Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Badge to Behind Bars | Sheriff’s Criminal Downfall

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Kyle Overmyer shares his story of being arrested while serving as sheriff in his town. Kyles Contact Info Phone [phone] Email [e-mail] Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrime Do you want to be a guest? Send me an email here: [e-mail] Do you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8 Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438 The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402 Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1 Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel! Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

Everything's going good. I'm married two kids. The swearing in of it was huge. I mean, it was standing room only. People came out of the woodwork to come see me get sworn in. I did some pretty unique things where people writing articles about it. I had the first ever taxpayer hero award in the state of Ohio because I was saving money and rehabilitating inmates. And things were going really good. I mean, really good. And then I was diagnosed with arthritis in 2010. I broke both of my ankles as a kid. And I ended up going to a specialist, and they gave me 105 vacant a month. You know, trying to be a father, a husband, and the sheriff of a county, we get three kids that fall through the ice in the mouth of the river. So I race out there. We get the boat out in that. We lose all three of the kids. They drowned in front of us.

So what do I do? I get help for everybody else. I don't get help for Kyle. So between that and then my marriage is starting to struggle, the amount of Vicodin start to really climb. Different doctor, a couple different doctors, and everybody trusted me. I was the sheriff, you know? Right. Who would ever think that the sheriff would be in it?

That night at 630, I get a phone call. You better turn yourself in. I said, what's up? They got a 43 count indictment on you. so they they locked me up uh i went interned myself in i locked yeah they locked me up you're the sheriff in in your county uh they booked me there and then they took me to adjacent county what is the what is the what is the fucking staff doing they got to be walking around going like they were they were they were they were they were they were they were like oh i go to take my son to

school he says and i'll never forget this he's like dad am i going to see you after school I said Dylan I got this I said watch me I got this Dylan I'll see you after school oh

hey this is Matt Cox and I am here with Kyle Overmire he is the former sheriff of I don't know what county but he was a sheriff of that county for eight years

we're going to find out and he was what were you indicted for uh doctor shopping and theft of uh drugs doctor shopping and threat theft of drugs all right not your typical sheriff so this is going to be a good video and it's going to be a good interview whatever all right thank you check this out uh you're gonna you're gonna you're like this it's good he's a character first of all do you know who sheriff uh gradie judd is Sheriff Judd Grady

I think, Sheriff Grady. J.D. Grady, Judge. Grady, Joe. That name's familiar, but I don't know for sure. Brown hair, glasses. He does, he's the sheriff of Polk County.

Oh, okay. You know, and he's constantly doing, he does press conferences where he makes fun of the, like, he'll be like, this, this joker, you know, and then he'll do a whole, right. He's, he should get him on here. Hilarious. I should.

I always love when, listen, I hate to say this, but I love it. when there's some homeowner who shot somebody for breaking in. He's like, he's like, and he'll go. And he shot him. He said, unfortunately, he didn't kill him. And the man got away. So we're looking for.

He'll tell him. He's like, we've, we've offered to have the homeowner come and take one of our classes. So the next time somebody tries to break into his house, he kills him. Because that's what we do in Polk County. He's a good, he's a good, oh, boy, is he's great. Yeah, no, and that's what you need to hear. You need to hear those things. He's awesome.

That makes you want to, like, live in the United States. Yeah, right? He's, I love him. I'm sure most people don't. But anyways, or some people, though, I think people in Florida do. But, all right, so he might cut that out. I never know. Okay, so I have a question for you, so real quick, which is, where were you born?

Fremont, Ohio, Sandusky County. All right. And, I mean, brothers, sisters. One sister. My parents are still. alive and married over 50 plus years. Okay. And my father

actually, 38 years in law enforcement. Nice. Followed in his footsteps. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Yeah, kind of sort of. Yeah. Well, so you went to, you know, any problems in high school? Any... No, not

really. I mean, my parents, they sent me through a private Catholic school played sports, football, wrestled, boxed. I was an average athlete. Always struggle with that. I always wanted to be,

but, you know, kind of being short. Right. You know, comes into one of the biggest factors. But, yeah, I mean... It's fucking tall people. Exactly, exactly.

But I, yeah, I played sports, got pretty good grades. But, you know, of course, I experimented with drinking, you know, and I never thought I could do. you know, be good enough for my father, actually. Right. You know, always struggle with that, you know, being good enough.

But, no, I had a great childhood. Did you, I mean, like growing up, going through high school, did you think you were going to be law enforcement? Like, was that something in your mind? Like, oh, that's what I'm doing. No, no, not at all. I was going to be an artist. You know, I painted, draw, yeah, kind of like you.

Yeah. I was big into that and found myself after graduating. and majored in art for two years at the University of Toledo. Nice. You didn't stick with it, though? I didn't see any money. I hear you, bro. It was the same thing.

I was like, I'm never going to make any money doing this. Yeah, I didn't see any money. I started partying a lot. You know, I became, you know, I got into bodybuilding and started being kind of a meathead and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, you know. Yeah, that certainly doesn't fit in with the fine arts college. No. No, no. I went from, I had long hair for a short time. Both of my ears peers went through that progressive stage trying to find Kyle Overmeyer and I lost him up in Toledo and bailed out of college. Yeah. Yeah. I, when I was like going to college and realizing like four of my classmates like lived in a one bedroom together and that these other guys are sharing a car and these guys are taking the bus to school. And I was like, these guys are broke and they're okay.

with it. Like, I remember thinking, I can't compete with that. Like, I have to be able to make a living. Like, these guys are okay sleeping in someone's spare room. Like, they were okay with that. I was like, yeah, I'm never going to be able to compete with these guys. Right, right. So I did the same thing. When I, I just did it for a degree. And then I said, I got to go for some kind of business or something that's going to make some money. Right. So it sounds like you did it halfway through college. You figured it out. Yeah, but I bailed out. Didn't go back to college right away. I worked in the odd factory jobs bouncing around. And, you know, always saw that, you know, my father could put a roof over our house and feed us with law enforcement.

He was very respected in the community. So I even went to him and said, you know what? I'm going to get in the law enforcement. He said, you're crazy. Don't do it. And I didn't listen to him. I put some money together. And I paid my way through the police academy.

Okay. How much was that? Oh, I think back then it was like $3,500. bucks and they don't give they don't have like a like student loans uh no not through that because it was such a short term it was only like six months you go through it to about four days a week and uh you're out and you're you're back in rolling again so you basically have like a certificate and then you go and you apply for different departments yes and were you hired at the same same place your dad was i was it took me three times though uh the sheriff then who uh i'll i'll get

into talking about him quite a bit. He, uh, he was kind of hesitant because I had a wild side to me to still go out and party and, you know, I'd fight. You know, I, you know, I was a wild child still. You know, I wasn't afraid to go out and have a lot of fun. Has you been arrested? No, no. How does he know that? He just looking at. When you're in a smaller community sometimes, you know, word of mouth and then after the third try, uh, they gave me the nod and they hired me in corrections, actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, I started in corrections. That's where a lot of people start there. Yes, it's like entry level, like unless you come out of the military or something, a lot of the guys go, because it's, it gets you into the bureaucracy into handling people.

Right, right. And yeah, getting to actually know the people in the streets because you're dealing with the same people in and out, in and out, you know, daily, monthly, you see the same people and then you interact with them and then eventually you do on the streets. Right. My God. Sorry, I was just thinking the nicknames. Tea dog. What's up? You know, what's up? What's up, 336? What's going on? Yeah.

My God. Pookie. Yeah, they all got, everybody got nicknames. Down here, it's, like, it's like Billy Bob, you know. Jim, you know, whatever, oh, gosh. Skeeter. There's a lot of Skeeter's making meth in the, in the single wife. I kind of figure out for sure.

So, okay, so how long did you do, were you in the, in the jail? Corrections? Only about three and a half years. And I got the opportunity to be promoted to road patrol. And during that time, I got real serious about law enforcement. I went back. I got my two-year degree in criminal justice. I went back for that and then met my first wife, actually. okay she was in school um she was she graduated she was a school teacher actually and uh that was back in actually 99 got married and i was working on road patrol and then shortly after in within the same year um one day before i one year anniversary she had our um first child my daughter macaela actually so we had a perfect little civil servant uh family yeah teach school teacher you know cop and he got a daughter and you know lived in a nice house we bought a house and living the all-American life at first you know right and then um while I worked in

road patrol I got pretty serious into drug interdiction the crack cocaine epidemic was really big in our community what year was this uh 99 to 2000 2000 is when I went to the road patrol and things were really starting to pick up we had a lot of people from Detroit, Mississippi, Chicago, coming up, setting up shop. And so I got pretty active on the streets. And also, I was on the SWAT team as well. So I took a liking to the whole drug interdiction, taking the dope boys off the streets. Right.

And I then decided I'm like, I'm going to take this up a level. And I went back to college then. Right. And finished my bachelor's in business administration. like you don't seem to me like you would be able to like to me you would pull up and they'd be like like as you know as a as a um undercover remember who was the chick's name that we that do you remember the chick that we uh did uh she does crime cleanup now I remember her yeah she was super clean cut like like she looked actually she was a little little little um aggressive looking but

But, you know, very, like, she, she looked like a cop, though, too. She definitely looked like a cop, too. But people would look at me and think, I, and think cop. Like, I don't, I can, you being undercover? Well, at that time, I went from Road Patrol. Then I got, actually, I got promoted to the Detective Bureau for a short time. Okay. I was a sergeant.

I almost left and went federal, actually. And that's where the sheriff then came to me and said, no, I'd, I'd really like you to stay because you have some talent here into this. drug addiction. I almost left and went to the federal system because I obtained my bachelor's degree, and you need that to get a federal job. And when he dangled the carrot in front of my face to promote me as rank, I jumped on the opportunity. What does that mean? And I was a sergeant at the age of 27, which is very young there. And then within a year, because I started getting involved with other agencies, boarding up houses, businesses that were selling drugs out of them and making a real

impact the community he promoted me to captain i was top of the food chain actually okay at 28 years old very young okay can we go back to the undercover thing yeah well we're good we're getting there right now oh okay yeah we're evolved did i jump ahead he built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated 55 million dollars because 50 million wasn't enough and 60 million seemed excessive. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crimes, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. During that time, my first undercover, I made some small buys. I actually would go out and make some small buys. And then before even the whole big drug undercover,

that I would do. We got a rash of large-scale burglaries that people were stealing cabotas, tractors, lawnmowers, and we ended up flipping, with street terms for turning somebody into an informant or a snitch. We had a guy that we had probably with about 30 to 50 felony charges of these thefts. And here it was an organization of a group of boiler makers actually guys business men that actually had some money and they were hiring you know guys that were hooked on drugs to go out steal they turn around and resell the stuff and make a bundle of money and they didn't need the money so what what happened was that guy then introduced me to the the ringleader who lived outside the county who didn't know and so

I started running around stealing stuff with these guys so when you say a boiler they were running a boiler they were selling they had a phone guys on phone on the phone calling to sell the stolen goods? Correct. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And they had great jobs. They were businessmen. They were basically doing this on the side to pocket extra cash.

You can never have enough cash. No, I know. I know. Cash is king. I already know. I know. Everybody always says, you know, you were already making $200,000 a year. And it's like, well, have you another $100,000?

Well, then you spend that and you need to make more money. Yeah. But you don't know that when you're in it. No. No. And besides, they probably felt like they were insulated. I mean, those are the guys doing the stealing. They did.

No, you're right. You're right. It's like the guy driving the getaway cars. Like, hey, these guys are robbing banks. How do you know? Because I'm driving the getaway car. So I'm not involved at all. Right.

Right. Right. That makes sense. So, all right. So you run around and you're stealing stuff with the guys? I was. I was one of them. I actually went by the name of Bert.

Bert was my name. And I would go meet with these guys and go deliver the property. They would give us money. But they're crackheads. Well, No, we were taking it. I went right to the businessman. I went to the top.

And I was with these guys that were, you know, basically crackheads. And they were. So the informant introduces you to the head guys. Correct. And I become one of them. You start selling the stuff for him, giving him the stuff. They're trying to sell it. Yep.

I mean, is this stuff that's already like you guys already have like in the evidence room or something? No, no. I actually went out and stole stuff from places like farm machinery place. Yeah, I'd go out and do it with them. and go out and with them and then go deliver it and get the money. Well, what about the farmer? We would go and actually sit down and have a one-on-one with the farmer. After?

Listen. Yes. And tell them, and tell them, and then they were really happy with us because we're protecting them. So eventually it had all come to an end, and they swooped in on all of us one night, and I was actually arrested and taken in and booked at a county jail. and you go in the county jail with them through the whole thing yeah and burt yeah burt went in and and then of course they see people you know no they slid me out of there later and got me out of there but it made it look good right so now these guys have no clue really that they took they took

they took bert they're probably like they took bert they had no clue they moved bert they had no clue until the date of court when i walk in and they said bert and he looks in bert and i said no captain overmire. And then, you know what? Albert. Take the deal. What have you done? Take the deal.

Take the deal. They took the deal. What kind of deal? I don't even remember. Doesn't it seem real deal? Like I hear some of these things like, you know, they're like trying to get the guy to take like five years or something. It's like five years. That's nothing.

Like in these, I'm not doing five years. Five. Not compared to what you did. You've been stealing. I know. For six. for for two years you know people don't realize like you go on to like the the fine the prison sentence you can get for like going on to like a construction site and stealing like a um an earth mover

or a bulldozer so like it's massive you get into tons of trouble for that oh yeah well that that's tons of money can you imagine the money they're making i can remember when the copper thing everybody was stripping copper out of um newly constructed all that and catalytic converters people are going crazy over that stuff. Yeah, yeah. I have, I actually know a guy that got caught. He was stealing a commercial equipment. They were stealing it, putting on the big rigs or putting on the rigs and then driving several states over and then they would sell it. Anyway, he did like five years for that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this was back in like the 70s when you got no time at all. Oh, wow. Like you probably got like 10 years. He probably got like 10 years and got out in four or

five years. But anyway, yeah. Sorry. Now you do Buck Rogers time. Yeah, it's insane. Yeah. It's all different now. Poor Colby. He doesn't know. So you were doing that and the guys take the deal and then what happens? Then I keep doing a lot of, you know, narcotics investigation, end up getting into a situation where it starts out as a decent size ecstasy deal where this guy wants to flip, so I flipping, and he runs into a multiple.

multiple kilo cocaine operation by accident that wasn't even what we didn't think we were going to we bumped into so we worked a lot with the state agency bci and i who actually ended up busted me and um nice um the DEA so um that guy then he wants to cooperate so we go in for a meeting one day with him and everybody all the agents were going to do a a joint operation and and they said well we want you to introduce you to somebody and they pointed one of the guys setting there that they usually use for undercover and he said no he looks like a cop and he goes they said oh he goes well who don't and he points at me he says I want that guy right there and he pointed at me and I'm like you scream cop to me but go ahead well I had my head shaved bald I had a beard

I played the part pretty well I was a lot heavier too okay so I partnered up with him and ran around with him did a lot of Western unions shipping money over to Mexico And making all kinds of phone calls, buys, even one of the biggest buys, 17 kilos of cocaine at one time. Okay. And we would rent a storage unit. The guy would roll in. We dropped the door and break the tire down. Of course, you know, they patch it down and everything like that.

And break the tire down and you get 17 keys out of a tire. Okay. And it was good cocaine, still had the stamp on it coming straight from. from Mexico. So when you buy the cocaine, yeah. I mean, where's that money come from? That's got to be a chunk of money. But what's the feds, you know, the authorities, they, you know.

And what a lot of times, they'll let some money go, but other money, um, you'd wait so far, you know, a couple states away and. Oh, bust them say they track, they follow the money. So it doesn't look. Right, right. And you don't get her. Just before it goes over the border, they fucking grab. Yeah.

probably know as well as I do from your experiences, you win some, you lose some. Yeah. It's the cost of doing business. Yeah. And so... Well, they're printing the money themselves anyway, so it really costs them. Exactly. And, but other than that, the dope boys, they got plenty of dope. And they're going to lose some, but

they're going to make a lot of money. Yeah. So, and that's how we would do it. It was pretty simple. And I was pretty good at what I did. I was a great talker. I could, uh, I had the gift of gab and I had no problem buying dope. Okay. How long did you do that?

About two and a half, three years worked in it. It was undercover operation. We did that. You know, I did that along with actually my detective work, too, as a normal detective. So I was jumping back and forth. We'd go out a lot in the middle of the night doing buys, you know. But you don't do this in your county, right? I did some in my county because these guys were coming out of state, too.

They didn't know what I was. You're not going to bump into them at Walmart. Correct, correct. so that lasted up until well actually it leads me to what all happened but I um the sheriff who was elected then he was very impressed with what I've done and where I was headed and I was you know then I was in my 30s early 30s and he came to me one day and he's like you know you're doing all this stuff and you could be me someday and you know he was in the 60s and I said well you know, I might be interested in that, but, you know, you're going to be sure for a while.

So, probably a week after that talk, he dies of a heart attack. Oh. So I'm 34 years old. Well, he, like, kind of must have felt it was coming, right? To even have that conversation. Well, I'm kind of wondering because he, why would he have that? It was kind of eerie and spooky. It was about a week prior.

And so, and then there was rumblings. He had talked about it. You either run as a Republican or a Democrat in Sundusky County. And I was a Republican. He had me involved with the Republican Party because he had this idea. And I would go to the events and stuff. And then he passed away. And I thought, uh-oh, what am I going to do now, you know?

And the Republican Central Committee came to me. And they said, you know, Sheriff Gangward had mentioned, hey, we'd like Kyle to someday, you know, take over, you know, but you're only 34 years old. Right. What do you want to do? And I went then when I was still, I was married. I had two kids at the time. I had my son Dylan at the time, too.

I had a daughter and a son. And it was a big, it was a big move to even think about doing that because you could lose your job because it's an appointed position. You get somebody else that gets mad at you, they're going to push you out of there. Right. So it came down between myself. a 30-year veteran. Okay.

And in September of 2008, I ended up running an emergency appointment. It started out as an appointment to an election, and I won unanimously. They picked me over the 30-year veteran at 34 years of age. Okay. And at that age... But that's to run. I was then, and then I had to run. Then you still have to run.

And then nobody ran against me, which was nice. Oh, okay. So I was, yeah, which was good. Yeah. I think what they saw was, oh my gosh, they appointed this guy 34. He must have something. Right. So it gave me some clout is what it did.

Okay. But can't anybody could, like a regular citizen can run. No. There are certain requirements in the state of Ohio and from, and they're very strict. And I had every one of them. Oh, okay. Everyone, even from a bachelor's degree to rank for so long, the sheriff was thinking what he wanted to do with me and line, he lined me right up.

Okay. All right. Because I was a sergeant, a captain, and I had a college degree, too, on top of it. So it worked out great. So at 34, I was the youngest sheriff in the whole state of Ohio. How long had you been a deputy at this point? Well, from 96, and that was 2008, not very long. Okay.

Okay. So not. 96 to 90. So just over 10 years, right? You said 96 to 98. But that's not that long, 34 years old. It's very unheard of, actually, to run you. But it's not like you don't know how things are running.

Correct. Because I work in every division. Right. I was going to say, because if you come in, like, you come in after a year or two, like, I'm still not sure how any of this is really working. Like, how many police officers were there? I had, um, I ran a jail. I had a, that was my thing.

I had a jail. I had a jail, a detective bureau, a communication center, a civil office and a detective Bureau. I mean, I had a lot going on, Matt. Is that 50 people? Oh, no, it's over 100. And plus you have over 100 inmates, you know. Okay. And it's 24-7 operation. My budget was over $4 million. Right. And I had to figure out how to budget that. I had, um, and then with my deputies, I had two unions. And I had to help negotiate unions every three years. And that was a pain in

the ass. Right. Yeah. So everything's going good? Everything's going good. I'm married, two kids. The swearing in of it was huge. I mean, it was standing room only. People came out of the woodwork to come see me get sworn in as a new sheriff. It's a big hype.

You know, there hadn't been a sheriff, even though the one passed away. He was a great man. I mean, he supported me a million percent. But when I came in, it was like, boom, I was on cloud nine. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I started to get a big head, you know? I mean, I started get a big ego. I had things going on, you know, but during that time was 2008.

All the foreclosures were coming in. The budget, I had a big budget crunch. I had to cut like 300,000 out of my budget, which killed me. Which is probably already strapped. It was. It was, but I didn't want to have to lay off deputies. So I had to figure out and think outside the box, how I was going to figure things out. I mean, I even went as creative as I had my own inmate garden.

I had my inmates raising their own vegetables, helping feed them. I even had my own chicken coop there, to tell you the truth. I did some pretty unique things where people writing articles about it. I had the first ever taxpayer hero award in the state of Ohio because I was saving money and rehabilitating inmates. and things were going really good. I mean, really good. And then during that time, I was diagnosed with arthritis in 2010.

I broke both of my ankles as a kid. And it was agonizing all the time. I get sick and tired. I would go on vacations with my wife and kids. And we'd go hike, and it would just kill me. So I ended up going to a specialist, and they gave me 105 vacant in my mom. month and so I started taking those and that was you know good for the pain and things were good

for the first year too and but then came along what really screwed me up one night I just got home from vacation we were down here in Florida actually tell you truth in Fort Myers with my wife and children get back on a Sunday and get a phone call that there's a man with a loaded shotgun in a home I'm going to kill his family and of course they're in Ohio correct okay yeah and I'm back I'm back and so they call a sheriff right away

because it's out in the county and and I have to handle it so immediately I get my family home I was with my family when I got to call and I will never forget my daughter's like this sounds bad dad I get he I'm like Michaela I've dealt with this stuff before this is this is easy proceed can't get him out of the house I got the SWAT team out there. He's, uh, he had just gotten out of prison not too long ago.

He did a drive-by shooting and shouldn't even have a firearm under the influence. He's already in a shitload of truck. Correct. Like he, and he doesn't want to go back to prison. No, no. Can't get him out of there. So I'm like, we need to go and get him. Right.

So even with myself, I went into. I'm trained. I know what I'm doing. If my men are, we're going to go in. I'm going in with them. That was kind of like my rule of thumb. Right. and throw a flash bag in, we get her.

He pulls a shotgun on us and we kill him. Right. And that hit me pretty hard. And of course, we didn't want to kill that guy, of course. And the family is upset with us. I'm upset. I'm like, man, you know, this is all on me now. We didn't want to do that.

You know, he pointed a shotgun. You know, of course, I had to. to put the two guys that were ahead of me that actually pulled the trigger, I went in with them, but I didn't have to pull the trigger, but I was right with them. Put them off on duty, you know, until we got things figured out. We even had to go through a grand jury to find out if it was a justified shooting or not. It was a tough time.

And I could never forget waking up that day the next morning because it went in the late hours because we were going to have a press conference in the media. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, I can't believe the shit's going on because the family. was just, they were mad at us. They protested twice up and down the State Street, holding up signs. Kyle Overmire, Brian's blood is on your hands. I mean, nasty stuff.

The media was after us. We had a newspaper, a local newspaper, just crucified us, especially me, any time they could get a chance. The guy did a drive-by shooting. He's in the house with a shotgun. He will not come out. right what what like what what else what were you supposed to do well back off let him slowly slip away right you know or sleep it off no because you were going to still put him to danger so we had all

those questions right you're asking matt and you know it got to the point where um we finally got justified in our shooting right and i took care of my guys i oh i got them help you know I got consulers and the stuff. I don't take care of myself. So, okay. I'm struggling with it. And then myself and the other deputies get a $20 million lawsuit slapped on us.

So we're facing $20 million next. This is from the family. Yes, federally. It was a federal lawsuit. And so that's going on. Who pays for your attorneys? this is through the the county okay but if the 20 million they sued me personally too right but the county still you thought you didn't have to go get your own lawyer no I didn't no I did no I did but if I

but if you lose it's on me it's on you correct right and you know where am I going to get 20 mil right so we're going through that and then ironically another Sunday we get a call and you know I'm I'm still struggling with this and, you know, trying to be a father, a husband, and the sheriff of a county. We get three kids that fall through the ice in the mouth of the river. So I race out there. We get the boat out in that. We lose all three of the kids. They drown in front of us.

So what do I do? I get help for everybody else. I don't get help for Kyle. So between that and then my marriage is starting to struggle. the amount of Vicodin start to really climb. As time going on, that 105 would only last maybe two weeks.

It'd be gone. And so I had to figure out how to take care of Kyle Overmeyer mentally. So, I mean, I didn't want to think I was an addict because the doctor was prescribing them. It wasn't like I was going on the street corner and saying, hey, you know, I need a pill.

I need a pill. No, no, no. The doctor was given a trained physician who was educated. I had a prescription. Yeah, exactly. So it's not a drug. So I got to the point where I had my jail doctor. I would manipulate him.

I'd say, hey, I hurt my back. I graduated percocets. They became my favorite thing. The little percocet, I loved them. And then I would go from a different doctor, a couple different doctors, and everybody trusted me. I was the sheriff, you know. Right. ever think that the sheriff would be in it.

But it was interesting because I could get a doctor so easy that I would text them and they would text me back and say, go to my office, that script will be waiting. I didn't even have to go see them. Right. I got at the point. So. Does your, at that point, did your state have the requirements that the doctors notify the state database that you, or they did?

The horse report, yes. I'll talk, yeah, I'll tell you about the. I was going to say that. How, I mean, how do you know, think, that's a lot of, that's, going to catch out with you. Well, and I didn't think, because I thought I was Teflon, man. I thought I was Teflan. I was the sheriff. I was Kyle Ofermeyer. I mean, my ego got big and I would go, I would get mine from a specialist, then I would go to the multiple doctors, but shit, sometimes that would run out. So I had to start getting really creative. So we had this

countywide take back stuff where the community would come and throw away all the pills. right so we had like the hub there at the county because we were the main place and they could get rid of their stuff there and store it so i took it upon myself as the sheriff because you know i surprise you could come out with a program we're looking for specifically per cassette 50s you know that's a good idea matt i have to write that one now we're we're paying pharmaceutical prices for anybody it turns it really would like one If you could just have one If you just drop off one

Sorry No, no, you're right So I went to the point Where I went around Personally to the agencies And said, here I'll pick him up I'll dispose of them Just been a good guy

I'm being a great guy Just people helping people Yeah And I was really helping myself I was like putting The kid that was putting his hand In the cookie jar Yeah

And so I was getting high off that too I had to I mean if not I was going to get sick I mean I could tell And And yeah, I got so creative.

I mean, and unfortunately, it, you know, as you well know, and when you're in, you know, I went from fighting crime to being in a life of crime, so to speak. I even started stealing from my parents. My parents, you know, both of them went to ping, you know, for pain management and stuff. I went as far as I knew when my dad would pick up his prescription. So I would, dad, I'll go get it for you. I'm going to be a good son. And you know how they staple?

Yeah. I carried a stapler in my, um, car to I mean I'm bending this exactly to make it look I would hey lining up the I was I was so bad I even did that I mean I mean and figure out when my parents weren't home so I could go into their house and steal their pills I mean I was a real piece of work I mean lying cheating stealing I mean like my daughter when she got her wisdom teeth pulled I don't I'll take care of the prescription. I was going to say, Doc, you know what's real, which it really works well with her. Right. Perkinses are better than Vicodin. Burgesses.

Those are really the crowd pleasers. Right. So, I mean, it just, yeah, I mean, I would never then would have said, I'm an addict. I was in total denial. No, I couldn't be the, I couldn't be. Who in the hell would ever thought the share of the account? me, especially me. I mean, I walked around with a Kool-Aid smile.

Everybody thought I was on, I mean, and of course. And of course I did, because I was high. But, I mean, and it was interesting. I mean, I'd go for speak engagements, Matt. I mean, I'd have pills in my uniform pocket. I mean, from the day I, from the moment I woke up, I was taking perkinset's until I went to bad.

Right. So, and then, but then, luckily, you went to rehab and you kicked the habit, And now you're here talking to me, and that's, that's the whole story. I didn't go to rehab. No, I know. I know. So, so what, so how many times did you, so during this whole course, are you being reelected? Like, you're still running?

Yeah, yeah. You got reelected every so often. I got reelected, um, for two terms, four years apiece. Yeah, I was going, I was rolling. I was rolling strong and, uh, and live in a life of a lie. Right. Yes. Um, yeah.

Yeah, so during that time, using, using, using, and then on February 3rd, 2015, I go to pick up one of my prescriptions for my Vicodin. And I go, everybody knows me. I go to the same pharmacy. And I go up, I'm here, hey, I'm here to pick up my script. And she says, hey, Kyle, can I talk to you over the side real quick? And I'm like, yeah, so I'm thinking. This is a pharmacist? Yes.

And I know her. Leslie, she's a great woman. And she says, I want to talk to you aside. And I said, no, I want to talk to your side. So I'm thinking, you know what? Somebody's probably buying Sudafed and she's going to turn me on to something. Fucking junkies. You're cooking math.

Right. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay. You know, she says, hey, I got to call all those doctors you've been getting Viking and Perkinset from. I said, huh? Now, I played dumb and stupid, but my, you know, but my, my, my everything's down to my stomach i'm like holy shit so she's saying i have to call them correct okay and notified because she looked it up and or was notified on what you were talking about yeah yeah

the oars report to show i was getting them from multiple doctors right i had been red flagged that's what they call it and i'm like oh and i'm like okay and she's like you're done you can't this is done so this scared me so much matt I went home. I didn't tell anybody about this. I had one Vicodin left. And you know where that Viking went? What I mean?

Down the toilet. Okay. I went cold turkey. And during that time when I was married to my first wife and my kids would go to school because she was a school teacher, my kids would go to school. I'd put my uniform on like I was going to work. And she'd go to school. The kids would go to school.

I'd turn around because I manipulated my schedule being the boss. I'd take my vehicle and pull it in the garage and put it down. I'd come sleep in the mornings to detox myself. Right. I was a mess. I was going to meeting sometimes and I'd be not because I was getting so sick because I didn't have the Percocets or the Vicodon anymore. Right. And I had to hide this.

And I was researching stuff so much on the computer like how can I get through this and stuff? I mean, I was like desperate. But I stayed. the course. I mean, I really stayed the course. How long did that take? Oh, my gosh. I mean, up until the big spot, I was still struggling mentally with it.

So, I mean, several months. I mean, to get that out of your system, they say the fog of that takes 18 months for the opiates to get out of your brain. And I believe that I can see that from what I went through. So that's 2015, and I'm coming up for re-election

for the primary again. Well, Kyle, I'm pretty, you know, I'm still out there being myself. I'm cocky. I'm doing my thing. Nobody not figuring anything out. Well, wait a minute. What about the report? So it got red flagged.

Like, has it been shifted to the DEA or anything? Nothing. No, no. No, no. Well, listen, not yet or nothing. So what happened was then I'm getting ready to run for re-election again. Well, I was a Twitter guy, too. And so I'm on Twitter.

I go by a young sheriff. Right. I had fun and that. I had rappers follow me. porn stars. I was following porn stars. One of my favorite was Jenna Jameson. And she even reached out to me, tell you truth,

because her father was a cop in the crazy. So this gets thrown out in the media, what I'm running for, that Sheriff of the County follows porn stars. Oh, my God. My wife was just like, what is wrong with you? Blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, they're human too. They're loving this. They're paying taxes. Her job was law enforcement. Yes. So. Jamerson, who? I didn't know.

Yes. And so I did. I said, I mean, I have such a nice person. So I said, oh, I must have accepted or, like, you know, followed them by mistake. They had articles about it trying to ruin me. Well, actually, people were coming up to me saying, hey. Yeah. I like you, man.

You're cool. I watch porn and all this stuff. And I'm like, okay. I like, I like that rapper. I was getting street credit out of it actually Right So I go into the Probably not voters but

I did Listen to this I win the primary Right 62% of the votes Okay A landslide I still got the newspaper article

Of it showing it On the landslide They tried to crush me And I'm like Well I'd rather I'm trying to crush me with that Than my dirty little secret Yeah yeah So

It's getting time and um my marriage is rocky but i of course i hide that because you want to be the all-american sheriff and family man and you know want nobody to know anything i'm still struggling mentally i'm not going to lie i mean do i still am i still thinking about perciss every damn day right i mean there's still you know like sugar plums dancing in my head you know and i hate to say it they were and um i can just see the the tic-tok now Where it's a picture of the guy who puts little sugar plumb. Go ahead.

And I'm running then for the general. I get a phone call. You're over the general election. Because then I have two more opponents coming. Okay. And that's coming up close to the fall. And I get a phone call from prosecutor. The state prosecutor?

The county prosecutor. He's like, hey, we need to talk. And I'm like, and I get along with you. Great. I mean, we're cool. Yeah. I'm like, so he's like, come up my office. Oh, man.

I'm like, what's up? Man, they're looking into you, dude. I'm like, why? Well, they're going to run this Orr's report on you. They said, yeah, I'm like, no, man, no. You know, I'm still in denial. Yeah. I'm holding into my story.

No, it's, I said, you know what? They're out to get me. Somebody wants my job bad. I said, they already tried the porn star thing. That didn't work. So they're going to try this now. So I go with the flow. It's a deep state.

Huh? It's the deep state. Yeah. So I'm going. I'm in denial. Shit ain't going to happen to me. I still think I'm a Tafline. And they put the dogs out.

They started really combing and doing it. I'm getting phone calls and they're investigating you. Okay. And I then, August 23rd. 2016 comes. They were going to take it all to a grand jury. I didn't know what they had. I thought I had

it in the bag. So we had our first day of our opening county fair, the Syski County Fair, which is a big thing for anybody that's an elected official goes. I'm there for the ribbon cutting. I'm in my uniform. I'm shaking hands, kissing babies, you know, being the great sheriff I am.

And I got myself an attorney, too, in case something happened. day goes through. I understand nobody's come to talk to you. Like, other than you getting the tip-offs, it's not like an investigator ever came to say, oh, they did one time. Oh, they did?

And guess what? Okay. They gave me an option. And what they did, they said, if you can take a drug test, we'll drop that. Well, I did. I took a drug test and passed it was after I got clean. Right. I was clean at that time when they were started to sniff around.

And they didn't drop it. You're like, I'm not going to sit here. You know the deal. I'm not going to sit here and listen to you say that the prosecutor would lie or not live up to their obligations. Right. I get it. It's not not in this government. You know the deal.

Yeah. So like they don't ask. They don't do. They don't do anything. Nothing they're doing is to help you. Like, well, if you take a lie detector test, like you're not trying to clear me. Oh. Like if I, oh, so if I pass it, you'll drop everything?

Yes, we will. Because they're really just trying to him. me up. They threw that option at me too. And I said, no, I'm not. That's voodoo. Yeah. Yeah. And they, it wouldn't matter anyway. It doesn't hold up in court. And it doesn't matter. It wouldn't matter anyway. If you passed it. That's all. Everybody thinks, will you? If I take it, I passed it. They said they'll drop it or it'll prove. No, it won't. They'll just say you beat it. Right. You need it somewhere. Right. They only say take this so that you hem yourself up so they can use it to get a confession. You know, take a drug test so that he fails it so

we can get a confession. Yeah, but what if he beats it? Doesn't matter. Then he got cleaned. We're We're going to go forward. Like, no matter what they're going forward with their theory, they're not trying to exclude you. Right. That's why we want you to talk to so we can exclude you. I agree. Yeah. Stop it.

Well, so August 23rd, 2016, ribbon cutting. That night at 630, I get a phone call. You better turn yourself in. I said, what's up? They got a 43 count indictment on you. I don't know how many numbers you have. I mean, it was a lot. Probably that many.

It was, if you start stacking, I was going to say, yeah, I'm sure it was, switching numbers around. There was tons of them. There was lots of them. You know, but you plead guilty and they say, look, if you plead guilty, we'll take these 16 and condense them to one and these four and condense them to one and these 12 and condense them to one. And then it ends up being like, you know, still in my case, it was like 12.

Yeah. Well, actually, we'll talk about that. It's interesting. So they locked me up. I went interned myself in. I locked, yeah. locked me up. You're the sheriff.

In your county? They booked me there and then they took me to an adjacent county. What is the, what is the fucking staff doing? They got to be walking around going like, they were. Holy shit.

They were like, oh, they felt uncomfortable because they really liked me. They respected me. I was a good boss. I was a good boss. Right. And I was treated my guys right.

And so I go court hearing the next day. They give me a $150,000 bond. And I'm still holding true to it. I'm telling my family, this is bullshit. you know this is I'm not an addict this is you know I wasn't doing this blah blah blah you know I got arthritis and I bond out and this is a time of re-election I keep rolling I keep rocking and rolling can you believe what my and that's what I did nice and they came out

and they asked me what what my common is I said I'm going to fight yeah and I was ready So I got out, I continued to do debates, and I did great in the debates. And people would bring stuff up, and I knew how to sidestep it. I was a manipulator, you know? I mean, I was a drug addict, so I knew how to manipulate everything. I was a con man. So the next thing I did was the parades. I marched, and I would walk those parades, and it was crazy, Matt.

It was like something out of the movie. People were coming off their porches hugging me. saying, I'm praying for you. I'm, you, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I got my vote. We're going to support you to the end. I mean, people were supporting me. They, they, you're in, you're in, you get picked up in the, like, two days later, you're in your jail sale and the guard comes by.

It says, you won. What? Sorry. No, no, but it was, it was, it was crazy. People were supporting me. We were doing, I had, I had, I had, I had, I had a, I had a crew that was helping me, a team, a team and doing like phone calls like who you'd vote for yeah my numbers were through the roof so this is like donald trump yeah like inditing him is the biggest mistake you could have made it made me more popular it was crazy so i'm doing all that i'm still acting crazy um

i got a girlfriend right i got a girlfriend and you got a girlfriend at this time or you had I had one prior to this. I had one prior and I'm out and of course I'm still out catting around like an idiot and I'm assuming the wife's not okay with this. She don't know nothing about it. Okay. Did the girlfriend work at the?

No. No, no connection to it at all. Just a waitress that you came across or something. You don't shit where you eat. Right. Okay. No, somebody that I knew from before worked at a different company and still doing my thing thinking that I'm on top of the world

And I'm going to beat this. I'm going to beat this. I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to say things are not looking good. Well, there's turning points, Matt. I mean, you know, when you start getting the phone calls, you know, and it starts really. And then there's the indictment that a lot of people would have said, things are not going well. But you know what?

I think my ego got the most. No. Maybe. No, that's not true. Maybe this much, Matt. Okay. My God. Don't say it's not so.

Go ahead. Okay. So what happened? So it's getting time. It's getting November. My son's going to be 13. And he wants a crossbow because he wants to go deer hunt. We had went through a hunter safety course together.

So I went out and bought him a crossbow. And I get a phone call from my attorney. And they say, says hey did you buy a crossbow for your son for his birthday i said hell yeah i did he says you know you signed that paper of no dangerous weapon it's crossbow you're going to be getting a subpoena for oh my god i said for what and i said i don't even possess it right now he goes i don't care i said i took it to my father-in-laws he says i don't care he said they need to they're going to do a hearing with you and they want to they want to revoke your bond

who is this prosecutor is this guy just totally it was a female and um and they said revoke what come on and he's like no they're gonna so november 3rd is the hearing i go to take my son to school he says and i'll never forget this he's like dad am i going to see you after school I said Dylan I got this I said watch me I got this Dylan

I see you after school so I go to the hearing and they put me through the ringer they had all kinds they had followed me and everything else and they had a good eye on me and I think you know of course I think

somebody was telling all my moves who knows who it was but they ended up revoking my bond on November 3rd, 2016, put 250K on me, no 10%, you've got to have the cash. And I couldn't come up with 250K. I mean, I had a couple guys that could have put some stuff together. So they took me to a couple of county over jail. Of course, I went in there. I knew people.

I mean, they knew who I. They can't put you in general population. It was a general pop. They didn't think they would know me over there. But I did. Actually, I ended up breaking bread with the dude anyhow and made some ramen noodles. So, you know, so I'm pretty good at that stuff. So I'm there and I'm like, you know what?

It's time. So this is where I actually surrendered. This is my breaking point that I had to deal with my addiction. And the truth, if I was going to have any kind of relationship with my children and my parents, My mom stayed like to this day. I talked to her on my way here. I mean, she was the ride or die. Yeah.

And I told my mom. And my mom knows there's addiction in our family. I broke the news to her. Kind of told my dad, even though my dad and I just never totally saw eye to eye. He was proud of me for me and sheriff, but there was always just that, that wall between us. You know what I mean? That could never be broken. And, but my mom was good.

I never could admit to my. wife then at first and my children so I'm figuring this out talking my attorney and so I strike a deal I strike a 12 count deal 12 count felonies right he just talked about yeah and he served over a decade in federal prison for bank fraud and he still owes the government six million restitution but he's good it. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

So I began to sit down. I went to my first AA meeting in there. That was the only thing I could do anything for self-help. Right. And I'm like, I got to do something with myself. I got to go get some treatment. I'm still struggling mentally. My ego's out of control. I was in denial. And, you know, this shit's got to stop. But I'm going to, like, have a life and see my family. So I wrote a lot of the judge. I had, like, probably 30, 40 support letters from the community, from people that were very well respected. And I go December 13th, 2016, they take me back. And the judge, I mean, the room was crowded with media.

that was a high profile case. Yeah. They even had a live camera on my residence to see what was going on in my house, live at Kyle Overmeyer's house. It was crazy. You know, a TV van just. And the judge says, what do you have to say for yourself? And I said, you know, I'm an addict.

I need help and I'm sorry. You know, I love my children. She told me I didn't love my children. She told me I was a narcissist and, you know what, basically. The judge was female? Yes. and I turned around to all the media and I apologize to

everybody for you know everything I've done and I lied and manipulated she says you know what Mr. I'm going to give you the best treatment in the state of Ohio if you need treatment I'm sending you to prison for four years yeah yeah because they'll help you there yeah and I thought holy shit what am I going to do now what did you think was going to happen

what was your lawyer saying he didn't say anything no no I'm saying what did he say what did he say to expect. He didn't really tell me. He didn't really tell me. It was, I mean, at the end, it was, it was, it was, it was, we kind of broke off. And I didn't get any really good vibe or advice from him at time.

How long had the doctor shopping been going on? They went all the way back when I first started getting prescriptions. So is this two years, six months? They charged me all, six years back. Six years. Every time I went, every time I went to the doctor. every time they handed me a prescription the paper and then every time I went and filled it

they triplicated all the charges and they got me with theft in office because I had a fund that they said they of course they'll do this too they got into my fund it was an FOJ and charged me with all this about because I use the credit card not enough miles away

to use a hotel which I didn't actually use a hotel it was one of my workers but I signed for it and all these other things They charged me with that. I had to plead to that. I paid all the money back, $21,000 I paid. They got me for all this. They went back and they said I should have used it out of a different fund line

and I used it out of this fund line. So they charged it for theft and office. I didn't physically steal money, but they said because you used it, they can charge you with theft and office. You're making it sound like the justice system is unfair. Well, I think there's a little tilted scale sometimes. But, and they charge me, they charge me with not, because in ethics, being the sheriff, you have to, everything that you're like, any kind of credit cards at your account.

I forgot to write down a credit card that I owed $150 on, and they dinged me for that too, a personal credit card. So I got 43 account in diamond. I got to 12, four years, and then off to solitaire. confinement for 30 days was my first 30 days was in the hole okay so well wait let me let me backtrack I get to where I'm supposed to go for two days and I get on the phone with my then wife and kids and they say my wife's crying my kids are upset crying they're all the phone I said and you love another woman and I said what and they said your jail phone calls have been played you got a girlfriend so they had taken my jail

phone calls and played them in the media to not only crush me but they buried me they tried to bury me they wanted me to break physically mentally everything you can think they they did and I know they did why why else would they put those phone calls look the guy's going to do four years he's lost I was just saying, why isn't losing your job and losing your job, having to pay the money back, getting sentenced to four years, why isn't that enough for this prosecutor? Like, I don't understand what, what's the problem with the prosecutor? There was there animosity between the two of you? I never knew her before. I didn't know her.

But it was just, I think that they thought I was pretty arrogant, which I could see that. Right. Was I an addict? Yes. did I do those acts? Yeah, I took responsibility for it. But that's how my wife, that and kids found out. And from that point, it was tough.

I didn't talk to them for like 30 days because you're in the hole. You don't, I didn't get any phone calls. Right. And it came at Christmas time, which is unfortunate. Bro. You ever do, you ever do whole time? Tough, yeah. Okay.

You know what this. I came out on the newspaper that I was bribing a fucking, that I was bribing a pod bribed a politician and that I was talking to the FBI about it. So I saw on the newspaper at the medium where they're stabbing each other, snitch front page. Not good. It's not good. I did. I only did like 45 days. Yeah, you got me by 15.

I did like 30 and then. But I'd already been acclimated. You came off the street practically. And then I went right to the hole. Right. I'd been locked up a year or two. about two, three years before that. So I was already...

Yeah. So mentally, I'm already okay with hanging out by myself for 45 days and reading books as opposed to coming off the street. Like the shock to your ego that that has to be is crushing. You know, like I would see guys that came in that were multi-millionaires, for instance, come into a jail. And they take it harder than the guy who lives in the project, who's been in and out of jail all the time.

or some guy who's been it's much, much harder on these guys because they can't believe that the guards are talking to them like this. They can't believe that they're eating slop with these people that they wouldn't, that couldn't get through the gate at their, you know, and their gated community, you know, so they're just like in shock. Yeah, yeah. It was, it was interesting.

And, but, you know, and you know, the only time you know when it's, it's time to eat, you hear the concrete, the wheel on the concrete, you know. Yeah, that's it. There's no, there's no clock, no, No, no, there's no, there's no, there's no, uh, there's no, uh, there's no, I get to see Apple Watch is in present. I'm here to tell you. Well, yeah, but I'm saying you're locked up in that little room. You don't know dark. You know, it's no, you kind of know when it's light. Correct, but barely. Barely. Yeah, I was going to say, depends on where the building is, how much light hits

that window that you can't see through. Um, yeah, we, I used to say that, like, I knew the day had gone by when it was like, you know, it, you just count the meals. Right. And that, and that's, that's, that's how I went by and during that time I laid in there you know of course it my life was taken from me my children I mean that's all that mattered to me I mean really I mean I had to get it through my thick skull in there what the hell was I going to do with myself and I'm like I'm not going to be a better criminal right I'm not going to get my shit straight because I got four years to do well you're not a very good criminal because you know you knew the saw you know the report was being made yeah but I didn't think I you know I didn't think it was going to catch up with

that's not a good criminal like you so so that's why I'm not a criminal today I guess right I was going to say that's yeah so yeah so I did my time and then I get out and you know of course

like any other person would do you know I apologize to you know the first phone call was to my wife then and kids and and you know it was going to be over with because You know, I cheated on her. You know, I cheated infidelity and I didn't blame her, you know.

She's a great woman. She's a great mother. And, you know, I did wrong. So, of course, the divorce process was started while I was in prison. I got my divorce papers while I was in prison. Right. You know how I told my son I'll see you afterwards? Like my daughter?

Yeah. No, not for four years. Really? They didn't want to see me in that capacity, and you know what? I don't blame them, Matt. Who wants to see their father like that? And so I talk to them every day, and I built that relationship every day. Talk to my mom, ride or die.

No more girlfriend. That broke off. I had to because if you start anything from a bad position, it's only going to get worse. Right. So why continue that? Yeah. So that broke off. And I started working on Kyle Overmeyer every day.

I journaled. The first day, of course, I jumped off the bus. Everybody knew I was coming. Everybody, you know, in there, everybody. Yeah, yeah. It's like they got their own phones. Hey, Kyle Overmeyer's coming. Mac, you know, Matt Cox is coming.

So they were like, hey, come here, man. I know what's your, what's up, man? Hey, I want to be your friend and that. And I'm like, what? And he's like, hey, you want your sub-eatex? I heard you like perks You know what a dick Yeah I'm like

It was a gang member I still today remember I looked him up the other day He's still in there Doing life for murdering his A girlfriend He'll never get out And I said no

I'm cool man And that's probably Would have been my breaking point That would have been my breaking point I came in They sent me to protective custody at first I met some good guys in there I started to learn the ropes, who the storm man was.

I'm sure you knew what a storm man was, you know, got acquainted with them, got, you know, everybody I knew the weed man. The weed man ended up being the barber who I got really close with, but I didn't, you know, I didn't do any drugs. But he had been in there for 25 years for murder, but he taught me a lot before he left. Actually, he was in the riots of, Ohio had riots in 93. And he was in the riots. And so he taught me a lot. And I started to understand how to move while I was in there in prison and how to be an inmate. So, okay, you're, you're a drug guy who's locked up with murderers.

Like how, I mean, that. Yeah, it's interesting because it continued. Like I was, I was going to say you would think that that would be, a lot of times they'll, they'll move you into like a, you know, where they kind of, they kind of group you into different people and they ship you off to a different prison that's like hey this is really for this guy or those guys had been there so long they'd worked their way down they knew they just weren't any trouble well that was in protective custody because there were some of them at first so I was in there for a few months and then in protective custody I don't know if you know anything about it it's controlled movement

yeah and you know from doing your time you want to be able to move you want to be able to live yeah yeah the control movement suck yeah it sucked so I signed up to sign out and they were like that's well that could be a problem I could go bad quick dude did you really and they like and the warden was cool he was like do you really want I said I want to do it he goes if you do this you can't ever come back I said that's cool I said I'm good with that how long were you locked up before you did that

oh I can't remember it was like I don't know six eight months but I mean I had four years to do so I get I want to I went from protective custody general but um yeah i got i got tried by somebody um it was funny uh i mean it was a gang member and not any gang members i got along with but i mean he kick coming in and coming in the day room you know how they'll come in the day room he car barking and he called me on a bad day he wanted to bark at me and i said let's go and so of course going with sell i have my um my my my bunky do six five for me is that what you guys called it six five

Lookout. It must be Ohio talk. Yeah. But anyhow, I let him go on first, of course. Bang, bang, bang. Took care of him. And I got respect after that. Okay.

So there was no issue. How many people are in this prison? Ooh. I mean, you know, there's several hundred in there. I mean, because there's the floors. And you know what's interesting in general pop? I continue to be in there with people for murder and stuff. Actually, one of them that was in there, he had 11 bodies in one day.

He was called the Easter Bunny Killer. Look him up. He just died. His name's Rupert. He's got an interesting story in Ohio. He was in there for him. He lived around the corner from me. He sat and read the Wall Street Journal all the time.

Was it a mass shooting? He killed his whole family. With what? A gun? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was on Easter.

So they called him Easter Bunny Killer. He was in there with me. That's clever. Yes. Isn't that interesting? So, yeah, I lived. One of my bunkeys was a gang member. He shot tattoos.

And actually, my first father's day when I was in there when he did, I had him shoot my kids' names on him in honor. Yeah, I had to bring home, I know, maybe you did. A momento. Yes, yeah, souvenirs. So I got those, and he would have the, he did, he did great work. He was in a gang, and we'd always hide that tattoo gun in the wall. Yeah.

You know, nobody would ever find it. And so I think I paid him like, I don't know, like 20 ramen noodles for it for my two tattoos. I got a great deal, you know. So I brought that home. Then my workout partner, like my first workout partner in there, he was a blood that was a Muslim too. And I'm Christian, you know, and I got intrigued by his religion. So I'm like, look, you're praying all the time before we go work out. out and you got a rug and everything.

Seems like a lot of work. Yeah. So I'm like, I want to, you got an extra Quran. He's like, well, I go, I want to read that thing. I want to know what your religion's about so I can understand. He's like, sure. So he gives me a Quran. Well, comes up March 22nd and it's Ramadan.

Right. So what do I do? I fasted for 30 days with him too. I did Ramadan. I wanted the full effect to understand his religion and respect it and not get so close-minded while I was in prison about people. Right. So I could understand every culture.

So I started to experience that, worked out a lot. There was only a couple programs in there that you could do for anything for, like, drug rehab, which were everybody that was in that, they would drug test you every week. And guess who was the only one that never come up positive? Me. Right. So I spent my time doing that. So the judge was right.

Yeah, right. There's a lot of, there's programming. Yeah. Even though I was seeing people smoking crack and shooting hair, and it didn't matter, you know. And so, I mean, I tried to experience and educate like you did yourself. I went back to college again while I was in there. I could, with a community college.

It was for actually substance abuse and addiction, which now I just finished it up. At home, I'll have my CDCA, which is a chemical dependency consulence license, where I can be a licensed therapist with my bachelor's degree. So I figured I'm going to spend my time wisely while I was in there. And I got a free education. Right.

Then they had, which is an interesting story while I was in there, Black History Month. So they had an essay contest. So guess who wrote an essay? Okay. Yeah. So I wrote an essay. You like this story? What was the essay?

The essay was I wrote about Luther King while he was in jail in Alabama. So I get a knock at my door He was also a Republican He was He was and he was investigated by the FBI too Did you know that? Yes Yes

So I wrote that And I get a knock on my door And the woman comes And she's like, I'm looking for overmire 692-183 And I'm like, that's me And she's like, no God I must have the wrong room

And I'm like No, that's me So I'm like You're white And I'm like Still allowed to enter the contest Yep. So I got a free chicken dinner out of it.

Nice. And she was like... Chicken dinner. That's just wrong. I know. Fried chicken, too. So wrong. And it's kind of symbolic.

It was least famous recipe and I'll talk about that next in the story. So I'm not trying to advertise for him but great chicken. So, I'm making a sponsor. So anyhow, she apologized. She's like, hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been like that being judgmental. So end up doing that. but then I end up, ironically, back with an old college friend.

Right. And this is the guy you worked out with? He was the next one because then the other one shipped off to another prison. Because the other guy shipped off to another prison. So I ended up in college, University of Toledo, when I was in a bodybuilding in that. I had a friend there. His name's Greg. And I end up back with him.

I had met when he was 19 years old. He was doing 10 years for manufacturing steroids. So ironically, we end up back together and general population together. And we're workout partners, which ended up being good because we're good support system for each other. We're pretty sound mind. And we pretty much have the same idea. We're going to get the hell out of here and we're never coming back. Right.

So Greg and I. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Back and forth together. And then also during that time, somebody got a hold of me on J.Pay, which is the email system, a girl. And then I started seeing some other girl, which.

While you're in prison? Correct. Yes. Of course, you get lonely, you know? Yeah. So I end up with striking a relationship with another hometown girl, you know, going through a divorce, thinking that's going to be the one because you're thinking that because you're locked up and that's all there is.

Yeah. And, um, well, you're in a desperate situation. Just anybody that pays attention to you is like, they become all consuming. Because you're connected to the outside world. Yeah. Yeah. And you're always thinking about what's going on in the outside world. But then most of the time you're trying to.

pretend like you are in the outside world. You know what I'm saying? Right. Because, you know, you did time. You get it. You do think about what the hell is going on out there while I'm in here. But you got to shut that shit out. So I got involved with her for a while.

Then when I get out, I stay with her for a short time. That falls through. Boots me out. I'm homeless. Right. I get out April 6th, 2020 was my official. date and I'm on parole. I'll never forget going by this dollar store.

I'll never forget this. Calling my parole officer. I got six bags of old clothes going, I'm homeless and I know I need a residence. What do I? And she's like, get me something because I don't want to send you back, you know? Right. And she was really good with me.

So they didn't send you to a halfway house? Oh, I did do the halfway house for a short time, not long at the end. And then that's where I ended up with her. Oh, okay. And then I ended up homeless. Yeah, the halfway house was a mess, too. Yeah. That's just a joke.

Yeah. And, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's bad. I would have, I would have rather done, if I didn't need the money to save money in the halfway house. I would rather done my time. I'd rather done it. Yeah, yeah. You might as well just be locked up.

It's, it's a mess. So I don't know where I'm going to go. But then there were these two women that actually were dating in that. And I had known the woman, her and her girlfriend would send me cards. in there. They were older women and they really supported me after I went away and I was on one of the one of the community

college boards. I was one of the board of directors and I got to know her she worked in the library and she became very fond of me and I was always good to her and I knew she had a couple of rental properties and I'm like maybe she'd let me just flop in one. I call her I'll never forget calling her when I

got my six garbage bags and she's like I don't don't have anything, but I got a spare bedroom with an air mattress. You can flop on it. So it was a place, the flop. So I flop there. I call my parole officer. She's like, okay, I can cover you.

At least you got an address. So I got an ankle monitor on two. They had me on an ankle monitor too when I got out. One of those big. Clunky. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

So I go there. I flop there. and I need a job. So who the hell is going to hire? The distrae sheriff in his own county. So I had a friend who owned two least famous recipe chicken places. Okay. And that's how ironic that was what you got in prison is.

Right. So I get a hold of Larry, and Larry is a super good guy. He's the most outside the box thinker you'll ever meet. He'll take the shirt off his back for him. I call Larry, I says, Laird, I need a job, man. And he says, $9.50 an hour, you can start frying chicken. I said, I'm there. So I go, I'm back in my hometown, where I used to go with my deputies to eat chicken.

So I'm in there frying chicken, you know, doing my thing, a lot of people coming in and out, and people start taking pictures of me. People that I used to work with in the community. Right. They start putting them out on Facebook, making jokes out of me. I mean, really, it was kind of disgusting. And they wanted to crush me. Right.

They did the wrong thing. Yeah, I was going to say that's, like, if you think that you're going to say something or take a picture of me and humiliate me, I've already been to prison. Like, this is nothing. You think I can't take some shit. I've been talked to like I was a fucking dog. Yeah, right. was a number right like you posted your picture and made your comment like so you bro i mean and

so they they even did that to me and one thing i forgot to talk about when i was in prison i had a lieutenant that was had a heart on for me in prison too because who i was i don't know if you guys had the same rules you had to keep all your vitamins in the same bottle that you purchased them in yeah well i mean that if not it was contra man well i had a few vitamins that were mixed into another one, they did a cell shakedown. Guess what? I got charged with a contraband ticket. And the next day, guess what? I call home to talk to my kids. Right. And my... They mailed it home? Listen, even worse. Kids said, we just read the newspaper. You're back using drugs again. I said, what? I said, what are you talking about? You got called with

pills and they think their prescription, I said, listen, and, and, and I mean, I took everything for them to believe me. And finally, I'm like, I went to the warden stuff. I'm like, look, this is, this is wrong. So they, what they did, they went and took the, had the jail, the prison nurse. And they compared them because I got them off commissary. Right. Well, finally. And it had like, and I'm like, look, this has ruined things with my kids. I've been staying clean. Look what I've put my family through. Right. They did that, and I'm sure it was him. He leaked that.

They leaked that ticket. Yeah, yeah. And they had, I mean, there wasn't probably a month that went by while I was in for four years. There wasn't an article about me. They still continued those articles. But it took forever for them to understand my kids that I was clean. Right. I mean, they tried to wreck me.

And then I go out and now back to, you know, frying chicken. And these people are still trying to crush me. Right. And I'm like, okay, you better have more than that to get me. Yeah. So I was still flopping at the little woman's house, and her name's Deb. Great woman. Love her to know.

She's like my second mom. And she wanted me to stay forever. She's like, you can stay here forever. I love your company. You know, I bring your breakfast home. I bring your chicken home. You know, I was good to her, you know, if you're going to let me live there for free and you gave me a place to lay my head, okay.

So I was like, it came to a point where I'm like, look, I got to do something. I got to put some money together and get out and try to get back on my feet. And during that time, to cope with my addiction, I was going to a lot of N.A. meetings, too, Arcotics Anonymous. So I'm going to a lot of meetings. People knew who I was. They embraced me. Of course, it in Archaics Anonymous. And I ended up meeting a guy that was running a facility up in Suddusky, Ohio.

And he says, hey, you know, why don't you stop over tomorrow and, you know, maybe we could work out something for a job for you. You know, I was making $9.50 an hour frying chicken. Yeah, yeah. And I said, well, I got to get approved. I said because I got an ankle monitor and, you know, I got to get over there. And so I did. And he gave me an opportunity to work midnight shift looking over the people in the facility kind of babysitting, you know, for 1150 an hour to get a better job. So as time went on, I got enough money to scrape together.

And guess where I went and got an apartment at? In the hood where I used to kick doors in. That's all I could afford. Right. So I started living in the hood. Okay. Yeah. I stayed in the spare room for 18 months before I could find you save up enough to get an apartment.

Yeah. Yeah. So I was there. I left frying chicken. They celebrated the day. They thought they were proud of me. I mean, really, they got me balloons and teddy bear. I still got the picture of it, you know? Right. I had long hair. I was a lot heavier. I mean, I looked like a different person. And I went from there, working over there. And then I started really coming out talking about my shit. Right. And I publicized it. And I think a lot of people wanted me to like run in shame. And I only only, it instead of renting it yeah that's a mistake to hide right and i'm sure the newspaper that

was running all those stories up but they did a big article on you and about when i yes about how did they they did a decent one or oh okay i thought you're i was going to say i thought you were they were going to be like oh we're not interested in that no after time went on because i started sharing my store on facebook right and i started um helping people people were reaching out to me i was getting them in the drug treatment. I was working up at this place and a couple newspapers reached out and they wanted to. I even got a, I got a nice letter from a U.S. Senator actually sent me, you know, saying, hey, I see what you're doing with yourself. I was shocked, you know. And then, you know, I was divorced. I was building the relationship backup with my kids, which was going pretty good and dating

a few other couple girls here and there and then from April of 2020 then April 22nd in 2020 my world changed I met Jennifer and she

reached out to me because of my story and because of a mutual friend we started dating and six weeks later we got married I know crazy that's how long

So how long ago was that? How long have you been married? A little over two years now. Nice. And so I was going to live in Fremont and commute down to Columbus, Ohio, until I could find something. Six days after we got married, I got a phone call when I'm eating pizza. Some guy who owned a treatment center saw me on Facebook offered me a job in Columbus working in business development. So I went from 11-50 an hour frame, working in a treatment center, to actually having a decent job.

and then her and I started figuring things out and saying you know if you're going to do this thing full go and talk about this thing and get out to people we started the organization called Kio Addiction okay

and I saw the hat yeah yeah yeah so yes you need to you need a market yeah yeah those are definite and no I started going out sharing my story and helping people in treatment. I went from one facility now to another one where I'm a regional director and helping

open a behavioral hospital and then doing podcasts with you. Right. And staying clean. Right. I interviewed a guy. Remember the guy? Was he in California? Where was the guy that runs a treatment center? He was in Denver. Were he in Denver? I remember throughout all the prisons or something? Yeah, well, they leave prison to go there. Yeah, I have to get you his number. He's got an interesting treatment center where a little like the guys go there and they work like, you know, for free.

It's almost kind of like the Salvation Army where it's like you work here, you're basically getting paid nothing. And literally like some of the guys to treat there, there were such addicts and had not been able to recover ever that literally after being there like, it's like I forget it was like an 18 month or two year. program or something. And then when they get to that point where he's like, okay, well, I mean, like, you know, you've completed the program, you can go. They're like, they don't want to leave. They're like, is there any way I can stay? And it's like, they're like, because although,

you know, or the ones that do, they have like a huge recovery rate or, you know, they have a huge amount of people that are recovered, but a ton of them, like, they just don't want to even leave because they're like, this is a such a good environment for me. Even though he said, he said he also has the guys that come in, they're like, man, they're not paying me. They're not this. He's like, well, you can leave. Right. Like, you don't have to stay, but this is a program because your little six week course doesn't

work. You know what do you want me to do? You want me to go do an eight week course? I'm not going to, you know, that's not going to, you need come. And then, of course, he also, I think he has the, where they keep coming, the guys that do leave, they come back for continued treatment because it's like, it's like AA. It's like you, you know, like you have to keep going back all the time.

At the moment you start saying, ah, I don't need it. anymore well that's a problem yeah and and and the goal that I don't regularly go to meetings anymore right I've been clean for over years uh I go talk to somebody a couple times a month right I mean and I mean to think you've got it licked is a mistake is what I'm saying like you need to constantly you know like that that's to me it's it's like um if somebody brings up prison or anything like I never shy away from saying Oh, bro, I was in prison. I did this.

I don't try and cover it at all because I feel like that's just not good. Mentally, that's not good. No, no. That's why I always say, look, I screwed up. That's why I try to take full responsibility for everything I did. And that's probably why I didn't have a hard time frying checking in front of everybody. Yeah. Because you know what?

I screwed up and you know what? Yeah, it's just part of it. This is just part of it. It's the cost of doing business. Right. And you're going to move forward. If you don't like it, don't talk to me. Yeah.

No, I think that humility, like, helps you be so appreciative of life as opposed to being, having all your shit together and making a bunch of money and having all these people. Like, that's, you know, a lot of times, like, that, that narcissism and that ego is what, like, I always say, like, ego, like, my pride has gotten into me, me into more trouble. Every bad decision I've ever made was because of pride. Every single decision. I believe that. Every bad decision anyway. I think my ego was the biggest problem with my addiction. I mean, if you think about it, man.

Because that 43 count indictment was because of my ego because, you know what? I should have asked for help. Yeah, I was going to say, if you could have said to yourself, if you could have admitted to yourself, I'm not perfect. I'm not, I'm not bulletproof. I have problems. I'm not this perfect individual and there's an issue here you could have fucking headed off all that shit

you could have said hey I I'm sure that your benefits would have paid for you to go for 30 or 60 days to a program you know what I'm saying if you'd gone in and said hey look here's what's going on here's the problem I got a fucking problem I need to fix it I got to go to a fucking rehab

but instead you're like I don't fucking need any help I'm good well just like what you said the pride got in front of me and you know what I couldn't ask for it and could I do it today, probably, because I don't want to be that guy again. And do I believe that people can change? Look at you. Look at me.

I think a lot of people say, oh, it's hard to change a human being. If you want to change for the right reasons, you can change. Yeah. I'm still kind of a dick. But I'm working. I'm really actually, be honest, I'm not, we'm working on it that hard to be honest. I like to say, you know, I'm working on it. I'm not.

I tell my wife all the time when she's like, hey, listen. and she tells me something. I'm like, I know, I know, but I'm working on it, but I'm not really working on it. I can, just trying to get through that moment. Like I always tell my wife, I can be a dick, but I'm not a bitch. There you go. And you can't say that word in prison, you know that.

Yeah, I'm, that's bad juju. Yeah, yeah. Boy, you had a hard time. I need the releasing the shit to the fucking media. Yeah. What a dick. How can you not, how can that guy do that? And how could you kick back?

But, you know, there are those guards that are such fucking scumbags that, like, he thought, to him, he's like, yeah, fuck him. It's like, what's wrong with you, bro? Yeah, and, you know, I mean, he was like one of the only ones. And it was interesting because here I am coming as a cop. I learned all the tricks to the trades. I knew how all the dope was getting in. Right. I mean, those guys trusted me in there.

Right. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm making breaks. I'm sure you had made some breaks while you're in prison. I don't know. With ramen noodles. Oh, bricks. Breaks. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Might be different term. Federal State. I don't know. But, I mean, I sat around, you know, making breaks with all these guys. You're saying breaks? They call them breaks. I thought you meant, because you know how it looks like a little brick. No, they call them breaks in there, like a big bowl, like a casserole.

And we'd make them out of ramen noodles, pizza bowls. Oh, I made a pizza. Cadillacs. They call them Cadillacs. Really? Yeah. Wow. Federal, they'll say, you know, give me a Cadillac.

It's breaks in Ohio prison. Okay. Yeah, they would. No, they would take ramen noodles. and they would take refried beans. Oh, yes. Listen, and I'm telling you right now, the shit's good. Like, it's not like, you know, you would get it and eat it and be like, like, yeah, I hate to say this, but this.

Like, if I didn't know that this has about three days worth of sodium in it, like, I'd really be enjoyed that. I'm also thinking I'm dying right now. Well, I know. And you don't think about that until now, but oh, my gosh. And then I knew guys that worked down in the kitchen and they had this contraption with bags. They'd tie it and put it in their bag. and then he smuggles shit back to me. And so I do trades with guys all the time, too.

And I have extra food from down there. I mean, I learned a lot. Stealing from the kitchen is like a full-time gig. Like that's like guys will be like. That's a full-time hustle. Yeah. They're not working there for the, for the, for the $12 a month. No.

No. No. No. No. But no prison. But, you know, yeah, during that time, I mean, I did, you know, while I was sheriff, you know, between the drugs and the cheating on my wife. I mean, the three peas, power pills and pussy.

I didn't lie. That's what it was. And it got in my way. And the pride, don't forget the pride. Yeah. Yeah, you should go with four. You got to throw four in there. Four of the pride.

No, you made a good point, Matt, because, but you and I wouldn't be sitting here talking to that. You know that? Yeah. If you went through your shit and I went and went through my shit. I'd have passed on this. No offense. You know what? I wouldn't have.

I wouldn't have. I wouldn't change. I wouldn't change my past. Oh, listen, 13 years. Well, yeah, you did it longer. I could have done without it. No, I get that. You probably could have done four standing on your head.

Listen, I honestly, I was so crushed. If they had given me like 18 months, I think I'd have been all better. It'd be like, look, Your Honor, I get it. My bad. I mean, I honestly, like, as soon as you go, you know, that going from here down to here, it's like, it's so, it's so, it's so. humbling, you know, which I, without a doubt, I needed to be humbled. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind. I just 13 years of it. It was like, yeah, it's like after a few years

years, it's like, look, I get it. I get it. I'm all good now. Yeah, and I agree with, I think after, you know, 18 months, I would have got it too. Because think about it, here's the worst part of it. People like, oh, the time that, forget about the time. If you give somebody six months, you've devastated their life. They've lost their house, their cars, their credit shit they're there in a way i would have been better all i would have been worse off if they'd let me out after a year than they did because at least when they let me out after 13 i got to go to the halfway house my credit was there was no credit so i got three secure credit cards so by this time i left the halfway house i have 750 credit scores i've got a job i've got some money saved i've got

so if you'd let me out after a year i wouldn't i would have been on the street i would wouldn't have been able to save any money. My credit would have been crap. I wouldn't have done anything. Like, it would have been probably more devastating after a year. So really, just by locking anybody up for six months to a year to 18 months, you've devastated their life. So that extra 10 years doesn't do shit. You're right. Except for cost of taxpayers, an extra $400,000 or whatever it costs them. Right, right. Because it cost about half a million dollars to keep me in prison. I believe that. That's just, that's just, that's just, that's just, that's just, just what the from just the bureau if you then say okay well you go back in and you add in

if you were to go back in and add in like the loss of the tax revenue that I would have paid in like it ends up being outrageous ends up being well over a million dollars and then some and just think about how many people are incarcerated like in Ohio there's 28 prisons right and there's almost 50,000 inmates right that's a lot yeah that's a ton I mean that's a whole that's a that's a that's a whole county you know what I mean I was just saying my my buddy Zach and I were talking about this the other day we were talking about how they say you know that like one percent of the of the United States population is in some sort of supervision incarcerated or on probation and then what

he was saying was he's like he's like yeah but you know if they don't take into consideration they don't consider the people that are currently in jail waiting to be waiting to be tried that haven't been found guilty yet they're just being they're just incarcerated waiting to be found guilty or but so if you add that back in you're probably over well over one percent oh yeah they're just sitting there idle that's yeah they're yeah and i knew a guy that was five years he sat in the five years could you imagine that in the county too because the county's horrible oh i hate county time versus uh yeah i'd rather go to prison i've been to three different county jails yeah in between everything

It's horrible. So you're writing a book? Yes. Hopefully, as you well know, be out by the end of the year. And you were just, what was the magazine? A recovery today. Recovery today? Yes.

Been in that. Was I supposed to mention that? Yeah, you can. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's already been here. No, that's great.

I'm sure. Yeah. No. And continue to do speaking engagements, working and coming to see great people like you, Matt. That's true. That's a plus. Yeah, absolutely.

And we're both the same height. Yeah, you might even, today, you're taller because I noticed you got boots on. I have boots on. I have boots on. Yeah, I notice. I should wear my temper. I don't own anything without a heel. Oh, I did.

I wear flat because I just. Would you? Well, I didn't, because I was coming on your, hey, I didn't want to rain on your grade coming on your territory. So I had flat shoes. You know what? I still have my timberland boots from when I was in prison. And I wear them. Oh, I never.

I wear the boots they give you. The plastic. No, I ended up getting a pair of timbulins. I traded them for a deal in there, and I still wear them. My wife's always like, why do you wear those? I said, because I don't want to go back to it. It makes me think. Right.

It's kind of a trigger like, don't forget where you came from. Oh, I still have, I still have my Tims. I still have blue jeans that. That you got from there? Yes, I got my stock in cap. I got a hoodie that I paid two snicker bars that somebody made for me. I never, you know, I only bought. Okay, now I had about three pairs of new shoes, I think, when I was there.

But I only, my personally, personally, purchased one pair of shoes the whole time. Because when guys would leave, I'd say, hey, bro, you're leaving in like a month ago. Yeah, you go, what size shoe are you? And they tell me, I'd say, would you leave me a pair of your shoes? They'd go, fuck yeah, Cox, I'll leave him. My buddy

Pete bought me a pair of shoes one time. My cousin bought me a pair of shoes one time, because I wouldn't do it. They were like, you cheap motherfucker. No, I'm not doing it. I'll never forget. They had those bubble TVs, but you had to have a title for it in there. You had a TV? Yeah, well, listen. I got my hands on this bubble TV. I trained

did two boxes of laundry detergent for it to a I couldn't stand him like in and and and not something else I should talk about you know child molesters you know they're not well respected so I had one doing my laundry every day for a pack of cookies a month right we had a we had a you might want to bleak that I'm not sure if that's going to be okay

wait about child molesters yeah well saying it then then sometimes YouTube will be like they'll it'll show up and they'll they'll demonetize You can fix that. Yeah, he'll probably fix it. But I was going to say, there was a guy they called Mr. Cookies. No, no, they called him the cookie monster. He would give guys a pack of cookies if they would, like the young guys that come in there like 19, 18, whatever they come in.

And he would give, like, if you'll just show it to me, I'll give you a pack of it. And there were literally. there were guys that would go once a week he only do it like maybe once a week he would go once a week and say hey man can I get some cookies in the guy would be like well I mean you can

and he's like yeah yeah no I know the deal bro and they walk so you literally the guys would be sitting around like you'd have the and I hate to say it was a bunch of Puerto Rican guys and so there's one Puerto Rican guy said he said we're sitting there listen to we're sitting there and one of the guys goes

man, you got anything to eat? I'm like, I got anything. I missed commissary. What about you? Man, I got nothing. I got some soup. And I said, oh, man. You all want some cookies?

And they go, yeah, yeah, he goes, all right, I'll be back. And he walked off. He goes, he came back with some cookies. And then we were like, where did you get to cookies? And he goes, man, Mr. Cookies. You know, cookie monster down there. All you got to do, they'd be like, oh, man, that's wrong. What are you doing?

I was like, oh, my God. Guys would come up and tell me random stories because they knew I wrote stories. I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's going to make it into one of my stories, but I do appreciate you telling me that. That's an interesting one. The cookie monster. I saw a guy who's baloney and turn it into something, too. Oh, my God. Yeah.

There's some deeply disturbed people. Very disturbed. Yeah. And very creative. Yeah. Very creative in there. Very creative. I just love the guys that would get the dirty pictures and they would put tape over it.

They'd make it waterproof, and then they'd go in the bathroom and slap it onto the, they take soap, rub it on the thing, and slap on the thing, slap it on in the shower and be in there. Yeah, yeah, and do their thing. Boy, I don't miss those days. No, no. You could rent, like they had, some of these guys had, had, like, not playboys, but whatever, they had, like, dirty books, and you could rent them. You'd give, like, a book of stamps.

You got to keep the book for, and it was like, what is going on with you guys? I've even no self-control at all. I got better for you. There was a cell up by the. the, like the bubble where the female corrections officers would come into. Oh, yeah. Listen. The gunners?

Or were these, you know, the snipers with the guys that would be really far, but the gunners would walk right up on them, put their hand in their pocket. Hey, how are you doing? Well, or this guy would always rent his sellout so they could do their. Sniper. Yes. From a distance through the window. And I would always say, why's your box full?

He goes, well, let me tell you why my box is full of food because I rent this baby. I'm like, you've got to be kidding. Oh, yeah. And sure they did. Yeah. Yeah. Creative business. Creative business.

So many problems. So many disturbed people. Yeah. Listen, what's up with these cops? Well, what, that female, could you see that female cop that was banging like five of the. I know. I know. What's going on?

I was like, this is these cops. What are they doing? I don't know. Maybe I need to go out and do some consulting. I mean, you need to stop, swing by there and say, hey, look what it did to me. It's this bad news. Chip. Do you want your, but.

No. Yeah. I mean, my life was out of control. I'm like night and day now. Yeah. I'm all better. I'm all better. I'm not all better.

The bad time. I'm not perfect. I'll never be progression, never perfection. Yeah, you have to, yeah. What was I telling somebody on the phone that, you know, I was going to say that there's certain people. Like, you know, people get to. You get to a spot where some people excel. And a lot of those people self-destruct, right?

Yes. And so you go, okay, well, I don't understand. If I was this, I'd be so happy. But the truth is that it takes a certain type of personality type to excel and be the leader of an organization of some type. and to be able to have the confidence and the ability to be able to tell people what to do and take control and be and and and you know kind of ooze that confidence and that people trust and they follow but the problem with that is what comes along with that is a certain amount of narcissism so you have that like you don't ever get some weak guy at the very top who's you know because nobody follows them they don't respect them they talk about them they they they they they He doesn't do a good job. Nobody trusts him. And so it falls apart very quickly.

So there's a balance there that some people, they just, they self-destruct. Lots of people self-destruct. They're like, I don't understand. This guy's making millions of dollars a year, the CEO of whatever. And he's embezzling on the side or he's doing this on the side and he does this. Or he's got a girlfriend and a whole other family. Right. You know, like that senator that had like a whole other family.

know, over here, like, what's going on? Or he's seeing prostitutes on the side. He's client number seven. Or, you know, it's like, what are you doing? You're a senator. You're this. So you should be happy. Your wife is gorgeous.

You've got great kids. You've got, right. Well, to get to that position, you have a certain amount of narcissism and your ego and your pride. And you start to think, like you said, bulletproof. And then you self-destruct and people don't understand why. Because if I didn't have those things, I would have never run for office or tried for that position or wanted to be ahead of that team or wanted to i wouldn't have never pushed myself and done

those things because why doesn't paul do it he's been here 25 years because paul can't do it can't no you're not going to vote no no no you're right but like how did you do what you did and how you you got back and you bounced back like you did and how am i bouncing back right the same thing you got to have a little bit in you yeah yeah you got as long as you don't have a lot yeah well that's the that's the constant that's constantly telling myself that like who like calm down don't get excited you know you're not all that because listen i i listen nobody nobody i got you know i've got like fans and people that leave comments in the comment section bro you're amazing and i could listen to you all day like i promise you no none of you guys think i'm as cool as i think i am so i'm and i'm so you know

They're like, bro, you're the best. You don't even have to say it. I almost look at it. If I didn't live with Jess, I'd probably tell myself that in the mirror. I'd probably look in the mirror and tell myself that. But the truth is, is that I'm constantly kind of having to tell myself like, bro, you are a couple of, you're a bad month or two from basically from being on the street. You know what I'm saying? Like you're not like you're not all that.

So it's constantly I'm in my head telling myself, calm down, be happy. you know get your head straight be you know be appreciative of what you have be humble you're not all that great of a person you're not that like I'm constantly doing that to myself because I know deep down inside like I want to go nuts I want to you know like I think about committing fraud I think about money I think about I can be driving this I could be doing this yeah no I get it that you always think there's more there's better yeah or you can make yourself happier like and I can pull it off I can do it I can pull it off they won't catch me.

Because why? Because they didn't catch them before. They caught you over and over and over again. This will be different. And like I didn't think they would catch me and they got me. Right. And like you just said, you know, Jess and my Jennifer, they keep us grounded. That's what my wife does for me and my children and we have things to live for and we don't

want to behind those walls again. Yeah. Yeah. I think, poor fucking Jess. This chick, I feel horrible for her sometimes. She loves you, though. I can tell. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And my wife loves me. I tell you, she was so supportive of me coming here, you know? And, you know, you got to have balance in your life. She also knows, I'm just like a complete doucheback. Like, I'm like, I'll read stuff and I'll be like, look, look, this guy said this and this is, that's hilarious, bro. These guys love me. And she's like, they don't know you, okay?

She's like, calm down, okay? He doesn't know. He doesn't realize that you, you know, you don't pick up your clothes or that you don't do this. or that you make a mess and do that. Like, he, he, and everything you say is funny. And that if you fuck up,

you can turn to Colby and say, Colby fix that. Take that out. I'm going to start putting random comments how wonderful you are there. You don't have, bro, read the comments. I should take all the comments and just read it.

Honestly, I don't, I think I would, I would just die from the, the, the euphoria would just, I'd call me like a, to have a stroke or something.

If I sat here and read like a hundred comments in a row, you know, it would be, it's insane. like for every 30 comments that say this is amazing you're amazing you're a great guy you're funny you're so funny i can listen to you all that for all of those every once in a while then there's some guy that says you're a piece of garbage lying scumbag snitch motherfucker rat piece of garbage like and unfortunately like that's the guy that's the guy that's the guy that's a piece of garbage yes but did you subscribe did you share the video that's what i would say like you know what i'm saying like unfortunately the guys that say you're wonderful i'm like yeah that's not worth a comment i'm going to comment to the guy that says i'm a piece of garbage is this whole Horrible. It's horrible. It's just stupid. Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. I get it. I get negative shit too. I love responding to those guys. I like it too because it turns me up about two more notches. I'm like, say, what else can I do, you know, to piss somebody off, you know? you know those guys what's really funny is when you answer those guys and you go back and forth back and forth back and forth and before you know after about six or seven back and forth they

suddenly go you know bro i'm gonna like erase my comment because like you seem like an all right dude man i i feel i feel i i don't know what i was thinking like you're i'm like i was really just trying to drum you up and i ended up getting a buddy yeah so hey spin people it's like in prison you spin them. Good times. You spin artists. Good times. Yeah.

All right, what are we doing? The aatra? Yes. Unless you have something else. No. You're good? I mean, I'm good. I'm good.

Scale one to ten. Talk to me. We've had some good guess, light. Well, listen, what was, say, I always call him Chip, but he didn't like Chip. It's Wade. Remember Wade? The, the story was, the story was, It was the Stanger ground law where the guy attacked him in his kitchen and he shot him.

Yeah, he runs a, he was, he was a great, I mean, totally different story. Right. But he was a great, great, he told a great story. Like from beginning to end, it was, it was, I did interrupt him a lot, a lot like I did you. But I think you did a good job interrupted. Because what it doesn't. I don't stop. I think I'm amazing.

I get it. I think you're one of the best looking guys I've ever seen in my entire life. Oh my God. I'll send the money to my wife's Denmark. Listen, I was chipped him up from the airport. We were driving and I was shifting.

I looked down at his arm and I thought, oh my God, he has little, his arms are tiny like mine. He has a little tiny hand just like mine. I was like, oh my God. I go, how tall are you? And you know what he said?

Wait, it was. I said 5.7 on a good day. Five seven? Like I say, 5, seven of the good pair of shoes. I was like, oh my god You guys both have art degrees Yeah, yeah well two years

Yeah we're both in I have a degree of fine art Yes You have a couple years And I do not do this No And I'm gonna buy a painting off you someday I want you to buy one I know I already heard how long it takes

What? It takes a long it can take you a long time What for what The extent of some of these big paintings I heard no for a big one These are screen prints That's pretty cool So what happens is her face

in the hair are actually a screen print, but I paint, so I paint in all the colors and then I screen print it, and then I paint the X's and the little, like the little, uh, uh, uh, skeletons, and I paint the little Xs on the eyes and I go back in and touch them up and I put the line around it. So it's partially a screen print. So, but these I sell cheap like 300 bucks and that's to mail it to them. Those are cool. So the, the, so you know, there's, there's not like a huge amount of profit, but I sell a lot of them. But the bigger paintings, I paint myself, and that, fuck it.

Have you ever done, like, personal people? Like, the people that say, hey, I want a painting of myself. I painted this guy's kid the other day. I've painted, I've done portraits for people. I've done, I'm painting a guy's wife right now. That'd be cool. Yeah, which is going to be pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, I do stuff like that, but that's the difference between that is like,

this is like 300 bucks. and I mail it to you for $300,000. Yeah, no, that's a great deal. Do you want to pay $1,500 to $2,000? What about, I mean, I think this would be an outstanding one. Do you think I could get a Matt Cox one? Of Mac, of me? So I'm going to put it on my ceiling of my back.

You know what? I will give you. What? I actually have, hold on a second. Oh my gosh. I got Matt Cox. Here we go. This is going to be the best.

Oh. Listen, do I get one? Yeah, you can take one. So listen, I have a Patreon, and I give away a different con man painting every month. So, like, last month I did, I did, I think this is cooler. I did Matt Cox. Right here. I got to have, I got to have a Matt Cox.

Oh, wait, right, look, look, look. Yeah, look, huh? That's pretty cool. It'll fit in my backpack to take home. Or I can mail it to you. I can mail it to you. No, it will cost you money. I don't want to.

Yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like. just carry it like 12 bucks look and then on the back it'll fit it it'll fit my backpack if you say so it's free I want to see and I got I can wrap it up in bubble wrap and then I put on the back you know of course I do the real I do the whole thing they're both of you in aren't they yeah they're both me

do you care if I take the green it's my favorite color oh she wants the green no she said this is the better one and then I put down I put like who it is but I do different ones like I got Ponzi I got all of them I got all kinds of different stuff i love it thought that's cooler you don't think that one's cool why what's the difference well i just because this one's more colorful that's all i was thinking what what do you think

you tell me yeah it's your preference yeah it doesn't matter pink i don't know i'm i get what you're saying because it looks more like uh you know it's kind of more pop artist is what i'm saying andy warhol yes did you have a lifestyle like andy warhol no okay i was wait he was so which one you think flamboyantly hey yes yeah would you believe that we're we got a lot of similarities isn't that kind of weird maybe we're my brothers from another mother my dad did get around a lot when he was younger yeah but you're okay man I'll have you're better looking than me I already told you he told me I may be one of the best looking man he's ever seen yes can you believe that I know all right I'll take this one with

you can take whichever one you want i think it's freaking sweet i'm just saying um oh listen i'll show you i'm doing uh some jokers right now right because you do the joker smile yeah i know i i have i know you do i know you do so i i did i did i'm going to show you this these set jokers i do where i put the um the whole thing's covered it's a panel that's covered with comment books then i screen a joker over it i got another screen coming so I can put in letters where so it says it says

do I look like a guy with a plan and then I've got another the screen also says I think it says I'm just a guy no no it's do I look like a guy the other one is oh why so serious so but I'm going to show it to you super cool oh I bet and then I'm

and I'm going to pour it's not this size these are big they're like three feet and then I'm going to put what is epoxy yeah resin it's epoxy we're to put resin over it so it's super i'll show you man they're cool as hell i like that's one of the things

i want to start doing is that i could i could um i i should pay you to do a prison one of me um yeah this is a screen you can do it bro i have to yeah i send these away for for patreon i'm saying i can get a buy a screen and then just screen them

well so i screen them and then paint them and then screen them again and then i draw the line around i could happy do one with my my prison mugshot yeah you know it yeah it'd be pretty sweet But my wife will love this when I bring it home Nice

Yeah I think I'll do the pick Because you know what It's that pop arty Yeah I'll give you a book too I get a book Oh you're with a shark on Well it's got a shark on

It's got me and a shark on it You're kind of a shark You're kind of a shark Well the reason I did that was there was an article When I was on the run That was called Sharks in the Housing Pool And it was about me

It was about people that were committing fraud In real estate And then when they catch, then eventually they do another article and it's, the feds catch a great white, something like that. You got one on Amazon to download? I do. My wife downloaded it. Oh, did she?

Oh, okay. Well, I also have a physical copy. Well, I read physical. She does the, she's got an Amazon. I don't do that. I like physical copies. Okay. Well, I got you.

I got you. I mean, you flew in. I, you know, I don't feel super obligated. semi-obligated, but I do feel obligated. Why? You paid to fly in? I think it's going to be good. It's going to be good.

It's going to be fine. Yeah. And the guy in Canada that does the shorts, he'll cut this up. And so you'll have a bunch of little shorts, little reels of you. I'm sure he'll cut this up into some different things. We need to get a good picture of us set in here, too. Yeah. What do you think?

Because I want to. You know, I need to wrap this. You know, we're still on, right? Oh, sure. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. He was going to cut it out.

No, he probably won't I'm going to make most of that in Yeah, that's cool, that's good We were doing with great conversation Yeah, it's good Plus you're, look what you're doing for me This is great What a momento

All right Thank you for coming By the way Thanks for flying in Yeah, thanks for the invite Don't Matt Yeah This was great

All right I'm okay So Colby just gave me the nod All right Hey so I appreciate you guys watching If you like the video Do me a favor And hit the subscribe button

Hit the bell notified of videos like this also share the video to as many friends and family as you can if you're wondering hey matt i don't understand why aren't your why isn't your channel blowing up and why don't you have new more subscribers and why aren't you getting more views it's because you're not sharing my shit that's why so share the video hit the subscribe button leave me a comment even if it's a mean comment that's fine i'm good with that and uh also i wrote a bunch of books when i was in federal prison uh i wrote a bunch of true crime books So check out the trailers, and I appreciate you watching.

Using forgeries and bogus identities, Matthew B. Cox, one of the most ingenious con men in history, built America's biggest banks out of millions. Despite numerous encounters with bank security, state, and federal authorities, Cox narrowly, and quite luckily, avoided capture for years. Eventually, he topped the U.S. Secret Services. most wanted list, and led the U.S. Marshals, FBI, and Secret Service on a three-year chase, while jet-setting around the world with his attractive female accomplices. Cox has been declared one of the most prolific mortgage fraud con artists of all time by CNBC's American Greene. Bloomberg Business Week called him the mortgage industry's worst nightmare, while Dateline NBC described Cox as a gifted forger and silver-tonged liar.

Playboy magazine proclaimed his scam was real estate fraud, and he was the best. Shark in the housing pool is Cox's exhilarating first-person account of his stranger-than-fiction story. Available now on Amazon and Audible. Bent is the story of John J. Boziak's phenomenal life of crime. Inked from head to toe, with an addiction to strippers and fast Cadillacs, Boziac was not your typical computer geek. He was, however, one of the most cunning scammers, counterfeiters, identity thieves, and escape artists alive, and a major thorn in the side of the U.S. Secret Service as they fought a war on cyber crime.

With a savant-like ability to circumvent banking security and stay one step ahead of law enforcement, Boziac made millions of dollars in the international cyber underworld, with the help of the Chinese and the Russians. Then, leaving nothing but a John Doe warrant and a cleaned-out bank account in his wake, he vanished. Boziak's stranger-than-fiction tale of ingenious scams and impossible escapes, of brazen run-ins with the law and secret desires to straighten out and settle down, makes his story a true crime con game that will keep you guessing. Bent, How a Homeless Team became one of the cybercrime industry's most prolific counterfeiters. Available now on Amazon and Audible.

Buried by the U.S. government and ignored by the national media, this is the story they don't want you to know. When Frank Amadeo met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan, no one knew that he'd already embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government. money he intended to use to bankroll his plan to take over the world. From Amadeo's global headquarters in the shadow of Florida's Disney World, with a nearly inexhaustible supply of the Internal Revenue Services funds, Amadeo acquired multiple businesses, amassing a mega conglomerate. Driven by his delusions of world conquest, he negotiated the purchase of a squadron of American fighter jets and the controlling interest in a former Soviet ICBM factory. He began

working to build the largest private militia on the planet, over one million African strong. Simultaneously, Amadeo hired an international black ops force to orchestrate a coup in the Congo while plotting to take over several small Eastern European countries. The most disturbing part of it all is, had the U.S. government not thwarted his plans, he might have just pulled it off. It's insanity. The bizarre, true story of a bipolar megalomaniac's insane plan. for total world domination.

Available now on Amazon and Audubord. Pierre Rossini, in the 1990s, was a 20-something-year-old, Los Angeles-based drug trafficker of ecstasy and ice. He and his associates drove luxury European supercars, lived in Beverly Hills penthouses, and dated Playboy models while dodging federal indictments. Then, two FBI officers

with the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force entered the picture. Dirty agents, willing to fix cases and identify informants. Suddenly, two of Racini's associates, confidential informants, working with federal law enforcement, or murdered. Everyone pointed to Racini. As his co-defendants prepared for trial, U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller sat down to debrief Racine at Leavenworth Penitentiary, and another story emerged.

a tale of FBI corruption and complicity in murder. You see, Pierre Racini knew something that no one else knew. The truth. And Robert Miller and the federal government have been covering it up to this very day. Devil Exposed. A twisted tale of drug trafficking, corruption, and murder in the city of angels. Available on Amazon and Audible. Bailout is a psychological true crime thriller that

pits a narcissistic con man against an egotistical, pathological liar. Marcus Shrinker, the money manager who attempted to fake his own death during the 2008 financial crisis, is about to be released from prison, and he's ready to talk. He's ready to tell you the story no one's heard. Shrinker sits down with true crime writer, Matthew B. Cox, a fellow inmate serving time for bank fraud. Shrinker lays out the details. The disgruntled clients who persecuted him for unanticipated market losses, the affair that ruined his marriage, and the treachery of his scorned wife, the woman who framed him for securities fraud, leaving him no choice but to make a bogus distress call and plunge from his multi-million dollar private aircraft in the dead

of night, the $11.1 million in life insurance, the missing $1.5 million in gold. The fact is, Shrinker wants you to think he's innocent. The problem is, Cox knows Shrinker's a pathological liar and his stories of fabrication. As Cox subtly coaxes, cajoles, and yes, Khan Shrinker, into revealing his deceptions, his stranger-than-fiction life of lies slowly unravels.

This is the story Shrinker didn't want you to know. Bailout. The Life and Lies of Marcus Shrinker. Available now on Barnes & Noble, Etsy, and Audible. Matthew B. Cox is a conman, incarcerated in the Federal Bureau

of Prisons for a variety of bank fraud-related scams. Despite not having a drug problem, Cox inexplicably ends up in the prison's residential drug abuse program, known as ARDAP. A drug program in name only. Ardap is an invasive behavior modification therapy,

specifically designed to correct the cognitive thinking errors associated with criminal behavior. The program is a non-fiction dark comedy which chronicles Cox's side-splitting journey. This first-person account is a fascinating glimpse at their survival-like atmosphere inside of the government-sponsored rehabilitation unit. While navigating the treachery of his backstabbing peers, Cox simultaneously manipulates prison policies and the bumbling staff every step of the way. The program. How a conman survived the Federal Bureau of Prisons cult of Ardap.

Available now on Amazon and Audible. anything you like links to all the books are in the description box