Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Cartel Associate Explains How He Stayed Ahead and Made Millions

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

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It's a very, very tricky game when you start playing with private jets. It became instantly successful, did millions of dollars. And so you're talking about the most profitable cartel. We come around the hangar. There's just Port Authority, police cars everywhere. So I just jump out real quick with both my bags and run to this. I would say moving from Pacas, Texas to 45 minutes outside of New York, New Jersey, was the transition that really kind of set me on my dark path,

which ultimately, you know, Latt and being in prison twice, federal and state prison being on the run for three years. And it was really because of identity. So West, yeah, when did that happen? When did you move?

Oh, so I was 10 years old. We moved from Pekas to Wachong, New Jersey. Why? My father had a way of stern up trouble in churches. Churches are interesting places, especially in the south. And we left Peket.

Pacas is an interesting town. It is a shithole in West Texas, but it's also, they have the shell oil production out there. So 55% of the oil in the United States comes from right there. And when we were out there, everybody knew that all the oil was there. There was going to be a boom. There was, you know, very wealthy cattle ranches out there. The McKinney's had a branch. It was 75,000 acres across the street from where we lived.

I think they were like the third wealthiest family. in the state of Texas. So Pekis was a really interesting place. So my father was the pastor of the first Christian church. And it was, you know, kind of the uppity church in town. And he gave a sermon that said Pekas is 85% Hispanic. And when I look out, I don't see one brown face. And half the congregation was like, holy shit, that's a pretty, you know, Christian message. We need to work on that. And the other half of the congregation was just like, you're not coming in here, you know, in interrupting the status quo. Right. And so they didn't fire him per se, but he knew that it was going to be, there was going to be some thorns in his side if we stayed there. And why they thought it was a good idea to go to New Jersey, I have no idea. My father was an adventurous type. I guess he just wanted to live someplace differently. And he went and interviewed churches all over the country. I remember he went to one in California. That's the one that I really wanted to go to, but we ended up going to New Jersey.

So we went from West Texas where your father is the pastor that carries clout. Part of his salary was a membership to the country club. We didn't have money. We weren't wealthy, but it didn't matter. And I felt like I belonged to a community. I felt like, you know, I was part of the popular kids, et cetera, et cetera. And then we go to New Jersey. And this is a very, very wealthy town in New Jersey.

Small school, each grade only has two home rooms. and that was the first time in my life that I ever felt inferior. Up until then, all of the external social cues, I felt like we're just telling me you're someone special, you're someone special. And I thought I was someone special. And then we go to New Jersey, and none of those things that got me those external cues being in the South

doesn't work in New Jersey. The only thing that matters there is money. And so that was the first time that I felt inferior. and it was because I knew that we didn't have money. And that is where my obsession with money and it being tied to my identity absolutely started. Because like I said, those kids didn't make me feel inferior in any other way. They sure as hell weren't tougher than me. I didn't think they were better looking than me.

I didn't think they were smarter than me. I didn't think they were anything better than me. But because their families had money and my family didn't have money. But they're driving nice cars. They're pulling up in Mercedes. They're wearing all- Waring Jordans. Yeah, yeah.

They're wearing all the name brand clothes. Yeah. They get to go on vacations that you're not going on. They get to, yeah, yeah. Yeah, coming back from Christmas vacation, everybody's tan because they went to Hawaii, things like that. We, of course, you know, stayed in New Jersey because we couldn't afford to do things like that. And I didn't realize it at the time how much it impacted me, but it absolutely did.

And it's only through, you know, years of personal, growth, struggling, going to prison, hitting rock bottom, things of that nature that you really, you know, once you reach that point, you say, okay, I've had enough, like I just can't do this anymore. What in the hell is causing this? Why do these patterns keep repeating itself? And it was really me coming to the realization that just feeling like I had, you know, my identity taken from me. And even to this day, the kind of men that I look to the most, that I respect the most, I really don't care how much money you've made. I don't care if you drive a Lamborghini. whatever, this, that, and the other.

I just look at those, you know, kind of working men, those cowboys that some of them are millionaires, some of them aren't. They all still have the same work ethic. They're unbelievably masculine and tough as nails, but they're also polite and gentle at the same time. And so those are even to this day, the standards that, you know, when I say, okay, what kind of man do I want to be like? That is the kind of man that I want to be like.

And my ultimate goals are to get back to that. You know, I want a cattle ranch. I want to actually be a cowboy. And, you know, and it's crazy, but it's just, you know, you feel like, okay, I want to get back where I feel like I went off track when I was a kid. But that's where it started in New Jersey. We were there for two years. After that, we went to Kentucky. Appalachian town.

I don't know if you've ever been to Appalachia, but Appalachia is a different place, especially in Kentucky. Good Lord. Never been in so many fights in my life. I mean, when they say that those people have been affected by inbreeding, they are not exactly. I don't know why I immediately, when you said that, I immediately thought of deliverance, the little town they drive through deliverance. Yeah, that's, that's probably a little bit, you know, Hollywood exaggerations, little extreme, but still, that is Appalachia is a special place, especially in the mid-90s in a small town in Kentucky. And it, you know, at that point, it was kind of funny because we moved from New Jersey. And they're looking at me like, oh, this, look at this Yankee.

And I'm just sitting there thinking, like, I was in New Jersey for two years. Like, yeah, I've been in New York City. You know, I've been on an airplane, but I'm not a Yankee. Like, I grew up in West Texas. But, you know, we were seen as outsiders. And that was a very difficult environment, never been in so many fights in my life. I mean, I remember being in seventh grade, you know what I mean? And thinking it's just going to be a fist fight, kid whips out of knife.

And I'm just sitting there like, the fuck, you know what I mean? This is seventh grade. It's crazy. But that town in Estow County, Kentucky, they had one holler, as they called it, P Ridge. And the state police wouldn't even go back there because there were people. living off the land back there, cabins, no electricity, no running water. I mean, almost like pioneer settlers, and they all had 30-out-sixes. And if any police car went back there, they'd be back in the woods taking shots at the police cars. And so even the state police would tell you, like,

you don't go back there, like Peat Ridge. Like that's, you know, it's, it's no man's land. So my father there, though, actually found a church that they liked him. And he probably could have stay there forever. But my mother looked at him and said there is no way in hell one of these good old boys from Appalachia is getting my daughter pregnant. We're going to be stuck to this town forever. So we're leaving. If you want to come with us, great. If not, you know, they were at the point where she was just like, I will divorce you and leave you over this. And so we said, okay, we can get out of here. We wanted to go back to Texas. He still said, let's go back to New Jersey. So we went back to New Jersey. And same situation, we moved to a town called Bedminster. And

Bedminster didn't have their own high school. So they paid Bernardsville, the next town, over to take the kids. And that's where you went to high school. And Bedminster, I mean, wasn't a poor town. I mean, the condo we lived in was $100,000, which back in the 90s, I mean, that wasn't. Yeah, it's a nice place. Yeah, you weren't poor. But in comparison to Bernardsville, you were poor.

And so high school experience was you get there in all of your home rooms and all of your, you know, first classes, teachers take enroll with the freshman class. and they're asking, you know, where are you from, Bedminster or Bernersville? And if you were from Bedminster, you were absolutely discriminated against. So once again, just in a situation where just felt inferior because my family didn't have money. And I remember I got my first job when I was in eighth grade because my parents couldn't buy me a snowmobile, I mean a snowmobile, a snowboard. You also couldn't buy me a pair of shoes.

And I was just like, you know what? I'll go out and I'll do it myself. And so I got, you know, my first job when I was in eighth grade. Then when I got to high school, recognized the opportunity and was just started selling grass. And I would go into New York. I would get a dime bag, come back to Jersey and sell it for 20 bucks. It was just the easy, quick flip. I wasn't scared to go into New York City, you know, hop on the path train, go into the city, buy some dime bags, come back, and ultimately sell it to rich white kids.

And so that's where I really started hustling. I hate to interrupt the program, but if you didn't know, my name's Matthew Cox, and I spent 13 years in prison for title theft. And this is how easy title theft is. I can be sitting in a Starbucks with my computer. I can go online, go to public records, get your address, name of the homeowner. I can create a deed, a satisfaction of mortgage. I can file that satisfaction of mortgage. I can then transfer the name of your home into someone else's name.

Or I can simply create a driver's license in the true homeowner's name. I can then sell the home or borrow against the home, and I can do all of that online sitting in Starbucks. I can apply for the mortgages online. I can open up the bank accounts online. I can go to the closing online. I can have all the documents notarized online, and I can have all of the money wired into my bank accounts online. I can then transfer that money out of those accounts to other accounts. or maybe I could buy precious metals, I could buy diamonds, and I can have all of that delivered

anywhere I want by sitting in Starbucks. That's how easy it is to commit this crime now. And it's happening more and more every single day. If you think that you're not vulnerable, you're dead wrong. Do you know who's a potential victim of this crime? Anybody that owns a house. Anybody that thinks I can't be a victim is just absolutely dead. wrong. I'm telling you right now, if you own a piece of property, you are a potential victim.

The only way to stop the crime is to be notified by a monitoring service like Home Title Lock. Home Title Lock monitors your property records, alerts you of any changes, and if you are a victim, they jump in with their team of restoration experts to resolve the issue. You can get a 30-day free trial of their triple lock protection and a complementary title history report by going to home title lock.com and using promo code mat 30 or click on the link in the description box. Don't let someone like me catch you off guard. When I was in my sophomore year, though, my guidance counselor encouraged me to drop out of high school. And yeah.

Jesus. Well, it's because it was one of the best schools in New Jersey and how they kept their rankings was if you weren't doing so well. And I had a C average. It wasn't like I was getting F's and D. but if you're not doing so well, it's, hey, why don't you drop out? And so my mother said, okay, you can drop out. We're moving back to Texas in a year. Drop out and what? Huh? And what? Well, that's the... Yeah, that wasn't a drop out. Drop out and get your GED is what she said. Yeah. And so my mother said, you can do that. When we go to Texas,

though, would be your senior year, you can get into junior college with the GED. And she said, you have to go to junior college for two years. You have to go to a four-year school. She's like, you know, we're not letting you off the hook. You have to go to college. And so I said, okay, cool. So what was my junior year in high school? I worked, manual labor jobs, tree companies, things like that, landscaping companies, was still trying to hustle on the side, but just wasn't, you know, wasn't really that big of an opportunity. So went to Texas, about a month before I turned 18, went to junior college. And this was San Antonio, Texas. And San Antonio, Texas. And San Antonio, Antonio, Texas is a special place. It is the largest land transshipment point for illegal drugs

in the United States. And the reason why is because of the NAFTA agreement, 85% of trucks that enter into the United States from Mexico, enter into Nuevalo Laredo, and go into San Antonio. So here's this city of a million people back then, but literally the vast majority of the supply of illegal drugs in the United States is literally going through San Antonio, Texas. So get there and pounds of swag. You know, pounds of swag back then in Jersey, you could sell for 1,200 bucks, 1,500 bucks wholesale. And you can get a pound of swag down there for 350 bucks. So it took me about a couple months of being down there before I'm calling friends in Jersey saying, hey, you have no idea how much we can get swag for down here. Like, let's do something. So small,

started sending, you know, small loads out of state just... Was it small load? 10 pounds. Yeah. Of just low-grade swag. This was before the days of all the high-grade, you know, stuff coming out of California. Mexican, like dirt. Literally a pound would be pressed in the size of a video, of a video, you know, an old VHS recording.

Like that's, they would press it because they want it to be as small as possible to get as much as possible across the border. So yeah, just absolute just dirt. But did it matter? You could still pick it up for 300 bucks, get it back to Jersey, sell it for 1,200 bucks. So that's what got me started with sort of the out-of-state things. But then I didn't really do that. I started going to raves. And I started selling pills, ecstasy, at raves.

And that was decent money. I'd make about 3K a week doing that. But, I mean, you're 21, 22 years old in Texas. back in the 90s, that was pretty good money. I'd also go to small college towns in Texas, and I could show up with 300, 400 pills and literally have every last one of them gone in two days, something like that. But I still was going to college at the time.

I still wanted to be an attorney, and I wasn't looking at it like, okay, this is going to be my life course, this is going to be my path, this is what I want to do. I'm just looking at it. Like, this is supplemental income. I'm an impatient person. I want to live the good life right now.

I don't want to put in the work, go get a law degree, and then, you know, slowly climb up the ladder. It's just I want the best of both worlds. I want to climb the ladder. But I want access to the good life right now. And obviously it's because I felt inferior. I was insecure if I didn't have money, things of that nature. So going to raves, selling tabs, pills, things like that. And I meet a girl.

And I met her actually at a job that I was working at. I was a call center for, remember when you used to have to call information on old cellular phones. You call four one before you can look everything up on Google. So we worked at a call center as an information call center for cell phones. Met her, started bringing her to raves. She'd never been to raves before, you know, introduced her to that whole lifestyle. And she knew what I was doing as far as selling tabs, things like that. She didn't, you know, she didn't care.

I mean, whatever, she was doing it herself. Well, I didn't know who her family was. And she didn't necessarily tell me right away. But I mean, when I met her, her father was, they were trying to sentence him to 20 years in federal prison for grass. So this was in, you know what I mean? This was in the early 2000s. So they were trying to sentence him to 20 years for weed. They were trying to like almost give his co-defendant.

They were trying to give him life in prison for grass. He ended up only getting 30 years. So these like they were running tractor trailers of, you know, Mexican swag to Atlanta. all across the eastern seaboard. He was doing, you know, a lot, a lot of big loads. No idea about that. First, I guess, clue that made me kind of wonder, like, who is this girl and her family was we went to Mexico to, it was her sister's wedding.

And we pull into the town, I can never say it right. It's spelled S-A-B-I-N-A-S. But how they say it is almost like with a B or a V. they call it like savines like i said i can never i can never pronounce it right every time i say it's like no it's not that it's this but anyway it was this town savina and at the time that was pretty much the capital of the golf cartel and the golf cartel is what controlled noueva laredo so you're talking about the most profitable cartel um in the world at the time um the columbian cartels had already fallen and so after the columbian cartels had fallen the power pretty much went

to Mexico and they had the power because they controlled the trafficking routes. So you're the golf cartel. You control the route that controls 85% of the trucks going into the United States. You're a pretty, you know, pretty big deal. So we go to this town and there's a federally checkpoint as you're coming into the town. And they're looking for money. And she pulls up to the federally checkpoint. It's a big deal. I mean, there's, they call them Green Angels, which are the federal soldiers down there. There was Federales there. Lights everywhere. where and the cop looks at her ID and he goes, Salazar, and he goes, you can go. I mean, just, you know, kind of let her through.

So I'm just sitting there thinking like, what, like, okay. And I thought it was because her grandmother owned the hotel. It is a really, really small town in Mexico. And there was only one hotel in town and her grandmother owned this town. So I thought, oh, that's probably because her, you know, grandmother owns one of the biggest businesses in town. Still had no idea about what that town was. Nobody ever, you know, told me anything about it.

And so we're driving back to the United States and we get to the first checkpoint on the Mexican side. And as we're approaching, she goes, oh, yeah, she goes, don't say we came from Savina, say we came from so and so. And I looked at her and I was just like, why? Like, why can't we say we're like, now I'm almost like, fuck, do we have something in the car? Like, what's going on? Like, there's something you're not telling me. And she's just like, oh, I'll tell you in a second. I'll tell you in a second.

So we get up there. They asked what town we were coming from. I forget the name of the town we were supposed to say, but we said that. And then she looked at me and she's just like, no, she's like, Sabinus is. known for, you know, having a lot of drug traffickers. So if you say you come from Sabina's, they'll search the car. Yeah, they'll search the car. And so I'm just kind of like, okay, all right, like whatever. Um, so then she tells me about her father. Um, her father was in federal prison, grass case, et cetera, et cetera, still isn't, you know, telling me how involved and connected her family

is. And they weren't high ups per se, but I mean, this is someone who was doing tractor, trailer loads of, you know, Mexican Shwag. So they weren't small potatoes either. You're not doing those kinds of loads, especially in that town, in that area, without the, you know, cartel having something to do it. So as far as where they were in the hierarchy, you know what I mean? I have no idea about that. But as far as like, you know, association connection is definitely a part of it. I mean, like I said, no question about it. So find out, you know what I mean, a little bit about her father, who they are, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't really bother me. It doesn't really, you know, change anything, whatever. I'm sitting here selling tabs. I don't care.

But I was always an opportunistic person. And so I'm saying, okay, right now I'm selling the users. I don't want to sell the users. I want to sell the suppliers. And back then, you could pick up like 100 packs of tabs in San Antonio for like 15 bucks a tab. So $500. You could sell an individual tab for 25 bucks. So you're making $10 a pill. So you're spending $1,500 to make $1,000. So if I wanted to make $3,000 in a week, I had to sell 300 pills. Those pills, though, were all coming from Miami. And at that particular time, you could get tabs in Miami 100% pure MDMA for $5 a tab. So I'm looking at it. Like, I want to go to Miami. I want to pick them up for five bucks. I want to bring them back to Texas. And I want to supply all the people that are

supply me, you know, quick flip, doubling your money, you know, selling thousand packs at a time rather than sitting here and having to go through the grind, uh, go through the grind selling to users. So that was my first, you know, trying to climb ladder. So I come to Miami and my friend hooks me up with his cousins. And his cousins are very well-known figures in Liberty Heights. I don't know if you're familiar with Miami, but Liberty Heights is- I heard of Liberty Heights. but I yeah Liberty Heights is up like Liberty Heights is a bad place like a bad place so they're hooking me up helping me out you know get some tabs and his cousin uh goes to me he's like you know can you get keys you get birds and I'm just like yeah absolutely and he's just you know asking me like pure

and I'm like scama scama means fish scale because when it's 100% pure I mean you literally can't even snort it I mean you take it and it flicks off and it looks like a fish scale so you know told him it was like scama so at that point I was a very commonly used words he was just like Scama. I said, yeah. And he told me, he's like, I'll take five a week. He's like, I'll give you 25K for him. But you don't know that you can. Is this, you're just bluffing? Well, no. I mean, I know, this is San Antonio, Texas. Anybody can get a key. I mean, seriously. Yeah, this is. And not only that though, but I knew the price was 15K. So I'm sitting there thinking, holy shit, I can get a key a Scama for 15K. Bring it over here. He wants five a week. That's 50k. I'm going to take that

50K. I'm going to buy tabs over here as many as I can. You know what I mean? Have a double flip. bring it back to Texas is what, um, what my plans were. So, uh, my girlfriend, she was very, very close with her sister. And so I went back to Texas. I really didn't push that deal. I could have. Um, but I really didn't do anything to follow it through. And I'm the type of person where if I want to do something, I'm a, I'm a man of action. I'm going to do it. And I think in the back of my mind, making that much money at that age scared me. because I knew I wanted to be an attorney. I didn't want to be some drug dealer.

And if you think about making $50,000 to $100,000 a week, I mean, Jesus Christ, when I was making that when I was 32, that fucked with my head and just completely and totally consumed me, I have no idea what it would have done to me at 22. So I almost think that I was, you know, in the back of my mind was scared of that. It knew that if I started making that much money at that age, that this dream of being a lawyer and this dream of being a law-abiding citizen wouldn't be a reality. Because, I mean, at that point, you're making $50,000 a week. Are you really going to care about school that much?

Right. Yeah. So I think in the back of my mind, I really didn't impress it. But my girlfriend's brother-in-law, her sister's husband, was going to federal prison. He's going to federal prison for six and a half years. And he was going to federal prison for six and a half years for doing things with their family weed out of Mexico. She's concerned that they're not going to have an income while he's in prison. Right.

So she tells my girlfriend, because her and her sister were very, very close. And so she knew about the situation in Miami. And she said, look, she said, you know, you should get Brian selling keys so that we can kind of get that Miami deal going through. Because, you know, they would, they stood to make a lot of money as far as if I was bringing five keys a week to Miami. And I'm not sitting here trying to put blame on anybody. I'm 100% responsible. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter if somebody puts a seed, you know, in your head.

I'm still sitting there, you know, being the one watering it. So it was 100% my responsibility, not trying to, you know, place the blame on anyone there. But it was those two getting together. They were just kind of like, hey, you know, let's let's explore the, you know, the whole bird's opportunity. Let's do that. And so they were testing me out in Texas. I had a guy in Lubbock that I was selling a lot of tabs to. And I remember the first time I went up there, he asked me if I could get keys.

I said, yeah, of course, you know, I can get keys. But, you know, really wasn't exploring it, et cetera, et cetera. But then when this opportunity's on the table, my ex is, you know, sitting there saying, hey, you know, like, let's see if we can get this going, et cetera, et cetera. He's the first one I called. And he's just like, yeah, you know, I'll take one to two keys a week. So I'm in Texas. They're fronting me, just kind of testing me out, and I'm bringing them up there to the kid's name is Justin. This was, when I got arrested July 2002, we'll come to find out in discovery and everything comes out in discovery.

Come to find out in discovery. In September of 2001, Justin got arrested for selling powder and he got arrested for selling powder. It was like an ounce or something like that. So he agreed to be a confidential informant. So he's a confidential informant on this DEA task force in Lubbock, Texas. Well, at the same time, he's continuing to sell powder. He's just like, well, fuck, I'm part of the task force now. I'm going to have inside information. I'm going to be able to get away from them. But Lubbock, Texas is a town of 200,000 people.

It's kind of hard to avoid, you know, a well-organized task force like that. So while he's a confidential informant on this task force, he sells powder to another confidential informant on the task force. That's not going to go well. No. And they were just like, all right, we're going to fuck this son of a bitch all the way in the ass. Right.

So rather than having Justin continue to make transactions with the confidential informant, they have the confidential informant introduce him directly to an undercover cop. And so now Justin's selling directly to the undercover cop. So Justin calls me up, says, hey, this guy wants two birds, you know, can you bring it up, etc, et cetera. I'm asking him questions, you know, who is this guy? Because before I was selling to Justin, I wasn't selling someone else. And he literally told me, I never forget it.

He said, I went to high school with this guy. I go, you know, like I literally go play with his kids. You can trust them. Don't worry about it. And I said, all right, well, I'm not going to lie to the people that, you know what I'm with. I'm going to tell them this as someone new. They're not going to give me two right out the gate. Let's just start with one.

So he's just like, all right, cool. And you start with one. So we get up there. Justin's like, so the other thing, too, is that, Every time I had gone out there before, I never brought my girlfriend. It's just stupid. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter if you know the person or not.

Why are you going to bring? You know what I mean? Why are you going to bring her? Well, she wanted to go because we weren't spending a lot of time together. And it just so happened that there was like a ton of rain. She was going to summer school and there was a ton of rain that year. And so all of her classes got canceled. And so she's like, hey, my classes are canceled.

You know, I want to come with you tomorrow. And I'm looking at her and I'm just like, insane. I'm driving through Texas with a bird. You understand what I'm saying? Like it doesn't matter if even if I say you're not, you know, that you have nothing to do with it. I'm like, you know, you're still going to go to prison. And she's, you know, threw it in my face. She's like, it's coming from my family.

I'm the one that got it for you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, said in the other. And I mean, we had a knock down, drag out fight for hours. And finally, I was just like, all right, fuck it. You want to come? Come. Stupid, but whatever. You know what I mean? You want to throw it in my face and it's coming from your family.

Okay, cool. So she's in the car with me. We go. We meet Justin. Justin tells me, oh, we're going over here. you know what I mean to the Arby's and meet the guy and at this point I'm just sitting there thinking the fuck you know this is somebody that you supposedly know from high school why aren't we going to his house right it's like parking lot like literally like we're about to do a transaction for a full bird in a parking lot like are you like the hell's going on here he's just like no it's okay it's okay it's okay so we pull up into the Arby's pull up next he was in an old suburban and I remember I'm just looking up there and I just I know I'm cooked I just, you just know it. You just, the whole feel of it, everything.

And the bird was already in the back with Justin. I was about to tell him like, dude, tell him that we got to go get it. You know what I mean? Something. I was, I was trying to come up with something. Justin's already out of the car. You know what I mean? With the bird, jumping into the car and doing the deal with the guy.

And he's like, come here, come here, come here real quick. Come here real quick. And I'm just like, man. So I remember getting. in the back of the suburban and there's the bird we had wrapped it in you know like obviously like vacuum seals bags and each layer had vaseline because supposedly back then you know he believed that oh like the dogs can't smell through Vaseline even though it's bullshit and I remember he was like he was poking the bird he's like oh yeah seems like good stuff and I'm just sitting there thinking

like you're not even a good actor anybody that does yay is it going to like poke it and be like oh wow yeah like through vacuum seal bags looks like you know good shit. And so the guy told me, he said, when we told Justin and I, he's like, you know, there's, there's, there's $35,000 in the bag. You know, we wanted two keys. So I'm going to trust you. And just, you know, bring me back another, you know, bring me back another key. Who's doing that? And I'm just, yeah, of course. Yeah, there's just so many tall tell signs. But at that point, I mean, you're already there. Even if I would have told Justin, go fuck yourself. They're still going to arrest you. It's, it's, you know, it's conspiracy.

So we get back in the car. And I, and I'm just like, Justin, like, the fuck is going on and just like what man like the dude's cool man like i've been sold them all this you know yay before yada yada yada yada he's cool and i'm just like you know got to nervous pit my feelings we leave the arby's parking lot we go up to the light and there's a jeep grand charicke in me i'll never forget it and there's four big ass dude just sunglasses on and they're all just sitting there just stiff you know you're just like okay four big ass guys they all fit the cop profile sunglasses on, just stiff as a board, staring straight, no conversation going on in the car. And then there was a DPS that made like a left at the light in front of us, a DPS that's

the Department of Public Safety, Texas Highway Patrol, made a left at the light in front of us again. Then you're kind of looking around, you're like, oh, there's another cop over there. It's another cop over there. So now it's just like, oh, man. So we go through the light. We go under the overpass for the highway. And it's a jug handle to get on the highway. And I'm going to, get on the jug handle. And the Jeep Grand Cherokee that was right in front of me, they stopped. Now all of a sudden there's a DPS behind me putting on lights. I see that right away. And so I instantly pop up on the curb to go around them. And they reversed, rammed into my car. But it just kind of like ricocheted off. And so I went up on the grass, went and got on the jug handle,

went all the way around, immediately got on the highway, and then just went across the dirt overpass. And I remember it was just 130 miles an hour, just as fast as I could. First exit, got off. They're chasing you the whole time? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, left, right, left, right, left right, left right, left right, just trying to throw as much confusion as possible. And one of the DPS cars got stuck in the median, another guy in a truck got stuck in the median. So just created this whole confusion.

What's Justin doing? In the back of the car, just shitting himself. He's not like, like, pull over, bro. Yeah, well, no, he was like, bro, like, come on. making it worse the whole time my uh my ex is just like fuck yeah babe like go go go she's like get away from these motherfuckers and so i ditched them like as far as the cars but out there loving texas very very very remote um very remote place very very remote highways and they'll actually use little sessna's to do radar on the highways um and then let the you know the dps guy know ahead like hey

the white Honda coming down and i just clocked him doing 92 etc etc so the there was one of those Cessna's in the area. They immediately called in support. And so he came in and was just flying like slow circles around us. So because they had air support, they knew, they knew where we went. But if that Cessna wouldn't have been in the area, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have known where we went. So we ditch the car because I'm like, okay, we got to get out of the car.

We got to get on foot. We got to do something. We ditch the car. We start running down the street. My girl has the bag with the $35,000 in it. So it's, you know, me, Justin, and my girl, and I see a cop car turned down the street. And I looked at my girl and I said, just go. And I literally ran towards the cop car because there was only one on the thing.

And I was just like, fuck it. Like, I'll sacrifice myself so she can get away. So I ran towards the cop car just to, you know, make them focus on me. And of course, no, they got out, put me in cuffs right away. And my ex was hiding in a garage under a car, like, hidden. behind the backpack. The cops came in there and everything with the flashlight, like went into the garage, didn't see her. She thought they were all gone and she was going to get up out of the garage and it was crazy because it was another Hispanic woman and she sees it and she starts, yeah,

Polizia, Polizia, she starts telling her in Spanish like, shut up, I'll give you money, shut up, I'll give you money. So they got her. They obviously already knew who Justin was. And this was in Lubbock, Texas, so you're not getting bail. And if it would have been in San Antonio, Texas, for a bird, they would have given you bail like PR. Like it's San Antonio, Texas. It's a bird. Who cares? But Love at Texas is the Bible Belt.

Anyone who gets caught with any kind of case where you're facing a five-year mandatory minimum, you're a flight risk. So instantly, bail denied. I was in county jail up there for about six and a half months. And, you know, finally got a plea. And it was seven and a half years. So I got the five-year, and I'm, you know, 22 years old. had a year to go before I went to law school.

So five years for the key, a year and a half for aggravated assault on a federal officer, and a year for reckless endangerment. So the car chase, because they rammed my car, they tried to say that I rammed their car. Oh, okay. And so that's why they gave me aggravated assault on a federal officer. So I got all these sentence enhancements. The sentence enhancements, though, were really because I wouldn't rat is what it came down to. So she was in the car with me.

They knew who her family was. And they're looking at it like, oh, here's this white boy from Jersey. Mother's a teacher. You know what I mean? Like we can get him to squeal. No problem. And that was ultimately like my attorney's defense was, look, you know, you're going to go to prison for a long time unless you rat on Valerie and her family. And that's what she told me.

And so I'm sitting there thinking, all right, how can I cooperate and tell them something but not get anybody in trouble. And so I come up with like this. It's even worse. It's even worse. Well, just listen. Oh, it made it a lot worse. So I come up with this elaborate story about, oh, yeah, I met the dude at the club. You know, he gave me a burner. It's the only, only way I contacted him. I really don't know how to get a hold of him, yada, yada, yada. You know, and the whole time, they're just like, come on. Like, she's in the car with you. We know her family are. Like, get the fuck out of here. So I tell them I'm going to cooperate. They, the two DE agents on the case, come pick me up from the county jail, you know, and they think you're going to cooperate.

So they're acting like, you know, they're your best friend and all that. Like, hey, you want to stop and get McDonald's and all that kind of shit. So I'm like, all right, yeah, sure, whatever. So they buy me McDonald's. We get to the federal building in Lubbock, Texas, because it was about a 45-minute drive because the federal inmates didn't get housed in Lubbock County Jail. They paid Brown County and Terry County. That's where the federal inmates would get housed.

So it was, like I said, about a 45-minute hour drive with the DEA guys to get there. and so we're in a boardroom and the DEA guys are sitting there looking all excited, you know, getting all their notes out and all of that. And my federal public pretender, because she sure as hell wasn't a defender, she comes in and she goes, do you might have have a moment alone with my client? I said, oh, yeah, sure, no problem. So she comes in and she goes, look, this is what they know, this is what they want to hear from you. And they pretty much knew everything.

Yeah. And I'm sitting there thinking, how the fuck do they know that? you know what I mean and I tell her I'm like well that's not what happened and she's like well tell me what happened and so I gave her my bullshit story and she goes they're not going to want to hear that and I said well look that's what I'm willing to tell them because that's what happened and she goes okay well let me go tell the prosecutor and her name is tanya pierce probably one of the fiercest bitches to ever roam this planet um and this was all staged 100 percent my attorney did this on purpose so I would be an earshot they go right outside the door

and she tells Tanya Pierce, here's what he's willing to tell you, you know, unofficially. And she starts going off, that lion sack of shit, we know it came from her family and that we know about all the other keys and we're going to indict him for all this other shit.

I mean, they're doing it so I'm in earshot, trying to scare me. And so my attorney comes back and she goes, you hurt her, you know? It's either you tell them this or she said, I'm going to advise you not to cooperate because they're going to charge you with perjury. and I said, okay, I'm not going to cooperate then.

And she looked at me and she goes, if you don't rat on Valerie and her family, you're going to do 15 years in prison. And I looked at her and I said, so be it. And I'll never forget to look on her face. I thought the original deal with seven years. Well, no, no, no. This is before.

So that's what I'm trying to tell you. This is all stage. She was lying to my ass to try to make me think that I was going to get more time than I was. So I would snitch. This is before I got the plea bargain. and you know, and did all of that. Okay.

This was right in the beginning before you even, how the feds work is, they want you to snitch before you get discovery. Yeah, yeah. So that you don't know what they know, so you can't, you know, essentially lie. So this was right in the beginning, you know what I mean? Like there was no even discussion of a plea bargain yet, et cetera, et cetera. This was just trying to get me to snitch as quickly as possible. And I told her, I was just like, so be it.

And I'll never forget to look on her face because she just like just shot back. The stats, like, 85% of people in the Fed. system snitch. Right. So when you're part of the 15% it doesn't snitch, they don't know how to handle you and they're going to...

The real figure is more like 95%. The problem is 10% that extra 10%. They do cooperate. Yeah. But their cooperation doesn't lead to any arrests so they don't get any cooperation. Yeah.

So it's 85% they get cooperation. 95% cooperate. Yeah. But there's... What happens is sometimes you give them everything and they go out and they look into it and they're like yeah it's just not enough okay well you did cooperate yeah it just didn't lead to any any arrests yeah guess what you don't get it you don't get a 5k1 yeah get a rule 35 yeah just year time so the stat is 85 but it's really higher okay sorry but yeah yeah yeah because i mean i know that yeah but

i mean you understand it then if the stat is that high and you're the fuck it and you're part of that 5 for you to be the guy says fuck it i'll just take it on the chin then they're like they don't know how to that's insane they don't know how to deal with it yeah yeah so that's where the sentence enhancements really came from, is that I think that they, because she also told me too, she said, look, once the discovery comes out, this is how it works up here, you will not have another opportunity to snitch. So are you sure you don't want to snitch because I'm filing for discovery? Once discovery comes out, you're not going to have this opportunity more. And I told her, I said, I'm not snitching. She said, okay, we're going to file for discovery. So they got the discovery.

And she was such a chicken shit, public pretender. I told her. I told her. her from day one. I remember her staff investigator came out and I said you need to get pictures of the cars right away because if you get pictures of the cars, you can see that my car was rammed. I literally, like I'm 22 years old and my fear is that they're going to say that I rammed their car. I said, you need to go out and get pictures of the cars right away because my fears are going to say that I rammed them. But if you look at the car, like how the collision was made, you can clearly see that they backed into me. It wasn't a side swipe. I mean, they literally backed into me. He's like, oh yeah don't worry about it you know what i mean like it won't it won't affect us if it does we'll go

out and get we'll get pictures etc etc so she brings my plea bargain and she says look on the low end you're going to do five years for the mandatory minimum um there is relevant conduct in there for another bird so you could end up doing six years so she gave me an official letter five years at the least six years at the most these are all the factors you know they're considering etc, et cetera, et cetera. So it says, you know, what choice do you have? But, you know, so the whole thing about 15 years, all that, that was literally her lying, lying. I remember my father called her up and said, what the fuck are you talking about? She's like, oh, well, you know, there's other things they know about. They could indict them. I'm just anticipating the worst bullshit. You were literally

playing the game with them trying to get me to snitch as ultimately what you were trying to do. Right. So she comes in, gives me to plea bargain. I signed the plea bargain. And then after that, you know, the probation officer does the whole report, you know, and then provide. it to the court, et cetera, et cetera, you know, for your sentence recommendation. And so she mailed it to me because it had all these sentence enhancements in there, right? Well, it didn't get, to me for whatever reason, it didn't get to me. So she comes out, I think it was like a week, week and a half after she mailed it to me. And she does this, you know, a visit with me and her staff investigators are too. And she goes, so what do you, what do you think about the report,

you know? And I'm just looking at her. I'm just like, fuck you're talking about. She goes, you didn't you didn't receive it said no she said oh said i sent it last week i said no i didn't receive it and i'm sitting there and i remember i put my hands on the table and they were getting all sweaty and i knew something was up and i was like so what what you know what's in the PSR what's going on she goes well there were some sentence enhancements and i'm just like and i remember i look at it and i slapped my hands on the table and i said you bitch um and i said it was because of the car chase wasn't it she's just like yeah i said let me see it and right there aggravated assault on a federal officer, which I didn't do.

They rammed me. Reckless endangerment, cool, give me the extra year. I can accept responsibility for that. So they were, you know, I was facing, I think it was eight and a half. The judge only gave me seven and a half, but it was like, you know, maximum eight and a half. And once again, she goes, are you sure you don't want to cooperate? It's still not too late to cooperate. You said it was too late.

They lie to you. They lie to you. You're not going to believe this. Yeah, they 100% lie to you. Yeah. And she's like, are you sure you don't want to cooperate? And I looked at her and I'm like, are you still with this bullshit? I'm like, did you do this?

You know what I mean? To like get me as much time as possible because you're trying to help them. Get me to cooperate. I was like, I'm not cooperating. Don't ask me again. And she was just like, okay, well, you know, we'll try to file emotion saying that this was a barren behavior. You were in college, blah, blah, blah, all this bullshit.

And I had been to the National Ethics Bowl with my college. I mean, I was on the dean's list. So it wasn't like I was just in college. I mean, there were some accolades there. And that's ultimately why the judge, rather than giving me the eight and a half years, gave me the seven half years, he gave me right in the middle of the sentencing guidelines. And so that was, that was my first defense at 22, did five years behind the fence and then six months in the halfway house. So I got a year off for good time and a year off for RDAP. So what was it?

We're sent to what a low or a camp? It was FCI Bastrop. So it was a low. and the crazy part about it is four months six months before I was arrested I actually went to that prison to visit my ex's father

he was there he was there was there when you got there or did he been moved by it oh no he was there that worked out well for you yep he was there when I got there and it was funny I'll never forget it

we um I got there I knew it was there so as soon as the door is popped he was in a different unit I went and found him and he was like, come on, let's walk the track. And I remember he was a Pisa, you know, and there was like Paisas there. And they were kind of looking at him like, what's up? I'm like, we're going to kill this dude? Like this dude, you know, got your daughter arrested, et cetera, et cetera.

They were looking at him like, shit, you know, is it, fuck. Is it go time? And he goes, come on, let's walk the track. And I could, you know, kind of sense attention. And he's just like, yeah, he's like a lot of those guys asked me, you know what I mean? Like if we were going to handle you when you got here because, you know what I mean, like Valerie got arrested. And he looked at me and he goes, if I have one kid that's just like me, he goes, it's her.

He goes, I don't even have to ask you any questions. He goes between her and Sue Hey, he goes, I already pretty much know what went on. You know what I mean? He said, you were stupid to let her in the vehicle. He said, but, you know, I can imagine, you know what I mean, that she probably had something to do with that too. And I remember that was the first conversation we had. So he was basically telling me, like, I'm not even, you know, I'm upset that she's in prison.

She only had to do 18 months. But, you know what I mean? Like, come on now. this isn't ultimately your fault. That, though, the whole prison experience kind of made it, that was one of the things where there, the whites were minority. They didn't really have, you know, any gangs. They were just kind of, you know, like a racial group trying to stay on the sidelines.

It was vastly majority Mexican, and the Mexicans had tangos and they had gangs. And then after that, it was the blacks. And the blacks had gangs. but they also kind of loosely organized in a tango type, you know, style of format. It wasn't a Mexican tango, but all the blacks from Austin, you know what I mean, would be considered one group, all the blacks from San Antonio would be considered one group. Yeah, cars, yeah. But the other thing is that the blacks would also act as a racial group when it came to dealing

with the Mexicans because the Mexicans just vastly outnumbered them. And there could be conflicts between a Mexican gang and a Mexican tango. They might have beef. but if something happened with the blacks and it was just like oh no the blacks got to be put in their place the entire Mexicans would act as one racial group to put the blacks in check so how it works when when you got there whomever you were running with and they'd instantly come up to you'd be like who you're running with and if you you know whatever you said your people will come up to you so I got there late um it was right as they were locking the door so nobody came up and said you know who you're running with and then plus

You know what I mean? It's just like I'm white. So of course you're thinking I'll, okay, you know, the white you didn't come up and talk to me. But I instantly get up as soon as the doors pop, boom, I'm over here to another unit and I'm seeking out, you know what I mean, one of the big dudes with the Paisas that everybody knows is part of the cartel. So I'm sure all the whites are just kind of looking like, all right, like who the fuck is this dude? You know what I mean? To get here and deal, you know what I mean, with somebody kind of up on that level, et cetera, et cetera. So whites never really approached me. I was there for two months. I actually lived with a black dude who was going home in two months, Shabazz.

And Shabazz wanted me to stay in there because all the other blacks hated Shabazz. Shabazz was like, you know, I don't know, the person that read so many books, you know, when he was down in 12 years and wanted to preach to everyone and just, you know, he couldn't get along with anyone. So he told me, he was just like, dude, he's like, just staying in the cell with me. He's just like, I'm not racist. He's like, I guess you're not racist. He's like, whatever, who cares?

I'm only here for another two months. I'm going home. And then after that, the cell will be yours. You know, because that's how it works. Whoever's in the cell longest is yours. He's just like, bro, people are here for years and they don't have their own cells. He's like, you know, you want to stay here. So I was just like, all right, cool, fuck it.

So I stayed there for about two months. About a week before Shabazz was going home, he came into the cell and he said, Juk said after I leave that he's going to move in, you know, and the cell is going to be his. And I looked at him and I'm just like, the fuck? Like, that ain't how it works. You know what I mean? like he's just going to move in and it's going to be his. It's like, he's not moving in.

So he was doing this on purpose. He was just a manipulative, just piece of shit. It's like just doing this just to fuck with me. Because like, you know, here's the whole benefit of, oh, you know, you get to stay here for two months, put up of my bullshit and the cell's yours. And then it's just like, oh, ha, ha, motherfucker, you did this for nothing. So Juke comes into the cell and he tries to, you know, stand up and be like, well, you know, I'm moving in after Shabazz goes out. And there's just, you know, lay down or get down, whatever you want to. deal. I'm not scared. You know, if you want to go, let's go. And Juke was actually a nice guy.

Duke wasn't really a tough guy. He was just put in that position. You know what I mean? Came in there and just tried to check me. Didn't work. So he walked out. So the leader for Tango Sananto, which is all Mexicans, Juanio, he saw all of that. And he went and he opened up the door to my cell. And he was just like, oh my boy, why don't you just run with us? And I just was like, I'm white, dude. Like, is that cool? He's like, yeah, man, don't sweat it. And so he went over to the cell where a juke was at. Shabazz was standing right in front and he'd open up the door and he was like, oh, home boy, he runs with dust now. And I'll never forget to look on Shabaza's space because Shabazz was just like, motherfucker. Because now it's just, I run, you know what I'm

with the biggest tango on the yard right now. You're not doing a thing. You think you're going home. You know what I mean? In a week. Like, they'll put you in the hole. You lose your good time. And so there was one other white dude that ran with Tango Sananto. It wasn't a gang per se. I mean, you know, you know, you're You understand. Yeah. You understand. It wasn't a gang.

Of course, the prison officials would call it that, but it was just I didn't really have anything in common with the whites per se. I hung out with all of the Mexicans from San Antonio. The dude that I got the key from ended up there on another case anyway, had a lot of respect for me, you know what I mean? Because it's just like at that point when he showed up, it's 100% confirmed. I'm not a snitch because you know how it is. A lot of people say they're not snitches.

You know what I mean? Ultimately, they are. So here's the dude that everybody. knows that I got the key from. He's there on a separate case. So obviously, I didn't snitch. So, you know what I mean? That definitely got me a lot of credibility and respect, you know what I mean? As far as with that group, but still crazy, you know, two months in, I remember walking from one side of the unit to the other side and a whole bunch of inmates there and you can just feel the tension. You know, something's going on. You know how it is when you're in prison. You know, like, you're like,

you can feel the energy. And so I look over and they've got this guard up against the wall. And this one inmate is up in his face. And he's like, I should kill you. He's like, I should break it. Just saying everything to this motherfucker. And this guard, Lance, he just like would not look at him. He was just up against the wall, just scared as could be.

He obviously, you'd already hit the alarm. So here comes Lieutenant Figueroa with one of the SIS guys. And Tent Figueroa comes in. He's like, what's everybody's standing around for? Everybody, go back to yourselves. You hear somebody say, nah, fuck that. Nah, fuck you. And Lieutenant Figueroa just immediately recognized the situation.

It was like, all right, we got to play politics. And so what had happened was the kid that was up in his face saying he was going to kill the guard, he came out before the count cleared. And so that guard got pissed. So he went into shake down his room. We didn't shake down his room. He destroyed it. So that's why I did it.

So Lieutenant Figueroa obviously knows like, hey, you know what I mean? You kind of brought this on yourself. Yeah, you brought this on yourself. So he saw all the big leaders for like the big Mexican tangos. the Mexican mafia, Sananto, the Paisas, like Vyuko, all of them. And he's like, guys, like, step outside real quick, let me talk to you. And he goes, I will fire him tomorrow. I give you my word, but I'm begging you.

Like, please do not let this go down like that. Like, I'm giving you my word. You know my reputation on this compound. I give you my word. I stick to it. And so they're like, all right, we'll take that. You know what I mean? If you're going to fire this motherfucker, cool.

So they come in and then they tell everybody to go back to their cell. So that's the only reason why that guard, you know what I mean, didn't get killed. and it didn't turn it to a huge prison line. Probably just transferred him somewhere, but yeah. Well, no, no, no. So the next day, Lieutenant Figueroa calls all of them down there, the leaders of the gangs and the tangos, and he goes, look, read it.

There's the paperwork. He goes, all that to do is sign it, and Officer Lance is fired. He's out of here. I gave him my word. I do it. He goes, I'll do it right now. Or you guys want a favor.

And they were just like, we'll take the favor. Yeah, we'll take the favor. And after that, Officer Lance was completely and totally different. Right. Yeah, just completely and totally different. So even though, yeah, it's federal prison. It's not a USP. I mean, you're still, you know, seeing people cut up with razors, heads bashed in with locks. And that's the part that really got me and made it feel so invasive is that I'm not a violent person. I've been in fights, but I've been in fights to protect myself, to defend myself because you've swung on me first. I've never just been the type of person of, oh, how the fuck are you look at me and go up there and punch, you know, punch someone. So to force you to adopt just the psychology that's necessary to exist in such a violent setting, that to me is the part that is the most invasive. And if you want to talk about prison reform, and I think a huge stain just on the American criminal justice system is forcing nonviolent offenders into that type of situation. deterrence really doesn't exist.

It doesn't matter how severe the punishment is. It really ultimately doesn't result in deterrence. There's been numerous criminalogical studies that have confirmed this. So if you understand that deterrence really doesn't exist from the severity of the punishments, and you're dealing with nonviolent offenders who still can make a contribution to society to put them into a setting like that that's going to. going to give them PTSD and make them, you know, say, fuck it and adopt measures that they never would have adopted before. I think that's the biggest problem with the criminal justice system

that needs to be solved. It's, are we saying, hey, we're going to lock everyone up and throw away the key and who the fuck cares how they're getting treated? Or are we saying, here's the crime, here's the punishment. After that, we are going to give them the ability to come back into society and make a name for themselves and be law-abiding citizens. And if that's the case, especially for non-violent offenders, you need to have a setting to where they don't, they're not forced to exist in that kind of violent atmosphere. Right.

But nobody wants to hear that. No, no, of course not. No, you're a criminal. You're a piece of shit. You did the time. And that's the sad part is that people think, oh, we should make it rougher. We should make it rougher.

If we make it, yeah, if we make it rougher, then nobody would commit crime anymore. And it's just like, well, do you have a PhD in criminology? Because if you don't, we've actually studied these things in the severity of the, the severity of the punishment in no way, shape, or form makes any sort of impact on the deterrence of the law. We know this. So it's, you know what I mean? It's, to me, it's just, it's just barbaric. And when you look at nations, civilizations, empires, even when you look at people, how, they treat people in their most powerless circumstances is ultimately truly a reflection of their

moral character. And so I think if you want to improve the moral character of the United States, I think focusing on that aspect, you know what I mean? A prison reform is just absolutely vital. But like you said, it's not sexy in politics. No, that doesn't give votes. They want to hear lock them up, throw away the key, give more time, make it as harsh. as possible. Yeah, make conditions horrible. And then, and then give them that's what'll deter them. Right. And then give them the stigma of being a felon so that nobody will hire when they get out. And then they reoffend and when you say, see, I told you they were a scumbag. It's like, well, you helped create this scumbag by the way. This guy could have gotten two years or could have gotten a work camp or could

have gotten. Yeah. You could have put him in a halfway house for a year. Instead, you gave him 10 years in prison and he got out with two months halfway house and then he reoffended within six months because he didn't have what choice he'd he had he couldn't get a job he couldn't pay his bills he could you gave nothing when he got out he had no way to reacclimate he gave two months halfway house which wasn't enough to get him back on his feet so it's crazy you say that because i got out of prison went right back to college presidents list the entire time i was in prison i read in red and in red and red and red and red. I said, I'm going to come out of here as educated as possible. I'm going to look at the circumstances and say, okay, what is, how can I make this the most

valuable experience for me? That's exactly what I did. What do I have? What do they, out of everything that I've been taken away, what is the one thing I have? Yeah, time. I have time. What can I do? You know, not interested in horticulture. Yeah. Not interested in becoming an electrician. Yeah. I'm not, I don't want to learn how to play guitar. And I don't want to play rack. I don't want to play a handball the rest of my whole fucking time. So those, none of those things interest me and all of those things were really just to entertain them. Of course.

Yeah. What can I do with the time that they gave me? Yeah. And so that I can come out of here with maybe a new career because the judge was very adamant that I couldn't commit fraud anymore. Yeah. He was very serious about that. Yeah. I made that very clear.

Yeah. So yeah, that's exactly what I did. And I said, fuck it. I'm just going to start reading. I'm going to figure something out. Yeah. And the thing is, and while I was in there,

the other thing I figured out, which was great, was that even if I got out and I never made any money again, at least I'll have something I like to do. Yeah. And that was something I figured out in prison. Because prior to prison,

the only thing that made me happy was making money. And then in prison, I figured, okay, if I can't get out and do the things that can make me money, maybe I can do something that I'm going to really enjoy

for the rest of my life. And then it won't matter if I don't have any money. Yeah. You know, and then that happened. to end up making me some money. With what you're doing currently, have you come across any obstacles where, you know,

even having a record, if you're like, okay, I want to be an influencer, I want to be a creator, whatever the hell you want to call it. And because you have a record. Okay. Well, because I leaned into all of it because I do keynote speaking. Yeah. I wrote true crime stories while I was locked up. I got a bunch of, had several books published.

I got into some magazine. No, I get you lean into it. But what I'm saying is the government and their. infinite wisdom. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me if they still created some kind of obstacles. So they did. So initially when I was on, as you know, on federal, you're not allowed to hang out

with who? Felons. Yep. You put me into an environment where I was surrounded by felons for 13 years. You put me in a halfway house where I was surrounded by felons for seven years. I get, I walk out the door and they said, hey, by the way, you can't be around felons. Yeah. Because being around felons is bad.

Right. I don't know about you, bro. I don't know. people I know as felons. Yeah. They found out that I was speaking with a friend of mine. Oh, you can't talk to him anymore. He's, because he was currently incarcerated.

I was like, oh, okay. So I immediately said, okay, I'll start a new email account. You know, I'm just going to work around your deal. And what I did was, what I realized was like, oh, you can't travel. You can't go outside the jurisdiction while you're on probation, right? So if you said, oh, hey, I want to go on vacation. I want to go visit my cousin. Then they said, oh, no, you can't leave the jurisdiction.

I can't allow you. But if I said, hey, by the way, someone's giving me $1,800 to fly to Puerto Rico to speak with them and fly me back. I'll be there for 24 hours and I'm going to get a chef for $1,800. And by the way, I get to pay my restitution with that. They say, oh, of course you go to Puerto Rico. Yeah. So then you start realizing, well, what are you guys requiring to prove that I'm going here? So then it becomes, I realize now that you start to realize like, you're telling me you're going to call these places where I'm not.

you've never called. Yeah. So I realize you guys are liars. Yeah. And so then it's like if I want to go here, then I need somebody that's going to be here. I'll tell you where I'm going to stay. And then somebody needs to write a letter that says they have a podcast. Yeah.

And the reason I'm doing that is that I have, I've written a bunch of books that are on Amazon. Uh-huh. The sale of those books helps me pay my restitution. So I realize anything to do with work allows me to travel anywhere I want to go. Yeah. But. and you'll allow me to be around felons provided that it's it's in connection with my podcast appearances which help me sell books which help me pay my restitution because let's face it if you go to work for Starbucks and the manager and one of the other baristas are felons you can't stop me from working at Starbucks bro yeah like you can't start me from going to work for Amazon 20% of the people that work in the Amazon warehouses are felons so they realize that so what I did was I had a buddy who I'd written a book about. Okay. And I said, listen, I want to go on this

podcast with the guy I wrote the book about. And we're trying to sell this book. We're trying to get an option, his life rights. Yeah. And they were like, well, as long as you're not hanging out with him outside of the podcast. The podcast. I said, no, no, no, of course. I'm not going to, I don't hang out with this guy. Yeah. No. He lives upstairs, by the way. Okay. Um, um, but, uh, I was like, Of course not. So then what I did was, so I realized like, okay, and then during that conversation, they were like, yeah, I mean, I said, okay. So then I went to California, and I went on a guy named Big Herk's program.

Okay. Big Hurk did 10 years for bank fraud. Okay. For bank robbery. Okay. And I went there and I found out that my, my probation officer saw me on the program. Okay. And his whole program is called Fresh Out.

Okay. The only interviews Fresh Out because in his intro. he talks about me, it's in prison. You didn't watch that without knowing he was a felon. Yeah. I can't wait for a phone call from her. You know? Yeah.

And for her to say something, never did. Then I went on another program where I knew the guy had been a felon. And she was like, oh, hey, did you go to touch you? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did. I said, did you ever see it? She's like, no, no, but I know the program. So you know he's a felon. Yeah.

So I realized, like, I never asked her. I just said, well, I'm going to start a, I'm going to start a YouTube channel where I just talk about. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I did that for six months. Just me. Okay. And then I hooked up with Colby. Okay. And then we interviewed a guy named Mike Dowd. My Dowd had done seven or eight years. He was a corrupt cop in New York. And I did like, so we had an interview. They sell the interview. They're now. So my probation officer is subscribed to my channel. Okay. She's seeing me and I keep waiting for the phone call. Yeah. Like I don't tell really Colby this, but I'm not even sure. Colby's gone all in. And I'm thinking. thinking to myself that I could be gone tomorrow. Four months from now, I could be telling Colby, by the way, we can't interview criminals anymore. Yeah.

That's your whole program. But that never happened. So she starts telling them that every once in my new probation officer comes in. And she's like, she comes to my apartment at that time. I had a one bedroom. I moved out of the rooming house I was staying in. And I come in at the one bedroom and the same thing in the living room set up. She came in and she's like, what's all this?

She's, oh, that's right. You run a podcast. I said, right, right, right. And she's like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. I, your other probation officer told me. And I was like, okay. I'm still waiting for them to be like, hey, I noticed I watched one of your things the other day. Yeah.

And you're interviewing. This guy is still on probation. He just got out of prison. What are you doing? Yeah. They never did. And I got to a point where I'm like, hey, by the way, I'm going on Ian Bick's program. Everybody knows Ian Bickwood to prison.

Hey, I'm going on Sean Atwood's program. Sean Atwood can't even come back to the United States. he's, you know, he's, he's a criminal. They kicked him out of the United States and said, don't come back. Yeah. So, you know, all these, and the she knows this. So they just, it got to a point where it had happened so much. I kept waiting for them to kind of say something, but I felt like I started incrementally

to where the point was if at some point they had come to me and said, hey, listen, this is what you're doing. Absolutely not. But by that point, it's like, I know you can't call me in front of the judge at this point. I know you've subscribed to my channel. I know you've told me you've watched me do all this. You know this is how I'm making money to pay my restitution and I'm paying my restitution. Now, if you want me stop me paying, have to pay my restitution, then I could stop this. Yeah. But they also knew that I was my judgment commitment was so restrictive. I couldn't do

anything. I don't have the ability to do anything that I could actually would pay my bills. I mean, I can't work in construction, development, finance, real estate. Nothing. Cross the board. Like basically what they're saying is you could go work at McDonald's, but not behind the cash register. Yeah. You know, so this worked out for me because it was incremental. And they did throw little things.

You know what? There was only one time. I take that back. My first probation officer, there was one time when I went on Vlad TV, I wanted to go to Atlanta, Georgia, to death where Vlad wanted me to go. And she told me I couldn't go. and I was like, why? And she said, okay, Matt, you were indicted out of Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah.

She said, so you going and doing a podcast in Atlanta, Georgia, it's like you're thumbing your nose at them. Like, hey, look at me. I'm telling my story that sent me to prison. She's like, and that's going to come back on me, and I'm going to get a bunch of shit about it, and I just can't let you go. And I went, okay. So I called Vlad and said, bro, you got to get it some chain. Come here.

And he goes, I can go to Miami. I can get you in Miami. I said, okay, so I drove to Miami. but that was the only time she ever said no to anything ever. That was that one time. And it was only because it might make her look bad. Yeah. Which was still stupid because Vlad's everywhere.

It's YouTube. I tried to explain to you. You understand the concept of the worldwide net? Yeah. It's global, right? Yeah. They don't really know where I'm at. Yeah.

And she just couldn't wrap her head around that. But so anyway, yeah. So I feel like they did, but I incrementally made little tiny changes. And there were little tiny things I did while on probation that I, that, they kind of like, you know, twisted the rules or broke the rules. And I, and I was very concerned about getting in trouble. But luckily, it, it, it, none of those things ever caught up with me or anything, you know. Yeah, they give you such restrictive rules. You definitely have to, you have to, you have to, you, they make it so restrictive, you have to, you have to break the rules in order to get, move forward.

And at no point, have I ever been in a situation. where my probation officers helped me. Yeah. There was never a time when they said, hey, I really want to help you do this. Hey, can I help you get a job? Can I help you get this? Can I talk to your whatever?

When I applied for this place, I lied. Yeah. You ever been arrested? No. I'm offended. You would ask. You know? I mean, every time you apply for anything,

you're lying about this. You can't say, oh, I was a woman. I'm a felon. I'm look me up. That's what happened to me. After I got out of federal prison, I went to California and got a job at a portion of Audi dealership and killed it. Made 10 grand my first month. Made 10 grand my second month.

I had like $15,000 with the deals. My first week of my third month, I probably would have made like 25K my third month. And I remember my Pee officer out there. He was a dick at first. He's like, why don't just go get a job at a fine dining restaurant. You're not going to make money selling cars. And I told him and said, look, I came to California. I'm putting off graduate school because I want to come to California.

I want to have a better life for a while. You know what I mean? I'm going to make money doing this. He's like, no, you're not. So when he saw those paychecks at first, he's like, oh, shit, okay, he's actually doing something. Well, the state of California, you have to get a sales license to sell cars.

And you go into the DMV. I work for a dealership. You go into the DMV. You get your temporary sales license. They do the background check. And then they give you your permanent sales license. So I was there for two months in a week. And then they call me upstairs.

And the general manager and the insurance. and the assistant manager never told the owner that I was a felon. I told him I was a felon. They're like, we don't care. You're going to do great at this. I was a top grossing salesman. The first month that I did it. The owner loved me.

And he found out about it. And he told them, he said, I don't care if you have to hire an attorney, whatever we have to do, do whatever we can so that he can work here. And he called me upstairs and said, I have no choice. But if you don't have a sales license, you can't sell cars here. He said, you can't work here anymore because of this. And I remember I went to my car and I literally cry. because the entire time I'm in prison, I'm telling myself, okay, I'm never going back.

I'm not going to get out and just get a job at Starbucks or McDonald's. I want to be successful. I had gotten out and talked my way into a really good job at a fine dining restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, where I was making like $70,000 a year. $70 grand a year in San Antonio, Texas back in 2009 was good money. And so go to California, say, okay, I don't want to work in a fine dining restaurant. I want something better. and it was this perfect job.

Like I loved Porsches. I loved Audi's. I loved the experience. I was honest. I helped people get good deals on cars. I wasn't trying to, you know, boom. And I knew I was honest and I knew that I was doing it with integrity. And I felt like I had set a goal of when I get out of prison, I'm not going to go back to selling drugs.

I'm not going to go back to doing anything with crime. And I'm still going to be successful. And so to me, that was just like the very tip of it. And it was validation. it. I stuck to my word and, you know, I was actually being successful and then just take it from you. So, okay, you skipped the part. You said you applied for the license. Yeah, so you applied. Did you not get it? No, no, no. So you apply for the license. So I had my temporary sales license for two months and I was able to work at the dealership for two months. And then after that two months, because it's like a two

month process for the state of California to run through whatever they run through, they denied my permanent sales license. Sorry, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So by the way, if car salesmen couldn't have felonies in Florida, there would be no car sales. Yeah. Like I'd say 70% of all these guys. Well, this is the wonderful state of California. And that's this fucking, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. What gets me too is I wasn't convicted of fraud.

I wasn't convicted of stealing personal information. I wasn't convicted for anything like that. I sold drugs. And even though it's an illegal drug, you can say that it's immoral. It's still the transaction is honest. here's the product, here's the money, it's an exchange. It's business. It's an illegal business, but it's business. I didn't steal people. So if I had done something like that, I could understand, okay, we don't think that you could be a car salesman because you're going to have access to people's

social security numbers and things like that. That I can understand. That I can understand. That's flawed. That's what I'm saying. I was never convicted of anything like that. So when they, when they deny my permanent sales license and the owner of the dealership, wants me there. People wanted me there. That's the part where it was just so heartbreaking. And I literally went in my car and cried. And then just found a moment of resilience and was just like, fuck it. I'm going to find a better opportunity. Like I'm not going to let them break me. That's cool. This is just a starting. Like I got this job. You know what I mean? Searching Craigslist for an hour. Fuck it. I'm going to go find something better. Like I'm not letting these motherfuckers break me. They don't want to let me sell cars. Great. I'm going to go do something else. So going through Craigslist, find a listing for ACSA Financial Services. And ACSA financial services, that's the big dogs. 92% of people don't make it past their fourth year, but 98% of people that make it past their fourth year never do anything else again because they're millionaires.

And the guy told us in the group interview, you're going to hate life for the next four years. You're going to make $100,000 a year, which isn't shit. You're going to work 18 hours a day, six days a week. But if you make it to that fifth year, you will never do anything else. again. And I knew it was a long shot, but I was just like, fuck it. Who cares? Let's go for the long shot. I don't know what that is. So they're not stockbrokers. They sell a lot of insurance plans and they sell financial services. So it's like financial advisement. They're a very, very reputable company. Like they're not shady stockbrokers. This was this was a big deal to even

have an interview in, um, in that building. It was a group interview. There was kids that They're just graduated from Wharton, Michigan school, NBAs. And I'm sitting there looking at them and I'm thinking, there is no way in hell. I'm getting this job. Like, you know, I just got out of federal prison. I don't have a graduate degree in finance or business or anything else. So the guy goes around the table, ask a group question. Then after that, he's like, okay, you know, we'll reach out to you guys, let you know,

you know, if we want to move forward, et cetera, et cetera. So we're walking out of the room and he walks over and he just kind of gently taps you on the elbow. And he's like, come over here. So I'm just like, okay, cool. So he lets everybody leave and he looks at me and he goes, you have what it takes. He goes, this will be the last job you ever do. He said, you will be a millionaire. And so I just got it right out of the way immediately.

And I said, look, I've been to federal prison. You know, I did five and a half years for illegal drugs. Just want to get that other way right now. And he looked at me and said, I don't care if you can get bonded and you can pass the series seven and the series 63. He goes, you have what it takes for this business. He goes, you are going to be successful. Well, guess what? You can't get bonded.

You know what I mean? You can't take your Series 7 and your Series 63. And so that was the part that really started to break me down and I guess develop a case. They want you to get a job at Walmart. Why don't you just go straight to Walmart? Of the fuck it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So nine months after my sales license got denied, I finally had a hearing in front of an administrative law judge in California to try to get my sales license back. Right? Right. my PO out there, I told him the situation, I said in order for me to have a chance, I have to be off supervised release. Because if I'm still on supervised release, the precedent is going to say that there's

not enough signs of rehabilitation because if there was, he still wouldn't be on supervised release. Not how it works. Especially if there's, well, that was the case. I know. That's just a time. And so I'm just what I have to do. Yeah. And so I said, will you write, you know what I mean, a letter to the judge asking?

because if your PO asked for it to the judge, it's granted like that. And he told me, he goes, I won't object to it, but I won't write the letter. And I'm just sitting there thinking, like, you've been around me for the last year, never had a dirty, like no issues with me. You see what I'm trying to do. Well, what's really amazing is that the 80% of your other probation or parolees are scumbags. Like, these are the guys who are failing dirties. They're not showing up.

They're getting fired. They're moving and not telling you. They're getting the cops called on for domestic violence. Never had one of those. But that's what they're typically used to dealing. I know. I know. And I've had my POs show up here.

And they walk and I'm like, do you need to walk around? They're like, yeah, you're not that guy. Yeah. They're like, you're not, I'm not worried about you. You're not the guy I'm worried about. I'm worried about the guy that when I show up, he doesn't want to do a piss test. Yeah. He's not even there.

Yeah. He leaves. He's got, I just went by his job and they were like, he quit two months ago. What do you have by here for? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I wasn't that person.

And I'm saying, hey, I'm trying to get my sales license back. I want this job back. I love this job. Can you just please say that I haven't done any of these things? I won't object to it, but I can't write it that letter. So I wrote the motion myself, filed it at the court in San Antonio, and the judge an hour after receiving it, slapped it, approved it, sent it back. And I remember when I got that piece of paper that said that I was all supervised release,

I was like, oh, that was just so just invigorating. I remember I called the probation officer and I said hey did you get a copy of it he said what I said the motion that says I'm off supervised release you know it was terminated early he goes no I didn't and he said you know I'll bring me a copy so I said all right cool you know I'll bring you a copy even though I don't have to so I go down there have a copy and he left me waiting in the waiting room for like half an hour and I finally went up to the secretary I forget his name Christopher Morris wow I can't be remember that and I said can you um go tell officer Morris I actually said you know what I'm just leaving can you give this to officer Morris she goes oh no let me see if he's

available and I said look I said I don't really give a shit I'm off supervisor release just give him a copy of that and he was standing right behind me and he goes oh no that's not case I that's not the truth I actually have to sign something and I said bullshit he was doing it to fuck with me I said bullshit I said that's a signature from a federal judge saying you have no authority over me anymore and he was just like oh I was just joking with you yada yada yada yada and I was like I was like there's your copy whatever left um so got off supervisor release was really hoping that I was going to get my sales license back and I was at a point where I was just flat broke and I moved to California with a friend and one of his friends was trying to get into the California grass and this is when

it was a gold mine. I mean, millionaires were made overnight. It was absolutely insane how much money you could make. So he asked me, he's like, look, I know you don't want to go back to this. I don't want to involve you in this, but is there a way where I could literally pay you as a consultant? He said, I have no idea what I'm doing. My friend really doesn't have an idea of what he's doing, et cetera, et cetera. So eventually that led to me meeting the ultimate people. And I remember a week before I had my administrative law here and try to get my sales, a sales license back, I had made one trip to Texas. And I had 20 pounds, made $10,000 real quick, because I was just flat broke. was just like, look, I'm going to get my sales license back next week.

I know it's stupid, but I'm just going to take this risk. I know I'm not, you know, I don't want to go back to this lifestyle. I just want my sales license back, but I just felt like I had no choice. I had a choice, but whatever. So I understand they were making the marijuana but not able to sell it? What do you mean? In California? Yeah, I'm saying, what do you mean?

You moved 10 pounds. Oh, no. I took 20 pounds from California to Texas and got rid of 20 pounds in Texas real quick to and made 10,000. Because they grew it. Yeah. So back then, how you made millions with the California gold rush is by figuring out transportation.

Everybody in their mother knew how to grow it. I mean, it was absolutely insane, the volume of production that was coming out of California. And you knew where you wanted to get it, New York. That was the place to go. You could literally show up, have 100 packs, and have people cash you out on the spot for them right away. But transportation was the big deal. If you did not know transportation, you weren't going to be successful.

You might get a few loads through, but you were ultimately going to get hit to where it wasn't going to be profitable. Right. So I got there and that's the thing that you really learned in San Antonio is you learn trafficking because it's a land trans shipment point. You learn how to get large amounts from one point to the next. So I get to California and it's just like, okay, this is my skill set in this trade, and this is what I know how to do. And that's ultimately why it took off. But I, like I said, I only made the one trip. I took 20 pounds from California to Texas, made $10,000 real quick. It was like, I'm done. That'll hold me over. I know I'm going to go get my sales license back in this hearing and I'm never going to do it again. So went to the administrative law hearing. I defended myself. I embarrassed that state prosecutor. People in the courtroom, I'm not exaggerating, stood up and clapped for me. I made a passionate plea for myself. I told her. There's clearly signs, you know, of enough rehabilitation. I made the president's list. I'm here pleading for this because I want to be a law-abiding citizen. I don't want to go back to this. I'm good at this job. I did it with integrity, et cetera, et cetera, literally pleading. And she denied it. And it was like a switch inside of me.

where I was just like, okay, fuck it. And, you know, you can sit there and point the finger at the system, et cetera, et cetera, and this, that, and the other. But ultimately, it's still my fault. I still chose to let them break me. And I chose to just say, fuck it. And I got into grass game, I mean, as hard and as quickly as I possibly could. And I grew very, very quickly because of my transportation.

techniques. Like I had transportation down. So it's very easy. Everybody in their mother out there is growing it. And people start to take notice where you're coming in and you're consistently getting packs, consistently getting packs. And you know, if someone loses 100 pounds here, losing 100 pounds there, they're always talking about it. Like, oh, I just took a hit, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'm getting all this work from all these growers and I'm never talking about hits. I'm never losing anything. And I got introduced into kind of this big network. And after about three to six months and they're seeing that I just don't lose loads. they start asking me like, hey, can you help us out with transportation?

You know, we're glad that you're going to continue to buy our work, but can you help us out with transportation? And so the transportation system I had at the time was kind of maxed out. It could have been expanded, but it would have been a little bit more difficult. So I said, you know what? I had this friend. He has a friend in L.A. and he brokers private jets. And he's been talking about this for the last six months. Like, you've got to come down. You got to meet this guy. He can get us on private jets. And when you're doing anything illegal like that, private jets, that's the dream. Load the motherfucker up as much as you can get on it. You know what I mean? It's not leaving your hands. If you know how to load it up in a hangar,

you know what I mean, flying to the right places, like they're not there waiting for you, et cetera, et cetera. But it's a very, very tricky game when you start playing with private jets. You better know what the fuck you're doing. So that's why I never got into it. But we go to L.A., I meet this guy and he's just a broker for private jets. So like if you came and said, hey, we're going to New Jersey for a business executive me, we need to get there. He's going to broker the deal, make money off the middle for it, et cetera, et cetera. So we tell him the situation and he goes, look, man, you don't have to worry about it.

I'm going to tell them what the story is, why you want the private jet, et cetera, et cetera. I'll fly up from L.A. I'll meet you in Oakland. Oakland to Teterboro, New Jersey is a very, very common route, you know, for example. executive people, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And he was a smart guy. Like, I'm, I'm definitely a skeptical person. You know, I look at most people and I'm like, all right, this dude's full of shit. He was a smart guy. Very, very presentable. Explain to me the whole process, what they look for, how he could get around those things and whatnot, etc, etc.

So I said, all right, cool. Let's book the jet, you know. First load was 109 pounds. And back then, that was $300,000 worth of grass. That was a manageable loss to be completely honest with you. I was just like, whatever, if I lose 100 pounds, it is what it is. And then in California, 100 pounds is hold out your wrist, you know, slap on the wrist. Right. So I'm looking at it like, well, fuck, you know, if this works, if this guy really says, it is what it is, and it's great. And if it doesn't work, I'm going to get put on probation, you know what I mean, and lose $300,000. It literally at that point didn't matter. So he books the jet. He pulls a dick move, right? So he told them that we needed to undercarriage

because I was traveling with equipment. And so if you have the undercarriage, because I had the 109 pounds in those big boxes that, you know, like bands are traveling with amps and their equipment, it was those kinds of boxes. So we told them that I'd be traveling with equipment.

That was like the one company. And he was about to book that jet. Well, a dead leg came out of nowhere. And a dead leg is a plane was going from Oakland to Teterboro. And they had a paying client in Teterboro, but they didn't have a paying client from Oakland to Teterboro. So they booked those flights out for very, very cheap because they look at it like, hey, we have to pay for the fuel anyway.

If you want to pay for the fuel plus 10%, we might as well get our fuel cost covered so that the actual profitable leg of it is more profitable. So right at the last minute, this company made this dead leg available. And it was a smaller jet. It didn't have an undercarriage. So it didn't have an undercarriage. so we get there and didn't have an undercarriage. He was there with me the whole time. Like, dude, it's okay.

Like, you know, don't worry about it. And those kind of thing happens, et cetera, et cetera. And they're trying to get these containers onto the plane. Almost couldn't have gotten the containers onto the plane because it was so small. But they got the containers on to the plane. Well, come to find out, the pilot was a snitch that worked for the DEA. And how the DEA works is if you provide information, you'll get 25% of street value. So like I think the biggest case they ever had was a woman in

New York City at one of the big hotels Said hey there's some suspicious activity going on in this hotel room and they went in there you know It was like four million dollars in cash and she got a million bucks something like that you know 25% of what they found But I thought it was in the like the the band the equipment like it wasn't raw you wasn't no no no no no it wasn't no no it wasn't pilot he just I mean think about it if you're a snitch for the DEA right And what's it going to mean, it's just like, fuck, you might as well call your handlers and be like, hey, this guy's got some containers. Might be some drugs in there. Right.

It's just like if you think there's drugs in there, you're going to get 25%. It's just like he doesn't give a shit. If they show up and there's nothing in there, he doesn't lose. Right. But if they show up and there's something in there, then he wins. So he went in there called his handler out of San Diego. He's working for like the DEA in San Diego. So take the flight, land in Teeterboro.

And how it is when you land in Teeterboro, they have different smaller. hangars depending on whoever the jet is contracting with. And so I still don't see all the port authority and all the police cars because they're on the other side of the hangar. And they have a little shuttle. We unload the containers, put it onto the shuttle, then they drive you around to the front part of the hangar. And that's where I had the SUV waiting for me. And as soon as we come around the hangar, there's just Port Authority police cars everywhere. There's all these unmarked cars there. And I'm just like, there's no way this isn't for me. So we get to the point where, you know, I should be getting off to get into the SUV

and four DE agents walk on. And they introduced themselves as, you know, working for the Port Authority. And they were just like, you know, I get up and I'm like, you know, trying to leave me like, oh, you know, just sit for a second, you know, just wait. So it's like, okay, yeah, you know, working for the Port Authority. We're part of a terrorist task force and we're just looking for guns and bombs and things like that. and I'm just sitting there like, okay, like, do I fit the profile? They're like a terrorist.

And then I asked them too, I said, if you were really looking for guns and bombs and things like that, wouldn't you want to get those before they got on the plane? You know what I mean? Like if I was going to hijack this plane and fly it into a building or do something like that, don't you think you want to stop me before I got on the plane? I said, that really doesn't make much sense that you're looking for these things, you know, after I'm landing. And he's like, oh, well, you know, just he wasn't a very good liar.

And I looked at him. I was like, man, I was like, just cut this shit. I said, come on now. I'm like, you think there's drugs in there. I said, that's what this is about. He's like, no, of course not. Why would we think there's drugs? You know, and it's just like, come on, man.

Like, get the fuck out of here. So I asked him, I said, am I being detained? He goes, no, you're not being detained. I said, okay, I'm free to leave. And he goes, yeah, you're free to leave. He said, but we're keeping the containers. They were waiting for a drug dog. The only reason they didn't have a drug dog on site when I landed was because a drug dog

was on this other case, and so they were waiting for him. And he said, we do have a reasonable suspicion to where we can keep the containers. We can't detain you, but we can't keep the containers. And so I said, all right, well, if I'm free to leave, I'm going to leave. And he goes, okay, I just need to get your content information. So he pulls out this little notepad and starts writing down like a B's like, you know, what's your name? B. And he asked me a question. Then I'll go write an R. And I said, you're stalling on purpose. So I'm going to ask you one more time, am I being detained? Because if you keep stalling, this legally constitutes a detainment. Am I being detained? He goes, no, no, no, you're not being detained. You're not being detained. Whips out his iPhone,

takes a picture of my ID, gives it to me and says you're free to leave. And so we get off the shuttle. Obviously, the containers are still on the shuttle. And I said, one more time. I said, in front of everyone, because now there's all these other cops around. I said, you do not have the right to detain me, but you do have the right to seize the containers. And he said, yes. I said, okay. I said, that's all I wanted to hear officially for the record. So I go over, get into the suburban and the suburban drivers like man what the fuck was that all about and I was like ah just some bullshit you know made up a story I said I you know I'm bringing some prototypes over for this company for this hedge fund to possibly invest in and they think there's drugs in there so they're can you know

they're holding on to him he's like oh do you do you want to wait around and I was like no get the fuck out of here so um he's like all right where are we going I'm like we're going into the city because I'm just thinking like I've got to ditch them if a drug dog shows up in signals they're then going to have probable calls and I know these motherfuckers are following me. So I threw him like a couple hundred bucks like cash right away. I was like, dude, get to the city as fast as possible. So he gets to the city. We drive down the west side highway and I know there's a subway station. It was like two blocks over from that point of the website, west side highway. So I just jump out real quick with both my bags and run to the subway station. And so I go and I get on and it was one that was like at the end of the line. So whenever it's

at the end of the line and it's about to change directions. The doors will stay open, you know what I mean, for like a couple minutes longer. So I get on there and I'm waiting. I'm like, come on, close, close, close. I got to get the fuck out of here. I got to get the fuck out of here. And this dude just runs on and sits across for me.

And he's just kind of looking around like this. You know, and he moves and you can see the chain first badge. And so now I just look at him like that. And he kind of like makes eye contact. And he's like, oh, what the fuck? And I just looked at him. I said, really, dude? I said, come on, man.

pointed out of the chain like his badge. So I get off the subway real quick, run out there, getting a taxi. And the taxi driver's like, where do you want me to go? I'm like Greenwich, Connecticut. And he's like, oh, I'm not going all the way out there through, you know, more a couple hundred bucks out of him. It was just like, bro, that's your tip. I need to go to Greenwich, Connecticut. So we drive it. I don't know if you're familiar with the area, but Greenwich, Connecticut's probably about an hour outside of New York City. I didn't know it, but at the time in Manhattan, they lost their tail on me. So, I'm still panicking.

I think they're following me. I didn't know it until years later until I saw the discovery. But I was actually cool at that point, right? When we got around, I think they said like 49th Street, Midtown Manhattan. They lost because there were so many taxis. They couldn't keep track of it. So we're driving to Greenwich, Connecticut. I called my boy.

And I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT up there that I would keep at his place that I would drive when I was up there doing work. And there was this one tavern in Greenwich that if you looked at it, you wouldn't know that there was also a rear entrance. And I called him up and I said, don't ask any questions. Get the Jeep. Go park it at the back of whatever the name of the tavern was. Put the keys in the gas tank and get the fuck out of there.

And he goes, what's going on? And I said, don't ask any fucking questions. Just go do it. And so he does it. I get to the tavern and throw the taxi guy, you know, cash. I got out as quickly as possible, but I also like walked. slow leaks. I didn't want them to think that I was going into the tavern to run. But I remember, like, as soon as a tavern door shut behind me, I just blazed that tavern, like ran as fast as I could.

People were looking at me like, what the fuck? Ran out the back door because I figured, you know, if they are following me, they're going to try to, you know, keep, play it cool. They're not going to send agents in right away, et cetera, et cetera. And I assumed they didn't know where I was going, so no way would they already have people out back. That was just, you know, me thinking, panicking. And went out back, got into the Jeep and then just, you know, bad out of hell. I didn't even know where I was driving. I was just a got to get the fuck out of here. Now I'm in a fast vehicle. If they are tail of me, you know, I can get away from them. So I'm in the Jeep and I get the phone call. It's Officer Scudis. And, yeah, Officer Scudis,

what a guy. He goes, yeah, so the drug dog signaled on the containers that there's narcotics in there. So, you know, we do have probable calls for arrest now. So, you know, we need you to come turn yourself in. I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be right there, sure. Yeah. I was on the run for three years. I had a U.S. Marshal that had a raging, raging hard on for me. And that's ultimately why they caught me was on billboards in Northern California. California's top 10 most wanted. I remember my buddy, were you in California? Well, I was living in California at the time. And so the case was out of New Jersey.

It was out of New Jersey and it was out of Bergen County because the feds didn't want it. It was 109 pounds of wheat in 2012. The feds weren't prosecuting grass more. It could have been a thousand pounds. Feds don't want grass. So it went to Bergen County. Well, because I wasn't from New Jersey and I was from California, the U.S. Marshals in Northern California took the case over.

And there was one. I can't think of his last name. Marshall Joe, I forget his name. I remember his story. He was in the Air Force and all that. He just had this raging hard on for me. And it was his doing that they created a Northern California's top 10 most wanted list, you know, put it out to all the news channels.

Three of the guys that were on there were the, you know, the three Alcatraz prisoners that escaped years ago. And everyone else on there was a murderer. And you've got me on this top 10 most wanted. list for 109 pounds grass actually like called the news organizations and commented on it was like this is a crock of shit this is northern california he's on the top 10 most monowice but yeah grass but it was it was it was all ego with him he would go and he would harass my family and i didn't talk to my family for three years i was like i'm not going to get them in trouble you know i mean i'm not going to put them

in a situation where they have to lie to law enforcement i didn't talk to them for three years had no contact with them whatsoever my mother's in very poor health has parkincens and he would sit there and harass this. My mother's a nicest woman you ever meet in your life. This older woman with Parkinson's, he would sit there and harass her and he would tell her things like, you know, things happen in the fields, you know, fingers can slip. You know, this is how people end up dead. If you tell me where he's at, you know, we can kind of ensure that that won't happen. So he's literally, like literally telling her, if I find him in the field, I'm going to kill him. So if, like, those are your tactics. Are you kidding me? I'm on the run for 109 pounds of grass and you think that it's okay

to lie and tell this woman that you're literally going to murder somewhat. Right. You know what I mean? You were telling her that, oh, you know, things slip. You were saying that, hey, I had the ability to murder him and cover it up as an accident. That was your tactic to try to get information. My brother-in-law is an immigrant from Ireland. He was going through his paperwork to get his citizenship at the time. They were, you know, telling him that he was going to be deported. They told my sister that they were going to take her kids away from her, you know what I mean, and that she was going to go to prison. And they were like, we know you know where he's at. And they did it. And they would show up, like on a three month, a six month cycle and just show up and just

harass the shit out of them. Police officers, you know, U.S. Marshal Task Force would come into the house and just harassed them. And it's just for 109 pounds grass, you really think that those tactics are acceptable. That's the part that really, you know, it's just like, look, I'll do my time. I will accept my responsibility. But you start bringing someone's family into it. You know, tell me I'm the bad guy. Tell me I'm the monster now.

That's still, you know, to this day upsets me. But he had a raging hard on for me. However, I was going to say, what are you doing during the three years? Bringing dead people back to life to use their identities. things like that. Yeah, I remember I was listening to your underbelly episode and I was like,

oh, we got a lot in common. Yeah. Yeah, so I had multiple different identities. I remember at my bail hearing when the prosecutor got my bail increased to a million dollars, she said, like, you know, your honor, he's bringing dead people back to life.

He's a James Bond type criminal. That was part of the statement that she used to get my bail up to a million dollars. You know what I mean? Like all this bullshit. So I was on the run. Those are great quotes for the jacket cover of the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was on the run and the crazy part is I sold more on the run than I did when I wasn't on the run. Because I looked at it like, okay, I'm going back to prison. Honestly, after doing five and a half years in federal prison when you're 22 years old, it kind of numbs you to the experience. I'm not scared of going back to prison. What I'm scared of is getting out and not having money. At this point, I was making $150,000 cash a week is what I was.

was bringing in. So it's like that kind of lifestyle. And it's just on tap, just on tap. And my fear was not going back to prison. My fear was not having money when I got out of prison. And that goes back to the reason why I even went down this path in the beginning is because my whole issue, my whole life has been, if I don't have money, I don't have value, I don't have an identity. It's ultimately what it was. And so what made me stay away from my family for three years. What made me sell more than I ever had was, you know, I've got to, you know, I've got to have millions when I come out. You know, like I have to. Like, I can't not have money.

And the lesson I learned in that is that whatever you're scared to face the most in life, that's the one lesson you need to face. And so I was scared to get out of prison, you know, prison and be flat broke and have absolutely nothing. And ultimately, though, getting out of prison and being flat broke and having, you know, absolutely nothing is what really allowed me to start over and create an identity that I can say, now I'm proud of this identity. Now I really am proud of myself, you know, proud of myself. And I understand the process now. It's money was the band-aid to cover up the wound. And I saw a really interesting podcast clip the other day. God, I wish you knew the guy's name. But he gave a great analogy. he said, look, if you have a glass of water and there's piss in it, it doesn't matter how much sugar you put in it. They're still pissing it and you're still drinking the piss. So rather than trying to put sugar into a glass of water that has piss in it, you have to take the piss out. And the piss, what he was talking about is ultimately the trauma. So my trauma of being moved around a lot, not having an identity, feeling inferior because I didn't have money, that was my piss in the water glass.

and me making all of that money was just putting more sugar in it, more sugar in it, more sugar in it, more sugar in it, more sugar in it, more sugar in it, more sugar in it, more sugar in it. It never did anything to get the piss out. And you only find the motivation to get the piss out of the water glass when there's no sugar in there to cover it up. So get all the sugar out. Now you take a sip and you say, okay, there's piss in this water.

I need to deal with this trauma. I need to get this piss out of the water is ultimately how things have come full circle with me. So I see how I used money for the Band-Aid. I see how money was my sugar in the water glass to cover up the piss. And the universe, you know what I mean, trying to teach you the lesson. It's just like whatever you are scared of, whatever you just think of that just scares the shit out of you. And you say, fuck, like, I want to get better. I want to be happier.

But, oh, I'm not willing to do that. That's the one thing that you really, really, really need to do that's going to give you. Oh, if you're scared of heights, you probably should go skydye. Yeah. The reason it really drove me being on the run was trying to avoid the lesson that the universe was trying to teach me, was, you know, trying to not rip the Band-Aid off. And so that's why when I was on the run, I sold more work than I did when I wasn't on the run. And I went to Colorado, got a big house down there, invested in a grow operation down there. that was going to be, you know, the piggy bank. That was going to be okay. I'm going to go away. I'll have my big grow operation down here.

This will continue to make millions of dollars a year, have people, you know, put people in place that I can trust, et cetera, et cetera, this, that and the other. So that was, that was the plan. And, you know, being on the run, you're living every day like your last, got into off-road racing, snowmobile in all the time. I mean, just anything and everything I possibly could because you're just. just living with that fear that every day could be your last. So they eventually caught up with me in Colorado. At that time, though, the U.S. Marshal that had a hard on for me, he was forced to give the case back to New Jersey because he made no progress with it. And so his boss said, look, we don't want this on our docket pretty much because you're not making any progress of this. This makes us look bad.

So the case went back to New Jersey. And the U.S. Marshal's task force in New Jersey didn't give a shit. Once every three months, they would say, yeah, no signs of powder. They just do like a three-month report. Yeah. That was it. So the U.S. Marshal had the hard on for me, he was in federal court. And he was in federal court in San Francisco on an unrelated case.

And he heard a name called out. and it was a name of someone that he knew to be one of my associates. And this name is very, very unique. So if you're reading that on the paperwork all the time, then you're in a courtroom and you hear that, you're definitely like, wait a minute. I know that person. That's an associate of Kelkatz.

So he went up and he asked the prosecutor and he said, hey, what's he here on? And she goes, oh, he's here. He's part of the Shrimp Boy Chow case. And he goes, oh, wow, because that was like a really big federal investigation. There was like murder for hire shit, state senators, Shrimp Boy Chow was a notorious triad gangster in San Francisco and all that.

So he was just like, oh, wow, is he a part of that? And he said, oh, no, they were just part of sending money grass back and forth from California and New York. And so he's like, do you mind if we get a copy of the indictment? So he gets a copy of the indictment. There's one part in the indictment where my two friends that were pulled into that Shrimp Boy Chow case mentioned a Brian. And they mentioned a Brian because they were going out of town.

And they said, hey, when we're out of town, we'll have Brian come drop off the money so that you can get it back to California. And this was, they were literally talking to a federal agent. It was a federal agent. He was coming off as like supposedly some kind of mafioso, whatever the hell it was. It was all tied back to trying to get shrimp boy chow. But they advertised that they had a money service where if you gave them $100,000 in. New Jersey or New York, they would get it for you. They would get it to you to California. 100% guaranteed. They'd only take 5%. So that's how they were sending their money back. Because my friends,

they were doing their own thing with PACs. We were just friends doing the same thing. We weren't really in business together. But they were going out of town on vacation and they had, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars needed to get back to California. So they asked me, hey, well, you go meet him and drop it off. And I'm just like, fuck you. Like I don't know this guy. Not only do I not know this guy, but I know Al, I know who Al is associated with, and I know how they operate. I said, I'm not having anything to do with that organization because I knew they were all triads. It's my friend, Norge, he's the one that got me in trouble. He was friends with Vinnie Gorgeous's son.

I don't know if you know who Vinnie Gorgeous is. He was the leader of the Bonanno Crime family, you know, in ADX. And his son, Joey, he called himself Joey Gorgeous. We'd be out in New York hanging out at the name. Yeah, well, it was funny because he, you know, his father got the name because he owned beauty salons. He was just trying to run off his father's clout. And I was always trying to be low-key. So anytime I'd be hanging out and Joey would show up, I would instantly be like, I'm out of here.

You don't know who the hell is in this club watching him. I do not want to be known as an associate of him. I'm trying to stay as low-key as possible. So that's part of the reason why when they asked me if I'd drop off money when they were out of town. I was like, I don't give a shit. I'm not doing it. But I guess they had already said that, you know, I had agreed to it, whatever. Even though I never met up with the federal agent, they had just mentioned my name.

And so there's one part, there was like a thousand page indictment. There's one part where it says Brian. And the marshal, he was reading it and he goes, oh, I know that's Calcott. I know that's powder. So when Norge got in trouble on this case, the Shrimp Boy Chow case, who does he call? Me. Who bails him out? me who gives him money for an attorney me right he's the very reason because they called out his name

in court that the marshal even says oh shit now i know i know i know someone to go press and so norge had i don't want to say he snitched because he was so like low in the totem pole on that case but he did quote cooperate so he could avoid federal prison they only invited him on only indicted him on money laundering cases and all the people above him were already getting in trouble regardless of what he said. So he really was kind of in a position where, look, regardless of what you say, these people are going to prison for the same amount of time. If you come in and say, yes, I did this, I did that, et cetera, et cetera, you're not going to impact them and you're going to avoid federal prison yourself is ultimately what the attorney told him. So he, quote, cooperated,

even if you don't want to say it snitching because nobody did more prison time, whatever. I'm not here to debate that. But so he cooperated. And he was only facing six months in federal prison. If he didn't cooperate, he would have gone to federal prison for six months because it was like a bullshit money laundering charge, right? So now all of a sudden, the prosecutor on that case and the U.S. Marshall had had a hard on for me, shows up on his doorstep and says, your plea bargain is down the toilet unless you tell us where Kelkot's at and just instantly told them where I was at. And then they went to my other friend, Gino, told him the same thing, said, unless you tell us where Kelkatz at, et cetera, et cetera. So those two guys,

told them where I was at in Colorado, and that's eventually how they got me. And I mean, they showed up deep submachine guns, U.S. Marshal task force. But the crazy thing is, is that at that point, the U.S. Marshal didn't even have the ability to bill the effort to the U.S. Marshal's office because my case was not an active case on his desk anymore. So they took out a new DEA number on me so that they could bill it against the DEA. So it was actually a DEA take down per se as far as the paperwork and how it was built. And the U.S. marshals were just supporting.

And I remember he came up to me, puts the cups on me. And he goes, hey, after this, and I'm going to come up here and ask you a few questions. You know, I'd probably be best if, you know, you answered them. And I just turned around and I said, you don't know enough about me, motherfucker. I'm like, I ain't telling you a goddamn thing, all right? So just stop that shit right now. You're just all pissed off. So he pulls out my wallet and starts going through it.

And they knew about a couple of the identities that I was using because my friends had told them. And he pulls out a fresh ID. And that's a state issue ID. It's not fake. I mean, it's a real ID. And he's just looking at it. And he's just, how do you do this? He's like, how do you do this?

He knew, you know what I mean? Because I knew that I knew they were on to me because they went out to the house that I had in Colorado. and there was just some like funky shit that went on. I paid an attorney to try to, you know, dig up some information in the sheriff's department. From the sheriffs that came out there and he said, look, he said, there's something fishy going on. Because normally if I call this contact, they give me the real scoop and they're not giving me this scoop. So there's definitely something fishy going on. I was like, nah, that was definitely the U.S. Marshall sent them out to that house.

So I knew they were already on to me. And I was about to dip out again. that's part of the reason why I had that new identity, but at that point I was just done. I wanted to see my mom, poor health, you know what I mean, hadn't spoken to her in three years. And so I was kind of in that contemplation stage of, okay, am I going to dip out again, use this new identity,

forget everything that I built up in Colorado, go start at somewhere else, whatnot, et cetera, et cetera. And they found a listing I had for an off-road race vehicle that off-road race vehicle had listed on Craigslist. And so they had one of the U.S. Marshals called me up and be like, hey, where's it at, man? I want to buy it right now cash. And I was just like, oh, it's over here. I was actually working on it, getting it ready for another off-road race.

And then all of a sudden there's, you know, 20 U.S. marshals with submachine guns right there in your face. And so they kept me in Colorado for a couple weeks. And then 17 days did the whole diesel therapy, as they call it, 17 days in the best. days in the back of a paddy wagon to get from Colorado to New Jersey. Like, just absolutely horrible. Like, that was a god-awful experience. Get there. And they raised my bail to a million dollars. They raised my bail to a million dollars because I was on the run for three years. Prosecutor said, oh, he's a James Bond type of criminal, yada, yada, yada, yad. You know, just trying to make it as juicy as possible. Hired a really good attorney. He got to bail down to 300,000.

$850,000. So I had to put up 10% of that. Got out was on bail. And they had me on an ankle monitor for three and a half years. They would not. I can't believe they got you out on on bail. I mean, you've got fake IDs. Did you have fake passports? No. I didn't get the fake passport. I was about to go to Thailand. I was about to go to Thailand and say, fuck it. But, you know, the last words I ever said of my father was you're dead to me. And two months later, he was dead. Oh. And so I'm thinking about, wow, you know, it's not even just me. but can I really do that to my mother? Can I really take off?

And my mother never gets to see me again because, you know what I mean? I did some selfish shit. And so ultimately I really thought about her and said I can't do that to her. And I also don't want to live with, oh yeah, the last words I said to my father was, you're dead to me.

And I never got to see my mother, you know what I mean? Before she passed away because ultimately I'm on the run and, you know, never came back. So I had a plan. I was like, I'm going to Thailand. That's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to invest in a business. Here's the how you get the money to Belize. Here's how you get the money from Belize to Thailand, et cetera, et cetera. I had a plan, but I just knew I couldn't go through with it. So then my plan became, okay, make as much money as possible, get a really good attorney, try to do the least amount of time and just have money when you get out. Is what the plan became after that. Okay.

So they grabbed you. You got your bail. They let you out on an ankle monitor. And what was the, why the three years just legal? Yeah, that's how maneuvering. Yeah. So there was some legal precedent that we really had them beat on that they knew when it got to appeal would get tossed, even if at a state level didn't get tossed. As soon as it got to a federal level, they would have tossed it.

It's just the precedent was just so clear. And so my attorney was trying to beat them. up on that for as long as possible. And he was notorious too for just dragging cases out. His whole philosophy was, look, right now it's fresh. They just got you. You're on the run for three years. You know, three years from now, though,

are they really going to care about you that much? But three and a half years after that, they still cared about me that much. And they still, you know what I mean? Wanted to, they were trying to get me to accept a 10-year plea. Right. Grass, a 10 with a 3. So 10-year prison sentence three years before I was eligible for parole.

And that was the plea bargain they gave me. And I stood in front of a judge and she said, you have until Monday. If you don't accept this plea bargain, you're going to trial. And if you get found guilty at trial, you will be sentenced to 20 years in prison with a seven-year stipulation, meaning that you won't be eligible for parole for seven years is what she told me. So it's like, and the new attorney I had at the time, he told me, he was like, fuck it, let's go to trial. They're not releasing the discovery that says that the pilot was a snitch. He goes, as soon as I get that pilot on the stand, and I ask him, were you a confidential informant for the DEA?

And he says, yes, it's like, it's a mistrial. He's like, who cares? He's like, let's go to trial. And it's just, you know, you're thinking like, fuck, 20 would a seven, like, Jesus Christ, no way. So I accepted the 10 with a three. but while I was on bail, I started a meal prep company. It became instantly successful, did millions of dollars in sales overnight. I started it because my mother has Parkinson's.

I got into nutrition. And so the judge looked at that and just said, I know you signed for a 10 with a 3, but I do have discretion with this. So I'm actually just going to give you a seven and a half flat sentence. So she knocked a little bit of time off, you know what I mean, at sentencing. And she said it was because of my behavior, I was on bail, you know, showing people that, hey, I want to be a law abiding member of society. So that's the only reason why I didn't get a 10 with a 3.

But that was the plea bargain. 10 years with a three-year stipulation. And how New Jersey worked at that point, I would have done four to five years. Okay. Yeah. So it was a 7.5 flat and COVID happens. So I'm up for parole. How long?

At 18 months. Okay. And because of COVID, they let me go. Because they're just smashing everybody, getting everybody out. They're like, yeah, get out of here. Yeah, because a lot of people there, you know, old timers, they were like, look, you got a seven and a half flat. You're going to get smacked your first time. You might get smacked your second time, especially because you've been down before.

So expect to do like two to three years total. So I was just like, all right, they're like, you're not getting your first. They're like, you're not getting that. Don't even think about it. And went up and got it. They were like, all right, I'm going to grant your parole. And it was just like it was literally because of COVID. Everybody, everybody was getting released because of COVID because they just had to, you know, get rid of as many people as possible out of the prisons.

So after that, went back to California. That was July of 2020. So the initial flight with 109 pounds grass happened December 12th, 2012, didn't get off of parole for that case. until February of this year. So 12 years altogether. So three years on the run, three and a half years on bail, 18 months in prison, and then the rest of the time on parole for that charge.

Jesus. Yeah. So it's crazy. So, yeah, I mean, you know, 22 years old got my first offense. I'm now 45. I just got off parole from 22. until 45, I've probably only had a year and a half, maybe two years of my life where I wasn't in prison on the run under some form of supervision, something like that.

So you start, wait a minute, you started the meal prep company, you went to prison. What happened in the company? So it took off. It was literally the first ketogenic meal prep company in the country. And we did $2 million in sales our first year in business. And that was me bootstrapping it with no money to invest. It was literally I taught myself how to build a website, taught myself SEO, taught myself marketing, put the website up. People ordered the food.

I would use that money to go buy the food and it was just local deliveries. And then I figured out how to do national shipping, had some affiliates, give us, give us some plugs. And it just took off. And so in under six months, it went from me making 200 meals a week in my small, shitty little apartment in Wehawk in New Jersey to doing $180,000 a month in revenue. And it absolutely took off. And under 10 months of starting that business, one of my clients in New York City, he called me up one day and he goes, what are you doing to make these stakes so good?

And I said, oh, well, you know, I worked to find dining. in Texas. I take the steak very seriously. And that's the one thing, you know, that I don't cut corners with. And he's like, well, it's not just the steak, too. He goes, it's everything. And he goes, let me tell you this something. He goes, I eat steak. He goes, that's what I love to eat. He said, every time I go out to a restaurant, New York City, I ate steak. And he goes, it's New York City. You know, it's hard to get a bad steak. He said, I don't eat steak when I go out anymore because your little $20 frozen meal with a frozen steak is better than all the stakes that I'm getting in New York City. He's like, so I just had to call you, you know,

and ask you like, you know, how are you doing this? And then he says, he said, can I ask you some numbers about the finances? Like, you know, how much are you guys doing in revenue, et cetera, et cetera? And he tells me, he goes, okay, he goes, I manage a fund. There's about $300 million in there. He goes, it's not my money. He goes, it's just a fund that I manage, you know, for investors. And there's a program with Procter and Gamble. I always get it mixed up. It's one of the largest business law firms in the world. He goes, it's a program. I work with the attorneys in that program. They look for businesses like yours. They don't charge you anything. They become your representation. And the ultimate goal is to put the company

into a standing so that you get acquired by these larger food funds. Would you be interested in that? And I'm just sitting there like, yeah, absolutely. So we have a big meeting in New York City, New York Times building. And there's another meal prep company that had bought the kitchen that we were making the food out of. And they said, either have to sell us the business

or you have to get out of the kitchen. So it's kind of a tumultuous time because at that point, the amount of food that we were making there weren't very many kitchens that you could make that level of food in. And so I'm just sitting there like, shit, like, man, I don't know what we're going to do.

And the financial piezo was like, look, we'll figure it out, don't worry about it. Like you have no idea the kind of programming you in right now. Like, you know, if we need to find money to get a kitchen, like we'll figure it out. So I said, all right, cool. And I told him, I said, I still want to go to

the meeting, though. I said, I just, I just want to hear how much they're going to offer me. And he told me, he said, do not go to the meeting. And he goes, here's why. He said, let's just say that they give you a reasonable valuation. He goes, you just did $2 million in sales. Or that's what you're projected to do. Okay. Right now, there's a 4x to a 10x multiple on revenue. He said, so let's just say they give you a reasonable valuation and they offer you $10 million for this business right now, which you can reasonably say it is because you just exploded. He said you're going to be tempted to take that. Does he understand that you're about to go to prison? But listen, he told me, hindsight, all that's great, hindsight, but I'm about to be

taken out of the equation here soon. But I wouldn't have been taken out of the equation if I would have stayed in that program. He tells me, he goes, if you sell this business right now for $10 million, you're an idiot, this is $100 million to a billion dollar idea. He goes, businesses don't just take off like this. You're projected to do two million in sales your first year in business. That's with a shitty website without subscription software. We're looking at the numbers. If you would have had all of this in place, you would have done $6 million in sales in your first year in business. So now start running the multiples. So we went into the meeting with the two attorneys in the New York Times building. That's where the law firm had their offices at.

And I remember like I'm not a person that's really impressed with, you know, materialistic things like that, but I remember being in that law office in New York City and you're just like, holy shit, like this is literally top of the world. The financial advisory told me, said, I know you're not impressed by this stuff, but these attorneys, like, I personally know a billion dollar deals they've worked with. The one attorney, she told us, look, this is how things are going with food companies with food companies. They're looking for brands like yours, but they don't want to acquire them 100%. Because if they acquire them 100%, their corporate bureaucratic bullshit fucks up the brand and then it loses the value. So what they've done is they put money into these funds and they

purchase a percentage of companies like yours and still ultimately lets you keep a lot of control. And she said, you know, the goal is to get you into every grocery store across the United States. So I'm just sitting there thinking like, holy fuck, I'm on bail. This is the first legal business I've ever started. It hasn't even been 10 months. And I'm sitting here in this law office in New York city having a conversation with people that are not, you know, just blowing smoke up my ass. It was definitely, you know, like a rewarding moment. Like, fuck, you know, here I am on bail. And all I have to do is just put energy into something positive, you know, and I'll be successful. Like, this is the first legal business I've ever started and hear the conversations, you know what

mean? I'm having with people. And I told them, I said, look, I said, I'm not stupid. I know this is going to go. You guys can have operational control. You can have logistical control. I said, I'll even give up majority equity. I said, I know these things go, I will never give up control of the quality of the food. I said, we have people that have cancer that are eating our food to stay alive. I started this business because my mother has Parkinson's. And I said, I will never compromise those people's health. I said, so that's the only qualifying factor. And they were just like, okay, you know, we can talk about that when we get to it. Clearly, you already know what they want to do. And then they found out about the case and they just dropped me. from the program. So that happened. Then the other thing that happened is we lost our kitchen. So because we lost our kitchen, we had to go to a different route where we started having a co-packer make the food. And then we had a third-party fulfillment center, send the food out. So it took us everything we had because co-packers don't just make 20 meals of this, five meals of this. You have to order like a thousand of each skew you have on the menu. So we had to come up with

$100,000 cash to get the food from the co-packer. to the third party fulfillment center. So it took every last dime effort we had. We got the money up. And so now we have the copacking model going on. There was some hiccups in the beginning. The copacca wasn't making a lot of good food. So we lost maybe like $10,000 to $20,000 in refunds the first month because they were

used to our food. And I'm not trying to brag. We literally did make the best tasting food in the country. Everybody said that. And then the third party fulfillment center decided to double ship order. for, I think, two weeks in a row. So they call me up and they say, hey, when are we getting more food?

And I'm just like, go to the computer and look at the inventory. I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? You have more than enough food? No, we don't. And it was a massive facility too. I said, well, it must have gotten lost because I'm looking at my inventory. You guys still have enough food for three weeks. And, you know, the copaccapping is sending another shipment in two and a half weeks,

whatever. He's like, well, you need to get down here because you're running out of food. So get down there, look at our place in the freezer where our food's supposed to be, and there's pretty much nothing there. And I'm just sitting there. Like, I know the inventory. I know how many orders have gone out? I'm like, what in the actual fuck just happened?

So go up there, speak to the person that's in charge of their ship station, go into their ship station account. And they didn't have a feature set up to where when an order is shipped, it cleared it out of the active queue. So literally for two weeks, orders were being. fed in to ship station in the active queue. And we had like two ship days a week. So they would ship the orders, send the food out, which should have cleared the orders so that people didn't get double shipped and it didn't matter. So some people were like they got shipped

their order three or four times. So that's where all the money went. I mean, that's where all the food went. So then we're in a fucked up situation where I took, I took loans from merchant cash advance leeches where now $100,000 loss. is now $150,000 loss because you have to pay 50% interest on these loans, and you have to pay it back in three months. And then you can't pay that back, so then they refinance these loans, and now you owe $200,000. And back then it was still legal.

They would have you sign confessions of judgment. So if you defaulted on your payment to them for those loans, there was no court case, there was none of that. They would go right into your bank with the confession of judgment, and they could seize your account just like that. And so ultimately what the third part fulfillment center cost us with the Copacker making shitty food, it was $100,000. It was literally about to stop proceedings, you know, inexperience,

said, fuck it, you know, take the money for the merchant cash advance loans. I knew that, I mean, keto was exploding. Keto was just absolutely exploding. So I was like, if we can just find the money for a better website, I know we'll get more traffic, I know we'll sell more food. And then ultimately, you know, this won't matter. will be able to absorb it. And so I was able to keep it running the entire time I was out.

And I set things up to have it try to continue to run while I was, while I took my plea and went back to prison. And it just didn't happen. You know, it wasn't their baby. It wasn't their project. And so they just stopped selling food. And it's crazy. I'll never forget it.

They told me the day they stopped selling food. And I remember going into the Google Analytics. account where you can track your website data. So we did two million our first year in business with about 1,500 visitors a day to our website, right? And that was with the shitty website without a subscription software. So even at 1,500 website visitors a day to our website, if we would have had all those things in place, we would have done $6 million our first year. The very next day that they stopped selling meals, our website traffic went from 1,500 people a day to 7,500 people. a day. So it literally would have five X'd. So that meant that if they would have continued,

if I could have continued, could have gotten the subscription software, et cetera, et cetera, it would have met in the second year that we would have had the potential to do something like $30 million in sales, like absolutely positively would have exploded. And when I got, when I got into the halfway house, I had my friend drop off my computer and I was able to get the meal prep business back up, like literally while I was in the halfway house, because I just coordinated with the co-packer and said, look, these are just, you know, this is how we have to do things, et cetera, et cetera. So it was just me being behind the wheel. I was able to get it back up. But at that point, there was already so much, you know, so much competition. We were only, you know,

we went from doing $180,000 a month doing like $20,000 or $30,000 a month. At the end, when I had to give it up, it was only down, you know, it was down to like $50,000 a month. And then FedEx was just delivering so many packages, not on time. It's frozen food. So it was costing us anywhere from a thousand to $2,000 a week in losses. And, you know, if you're doing $180,000 a month, you can kind of absorb those losses. But at $50,000 a month, just couldn't absorb it. And then I had moved the kitchen in California. So I think the cheapest person I had on my payroll was $25 an hour. The rent was just absolutely insane. So it just- You can't run any company out of California. That's a whole other podcast episode all by itself.

But yeah, it's absolutely the truth. Any entrepreneur out there that you talk to that one of the first things they do is they get their companies out of California. Yep. Absolutely. So what are you doing now? So I took all of that and started my own marketing business. So when I shut the meal prep business down, my sister is a chiropractor in San Francisco. She lost her office manager. And I said, all right, cool. You know, I'll go help her out for a couple months until she gets another office manager until I figure out another business that I want to start and learned of just how badly marketing companies rip off chiropractors. So, of course, I go in there.

I'm just like, I'm not going to let this marketing company rip off my sister. So started doing her marketing for red light, you know, Cairo ads, etc., etc., things like that. Started doing it for other chiropractors. And it's just taken off just from referrals in word of mouth. I haven't done anything really proactively to run ads myself or do things like that just because we do good quality work. I enjoy doing it, but I want to get back into e-commerce. And so I just within the past two months came up with another e-commerce idea that's kind of like tech marketing where I know I can get Silicon Valley investment from like venture capital out there. So I'm in the process of getting it off the ground right now.

I could go out there right now like pre-concept and probably still get money. But if you can at least show revenue and show proof of concept, it's a lot easier to go out there and pitch the venture capital firms that are out there. So I want to get back to e-commerce. And like I said, like it's e-commerce, but it's more sort of tech and marketing to where I think I could get Silicon Valley like venture capital interest in it. So that's the next step because e-commerce is just, Great. You know, you have somebody make the product, somebody's shipping the product, you're just sitting there looking at it saying, hey, we're basically just making sure that the website, the technical aspect is okay, that the marketing is on point. So that's what I really like to get back to. But that's not, that to me is just to pay the bills. My passion is regenerative agriculture. I want to go to Montana, want to get a ranch, want to raise cattle regeneratively. If you ask me, that is the healthiest way of living. It's what's healthiest for the planet. It's what's healthiest for humanity. It's what's healthiest for civilization.

And so I really like my passion is I want to be a part of changing the current food system. Is that good? Yeah. I have three short questions that I just had throughout the thing. So the first one would be how did you go about creating the fake identities when you're on the run? Ancestry.com. Like what about it? So, yeah.

Yeah. I wouldn't know how to do it. So you can go to. So you can go to Ancestry.com and it's between newspaper obituaries and Ancestry.com and the death certificates and a lot of the death certificates in certain states will have their Social Security number and will have their date of birth on the death certificate. And you can't, if the death certificate was filed in Vermont, you obviously can't go to Vermont and you can't try to get the, you can't try to get the ID from the state of Vermont, but you can go to other states to do it. So it was just being resourceful. And a lot of times it's easy to order a birth certificate. You just have to know someone's date of birth, know their mother and father's name,

things like that. And so I was just ordering all of these, I was ordering all of these birth certificates. And then in some states, you needed like, you know, a proof of identity would have been a baptismal certificate. So I went to a Christian bookstore and bought baptismal certificates, got a typewriter, made it seem like it was from the 1980s, took tea to make it dirty, you know what I mean, to make it look old and do things like that. So it's just like, okay, here are the documents I need. How do I get these. documents. The birth certificate was the easiest one. I found out the hard way, though. So you can go into the Social Security website and you can see if the state has reported to

Social Security that that person is dead, is deceased. If they've been reported as deceased and that identity is no good, you obviously can't do it. So there was a website that I would go to and I'd say, okay, you know, here's their Social Security. I want to go over here to the Social Security Administration, and I want to see if they've been reported to the Social Security Administration as dead. Well, what I found out is that there's six million records that the Social Security Administration illegally obtained from the states. And so because they illegally obtained it from the states, they can't make it public on their actual website. So the first person that I tried to do it with, I went in there. I had all the documents. It was in Connecticut,

and the guy's looking at me and he's just like, yeah, I'm not going to be able to issue this ID. And I'm just like, why? What's going on? He's like, well, because the Social Security Administration is telling me that you're dead. And I was just like, oh, I've been out of the country, you know what I mean for the past six years. Yeah, I just came up with the story real quickly. And he's just like, all right, yeah, well, you know, you just got to call the Social Security Administration and figure out what to do, you know, when you get that situated. So I was just like, how the fuck did that happen?

And like I went and checked on their website and I did some more research. And that's when I found out that it's a Social Security Administration. So the state is actually supposed to report to the Social Security Administration that you have died. If they don't do that and the Social Security Administration finds out another way they can put it into their database, but they can't make it public because it wasn't obtained the right way. But now you can't do any of that shit anymore because of facial recognition. And before it was just, okay, if you had an identity over here in Florida, you couldn't have more than, you know, more than one identity in the state of Florida because they're running everything through the facial recognition. And the FBI had like a billion dollars and they passed it out to all the states. And they said, look, we'll never ask you for your data.

We just want to make sure that you guys, you know, have the ability so that you don't have one person that has 20 identities, you know, in your state. and so they gave them that money to build up this facial recognition database and said, oh, you know, the federal government will never say that, you know, we want this information, we want to compile it into a national database. But, oh, wow, shocking news, all of that is now compiled into a federal database. So the days of being able to do that are overall because of facial recognition. Okay. Yeah.

So your plan was to make a bunch of money illegally before you went back to prison. So when you got out, you'd have money stacked up. What was the plan to, I guess, have that for when you got out of prison? Because I'm assuming the police would seize any money gotten from illegal gains. I mean, I had a partner. And ultimately, like, the house and everything wasn't under my name. So, yeah, I isolated myself from the grow operation as much as possible. Okay.

And then the last question was, you said a lot of the money with the trafficking isn't, or with the, yeah, with the trafficking. or the product wasn't in actual growing it, but it was in the transportation of it. So what are some of the pitfalls that most people would come across? Like what made them not good at transporting or what made you so good?

So I remember I had a driver and he had never driven a load before, but he had the look, like he looked like a cop and he just had this mentality. And he wanted to get into grass. And I told him, I said, look, man. I said, you're not going to. to be flipping pounds, you're going to be a driver. And believe me, you want to be a driver

because drivers make the most money. They get paid right on the spot. Everybody's looking for a good driver. And that's what your job's going to be. And so he was just like, all right, I trust you, whatever. So part of the reason, too, I wanted him to be a driver was because he was from Michigan. And so I said, okay, go back to Michigan, get a RAM, diesel, $2,500, and get your Michigan license. And he goes, well, why? And I said, just go do it. And when you get it, back, I'll explain. And so he's over there in Michigan. He's like, hey, man, I found a better deal on a Ford. I found a better deal on a Chevy. It's a nicer truck. And I said, if you come back with anything other than a RAM 2,500, I said, you're not driving for me. And he was kind of an arrogant prick. And so he,

you know, kind of argued with me. He's like, all right, fine, fuck it. I'll get the RAM. So it has to be the long bed. And so he gets the RAM, gets his Michigan license back because he did have a California license. And he gets on the highway. And he's on the highway for an hour. And he calls me up and he goes, I have never seen so many RAM 2,500 and 3,500s in my life. And I said, now you understand why. I said anybody who's doing any kind of hot shot truck in, anybody who's driving like long distances, like working men, whatever the hell it is, they all get the RAM because of the Cummings. You can be a Chevy fan and a Ford fan, but you're getting the RAM for the Cummings because it's a million mile motor. And those are the best for Holland. Those are the best

work trucks out there. So rule number one is we don't want you to stick out like a sore thumb. So if you're a highway patrol and you're looking up and there's another RAM 2,500 or a RAM 3,500, in your mind, you're just instantly thinking, oh, it's another working man, it's another this, it's another that. Everyone else, even if it's an RV or any other other kind of vehicle, why are you driving from California to New York? Do you have a good story? Most people fly. And that's where people would fuck up is that they wouldn't even think about what their story was going to be. They would get old people. I remember one of the people I was working with, they had this like 70 year old grandfather. He had like 300 pounds of grass in the trunk of a Cadillac. And they were just so

shocked that he got pulled over and arrested. They're like, you look at him though. It's a seven year old grandfather in a Cadillac. And you're just like, okay, well, what was his story? Why was he driving from California to New York? And he just absolutely just didn't have a story. And cops know, within the first 30 seconds. Like you have to understand California, or not California I patrol, but just highway patrol in general when they're running narcotics and, you know, interdictions, things like that. There's very, very specific things that they're trained to look for. So you better know how to get around that in the first 30 seconds. So the other thing, why I had him get the Michigan license and Michigan plates is because if he's leaving California

and he's loaded up and he gets pulled over and the cop says, where are you going? He goes, Oh, I'm going back to Michigan, right? Michigan's not an endpoint. It's not like where all the majority of the work in California is going. You say you're going to New York, okay, now red flags are coming up, right? But if you're saying, hey, I'm just going to California to Michigan, it's not a big deal, right? And everything about him says Michigan. Yeah, and everything about it says Michigan. So they don't know he's going to New York. And then once you get past Michigan on the 80, if you get pulled over, where are you coming from? Michigan. Where are you? going. Oh, I'm going to New York to do, you know, work, whatever the hell it is. So now they don't know

you just came from California. They think you just came from Michigan. Michigan, New York isn't a big deal. So you just have to know how to get around all the red flags. And he was on the road left and right, got pulled over left and right. And eventually after that, he was just like, I'm not even scared anymore. He goes, I get pulled over. And they look at me. I tell him my story. And they're just like, boom, there you go. You know, let him on the way. So it's just, so the transportation system that I use, was I got a training manual for the United States Postal Service, right? Looked it up online and said, what are they trained to look for for packages in the mail? And there was a few things.

Is it coming from a source state? Is it going to a destination state? Is it a handwritten label? And is it person to person? Those are the three biggest things that they looked for. So I said, okay, I can go get prepaid debit cards and I can load. them with cash and I can tie those prepaid debit cards to U.S. postal accounts and I can print out business labels. So I don't have to have a handwritten label, right? And then I can put any

business return address that I want on it. And then I found virtual offices all the way from Connecticut, actually even Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, there was a whole network of virtual offices where if you paid, you pay them like 100 bucks a month you could use their address and these were big office buildings they're like hqs right yeah yeah yeah things like that yeah because i've rented hqs before yeah if you ever go and you watch the mail truck go to that building there's a mail truck just for that building and there's so many packages so if you're sending two boxes a week to this one virtual office nobody thinks it as suspicious we'd put invoices on them. We'd have the real business labels on them. And then as far as they

concerned, if they looked at it, it was going business to business. It wasn't going person to person. And then the truck that was pulling into the actual office location to drop it off, that was one of probably 100 packages that he was going to drop off to, because these were big, you know, we would look for the bigger office buildings where the virtual offices were. I lost one package, literally lost one package. Other than that, it was 99.99% success rate because I went and I looked and said,

okay, here's what they're trained to look for and here's how I'm going to get around this. And clearly it worked. So same thing. Like when you're dealing with the highway patrol, you better know what are they trained to look for. What's the red flags? What's going to set them off right out the gate?

And can you get around that? And if you can't get around that, don't get on the road. But it's just, you know, at that time, it was a gold mine. Everybody knew, you know, you can pick up a pound over here in California and you can bring it to New York and sell it for $4,000. And if you have 100, 200, 300, 400, wherever the hell it is,

there's going to be somebody waiting there with a duffel bag full of money and will pay you cash for every last one. So it was, like I said, like millionaires were just, were made overnight. Hey, you guys, I really appreciate you watching. If you like the video, do me a favor, hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified videos like this. Also, please share that video to anybody you think would be interested. We're going to leave all of Brian's links in the description box.

So go in the description box, hit the link, subscribe, follow, do all the things that, you know, help him get his story out there. Also, please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. We put Patreon exclusive content on Patreon on the platform. Really does help Colby and I make these videos. Once again, thank you guys so much. I appreciate you watching. See you.

Do you love dogs? Of course you do. So join me, Rich Napolitano, and listen to the Doggone History Podcast. When you talk to someone about their dog, you have probably seen the sparkle in their eye, heard the joy in their voice, and felt the love in their heart. People, including me, talk about their dogs like their children, because that is how we see them. They are members of our families, our households, and they give us joy that enriches our lives. We have come to know and love chihuahuas, beagles, and German shepherds, and all the dogs that have

been at our side as our best friends. But they weren't always as we know them today. Dog breeds have evolved over time and taken on a vast diversity of characteristics. Listen to Dogon History, a lighthearted history of dogs, one breed at a time. Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And say hi to your dog for me, won't you?