Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Con Man Finally Tells The Truth | Answering Subscribers Questions

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Con Man Finally Tells The Truth | Answering Subscribers Questions

She's not saying it's bad. She's saying she thinks it's like somebody else's ID. This is my ID. She's not saying I called and the numbers don't work. Like everything work. How do you account for the fact that this woman was wrong? Yeah. It was her.

You're wrong. Hey, this is Matt Cox. And I'm here with Colby. And we're going to go over viewer questions, right? your question. Yeah, subscriber questions, right. It's all the same. Okay, all right, so we picked, or Colby's going to go through some of those, like, what, 40, 50, what did you say?

There was 55 comments, so we're not going to be able to get all of them. I'm going to go through and choose the best, and obviously, you know, if this does well, we'll do it again. I'd probably like to do it with you and Zach, you know, obviously a recurring guest, so. Yeah, yeah. So if you have any questions, you know, we'll do another similar post on the community page for Zach and Matt, and go. from there. So, okay, first question, you probably have to add some backstory to this. Would you ever remake the paper mache statue that was left in the living room of the house to taunt the owner? What or who the statue was made of? First of all, I did not taunt the owner. That's the

whole thing. So, all right, so here's what happened is I had, actually, I was on the run and we needed money, so we went to Atlanta. And we rented a house from a a guy named Michael Shanahan. Well, I mean, obviously, crime's not a full-time job. You know what I'm saying? Like fraud. So I went and I satisfied, I satisfied the mortgage on his house. I assumed his identity.

I created a false credit profile, made a fake ID, opened up a bunch of bank accounts in his name. Also, Becky opened up a bunch also. And we opened up some in other false identity's names. And then I refinanced his house and borrowed. like $400,000, dump the money in the bank and then pulled the money out of the banks and then we took off.

But in the meantime, Atlanta, Fulton County's public records was so far behind, we basically had to wait for the satisfaction to show up in public records. So that was a couple months. So we basically hung out,

went on vacations, went jogging, worked out, rock climbing. We're doing anything to pass the time. One of the things I did, obviously, statue the paper mache statue was of a guy on his knees like screaming like this right but that that's

kind of just based on like the on edward munches the scream and it's just like a man in agony had nothing to do with michael shanahan like i'm not thinking that michael shanahan's in agony at the time i'm really only thinking that when this whole thing comes down and he figures it out he's going to have to make a few phone calls to get it fixed it's obvious that i've stolen in his identity. I'm on the run. Like it's, this isn't, to me, I was telling myself, whether it's true or not, I was telling myself, this is an easy fix

for him. So I'm not thinking of him as an agony, you know? I'm not thinking that. But I did make the paper-miche statue and I left it in the garage. We left it in the garage. It wouldn't fit into the back. Like we had so much crap in our little minivan thing. It would not

fit into the back of it without being crushed. We left the paper machet statue. We left the bed and we left the back seat of the minivan that we were driving. It was actually a Honda element. I don't know if you call it a mini van. More like an SUV, a shitty SUV. So we took the back seat out just so we could fill it up.

I couldn't fit it in there. But when there was an article that was written in the Fortune magazine about me, they said that Michael Shanahan said that when he came home and figured out everything was going on, and he went into the house that I had left the statue in the middle of the living room to taunt him. He also said that we trashed the house. I don't know how we trashed the house. We lived in the bedroom upstairs. We had no furniture except for bedroom furniture, which really was just like, I think, two nightstands and a bed.

We watched TV all the time. We didn't trash the place. It's not like we were having parties. We didn't live in anywhere but the upstairs bedroom. Like we didn't trash it. We cleaned the place out. we actually had the carpets steam clean before we left yeah i mean so but i get it you know you're a victim you're angry you're ready to say anything and you know and look i'm not saying

what i did was right it was a dickhead thing to do i mean i'm a scumbag i totally fucking shouldn't have done what i did but i didn't taunt him i wasn't trying to taunt him like it's bad enough what i did what i did is bad enough do we have to really add to it you know so anyway would i do redo the statue absolutely i've already bought the material for the statue which is um i bought uh it's chicken wire you can buy it at home depot so i bought chicken wire actually have uh actually the chicken wire is in that is in that closet so i bought um it's a wallpaper glue and all i need is newspaper or any kind of paper really you just dip it i just haven't had a chance to kind of do that to be honest it would be really cool to i never really i never

finished it i started i've never finished it i've started that statue twice by the way and both times never been able to finish it and what's your plan you're going to keep it or you're going to you're going to sell i don't know that's i should do it like i don't know what i would even how much time would i have into that i mean i'd have a lot of time but they're super fun to to make those like i could make one and sell it or or i don't like give it i'm not i can't afford to give it away not yet but yeah yeah that would be that would be cool yeah um well it kind of leads into i know there's a question in here um kind of leads into the same same topic is merchandise um do you have your own merchandise this is a question oh yeah yeah yeah yeah we have our own store and we're

talking about even revamping it you know doing some right you were saying to try and put like the the paintings yeah so like yeah so if you're watching this video you look underneath it should be like you're a little Mattcock store with t-shirts and like you know whatever but yeah I was actually trying to look at some different websites to get some of the paintings the books merchandise everything all in one you know one spot where you can knock it out because someone orders a T-SPAN yeah what we're using now yeah so there's like there's multiple websites that are supported on YouTube so I'm trying to do a little research on that now I have a question I guess when people order your book off Amazon

are you doing the shipping or or someone else yeah it's already no people always think that I'm not doing the shipping. The only way I do the shipping is if you contact me and say, hey, I want a signed copy. People used to buy them and mail them to me and then I would sign it and mail it back. Yeah. So I just ordered a bunch of books. And now if somebody says, hey, I want to buy an autograph copy, then I just have them PayPal me like 40 bucks. You can the book, like, first all, it's like it's like seven or eight bucks just to mail it to you. So it's not like I'm making any money. I'm making like 10 bucks. Really, I've got to drive down there. I have to sign it. I have to drive down. I have to drive back. So whatever.

Yeah. So I sign it and then I mail it to you. You know, because the books are like 19 bucks anyway. They're like $23 if you mail them on Amazon. So there's really no profit in it. But it's like, it's like that's like a huge, that's like a privilege. You know what I'm saying? That's like a huge compliment. Can I get a signed copy of your book? So me two or three years ago being in prison having, you know, I didn't have my book published. Like laying in my bunk in prison three years ago, I never once in all of those little fantasies while you're trying to go. to bed and you're running through all the scenarios in your head like how good things could get having people ask me for a signed copy of my book i didn't even have an aspiration like that like that was so like well that's never going to happen like didn't even enter my mind so for someone to ask me to do that like that's like a huge compliment like i'm i'm ready to like ask me i'll sign it and send it to you sign whatever okay um out of all the characters you met in prison who was the most memorable and why okay uh one more thing on the book thing yeah but you have to stay on me like if I don't respond it I'm just overwhelmed with comments with

emails with everything so it's not that I'm trying to be a jerk it's that I am overwhelmed and I the last thing I would ever do is get mad at somebody for like hammering me like hey bro I sent you an email don't forget this like you're doing me a favor I wouldn't be offended if you've sent me an email and I didn't respond it's only because I'm overwhelmed hit me up again you're doing me a favor so don't let me forget all right so anyway who is the most memorable character? I mean, it would be, I would love to say John Boziac, but to be honest, the most unique and amazing character that I met would have to be Frank Amadeo. It is, you know,

and Frank Amadeo, anybody, I wrote a book about him. It's called It's Insanity. He's a guy that was, since he's been in his early teens, he says, earlier than that, he's always believed that God is telling him he's preordained to be in his word, Emperor of the world. That's his, like, who says emperor? But, and he's, he's a rapid, it's what's, he's called it. He's a rapid cycling bipolar, like an Axis 5 rapid cycling bipolar with features of schizophrenia.

I think that's the actual diagnosis. And so he's constantly cycling up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Like he doesn't. The new Bimo, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash ViPorter to learn more.

Go like two hours, you know, up. it's up down his emotions are constantly like this and in those in those manic moments he believes that god is telling him he's going to be emperor of the world that he's going to conquer the entire world now he has a plan on how to do it it's called capital genesis and he's plan his plan is to do it either he's trying to do it his goal was to do it through economics but if it needs to become militarized, he's willing to go that route. So, anyway, I wrote a whole book about it. You can listen to the synopsis on the website.

You can read the synopsis on, I'm sorry, you can listen to the synopsis on the YouTube channel, read it if you want to read it, and it's got pictures of Frank and everything on my website. But I also have a book, a full-length book on Amazon and the Audible, the Audible, is also on uh on amazon um yeah listen there's a there's a there's a there's a there's a documentary about him he tried to take over the congo you wouldn't even believe how insane this guy is and yet he also is the guy that was worked as my lawyer in prison and got me 12 years off my sentence the guy is brilliant look out of all the criminals i've ever met i've never actually met somebody

who he was actively committing crime to in his ultimate goal was to take over the world. Like, that's a James Bond villain. That's not a normal thing. Nobody says that. Who says that? You've never heard that other than James Bond or Cobra from G.I. Joe. Like, who wants to take over the world?

Who even thinks that's possible? Yeah, and what was he locked up for? Oh, tax fraud. He stole $180 million from the federal government and used it to start putting to get buy-up companies in order to get this large conglomerate, of companies and also seen he owned a company that was building military satellites uh that uh that was a um a private military contractor he's trying to take over like the congo he's listen it's

it's insane you have to read the book yeah it's insanity okay uh next question so uh what is the funniest thing that ever happened to you or that you experience and it's not in prison but I guess in general or he could be prison um somebody asked me that the other day well they asked me that a long time ago and I think I've said this a few times it's it's the uh now that's the most that's just the most humiliating thing I've ever heard of is uh the funniest thing yeah I guess there's a it's kind of an odd question not an odd question but there's so many it's not that one yeah there's not one specific I mean there's so many funny things I got one

How about we just did a podcast on him I don't know if that's going to be posted before or after that But the one you just did was Zach It was about two hours of pure entertainment Oh yeah just hilarious We'll put the card up there and the link in the description You can check that one out I do have the most

Just like kind of like the worst thing Somebody had asked me one time What's the worst thing that happened And that was I was in the library of the medium I should have told this on that Did I ever tell you? Yeah yeah yeah

Oh yeah The guy With a guy this big, big massive guy all muscled up, he'd been locked up, who knows how long, but I think he probably had 20 or 30 or probably had a life sentence or something. I was sitting in the library and there's maybe whatever, six or seven other guys and we're in the library

and there was a gay guy, like a punk, in the library. And he's sitting there, you know, whatever. Five, ten, real thin, had long braids. And he's sitting there like, looking at like a glamour magazine or something. I mean, legs crossed. I mean,

really honestly, like an amazing looking training. Like, like you could fool you. Like, looks like a woman. Yeah. Turning the pages,

looking at a magazine, and this big blind guy comes walking in. You know, a sugar daddy or a, no, a sugar daddy, a war daddy. So he comes walking in and like everybody in the,

everybody in the, everybody in the library like, like looks up like, because you can tell this guy's never been in the library. library. He comes walking over to the punk and goes, baby, can I talk to you? And it was like, when you heard that, you were like, what, what, what, what just happened? What do you say? Did he just say baby? Like, baby, baby, can I talk to you? And the punk's turning the pages. And he goes, baby, please, baby please. And I remember being humiliated for this guy. I was just like,

this is horrible. And the guy goes like, baby can talk to you outside? Please, please. And she, She goes, I don't like the way you talk to me in front of your friends. And when he looks around and when he looks around, we all go, we all look down immediately. And he's like, baby, please. Baby please, can I talk to as I. And so the punk gets up and goes to walk outside with him. And he goes to put his hand on, on, you know, his or her shoulder. And she goes, like that.

And he goes, don't touch me. Baby, please. But it was the worst thing I'd ever seen in my life. It was so humiliating. But so, yeah, anyway, that's probably the worst thing I've seen. I don't know if it's funny, so it's also pretty funny. Yeah. Okay.

Next one, someone asked, what's your next move? I guess. Yeah, I saw that one too. Like, I don't know. From you, like, I would think probably just, I mean, the pieces are in place. It's just making them better. Yeah, it's really just patience, I think. At this point, I think it's just doing exactly what I'm doing, but being patient.

I'm trying to put together a story on, you know, the chip guys. It's called The Company, and it's these guys that were robbing chip manufacturers. I'd love to put that story together. I'm right now working with a company to try and do a true crime podcast. It's with a company called A Little Everywhere, Productions. They do podcasts. They do The Dream, which is a super popular podcast right now. And they're working on a couple other podcasts, and we're putting together a podcast right now

where it would be me being in prison telling, you know, telling the stories that I've told, you know, just going over how I met guys, telling their story, doing interviews from the actual, the actual subjects,

like the whole thing. It's going to be like a real, it's not like a sit-down YouTube podcast. Yeah. It's like a real heavily edited and produced podcast. So that's something I'm doing. And that will get me, should get me,

some good exposure as far as the stories. And the hope is, obviously those stories end up getting optioned and turned into series or that they have that they take on a life of their own which is the goal the other thing is obviously john boziak we're working on a on a on a documentary for him you know it all the stories are in flux right now and i don't want to say too much but yeah i'm i'm working on all these things it's just being patience being patient and kind of you know staying the course a lot of it you know you You know, there's just, was it, uh, was it the, uh, owner of, uh, of, um, Amazon, uh, Bezos, yeah.

I think he's got a quote that says most overnight successes take about 10 years. Yeah. And that's the whole thing. It's like, look, I just started working. I have to stay the course. I spent several years in prison writing the stories. I got out. I'm doing the YouTube thing.

I'm doing all the right things. But then it's just a matter of staying the course. Yeah. That's what I'm doing. Cool. Um, let's see. Um, What is one thing that you miss about your former life?

I mean, I've missed the money. Yeah. I mean, listen, money, like the kinds of problems that I have right now is. Whoa. Hurricane. Hurricane or not an amber. Yeah. Florida.

Something about that. Yeah. So. Got an amber alert yesterday. Yeah. Same. So for the money or. Yeah, I would say for the money because, look, like the only, the major.

problems that I have right now that, you know, they're not, they don't even look at things the same way I used to look at them. But, you know, look, the only problems I have right now would easily be solved by money. Yeah. You know, so like, you know, us getting the right camera equipment. I mean, that, that's a couple thousand dollars. I don't have it. Like, I don't have the $2,000 to buy the camera. So what are we doing? We're piecing together what we have. Like, we're used camera, used camera, you borrowed camera, like, you know, everything, you know, used this, like, Everything is used or borrowed or actually, you know, or another podcast company, you know, said, hey, you know, I've got some extra stuff. What do you need?

I'll take that. I'll take that. You know, we're piecing everything together. If things would be easier if we had the money to buy the equipment and it would, it would obviously, one, the quality would be better. But two, you know, it would, the time it takes to to piece all this together to make what appears to be a professional podcast. Yeah. So money would solve that. Where do you do your podcast?

You know, in my living room. I don't really, my one bedroom is essentially, it's really not a one bedroom. I basically live in my studio. I live in my studio. Like, I paint in my kitchen. I paint on that wall and we have this studio. It looks good. Yeah.

Like you look on here, you think, man, he's in a professional studio and everything. Listen, these things are on wheels. Like, I can wheel these things away. Yeah, that's one of the things. I noticed when I first started editing, you were doing the vlogs in the kitchen and behind this wall before I had the phone on it and I'm like oh you know he's in this room he's in this room we come here and it's you walk in door and it's paintings and it's you know the rollable walls and absolutely oh listen I can I can create an illusion yeah ask Bank of America yeah um but the

the point is is that you know money would solve all those problems so obviously it's it's money money would would obviously make things easier but listen I'm you know but I'm thankful to just be out and be doing this stuff and I'm thankful to be able to even pay my bills at this point like that's a huge triumph yeah um okay here's one do you plan on doing a breakdown of the wolf of wall street the movie um i haven't yeah like i haven't like i'm i would i wouldn't mind doing that i would like to do that with i'd like to do that with another guy like you know who i'd love to do that with i wrote a story called um i wrote a story called atonement with a guy named uh a guy named of

Joseph Vitale Like Vitaly has a Wolf of Wall Street type story Yeah Like I've never worked In a phone room I've never

I've never traded stock Like Vitaly knows that story Like he's lived that life Yeah So I mean a Vitaly's had I think he has had like three Ferraris and two Lamborghinis The fuck kind of mad money is that

Lives in like a three And a half million dollar House in In like Palm in a palm beach so i would love to do a breakdown of that movie with vitali yeah that would be pretty cool like boziac and i are planning on going to los vegas and i would like to i'm excited about it he doesn't seem excited i would like to do a podcast with bozziac where we break down like oceans 11 in los vegas in the you know what i'm saying that would be cool to me yeah uh but yeah i would i would

like to do that at some point but you know those those videos that i did were heavily edited and um but yeah i would i would definitely i'm i'd say we're a month or two away from being at a point where we've got the right equipment and everything to make that process easier yeah to where i could do a couple of videos like that yeah okay here's one um this is an interesting one so assume you came across another scam how much money and what percentage of getting away with it do you need in order to do it i actually answered that guy i think i said He goes, what's the chances that I thought I'd get caught or something? And I was like 2 or 3%.

And the reason I think, so as far as coming across another scam, like to me, the only reason I even say that is probably if I wanted to pull off a scam, like I already know three or four scams that I could easily pull off where you don't even walk in a bank. Like you don't even have, nowadays you don't even have to walk in the bank. Do it all online. but the likelihood that I would get caught I would say two or three percent and I say that not because

I'm doubting my ability to pull it off but it's the fly in the ointment it's like you cannot account for random acts you know what I mean so what you know how you just can't there's little things that happened you just like I had a scam one time

with a this chick her name was Allison Arnold at the time or the name was Allison Arnold so Allison had pretended to be a woman by the name of Rosita Perez stolen her identity pretended to be her and Allison then we then rented a house satisfied the house

or satisfied the mortgage on the house transferred the deed from her from the homeowner's name into the name Rosita Perez and then proceeded to borrow like three or four mortgages on the house everything's going smooth it's going good Allison went to one of the closings went off without a hitch got a check for a hundred thousand dollars went to another closing and the woman at the closing looked at her and said saw her ID and said this doesn't look like you and Allison went that's me she said no it doesn't look like you I'm sorry I'm not going to give you the check she was I'm I'm going to make a few phone calls and I'll let you know if everything, if everything's okay, you can come back and get the check.

I'm sorry. Allison's like, that's crazy. The ID, by the way, was Allison. The picture was Allison. She's looking at a picture of Allison going, this doesn't look like you. How do you account for the fact that I have a picture of me on an ID or a picture of Allison on an ID that says Rosita Perez? She's not questioning the validity of the actual, of the, of the,

ID. She's not saying it's bad. She's saying she thinks it's like somebody else's ID. This is my ID. She's not saying I called and the numbers don't work like everything work. How do you account for the fact that this woman was wrong? Yeah. It was her. You're wrong. Your fuck up blew my whole, blew a half a million dollar, a million dollar scam. Blew it because you're wrong. How do I account for that? Yeah. And that's the problem. Most of the time when I I've been grabbed or caught, it's because it was something I couldn't account for. I had a whole scam one time. I was going to borrow a couple million dollars.

I had already borrowed $1.3 million. Just so happens that the title, one of the banks sent the title person down two weeks too late. So they were supposed to go in this week, but they ended up going two or three weeks later as a result because some woman went on vacation. By the time she got back, she then ordered the title search. So when the abstractor went downtown, she saw that the other mortgages had already been closed

and said, oh my God, this is fraud and called the police. How can I account for the fact that you're going on vacation? But that's not my fault. That's the problem. There are the little things you just can't account for. You can never say, oh, 100% I'm getting away with it. Yeah. Really?

You must be able to tell the future. What's one thing that you do differently if you're 22 years old? I mean, if I was 22 years old now. Yeah. Or if you could go back to... Yeah, 22 now, yeah. The problem is when you're 22, you're so impatient. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, to me, I would fix my credit. I'd have good credit. And people are like, oh, my credit's ruined. You don't know that your credits are ruined. You're... But trust me, your credit's not ruined forever. It will fall off.

It will... Look, I would get... If I had no credit, I would build my credit. I'd get three secured credit cards for $200 a piece. 200, 300, whatever. You can even get one credit card for like $300 and use that one credit card to open the other credit cards. Let's say you can get one $300 credit card,

pull out the entire $300. So you get a $300 secured credit card. You pull out the $300. You then go get another $200 credit card. You pull out that $200. You then go get another $300 credit card by pulling out the $200 plus the $100, all the 300 that you'd pull out originally you pull out the extra hundred like you so you basically

use three hundred dollars to get two three hundred dollar credit cards and one one hundred and you start making the payments look if you have them all paid down below 30 percent within six months you're going to have over 750 credit scores I know because I did it when I was in the halfway house so I would build my credit I would get a job I would save as much as I possibly can I would pay my rent with a check and in six months to a year I would turn around and I would go buy a house I would buy a single family house. I'd move into one room and I'd rent out the other two rooms.

I'd turn the living room, dining room into bedrooms and I would rent those out. And I'd start making... Now I'm living absolutely rent-free. I'm actually making money now. And what would I do? As soon as possible, I'd go, as soon as I possibly could,

wait, maybe six months, and have another down payment. I'd buy another house and I'd move in that house. And I'd do the same thing again and now I'd rent out my old room. And I would just do that. If I had nothing, that's what I do. because in three years you'd have five of these things

and each one would be making 1,500 bucks and now you'd be making 75 you'd be making $7,500 a month in two years in two years times you could be two to three years times you could be making over $7,000 a month because you're making about $1,500 a month profit on each one of those houses and that's this that's something that that's a joke like that's easy to do

you can do that you can do that just by following a very simple formula. The problem is you're 22 and you have to be patient and you have to be told that you're not going to be making $100,000 a year for three years. And it's going to require you to sacrifice for three years. And most 22-year-olds go, man, I want you to just be able to tell me something

quick so I can be making that kind of money in two months. And well, that doesn't exist. Yeah. It takes, it's a three-year process. So if you did that and you worked at that and you followed that basic formula, You'd be making $7,7,500 in three years. And guess what?

If you just kept doing the process, because what happens after that, if you keep saving, it just grows even faster and faster. You want to be five years and you're making $20,000 a month, maybe $25? Okay, do that for five years.

Then you can go buy a $100,000 Mercedes. You can go buy your half a million dollar condo. You know, then you can kick back. It's five years. It's nothing. Yeah. But most people, they don't want to sacrifice that. They don't want to do that.

So that's what I would do If I started from nothing at 22 years old That's what I do What interview have you always wanted to do? Well, I answered this one too In the comments section I said Jordan Belford I said I'd like to interview Jordan Belford

Yeah, I know when we first talked And I started watching some of your podcasts The first two people that popped on my head was Jordan Belfort and Frank Abagnale But those guys, you know, are similar And like they just have a way of talking Or telling a story that you could just listen to You know, for me personally

Like, I'm not interested in anything crime, but I've listened to hours and hours of your stuff just because it's just interesting, you know? And I think, I think you have that, like, type of personality that. Yeah, I hear that from people. Yeah. You know, the only problem with Frank Abagnale is that at this point, he's, you know, he's in his, like, 70s, you know? So, you know, and I feel like I know his story, but I don't know, I've been wrong on one or two things. Like, I, you know, the problem is I read his book, and then I read his same. second book. But then apparently he did some interview with the FBI where he told like a different,

slightly different version of his story. Yeah. Which was odd. But anyway, it was like little things that happened after he got out of prison. There was, it was straight. And then this guy told me in the comment section that said Abagnale had said that like the FBI got him out of prison just like in the movie. But if you read his, you know, to work on to do stuff for them to go undercover, to do this, to do that. but in his book that's not what it says yeah like in the in the second book it says he did all of his time he got turned down for parole twice the third time they let him out like it's like like he then he started teaching these classes and started with the local cops and then he taught he taught he taught him at uh classes to how to detect fraud at banks and then he started going started building up

a resume in those two books which it pretty much covers his whole life those the two books which one is of course Catch me if you can and the second one is the art of the con no art of the steel or art of the con anyway

yeah but then he did some thing that's on YouTube where he talks about yeah I worked for the FBI I did this I did that that wasn't in either of the book so maybe I don't know

maybe a story is there is stuff I don't know yeah all right let's see let me go through some of that I screenshot and make sure we got them all okay

Have you ever considered to migrating to other countries? Maybe more specifically, like when you're on the run? Yeah, when I was on the run. Yeah, I definitely did. Like, one, I had thought about, well, one, I thought about going to Mexico, you know, of course. But the problem with going to Mexico is, you know, my fear was you show it with a couple million dollars in Mexico. Like, the cops will take it away from you. It's not like you can call somebody.

First of all, I can't call anybody. Secondly, you know, it's, you know, it's not like it's an extremely violent country, you know. And I'm on the run. What am I going to do? Now, there are parts of Mexico I now know. I didn't know at the time, but I now realize there are parts of Mexico that I could have gone that are basically almost all retired Americans. Like, I probably could have gone there, but I didn't realize that. I didn't know that.

My plan was to go to Australia, because Australia at that time, if you showed up, went to Australia with like $100,000 and a business plan, you could go to, go to Australia you could become a permanent resident alien and um and they would allow you to buy real estate open a business you weren't allowed to work in Australia like you can't take an Australian's job you can't work there but you can open a business and hire Aussies yeah so and the reason I like that is that out of all the places you become a permanent resident alien but they don't they don't run your fingerprints like you show up there you're allowed to do everything you You can't vote in there. You can't vote.

Yeah. But you can do all the stuff that I wanted to do, and you were outside of, you know, the United States. Yeah. And so I had thought about that. And we had looked at other places. Becky and I looked at other, I'm sorry, Beck, sorry. The chick I was with.

Well, actually, Becky and I looked too, but so did Amanda and I. We were looking to try and get out of the United States. I wasn't initially, but as things got, as the heat got turned up, then I started thinking I'm going to have to leave like I need to leave and so yeah I looked at a lot of different places like but yeah it was basically Australia was probably my best bet any reason why you didn't yeah the Secret Service arrested me yeah they got to you before you could put a real a dampener on my plans and keep in mind I'm sure I'm not showing up there as Matt Cox I'm showing up there at in a in a in a stolen identity from a homeless person right so I'm going there with a passport, all my documents, everything from some guy that lives under a bridge like, you know, in Nebraska. Like, I'm, I'm going to be good, you know, but I was at that point we were trying to get money out of the banks and we were refinancing property. We were pulling out a bunch of money and, you know, we were in the middle of the plan when I got arrested. Yeah.

Well, what's the hardest thing that you've had, you've ever experienced? The hardest thing I've had it, right. the hardest thing you've ever experienced gone through it could be I don't know it could be a five year period it could be like the one day I mean like other than going to prison

yeah if prison is number one yeah I would say going to prisons number one right you know the hardest thing you know I would say so in the FBI you know I want to say you know and I this is actually the appropriate thing to say yeah

leaving my family and my friends when you know when I took off on the run yeah but and that was hard, but by the time that happened, it's not like it happened in a day and I didn't know it was coming. Yeah. Like, I kind of knew

things were breaking down. And so I had months and months to kind of prepare myself that if they show up and I get the heads up, I'm leaving. So I knew for months and months I had kind of prepared

myself to do that. So that, the appropriate thing would be able to say, oh, well, when the FBI, well, When I found out the FBI was going to come arrest me and, you know, I took off. That was the hardest thing. But the truth is, I was kind of prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was getting caught. Yeah. Like when I got caught, it came, it was so out of left field that, you know, we're talking

within minutes. You're in handcuffs in a chair surrounded by secret service agents. I mean, so the, I just went completely numb. That and then when I got 26 years, like, when I went into the courtroom to get my sentence, like, 26 years, that wasn't going to happen. Like, like, if you had asked me, like, what's the percentage you're going to get 26 years? I would have said zero. What do you mean?

I'm a white-collar criminal. I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't—n't—nobody lost their home. Like, the most any one victim loss was, like, 10 grand. And that's—as far as an individual. because I only have like four actual individual victims. Everything, there's like 50 banks. And one guy lost like four grand.

One guy lost like six. One guy lost like 10 or 11 grand, something like that. So it's like it's next to nothing. So like you add all of this up. Like nobody died. Nobody lost their house. Nobody, you know, it's like so you can't give me 26 years. That's not even possible.

I had no idea how the system worked. So when I walked in that courtroom and I got 26 years, like that was such a devastating blow. And then, of course, going to prison, that's no joke. Yeah. Even going to, I went to the medium. Like, I'm a white collar criminal in a medium. Like, I'm totally unprepared for that. Yeah.

And how old were you when you got the 26th year sentence? 37. Yeah. I think it was 36. 37 or 38? Is that 37 when I got arrested? 37 when I got arrested, 38 when I actually got sentenced. Yeah.

So I say 38, 38 years old, 26 years, you're going to be 60 years old when you get that. My outdate, my original outdate was 2030. Yeah. That's a long time. Like that, that's like, it's hard, it was hard to wrap my, like, I just went numb. It's hard to even wrap my head around that. Yeah. At the time, like, you're just totally numb.

I remember after, we're, after leaving the courtroom and walking down this long hallway that was actually, the floors were white. the hallway everything was white and I'm walking with this this the bailiff or the U.S. Marshal

and I'm handcuffed and I'm walking doing the little duck walk and he's walking he's chattering away so you're from Tampa huh? Oh you have a family there

so how long were you raised in Tampa or did you just like motherfucker I just got 26 years I'm not in a chatty mood but yeah it was a it was that was a hard day

that was a bad day going to prison was rough you know yeah all there's lots there's no one thing that stands out yeah and I guess this kind of this follow-up question that was actually asked that it just kind of sparked I guess if there's someone watching this

for whatever reason if they were to go to prison like what's something that you'd tell them like to give them a heads up or like what to prepare yourself for I think somebody asked somebody told me in the thing they said they were about to go to prison yeah and I've had people ask me this before

like honestly like don't gamble don't borrow anything learn to do without yeah so don't gamble don't borrow anything um obviously don't run up debts uh be respectful to everybody don't complain just first of all nobody wants to be around you nobody wants to hear you complain you know and don't join in with the people complaining it's prison it's supposed to be crap deal with it yeah um you know like be respectful and polite to everyone don't talk a lot don't talk about other people like it's it's not hard to keep yourself out of trouble by following a few simple rules that really people it's funny because it's it's easy to fall into that complaining about everything yeah it's easy to talk about oh yeah like i over there even if you're just to say you know oh yeah that guy's an asshole over there

Well, you don't, what are you doing? Like, these guys are like, it's like a bunch of old women. Like, they're dying to talk about each other. Next thing you know, some guy that you're, he's been locked up with that guy for five years. He's going to go and tell this guy who's going to tell that guy. Yeah, the guy over there, he's walking around and telling everybody that you're an asshole. Now you've got a problem. You know, there's no, you're not suing other inmates.

Like, there's only one way to solve your problems. And that's violence. Like, it's all, that's their go-to. If, you know, look, if, you know, if all you have in your arsenal is a hammer, pretty soon everything starts to look like a nail. You know, that's all they have is violence. That's their way to remedy everything. So don't put yourself in that situation.

And look, if you do anything for two or three weeks straight and really push yourself, it'll become a habit, and then that'll just be who you are. And I always noticed guys from prison. Like, there was a guy who worked out who was a trainer. There was a couple guys who were trainers at the gym when I was in the halfway house I worked at. And literally, like, the owner of the gym,

and would complain about this person, complain about this one, they would always just go, and they would walk away, or they go, they never, never joined in. And I remember telling him,

you ever know, I said, you ever noticed that Raleigh never says anything? He never, he's like, yeah, yeah, Joey's like that too. He goes, yeah,

I said, that's, that's just not who they are anymore. Before prison, they might have joined in. After, not talking about anybody, not saying anything.

not going to say anything to anybody I wouldn't say to their face yeah like if I say you're an asshole or yeah that guy's a dickhead I'll tell him he's a dickhead I'll tell him to his face like I don't I don't care but I'm not going to say something because if he comes back around you better be prepared to say it yeah now how do you think how do you think that changed you prison changed you like personally or you know your habits or whatever I mean I think in in my case it definitely all of those things changed me yeah you know talking crap about people like I was always talking crap that guy's an idiot that guy's this that guy and then i realized look you're just going to have to either you stop doing it or be prepared to say it so i just stopped doing it you know for the most

part unless i was something that i was going to say that i would say about somebody yeah um you know and i also think that there's a a huge amount of in my case self-reflection because when i first got locked up it wasn't my fault it i got too much time it's not my fault they screwed me they this they that and as you do more and more self-reflection you know that interest inspection turn you turns and you start to go I just started to realize well if everybody's calling if everybody's calling you an asshole you're probably an asshole you know so it just that's what happens is you start to look at it and I just started to see the person who I really was and in some aspects I tried to I've tried to alter that behavior and in other aspects I've just said look

I can't seem to alter that behavior so I need to try and make it work for me you know and I'd say that's like the narcissism. I'm trying to make it work for me. Knowing it and changing the behavior is such a huge issue. Most of the time, if you know something about yourself, it's pretty easy to change it. Like being an alcoholic, recognizing you're an alcoholic is like the first step, right? And then I can work on changing it.

Recognizing that I'm a narcissist still doesn't help me to change the fact that I'm a narcissist. That I'm really only concerned about myself. and also but but being at least being reflective at least looking at myself and knowing that knowing that that's an asshole way to think and saying you're an asshole like who tells who says they're an asshole well I can tell you right now I'm an asshole yeah I can tell you right now those are those are the things that you know I hardly ever ask anybody about anybody about what's going on in their life yeah you know because I have very little concern about that it's just a prick mentality so somebody says oh you're a prick you know what am i going to say i am i know it's it's it's and it's not that

i don't it's not that i want to be that so i mean it's hard to change that behavior so i think prison help me realize those things and try and work on some of them and others i need to just you just have to embrace yeah now i guess another question just kind of pops in my head is like do you think like the prison system that we have like someone who gets locked up like do they have like a good opportunity like maybe change themselves for the better while they're there or you think you know i mean i i think the cards are kind of stacked against them oh i mean the card it's just stacked against it's stacked against you the point is you can certainly change yourself in prison you can certainly work towards coming up with another career you can definitely get your head right yeah like

you know and figure out what's really important to you what your real priorities are sticking with that as difficult, but if you're thinking that the prison is going to put you into some kind of a program, help retrain you, help get a job when you get, like, all those things sound good, and there are those programs that are there, but they're limited, they're extremely limited. It still takes a ton of work on your behalf. Like, you have to really want to try and change. It's just, the system is just not designed to help you. It's designed to make things harder for you. You you when you get out you know and that's horrible but you know the thing is you know these guys ruin it they ruin everything the guys will every time they would come out with some program in prison these

guys would go and they'd join the program they'd immediately start to try and manipulate the program or change it or steal or if you gave them something they did if you said hey we're going to have a movie room they immediately start to try and sell the stuff and do this and you know they're they're criminal so they tend to ruin any opportunities given to them yeah which is horrible for the people that genuinely want to change yeah it's just it's just a it's a it's a whole other world just from sitting here from what i assume like there's like a whole economy that's like going on like oh yeah in the prisons absolutely yeah like they take away money and you can't survive without money like you it's almost impossible to go to prison and survive on what they're giving you

so got everybody comes up with a hustle it's the same thing like like on the website for like the Bureau of Prisons, like they'll tell you all about how they're, we help support and we help inmates, you know, keep in contact with their family. And it's absolutely untrue. It's like, look, what they're writing on the website, what they're preaching and what they're doing are two different things. Oh, there's all these programs that really? Like there's two programs.

There's a backlog of three years, you know, and when you're done, you don't really get anything. You don't get a certificate. There's nothing that you can get out. and go to an employer and say, this is what I have. Like, what are you going to? You're going to show them some paper certificate?

Hey, I passed the such and such program. They're going to be like, and you want to work in the restaurant area. Yeah, but I have this restaurant certificate. It says I know restaurants. They're like, yeah, okay. You can start, you know, as a bus boy. Yeah.

Like, it's not good, like, they're not going to say, wow, you can definitely open a restaurant. You can definitely run a restaurant. That's not going to happen. Yeah. And would you say that's like the hardest thing from getting out is like just the restrictions oh yeah it's the recidivism rate is super high it's like 70% or something where guys go right back to prison in the first two or three years like the the the worst is the first year

that that that whole getting acclimated that's it's a major issue because there are so many things that are stacked against you you don't even realize like trying to get a one-bedroom apartment I was applying for one-bedroom apartments I was trying to get one that was around like $800 to $1,000 and there are one-bedroom apartments for $800 to $1,000 In Florida, you can get them. You can't get them if you have a felony. So as I, as the, as the market, you know, the available apartments were narrowing and narrowing, the price kept going up and up and up.

I had to get up to where I'm paying like $14, $1,500 a month before I finally found a complex that said, we will take someone with a felony. As a white collar felony, it's got to be over seven years old. Well, thank God I did 12 and a half years. You know what I'm saying? That just happens that it is. over seven years and then I had to apply and there's all these other things like you're not allowed to they have all these restrictions that just totally make it so difficult to

rejoin society it's it's it's an issue like there's tons of issues it's a huge struggle yeah so but yeah cool well that's all the questions that uh everybody else asked so if you want to wrap it up yeah all right so yeah this is it uh that would um I don't even know what I say anyway it's it's a hey if you like the video subscribe hit the bell turn on the notification if you're interested in in any asking any additional questions then leave additional questions and we'll get to those eventually yep and so this is colby and this is matt and you know that's it see you