Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Cop Arrested By His Coworkers | Ian Murray

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Ian Murray Tells his story about how he was setup by his own co workers.

That Friday afternoon, I'm sitting in my living room, in my house in Nassau County. I get a loud knock on the garage door of my house. I opened that door, and there's four guys standing there in, like, flak vests and full duty gear and all that. Can I help you? And they're like, are you Ian Murray? I said, yeah. And they're like corrections officer Murray?

I said, yeah. One of them grabs me, cuffs me and says, we have a warrant for your arrest. I thought it was a joke at first. They came into my house. One of them went and used the bathroom. Is this the sheriff's department? the same department that you work for same department i work for hey this is matt cox and i am here with ian murray

ian is a former correctional officer and he's got it's got a he's got an interesting story we spoke on the phone maybe a few weeks ago and i asked him if he'd come by and tell the story on on camera it involves a uh lawsuit corruption in the sheriff's department, a whole thing. So check this out. All right. So the whole thing, like we had talked on the phone. And you were in the Army?

Army Reserves. Army Reserves? Okay. So you were in the Army Reserves and you ended up getting it. You had already had a job, though, with like the Sheriff's Department, right, in another county or something, like as a... A long time ago, yes, I'd worked as a corrections officer in Charleston County. South Carolina from 2004 to 2007.

Right. And then so, so then you, what, then you ended up getting another correctional officer job? Yeah, I left that job to pursue some other opportunities, some different careers. I drove semi-trucks for a while. I got my commercial driver's license. Okay. The economy took a tank in 2008, that time frame, and I was living up in Charleston. I was originally from Jacksonville, and I have a friend of mine.

um who told me he said hey i know you're looking for a job i know you have corrections experience they're hiring like crazy down here at the uh county jail so um you know maybe you should come consider and i came down took a tour of the facility um liked what i saw from a standpoint i figured sure let's give it another chance it'd be a good way to get another stable job they had a really good benefits package and all that right why'd you stop the uh the first one just wondering sorry um There was just not really a lot of opportunities for advancement. It was one of those things. If you were a corrections officer, you were pretty much going to be a corrections officer forever unless you had some kind of stellar ability.

I mean, even to go on to the police side of the house, it was very difficult without having all the right credentials. So I just wanted to pursue something else, do something a little different that might have been a little more interesting. So, yeah, like I said, I went out on the road, drove over the road trucks for almost a year. drove local. I actually liked it. I like to drive, you know, and I've always been into cars and trucks. So for me, it was kind of being a younger guy. It was kind of a, you know, a good gig. But then like I said, when the economy tanked in 2000, I think it was around 2008, 9 era, I lost my job. Getting another decent driving job was very difficult. And like I said, I was offered the opportunity to come work corrections and move back down to Florida. So I decided to take the chance.

Okay. So you went down there. You, you tore. the facility you take a test or anything or yeah um it was a very long hiring process you did have to take a test uh my passed the test had to do a lot of interviews came down because i was out of state um they did consolidate a lot of my interviews i had to take a psych evaluation a physical examination polygraph all that stuff and then finally after a while they called and said yeah we'd like to hire you we can start you i had to go through their academy we can start you in the academy on this date, I believe it was around December of 2009, when I finally actually got to begin my first day of academy training.

Okay. And so how big is the facility? How many inmates does it hold? Oh. You guys call them inmates? You call them defendants? No, they were inmates. We called them inmates.

This particular department had three facilities. The main jail downtown, it was a pretty large facility. It was six stories. each story was like a double tier system and there was two wings there was a like an east and a west type wing and then there was a center control area and um i forget the exact inmate population but it was a lot it was you know in the four figures thousands um there was another facility that i started working at it was called the montgomery corrections facility it's kind of like a county prison right when inmates were sentenced to um terms i believe it was less than a year they

would be sent out there and most of them were on some kind of a work detail and um i liked working at that facility it was closer to my house uh it was the parking was better it was just an overall nicer atmosphere didn't have to deal with downtown traffic how many inmates were in there that one there wasn't quite as many i want to say there was probably 900 maybe in the whole facility there was two large um uh wings each wing had four housing areas was like an open bay type set up you know where there's just rows of bunk beds and they had foot lockers and your basic living area i mean most of the inmates weren't there during the day they only slept there yeah but 90% of them would go in the morning they'd get

on their details and go out and pick up trash or do whatever the county decided to have them do okay so um yeah i went through the academy um started um you know got through the academy it went pretty well training went well um having prior corrections experience helped right obviously um it was very in depth their academy compared to the previous department was um like four or five times longer than charleston counties uh charleston county they sent me to the state corrections academy this one it was their own academy so um i got i got to i got to say they had a really good training program they really uh they spun you up on not just how to deal with inmates but the laws There was a lot of history involved and how things worked and corrections and stuff.

They actually had some like college level professors teaching the courses. In fact, I actually got some college credits going at academy. Okay. So, and then you started. Mm-hmm. How long did you work there? I worked there until this incident happened pretty much. I think it was around July of June or July of 2014.

forget the exact date. So about six years. Mm-hmm. And I was actually, even after this happened, I was still employed there technically until the end of 2015. That's when I actually left the position. I decided to no longer be a part of that sheriff's office. And so, yeah, it was about six years.

I was on the books as being employed with them. And they knew you were in the reserves. Oh, yes. At the time I was in the National Guard when I was hired. So at that point, I'd been in the military for almost eight years. So what is the, so if you have to go, you're called up or... Is that what they call it called? Called up.

We have, you can get called up, but we also have a scheduled calendar of events. Like when we have our monthly battle assemblies or drills, we get a calendar. It's pre-scheduled. Right. Those... They can't do it. Like, they know. you have to leave in October.

Yes. Like I'm leaving in October and the law says you have to allow me to leave and allow me to come back and I can't lose my job as a result of that. Correct. Okay. Yeah, that's like a federal law. There's lots of, there's lots of stipulations in the federal law for that. So, yeah, they knew I was hired during the interview process, they were very aware.

In fact, they actually, during the interview process, I remember when I was doing my board interview, they even reminded me, oh, yeah. We have a military leave as part of our benefits package for you to be able to take leave and still get paid. Oh, okay. Like, they were encouraging me to use the military leave they provided. So, all right. Okay. So, so what, what was, what was it that happened that started, like, the lawsuit and the whole retaliation and the whole thing?

Like, it was just, yeah, I, it had been, the supervisor that started this whole thing, I don't know, it was more than one person. what their problem with me was i mean i came to work i did my job i never made it a point to get on anyone's bad side but you didn't have like a long-running feud with anybody any incidences nothing just no i mean i but um what happened was in um i think it was in 2014 there was a government shutdown it was when we first had started having those um sequestrations with the budget issues in the federal government i'm not sure if you remember that Yeah. Well, when this was happening, I was supposed to go on one of my schedule weekends. I had the orders. I had everything in hand. It was a standard thing. I'd already been approved for the time off.

So we go to show up. My supervisor in the military says, well, because of the government shut down, we're not actually going into the armory, but you still have orders. So make sure you're available in case we get called up because, like, nobody knew exactly what was happening. what was happening. So I did just that. And this wasn't the first time in my military career where something like this had happened. So again, to me, this was just a standard run-of-the-mill type situation. So I said, cool. I stayed at home, waited for them to call.

Nobody called the next day we went into drill. Everything went according to plan. And several months later, we got updated drill calendars because they had changed one of the weekend days. And the previous day, they had adjusted that weekend to reflect that we had only come in two days instead of three. So I turned the updated calendar in, updated my future military dates, and my lieutenant, the individual who started this whole thing, she calls me into her office and says, can you explain this? And I explained the situation. And she said, well, if you didn't actually go in to work that day, I need you to change that day from a military

day to a vacation day. I'm like, but I had orders for that day. And she said, it doesn't matter. I need you to change it. She then called me back again the next day in front of my sergeant and told me the same thing. So I was a little confused about that. I went back to my military unit and explained to them what was going on. And they're like, they said, yeah, you had orders. That was an authorized military day. But if that is your civilian employer's policy, you should follow that because you don't want to get in trouble at work. Right. So then I went to talk to my union representative.

Explain the situation to him. He said, yeah, if you had orders for that day at that time, you're fine. But again, if your lieutenant is ordering you to do it, you need to go ahead and do it because if you don't, she can write you up for insubordination. He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma His smile is so contagious Vaccines have been created for it He is the most interesting man in the world

I don't typically commit crime But when I do It's bank fraud Stay greedy my friends Support the channel Join Matthew Cox's Patreon So I went in My next workday did exactly what she said

withdrew the military leave from several months before, put it in as a vacation day. Then she denied that leave request that she told me to make. She denied the vacation day, yeah, that she told me to put in. I then found out about a week later from my military command that I was being investigated by our sheriff's office integrity division for criminal misconduct of some sort of, of some sort. So I was like, wow. I mean, I hate to say it, but coming from her, I wasn't surprised. She's done this, she'd done this to other people within the sheriff's office before. So I contacted the union again. I said, hey, what's going on? I did what I was told.

They're like, yeah, we're not too happy about it either. But if you had orders, the detectives will do their investigation. Everything will be fine. If you'll be clear of any wrongdoing us. said, okay, cool. So several months went on. I went to work as normal. Everything was seemed to be fairly normal. Everyone knew this investigation was going on. And one of the detectives called me to come in for questioning. I called my union lawyer, said, hey, I'm being called in for questioning. What should I do? He said, yeah, just call them back and tell them all your orders are on file. And there's no need for you to go into questioning because if you, he finds the orders you'll be fine so i said okay i called the detective back said hey my orders

are on file with the watch commander's office all you need to do is go find him if you can't find him call me and i'll fax them or email them or i can even bring him to your office we worked in the same building so i um hung up the phone and uh he said did he say did he say no fuck that you're coming in he just said no he just said okay he just said okay fine uh He didn't make a big stink of it. He's like, okay, fine. It was like to that nature. We hung up.

And from what the lawyer told me, if they were going to take action, like, that should have been the end of the investigation. Like, they were either going to come arrest you like that day or they were going to go find the orders and this whole thing should have been closed. Come arrest you for what? Like, how would that be? Whatever they were. Wouldn't it just be you're fired?

No, it's not necessarily. No, like I said, this was not an administrative investigation. They're saying it's fraud. Yeah, they were trying to say. I committed fraud somehow, but anyway, so yeah, the rest of those next couple days, I was kind of looking around, waiting to see if they were going to actually come pick me up for something. They never did. About a month later, I got orders to go on a 90-day training mission and I came in, same thing, put the orders in, gave them to my watch commander. And this was on

like a Thursday afternoon. I was taking the Friday off. I was already off that weekend, I think. I was the Friday off just to have some extra time with my family and friends. I was scheduled to fly out on Monday morning. That Friday afternoon, I'm sitting in my living room in my house in Nassau County and I get a loud knock on the garage door of my house, not the front door, the garage door, like we walk in the garage. So they walked into the garage. They walked in the garage. I opened that door and there's four guys standing there in like flack vests and you know wearing the full duty gear and all that i'm like can i help you right and they're like are you i said yeah and the corrections officer murray i said yeah one of them grabs me um cuffs me and says we have a warrant for

your arrest i thought it was a joke at first like i thought some of my buddies at work were just playing a going away prank right and um yeah it was a not a joke they took me um they came into my house handcuffed me some of them were walking around my house i don't know what they were doing in my house but one of them went and used the bathroom and stuff and they took me down to their um their precinct or wherever it was and started questioning me is this the sheriff's department the same department that you work for same department i worked for um that same detective who called me um he eventually came in the room and um they started asking me all these questions and it wasn't just about this one day um they started asking

me questions about all these other days i was on military leave and i asked them well what did my orders say and it was pretty clear at that point they never even went and looked for those orders right so i was like wow well um they didn't they started making these excuses well if you just been more cooperative with us and this and that trying to turn it on me somehow i'm like I'm thinking to myself, you know, this is your job. Right. I mean, I don't understand what I really more I needed to do here. So they took me to the jail.

I was booked, fingerprinted, photographed. Like, I went through the standard booking process. One of my colleagues who was working said, hey, it's all over the news. And they tipped off the news that they arrested one of their own and were. Yeah. And they completely lied to the media. They said that I didn't have orders when I did. um when i saw it made page two of the florida times union i'm not sure if you're familiar

with that newspaper but yeah it made these not the front page but the second page of the newspaper it was on the radio drive time it was on the channel four news all the local news outlets aired it and um my military command actually that's how they found out this had happened like i hadn't even been able to call them yet right they called me and said hey what's going on. And I told him, because they knew I was under this investigation. And they're like, how did this happen? I'm like, I don't know. So, anyway, the following Monday, I found out that weekend, I couldn't go on my training because my clearance was being suspended because I'd just been falsely arrested for committing felony. They were trying to charge me with official misconduct and

grand theft, arguing that the amount of leave time that I allegedly had mistaken was over a certain amount of money right so um i couldn't go on my training the amount that you had orders for that they're allowed that they have to pay you that they yeah yeah okay yeah they're now saying there were no orders when in fact there were orders there were orders and in fact um the following monday i called that same union lawyer who had told me this whole time i had done nothing wrong right all the sudden now oh well um i can get you a plea deal where you can we might be able to save your pension if you're vested i'm like but you told me i didn't do anything he's like well if they got a judge to sign a warrant you must be guilty oh what a fucking idiot yeah um so it was pretty clear at that point

who he was really working for you can get a judge to sign a warrant for for for anything i know i trust me and um so fortunately my family my stepfather knew knows a very good well-established attorney in jacksonville uh we went and saw him on monday and yeah of course he immediately said yeah this whole thing is unbelievable like yeah I'm so I hired him um within a week of me hiring this real attorney um this non uh union attorney I think the detectives did more investigating that week after the arrest than they did the whole four months prior right they went to my military unit I tried to question them and at no point prior to this arrest did they go to my army unit go to anybody in my command to talk to them about what I was doing on my military duty days right so I don't even really know

what they did during their investigation. Well, you know, I had been, I had this explained to me by my attorney one time. And he had said that the way the state works, he said the state law enforcement, they don't have the budgets to do much investigation. So what they typically do is they arrest you and get you scared and then hope that you'll plead guilty. And if you don't plead guilty, then they do an investigation. where they do a very cursory investigation initially.

The feds, like when the FBI shows up, you're done. Yeah. They've done all the investigation. They've got everything. You're the last piece of the puzzle. It's like, okay, we know we can arrest this guy. We know, or we've been investigated. We know he's guilty.

We know we can try him. We know we can convict him. Go arrest him. Where it's the exact opposite with the state. So I totally understand what you're saying. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. And the sad thing is, I mean, they,

from what I was told later on they have done this to so many people and gotten away with it because they can't afford to hire a lawyer or they get them so scared they'll take a plea deal or something and plea to a lesser charge and I wasn't about to do that

because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. If you've done something wrong then when they arrest you, you are scared because you think they know everything so typically you say look I'll take a plea deal and they'll okay now tell us in your words what happened but the truth is they don't have a clue what happened so you're just telling them what happened.

Yeah they were and that's the thing thing like I told them what I'd already told them once before right and that wasn't going to change no it wasn't going to change um they were expecting me to change my story and admit guilt is something and I didn't do that um but yeah they went to my army unit tried to question my full-time staff my full-time staff most of them were like uh yeah no we're not talking to you guys you never came to speak to us prior to this and um we're not going to help you with this at this point so then they came back with subpoenas, started making threats towards my full-time staff, telling them that they

would be taken to jail if they didn't cooperate. Yeah, they got really nasty and aggressive. I think at this point they'd realized they'd made a pretty bad mistake. Right. So now it's now it's kind of like we got to make sure that this looks like it looks at the very least it looks like he's done something wrong. We need to put

somebody on the stand. We need somebody to say some start saying some negative things about him, that sort of thing. Like they have to start building a case at this point, whether one exists or not exactly because they'd like I said they had gone to the media and told them he didn't have orders he did this right when in fact I hadn't done it and I think they realized from that point that like we have a problem yeah right so um yeah this went on they uh the only person I think they actually to my knowledge they actually interviewed was my squad leader my first line leader

and he pretty much confirmed everything like yeah he had orders for that day we were in kind of a limbo period but when you have orders from the military that is your priority right you are supposed to be made available to the military and so other than that I don't know who else they interviewed if anybody there were other days where I was at MEPs because I was changing from the guard of the reserves again I turned in those orders to get the time off to go to MEPs if they had actually done made the trip over to records and gotten those orders that I had already submitted they would have known that but yeah like I said within 48 hours of my arrest, we were able to furnish all these orders that they had already had at their

fingertips. Right. So it's pretty obvious. They didn't even do the basic functions of an investigation, at least from what I can tell. Right. So it went on for about almost two months. I was on administratively without pay. Fortunately, my army unit was very helpful. They were able to coordinate with some other organizations, get me some like administrative order days to help me with money. So right um i ended up having to sell my car um my ex-wife and i we had to sacrifice a lot of things out of our budget things like that she had to pick up a lot of extra overtime she had to cover health care costs and stuff um so fortunately i i mean um i try to be financial responsible i did have some money and savings we were able to like not lose anything of a necessity you know we

were able to keep up with the house and the bills and everything um some members of my family helped me out a little bit here and there when they could and how long did this go on well the post arrest investigation went on for a couple months finally the state attorney said i can't charge this guy um and he ended up dropping it from what i understand he didn't even do the charging paperwork for it like that's how weak it was to begin with right so yeah i was cleared of the um in fact um another interesting thing is when my clearance as i mentioned earlier got flagged from the military i have a t s top secret clearance they came in and did an investigation um on their own the people that handle the clearances right looked at the whole thing and while

this was still pending reinstated my clearance like that's how little faith anyone had in this whole thing right so like i got my top secret clearance back um about a month before the charges were actually formally dropped. So the state attorney dropped it. That alone was a huge relief. You know, it was enough to make me realize I wasn't, hey, I wasn't going to get falsely convicted of some crime I didn't commit. Well, I mean, you know, here's the thing is, is like, you know, until you go through

like that process, like even if you're 100% innocent and you go to trial, there's still a chance you're found guilty. Yeah. Like people think, oh, well, if you're innocent, go to, go to, you know, they should go to, you go to trial. Yeah, I get that. But the truth is, innocent people are found guilty all the time. Oh, yeah. And all you need is a couple of guys to get on the stand or for them to suddenly, conveniently lose some paperwork that you're saying was filed. Well, we couldn't find it. And then next thing you know, you don't have a backup. It comes, you know, it comes out of nowhere. You're not

prepared for it. You know, who knows what happens or you just get a couple jury members that just dislike you and they sway the jury. Like, it can go bad. Even if you're, even if you're not guilty, it can go bad. I agree with you 100%. So that's pretty, that in and of itself is stressful. It was. It was very stressful. I mean, it was I mean, it was like being in the

twilight zone. I mean, you know, you you know, I'm already doing a job that almost nobody really wants to do. Right. I'm making this, you know, at this point I'd been in the military for 11 or 12 years, I think. And I mean, it's just something you never

expect going to work for a law enforcement agency that they're going to do this to you for simply trying to meet your obligations of serving your country right even on a part-time basis yeah it was just a completely um i mean the words can't describe it i mean i didn't i mean i just scumbag move yeah um and um i mean i know there had been situations where people had done abused militarily before but i wasn't one of those people you know i i i mean that's the thing I had faith that they were, these detectives or investigators or, I had faith that they were going to do their jobs, that they were going to do what they were paid to do, do the investigation. I mean, this whole thing should have been cleared up in a couple hours. Right.

And they had four months and didn't even do the basic essential functions of clearing me of doing anything wrong. So, yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable. And, you know, these are people that work in the same organization as you, that you, you know, it's like we don't work in the same building. or in the same division or anything, but, you know, like, you know, these are people I would consider my colleagues to some level. Right. That would do this to me, you know, I mean, it just really is unbelievable. So when they drop, when the state attorney said, hey, I'm not filing this. Like, did they reinstate you and say, okay, well, then we're going to go, you, no, put you back on the, you know, okay, start work on Monday. No, they did not. They referred

the case over to internal affairs. Internal affairs has, um, they handle the administrative portion of things. Right. So they went from trying to charge me criminally to trying to say I broke some kind of rule. And when that happened, when we got the notice that that was happening, my lawyer did two things from what I understand. First, he sent them a letter saying, Mr. Murray is still represented. If you have any desire to contact him, please go through our law office and to arrange any meetings or discussions you'd like to have with them, something to that nature. Right.

He also took the entire case, like, I don't know what you call it, the case file or, and sent it over, I think it was to the city manager, I think, and explain the situation to them. The city manager sent back a letter within about a month stating that I had violated no rules and broken no policies or anything. So, you know, we got that out of the way right away. Right. So they continued to do their investigation. on the administrative side.

I found out the individual who was doing the investigation was also in the military guard or reserves. And at first, I was actually like... Oh, good, he'll understand. Yeah, he'll understand. He might get this. I might actually have someone on my side. Boy, was I wrong with that?

First, I get a call from my military command saying, hey, are you under another investigation? I said, yeah, they're investigating me for administrative things now. He's like, yeah, because the detectives who's doing this, he is also apparently an investigator in the reserve component or the guard component and is going around representing himself as such. Like instead of knocking on one of my commander's doors saying, hello, I'm detective so-and-so with the Jacksonville Sheriff's office, he's flashing his military credential saying, I'm investigator so-and-so with this military agency. I need to talk to you about one of your soldiers. So I found that out. I was like, whoa, because that's a big no-no.

I'm in an Intel unit. You don't do that kind of stuff. Right. So then, not too long after I find that out, he calls me directly on my cell phone demanding that I come in for questioning. And I'm like, did you not get the letter my attorney sent you? And he starts yelling at me, telling me, I'm not asking, you know, you're going to cooperate with me.

I'm like, okay, can I get your name and your contact number? I hung up. I called my lawyer and say, hey, this guy called me. He's demanding, I come in for an interview. I think that's y'all's department. He's like, yeah, I'll call him back. So at that point, my lawyer told me not to acknowledge any more phone calls from him or the sheriff's department. Law enforcement often questions him, not because he's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating.

he is the most interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crime but when I do it's bank fraud stay greedy my friends support the channel join Matthew Cox's Patreon so my lawyer calls me back and says yeah let's go ahead and go in for this interview

I mean because our ducks in a row you know let's this way we can say we were cooperative and we did everything we could to try to resolve this so we went in for questioning I sat down with this guy and my lawyer and one of the other internal affairs supervisors was present. He starts questioning me and the questions he just asked me were completely off the wall. None of them had anything to do with me.

I mean, he was even asking me to explain why my command staff of my military unit would do something different from his command staff of his military unit. I mean, it was very vague, indirect questioning. None of it had anything to do with anything really to my case. At the end of the interview, my lawyer had to interject a couple times because he was trying to get into stuff that wasn't even relevant to the case. So the interview concluded. And around that time, a training I was originally supposed to go to when I was falsely arrested, I got orders to actually go to.

This was about a year later. So I was... You haven't worked for over for a year now, roughly. Not really, no. I had, like I said, my military unit was giving me some administrative orders. They were having me come in just to help them around the office. Yeah, but that's not going to be the same as working at that. No, it was definitely not as much money as I was making with my job for sure.

But, I mean, it was better than nothing. Right. You know, it was enough for us to, like I said earlier, we were able to keep the lights on. My wife at the time had a job. we were able to sustain at least and you know in spite of having to you know get rid of some of my assets we were able to at least live a halfway decent lifestyle um without having you know we were stable to eat we were eating you know ramen noodles and peanut butter um every day but anyway um like i said um i got orders to go on this training and i was like yes finally so um i get

the orders. I go through all the, you know, do all the packing, the paperwork. I fly out to Arizona to do the orders. I'm on orders and the same detective, again, tries to call me. And per my lawyer, I just ignored him. I called my lawyer, said, hey, this detective left me a couple voicemails. He's like, yeah, I've already talked to him. He says the investigation's been completed and they want us to come in to reveal the, um, to reveal the, um, results. And I'm like, okay, so well, I'm on orders out in Arizona. I'm supposed to be here for another several months. So, um, he's like, yeah, I'll, I'll let him know that. So anyway, apparently when he calls this detective back to tell him, yeah, he's on orders. The detective had what was told to me is basically being as a

connipion fit. He is ranting and raving. How's he on military orders? You know, just like, that's not supposed to happen. I guess he was under the feeling that because this was still going on, the military still had me in like a suspended status as well. Right. Well, the next day I'm sitting in class. One of my class leaders pulls me out and pulls me into a conference room and says, hey, tell me about your arrest. I'm like, excuse me? Because I hadn't mentioned this to anybody at the schoolhouse that I was at. Right. I'm like, he's like, yeah, I got a phone call from somebody claiming that you've been arrested for a felony. I'm like, well, yeah, but that's all been handled. So apparently this detective, I guess when he got the orders, his intent was to derail my

military training somehow by calling this school. And just, there was no point to that. It had nothing to do with his investigation, but he did it anyway. Right. Well, unfortunately, while I was out there, I was unable to finish the training. We had a death in the family. My grandfather passed away. I was sent home on Red Cross orders. After the funeral, I came back to Jackson, Valeria, and my lawyer and I set up a schedule. We went in to hear what they had to say about this whole case. We go in, and this original detective didn't even show himself. Like, he didn't even come in to talk to us.

I don't know what happened to him. But two of his colleagues came in. And even after everything we had told them, like, yeah, we've gone to the city manager, this and that. Even after all that, they still tried to sustain administrative allegations against me and were recommending I be fired. Like, okay, so what happens now? So they laid out the options, and one of the options was we could have had a civil service hearing, which would have taken it beyond the sheriff's office. Right. And I'm like, you know what, let's do that.

I'm sick and tired of this. This has been going on for too long. I want to get this, you know, put to bed once and for all. so we opted to have the civil service hearing we informed him of that um we leave and the sheriff's office constantly delayed the civil service hearing like several months finally my lawyer got it to a point where like we're going to have the civil service hearing we are going before them and we are going to they're going to hear us hear what we have to say and they're going to make a decision as to whether or not you actually did anything wrong right I like the delay practice is just

to try and wear you down, wear you down, wear you down. Yeah. And so about a, I think it was about a week before the civil service hearing, my lawyer calls and says, hey, the undersheriff wants to meet with us to, as he put it, potentially resolve this issue. And I'm like, I don't think so. I think I've had enough. I'd rather just do the civil service hearing.

So he calls me back and says, let's go meet with him. And again, we can at least say we did everything we could. could to try and resolve this in a peaceful matter before it went to litigation. I was like, okay, so I go down to the sheriff's office. I go into his office and with my lawyers. His lawyers, one of the city lawyers, is sitting there taking notes in the corner. And it was pretty clear from the beginning of the meeting that the undersheriff had no interest in resolving this. He basically was trying to force me to take a, they were trying to get me to take a deal instead of firing me. They wanted me to take a deal.

where I would agree to a suspension in exchange for agreeing to say that I misuse my leave. And I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that because I didn't misuse my leave. So the sheriff just started making all these off. The undersheriff just started making all these off the wall, you know, accusations. Oh, you could have still gone to work that day. I'm like, no, you can't. When you have orders, you are obligated to those orders. Right.

And it got to the point where I just wouldn't agree with him. He ended up through. Like all of this is over one fucking day. It boiled down to one day. In fact, even when the criminal case was going on. That you were set up. You were set up to be, you were set up to, hey, do this, do this. Put in for a vacation day.

We deny the vacation day. And now he's, now he's like. I didn't even realize all these other days were in play until the arrested happened. And we found out during this time also when my lawyer got a hold of the original case, this lieutenant who had done this to me had been setting this up for a while. She had included photos off my Facebook page of when I was on vacation with my friends and family when I wasn't even on military leave just to try and fluff up the complaint to make it seem more appealing. I wonder, you know, so in the, like the correctional officers at like Coleman, right? Mm-hmm.

Which is where I was. Like, they'll get bonuses if they catch inmates with, you catch an inmate with a cell phone, you'll get like a $400 bonus. Catch an inmate with this much, you know, this much, you know, whatever, drugs, you'll get this much. Like, you know, if certain contraband gets them, have an incentive, like, I wonder if she had an incentive to, you know what I'm saying, does that make sense? I don't, I honestly don't think so because she was already in the drop for retirement. Like, she was scheduled to retire within the next couple years. Well, that's still, if it's an extra 800 bucks. Yeah, I don't think we had any kind of financial.

And plus, even if there was, I don't think she would have gotten that bonus. It would have been the detectives who had secured a conviction on me or something like that. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm... So she's just an asshole. Pretty much. Okay. And like I said, she has done this to other people I work with, not to this extreme level, but I don't know what her issue was.

But she had a huge problem with a lot of people that work there. I don't know why. I always came to work. I tried to be, you know, every job I've had, I've always tried to be professional, courteous. I come to work, I do my job. I'm not there to make statements or anything. I'm there to do my job, make my money, go home and live my life. That's what I was there for.

To me, it was a way of surviving, making money to live. And hopefully have an early retirement. Right. That's all I was there for. Nothing else. So he makes the offer. Yeah, and I tell him no. He ends up throwing me out of his office.

He just basically looks at me and I'm just like shaking my head through this whole thing. He says, get out of my office, Officer Murray. like, I'm like gladly. So I get up, I walk out. My lawyer, you know, my lawyers are like, yeah, that didn't go the way we were hoping either. So, you know, time kept creeping closer to the civil service hearing. Within a couple days, they offered to give me my back pay, which was around $10,000, saying, we're prepared to offer this if he'll resolve the civil service.

And I said, okay, so they're going to drop the disciplinary allegations and let me have my They're like, no, no, you still have to plead guilty. I'm like, no. So then, like, literally about two days before, I start getting phone calls on my phone from the JSO switchboard. And per my lawyer, I didn't answer them, didn't acknowledge them. And they said, yeah, we're not getting calls from anybody from JSO. I don't know why they're calling you.

Apparently, they were trying to get me to come back to work, like, within the last day or two before the civil service hearing. And then, but they didn't leave. messages voicemails or email they did leave a couple but yeah one of them was saying yeah we're trying to coordinate this so I called my lawyer and he's like yeah they shouldn't be doing that because they even said prior to this happening like I wouldn't be eligible to return to work until after the hearing the hearing so I even got a certified mail letter the day after they were expecting me to return to work like the day I got it was the day after they wanted me to come

back into work. And then my lawyer's trying to use the excuse me, their lawyer was using the excuse to my lawyer saying, well, if he doesn't show up for work, he's abandoning his job and he's not eligible to have the hearing. I'm like, they're like, no, he can still have the hearing and we're still going to have the hearing. And then people started showing up at my house. I was not around one day. My wife was in the house and a gentleman pulled up in our driveway, driving a white unmarked police car, as my neighbor described it, wearing a polo shirt with our sheriff's office logo on the breast pocket, came to our door and started kicking and banging on our door.

My wife was scared enough to where she actually armed herself. Like, she didn't know who this person was. She thought they were trying to break in the house. My neighbor was standing on the other side of the fence. Apparently, he looked over at my neighbor, and when he saw my neighbor, he left. but you know we were still determined to have this hearing like it was going to happen and then literally the night before the hearing I think it was my lawyer says okay they're willing to give

you the money and drop everything if you're just willing to walk away and resign which is probably what I was going to end up doing anyway so we got the end result we wanted so if you went to a hearing all the hearing would have done was just embarrassed them and come up with you would have gotten the same result exactly so yeah um but yeah And all this was at the direction. Like one of the letters I got, it said per undersheriff and had this guy's name. So he was directing all this harassment, all these phone calls, knowing that I had lawyers just to try and scare me into, I guess, not showing up or something like that.

I don't know what his exact intent was, but that's what I perceived it as. So have you filed a lawsuit against the? Yep. We did end up, it took a while, but we did end up filing a lawsuit. They just settled it out of court when it came to the time. They drug it out for a very long time. Since then, a lot's happened since then. I finally did finish the training.

The following year, I was able to finish my intel training. I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2017. Unfortunately, I had to go through a divorce. After all, that was done, we filed the lawsuit. That was around 2018, and we just finally got it resolved. Three years later? Yeah. Well, two years.

But yeah, it was what? It was three years later. Yeah. Actually, no, it's more like four years. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, from what I understand, my lawyers just, like, they just drug it out. They just refused to, it finally got to the point where we were able to depose people.

And at that point, I guess they agreed to just settle it out of court. Yeah, once they start to see how bad they're going to look in front of a jury. Okay. Yeah, but you can't say how much the lawsuit was settled. Yeah, there's a gag order on the actual amount. Yep. Yeah, I know. I've signed one of those.

So what are you doing now? Well, now I'm working as a, I'm working as a contractor for the government doing various intel works. Oh, that's right. That's right. We talked about that. Yeah, pertinent to my skills in the Army. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, it's, I am doing something productive. But, yeah, fortunately, like I said, the biggest ally I think I had in this whole thing was the Army. The Army stood. shoulder to shoulder with me they you know it i mean the people in my unit were you know they're very old school like no man left behind they they were not going to let me get trampled over this whole thing so has has the um like as the like you still live in in that county right uh jacksonville

and jacksville oh you moved no i've oh no i live in nassau county um florida okay and um i worked in jacksonville which is duval county okay so what i'm saying is it's no They have nobody's contacted you, driven by your house, no more intimidation, nothing like that. I don't think so. No, not that I'm aware of. Okay. My neighbors are, after that whole thing, too, I still have the same neighbors, and they are constantly looking out.

I've been keeping them up to date, and yeah, my neighbors have been watching my house, especially when the lost seat part started getting a little more hot because we were worried that they were going to try to do it again. Right. But, yeah, and I mean, I mean, it's just real sad. I don't get this because, and this was not the first time they had. mess with me for being in the military prior to this whole thing starting either. I just really don't understand how a sheriff's department can go through so much trouble to make life miserable

for a service member who works for them. Right. Well, you know, it's, it's, it's funny. Like, you know, in the, in the, the Bureau of Prisons, you know, they, for some reason, a lot of those jobs, they, they attract just like mentally disturbed people. Like, I mean, you're in a position where you're in charge of other people, you know, so, and you're in a position where very seldomly you're questioned, you know, so I would get a lot, we would get a lot of these guys. Some of the CEOs, they just want to come. I'm here to get, I'm here to get a paycheck. Like, don't do anything in front of me. Don't get in any fights. You know, they go through the motions. They just want to pick up their paycheck and leave and just, you know, you guys, follow the rules. Don't, or if you're

going to break them, but don't do it in front of me. Like, don't do, don't be stupid. Yeah. Don't harm each other. Let me go. And then you have the CEOs that make it their they make it their mission to make all the inmates miserable and the problem is what i've after talking to other ceos those same ceos tend to make the other ceos miserable it's like it's their their goal to try and make everybody as unhappy as possible i i can definitely relate to that so everybody thinks oh well it's just you know it's just us no no the other ceos hate this guy too yeah So I, you know, I think that maybe that, I don't know what's with that, that woman. I don't know what her deal was.

But you would think that somewhere down the line, someone would have said, hey, wait a second. Well, it sounds like a few people did. Like the state attorney is like, I'm not doing this. Multiple people did, but a few people in the direct line, like the detective should have, or the internal affairs guy should have kind of looked at it and said, listen, honestly, what are we doing here? Well, now that you mentioned that, when I did, this whole thing started and I called the union to tell them what's going on. They even said, did this lieutenant start this?

And I said, yep. And they're like, oh, God, not again. Like, so, I mean, they were already very familiar. And another thing is, too, it's my understanding. This facility I was working at, I started working at the county prison, the Montgomery Correction Center. Right. I was working downtown at the jail for a while because there was another incident where

another supervisor who was working with her when this whole thing started, coincidentally, was trying to mess with my military leave. And then I came back to work at the farm. She had been transferred out there against her will. So she had been moved from the main jail out to the work farm for whatever reason. She's retired now, though, right? To my understanding, yes. When this whole thing started, she was already in the, we call it the drop, in the plan to be retired.

So like I said, yeah, I don't know what her problem with me was. There were a couple times I had to go over her head on certain things. utilizing chain of command to get resolution to some other issues. I don't know. Maybe she had it in for me for that. But I mean, yeah, I don't know what her problem was. But like I said, it was not just me. She had done this to other people and had, you know, not to this extreme level,

but like just set other other officers up to be investigated and put in a position where they could be found guilty of something that they didn't do. you know for just doing their job i mean and it is sad because um i've discussed this with other people there are a lot of very unhappy people in that line of work and you know i i don't know why they do it if it makes you that unhappy well i mean well first of all in the best of circumstances it's just kind of a shitty job you know like who do you the inmates are you know you're around a bunch of violent inmates you're around guys that are in the worst part of their life you're you're around a bunch of people you're trying to you're trying to kind of corral individuals that don't follow the rules you know it's like you know trying to herd cats you know what I'm saying like they're just

they just don't listen they don't and you know when I was locked up like the the prison would try and give us privileges and the inmates would immediately ruin those privileges like they would immediately push the envelope and then they get taken away and then all the other inmates would hate the staff for taking this away and it was like yeah but you understand it was pretty simple like all you had to do is this and this and you got this but these guys fucked it up like everything that gets taken away tends to be the part or the problem with the uh problem with the inmates right so you get to a point where it's like the staff even if they're even if they're trying to do something for you the inmates ruin it and the inmates hate the staff and then the staff ends up hating

the inmates and then it's just it's just such a miserable fucking environment yeah it can be i i can relate to that very much so um yeah i uh i was gonna say uh um it's it's it's yeah it's it's a horrible situation in general and i'm sure and it's even worse in the county jail because county jails are horrible yeah i've never worked at the prison level other than this county prison which is still a detachment of the county facility but um yeah i've heard worse things things about the state because the inmates there are there a lot longer. Some of them are doing 20 years to life and they have nothing to lose. They don't care. You know, it's funny because in the state prison system, you have a lot of interaction with the guards. They're there all the time, right?

Right. In the federal prison system, it's set up in a way that I could go months without ever talking to a CEO. Like, or even you might see a few of them throughout the day, but not even really you're just in a herd of guys going into the chow hall maybe there's one or two COs in there they're not paying attention to you it's more like a self-led type program absolutely you then you come back if you just kind of follow the rules you go in the unit they close the doors they lock the doors 30 minutes later they call you know rec move or whatever the door is open for 10 minutes you go to the rec yard you hang out the rec yard for three hours then then when they call you know recall the door's open you go back to the unit like the doors closed you go to your

you go to your cell you wait to be counted the guard walks around and that's it 20 minutes later they call chow you go to chow like all of this is happening and there's there's a ceo maybe over there maybe he's in the office maybe oh yeah there he is you know but he's 45 feet away he's there's 180 guys and he's he's playing on his phone or on the computer or not even paying attention to you so but the state it's like the COs are there all the time they're always around They're always, because the state inmates are, you know, they're much more violent, much more, that they have to have more interaction with them because they have to constantly keep them. They're constant fights. They're constant, like, you get a worse inmate in state prisons.

So, yeah, it's, it's, but in the county, county's horrible. Well, another aspect of county we have to deal with is, too. There are a lot of people in county jail that are not guilty. They've been arrested. Right. And most of them are pre-trial. Or they're arrested for something minor. So you've got a guy with a DUI who was arrested who's in the same unit as a guy who's on trial for killing three people.

Yeah. And it's like this guy's, this guy becomes a victim. Yeah. He's not prepared for that. Well, that's the thing. You know, once they've been there a while, they do, both the departments I've worked for, they do try to separate. Yeah, separate inmates by the severity of their crimes and whatnot. But yeah, when they first come in, there's like this general.

like you want I guess you would maybe call it a triage area where they all it's like a general holding area where they all go in there they're in this and it's usually an open like a bullpen type situation they're like and like you said you got a guy in there for DUI or maybe CDV or possession of a small amount of cannabis or something and he's in there with a guy who just um you know is like a ted bundy 2.0 or something like that you don't know um you know you don't know who's in there and none of these people have been really vetted as far as their mental health their um their their physical. physical health or anything like that. So there's a lot of varying factors there. I was just going to say, I have a buddy who was locked up for fraud. And so he's there for a fraud for depositing a government stimulus check into his bank account. And it was a fake check. Oh, dear. And they grab him and he ends up getting, goes into jail.

Well, he's in there with a guy that's on trial right now for murdering his girlfriend. And the guy tried, had already gone to prison for like five or six years for murdering his girlfriend. 10 years ago. So he went to jail for five or six years, got out, started dating another girl, murdered her, and my buddy's in there with him. He's there for fraud.

Like, he's totally nonviolent. He's like, this guy's killing people, you know, or trying to kill people and did kill this one woman. He's like,

and he's on my work detail. Like, we pass out sandwiches. You know? Yeah. I mean, he's like, he's like, I'm not prepared

to be around this guy. He's a maniac. Well, the whole thing is, too, it's like, you know, with the whole equal rights thing, you're supposed to treat

each person the same. But at the same time, you just can't always do that because, like you said, this guy's already been to prison for trying to kill this. He stabbed his last girlfriend. He stabbed her like 30 times and tried to kill her. Like, this is clearly, you're guilty. And then you just stabbed another girlfriend.

Like, you can't say, well, needs to be equal. What are you talking about? He's already been to prison. Like I love, I get the whole in the justice system. It does bother me that. Someone will go to jail and they'll do five years and they get out. And to me, it's like, okay, you kind of, I get the whole, you paid your debt to society and that people should give you a second chance.

But I also understand that, you know, like the truth is you, they just, a lot of guys go into prison and they get out way worse, way worse than when they went in. It's like a gladiator camp type thing, you know, and where they, yeah, it just gets them more beefed up and they get into a gang or something. Like, I want to give you a chance. but you were a bad apple before you went into prison and now you went to a state prison with really bad apples you didn't get out more well-rounded

like you're probably a menace now yeah it's so funny because when I worked for Charleston County back in the oh gosh that was like 18 years ago when I started working for them I still have some friends that work there and they tell me like yeah these kids that came through as juveniles are still coming in and out of the jail they're going to prison for a couple years at the time for doing this the same stuff.

Prison's only making them harder and harder. And they're just learning more ways on how to beat the system and not be in prison as long. And listen, the fraud, like I used to say, I feel like I went in to prison with like a GED in fraud. And I got out with like a master's degree. Because now you're actually connecting with other people and learning way more.

Like the issue I may have had like in my fraud, this guy has a way around that. He had an issue, which was easy for me, me to overcome. So you end up comparing notes and going, wow, I never thought about that. Like, yeah, you're right. That would be a, God, I can't believe. And next thing you know, like, you get out and you've got way more information. You're way more dangerous. Like, if I wanted to commit fraud now, like, I'm way more lethal than I ever was before. You can only imagine these guys that are selling drugs or doing, God knows what. Yeah. It just blows by mind, though, like, you know, when I go,

you know and you know that's another thing like I when I went to work in corrections both departments I knew that like you're going to be dealing with criminals yeah yeah you're not all of them are guilty but you know you're going to be dealing with a large amount of criminals you're going to be dealing with people who may not be considered the I guess you might want to say the top echelon of society if that's a fair statement I mean you're you know you're going to be dealing with basically scumbags most of them are just scumbags I mean yeah I'd be like me sitting here saying you know I'm really a nice guy no I was a scumbag I was doing scumbag things like I'm I'm like you know like I mean there are great aspects of people you know

I've met some of the best people I've ever I've ever met in prison but it's like you know like like I love this guy but I wouldn't let him invest my pension you know like this guy's he's running a Ponzi scheme he's a nice guy for this but yeah and that's and that's the thing like while I was working in corrections I did meet some inmates who like I could honestly say if we he wasn't in jail and I didn't work there if we'd met at a bar. We could sit down and have a beer, have a nice conversation, and talk about motorcycles, cars, trucks, some other hobby. But yeah, I wouldn't trust them to, like you said, I wouldn't trust them with my value basis or anything like that. But, you know, the sad thing is, though,

is it's like you go working in a jail or a prison, you expect to deal with certain behavior from the inmates. I never thought in my wildest dreams I would ever have to deal with something like this from the very sheriff's department I worked for and the very immediate chain of command who was supposed to be watching my back. Yeah, but see, I agree. I understand. But at Coleman, the guards, the COs were fight, were getting to fistfight with each other in the parking lot.

Like they'd get into an argument and they would suddenly be like, you know, hey, bro, I get off at five. I'll meet you in the fucking parking lot. And they'd go out and they'd actually get into a fist fight in the parking lot. Yeah, I've heard of that. They'd actually have arguments, like you have, you have somebody who runs the compound, right? He's a compound officer, everything that deals with the compound, the moves, everything he's in charge of. And you would have the go, the COs would argue over the PA system.

Like one CEO would say, compound closed, compound closed. And then another one would come out and say, compound's open, five, you know, five, at four o'clock a compound will be closed, compound's open. And then the other guy would come back and he'd say, no, compound's closed. Compound is closed. This is Sergeant. So it compounds. And then they would say, and then they would say, you know, like they start arguing like, you know, wreck is open. Rec is, come to the wreck move.

And it's like, what are you guys doing? Like you guys, inmates like. Yeah. It's like, what do you? I mean, can you guys make a phone call and say, hey, bro, what are you doing? Yeah, that's the thing. And like anytime I ever, you know, like, my big thing is, you know, that, that is one nice thing about being in the reserves is, you know, I've been. an NCO or not commissioned officer in the Army since,

golly, when did I get it? About 2011, it was while I was working for JSO. One thing is I've always learned with that is it's your first duty is to be professional. Yeah. So I've always taken that to every job I've had, no matter what it is. You know, I try to be professional. I try to treat people how I'd expect to be treated at work. We're all adults here.

You know, we're here to get the job done. Let's find a way to make it work. Right. And, you know, go home at the end of the day. no you know without hating each other unfortunately there's just a lot of people not only in that line of work but in general that just don't have that mentality it's like they have to be right they have to be um and control you know you get a lot of you know being in the military too um that was something i learned in basic training you know you you got people coming from all over the

different parts of the country from all walks of life you're dealing with very different uh personalities and you know you just have to learn to get along with people and that's part of basic training and that is one of the things where I guess a lot of law enforcement agencies do like to hire vets because they've been through that they know how but then the problem is you get the people who have never been in the military don't know how it works right and then they create problems like I went through so and what's funny too is look at the amount of resources that was expended the amount of time, resources, you know, everything that happened as a result of one woman setting you up to end up looking like you were taking a day off on your vacation day. Yeah.

You took a vacation day that had been denied. I did what I was told to do. I had been doing what I was told to do. I did the right thing to do from the whole situation. I did everything I was supposed to do. The armies confirmed, you know, that's the beautiful thing. every person I talked to said you did the right thing. And then it cost them a lawsuit.

Like I guarantee that lawsuit was more than the one day, more than the $245 that it cost them for that one day of you being missing. Well, not to mention the legal fees they had to spend for four years. From what I understand, they've had to make massive policy revisions over this whole thing. So I was actually told that by someone, too, one of the union representatives, again. Yeah, one of the union reps who actually, this is another person who originally told me I did nothing wrong. And then when the IA thing was going on, he's the one that called me to try to get me to take a deal. And I'm like, yeah, you told me a year and a half ago I did nothing wrong.

And then once I called him out on it, he started back paddling. And at the end of the conversation, you know, he says, I've been working for the sheriff's office first. something like 20, 30 years, I have never seen somebody fight back against him this hard. And he actually said, I appreciate what you're doing because you're going to make life easier for the next person I think about doing this too. So it sucks for me. But, you know, that's one thing. That is probably the biggest takeaway from a positive aspect is I made them think twice before they do this to somebody else. Like maybe they'll actually get up off their desk chairs, do their jobs. Right. And go do an investigation, what they're getting paid to do before they go out and try to ruin

somebody's life. Right. You know, because, I mean, that's how I feel. They tried to ruin my life. They didn't just want my job with JSO. They were trying to strip my clearance, my military career, the whole nine yards. They were trying to make it to where I would have ended up probably, you know, been mopping toilets for the rest of my life, you know, if they'd had their way. You know, it's sad. But I mean, and these are people I worked with. These are people who I went to work who I expected to watch my back and, you know, look out for me. Because, you know, because I always tried to look out for, you know, if I saw one of my officers was having a problem, and one of my colleagues, I'd always tried to do whatever I could to help them.

And I thought, you know, it's sad, you know, you think that way, but you do for one. They don't do for you type thing. Right. It's really sad. You have to work in that kind of environment. But, yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, coming out of it, though, I mean, after this going on for eight years, it's just, it's just, like, unbelievable. Eight years, yeah, the whole thing was over eight years. Well, if you count the time of investigation, it was probably longer than that. Because the, like I said, the investigation went on for four months.

prior to this actually my false arrest happening and then we just literally resolved it within the last month the lawsuit part so i mean it went on for a long time um you know like i said i'm just i'm just thankful to god that um i had a good support system through the military um my family right my um friends people that you know um people i really found out who my friends were through that whole thing oh yeah you know when i was um because you know like that old country song you find Chips are down. Yeah, that's absolutely. Yeah, when you find out who your friends really are when that happens. And I did. I had a lot of people that were coming to my aid, you know, offering to help me, you know, helping me get odd jobs and stuff, just stuff to do in the meantime. So I could keep, like I said, keep the money coming in. But yeah, it was an unbelievable, stressful environment, you know, not only for me, but for my ex-wife, who I was married to at the time. We just both were like, we had no idea what was going to happen next. it's just not something you ever expect to have to go into you know like I said when you go to work for a sheriff's office and agree to work for them and like I said they knew I was in the reserves and unfortunately like I said earlier this was not the first time they had tried I don't know what it is with that sheriff's office but this was not the first time they had messed with me from my military leave I had a sergeant who was involved with this case who was involved in the whole setup he actually was trying to keep me on probation for taking military leave which is strictly against federal law.

That's why I ended up actually having to be moved down to the jail from the farm for a while because, you know, they were trying to get me to sign papers to basically relinquish the rights to my military leave so they could keep me on probation longer. And I'm like, you can't do this. Right. But yeah, I don't get it. I don't understand why what the problem is there. Because like I said, when I work for Charleston County, I never had problems my military leave.

never um you know and i i had similar situations where i was in the guard we get called up we weren't actually at the armory but we had orders and they're like yeah you're fine you have orders you're good take your time we'll see when you get back but i do not know what the problem with this particular sheriff's department was i don't know why they um did this to people and why they um went through so much trouble to try and screw someone over for just trying to serve their country right well i mean it sounds like like hopefully it's fixed and sounds like that woman retired and I hope so. You know, but listen, I, unless you have something else, I appreciate you coming by.

No, I appreciate you letting me, being, you know, giving me the opportunity because, like I said, this is, this whole thing has been one-sided, as far as the story that's been put out. Right. And this is, you know, it's just such a relief. You have no idea. I'm, like, actually just very excited that I'm finally getting able to tell my side of the story, which is the truth of the matter, on a public forum. it's finally nice to actually get it out and people when they look up my name now they're not just going to see those nasty headlines right that I did this or did that and they're going to know the truth and you know there's verifiable proof of that now so hopefully um like I said hopefully I made life better for the next person it's been a real experience and you know um but it's made me um it's made me wiser in a lot of ways um it's made me really um I you know I made me question judgment a lot more with from people sometimes but I mean I try to to take something positive way away from every negative experience so hopefully more good came out of it than bad in the end hey i appreciate you guys watching the video if you like the

video do me a favor and subscribe to the channel hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this uh leave a comment in the comment section tell me if you uh like the topic and if you like me see me do other videos like this also um i have a patreon i'm sure you saw the patreon commercial during the uh podcast, my Patreon is in the description, and what else? I got an Etsy account for Cox Pop Art, so if you're interested in buying a painting or anything else, check out Etsy, and I appreciate it, and thank you very much, and I will see you.