Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Convicted Banker Exposes The Largest Tax Fraud In Us History

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Starting point is 00:01:30 broke and a guy that went to, I grew up in the Mormon church. And so he wasn't in my congregation, but he was in another nearby congregation. He knew about me. I knew about him. We were not friends. He asked me out to lunch one day and he offered me a job. He said, he's heard me on the radio and the newspaper. He's like, would you be even open to a job? And I'm like, who would hire me? Like I got no education. I've been making this stuff up for the last seven or eight, nine years. but I told me about the company. He said, we're in financial services. We have offices all around the world, almost 350 offices around the world.

Starting point is 00:02:06 And I said, what's the job? He said, vice president of sales. And I said, for the Portland location, he goes, no, for the whole world. I'm like, what do you? I didn't say that in my mind. I thought, this guy is not very smart. Do I want to work for a guy that would hire me? Right.

Starting point is 00:02:20 I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I took the job. and was very successful with it. And this is important to the story. What are you doing? You're saying financial services? Okay.

Starting point is 00:02:35 That's pretty broad. The official name for what we were doing is called counter trade. But really, it's barter. It was, so like we had American Airlines and Marriott hotels and all the magazines. And so if there's empty rooms in the hotel, it's worth nothing. So it's better to trade that room night for, ads in the national magazine or seats on the airplane. And so on.

Starting point is 00:03:01 So we had just, I mean, many, many hundreds of thousands of clients that were everything from the carpet cleaner to big enterprise level companies. And so I was a VP of sales, and my job was to increase the message so that we can increase sales. Generally, we quadrupled sales while I was VP of sales for three and a half years. So I started there at 29 and was at 32. I saw the CEO coming in from the parking lot, and I grabbed him and I said, let's talk. And I said, I need to resign.

Starting point is 00:03:34 And he's like, what's the problem? Why are you resigning? Everything's going great. And by this time, we'd gone public on NASDAQ, too. So there were stock and stock options. And I was getting, I was, I'd started building up a reasonable estate. So I had to runway to get out of that job and figure out my next business. Did you not like the job?

Starting point is 00:03:50 No, it just, it wasn't my thing. I was doing something somebody else came up with. I just wasn't that interested in it. And I was good at the message and I was good at sales and I was good at speaking and teaching, but I didn't really care about what the company was doing that much. So anyway, he said, well, if you resign, first of all, I said, can we keep you on for a year as a consultant at your same pay, same benefits, while you help us find somebody else? And I'm like, yeah, I'll do that.

Starting point is 00:04:18 And he said, you know, as soon as we announced that you resigned, you're going to get a call from the founder of this company, the original guy, who was not a part of anything, wasn't on the board, wasn't an obvious shareholder, and was, you know, rarely came into the office. Like, I'd seen him, we're all supposed to not talk to him if he came in. He was like, you know, super special. Only the, only his protege, the CEO. Don't look him in the face.

Starting point is 00:04:47 Don't look him in the eye. You don't know him. So anyway, so sure enough, the next day, I get a call for, from his personal assistant saying, can you have lunch with Terry Neal right away in the next couple days? So I'm like, sure, because I thought, okay, this guy's started multiple public companies. He's written all these books. He speaks all over the world. What a cool guy. You know, and I knew he traveled extensively. He'd studied archaeology. He'd just done a lot of cool stuff. I thought, yeah, I'd love to meet him and get to know him. So I go to lunch. And he says,

Starting point is 00:05:22 after the niceties, he goes, okay, here's the deal. Several years ago, so yeah, it says I have a bad back, and the Portland, Oregon winters are tough on me. So my wife and I bought a place in the Caribbean, and it's beautiful. It's a place called St. Kitts, and it's a wonderful place. And he said, but you can only walk the beach for so long before you kind of get bored. It's tiny. St. Kitts and Nevis. And Nevis.

Starting point is 00:05:51 So he said, St. and Nevis are a two-state country, kind of like California and Nevada. And he said, like those two, California, very regimented, lots of rules, lots of taxes, lots of, that's where the government kind of controls everything. And he said then like Nevada, Nevis has privacy for banking. It has all this asset protection stuff built into it. And so he said, I went ahead and I went through Interpol and went through the FBI and applied for a banking license and insurance license and a trust company. license. And I had to put up several million dollars in bond and had to get a correspondent bank, which was the Bank of Montreal. And we put all these things together. So he said,

Starting point is 00:06:32 now I have licenses and permission and money on deposit and a correspondent bank, but I have no employees, no customers, no operations. And that's why I wanted to talk to you. I said, okay, so what do you want? And he said, would you write a business plan for this, for the trust company and how we would find customers for the trust company. And of course, I'd just quit my job. So I was available. And so he paid me a lot of money to write the plan. And I wrote a business plan for it. Did this also feel like another position where you're like, I am not. Did you feel like this is another one of those things where you're like, I'm not the person that should be doing this? Or did you feel like, no, this is within my wheelhouse? Yeah, I knew how to do what he was asking me to do. Okay. And I never lacked for

Starting point is 00:07:21 confidence. I just thought it was interesting somebody would want to hire me because without a resume, without job history, without education. But I did very well in the job. As a matter of fact, the word on the street was that everybody, including the CEO, assumed I would be his successor, being CEO of this public company. So anyway, so I wrote the business plan for Terry Neal and he didn't really agree with my premise because my premise was everything needs to come through law firms. He's like, there's no reason for that. This was in the 90s, okay? So there was no offshore banking, you know, watch list for the IRS. There's nothing negative. But I just read John Grish, was it John Grisham's book, The Firm? Was it Grisham who wrote the firm? Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:08:10 And then later, Tom Cruise made the movie. Yeah. So anyway, I said, well, there's all this, there's this thing in the public consciousness that's coming up that foreign banks are for gangsters and bad guys. So I recommend that all the clients come through law firms. He said, well, okay, I don't agree with you, but I accept your plan. So if I fund it, will you start a company and do the domestic side, work with the law firms, tell them about the trust company and the bank, and see if they have clients that we can send to me in the Caribbean. So you're just saying to go to the law firms to get their clients. Yeah. Talk to them about what the value proposition might be for using foreign bank accounts. And then they've already got wealthy clients. They can just recommend to their

Starting point is 00:08:57 clients and they're not concerned. And they're also kind of looking at for their client's best interest. Like a lawyer's not going to represent or isn't going to recommend that you go and, hey, here, take your money and put it here offshore because it's illegal. They're not going to do that. No, because there is nothing illegal about it. Right. It's still to the say. The only thing that's illegal is if you don't report your earnings or if you don't report how much you sent there or if you use the money without paying taxes on it. Right. But it didn't really matter at that point because it was kind of these jurisdictions,

Starting point is 00:09:32 these British Commonwealth jurisdictions had become hot. And so anyway, so I said yes. And that was 1997 in the fall of 97. And we started a company. I started a company called Offshore Corporate Services, and his assistant, who is also his son-in-law, worked with me on this. And as we kind of progressed along,

Starting point is 00:09:59 we were doing very well sending him leads, I was noticing things in Terry Neal's behavior that just made me nervous. Such as? Such as going, so he's a private pilot, and he would fly from the Caribbean up to the Mexican border, border, land the plane, drive a car across the border where you just said to say, I'm an American, and you don't have to really report. Remember, you were crossing the board? It used to be, you could just,

Starting point is 00:10:27 you just declare you're an American. They're not scanning it and making that. No, there's no passport. You just say, I'm an American. They go, okay, go ahead. It's not like that now, but it was like that then. And then somebody else would be. You just need your birth certificate. Yeah. You didn't even need a passport when you could go to Mexico. I've been to Mexico back when you just needed your birth certificate. Yeah, and, well, I mean, in those days, you didn't have to say anything. Just declare if you're American. Just say it. Right.

Starting point is 00:10:52 They didn't ask your name. They didn't ask for anything. So anyway, he'd fly to the border, drive across in a car, and somebody would fly his plane over and he'd continue back to Oregon. It seems, what did you ever ask? Why don't you just fly in the U.S.? He'd been into a battle with the SEC, and he had prevailed in that battle in the SEC. But the SEC had taken all of his, all the stuff they found on him and given it to the IRS. said this American guy has a bank in a tax haven jurisdiction.

Starting point is 00:11:19 So they were looking into him. So he didn't want the government to know what he was doing. He just didn't want to know. And he had a perspective that, you know, the government was just kind of out to get you, kind of just trying to say, you know, you're a cow to be milked or sheep to be sheared. And so I didn't have his world experience. And I was going, I'm getting uncomfortable with this stuff. And so,

Starting point is 00:11:45 So end of 1999, the last day of 1999, 1999, we ended the relationship with him. We weren't going to work with him anymore. And I told his son-in-law, I said, why don't you come work with me? By this time, we'd acquired our first couple of Nevada in corporation services. So I said, come work with me. We'll be partners, and it'll be great, and we won't do the offshore stuff. What does that mean at Nevada that you, you, what is, yeah, I don't know. Well, I don't even know what you just said.

Starting point is 00:12:19 Yeah, yeah. So Nevada has the most business-friendly legislation in the United States. And then Wyoming is a very close second because they basically just mirror a lot of what Nevada does and they're less expensive. And so Wyoming and Nevada are what we call privacy jurisdictions. In Nevada, nobody knows who owns the company. You can use a nominee officers or directors, so nobody even knows who the real, who's really pulling the strings. And in certain circumstances for asset protection, Sorry, Cole.

Starting point is 00:12:57 So for asset protection, there are appropriate times to use Nevada as like a holding company to own shares or own intellectual property or something. So we'd already gotten our first couple of Nevada Corporation companies, one in Wyoming as well, and we said we don't need the offshore stuff anymore. Let's just focus on domestic corporations. So you have a question? Look like you're going to ask me a question. So what are the companies that you do? You're just opening other corporations for individuals?

Starting point is 00:13:27 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just like if you wanted to set up a company here in Florida or in Texas or in Delaware, whatever. Right. We just were focused on Nevada and Wyoming. And it was all strategic. There are reasons why we were using those companies for what we were doing.

Starting point is 00:13:43 And then in 2001, so a year and a half later, I had the opportunity to buy the granddaddy of all the Nevada Corporation Services, Loughlin Associates, which I still own. Or I should at least say I'm still the chairman of. And so Mr. Loughlin had died, and we have the chance to buy it. So, okay, now we have this little small group of incorporation. We have this big Nevada incorporator. We sold some.

Starting point is 00:14:16 We merged some. And now we were like this big incorporator. And we went to all 50 states. And we're just chipping along. We're feeling happy. We're doing great events. We've survived all kinds of dot-com crashes and Black Monday. We've survived all kinds of stuff over my business career.

Starting point is 00:14:34 And we lived in a beautiful home in a little place called Happy Valley, Oregon. and near Portland and driving nice cars and four children. And life was just like as rosy as you can imagine, a good little Mormon life, little clean cut, Eagle Scout. That's me. And we're at our new beach house for the very first time we'd ever used it, December 27th of 2002. And I'm looking out the window, my kids and my nieces and nephews are running around.

Starting point is 00:15:08 and I get a call from a woman in our building. So I had the 26th floor of the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Portland, Oregon. I had half of the 26th floor. Prudential securities had the other half. The receptionist from Prudential calls my cell and says, Aaron, call your office. Call your office right now. I'm like, what's up?

Starting point is 00:15:30 She goes, just call your office and hangs up. So I called the office, and instead of Kylie, the receptionist, answering, its special agent in charge. Okay. And it's not good. No, not good. And I said, what's going on? And he said, we're exercising a search warrant for anything about Terry Neal, Nevis American Trust, the bank, anything that was his offshore.

Starting point is 00:15:54 We're here to find anything you've got on him. You could have asked me. Well, it was a course, or what are they called a synchronized raid? Yeah. So I went to like a half dozen places around. On game day, pain can hit hard and fast, like the headache you get when your favorite team and your fantasy team both lose. When pain comes to play, call an audible with Advil plus acetaminopin and get long-lasting dual-action pain relief for up to eight hours. Tackle your tough pain two ways with Advil plus acetaminephim.

Starting point is 00:16:26 Advil, the official pain relief partner of the NFL. Ask your pharmacist at this product's rate for you. Always read and follow the label. on the country at the same moment. And they went to his house, including his house. Did you know that there had to even, was even an investigation? I knew that the FBI had been asking some questions.

Starting point is 00:16:45 To who? Just to people in general that you knew. Well, they'd even come to my office and asked me if I knew anything. And I'm like, I don't know what. They were asking me a question about things I really didn't know about. Yeah. I'm like, well, I know he has this stuff out there. Right.

Starting point is 00:16:58 But I don't know what he's doing. I have no idea whose clients are or anything about that. it was very benign. It was weird, but it was like, oh, I'm so glad we're not working with him anymore. And by the way, I think he's, I still, to this day, I think he's a very interesting guy and has lived a very fascinating life. But he was, I was very naive, I think, to the things he was doing all around the world. And it kind of freaked me out.

Starting point is 00:17:26 And rightfully so, because it ended up getting me in trouble. Anyway, they said, yeah, there's nothing about you. This is a special agent charge. Nothing about you, nothing about any of your businesses. We just need anything you have on him. And I need the combination to your safe. And I said, well, this was not long after Y2K. So I had a bunch of gold and silver in the safe.

Starting point is 00:17:51 And I didn't want them to inventory it without me being there. So I said, you're sure I'm not involved in any way, shape, or form. said, nope, not at all. Your name is not anywhere on the search warrant. We're not looking at you. You're not even a person of interest. And I said, okay, give me two hours and I'll come down and open the safe. My wife wisely said, don't go. And I'm like, I haven't done anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I got away from the guy that I was worried about. And now they're looking for them. And these are the good guys. And, and, yeah, they're just going to take the safe anyway or drill it themselves. Yeah, they're going to do it in the safe. So I'm like, I want to be there. There's too much value.

Starting point is 00:18:28 in that safe. So anyway, got down there to the office. They're all going through the computers and the files. And you know how, I'm sure you've heard lots of stories here about just how they're going through everything. And they asked me, just go sit in your office. And they were very friendly, very nice. And brought me a Diet Coke at one point and just said, I'm so sorry this is taken so long. And then at one point, somebody came in and said, you know, this guy has been so slippery. This guy's been such a difficult got to track. Would you mind if we just ask you a couple of simple questions. I said, well, yeah, like what? And they said, well, here, do you recognize this? And it was his logo for his company. I said, yeah, it's the trust company logo. He said,

Starting point is 00:19:09 do you know who this person here, this name? I said, that's his general manager. And they asked me like three or four questions like that. Very, very benign. Benign questions. And I answered the questions. And anyway, they left. And then, a little late. Then I called up my attorney, who's a business attorney, not a criminal attorney, but he was a big name. He was the head of business law for a big international firm, first U.S. firm into mainland China, actually.

Starting point is 00:19:42 And he had the Seahawks and Farberware and all kinds of brands that were, he was the lawyer for. And he bought a cell phone from years ago, and so that's why he became my lawyer. So I said, hey, Mel, the craziest thing just happened, and this is this what it was. He goes, did they give you business cards? I said, yeah. He said, do they have a gold shield on the business card? I said, yes. He goes, You're in trouble. He said, you didn't talk to them, did you? I said, only for like two hours. While I was here in the office, he goes, oh, man, you don't need me. You need a criminal defense lawyer. I said, what are you talking about? He goes, no, this is a criminal investigation, and now you're in it.

Starting point is 00:20:21 You talk to them, you got yourself involved in it. You need a criminal defense lawyer. And I said, you know, after I changed my underwear, I kind of said, so what, who would I hire? What would I do? And he said, well, I know a guy, but he's not cheap, but he's who I would use. And so he refers me to this guy who is semi-retired. At the time? Yeah, at the time. His name's Norm. I won't say his last time, I guess, maybe it doesn't matter here, but Norm. And yeah, he had one of the Enron executives. He had a Serbian general that was up on war crimes charges at the Hague, and he had me. That was just his three caseload. So anyway, he goes, well, I'll look into it. He was actually, just remember, this is Christmas time. So I get him on the phone.

Starting point is 00:21:12 He's at the beach. I drive back to the beach. We meet. He goes, just give me a $25,000 retainer. You know, I'll make some calls, and you'll get back anything I don't use. So that's the first joke in this whole thing. You're never going to get your retainer back. going to say. It's never coming back to you. That 25,000 was gone. And he kept saying, first he said,

Starting point is 00:21:33 you're not going to have a problem. You're not going to have a problem. And that was December 28th. Fast forward to April 24th, my mother's birthday, the following year, 2003, so just four months later, he calls me up, he says, okay, don't panic, but you're being indicted. They're indicting you on conspiracy to commit tax fraud. Fall is here, and that means football, tailgates, and big comfort meals. But here's the thing. I don't want to spend hours in the kitchen after a long day. That's why I go with Omaha Steaks.

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Starting point is 00:23:13 He said, yeah, I know. But you've got a prosecutor who's a career prosecutor who's a career prosecutor. He's never worked in the private sector, only worked for the DOJ, and he's retiring, and he sees this as his big swan-song case. And he said, it's not just you. There's like 40 people that they're indicting on this case. How long ago had you worked for this guy? Well, I didn't even work really for him. He funded a company and had me start it to get the clients for him.

Starting point is 00:23:45 That went on for about two and a half years. How long? Past that? How long since you'd parted ways. Well, this is April of 2004, and we ended effectively January 1st, 2000. So it was, you know, we're three and a half years later. Okay. 2000, 2001, 2002.

Starting point is 00:24:04 Okay. I was going to say this has been years later. Yeah, four and a half years later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Agreed. So, so anyway, that happened. And the lawyer, my lawyer, and then my business partner also got indicted. Lee, and so he had a lawyer, and we're all talking, and they're going, guys, we have to do a plea

Starting point is 00:24:29 bargain as soon as possible, and you need to spill whatever dirt you have as quick as possible, because they want, they said the sentencing guidelines for the number that the IRS is alleging is 12 to 15 years in prison, because they were saying this was this massive tax fraud case. We had nothing to do with taxes or tax returns or anything, but they said, we had materially assisted by forming Nevada companies and by gathering information from these law firms, packaging it up and sending it to the trust company. So that's like saying that the real estate agent and the person that closed my loans and the loan officer that were involved in helping me acquire a piece of property using a fake ID,

Starting point is 00:25:18 borrowing multiple mortgages on that and closing those loans, all of those people are involved. Like all the real estate agent did was drive me to the house. He didn't know that I was going to commit a fraud. The title person or the loan officer that I applied for the loan didn't know I was using a fake ID. And the title closer, when I went into the title company to close that transaction, didn't know it was a fraudulent transaction. But then they indict me and these other three people saying that, well, you materially helped further the conspiracy

Starting point is 00:25:50 to commit for Cox to commit fraud. But you're the same fucking thing you did every day. Amen. And we still do now. And we, except for we don't package up things for offshore companies anymore. But yeah, I couldn't believe it. And they said, you're going to go to jail. And I'm like, that's insane. That's impossible.

Starting point is 00:26:07 We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything wrong. And they kept saying, well, conspiracy, you don't have to know of the crime to be materially assisting. to be culpable. So I thought, these guys are nuts. This makes no sense. Yeah, that makes no sense.

Starting point is 00:26:24 So then I got a second lawyer. So I had my local guy, Norm. Then I'd go get a guy named Roger Olson, who had been Deputy Attorney General of the United States over all white-collar crime for seven years during the Reagan administration. He was the top guy under the Attorney General over all-white-collar crime. So I got Roger Olson, and he says, let me look around, let me ask around Washington, let me see what's going on.

Starting point is 00:26:53 And he came back and he said, yeah, you're just, you have a lazy prosecutor who's thrown all these people into the bucket. And you're in the Ninth Circuit. They will not let you be extricated and be on your own. They won't extract you from the case and treat you as your own. They're going to leave you alone until the end. And you'll just be caught up in everybody else's mess. And so I thought, okay, so that's really bad.

Starting point is 00:27:22 So we spent about $2 million in legal fees fighting this. And finally, after three and a half years, so number 03 is when I got indicted. And then it wasn't until 06 that we got sentenced. And so- Well, during that, yeah, during that process, what's happening? Like, what was his suggestion? Was his suggestion like, hey, look, let's go to the U.S. attorney and you can, can assist him and hopefully get probation because at that point.

Starting point is 00:27:53 Nobody ever offered anything. That's fucking ridiculous. Nobody ever offered any way out of this. I don't know that there's any way for what you're going to be able to assist him with. Like you don't know anything criminal, but at the very least you could offer your assistant say, I can help you organize and tell you how things are flowing, but you don't have to admit that you've committed a crime because it doesn't sound like you did. commit a crime.

Starting point is 00:28:19 Well, I played guilty to something. So let's talk about that. I mean, I will tell you, just on a side note, and maybe this will be good for somebody that's listening. One day, okay, so we hired this other lawyer from Canada to help us do research, because we wanted somebody not involved in the U.S. judicial system. So we'd get this guy, and he would come down maybe every couple months, and we'd meet, and he'd tell us everything he'd researched and what, just,

Starting point is 00:28:48 We're looking for some way out of this thing. And so we'd rented this room at a place, it doesn't matter where, which we'd run in a private room, an off-site sort of place. And he comes and he goes, Aaron, how are you doing? I said, how am I doing? I'm doing very bad. I mean, I'm freaking out. We're blowing through money like nobody's business.

Starting point is 00:29:12 I'm really worried about my family. I'm worried about my career. I'm worried I'm going to go to jail. and where I'm going to get, you know, whatever. I'm going to get beaten up or something. Who's going to take care of my little family? I've got this young family. I said, I can't eat.

Starting point is 00:29:27 I can barely sleep. He goes, yeah, he feels like you can't breathe. I said, yeah, I can't breathe. He said, it's like something's crushing you. And I said, yeah. He goes like there's this giant iceberg on your chest, and it's crushing you to death. I said, that's exactly how it feels.

Starting point is 00:29:46 And then he sits up. really great. And this, this was very helpful all through the whole ordeal. He said, Aaron, the iceberg is real. There really is an iceberg on your chest. And it really is crushing you. Right. But he said, every day the sun's going to come up and it's going to melt a little bit and eventually it will be gone. And that meant a lot to me at the time. And, and I don't know that it's fully melted yet after all these years, but it's significantly gone. now. Anyway, that was one of those little moments along the path where I was in such a low spot trying to fight going, this is ridiculous. And my wife is just being such a trooper and so

Starting point is 00:30:26 awesome and so supportive. But we finally, they weren't wanting to plea bargain. They were going to go for the gusto. And finally, after a couple of years, the prosecutor calls us in, And he said, okay, here's the case we have against you. So it's just me and my wife. And my wife... They've indicted your wife? No, no. She's just with me.

Starting point is 00:30:51 She's just with me. And this is all in that interim time. Because I just kept fighting. And they're like, okay, they're just fighting. We got to nip this. Because nobody wants to go to trial. Right. And none of them want to go to trial.

Starting point is 00:31:04 So he comes back and says, we're willing to do a plea bargain. We want seven years instead of 12 to 15. And my wife said, well, what is it that he's done? Because she said, she was kind of always like just a little removed from it. And she got my perspective on what was going on, but she'd not talk to anybody in the government. She talked to our lawyers, but she didn't have to talk to the government. And she has told me subsequently that she always wondered, well, maybe you turned a blind eye to something,

Starting point is 00:31:37 or maybe you were just ignorant about what was going on, or maybe you thought you were just this side of a line. or in the gray area. I don't know. So she asked the prosecutor, so what is it? He goes, well, here's the case. La, la, la, la, la. And she said, and he said,

Starting point is 00:31:55 I want you to plead guilty to something. I don't care if it's conspiracy. I don't care what it is, as long as that has a long enough charge. I don't care what you plead guilty to you, as long as we get this much time. So we left there, and she was pissed. She was like, oh, that's what this is about,

Starting point is 00:32:13 this is just about him getting what he wants, not about you did something wrong and you need to pay a penalty for it. He's like, I don't care what you plead guilty to. So, anyway, time goes by. And we ran out of money along the way. And so our lawyers, Roger Olson was already gone. I used him for a few months. The two main guys in Portland were still there.

Starting point is 00:32:42 and they wanted to get out of the case. They wanted to drop us as clients, and the judge said no. So that was my window of opportunity, even though I was scared to death. They can't get out of it. And the prosecutor wants a seven-year plea. So I thought, okay, I'm just going to play chicken. And I'm just going to say, we're going to go to trial. I just don't care.

Starting point is 00:33:08 We're going to go to trial. You guys are crazy. This is all crazy. We're going to go to trial. As soon as we'd gone a few months of me very convincingly telling the lawyers we're going to go to trial, I think they must have been telling the prosecutor. These guys are like, I don't know what's wrong with them, but they're really going for this. And they came back with, how about a five-year plea?

Starting point is 00:33:28 How about a four-year plea? How about a three-year plea? That's our best offer. And we talked about it and said, okay, we'll do a three-year plea bargain. And I said, but I'm not going to plead guilty to conspiracy, but I do have something I can plead guilty to. I can plead guilty to aiding and assisting in the filing of a false corporate tax return. And they said, okay, how did you do that? I said, well, one time one of these lawyers, a guy actually here in Florida in Miami,

Starting point is 00:33:57 I was there to meet him and he had a client and he said, hey, why don't we have lunch and you can meet this guy? He's probably going to become a client of the bank. I said, okay. So we met and we talked and he was in the insurance industry and he asked me, did I know, of any insurance products where he could move a lump of money out of the country that was appropriate and legal. And I said, yeah, you can buy a self-insurance policy. And there are several insurance companies in the Caribbean. There's one of Grenada that will do it. And it's after-tax money, so you've got money like you've saved up, and you can buy a policy and that lump will be

Starting point is 00:34:33 the premium. And then you're the only one that can draw down on it, so you can do that. And I never saw the guy again. I gave him the phone number of the place. That was it. in the 400 boxes of discovery that we got for the trial, I found that guy in one of the boxes. And a couple years after I'd met him with his lawyer, he had indeed bought an insurance policy and his accountant had deducted it pre-tax. So even though they had our letter, I'd sent him a letter, or faxed him a letter that said, here are the rules around this. He did it.

Starting point is 00:35:09 His accountant deducted it inappropriately. and so he committed tax evasion, right? So I said to my guys, I'll plead guilty to aiding and assisting. I gave him a phone number. And they're like, they'll never accept that. I said, well, that's what I've got. The guy said he didn't care, which would I plead guilty to. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:27 So I said, that's what that's, I feel confident doing that because I did give him a phone number and he did use the information I gave him to inappropriately take a deduction on his taxes. I aided and assisted. They said, they'll never accept. that. So I go to, so our judge was the chief justice of the Portland federal court. His name's Answer Haggerty. It's this big tall black guy with freckles like Morgan Freeman and this big gray afro, you know, and he just looked like something out of central casting. I mean, he looked like right from a movie. And so I go to change my plea. And I'm in my little business suit. I'm going into the court

Starting point is 00:36:07 and there's all these people that are in jumpsuits, you know, changing their pleas, and it gets to be my turn. And for anybody that's ever been through that, there's this sort of script they read. You understand that by doing this, you're giving up these rights and, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, so Haggerty's up there

Starting point is 00:36:23 with his glasses kind of down on his nose, and he's reading it, and he gets to my turn. And he said, you want to change your plea? And I say, I want to plead guilty. And he said, do you understand by pleading guilty? You're going to blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, okay, so tell me what your plea is. I said, I'm pleading guilty.

Starting point is 00:36:37 to aiding and assisting and finally evictfuls. Tax insurance by helping this guy, blah, blah, blah, in this way. And he takes off his glasses and he looks down at me. And remember, he's been watching this case the whole time. Right. He's been over all 40 of the people that were indicted, all right? He said, okay, do you own the insurance company? No.

Starting point is 00:37:01 Do you work for the insurance company? No. do you get paid a commission from the sales or from the insurance company? I said, no. He said, do you benefit in any way by giving a referral to the insurance company? I said, no. He goes, and you want to plead guilty to that? And I said, yes, your honor.

Starting point is 00:37:21 And he went, I kid you not, he was, okay. Like that was like, like, what the hell? Right. But I couldn't see any other way out of it. I couldn't see any way to cauterize this problem. So as I said a minute ago, the prosecutor was getting ready to retire. This was this big case at the end of his world as his life in government work. And they painted this as the biggest tax evasion scheme of U.S. history.

Starting point is 00:37:51 This is the biggest tax fraud case in U.S. history. And, you know, first of all, nobody, there was no fraud in the whole case. There was never a fraud charge that was convicted on anybody. None of the clients of the bank lost any money. Nobody lost anything. The government said they lost something, and they never had to prove it. They just showed a number. They didn't show any documentation of why this giant tax loss number.

Starting point is 00:38:20 But for somebody who's not around it, and this is one of the things that kind of freaked me out, was there was a lot of stuff that happened if you were a client of that bank, a lot of opportunities. that seem like, seem very nefarious, seem very spy movie, you know, kind of, if you heard it, you'd go, well, that's got to be bad. Somebody's got to be breaking the rules. And maybe they were. You know, there were all these different strategies that you could use corporate structures and and so on to move money legally out of the country. And it was legal when it landed out there. Everything was still appropriate by the law. However, remember I, I said, said that the head guy in this that was, you know, my co-defendant, the lead defendant,

Starting point is 00:39:09 he really had an issue with the U.S. government or any government. He even had me read a book called The Sovereign Individual. It was all about having, you know, book here, and I have your company here, and you're living here, your money's there, and your stocks are there. And are you familiar with the book? I'm familiar with sovereign citizens, but I understand it's different, but, you know, it's... This is Sir William Rees-Mogg.

Starting point is 00:39:34 He's British. He was the head of the Minister of Finance for England or for Britain, UK, and he was the publisher of the Financial Times. So he's a very informed guy, this big, fat book, the sovereign individual, about this idea of having different things all around the world. So it wasn't like, we're not talking about like common law citizenship or any of that stuff, which you give up as soon as you get your first bank account. As soon as you get your first checking account, you're no longer a common law citizen anymore.

Starting point is 00:40:01 you sign it away. Never heard that, but... Well, that's the rules. As soon as you enter the system, say, I want to play, you give up your common law rights. So no matter what anybody says, why, common law says this. It's like, did you ever do any of these things? Because you signed it away. You don't get it anymore.

Starting point is 00:40:19 So does that mean you're now subject to taxes? You're subject to U.S. law. Oh, okay. Yeah, you know, it's no longer the common law. You know, there's levels of laws. So if you go live in the woods somewhere, and never have a bank counter or a driver's license or anything, you're not subject to pay taxes.

Starting point is 00:40:36 I guess you're not making any tax. Well, but even if you were, you'd be a common law citizen. Okay. But if you had any money, you'd have to do something with the money to transact business. So unless you're just doing cash hand-to-hand with somebody all the time, it's almost nobody can avoid it. Right. The system, nobody tells you what you're doing when you do it.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Right. So, oh, well, whatever. That's a different, a whole different story. But Terry really thought the government was just, kind of wrong people and it was not fair. And he'd built businesses and he'd made money and why did they deserve, you know, all these people that are not adding to this society, why am I paying so much? And they're not. So he was a big believer in having stuff squirled away all over the place. And that's worked out, I think, or at least at the time worked out well for him.

Starting point is 00:41:23 There were interesting things like if you, so if the money gets offshore and into the bank account and it's all legal. That's fine as long as you don't want to do anything to take the money back to yourself, like buy a Diet Coke, right? Or go on vacation or buy an airplane ticket or do anything to spend that money on anything personal at all. Within the United States. Anywhere in the world.

Starting point is 00:41:48 Because you're taxed on anything in the world. So if you're... So if I take half a million dollars and I stick it into a St. Kitt's bank account. Yep. It's now offshore. It's Nevis, by the way. Think it would be full transparency. Nevis is privacy.

Starting point is 00:42:04 Okay, so it's a Nevis bank account. And then I go and I, whatever, I have a debit card and I go and I buy a soda. I have to, what, pay taxes on that transaction? So it's a claim it. So it's a claim it. Well, what they did was they had a number of things, including something I thought was interesting, which was they had debit cards. They had just a number on them, no name, no nothing.

Starting point is 00:42:29 And if you had a bank account there, you could draw on your bank account through this private debit card. And so from a tax evasion standpoint, I suspect people were doing that and not claiming it. They thought, oh, this is like tax-free money that I'm getting. And okay, that was something they did. It was interesting, though, in the case, in the case, when I looked at all the people that were, so like over 400 people went through the grand jury. And they indicted about 40 something people, 42, 43 people, something like that. And when I went and read, because they went through all of their individual actions, I went back and read a lot of that discovery because

Starting point is 00:43:15 we got sentenced at the end. We were the last, well, Terry Neal was the last one sentenced. and I went and read and I thought that they found about 12 people total that it evaded taxes of the 40. There were other people that were subsequent that worked in administrative things, kind of like stuff like we did. But only about 12 people. I thought, man, if you brought, if you get 400 people on Main Street to go through and be really looked at, I bet you'd find at least 12 that cheated on their taxes. You know, so, but they cheat. But what I found out about those guys was they were like professional cheaters.

Starting point is 00:43:54 They had accounts set up with lots of trust companies, lots of banks. They had all kinds of other things going on. And I remember talking to a couple of them along the way from the consulting side with the lawyer and answering questions about here's what we need. Here's the documents we need. And going, oh, that guy, that just was a nice guy, sent him me his passport, sent me his driver's license and everything. he was like working all these angles all over the place. And, you know, when you look at it, there were jets and yachts and fancy cars and millions and millions of dollars and offshore and secret debit cards and, you know, just money pinging around the globe. Because, you know, if you get a lawsuit against you and they go, okay, we're going to go prosecuted Nevis, you can just ask them to move it to Hong Kong.

Starting point is 00:44:45 And by the time they get to Hong Kong, you say, go to Switzerland. No, you go back to Bahamas. Okay, go wherever. Turks and Caicos, you know, whatever, the Channel Islands. I love man. One of the crazy things I did when I was getting the lawyers was calling on all these law firms in Luxembourg and Lichtenstein and I Love Man and all these crazy Bahamas and talking to those people that were in the business. So very, very interesting stuff.

Starting point is 00:45:12 So you can see why there's, you can see why they write books. about it. You can see why it's in movies and stuff and TV shows because it is kind of... It's very sexy. It's very sexy and it's actually really all happens. Right. That's the weird things. Things that you thought, well, you couldn't do that. No, you actually can do it in a jurisdiction that will let you do it. Well, I was going to say, in St. Kitts and Neavis, so can't you go there and get economic citizenship? Can't you go? Like, if you go and buy like a, uh, thank you guys, a piece of land for like $350,000 or something, they'll give you a passport and you're now a citizen.

Starting point is 00:45:52 Yeah, and that's how he had started. Terry went down and bought economic citizenship when it was still early. I know stuff, Colby. Yeah. No stuff. Yeah, that's right, man. Yeah, and he'd gotten himself a passport. He ended up with a passport for several countries.

Starting point is 00:46:05 And by doing the same thing. And, you know, I grew up here in the country. People ask me about when they've talked to me after the fact, they said, what was the big lesson you learned from prison? And I said, the lesson I learned or the worst thing about going was I learned to not trust my government. Because before I thought, oh, the government is a bunch of people trying to do the right thing. They're fighting about stuff. they're negotiating, they're passing laws, but generally it's a good thing. You get caught into something like that where they go, hey, we know you don't know anything

Starting point is 00:46:51 about this, but you're going to go to prison. You lose faith real quickly. And I think it's super evident in the politics we're watching today. It's becoming more and more, and more obvious. The cheating inside the government is becoming a bigger deal. It was very interesting, very, very secretive, very clandestine, very technical. There's a lot of tech. involved the kind of tech we had in the late 90s and early 2000s. But it was interesting and it was funky and it was fun to watch. And it was interesting to see how the customers that were experienced already, how they, I thought, oh, I've got this sort of these two or three things we can package up,

Starting point is 00:47:33 or we can do our Nevada stuff or whatever. But they understood a whole three-dimensional chess game that I didn't know existed. And I really wonder how much more interesting it's become over the last 25 years. Because, you know, with all the tech that's come up, it's got to be way, way slicker than it used to be. And so, anyway, a little time went on, came time for sentencing. It was the first time that the judge kind of said something supportive. Through all the hearings, they'd said, and this offshore and he would say,

Starting point is 00:48:13 but there's nothing illegal about that, is there? Right. And they'd say, well, we believe it was a lot of smoke and mirrors, wink, wink, nod, nod. They were saying one thing, but they're really doing something else. And anyway, it kept progressing. And at the end of the day, we got sentenced. And he did say the one thing that was comforting, at least, because I was starting to doubt who I was. I'd spent my whole, I'll tell you, my dad, whom I loved with all my heart, he passed away in 2020.

Starting point is 00:48:47 He always said all my life, it's more important to be trusted than to be loved. And so being trustworthy was like this paramount thing in my mind. If you're going to get along in the world, you need to be trustworthy. And he said, I'll always love you, but if I don't trust you, I can't give you the keys to the car. I can't leave you home alone. I can't give you money. you know, but, and he said in life, a lot of people aren't going to love you, but it's going to be important that they trust you.

Starting point is 00:49:15 So I thought, here I am in my early 40s, and my life is kind of over. You know, this is a federal criminal indictment. I'm going to go to prison, you know. Anyway, the judge did say that day, and it's in the public record, if anybody wants to question this, but he did say about me and my partner. He said, I've spent the better part of the last two days, trying to reconcile what these two men are accused of versus everything else in their life. And so I'm ready to dispense the sentence, and the DOJ prosecutor gets up, and he said, well,

Starting point is 00:49:55 before you make the sentence, we'd like to call two witnesses to underscore the severity of this whole scheme, this whole nefarious, you know, tax evasion scheme. and the judge looked at him, he said, well, you know, I've supervised the whole case, and I've made my decision, but if you would like to waste the court's time, you have the right to call your witnesses. And he said, oh, never mind. And then he looked at our guys and he said, do you want to call anybody? And they're like, nope. And I thought it was funny at the time, but then I thought about it, I thought, those guys

Starting point is 00:50:30 have to keep showing up in front of him. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they don't, you don't want to piss off the judge. Yeah, so, and he's the boss of that court, right? He's the Chief Justice. And he's on the Ninth Circuit Appellate Court as well. So he's making case law. And, yeah, if you'd like to waste the court's time, you can call your witness.

Starting point is 00:50:45 So anyway, I did that. And he said to the IRS and the DOJ, he said, are you done pursuing these two? Because our plea bargain had said that if there was any reduction in sentence, they could pursue us indefinitely. They could audit us eternally. You know, we would never be rid of them. And we'd written in our own hand, that's fine, no reduction of sentence. So he said, are you done pursuing these two?

Starting point is 00:51:13 And they said, yes. He said, okay, we're going to downward depart. So the three years became 18 months. The five years probation became one year of probation. Why did they depart downward? Because he didn't see any reason for us to be in prison. Okay, so was this that simple. The judge is like, if you're done, I'm going to go, I know they promised to no downward departure,

Starting point is 00:51:34 we're going to reduce the sentence. So what he did. So what happened to Terry Neal and the other people that had been indicted? Like, did he go to trial? No, he didn't go to trial. He did a plea, and he ended up getting five years, which didn't seem like very much for all the trouble. He got five years. Five years.

Starting point is 00:51:55 He wanted to give you 12? Well, because he did a plea. Yeah. So he would have gone, he would have had the same sentencing guidelines as me. Right. There were other charges against him. that were not the same, we didn't have those charges.

Starting point is 00:52:10 And remember I got to make up my charge anyway. So, but I mean, I did the thing. I did give Dennis the phone number. Right. And so I did something. And I didn't feel guilty,

Starting point is 00:52:24 but I was technically guilty. And okay, I'll go do it. But I'm not going to say anything that makes it look like I planned all this out. Right. Because, to me, conspiracy seems like you made a plan. Yeah. We conspired.

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Starting point is 00:53:45 I thought, not in my world. It's going to look terrible at my world. So anyway, yeah, Terry got five years. Some of the hardcore guys got five to seven years. Most of the people that were kind of in a similar situation, I would say is me or smaller. They had a bank account, but they never really did any of the debit card stuff or anything. At least it never came out in the discovery.

Starting point is 00:54:11 They got probation. So they just got, you know, two years, three years probation, big fines. A lot of them got big fines. So when it came to sentencing us, I couldn't figure out why when we were like, we never had, my partner, I never had offshore accounts. We never did any of the stuff that was on the table. But they still wanted time from us. and they straight up said, you've got tens of thousands of business owner clients here in the

Starting point is 00:54:38 United States. We need them to see you go to prison for doing this. This is a message to all of your clients and to all of your friends, you know, and so that's what happened. And it's, I'll tell you the one thing I learned about the sentencing or the whole process is what seems like makes sense is not the game at all. But, I mean, unless it's like you walked up and shot somebody in the head and they arrested you for murder, that would be pretty straightforward. Right. But these white-collar crime things, it doesn't matter how illogical the premise is.

Starting point is 00:55:19 They're trying to fit stuff together, and they're going to find a way to get the strings connected so that they send you. And it doesn't matter how much you talk, because now you're just, you're just, you're just, you're just on a conveyor belt. You're a file on a conveyor belt. They don't give a darn about your family, about your kids, about your business, about your, what else you've done. It's like, sorry, I got to finish the file. And so if you get, if any of you listening ever get in that spot, to attack it emotionally is not going to do anything to help you. You got to find out from somebody who really knows what is it they want. How do you give them that so you can get out of the way?

Starting point is 00:55:58 it's how do you how do you mitigate the risk as much as possible the way i did it was um i found out that they need a conviction so and i wasn't going to give them six or seven years so i played chicken with them until they came down down down and we got the thing but i knew at some point and my wife and kids really believed it sentencing when the judge went from 36 months 18 months i got this big smile on my face i just got a year and a half of my life back And I turned around and my family was right behind me there in the gallery in the courtroom and they're all crying. And they saw me smile.

Starting point is 00:56:37 I just found out for my 36-year-old son just the last two years, who I have a great relationship with, but he said he had resented me for years because when I turned around, I was smiling. And he thought that meant I was okay with like leaving the family. That's what he thought was going on with my spouse. I just thought, who expected? expected that because I knew for sure I was going to jail because that's what they needed. They needed that.

Starting point is 00:57:04 In their mind, they were still thinking the judge was going to say home confined man. Yeah. Probation. Something. I don't see anything here. Yeah. Ankle bracelet. Whatever.

Starting point is 00:57:14 No, they really thought that. And most people thought it. But I knew after three and a half years of being around these people, I knew, no, no, guys, this is going to happen. Yeah. This is happening. And you fool yourself. There's no happy ending here. No, you're going to go.

Starting point is 00:57:29 But it was an interesting moment to see they'd been fighting, fighting, fighting. And, you know, there was the indictment, superseding indictment, second superseding indictment. Their case against us got smaller while it got bigger against the guy they really wanted. Terry Neal's got bigger. Ours got smaller. And anyway, so they said, you know, when do you want to report? And we came up with a date. and on the appointed date, we showed up at the prison.

Starting point is 00:58:01 My wife drove me to prison and dropped me off. And that was a weird situation because my wife's a very strong person, very tough, very kind, gentle. But if there's a problem, she's like doing it. And that happened that day. She was doing it. but I don't know how many other people have had this same experience that, you know, that are listening or that have been interviewed. But so they say, take a minute, say goodbye.

Starting point is 00:58:33 We say goodbye. We walk back up to the counter like I'm going to go order a hamburger or something. And he asked my wife to sit in a chair, takes me through a door with one-way glass, right? And strips me down, cavity searches me and everything. tells me to fold up on my clothes, put them in this big plastic bag. Then I watch him take the plastic bag out and hand it to my wife. And she's got my warm clothes, you know, in her hand.

Starting point is 00:59:01 And she's got to walk out the door and get back in the car and go home to the kids. I thought, oh, my Lord, what, I mean, I can't even imagine it being the other way around. And then, you know, they process me in. and the you know that you meet with a caseworker and a psychologist at least i did when they're processing me and you fill out all these papers these forms then i met with a caseworker and then right after a psychologist and a caseworker or whatever they call them the person's going to be my my going to have my file yeah yeah and and and both of them say case manager i think case manager okay so they're like you know don't talk to anybody do your own time um don't tell you

Starting point is 00:59:46 You know, you're a CEO of a company. Don't tell them that. Don't tell them your own property. Don't tell them anything about your life. Don't talk about your wife, your kids. Is this a low or a camp? It was, it was, well, I ended up a camp. It was a low, they, they sends me to low.

Starting point is 01:00:01 I went to a camp. Right. Don't talk to anybody. Both times. Same script. Just do your own time. Don't tell anybody because they could go or get somebody to go, rob your house, do something terrible to you.

Starting point is 01:00:13 So, okay. So, and by the way, there's no bed at the camp. you're going to go into the detention center. So I go in there, which is like, you know, what you see on TV. It's like real prison. And they're on lockdown. It was 19.5 hour lockdown there at the detention center. We go in and I get to the door and open the door and there are two guys already in the cell,

Starting point is 01:00:36 seven and a half by 12 foot cell, two guys in there. I step in, the door, you know, closes behind me. You know that crazy sound. The first time that happens, that's just devastating. Yeah, that concrete and steel door, it's just like, shit. This is serious. That and the sound of the keys is like you don't ever get over it. You don't forget those sounds, those big along keys.

Starting point is 01:00:58 So anyway, these two guys are in there, and one of them said, they both sat up on their, so there's a bunk bed and a cot in a toilet. And, of course, I was going to be on the cot. And so they both said, where are you coming in from? because for people that may not know, a detention center is like a bus stop, you know, for criminals. Yeah, they're being moved around.

Starting point is 01:01:22 They're being moved around, yeah. And so, and I ended up being there for 30 days. So they said, where are you coming in from? I said, no, I just got here right now. So do you own any property? So I just heard from two different people, don't talk about anything you own. I said, do you own any property?

Starting point is 01:01:41 I said, I mean like, like real estate? And they're like, No, like stuff. Like, do you have any shampoo or anything? Like, I said, no, I don't have anything. And like on cue, they both got down under the bed and pulled out their little rubber made tub and said, you know, here's some starbursts. Here's a couple of posted stamps. Here's an empty tea bag container you can use for a cup until you get a cup on commissary.

Starting point is 01:02:09 Here's a pair of shower shoes to use until you can buy your own. Can't be barefoot in the showers. You know. And I said, I'll pay you guys back as soon as we get commissary as soon as I can. Like, don't worry about it. You got to look out for each other in here. And I was like, these guys were both going behind the wall to the medium high. They were both on the way there.

Starting point is 01:02:30 And one of them had been waiting for his trial for two years. He'd been kidnapped basically by federalities in Mexico. He'd big pot grower. And he'd gotten away, he got married, had kids. He moved out of the country, changed his life, started a real business. and somebody, you know, kind of ratted him out. Yeah, yeah. And so the Federaleys picked him up in the middle of the night at his house,

Starting point is 01:02:53 and they'd moved him from place to place, and he'd ended up at Sheridan Prison, you know, detention center and had been waiting for a trial for two years. Two years. I knew a guy who'd, like, three, three and a half years he'd been in the... Just waiting. Yeah, U.S. Marshall's holdover for, like, three and a half years. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:09 Just, it's just, the thing you realize pretty quick, you're just inventory. Like, they don't give a damn about it. You're cattle. Yeah, you're just, and they can put you in any box they want. It doesn't matter if you're a nice person, if you did anything wrong or right, or just doesn't matter. They can do anything you want, ship you away, put you on diesel therapy, do any of it, right? You know, which I saw happened to a couple guys.

Starting point is 01:03:31 Got transfer all around the country, and then ended up back six, eight weeks later. So anyway, I'm teaching a lesson. So anyway, these guys, I thought, okay, well, that's an interesting thing. That gave me at least a little comfort. that maybe I'm not going to get, you know, shanked. Because I didn't know. I didn't know. And, you know, there you are in when you go out for meals.

Starting point is 01:03:53 Yeah. It was 19.5 hour a day lockdown. So we had four and a half hours a day to get a haircut, make phone call, eat food. If you wanted to go out, you know, on the blacktop with two and a half story tall concrete walls, you know, with guys pointing guns that you could go outside. And so anyway, anyway, did that. I did my time there. Then one day, you know, how it is, three in the morning or whatever, they roll you up. And they're young, roll up and get you out, new paperwork, new jumpsuit.

Starting point is 01:04:27 And now at the detention center, everything had been completely controlled. You know, even how they gave out mail. I mean, how you moved around the floor. Like, you almost had to have permission to go someplace the way it was when I was there. And so they process is all out. we're in the lobby again where my wife had dropped me off a month before. And they said, see that building about a quarter mile away over there? Just go out there across the parking lot, go down the road, walk into the front doors or like eight of us.

Starting point is 01:04:55 And that's the, that's where you're going to be. That's the camp. Yeah. And like, we're all looking at like, are we going to get shot? Are we, I mean, what? Because, you know, they get in your head really fast. Yeah, yeah. They get in your head really fast.

Starting point is 01:05:08 The difference between the security level. One, you're, you've got. like an outside security where they can give you a bus ticket and say, and ship you across like my wife, when she got moved from one camp to the next camp, it was her and a couple of girls. They gave him bus tickets and said, we're going to drop you off, get on that bus,

Starting point is 01:05:28 and then you'll get off here, and somebody will pick you up and bring you to the camp. And you're like, if I have this much freedom, the fuck am I doing in prison? Yeah, really. I mean, the thing about the camp was, you know, there's no, there was a chain link fence,

Starting point is 01:05:39 but it wasn't closed off. Anybody could drive in this. easily jump it, right? Anybody that, well, you could just walk away. Anybody that could drive to the main prison, to the medium high, they drove right through the camp. Right. So theoretically, you could have a friend drive in,

Starting point is 01:05:55 you jump in the car and they drive out. Right. That would be good for, you know, a few hours, and then you'd be done. But, and I had one guy that did that. Right. And he was out for about two months, and then they caught him, and he went behind the wall. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:06:10 So anyway. Anyway, went in there, did that. And I don't know, just from a weird standpoint, I'll just tell you. So we got into there where they gave us this orientation, little talk. And then we all got these little slips of paper that were like fortune cookie size, you know, fortune cookie message size, these little dinky piece of paper with letters and numbers on them. And they said, that's your address, go find your spot.

Starting point is 01:06:33 So is which one of the buildings, which one of the wings of the buildings, which one of the cubicles, which side of the cubicle, which bed? So, you know, I wandered around and I found my bunk. And when I got there, there's this guy baldheaded, but he's hood up on his jacket, big oversized jacket, leaned back in the chair waiting. So lean back in the chair waiting. And I walk around and I said, he said, are you my new bunkie? I said, I guess. He said, okay, I saved the mattress for you.

Starting point is 01:07:10 And he got up and walked away. I saved the mattress. I saved the mattress for you. Okay. So. There's probably a good mattress. Yeah. Right.

Starting point is 01:07:22 I'm not going to let my monkey have a bad mattress. Right. Somebody, when the other guy left, then somebody with a shitty mattress was probably going to come in there and swap them out and you'd get some little shitty foam mattress. And he kept it and said, no.

Starting point is 01:07:35 And so he was waiting on it. He was waiting on it. He was guarding the mattress. So I got there, you know. So. But he was the guy like somebody I'd never met. Fully shaved head, very pale, all tatted up in a significant way. I found out later he was doing concurrent.

Starting point is 01:07:54 Concurrent? No, no consecutive, whatever. At the same time, sentences for cook and meth. So he'd worked his way down to the camp. So I'm sitting there in a little plastic chair in my cubicle. I don't know anybody. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where I'm supposed to go.

Starting point is 01:08:14 So I just sat down on a chair and waited for something to happen. And I hear my name, Young, 6715-0-065 report to the building administration. So I go to the middle of the lobby of the building and there's an office. And I said, I'm young. I'm Aaron Young. And they said, oh, come here. This lady, you know, a copy in a uniform. She goes, I'm going through your file.

Starting point is 01:08:36 Are you really a CEO of a company? Yeah? You've really written books? I said, yeah. So, you know, you read, right? Well, yeah, of course. And she was like, okay, come with me. And she walks me all across the yard up to several other buildings, finally, to the education department.

Starting point is 01:08:59 And says the lady in charge of education. I got one that can read. Yeah, I got your new tutor. I've got your new tutor. And it's funny, you don't have a say-so. They didn't even ask you if you wanted to be a tutor. No, they told us in the orientation, you must have a job within a couple of weeks or you go back to detention. And so I thought, okay, well, that lucked out.

Starting point is 01:09:18 I got a job for 30 minutes. I'm here. And then she walks me back to the building and she says, look, I can move you out of that cubicle. I can move you someplace else because pile, your bunk. mate is he's the shot caller for the white gangs in here. And he gets... You said, not now. Yeah, no, it's me.

Starting point is 01:09:46 Scouts honor. There's a new sheriff in town. Anyway, but she goes, he gets, they roll his stuff all the time. They're going to dump out your locker. They're going to dump out your stuff. They're going to rip your bed apart. They guards well. So I can move you somewhere else.

Starting point is 01:10:04 I said, I don't think I should do that then based on what you're telling me. She goes, why not? I said, because he told me he saved the mattress for me. So I think it will be looked on badly disrespectful if I move. So I stayed there with Pyle the whole time. And that's a whole, we could talk about any number of weird stories with that. But anyway, that was my first day at the camp. It was, here's your job.

Starting point is 01:10:33 you're going to be teaching people. And I save the mattress for you. So now we're connected. So I can move you. I better not go because I don't want him pissed at me. If he's the main guy for the white gangs, then I do not want him out of me. The white gangs at a camp.

Starting point is 01:10:50 It's just silly. You know what? We had multiple guys in there with bullet wounds, stab wounds, tear drops, the whole deal. But by the time they get to the camp, a lot of them had been picked up on non-violet. crimes. And so they didn't, so you had Sirenos and Nortenos playing handball with each other, which if they were behind the wall, they'd be killing each other. Yeah. But there, nobody wants to

Starting point is 01:11:13 get kicked out of the camp. And the guys, there's two different groups. There's, there's, there's a less than 5% that were like me, that were white collar. There were a bunch of kind of goofy guys that had been like marijuana growers. Um, they'd done stuff. but it wasn't really hurting anybody. And they were kind of just kind of guys that, you know, I don't know, just not the kind of guys I would normally hang out with, but they were not necessarily bad people. There were the really scummy guys.

Starting point is 01:11:49 And I say scummy. There were some real scumbag guys there. Yeah. Then there were guys like Pyle, who was a good guy. He loved his daughter. He loved his parents, but he'd made money cooking, and he'd been in gangs, and he was, I don't remember if he was a peckerwood or not, but he'd been in one of the gangs,

Starting point is 01:12:03 and he was like, you just didn't screw around with him. And he's totally ripped and nobody screwed around with him. And I'll say something more about him in a minute. But the point is, then there were the guys that had come down, worked their way down 30 or 40 years to the camp. And this was their prep to be out the door. Those guys were like, I don't know, they were untouchable. They were polite.

Starting point is 01:12:27 They were well-dressed. Like they were always perfect. Their hair was combed. Their uniform looked good. their bed was perfect. You just didn't screw around with them at all. But they have that tension in them that you can feel. Yeah. This could go bad super quick.

Starting point is 01:12:42 Yeah, this guy survived this long behind there or was down for something pretty serious and survived. Like, no, I'm not, just to be polite. No matter how disrespectful you are to me, yeah, I'm not going to shank you. No. You can talk to me pretty much like I'm a dog. and most people are going to realize, like, Matt's not going to stab you in the middle of the night. But with those guys that worked their way down, you don't get that feeling. It almost be the worst if you disrespected them, and they said, okay.

Starting point is 01:13:13 And walked away, you'd be like, oh, my God, he's going to stab you. Now I won't even know when it's coming. It's going to come sometime. Well, you know, I had an experience like that one time, not Shank, but so I'd been teaching GED for a while. And there's two stories here, so let me be clear on my timeline. I'd been teaching GED for a month or month and a half, and the guys liked me. I was easy on them, and they were compelled to be in the room. They didn't want to be in GED class, but if you don't have a diploma or an equivalency, you have to go.

Starting point is 01:13:48 Yeah. So. And if you don't go, then you don't get top grade pay. You don't get, they'll move you out of your, out of your two-man room. You can lose good time. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of shit. Yeah, you can't get 54 days good time anymore. Yeah, you'll lose your good time.

Starting point is 01:14:02 Like, yeah, there's all kinds of, it's just better to go and sit there. Just go and sit there for an hour and a half. So there was a new guy that got transferred in, a Hispanic guy. And he was, the class was like, we kind of had a thing going. It was working. And this guy now is stuck in the class. And he starts mouthing off, like really being disrespectful to me. And I'm like, yeah, I,

Starting point is 01:14:25 I hear it. I know you don't, you know, I'm not asking you to do anything. If you want to, great. If you don't. I know you're sort of stuck sitting here, but we're cool. And he kept doing it.

Starting point is 01:14:35 And I said, you know, and I didn't know, right? I don't know all the lingo yet. And I said to him, I said, you know, you're being really disrespectful right now to me and everybody else in the room.

Starting point is 01:14:46 And he's like, puffed out. He's like, and he gets up, walks out the door. And this other guy, this really friendly, big, kind of fat, round-faced guy that everybody, his nickname was Panda, another Hispanic guy.

Starting point is 01:15:00 He gets up and he walks out after the other guy. And then I just go on with class. It was not unusual for people to walk out during the class. So anyway, later, Panda comes up to me like at lunch or something that day. And he says, hey, young, don't worry about it. I took care of it. I said, what's the matter? He said, the guy, I talked to him.

Starting point is 01:15:21 I told him, you're not touchable. You don't touch him. Was that even, I'm like, something that was going to happen? That was a thing? I didn't know. Well, he was the head of the Nortenas in there.

Starting point is 01:15:33 Panda was. I didn't know that at the beginning. He was just this nice, friendly guy. Right. But he was the boss. And he'd been behind the wall and was now here. He said, don't worry. I talked to him.

Starting point is 01:15:43 You're okay. I didn't even, I didn't know it could go bad that easily. I just trying to cajole and be friendly. and then say, you know, you're really being disrespectful. And that, oh, that's them's fighting words. Right. You know, so anyway, that was one of those times where I didn't know, and I could have gotten hurt. Would have been probably not a shank.

Starting point is 01:16:00 Probably would have been lock and a sock. Right. Because that's what typically happened there. I never saw anybody get stabbed. Most of the guys that, the several guys that died while I was there all died from health care problems. Nobody took care of them. You used to always say the leading cause of death at Coleman was the medical. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:16:20 Yeah, I mean, people, I hear people talk on the news or whatever about how great it is and how prisoners have all this stuff and they're getting all these operations done. I'm like, dude, I had one guy who was a lawyer that was in there and his, he had a, I don't know, a veneer or whatever crown that had fallen off. So he had it right here in front, a little post of his root sticking out there. And all they needed was a little glue to stick it back on. Took him almost two months to get into dental to get that piece of glue put on. So his root wasn't exposed right where he's biting. Can you imagine? I mean, it's stupid.

Starting point is 01:16:55 That's a stupid thing. But mostly guys, another guy and I actually pulled the, we picked up the phone in the, in the dorm one time that calls every, you know, locks the whole place down. Everybody comes running, surrounds the building, comes in with the guns. But we had a guy in our, in our wing, tear-drop guy, who had, who was just sicker and, sicker and sicker. And we knew something was really wrong. He had a bad fever. He'd been to medical and they said, you have the flu.

Starting point is 01:17:26 And we're like, no, this guy is going to die. And so we picked up the phone, called. They came down. They had to put him in an ambulance then. And his appendix had ruptured like five or six days before. He was all full of poison. And he was gone for well over a month where he came back. And he was in the hospital the whole time.

Starting point is 01:17:46 You know, and so it's... What happened to you for picking out the phone? Nothing. Oh, I was going to say. that usually you'd end up in the shoe for picking up the phone. Not for that. That wasn't how I got in the shoe. I did get to the shoe one time, but that was another interesting, weird story.

Starting point is 01:17:59 I had a weird prison experience because I didn't come from the mean streets. I didn't seek to do anything wrong. Now I'm in this place, and I'm trying to be me as much as I can. And you think you're not changing. You think you're not changing. But you do get real aware of your space. you do get really aware of people washing their hands, you know, cleanliness, right?

Starting point is 01:18:24 Everybody's opening the door with their shirt. Yeah. Right? Because nobody wants to get sick. You're washing your hands fucking 40 times, 50 times a day. And if somebody doesn't. Then other people will tell them, you wash your hands. You need to go take a shower.

Starting point is 01:18:36 Yeah. You need to, you stink. You need to brush your teeth. You need to, yeah, yeah. Yeah, basically get your act together because I'm not going to get sick from you. I'm not going to get in trouble because you. Right. Get your shit together.

Starting point is 01:18:46 So. That's why the guys, like, all those guys from the pen and stuff, Like they'll iron everything, like their clothes. I mean, they don't have anything else to do. So they can, they take so much time and the way they look and everything. These guys are getting haircuts every four or five days. It's like, what do you, what are you? That's insanity.

Starting point is 01:19:03 What are you doing? You're doing something. Yeah. You're having a routine. It's a routine. And the routine is what saves you. Their routine is what makes, those are the longest days that you'll ever experience in your life. The day just seems like it goes on for a year.

Starting point is 01:19:17 And anyway, you know that. You know what I'm talking about. So the bottom line with that was, yeah, there was a lot of injury to people because of bad medical, much less than a fight because nobody wants to get kicked out of the camp. Most of those guys have been in real prison, they don't want to get kicked out of here. If there was one thing I appreciated,

Starting point is 01:19:37 and I would never want to have to appreciate it again, but you do have a lot of time to think. You have a lot of time to think. And I kind of reviewed many things, of my life, I think I came out at least a more aware, certainly more aware of the government, certainly much more aware of how quickly a business thing can go south. But also, you know, how I was handling certain relationships, how I was showing up for other people. Because you, when you're busy, you don't have time to think. When you have nothing to do with time to think,

Starting point is 01:20:10 you know, you think. And you think, you figure stuff out. You know, there's nothing good about it. But anyway, yeah, the crime was an interesting thing. The offshore companies all got shut down. When he got out, he'd written to me in advance of getting out and said, hey, who's this? Terry. Saying, you know, hey, I need health insurance. I need a job. I need a car allowance.

Starting point is 01:20:37 All this kind of stuff. Who? What? Right. Yeah. And I wrote back. I said, no. Are you fucking delusional?

Starting point is 01:20:47 No, no. that's not going to happen. And next time I saw him, which was not very long after he got out, he was in a new convertible Cadillac. He got off probation. He bought a big catamaran. I don't know where the money came from, right? They got his bank. They sold his airplane. They sold his houses. He he kept his house in Cancun somehow. And bought this big catamaran thing, started a business down in Mexico. He's got an ecotourism business down there. He's got all these vessels that people go out and look at the whale sharks and the manorays. And, you know, he's like, he's like the cat that lands on his feet.

Starting point is 01:21:25 No matter, everything I watched him go through, he even got DAP. He was a former Mormon bishop, never used drugs. He used pain medicine for sciatica. And his lawyer got him into DAP. He got a full year office sentence. Yeah. I thought, that guy is smart, man. He's a slick guy.

Starting point is 01:21:44 What did you do when you got out? Did you guys already, you still had a business? Okay, so I figured a lot of things out while I was in there. Right. And one of the things I figured out was I needed to have a plan for when I got out. Right. And so I wrote letters, sent them to people at the office, and have them redo that letter on office letterhead.

Starting point is 01:22:05 Right. And when my wife picked me up that Monday morning, six in the morning, she had a file or a manila envelope or something with several letters in it, several pieces of information, and I knew what they were. So we get to the halfway house and get kind of checked in there, which was so funny because I'm at the camp, right? And I've met these guys that have been behind the wall that have done real things or these gangbangers that had gotten lucky enough to go into a camp.

Starting point is 01:22:38 And so now I'm at the halfway house, and the feds use a room in this halfway house that's mostly like county halfway house. So all the guys there were like scared of me. Like back and oh, he just was in the Fed. He just got out of Fed. He just got out of the Fed. He just got out of Sheridan. Oh my gosh. You know, which is so weird to me because I thought these guys are like really a bunch of goofballs.

Starting point is 01:23:04 Anyway, but we get in, this was an interesting thing. So we get to, I go into the career lady, the job lady there at the halfway house. and she says, so you need to get a job. You got to start making some money. I said, well, the company that I was working for when this all went down has set up a home office for me, supplied it with all the equipment, and so on. She goes, hmm, okay, well, there's nothing in your file that says you can't go back to work there. Because normally you wouldn't go back to work where the problem was. Right.

Starting point is 01:23:41 But she says, there's nothing in your file. and the judge had said, you're fine to go back and run your companies. There's nothing wrong with your companies is what you did with him that we had a problem with. Right. So she calls the office. She calls and the receptionist answered Margaret. And she said, hi, this is so. And so I'm calling for one of my senior leaders, one of my VPs there.

Starting point is 01:24:08 And Margaret says, oh, I'm sorry. she's on a call right now, you know, can I take a message? And I said, it was on speaker phone. I said, Margaret, this is Aaron Young. Please let her know that I'm on the phone. Oh, Aaron. Okay, just a minute. You know? And so my VP comes on. And the lady says, I understand you guys have a job set up for Mr. Young and that you've already set up an office for him and so on. Yes, that's correct. Okay. So what days would he work? And my VP is like, well, Monday through Friday, does that sound right, Aaron? I said, yeah, that'd be great. Monday through Friday? Awesome. Perfect. What hours would he work?

Starting point is 01:24:53 Like from eight to five? I said, eight to five. Yeah, that sounds great, right? And she's writing, the lady's writing all this stuff down. And they finish that and they hang up. And the lady goes, okay, let me just confirm with the judge's office. But I think that's fine. She comes back to me a little while later.

Starting point is 01:25:10 and she says, yeah, you can work from home. And you can bring a car back to halfway house. So your wife can pick you up, go work, they bring your own car back here and park, and you can go back and forth Monday through Friday. So, okay, this is pretty cool. And that was because I'd prepped in there, and I had my stuff.

Starting point is 01:25:31 Now, we had just built a new home. It had been built while I was in prison. And by some weird fluke, the day my wife picked me up from prison, the movers were moving stuff into the house. So, and it was a pretty nice house. The businesses were doing well. It's a really nice house.

Starting point is 01:25:45 And so I'm sitting in my office the very first time, it boxes all over my new house, and oh my hell, I'm sitting in a house. I'm not in a halfway house. I'm not at the prison anymore. I'm like, look it. And it's four in the afternoon or something, and the cruiser comes up, the driveway,

Starting point is 01:26:02 long driveway comes up, parts in front of the house. He's got to check out the guy from the halfway house. Oh, okay. The cop has to figure out where am I? Where am I working? Right. What am I doing? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:26:12 He has to, yeah, they have to approve. Like a site inspection or whatever they call it. Is there another name? Something like that. Yeah, yeah. A home visit or something or a home. Whatever. There's a name where they have to basically okay where you, well, I know that's if you're

Starting point is 01:26:25 going on ankle monitor. You're going back home, they have to go check the home, the residency. But your probation officer, at some point they have to go by and check where you're working. Well, there's. In the halfway house. Yeah. I'll tell you a little bit more. I don't know if this will make the whole interview.

Starting point is 01:26:41 So the cruiser comes up and parks in front of the house. There's a little bump out there for visitors to park near the front door. Comes up, walks up the thing, a blubbler thing right by the door, waterfall coming down the hill from behind. It's really snazzy. And I know this guy can just send me back. Yeah. I can go back to Sheridan.

Starting point is 01:27:01 I can go back to the place. This isn't a given, right? So he comes to the door. He's a big, tall. guy and the doors were really tall. And I opened the door and he steps into the entryway to the house and close the door. And I said, should we come in my office and sit down for me? He goes, yeah, okay. So we go and sit down on the couch and chair. And I said, look, I've never done this before. I don't know what you need to do. Do you want me to walk here on the house? Do you want me to sit here?

Starting point is 01:27:29 What am I supposed to do to you, let you finish what you're supposed to do? He goes, Aaron, or no, Mr. Young, never Aaron. Mr. Young, I only got Mr. Young when I left the prison. You know, you're just young. Yeah. Anytime you're there. But anyway, Mr. Young, when I pulled up and there weren't, there wasn't a 1978 Camaro up on blocks in the grass, all right.

Starting point is 01:27:51 I figured the house was probably okay. Yeah. I said, okay, good. So we talked for a few minutes, and he goes, look, I don't need to, I don't need to check out your house. I, this is fine. But on a personal level, if you're willing, I would love to see your house.

Starting point is 01:28:07 I'd love to see, look around. So yeah, me too. Let's go look around. Right. Because I said, it's new to me too. So we walked all around and had a good conversation. And at the end of it, we're back on the porch. And he said, so I'm going to approve your workspace.

Starting point is 01:28:25 I said, okay, thank you. He goes, did you know you can work six days a week? I said, I didn't. He said, did you know you can work 12 hours a day? plus drive time. He said, no, I didn't know that. He said, I like this conversation. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:28:42 And he said, you're not supposed to get a social pass until six weeks, but I'm going to suggest to give you a social pass for Sundays, like immediately. Right. So you'll be sleeping at the halfway house. You'll be sleeping at halfway. And he said the less time you spend with the Yahoo's down there at the county lockup, the better. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be.

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Starting point is 01:29:39 your mattress for 101 nights, risk-free, to make sure it's the right fit for you. Plus, they offer free shipping, and most items are shipped within 24 hours. If you're not sure which ghostbed is right for you, check out their mattress quiz. You'll answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation. Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox, and use code Cox at the checkout. I can make it sound fine. The fact is it's incredibly dehumanizing. You're bossed around constantly. You're stripped down. You're searched at will. You're peeing in

Starting point is 01:30:10 cups. You're standing in lines. You're just, you know. You're humiliated. They treat you like, they treat you very badly. And I'm sure it's worse for people other places. One of the big negatives was on the weekends. The cops from the

Starting point is 01:30:26 from the medium high. Some of them would come over and be required to work the camp. They hated working the camp. because they just, first thing they do is lock up every TV room. There was a pool table in both the buildings. They locked those up. Just, just to do it. You guys aren't going to do anything on the weekend.

Starting point is 01:30:44 We're going to shut it all down. Go outside. You know, kind of like a parent says go outside and play. And, you know, if you appeared to have any sort of money or wherewithal, he got bugged more often. They, yeah, I was waiting to go into the visiting room one day and there's, you're standing in a line and they're going to pat you down. You have to fill out a form of, you know, you have a wedding ring on. You're wearing a watch, a cassio watch or, you know, whatever, white tennis shoes.

Starting point is 01:31:16 And it's this little kind of like a closet, really. It's just a very narrow little hallway. You go in a door. They call your name, five or six people go in, you fill up the form. They pat you down. Then they let you into the visiting room. And I'm kind of at the back of the line, and there's this cop, this guard, and this one of the guys. And they're just laughing and talking and telling stories.

Starting point is 01:31:40 And I said, you guys know each other? And the cops said, oh, yeah, I used to buy him from this guy down and felony flats over in Portland, you know. And now he's here. And I'm seeing him here. That's so crazy, you know. I'm like, yeah, the cop. When I was there, I think four guards got arrested and sent to prison. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:31:58 for smuggling in drugs, smuggling in phones into the medium high. Yeah. Or they'll get DUIs or they'll get caught for. Yeah. They'll get all. There's a, they're, they're,

Starting point is 01:32:07 they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they get messed up everyone's while, you know, or they'll get, you know,

Starting point is 01:32:14 or they'll get, or they'll, like in the case of, uh, Coleman, they'll have sex with one of the girls and get indicted and we, we had a guy that, I, I don't know if he got the chick,

Starting point is 01:32:26 pregnant. What, did he? The one guy I get the girl, this is a guy that was locked up with one of the COs. He was hooked on Oxy. He ended up having sex with one of the guards, the female guards. They sued. He was going to be indicted.

Starting point is 01:32:38 He drove to the prison, parked his car, and he himself. In front of the prison. Wow. Wow. Nice guy. There was one day I was, so I was teaching GED, and then that switched to teaching guys to read. So after about six or eight weeks of teaching in the classroom, I gave up on that. No, I said, this is not worth teaching.

Starting point is 01:33:03 I went to the lady in charge of education. I said, you know, I know this, but most of these or many of these guys can't read. And they're never going to progress if they can't read. Right. And they're pissed being in here anyway. I said, I don't know. Would it be possible to find me some little corner someplace where they could learn to sound out words where they wouldn't do it in front of other people? And she goes, let me think about it.

Starting point is 01:33:25 Like two days later, she goes, okay, I got permission from the superintendent for you to go use the visiting room. And people can sign up, and they'll have 30-minute sessions with you, and you'll teach them to read. So I did that. So there were four 90-minute sessions a day, Monday through Friday. And so for a while, I was just teaching GED. And then after that, I was teaching people to read. and then after maybe three or four months, something like that, I was less than six months in.

Starting point is 01:33:58 The warden had the person superintendent who was over the camp and the detention center. They went through all the files and said, we want this guy, Aaron Young, to teach the family relations class. And it's a federal bureau of prisons course. And it's for people who have been violent, you know, been beating their wife. kids or their girls or been beaten and just all this psychological stuff and it was a big thing

Starting point is 01:34:26 and there was 12-week course and they assign these people who've got these really bad experiences to the class and these are pretty hardened guys there are there and so for the rest of the time so for about a year I would do three three 90-minute periods where I was teaching guys to read And the last one was these groups, and I did it three or four times. And one of the perks was if you've, if you completed the class, you could make a video telling stories, you know, playing a guitar or something, just something you could send home to your children or to your parents. It was this big deal. It was a huge deal. And people wanted that VHS tape.

Starting point is 01:35:17 and so I did that several times and I think part of what got me through it in a pretty easy way was a lot of these guys that I was helping one of the guys that I was teaching to read comes in he's this little squirly Mexican guy from L.A. And he's like, hey young, how are you doing, man?

Starting point is 01:35:40 You know? And he goes, he comes in one day. He says, hey young, I got into DAP but they're going to kick me out. I said, what are they going to kick you out for? That's great. Congratulations. You could get time off. He goes, the first requirement is a 50-page life sketch history. He goes, how am I going to, I don't know how to read or write. How am I going to do it? And I said, this was pretty early on in my teaching to read. Yeah. And I said to the guy, I said, well, tell you what I'll do. I'll interview you. I'll ask you questions. And we'll get 50 pages worth of questions, you know, of answers.

Starting point is 01:36:17 and then you can recopy it. It'll help you practice writing, and I'll help you with it. And he did that. And then other people heard that I'd helped him. So then, I don't know, maybe a dozen or 18 guys over the time I was there over the 17 months, came and said, can you help me with mine?

Starting point is 01:36:37 And I did the same thing. I'd ask him questions. We'd write it all down, and they got to be in the drug program. And on the very last, business day that I was in prison. It's four o'clock count. And I'm going, okay, my wife's already out there for Friday night visits.

Starting point is 01:36:59 We're going to visit all day Saturday, all day Sunday. She's going to pick me up at six in the morning Monday, and I'm out of this damn place. Right? And so, sitting there waiting for the four o'clock count, young, 6-715-0-065, report to administration after count. What's going on? or did they get my days wrong? Did they change their mind?

Starting point is 01:37:23 Did I do something I don't know about? So I get up there after the count. Instead of going right to the visiting room, I go to the admin building, and they say the doctor that's in charge of DAP, R-DAP, wants to talk to you. I'm like, okay. Never spoken a word to this guy in the whole time in there. And he pulls me in and takes me into his office in the main admin,

Starting point is 01:37:47 kind of like going to the principal's office, and you're going to go into the vice principal's, little office. And he said Mr. Young, which struck me because the first time anybody had said, Mr. He also said, would you like to sit down, which nobody had said the entire time. Right. Just you stand there until they get done talking to you. Right.

Starting point is 01:38:03 But you like to say that. And he said, I know you're supposed to leave on Monday, right? And I said, yes. He was supposed to. That's what he said. I know you're scheduled to leave on Monday, right? And I said, yes. Because I needed to talk to you before you left, though, because your name has come up a number of times.

Starting point is 01:38:19 in the Ardap class. I said, okay. And he said, and I know you helped a bunch of people write their life histories. And I said, okay. And then he said, he said, I've been here since the prison opened

Starting point is 01:38:37 over 20 years ago. And he said, I look at these men, the men I meet, and the men I talk to, they need to be here for themselves. They need to be here. Right.

Starting point is 01:38:48 He said every now and again, somebody else comes in, and they're here because the other men need them to be here. And so I just want to thank you for what you've done for all these guys. Oh, that was nice. And you say, you know, don't come back. Stay out of trouble. But I thought that was pretty cool. He waited until the very last minute before I walk out the door to say, not only you're not in trouble, but that was good. That was helpful.

Starting point is 01:39:18 And yeah, the, anyway, it doesn't matter. There was one other circumstance the night before I left after the 9 o'clock count. The lieutenant called me and had me come up and talk to me about some things that had happened that I didn't tell it in the interview, but some things that happened to me, but because it was me, because it was this kind of straight arrow guy, non-drugs, whatever, they re-evaluated. I had a dirty UA. and got sent to the shoe.

Starting point is 01:39:49 Yeah. And the woman in charge of the camp was like, young, two things. A, he's not a drug guy. He doesn't use drugs. He would not have had drugs in here. I don't know if I said, A or one. The other one is he has money and he could sue us for, you know, throwing him in the shoe. So we got to get his test done, like get it done.

Starting point is 01:40:14 And so I thought, they told me six weeks to six months. well, it was six days in the shoe. And they let me out. And I got out. It was night. It was nighttime. It was rainy. They let me out.

Starting point is 01:40:26 And this is at the medium high. So I'm now about three quarters of a mile away from the camp. And they let me out. And I step outside. And they just, I'm supposed to walk down the road back to the camp in the dark and the rain. But as I walk out there, there's a cruiser out there. And the lieutenant is there.

Starting point is 01:40:42 And he gets out of the cruiser. And he said, Mr. Young, let me give you ride back to the camp. Now, I'd never been in a cruiser at this point. So I was a little weird. And he said, get in the front seat. Just hop in the front seat. So we drove and he said, he said, there was a bunch of concern that you got this dirty UA. And it turns out that the cup you peed in that test was expired.

Starting point is 01:41:05 And so. It was their fault. And they should have caught it. So, yeah. And so he said, so they've changed the rules now so that if somebody has a dirty UA, they get to take a second test before going to the hole. See, didn't save me from going to the hole. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:41:20 Didn't save me sitting there going, how long am I going to be here? What the hell is going on by myself? There's no mail, no radio, no nothing, you know, just sitting here. But in some ways, maybe because they had a guy that wasn't really a cheater kind of guy, they're like, well, what happened here? And they at least had the forethought to think about it.

Starting point is 01:41:44 And if that ends up benefiting other people, down the road, that's at least something good that came out of the time. I never want to go back. I never want to have anything to do with them again. I have probably done just what they wanted me to do, which is to be very careful in dotting eyes, crossing T's, staying away from a line. Even doing this interview was a little intimidating to me because I know it said I couldn't profit off of anything, any part of the story in my plea. I couldn't profit. So I've written a whole book, but I've never published the book.

Starting point is 01:42:22 Why? Maybe I could give all the money to nonprofits. But I thought, this happened. I was a conservative. Terry, I don't know if I should say all this. Let me just say this. Let me just say this. Terry Neals,

Starting point is 01:42:43 two of his sons were married to sisters, two Neels, two Samson's. Okay, couples. The Samson's had a brother who had grown up with the Neal family. He was a lawyer who was, at the time of all of this, chief of staff to the Attorney General of the United States. You would think, somehow, with that close of a connection, family, basically, that somebody would have looked at Terry or looked at his associates and said, maybe we should, you know, kind of help gloss this overall or get these guys out of this a little bit. It was exactly the opposite. Total, I can't have anything to do with you. I can't talk to you. I

Starting point is 01:43:33 can't be involved with you. I can't do anything for you. And I thought, these are the people that I've been voting for. I've been sending money to. I've been, and they even said, we know you don't know about the crime. And yet, off we go. go. And was there a big penalty? There's no restitution. I paid a $10,000 fine to go live in prison to help cover my incarceration. Cost me about $2 million out of pocket for legal bills. And you'll never quit being a, because it's federal. So you're always a felon. So I look at it and I go, I don't know how much I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Those people. I think we've got to We've got to understand the rules, stay away from the lines, and then don't pop up on the

Starting point is 01:44:18 radar too much. Because I'll tell you one thing from a white-collar criminal perspective. So I was sitting one day with them. I'm not going to use his name because he's a very famous attorney, securities lawyer. He had been, and I wouldn't even tell you his title, but he'd been a very, very senior leader at the SEC during the 2008 crisis when everything was collapsing. He was part of the decision making that Lehman Brothers got to go and who's going to live, who's going to die.

Starting point is 01:44:49 I was sitting with him one day in a bungalow at a resort in, you know, like an apartment, like a house next at a resort in Las Vegas. And there were two other famous, well, very well known white collar guys and me and the lawyer. And we're just sitting there visiting. We were all speaking at an event at that, at that. hotel. And two of the guys got up to go smoke cigars. And I said to him, I said, is it weird for you as this high level, now private, but government attorney and everything, is it weird for you to be sitting here with three felons? And he said, Aaron, if I didn't

Starting point is 01:45:30 work with felons, I wouldn't have any clients. Yeah. I had no idea. And he said, yeah, the more the further up on the radar you get, the more successful you get, the more somebody's going to start looking into what you're doing. And so... Well, there's so many laws. They can twist whatever you've done into a felony. Yeah, ham sandwich, right? They can indict a ham sandwich.

Starting point is 01:45:51 At least that's how they said it to me. Yeah, yeah. Maybe yours was peanut butter and jelly. No, that was a famous Dershowitz. Oh, is that who said it? Dershowitz said they can indict a ham sandwich. It's, I didn't know that's where it came from. But I, you know, that's the worst part about it is, is we talked about second

Starting point is 01:46:09 citizenships. If I could find another country that would take me, and I think I can, I wouldn't want to leave the United States, but I would definitely want an opportunity to exit for the passport. Well, what would I do if they wanted it? They'll just come get you. Not because I'm a criminal. Right. Just because I'm of the opinion, and I'm a pretty conservative.

Starting point is 01:46:29 I'm a very libertarian kind of guy. You know, I, and conservative, I'm fiscally very conservative. I'm very liberal when it comes to personal. rights. I think people ought to be able to live their life and be who they want to be and do what they want to do. That sounds more conservative to me, but okay. Well, conservatives, I've voted for same-sex marriage. I voted for legalized marriage, legalized mushrooms, legalized assistance. That doesn't sound conservative at all. Right. That's very liberal. Yeah. But fiscally, I'm very conservative. I'm business owner or landowner. I think about the importance of the economic structure.

Starting point is 01:47:05 And I do watch what's going on, not with, you know, the Republicans or Democrats, just the whole system. Both sides seem to be wanting to get more and more and more into our minds, into our homes, into our pockets. And I don't know that I would have been as conscious of all those things. I think I would have thought, oh, sure, it's a possibility, but it would never happen. I promise you, I never made like a dream board or, you know, a goal sheet that said federal prison. That was never part of my plan. So it's the kind of thing where you just, it really does change you as far as going, what should I do?

Starting point is 01:47:54 And even if it's legal, what should I maybe skip over? Because what I do find, and maybe this has been a theme here, I've watched a number of your interviews, and I've noticed that it seems like the more comfortable we get with the story we've told ourselves that we go, no, this is okay or I'm doing fine, or the guy that I stood in lunchline one time with at prison, and I said, I know we're not supposed to ask, but, you know, you seem like a real waspy kind of east coasty, you know, kind of guy, you know, kind of like rowing team kind of guy. He goes, that's funny. I was, I did row crew when I was at university in New England.

Starting point is 01:48:32 And I said, what did you do? He said, I was a CFO of a public company. And I wish I could say I had a drug habit or gambling problem or I had a sick child. But I just embezzled some money out and I was able to get us through the SEC audit. And then the next year I took more and tried to do more and became a game for me to see how I thought, you know, they don't care. And he thought he was so clever. Stealing the money. He became emboldened by the first success and it just led to his demise.

Starting point is 01:48:59 And you don't, you don't really think you're going to end up. up standing in that lunch line at the prison. You know, you think somehow that's for somebody else. And yeah, crazy stuff, crazy stuff. And I look back now over that time and I think about even my dad, who was such a conservative, simple, lower middle class, hardworking guy. But he kind of was like, you know, son, this seems like pretty high-flying stuff for so fast, you know, you're flying first class all over the world and meet with presidents of banks and you're talking about offshore companies, you know, do you think maybe you should look, I say, oh, dad, we're not, we're not doing anything. And I don't know. I don't know how much

Starting point is 01:49:45 I talked myself into it. I don't know how much of it, the government overreached. I don't really know where the line is. All I know is that at the end of the day, they're the ones with the guns and the jails, and I was pretty powerless to do anything about it. Have you heard me say that? No. I've said that over. Whenever the sovereign citizen, we ever talked to it like a sovereign citizen, and they'll do the whole, you know, the income tax was never ratified by the Constitution on the city. They'd have the whole feel down. And it's like, and I'm always like, let's assume for a second, that's true. It is true. Okay. And that's fine. But it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant. They have the guns. They have the prisons. You know, they have the guards. You're going to prison. And the whole time you're doing your seven years or your two years or whatever it is, you can tell people all about how you shouldn't be there.

Starting point is 01:50:42 But you're going to go do your time. Yeah. So stop bitching about it. Pay your taxes. And, you know what I'm saying? Like, what they're going to be in the system, be in the system. If you're going to, meaning the, the society. Right.

Starting point is 01:50:53 Try not to be in the penal system if you can help it. But the fact is that a lot of people try to get cute and try to. Here's the thing. there are so many tax opportunities, so many legal opportunities to dramatically reduce taxes, to do many things that you want to do. But most people want a shortcut. They just want to get away with it instead of going the extra mile, learning what the rules are, paying the money for the right professionals,

Starting point is 01:51:23 papering it all up, getting a legal opinion, getting a tax opinion. There's so much you can do. so many things we do now that are fully transparent, but still giving people the benefits they want. But the people that, it's either people who are super, super organized, like they've really created a scheme. They've really designed a very complicated machine to get the result they want. Or it's the ones who wanted a shortcut, you know, that want to just skip the line. And I just don't want to pay tax. I just don't want to do it.

Starting point is 01:51:56 Seems like you see a lot of those people. and you see a lot of them get in trouble. And the guys with a complicated machine takes a lot longer, and the punishment's usually a lot worse if they get caught. And the enhancement's a sophisticated means. Yeah, that's right. Changes the jurisdiction to evade detection. There's two more, you just added to enhancements.

Starting point is 01:52:16 You know what I'm saying? The enhancements start, but the more clever you are, the more time you're going to do. That's right. That's right. The cuter you think you're being, the more trouble you're going to get in. Anyway, it was quite an experience.

Starting point is 01:52:28 It's been a long time ago now. It's going on 20 years. And to go anywhere, I have to drive past the prison. It's on the road from my home into Portland. So I see it every week. And for a long time, I looked and I'd kind of look and say, oh, I even say names. Hey, so-and-so, hey-s-so, because they're still there. I knew they were there.

Starting point is 01:52:55 And then it was like, oh, look what time. Oh, they're at lunch. or oh, it's their account right now. And I did that for years. Yeah. And it's interesting, sometimes I drive by and I don't even notice that I've passed it. And that's the closest to getting over it I've gotten because I still think of it pretty much every single day. Think about almost every single day and think about don't do anything to go back there.

Starting point is 01:53:25 Because that's not good. the year I was in prison, I made $974,000 take-home pay that year. Okay. So, um... Boy, you, do you work in Unicorn? I mean, like, there's a different pay scale for GED to. I might have made $13 working at the prison. Right.

Starting point is 01:53:44 But because my businesses were organized in such a way, my business partner, so we had, we had, we had, my buddies, one of the founders of WebMD, and then my business partners next to our neighbor was the CFO of Intel. Both of them offered to look after the company while we were in prison for no money. My business partner said to me, the only person I would feel comfortable leaving in charge, Aaron is your wife. I said, my stay-at-home mom wife. Because she's going to be desperate to make sure it's still available when you get out, right? Is that it?

Starting point is 01:54:15 It was not quite that. It was he said she's smart and she'll make hard decisions and she can talk to you in visiting. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if you, because you can't really run a business over the phone. Can't do anything. You can't write letters about business. You can't do.

Starting point is 01:54:29 We didn't have email when I was there, but can't talk on the phone. You're not supposed to do it in the visiting room. But I could talk to her, what she was doing at her work, right? And she said, how will I do that? Like, I don't know how to run your company. And I said, it's all organized. It's all set up like I've done all the other companies. If you just let the process work and then have people report to you.

Starting point is 01:54:53 even if you have questions, either you'll know enough to answer them or come talk to me. They'll be golden. And that's what happened. And people have asked me lots of times, how do you own companies all over the world? How do you do this and you don't seem to have a job? And how did you do it when you're in prison? I said, well, there's a way that you can organize a company that it can run without you being there and very effectively. And the proof, the greatest proof in that, and I've helped big public.

Starting point is 01:55:23 companies. I've worked with all kinds of brands you've heard, all kinds of companies never heard of, Indian reservations, all kinds of companies, hundreds and hundreds of companies. I'm approved to teach all this at Amazon for their managers of different divisions. That formula is all in the book. And unrelated to prison, but sort of ironically connected, the book is called Unshackled, which is all about not being in the prison of, your business to own it without it owning you. The, the book that isn't published. No, no.

Starting point is 01:56:03 No, the prison story book is not published. The formula, the way I run companies, is published. I brought you a copy of it. Oh, okay. And I'm on a national book tour right now with Barnes & Noble for the book. Oh, okay. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor.

Starting point is 01:56:16 Hit the subscribe button, the bells to get notified of videos like this. Also, if you'd like to go and buy Aaron's book, we're going to, leave the link in the description box. You can go there. You can shoot over to Amazon and purchase the book. And please leave a review. Once again, thank you very much for watching the podcast. If you're interested in being a guest,

Starting point is 01:56:36 we're going to also leave a link in the description box. So you can go to our website, go to the Be a Guest page or something like that, and fill out a form, leave a short video. And we'll get back with you. Please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. And it really does help Colby and I make these videos. See ya.

Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Convicted Banker Exposes The Largest Tax Fraud In Us History

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