thought he was joking with me. But he was serious. And the next thing I know, the district attorney is opening up a independent investigation into me where he's not going to do the investigation himself because he's now running from here. So I have the city council that once supported me starting to turn on me.

The DA opens up an independent investigation on me and now the DA is running against me for mayor. So people like, how are you going to resign? What are you going to do? You're under investigation? I said, fuck, no, I'm not resigning. I did nothing wrong. You know what I mean? I'm going to see this through to the end.

I'm going to go out and campaign. I'm going to do my job as mayor. I'm going to keep doing, you know, the job that people elected me to do. And at the end of the day, you know, let the chips fall where they fall. But I'm going to go out and keep doing what I need to do. And there was an election. I ended up finishing in second place. The DA finished in first place.

He had that advantage over me. There was several people running. I did fairly well, but I didn't win. You know, I missed it by a few hundred votes. And after the election, I was cleared, right? The investigative report came out. And although they found the city council are credible, no charges were ever brought against me.

But for a while there, my back was up against the wall, you know, very easily. I could have been in court fighting for my life. And technically I was. There was an investigation going on. You know, there were records subpoenaed. There were people who were interviewed. And it was a concerning time in my life.

Even though I knew I did nothing wrong, there were still people making allegations against me. And that sometimes is all it takes for your ass to wind up in a courtroom. All it takes is probable cause. So if the law enforcement official believes there's probable cause to issue a criminal complaint against you, then it's on. And it's up for a judge or a jury to determine your innocence. It's almost like you're guilty until you prove you're innocent and not innocent until proven guilty. So my career in politics is coming to a close, unceremoniously for me. and so I go back to doing what I knew best and that was being an attorney.

But this time, instead of being a prosecutor, I'm seeing things on the other end. I'm now a defense attorney. And having a reputation as a mayor, some people also viewing you as a badass because they hear that story about you, right? Even though, you know, is it true, is it not true, is still that perception of you. And you're also a former prosecutor. And you've got a reputation as being a fairly good attorney. so now the phone starts to ring and it rings a lot. And as I was prosecuting these high profile cases, I'm now defending them.

So whether it's a homicide, a bank robbery, drug trafficking, even a simple OUI driving while drunk, I'm now developing a reputation as, you know, one of the premier defense attorneys in the area. But, you know, the work, it wasn't, you know, I'm sorry. starting to lose the passion for the practice of law. Maybe because the sour taste in my mouth going through the system like I did. But I'm still doing the job and I'm doing it well because I'm contractually obligated to do what you're taking on these cases. You're signing agreements and contracts with people.

But the opportunity arises for me to get into the cannabis industry. Now, at that time, I never used cannabis. I'm straight-laced. I don't know much about it, but the opportunity arises for me to go into the industry and stop working there. In fact, one of the people who I went to law school with, one of my fellow classmates,

is a rising star at that time in the cannabis industry in Colorado. So he invites me out to Denver to, you know, get my foot in the door. And I go from being an attorney in the cannabis industry to now owning dispensaries myself. So, you know, that's the career pretty much from being born in the projects, going on to being an attorney, to sitting here present day with you, being a CEO and entrepreneur in the cannabis industry. You've lived an incredible life. Yeah, by the age of 43. You literally got to experience all ends of the spectrum.

Yes. I also appreciate that you just ran me through your whole life story, so now we can focus on like the good questions and the audience won't get mad at me for. interrupting for all the questions that I'd like to know about. I gave you the trailer. That was the trailer. Hey, not everyone could do that, but it's nice. You could tell you're a politician and a lawyer and a prosecutor, well-spoken, put together. Thank you.

Nicest dressed man on the podcast, too. Fair enough. So why law? What made you decide to get into that? I knew. I always had the passion for public service. And for whatever reason, I wanted to be involved in government. government. Personally, I thought I would enjoy it. I found it sexy, entertaining, but also

there was a part of me that says, yeah, I like to help people. You know, somebody needs help. I want to be able to help them. And I was also studying social services. I didn't want to be a social worker. That wasn't work I wanted to do. I wanted to be the guy that somebody would go to for help. And, you know, as a young kid, sometimes you have those dreams. of being a president or being a governor or even being mayor. And those were dreams and aspirations I had as a young child. They would ask you, what do you want to be when you grow up? I would say president or I would say mayor or governor. So I knew that attorneys had a high success rate of being elected to office. And that's something I knew at like age 14, 15 in high school. It's like

I want to go to law school. As what I want to do. Even though I was in a vocation. I was in a vocation. school. Most of the, most of my classmates didn't go on to college. They went on to be mechanics or carpenter's or electricians making great money. You know, out of high school, they were earning six figures. I was going to college with a bill of six figures, right? So it was kind of strange for a kid from a vocational school to go to college. It didn't happen, especially at the time that I went to a vocational school. So I knew, that being an attorney would help me on my resume and also help me on my journey to having a career. And I also had an interest in the law in how it could help people. Being an attorney,

I thought was cool. There's so many things you can do. You can be a sports agent. You can be an attorney in the music industry or the movie industry. Or you can be a prosecutor or a defense attorney. I never wanted me that type of attorney who was like a contract attorney or somebody who was in a book all day. That's not for me. I wanted to be litigating on my feet, you know, talking and socializing and networking. Even though I'm an introvert, I think personally, when the cameras are on or the lights are on or somebody's tapching says, okay, it's showtime, you know, that's when the lights come on and the performance comes out. I'm literally the same way. Like, I'm very introverted, but when I'm on camera, I'm extroverted. When I'm in a public crowd, I'm extroverted, when I have to be.

Like when it's funny, huh? Yeah, like when it's doer. die, but like if I'm having like a one-on-one conversation with someone, like if you stick me in the room with a woman, like it's just like, up against the corner. Yeah, like, I'm getting better with that. But like, in general, like, that's how I've always operated. Sure. And, but I was always like the class clown and like the kid that ran the nightclubs and the parties and everything. So it's interesting that there's someone else. I think you're the first person I met that kind of like feels that way too. Yeah, you get it. So, but why working for, I guess you would call them the good guys, the, the, the prosecutors and not straight to criminal defense.

America's first pledge was freedom. Jeep still carries that fighting spirit. With the Jeep Declaration of Deals, we're pledging our allegiance to the American people with great deals on the luxurious Grand Cherokee, with available three-row seating premium craftsmanship and tech that turns every drive into an adventure. Or Jeep Rangler with legendary four-by-four capability and open-air freedom. Because freedom deserves the vehicle built to carry it. Jeep, there's only one.

Hurry into your local dealer for the Jeep Declaration of Deals. Jeep has won more awards over its lifetime than any other SECB branch. The Jeep of the Jeep Grill or registered trademarks of XCAUS LLC. Again, it's building the resume. Ian, it's okay, if you want to be the mayor, you want to be the governor, you want to be a U.S. senator, you got to build that resume. And it's public service. It's good government. And it's when you get out there on the campaign stump and you get out there and you're advocating, yeah, I'm the guy who

cracked down on crime. I'm the guy who made a difference. But also, as a prosecutor, I had a reputation as being fair. I got it. I wanted to make sure that the recidivism rate was lowered, where it was more about rehabilitation and recidivism than just, you know, sending everybody to jail. Jail's not for everybody. And yes, there are bad people in this world who deserve to be in jail, and you cannot let be out in the public because they're going to hurt. people. But the vast majority of people, you look at it and you say, what does jail do for them? You know, a person who gets caught selling narcotics or a person who gets a court in some type of, you know, nonviolent case, does jail really rehabilitate them? Does it help them? You know,

you're separating them from their family. You're making them spend money on attorney's fees and court fees. You're taking them away from their place of employment. You're, you're taking them away from their place of employment, you're disconnecting them from community, and whether we talk about it or not, a lot of bad things happen in jail. Okay? So I get the concept of it, but it's not always the answer to the question, and most of the times it's the incorrect answer to the question. But did you have this mindset as a young gunho prosecutor looking to get in a higher office and probably get a high conviction rate? Because I feel like a lot of these prosecutors have an angle to advance their careers.

And they need to be tough on crime in those situations. I had the reputation as, okay, Flanagan's in the courtroom today. This is the day we're going to get our case settled. Defendants would actually be brought from prison to the courthouse and say, is Flanagan there today? No. Okay, send me back to jail. Because they knew I was fair.

The offer I was going to offer them was what they thought in their mind was, oh, okay, this is, I did the crime, I know I did the crime, and this is fair, okay? And also sometimes, I would also look at progressive discipline. First time in, there's no action. Second time in, it's a dismissal. Maybe third time in, it's a continuous without a finding. You know, your fourth time in, you're looking at it guilty. Maybe now you're looking at a felony conviction, which can really have some negative effects on your life. Or if it's a serious crime, You know, maybe we're going to look at a suspended sentence. So you get that punishment hanging over your head saying,

okay, I'm going to stop making some better decisions in my life. Because, yeah, you do want people to be members of society. You want people to actually contribute to society. You know, if you're out running and gunning, that's less time you're spending with your children. That's less time you're spending, you know, in your household with your family. And if you're not there for your kids, it's just that bad cycle that, you know, you see families get stuck.

where, you know, grandma, grandpa's in the system, then mom and dad's in the system, then their grandkids are in the system. It's that cycle of violence. So as a prosecutor, it wasn't about convictions with me. It wasn't about, you know, grabbing that hell line, although I grabbed many of them. It was about how can I make a difference?

Or, okay, Ian Bix in the courtroom with me today, you know, what are we going to do to make sure Ian's living a better life? What are we going to do to make sure that he's not, you know, addicted to heroin or what are we going to do to make sure he's not robbing people's houses that night? What can we do to help Ian and help the community, too? I saw the big picture, even at a young age. So a lot of people don't think that, though, that we're in your position. So what about, like, prosecutorial misconduct? Did you see that happen?

It happens. And if you see that, how do you write those wrongs, maybe from a predecessor and whatnot, too? It happens, Ian. And I don't have a simple answer on that. How do you write those wrongs? But there's cases where prosecutors withhold evidence. Those people shouldn't be prosecutors. They shouldn't be attorneys.

They should be held responsible for the crimes they just committed. There's also prosecutors that say, look, I know your client's innocent, but I got to cover my ass here. And I'm still going to go forward with the prosecution of this case. I've had cases as a defense attorney where the victim, the alleged victim, will come to court and say, I made the whole thing up. I made it up.

And this is why I made it up. And the prosecutor still say, I'm not going to dismiss the case. I'm still going to convene a jury, put you on the stand, alleged victim, and then you tell the jury that you made it up and let the jury come back with the verdict. Now, that's not right in my opinion.

As the prosecutor, you have a ethical responsibility, you have a moral responsibility, and you have a legal responsibility to do what's right. And if the evidence is exonerating, it's your responsibility as that prosecutor to make sure that that person who's innocent to be set free and to be allowed out of that court house and not have to spend the money to go to trial

or take the day out of work or have to worry about whether or not they're going home at night or to put their family through the stress of having to be concerned with whether their loved ones coming home at night or are they going to have to spend

the next three years hugging their loved one through a plexiglass or having 30-minute meetings with them where they can't touch them. That's the system we live in. So what about on the other end of the spectrum when you have someone that you know is guilty and it could be something serious

like a rape or assault, but you don't have the evidence to convict. You know he's guilty on a variety of things, but not this instant. How do you deal with that morally as a prosecutor? How do you go home at night with that? Well, you look at both ends, right? So it's the system. There's rules. And when you become an attorney, you take an oath that you're going to play by those rules and those rules mean something. And without those rules, the whole system breaks down. We're a society of rules. We're a society. of regulations. And I'll look at it from both ends of the spectrum with you. As a prosecutor, all it takes is probable cause.

That's all it takes for a complaint. If there's probable cause, then the complaint can issue. And how do you get probable cause? Well, you can convene a grand jury, and you put 12 people in a room, and you put evidence before them. Now, there's a lot of issues with the grand jury system. It's one-sided, as you know.

You don't even get a chance to put in any evidence. But let's say, for the sake of argument, probable cause is established. Or on some minor offenses, you can also establish probable cause by a police report. An officer under oath and the penalties of perjury signs a police report,

a complaint that you committed these crimes in this jurisdiction. And that's all it takes. for a criminal complaint to issue. That's all it takes for your ass to be brought into a courthouse and arraigned. As crazy as that sounds, the word of one person,

as crazy as that sounds, one person's word can put you in court and put you on the offensive where you're fighting for your life. So now you've got to have a good defense attorney to make sure that you're putting forth the evidence or the lack of evidence to a jury or to a judge while that case should be dismissed or that there's not enough evidence to find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, and most cases, a prosecutor's not taking a case to trial if they don't have the evidence. You would want to think that, but a lot of times it's the CYA system cover your ass. if a complaint's brought forward, the prosecutor a lot of times doesn't want to be the person to sign that dismissal or to let that case go. They're going to pass the buck to the jury. And the system allows it, okay? And I gave you that example earlier where I've had cases where the victims have come in, all calling complaining witnesses, because we won't even give them the title of victims because they lied. They're complaining witnesses.

And they come in and say, I made it all up. And this is why I made it up. I had an axe to grind or a vendetta or I caught him cheating or, you know, I wanted him in jail for whatever reason, or I'm mentally ill or I was addicted to drugs and I hallucinated the whole thing. But I got a police officer to believe me, it really happened. And they still bring that case forward. So, you know, they'll pass it off to the jury to say, okay, this is the evidence jury. Is he guilty or is he not guilty?

And the jury doesn't always get it right. They are innocent people today sitting in jail. Some of them doing life sentences. There are innocent people who have been put to death because the judicial system got it wrong. Do you think there's too much power in someone's word in the court system? Yes. And how do we fix that? There's no simple answer.

There's no simple answer. You know, how do you fix it with proper investigation? That's how you fix it. because a lot of the times the crimes have already been committed. The crime's been committed. You're not stopping crime from happening. It's already been committed. And you're charging somebody with the crime that has already occurred.

And a lot of times there's a rush to get somebody charged. There is a rush to solve the crime. There's a rush to, you know, get the person arrested. And with that rush, evidence gets lost or destroyed. mistakes are made, the wrong persons arrested, and a lot of mistakes are made along the way. So to answer your question, how do you prevent it from occurring, you conduct a proper investigation, an honest, transparent investigation. And we haven't really even talked about this, but there are instances, there are circumstances where police lie. They are bad cops out there

who will plant evidence, who will lie, who will falsify a police report. They should not be police officers. They should be charged. They should be held accountable for their crimes. Police carry a lot of power. Judges carry a lot of power. Police officers carry a lot of power. Prosecutors carry a lot of power.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, and we definitely see a lot of police officers getting charged more now. this day and age, did you ever have to prosecute a police officer? Yes. What was that experience like for you? It had no effect on me because I didn't view them as a police officer. I view them as the person who was in front of me who was charged with committing a crime. And I'll give you a perfect example.

And for some reason, I don't know what the reason is, but this sticks out in my head. I was a young prosecutor, fairly new to the office. and there was a police officer in a small town. And, you know, the interactions I had with this officer were all positive. Actually, I think it was ex-military, you know, buzzcup, yes sir, no, sir, almost very robotic. You wouldn't say, okay, this is, if I put 10 police officers in a room, he would not be the officer you picked out as the problem officer. He's probably the guy you wanted on your team, right? because it was all, you know, by the book.

But on this particular occasion, after he had booked the prisoner, he went back to the squat car and he found a small bag of drugs in the backseat of the car. Now, there was policy and protocol that said that the officer had to sweep the car before he got into it and sweep the car before he brought the prisoner in to make sure that if there was any drug, drugs found in the car, they would be able to say, okay, it wasn't there before I put him in, but it was there after I put him in. The officer put in his police report that he found the bag of drugs on the person he arrested. He lied.

It was a minor lie, but he still lied. And that bag of drugs, more likely than not, probably did be long to the person he arrested. But because he lied, how could he be a police officer, going forward. How could you trust his words? You couldn't. And if he were lying about something so small, what would happen if it was something bigger than that? Would he be the officer who planted evidence? Would he be the officer who falsified a police report? So that officer was found guilty. The judge sentenced him to a small jail sentence, and he lost his job, lost his pension. And, you know, he had that reputation as the officer who lied. So,

Yes, there have been times that I have prosecuted police officers. There's been times where police officers come to me for representation because they're human too and they make mistakes. Whether they get caught drunk driving or they get into a domestic with their wife or they get charged with possession of drugs or distribution of drugs. So I've seen it from both ends, Ian. What was like the worst case you've ever prosecuted, like one that you will never leave your mind? It was like so bad. Crimes against children. Yeah, those were really bad cases.

You know, as a prosecutor, there were just sick people out there who hurt children. And, you know, even though I was an open and fair-minded prosecutor, if you were the guy who committed a crime against a child or the elderly, I was going to hammer you. And I would guarantee you, nobody knew the... evidence better than me in that courtroom. Nobody knew the facts better than me. And there was no way you were getting out of that courtroom. If you were innocent, you were innocent. But if you were guilty, you were going to get hammered. So for me, as a prosecutor, it was always crimes against children or crimes against the elderly. I was going to hammer you. Now, when you put a sex offender in prison, say, are you hoping that that individual gets hurt in prison or do you want him to serve that

sentence because that's a hot topic in America right now is how they're treated in prison. Yeah, for me personally, I'll take it from both aspects. As a prosecutor, the case would end for me. I would not get personally attached to the case. It was always, okay, I'm professional. I'm the prosecutor. I took an oath here. I'm going to do this case to the best of my abilities.

Nobody's going to know it better than me. I'm going to hammer down on it. and there's no room for negotiation on that type of case. This is it. You know, lock in and we're going to trial. As a person, you know, I got no use for anybody who commits a crime against a child, and I'll just leave it at that. But also at the same time, you're a government official.

So say that, like, that person reached out to you in your capacity to say they were being mistreated and a law was being violated against them in prison. what's your standpoint on that? Are you intervening because it's your duty to make sure that they are protected in that prison? As a public official, yes, you take an oath, right? So a lot of the people who are serving sentences for sex crimes, they're going to spend most of the day in solitary confinement, right? Especially if it's in a serious sex crime and especially a crime against a child.

They're going to be locked up for at least 23 hours a day. and they're probably going to get one hour of time to go out and shower or maybe walk around or eat. Sometimes they're even eating in their cell at that point. But as I said, we're a system of rules and laws. You're going to make sure that there's rules and laws also in the jail system too. So you're taking a responsibility to protect and to care because that person's in your custody. as a jail official, which I never was, but as a jail official, when somebody comes into your care, custody, and protection,

they're your responsibility, right? So you've got to do everything you can to keep them safe, right? Whether they're a murderer or a sex offender or a child predator, they're in your care, custody and control. You're the sheriff, right? You're the correction system. And is there going to be prison justice? You bet your ass is going to be.

especially for the guys who are serving life sentences, right? They got nothing to lose. So jail can be a very dangerous place. And if you are the person who has the target or the bounty on your head or you're in the same pod as somebody who's serving a life sentence who has nothing to lose or somebody who just mentally is locked in and says, you're the person I'm going to harm today, then you have a responsibility to make sure that that does not happen in your jailhouse.

Do prosecutors know this stuff happens? Like, is it like small talk in the office, say, like, this is what's going to happen to this guy in prison? It can be. It has been. But again, I think a lot of the prosecutors just focus on their cases, you know. To do their job. Do their job. I get here at 8 o'clock.

I leave at 5 o'clock. I got my family to go home to. I'm not going to take the work home with me. But there are, police officers have a high rate of addiction. Domestic violence, divorce. because they take their jobs home with them a lot. Same thing with prosecutors, sometimes with defense attorneys. You know, they're doing jobs that mentally can weigh on you.

You know, you're doing a murder case. You're doing a case where a child got hurt. You're doing a case where somebody shot up a movie theater or somebody put a bomb in a marathon, right? So those things can weigh on you, yeah. Now, something I'm curious about because you were both a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, how do you feel about the relationships with prosecutors and judges?

Because something I got to see firsthand was that my attorney would get invited to the court Christmas party where you have the prosecutor, the judge, and the criminal defense attorney. That's a plus for the criminal defense attorney to have those relationships. But from a defendant's standpoint, it just seems a little bit unfair that the prosecutors get to co-mingle with the judges on that personal level. It shouldn't happen. and it can't happen. The court system has to be fair and it has to be honest

and people cannot lose trust in it. There are judges who are corrupt. There are judges who are on the take. There are judges who accept bribes. There's judges who have relationships with prosecutors. There are judges who have relationships with defense attorneys. We may not want to talk about it, but we would be naive to think it doesn't happen.

and for the prosecutor who's in that courtroom every day, who's before that judge every day, sometimes that can be a benefit to him or her, and sometimes it could be a negative because the judge may not like him or her. But you are very astute to say, yeah, you know, I want the defense attorney who has a good rapport with the judge, and I probably don't want the prosecutor

who knows the judge on a first name basis, you know, Because when there is a gray area, I want that decision to come down my way and not their way. Or if there's an objection, I want that objection overruled or sustained because it's going to help me in my case. But you are 100% correct. Those relationships do exist and would be naive to think they don't. I mean, I just think that in this day and age, it's impossible for a human being to be 100% impartial. Because we all have feelings. Of course.

Like if someone annoys someone in one area of their life, like a prosecutor, that you're seeing every day or an attorney, you're telling me you're not going to have any bad blood against this person in some capacity, even some consciously thinking. And on that note, do you think there's such thing as an impartial jury, like what technology nowadays?

It's funny because I'll talk a lot about this because it's a good topic to talk about. As a defense attorney, or in general, let me take a step back, during the voir dire. You know what a voir dire is? I went through it, yeah. And I was actually just a juror, like I went through the jury process.

It was cool to see it on the other end a couple weeks ago. So during the voir dire, they'll always ask a number of questions. And the purpose of those questions is to get a fair and impartial juror. Now, for the cases that would take place in my hometown or my neck of the woods where I'm a defense attorney, it was always interesting to see the voir dire because they would always ask the question potential juror, do you know anybody involved in this case?

All the hands would go up. So now one by one they would have to bring them up. Who do you know? I know Mr. Flanagan. And how do you know Mr. Flanagan? He was my mayor and I voted for him.

Okay. If Mr. Flanagan said something, would you tend to believe it more or less because he said it or would you listen to the evidence? Oh, no. Mr. Flanagan said it, I believe him. Mr. Flanagan would not lie.

Moved to disqualify, right? So it was always fun to go through the voir dire because half the potential juror would know me and they voted for me and they loved me. So if I was in that courthouse defending this person, he's got to be innocent. Mr. Flanagan's representing him. Mr. Flanagan wouldn't stand there and say this guy was innocent if he wasn't because they believed me and they trusted me, right? Yeah. So I've also seen. cases where, you know, it would be a drunk driving case and somebody had their son or daughter

killed by a drunk driver and they would say there's no way I can be impartial during this case. Domestic violence cases where women would say, I can't be a potential juror because my boyfriend beat me and almost killed me or as a child, you know, my mother's boyfriend would beat me every night so I can't be a juror just bring back too many bad memories for me and no matter what the evidence is at the end of the day, I'm still going to say guilty because my bias is going to control over the facts and the evidence in this case. So yes, as a defense attorney, as a prosecutor, you want to do your best to get a fair and impartial jury. Or as a defense attorney, and I'll be very blunt with you and honest with you, with you in your audience. As a defense attorney,

I want my jury to be favorable to my client, right? So I want those 12 jurors to love you. I want those 12 jurors to like you. I want those 12 jurors to say, no matter what the evidence is, my vote's not guilty and Ian's going home today. Yeah. I mean, when I went through my process,

we were looking for jurors that had someone that had a felony and their record or had someone that knew a felon that were like anti the establishment. Sure. We were looking for someone that didn't work in government and we were looking for like a blue collar worker, someone that was like a hands-on worker and not like a banker or someone

that would have looked at in that capacity. So it's interesting that whole process. But I just find it hard to believe that. Say you have a high profile case that no one that's in that area who watches the news or looks online or with social media nowadays is not going to know of that person. And then isn't going to say that they don't know that person because maybe they're interested. Some people are bored. They just want to go on a jury or they might do something. And then even when the judge tells them, tells them don't go look anything up at home, it's human nature to go look that up. Before TV, before radio, the town people would go to town square to the courthouse for entertainment. The trials of the day is what people would watch

as their entertainment. You know, the trial would be their TV. It would be their radio for the day. That's how they kept yourself occupied. And going to trial is almost like theater. And with the high profile cases, yes, of course, you know, all the cameras would be there, the microphones would be there. They would be following me and my client to the courthouse,

from the car house. It would be staked out on his or her front lawn. There'd be editorials and op-eds and even movies being made about some of these cases, documentaries being made about some of these cases. And the way I would frame the case is first reminding the jurors about the system. And it's that the person who's on trial is innocent. and there's a responsibility of the prosecution to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not did he do it.

Maybe he did it. It's beyond a moral conviction. Do you believe in your heart that after all the evidence is said and done, that this person, the accused, is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? and it's not what the government has as their evidence. It's what they don't have. And all of my cases, or most of my cases were one, on the lack of investigation, the lack of evidence. Did you properly store that evidence?

Did you take the measurements properly? Did you interview all the witnesses? Was your body can't working that day? You say my client committed this bank robbery. Why didn't you seize the surveillance cameras? You have surveillance video. What would be better than the surveillance video to show whether or not it's my client's face that was before the teller and passed the note demanding the money in the bank?

And you didn't take the video or you didn't interview the witnesses or you didn't conduct any investigation from the surrounding businesses who were witnesses at this time the case or the time of the alleged crime? So now you're creating reasonable doubt. Why not? Why didn't they do that? And is this accused the person who actually committed the crime? Soon as you plant that reasonable doubt,

soon as you plant that reasonable doubt in the mind of the juror, it's an acquittal because the jury instructions require it. When the judge gives those. instructions to the jurors. The judge tells the 12 jurors or the six in the district court case that you must, not you may, you shall, you must return a verdict of not guilty if the government did not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. And once you raised out, it's not guilty.

Now, as a former prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney, what do you think are some of the challenges to prosecute someone like Trump, a former president, and what are some of the challenges to defend him, if that was you from both ends of the spectrum? The challenges are also the positives. It's whether or not the jury is going to be supportive of them. Most of those jurors are not going to be listening to the evidence. It's going to be, do I like Donald Trump or do I not like Donald Trump? Or do I feel that this is a political witch hunt? Or do I feel that the government is doing solid work here in good government and justice?

I think most of the Jews may be falling asleep during the evidence, right? Or thinking about what they're going to have for dinner that night or, you know, what their wife may be doing or what their kids may be doing. And it's okay, did I like this person? Could I relate to him? And a lot of that goes back to politics for me too. Sometimes it wasn't my policies. Sometimes it wasn't my stances on an issue. It was, can I relate to that person?

Is he like me? And if the juror or the voter relates to you and says, yeah, he's like me, they're going to support you because they're supporting themselves. Now, on that same political side, that deal that, that sweetheart deal that got exploded with Hunter Biden, as a former defendant, I took like offense to that because that was like, you got to be kidding me. How did those kind of deals happen, closed doors, and then, you know, what are your thoughts of how it blew up like that and just a deal overall? Would you have offered them a deal like that? Because that's like a get out of jail free card. A lot of times, well, let me take a step back.

Sometimes the prosecutor loses his or her focus. And it becomes, all right, I know his father, or I knew him as a child growing up, or, you know, I like what I read about him, and I'm going to try to help him on where, you know, go against the grain here. Even though this is what society may want me to do, or this is what society expects me to do,

I'm going to buck the system a little bit. And even if it's at my own expense, I'm still going to fucking do it anyway because I think it's the right thing to do. I'm going to do a favor for somebody. I'm going to do what I think is right for somebody. And that's why there's checks and balances. That's why the judge serves as a check and balance.

That's why sometimes the media serves as a check and balance to report on these things. and the court of public opinion serves as a check and balance sometimes. So it's a good thing we live not only in a society of laws and rules, but it's also a good thing we live in a society of checks and balances because when somebody goes rogue, I think the universe kind of puts them back in check. I think the judge did the right thing in that. And to put it out there and to rip the whole thing up.

Yeah. It's wild. How would you have prosecuted me if you had my case? Want to talk about it? Yeah, I'm interested. I'm very curious because it's depending on who you talk to, you know, it's a different, it's a different variety. Right. Yeah, an honest answer for the audience.

Knowing everything you know about me, watching my videos and whatnot. I would have never brought you to trial. I would have attempted to work your case out prior to any arrange. payment. Okay. So from what I know about your case is that you were a young man, a teenager at the time. Yeah, I was half of the case when I was 17, the other half I was 18. So you weren't even shaving yet, probably. I still don't really shave. That doesn't say much. So you're a young man who was operating a nightclub in Connecticut. And a lot of the people who you were dealing with were adults. some of them might have even been unsavory adults people are giving you money with the hopes of getting a return back on their investment

but they also know you're a kid so no real proven track record it's almost they were taking a gamble on you I go tonight I stop at the gas station and I buy a scratch off yeah I hope to win money but if I don't hey I took a chance I gambled right or I go to the track I'm I put a couple of bucks on a horse. Horse wins, great. I win too. Horse doesn't win. Oh, well, at least the horse ran the race.

Now, I know there's allegations about whether the money was spent properly or not. Okay. But if you brought everybody in the room together, did they give you the ability to make it right? Did they give you the ability to pay back the investors? Or could there have been some type of civil structure where we're, we declare bankruptcy or we try to, you know, sell off some type of assets. I don't think in your particular case, prison did anything good for you. You're a young man taken out of society, stuck in a prison with a lot of dangerous people,

for a crime that involved money. There's a financial crime. And unless you're going to lock somebody up for life, what does prison actually? actually do for them in most circumstances. Is it really rehabilitative? Is it punitive? So if I was the U.S. attorney handling your case, or if I was the prosecutor handling your case, I would have said, Ann, you and your attorney, you've got to come sit down, and we're going to speak with you, open and honestly. We're going to give you an opportunity to tell us everything you know about this case, outline all your investors, and we're going to give you an opportunity to make it right.

if you can't make it right or if you lied it was or you mislead us, then we're going to go forward with the arraignment and you'll be looking at jail time. But you have investors here who want their money back and would give you an opportunity to pay them back. That's how that case may have been handled. I don't know all of the minute details of it, why that didn't happen, but that's not out of the realm of possibilities. And in some circumstances, in other cases and other jurisdictions, that may have happened. At Hyundai of Glendale, Lisa new, 2026 Hyundai-Tusan-SC front-wheel drive for 269 a month, plus tax for 36 months,

with owner's assurance in America's best warranty, 10-year, 100,000 miles. Stop by Hyundai of Glendale today or Hyundai ofglendale.com. 36-month lease, 4,49 to its signing. Tax title license and dock fees extra, plus government fees and taxes. 7,500 miles per year, expires 6126. Who available at this payment? PH 71529, pH 7159. How much do you think it cost them to prosecute a case like this, going to trial and everything, the investigation, multi-agency?

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on you. Which is wild when the dollar amount is less than $500,000. Correct. So they spent more money to prosecute and go to jail, which do you know what the stats are on how much it costs a house and inmate, too? 30,000 a year, more. Which is pretty, that's a lot of money, too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

The whole thing is just perplexing to me. Right. You know, it's, you had a case where you were young, and the U.S. attorney said, okay, we're going to drill down hot on this case. And they did, right? They did. Now, I don't know if they ever gave you an opportunity to work it out or, you know, strike an agreement with them,

But from what I've talked about or read or watched, you know, they were shooting numbers from the moon to you right from the beginning, right? Yeah, they were after. I mean, when I first sat with them without a lawyer, they were after me, the federal agents. They were not looking to play ball. They already had me as their person. Correct. Which is nuts because I was 18 when I met with them. You probably left that meeting with the target letter, correct? Yep. They gave it to me after, which is why they lost at that count at trial because they said, I lied to them, but they didn't disclose I was under investigation formally before they handed me

that letter. It's a crime to lie to a federal law enforcement official. Did you know that? Yeah, they set me up. But I guess one of the counts is I had to have known that I was under investigation and formally lying to them or that I was a target in their investigation. So the jury found me not guilty on that. Or that you were a witness in an investigation.

Yeah. They approached me nonchalant. And I don't think jurors like when you're. when you're put in that position without a lawyer. I don't think they, they tend to like that, especially dealing with a young adult. Now,

as mayor, what's your relationship like with the local police? Because I asked that, because when I was running my nightclub, I think the mayor of my town had a lot of pull with getting, like, raids done at the nightclub, that's using, utilizing, like, the fire marshal to come after us, everything like that.

What's like that power like? In most cities, especially big cities, the mayor is the chief executive officer. So the police chief is under the mayor, the fire chief is under the mayor, the superintendent is under the mayor. So although most mayors tend not to micromanage their departments, they still are the executive officer of that department. So if I meet with the police chief and say chief, you know, there is a uptick and crime. in this particular neighborhood, we're going to do some surveillance here, we're going to do some investigation here,

we're going to see if we can reduce the fear of crime in this neighborhood. It's happening, right? So as the mayor, you give an order, the order's followed. So the mayor plays a major role when it comes to public safety. Is there checks and balances on the mayor? There should be.

Most of the time, there are, especially if it's a system where government has a legislative branch and an executive branch where I was from, that's where it was. There was a city council that was the legislative branch, and there was the executive branch, which was the mayor's office. Another check and balance are the voters. If you're not doing a good job, the voters are going to let you know that,

and they're probably going to vote you out of office. But also you see mayors, politicians, who often become defendants themselves. They run afoul of the law. They take bribes. They run into campaign for. campaign finance violations. They do things they're not supposed to do.

There's been a lot of horror stories regarding public officials here in America and many public officials being charged and convicted and sent to jail for the crimes they've committed. Again, like I said, with great power comes great responsibility. And are the temptations there to run a fall of the law sometimes? Yes, there are. And I'll share with you a story. And, you know, this is a true story. There was a nightclub in my city that was causing havoc in the community.

There was prostitution happening there. There was illegal drug sales happening there, where there were reports of illegal firearm sales happening there. But this nightclub was open for decades in the city. It was a very popular nightclub. But as mayor, I vowed that I was going to crack down on crime and make the city a safer place. And I worked with the ATF, the DEA, the FBI, the Attorney General's office, and the local police to conduct an investigation and make several arrests at this nightclub and also close the nightclub down. When I closed the nightclub down, crime dramatically decreased in that neighborhood.

That's how much of a spur of criminal activity this nightclub. nightclub was. And the owner of the nightclub, who was a very popular figure, especially financially contributing to people in politics, was upset with me because I shut his nightclub down. And one morning I got to work early because I usually get to work early. That's where I was one of the traits I had. And the nightclub owner was waiting by the elevator nonchalantly. and there wasn't anybody around because the building had just opened and it was dead people were still not getting to work yet and from behind me i heard his voice say mayor you dropped this i turned around he's holding an envelope said mayor you dropped it and he opens it up and there's probably about at least $20,000 in cash in there he's looking at me and I'm looking at him he says you take it you dropped it

I said, you know damn well, I didn't drop that. He goes, you dropped it. Take it, Mayor. I said, I didn't drop it. You know, that's not mine. Others have taken it. You take it too. I said, I'm not other people. And please don't ever, ever fucking do that again to me. It looked at me. I looked at him. Turn around, walked out. I got in the elevator, I went to my office. Never told anybody about that story.

telling it to you here today statute of limitations have run on it so it's nothing anybody can do about it well you didn't accept that anyways well still I'm sure you know I'm implicating somebody in a crime right yeah um but you know

maybe somebody would have taken it or the temptation was there to take it so again power comes responsibility to do the right thing and just that one time you don't can be the one time where you get caught up in the system. Now, on the topic of statute of limitations, what is the statute of limitations on most crimes? It varies. It could be, you know, most crimes, mostly three years, six years,

murder. There is no statute of limitations. Sometimes, you know, rape cases, 15, 20 years, sometimes no statute of limitations, depending on the jurisdiction you live. But for most crimes, you're looking at a three to six year period. So what does that mean if I commit a crime that's under the statute of limitations, say three years ago? And, and, you know, and tomorrow is the day it's clean, does that mean the next day after I could go into the police station, confess and they can't prosecute? Nothing they can do about it, yeah, statutes run.

How do you feel about the rape cases being prosecuted from 20 years ago, 20, 30 years ago? Are those accurate cases? I would hope so. And rape is a horrible crime. With murder, the person's dead. With rape, they got to live with that every day for the rest of it. their life. And there's a stigma with rape, right? I think even still today, there's a stigma

with rape, especially for the rape victim. So 20 years ago, we didn't have the DNA evidence we had today. And sometimes DNA evidence isn't right. You know, there's been times where I've torn DNA experts up and down on the stand, and sometimes I've used them to exonerate clients. but it's a factor, a factor, a piece of the evidence that can be used in the conviction. Should it be the only evidence? No. You know, was the person there, whether even in the city or town at the time, was there a relationship there, that they fit the description? So it's a factor. And if that evidence is being brought up 20 years later and there's probable cause to get a complaint issued, then, you know, let's see whether or not this is the person that did it. Now, when you became a criminal defense attorney, was there ever a client that you knew was

guilty, but he still represented? Sure. And how do you decide which ones you're going to take? Does it come down to what your morals are? What's, yes and no, yes and no. I carried that mentality with me as a prosecutor, crimes against children. in crimes against the elderly. Those weren't cases I would take no matter what the money was. But also, I had the privilege of being able to select my cases. A public defender sometimes doesn't

get that privilege. It's going to get the cases as they're assigned to them. Being a private criminal offense attorney, it's okay. Am I going to take your case or not? And for me, a lot of the times was did we jell together because I'm going to be representing you we're going to be spending the next 18 months together you're going to be coming to my office I'm going to be meeting with you we're going to be talking together

we're sitting side by side with each other heck we may even be getting lunch or coffee together to go over the case you know what I mean you'd be coming to my office on the weekends to go over stuff preparing we're going to be talking to witnesses together and investigators together I don't want you to be a pain of my ass

you know for the next 18 months so if I thought you were going to be a pain in my ass for the next 18 months or I didn't like you. You know, I would say, I'm not the attorney for you. I can recommend somebody who may be, but I'm not the guy for you. So it was like, okay, did we jell together? And this is why I think people respected me. Could I help you?

There were times where somebody would call me from the jailhouse and I would drive down there at 9 o'clock at night to meet with them. And I would go over the police report with them. And I would say, Jesus Christ can't help you right now. You're cooked. Maybe I can negotiate a good deal for you, put together a nice package for you,

but it's not much I can do for you. What's the offer? They would tell me the offer. I would say, that's a reasonable offer. Save your money. I'm not going to take your money. But I want to hire you.

You're the guy. I want to hire you. I'd be robbing you if I took your money. But my girlfriend's going to call you, my artist's going to call you. They got the money. I got it. I don't want your money. I can't help you.

So, one, I had to gel with you. And two, I had to have been able to help you. It's like picking a girlfriend or a boyfriend because I spent hours with my criminal defense attorney, even through my trial. Yeah. You're eating lunch together. You're going there early. You're walking at the office. You're on phone calls.

For a name basis, right? Yeah. And when it's over, it's kind of sad, right? Yeah. I mean, we're friends to the state now, too, but he's a cool guy. But, yeah, it's wild. Why do you think public defenders represent, like, some of the most horrendous crimes? They got no choice.

But they had a choice to go into that realm. Is it because of the love of the law? For a lot of the public defenders, yes. For a lot of the public defenders who I've met or come in contact with, they're a little introverted. They love the law. got their nose in the book. They're not the first ones to want to go to trial. You know, they're going to win the case on a motion or, you know, they're going to get

the case on discovery. They're a very unique person. A lot of times I've noticed, you know, they either come from very difficult backgrounds or very privileged backgrounds. Very few blue-collar public defenders that I've come in contact with. So it's a very, very unique person. It's almost like being a social worker. It really is.

You know, you've got to have the hot for it. You've got to have the love and passion. for it. And even taking jobs where like, look at the Coburger case, Brian Coburger, with that woman that's defending him. I mean, all the evidence is kind of pointing to that he did it. I mean, there's no other suspects or whatnot. It's got to be tough to be in her position representing too. But in that particular case or any case like that, it's your responsibility to make sure that your client gets a fair trial. It's a fair trial. You've got to keep the system fair. And as long as at the end of the day, you've exhausted all their administrative remedies, you kept it fair, and the jury heard all the proper evidence,

and you objected when you needed to object, you did your job. You made sure that trial was fair, and that's really one of your responsibilities, that to ensure your client gets a fair trial. So what do you say to the public that, like, bashes an attorney like that, who's just doing their job? I get it. And look, people have opinions on everything. People, you know, for some people, this is talk around the water buggler, or it's talk in the beauty parlor, or in the, um,

a barbershop or talk for talk radio. I get it. People are going to talk about things. And for the professionals, the attorneys or the people involved in the day-to-day operations of the case, you can't take it personally. You've got to have a thick skin. And if you do take it personally or you have a thin skin, it's not the job for you. Did you have an advantage as a defense attorney because you worked in the prosecutor's office?

Yes. What kind of advantages did you have? I knew the prosecutors because they were my colleagues. I was the supervisor. I was their boss. I knew their strengths. I knew their weaknesses. I knew who was coming, prepared, who wasn't.

I knew what they would object to, what they didn't object to. I taught them. You know, I was like the Jedi warrior. You know, they were Luke Skywalker. I was Obi-Wan. You know, I taught them to be prosecutors. So I had a huge advantage going to the courtroom because I was their supervisor. I taught them.

lot of what they knew. So I knew their strengths. I knew their weaknesses because I spent every day with them. So do you think the system is unfair because say you take someone that can't afford you to have those connections and get stuck with a public defender who's fresh out of law school? You're very smart. Yeah. Unfortunately, money will dictate whether or not you're free or incarcerated.

And for those who can afford a solid defense, their chances of beating their case greatly increased. And if your attorney, somebody who is not focused or is just going through the motions or doesn't care about you or doesn't know the law that well, your chances of getting convicted greatly increased, just like medicine, right? you go to a good doctor, your chances of getting saved increase. You go to a doctor who's not so good, who has a high rate of malpractice. Chances are, you know, it's not going to be a good day for you. It's all influenced by money. Money makes the world go wrong.

What do you think about bail pending trial? Good topic. Great topic. We could spend hours on the scene. I'm at the point in my life where I see bail. as a war on the poor. Because remember what I said earlier, you are innocent,

and it is the responsibility of the government to prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You sit in that chair accused but innocent. And until a jury returns a verdict, your innocence is what is established. So with that in mind, innocent until proven guilty, if you were poor,

you're going to be locked in jail until you have your day in court, which can be two to three years for most dependents. Now you're somebody who's sitting in jail, the food's bad, the health care is bad, the environment's bad, You don't get to see your family. You're starting to become mentally ill.

Your health starts to fail. For a lot of defendants, they would plead guilty to anything just to reduce their time there. So once the government holds you and puts those cuffs on you and locks you behind bars, they got the upper hand on you. Now, if you were home with your family, being able to work, Being able to live your life, you're less likely to plead guilty to a crime you didn't commit. So the purpose of bail is to reassure your appearance to court. Okay?

Take a guy like Donald Trump. The Fulton County prosecutor asked for bail on Donald Trump. Where else Donald Trump got to go? He can't go anywhere in the world if somebody to recognize him. his plane has his name on it, says Trump. But yet you ask for bail on him. It's ridiculous. So a lot of the times I feel bail is misused.

And once somebody's held on bail, the chances of them getting convicted of pleading guilty greatly increase. Do you think bail should be based on the type of crime committed and not so much the dollar amount? Like if you're on trial for, say, something of violence, like kind of how the feds do it. The feds do it.

Are you a flight risk? Are you a danger to the community? Yeah. Should the state be based like that? Exactly. So it should be based upon flight risk and seriousness of the offense. Because in the feds, you're not actually paying money. You're just, you're signing, you're having someone sign for you.

Correct. It would make a lot more sense when you think about it in the state. There would be a backlog of cases. The cases in Connecticut or Rhode Island or New York or Massachusetts would greatly increase because there will not be a backlog, right? because people will be less likely to plead their case out because they're not being held in jail. And also, let's be honest with each other,

the system of jail is a moneymaker, right? Yeah. So for everybody who has a contract with the jail, whether they're providing food, blankets, heat, fence, computers, concrete, brick, iron, steel, they're making money off of it. Are county jails and holdover jails designed to make an individual plead out by making it so like unbearable food-wise, everything like comfortability-wise? You would hope not, but it happens, right?

That's not the intent. The intent's to hold a prisoner there until their trial is completed. But you go to any county jail right now and say plead guilty for time served and they would, right? If you were innocent and you were sitting in county jail for 60 days, 90 days, and you still knew you had to. sit there for a year and you were innocent and i walked into your cell today and i said anne plead guilty i'll send you home right now how many people you think would plead guilty just to go home today the vast majority right no it's pretty bad sad i got to go to a county jail in arkansas i saw it yeah and it's not a nice it's not a great place like i wouldn't want to even when i was at the detention

Center, you know, at Wyatt and Rhode Island. And they don't make it. They make it so to, so you get that, you plead out, you know, you plead guilty. Because once you get to the nicer fed joints and you're good. If all the, the holdover cells were like what the actual, you know, prisons were like, then no one would ever plead guilty. They would just fight. I've been in jailhouses in Massachusetts that held pirates. fucking pirates in the 17 and 1800s were held in these jail cells and they haven't really changed much

over the last two to three hundred years like fucking Blackbeard was in this cell so yes the conditions are horrible it's wild what about probation

what are your thoughts on that it's a trap it's a trap look I'll give you the pros and cons of it if you are able to go on probation and successfully complete it

hopefully it makes you into a better person, makes you a better person, makes you a better father, makes you a better husband, makes you a better member of society, hopefully helps you with your sobriety, hopefully it helps you with your mental health, because that's what's supposed to be, right? You're putting somebody on probation to hopefully rehabilitate them and give them some type of parental oversight that they need to help them lead a better life. But what I see has, happen a lot is this, somebody will say, well, I don't want to go to jail. Just give me probation. I'll go on probation. And they fuck up right away. And prior to going on probation, maybe they would have got a 30-day jail sentence, a 60-day jail sentence. But because they were on probation and they lied,

or they made a mockery of the court, or they ran, or they were rude to their probation officer, what originally would have been a 60-day jail sentence is now an 18-month jail sentence, right? So for a lot of people, it's a setup. So, you know, I see the positives and the negatives of it. Yeah, because you could get in that trap where it's violation after violation, there's no cap.

There's none. They could keep resetting that whatever term of supervised release. Yeah. Like, to give some of these drug offenders in the feds five years, yeah. That's a long time.

to be under, I mean, my three years was long enough, and I'm lucky I got through it. I represented a man who was on lifetime probation, represented a man on lifetime probation. And he was suffering some from mental illness. That was obviously clear. But every two to three years, he would pick up a new case. And even though we would beat the new case, because he would violate his probation by picking up a new case,

he'd be sentenced to a jail sentence. So on a new case, it's proof beyond a reasonable doubt. On a probation violation, it's whether or not you violated the terms of your probation contract. So if part of your probation contract is not to pick up any new cases, even if you're innocent, if probable cause exists to say that you committed that case or even if the case is dismissed against you, you could be sentenced on that probation violation. So I have seen cases or I was involved in the prosecution of cases where, okay, the new case was dismissed for whatever reason.

Witness recanted or the police officer never showed up to testify, whatever the reason may be. But because they're on probation, they're going to be violated and sent back to jail. And there's no jury. No jury. You already waived your rights. You're on probation.

You've already been found guilty. wild what do you um do you think that law enforcement prosecutors judges can learn things from watching content that people who got out of prison are making yes i applaud you for what you're doing here i really do and first of all for you to be able to talk about your experience takes a lot to be able to sit here and talk about it to share with people what you went through But by also creating this content from having defendants, prosecutors, hopefully judges, probation officers, come into a room like this and talk honestly and openly,

confession-wise, about the system. I hope not only those involved in the system can learn more and become better people. But I hope society learns more too. Because most people will go through life with having little to no contact with the criminal justice system. Maybe they'll get called for jury duty once in their life. And for the small percentage of people who actually have to go through it, their lives have changed forever. And most of the time, not in a positive way. Do you believe in second chances?

Yes. Are all people deserving of a second chance? Sometimes. Would be like the exceptions. There's some evil people in this world, Ian. There's people who are just so evil. that they would harm you and your daughter and your mother without any second thought. Those people don't deserve a second chance. Those people have the devil in them. But for the vast, vast majority of people, they deserve a second chance. Do you think those individuals are born evil or are they created over time because of their circumstances? Both.

There are some people who are just born evil, but there are some people who, over time, become evil. and there's plenty of books and studies and reports done on that probably more than we would ever come to recognize or understand or know but there are some people who just cannot be long in society what's your message what do you want people to take away from sitting down and having these open and candid conversations that people have to pay attention what's happening in the criminal justice system is important. And even though at first glance, you may feel it has no

effect on you or your family, it really does. Even if it's attenuated, it will have an effect on you. So by just paying attention or getting involved, whether it's in your local election or just even on a ballot question, by understanding what's happening in society, especially the judicial system has a effect on your life. And hopefully by paying attention to what's happening, you're able to weed out the bad characters, you're able to promote transparency within the system, and for those who are held accountable,

to make sure they're held accountable. Absolutely. Well, Mayor Flanagan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thank you. It was a great conversation. I hope so. Great perspective. Thank you.

It's different. Yes. And if you could ever help us get a judge on the show, that would be awesome. I might be able to, yeah. Even if it's remote, they might be able to do it. I don't do remote, but I'll go to them. Fair enough.

We'll make that happen. Yeah, I'll travel to. Awesome. Well, thank you again and enjoy your dinner tonight in the city. Thank you. Pleasure.