Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - CORRUPTION EXPOSED! Feds Arrest Disabled Veteran for Charity Work

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

Jeremy Harrell shares how his work helping veterans led to a federal conviction, raising questions about VA disability rules, nonprofit leadership, and the consequences veterans can face for staying active in their communities.⁣ ⁣ Jeremy's links - ⁣ Instagram: @jeremy_w_harrell_official⁣ TikTok: @jeremywharrellofficial⁣ X: @JeremyWHarrell⁣ Facebook: Jeremy Harrell⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Shop my merch: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MatthewCoxCollection⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ Chapters: ⁣ 00:00 - Arrest & Indictment⁣ 00:17 - Military Service & PTSD⁣ 08:12 - Starting Veterans Club⁣ 15:01 - VA Investigation & Indictment⁣ 25:13 - Preparing for Trial⁣ 33:01 - Jury Selection & Testimony⁣ 39:57 - Verdict & Sentencing⁣ 45:06 - Continuing the Mission⁣ 49:04 - Federal Camp Experience⁣ 1:02:40 - Halfway House Experience⁣ 1:10:08 - Media Attention & Home Confinement⁣ 1:17:48 - BOP Director & Congressional Testimony⁣ 1:30:08 - Post-Conviction Filing⁣ 1:31:50 - Forfeiture Appeal⁣ 1:36:33 - Clemency & Veteran Advocacy⁣ 1:45:10 - Work & Probation Restrictions⁣ 2:03:25 - Pardons & Public Support⁣ 2:05:45 - Trial & Investigation Questions⁣ 2:17:20 - Risks for Veterans & Nonprofits⁣ 2:21:14 - Final Message Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. They're going to try to put you in prison for help. from veterans. He says, yes, you've been indicted for theft of government funds. Holy shit. Did you even know there was an investigation? I had no idea. And right away, I said, hey, I want to go to trial. So I look at my lawyer, and the first thing I say was, how in America? Do you go to prison for volunteering to help people? I joined the military, went to boot camp, did all that. Next thing, you know, 9-11 happened.

And then we all had our bags packed. We were all on edge, ready to go. And then my number got called in 2003 when we decided to invade Iraq. So I went over during initial invasion. I worked at enemy prisoner war camps and detention facilities. Abu Ghrae Prison had a detachment there, and then Camp Buka, which was an interment facility. It's best known for kind of the birthplace of ISIS. It's kind of where they started to develop themselves out of, you know, kind of anger for the lack of organization. You got a group of prisoners there, some of there from herding camp.

Almost some are there for bad reasons, right? Some are absolute terrorist, right? You got al-Baghdadi. And then you got some who were out past curfew, but they've been there for nine months, so they're angry, right? So all of a sudden they get together, they band together, they start thinking of a way of redemption. Yeah, never once did I think that one day I would experience that for myself at that time, right? And so, so, you know, I spent 15 months there, then come home and stay in the military until 2008 and got out. and tried to go, you know, the corporate route and realized very quickly had some issues.

Had some issues with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, some physical stuff. At that time, though, I didn't realize that's what it was. Why the traumatic brain injury? What is that? What do you mean? Well, from blast, concussions, things like that. Like, what happened? Like, anything specific?

I mean, just like you're on patrol one day and something happened? Well, there were several. several incidents throughout the time of being there. And that was diagnosed actually later, much later than the PTSD was. So we get home, I start actually working UPS, right? I feel like I got the perfect job, right? Everybody tells me this is a good job. You know, you stay there going through the day to day and realizing that I'm having

a hard time remembering things, having a hard time dealing with people. I remember I would have like an employee come up and talk about being on my stomach hurts or stuff like that. And I would just, I just remember thinking myself, you know, suck it up, you know, kind of thing. I have some, that's some first world shit right there, you know, like. And then you can't think that, right? Because there's an HR department. I understand. And it's just because of where I come from, right?

And so I just, I had a hard time with that, right? And so then I left that job, went to become a mortgage banker, right? Because I thought I would have more independence. And I also had a friend who was in mortgage banking. And he was making big numbers every month, right? He's, you know, at UPS, it's a great job, right? You know, it's job security. But I think at that time, it was about $45,000 a year.

Not crazy money. He's calling me. He's telling me, we actually deployed together. He's like, Jeremy. I'm making like $13,000 a month over here, man. Now, you know, I'm like, well, I could use $13,000 a month. Yeah. And so he's like, come on over.

Now, understand, like, that's a guarantee, I'm getting guaranteed money. This is all commission-based money. So I trust him. We go over and I get started. This is 2007. I don't know if you remember the housing market in 2007, but a good rate was like an eight, right? So I get over there. I'm not a great salesman anyway.

He's a great salesman because this dude will talk to you for the whole month, and on the last day of month, he'll close you. Right. Right. He'll spend time talking about grilling and things like that. And I'm more of a like, do you want this loan or not? Right. Because of my pipeline.

Right. So I was good with like law enforcement, military. Like we got it done. But, but so I didn't make the 13,000. Right. You know, and so I realized very quickly like that wasn't for me. So then I left there. Went to another manufacturing company.

And that's when, again, was having these challenges managing people. I had these challenges with cognitive processing and things. And luckily there, I had a boss who was a Marine and he had retired. And he'd come up to me one day. And he said, Jeremy, he said, he said, man, I'm noticing some things about you. You know, he's like, you know, your employees are saying you're unapproachable. He said, I see you falling asleep in meetings and things like that. He's like, you're forgetting things from here to your office.

He said, I think you need to go get some help. And I had not been at the VA at this point, right? And so I said, okay, no problem. you know, I'll make some appointments and go. I just had my son at this time. I'd already had a daughter. And he said, no. He said, I'm going to have to let you go.

Oh. Yeah. Oh, that's sudden. Yeah. So my first thought, right, is like, this is what we do to each other, right? Like, like, I just had a baby boy. Right. You know, like, I need this job.

I need these, you know, these benefits. And he's like, he's like, I just know you won't go get help. if I don't do this. And so, of course, at that point... You're doing it for me. Yeah. That's what he's... At this point, you know, I'm just pissed about it.

So I leave and, you know, the next day I go down to the VA in Lexington, Kentucky. I go through this series of like a hamster and a wheel, man, and they diagnosed me with all these things. Now, I walked in there, I think at this time, maybe I was 28, 29 years old. I can't remember exactly. And I'm walking in there. I think I'm healthy other than... I mean, I know something's wrong. I just think this is my new normal.

So I don't really, honestly, most of the time I thought it was everybody else. Right. I'm like, you're all the weird, weird ones. Yeah. So I'm walking through. They're coming up with all these diagnosis and things and all these things. You won't ever be able to do this again. You're always going to have these.

And so I'm sitting there going, what is happening, man? Like, what does this mean? And so they asked me to go do this treatment program where you're actually inpatient for 45 days. It's for PTSD, right? And so I felt like, well, okay, I'm not working. I might as well try to get treatment. So I go in, I do this program for 45 days.

And while I'm in there, they have these, what they're called, veteran service officers from like American Legion or VFW. This guy in particular is an older guy. Most of them are. His name was Randy Fisher. He met with me now. Understand like the mindset I was. in. Number one, I'm kind of institutionalized at this point. Now, granted, it is voluntary. Like,

I went in a mental asylum, but I'm in treatment for the first time and never thought I had a problem before now. Right. So in my head, I'm just going through a bunch of things. I got my wife and my son and my daughter all on the outside. And so I meet with this guy and he's like, you need to, you need to file for VA disability. And I said, okay, I don't even know how to do that. So he sits down with me. He's like, it's just how you do it. So we start doing it. And he said, he said, you need to sign this form for unemployability.

And I said, okay, what do I put on the form? He said, you talk about how, you know, you're unable to work and this and that, right? So I put him unable to work. He does it all for me. He takes it back, sends it to wherever he sends it. I go back to my hallway, right? With these other veterans, I finish that program. I get out.

And then I do this, what they call a compensation and pension exam, basically where a psychologist brings me in. And he goes over a series of questions, and he determines a recommendation to the Veterans Benefit Administration on what they think they should rate me. So they come back with 70% disability with individual unemployability, which means they pay you at the 100% rate. So basically what they're saying is you're 70%, but because of your disability, you can't work. You couldn't get a full time. You couldn't get full time. So we're going to pay you the 100% rate. Man, you're the first guy who's ever understood that.

I worked. I worked as a workman's comp adjuster. So you have like permanently partially disabled. Do you have partially disabled? They have the same kind of basic terms. It's like a breath of fresh air, man, because it's always incredibly difficult. Well, who's going to, it's like you're missing two. arms and a leg. Like I got one leg. You got 30% of your body. Like, yeah, okay, but you understand

I can't get a job. Yeah. Well, you got 30%. You're good. When you're out of your mind. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to hire me. Right. When they can get a guy with 100%. Right. Yeah. So, so anyway, so basically this is back in 2010. Right. So they pretty much tell me, hey, German, go go try to enjoy your life the best you can. Now this, to be clear, this isn't a lot of money. No, I was just going to say on what? It's a few thousand dollars. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I was going to say, you're not, you're not even making the same money you were making, driving the truck. Not at all. Not at all.

Like, this isn't a get rich scheme at all. Yeah. And so I'm a little depressed about it, to be honest, because one day I think I'm healthy. And then about a year later, I'm all of a sudden out of the game, right? And I'm an ambitious guy. So I'm just, you know, I'm going through a series of depression because of this. And so anyway, I try to figure out what am I going to do now with my time? So for about a stretch of five to six years, I'm just depressed, not really doing a whole lot, man.

Suicidal, all the things, right? And then eventually, I'm like, what is your wife saying about this? I mean, she's just devastated, man. Did she think you had an issue before? Was she kind of like? No, she knew something was wrong. Right. And my wife today wasn't my wife then.

Okay. By the way, when all that first happened. But even then, she knew something was wrong, but she didn't know, you know, how bad it was. right, clinically. Yeah. You know, now my wife today is actually a therapist. So she gets it. Right.

Totally. Right. And so that's what made this whole case much more difficult for her is because she understands that this was more than just what they were, the problem they said it was. And so anyway, so, you know, I finally figure out, hey, this is what I want to do. I'm going to, I'm going to help veterans like me. And, you know, I just want to, it's a passion project, right? So I'm telling Aaron, I'm like, Aaron, let's just start this nonprofit.

Right. Now, I had already been doing this kind of work maybe for a couple of years, just kind of here and there, helping out, helping homeless veterans, you know, doing little things. Right. And so we got a group of board members, primarily veterans, together, and we started this nonprofit in 2019 called Veterans Club. Now, it originally started as a social group in 2017 on Facebook. So it was a private Facebook group.

Right. So there was no vision of this ever becoming a top five, you know, fastest growing up and profit in the country. Right. I mean, when I tell entrepreneurs this, it drives them nuts, man, because they're like, so you didn't even try to scale. Right. And I said, I had no vision for this. Well, so, but there's probably just, there's also probably a need. Oh, right.

Extraordinary need, man, that VA and other organizations weren't meeting because we were doing the common sense thing, right? It wasn't all about the statistics. It was about this is a person who needs something, right? And so, so we started this and we started raising money and things. And then we started an equine facilitated mentoring program where we used forces to help veterans. We started some other programs, a women warrior program. and just started doing just about anything that was needed in the community, homeless veterans,

whatever the season, like however the season changed for the needs in the community, we adapted to that. So we wasn't like a one-trick pony that everything had to fit in this box. We moved the box. And that's why it was so intriguing for everybody because we were always taking care of the need. We were never saying when veterans called and said, no, we don't do that. Right. If we didn't do that, we started to do that, right?

And so what happened is, number one, it made us, it brought a lot of attention to us, but it also created a lot of enemies, right? From other organizations, but also from some people in politics who had all these campaign points that they've been using for years, right? About what needed to be done, but what they weren't able to do. And here we are with far less money making it happen. Right. Right. And so, you know, we start doing this and then, you know, fast forward to 2023. In October, I had just come back from Atlanta, Georgia. Emory University is down there. They have a brain center. And every so often I have to go, like just last fall, I was in a Shepard Center in Atlanta doing TBI work.

So I have to keep doing this, right, to keep my brain healthy. And so I just come back from a two-week treatment, protocol down there. And I was sitting in the conference room. I have a director of operations named Corey Boland. And he does all the day to day. Like I'm kind of the face, the network, you know. Right. It's kind of the story, you know.

So I'm just catching up with him, man. Hey, what did I miss? All of a sudden, these two guys come in, right? And then got backpacks on, hoodies, ball caps, right? He's coming, hey, you know, can I talk to Jeremy? You know, just when, and that happens a lot. And I'm thinking there's just a couple vets, man. Right.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, come on. Let's go upstairs and talk. So we go upstairs. We're sitting in this in my office and they're kind of looking around. And they're like, man, this is a nice office. Okay. All right. Cool.

Thanks. And I'm like, how can I help you guys? And you're like, we want to know how you do this. Not the craziest question I've ever been asked. Right. Kind of broad, right? I said, well, I mean, there's a lot of us that do this. You know, but I mean, we just were dedicated on what we do.

This is a passion. You know, that's what we like to do. Yeah, but you have this disability that says... That's odd. Yeah. That says that you shouldn't be able to do this. Like, you're highly successful. And I knew right there, I'm like, well, this doesn't seem like a conversation.

Yeah. Who are you guys? Right. So then eventually they kind of showed their credentials. So he just kind of sets his badge on my desk and just kind of leaves it there. Right? And he says, we're with the Department of Veteran Affairs Office of Inspector General Criminal Division. I didn't even know that existed.

Right. Right. I'm like, where do you guys live? You know? And I said, okay, well, what do you need? They're like, well, we're not here for the organization. We're here for you. And I said, okay.

Well, for what? Well, you're not, you shouldn't be doing this. Like if you should be working, is that what they're saying? You shouldn't be working? And they're saying like you're rated, unemployable, but yet you're running a highly successful nonprofit. And I said, well, I said, I think you're giving me too much credit. I said, first of all, I have a board of directors. I have a board of advisors.

We have hundreds of volunteers. I have a director of operations who runs the day to day. I said, I come and go when I can, when I feel like it or not. Yeah. You know, I mean, I said, so, you know, it's not the Jeremy Herald show here. And, but I'm the one on the face, right? So they're, well, you're the one that's always on TV. You're the one, you know, kind of thing.

It's like saying I run this whole fucking operation, you know, Colby's the one behind the scenes making everything fucking way. If Colby walked away, if you're, your director of operations walked away, yeah, fucking place goes down like the Titanic. 100%. You know, if Colby has a stroke or something tomorrow, I got a problem. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to be like,

God, this horrible. I feel back for you. Anyway, what are we going to do? Yeah. Because I'm not running anything. And that's like seeing just because I'm the one sitting here on the face and I'm running around saying, you know, Matt Cox inside your crime. Like more of a branding thing.

You know what I'm saying? Like Michael Jordan's not running Nike. Right. Believe it or not. I mean, you would think that would be common sense, right? Yeah. And the proof is when I was in prison, the door stayed open. Why?

Because Jeremy Harrow wasn't doing everything. Yeah. That should be further proof, right? And so anyway, so I said, well, apparently this is a legal thing. He said, yes, you've been indicted for theft of government funds. Holy shit. Did you even know there was an investigation? I had no idea. Like, you know, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking the only thing I could think of was in any true crime show. Right. The suspect gets questioned. Right. Somewhere down the line. I had never been questioned. He never thought to ask me questions, right? And I'm going, this is what. weird. And I said, what does this even mean? Like, what did I steal? Like, these are benefits that I earned. These aren't wages. Like, this is because these are from sacrificing my body and my mind for this country. Right. You all sent me saying, I was healthy. And you said that if I become unhealthy, because of what I'm doing, that you would take care of me. Right. That's all this is,

right? And I'm not, I, you're also 70% or 30% functional. Yes. Right? Yes. So if I can do this at 30% capacity, because I'm coming and going as I feel okay, I'm, what am I doing?

Are they, are you making a salary that you weren't, that you weren't disclosing or something? No, so that's the other thing, right? So apparently they did a forensic audit. I didn't know that was happening either. They did a forensic audit. I learned about this in discovery. They found that I never take,

I never took a dime from this organization. I had Humana's top 100 leaders every year asked me to speak. They paid me $20,000 for 20 minutes. I told him to write the check to the organization. Right. I could use $20,000, man. Right. And technically, I'm allowed to make up to the poverty threshold,

which was for me is like $32,000. But just to make sure I wasn't crossing any boundaries, I said, no, just give it to the organization. that's how like walking the line I was doing and so no I never took nothing I didn't take mileage for my own vehicle none of that and so that's what I told him I said I'm not getting paid to do this he goes all we know what are you doing I'm like I'm volunteering I there's no rule that I can't volunteer and at that point I feel like he didn't give us yet and so he just hands me the summons and he says you know I want to do you a favor I'm not going to arrest you today and I'll

Okay. So he gives me the summons and he's got to be in court and he goes to walk out. He turns around. And the misconception is that some people think he'd done this to be nice, but he'd done it to be sarcastic. So he goes to walk out of the office. He turns around and says, by the way, I've been following you for a year and a half. He says, and you've done some amazing things for veterans and their families. And he walks away. And you want to talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. All this dude has seen me do for a year and a half is keep you. people off the streets, keep families together, keep veterans from hanging themselves in a closet. Like, how do you want, and if I, and if you think that I'm breaking the law, you're going to let me do it for a year and a half? I just going to let me break the, I mean, it doesn't make any sense. So they leave. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was going to say, you have to understand that in order for them to sleep at night, the FBI agent that was, her name was Candace Calderon, Candice Calderon. Candice Calderon,

special agent. It sounds like a special agent. Fuck. Like her own, the people that worked with her couldn't stand her. Like the other FBI agents are like, she's a fucking piece of work, right? And they're like, she's full, well,

and I'm thinking, I'm like, you're like, you're her, you've got the desk next to her. But she acted like I was the Antichrist. And it's like, I mean, and nobody else did. none of the other agent, Secret Service, FBI, anybody acted like they were just like, guys, just come in for all you. It's actually kind of interesting that she did this. She acted like I was kidnapping children and selling them to, to, I mean, and it was just like,

but what you kind of realize is that some of these people to make themselves feel important, they have to convince themselves that if you're committing a crime, that you are just the devil. You are disgusting. And then if this guy has spent a year and a half and he can't really find anything that anybody would really have considered a crime, then in his mind, he still has to justify that somehow.

You can mind, what if you're some fucking prosecutor, prosecute some guy and you're like, he was kind of a low-level guy, but he went to trial. So we got to, I got to really make it sound good. Yeah. So I really pour it on in front of the jury. And then that kid gets fucking 45 years when, you know, deep down, you made him an offer of like two. Yeah.

But you did such a good job, painting him as such a monster that the judge and the probation officer and the jury that they gave him 45 years. You have to go home and sleep at night and tell yourself that you scrape the award off of the, you. the war off of the face of humanity and that you're really a good person because otherwise what are you going to do? You're going to go, you're going to go home to your wife

and she's like, hey, whatever happened at the sentencing and say, I'm a fucking monster, bro. Yeah. I fucked up to the baby. I made a mistake.

This fucking guy, they came 45 years. But, you know, it's also compartmentalized. Yeah. By doing that, they can say, you know,

but that's where he fell. I mean, that's what the probation officer said. And that, you know, the probation officer said what you told him to say. Yeah. You're the one that said, hey, he did this and he did this.

And it's over 150 victims. And it's, uh, also he changed jurisdictions to evade detection. What are you talking about? He lives on the state line. He drove across the street to get a fucking 7-Eleven. Yeah, but he used the credit cards. We're adding wire fraud to that. And it's like, what are you doing?

You know, so, but he, you're the one that did this whole thing, but you still have to be able to go home to your wife. You can't tell her that. You say, well, listen, man, he got 45 years. He had it coming. Yeah. He had it coming. Listen, I mean, he's a bad guy.

You know, I, thank God, you know, at least society's safe. What are you going to do? Tell your wife, you're a fucking scumbag. Right. You can't do that. But you know they got to know. Oh, deep down, you know, they're always going to know. I don't know.

I feel like some of them, I think that very quickly, I think that the ones that do know don't last long as prosecutors. I think the ones that are there for 25 years, anybody that's there over five or six years. Yeah. They've diluted themselves. into believing that they're, that they really are saving humanity. And they, it's a delusion, right? Like, and you could delude yourself into anything, you know what I'm saying? I'm committing crimes telling myself like,

nobody's getting hurt. It's a pity from every victim, you know, ah. You know, you, you know, criminals do it every, every day. They, they delude themselves. They, they justify what they're doing. So you can do that. And for them, they're doing it for the good guys. So it's even easier.

Right. Yeah, he broke the law. And what am I supposed to do? He broke the statutes. You know, it's horrible. And it's, he has to go to jail. And I don't, I didn't choose the 45 years. The judge did.

That's not mine. I probably wouldn't have given him 45, honestly. It probably would be able to give him 20. But I built the case. You know, but you did give him 45 because it was your, all of you talking to the, to the probation officer who created the, the, um, the pre-sentence report that was then given to the judge. Yeah. And the judge determined.

your sentence based on that report, even though the judge sat through the whole trial and knows damn well if he was paying attention at all, that that's not what really happened. Right. He still goes off the PSI because you lost. Yeah. You're guilty. Yeah. Yeah.

And when we get down a lot a little bit, I got a prosecutor's story that just really kind of lends itself to what you were just saying. I'm sure you do. I'm very good. Yeah. Yeah. So after he left, you know, I went downstairs and Corey's confused. Like, he thinks we were up there talking about veteran stuff. And he's like, what, what they want?

And I said, man, those were agents. And so I need to get over to one of my board of advisors is a lawyer. So I need to get over to Carl's and see what he thinks about this. And so I head over and he's in the office and I said, hey, what is this? Because to that point, I had a speeding ticket from 2008. So the only thing I had on my record, right? So I said, Carl, I mean, I know a little bit about indictments. I know our president gets indicted a lot.

I know it's a bad thing. Right. Right? But that's the gist of it. and he looked at it and he kind of got a little teary-eyed, man. And this is a retired colonel, right? Right. It typically don't happen.

And I said, what's going on? He said, Jeremy is serious. He said, they're going to try to put you in prison for helping veterans. I said, think about what you just said. Right. I'm like, for volunteering? Like, I don't understand. What, like, how do I steal something that was given to me by the organization?

Like the VA, they're the ones who determined my level. I didn't go in there and order something off an Al-A carte menu. They did their evaluations. They determined I was just disabled. They gave me the rating. And now all of a sudden, I'm the guy who stole something. And he said, you need to find a criminal defense attorney. And I'll recommend somebody.

And he recommended somebody. And I went over and talked to the guy. And right away, I said, hey, I want to go to trial. Right. And he's like, well, you know, the statistic. Right. You know, I said, I don't care about statistics. I said, are you willing to do that if you're not?

I understand. I need to find somebody who is. He goes, in this case, I think I may be willing to do that. We got into it a little bit. Two weeks later, he gives me a call and he says, Jeremy, I think you got a plea. And I said, we already talked about this. I'm not going to plea. And he says, well, listen, I'll take this to trial.

He said, but when you're sitting in prison somewhere, and he said, I'm going to make you sign a letter that you don't write me a letter and tell me I didn't do my job. Right. And I said, so you're quitting already. So you've already just given up. I said, well, I think we're done. Right. So fired him, lost 15 grand, right? Because he definitely didn't give a refund.

Yeah. And then went on this tour trying to find a couple of turns and one. Nobody wants to go to trial with the feds, man. It's ridiculous. It's like, what did you go to law school for? Just to kind of send the office and write up, you know, clear agreements. And so anyway, I found a couple good attorneys who wanted to go to trial. The only issue was they've never seen a case like this.

In fact, this was a one-of-one case. The only thing similar is if someone had the same rating that I had, but were running a business for profit while being rated like me or was making six figures a year while being rated. But nobody that had been volunteering had ever been charged. See, what really happens in this circumstance, 99.9% of the time is if the VA thinks that you're improving, what they do is they send you a letter that says, we propose to reduce your benefits. and we're going to give you another evaluation.

And if we feel like you're getting better, then we're just going to reduce your benefits and you're going to go on with life. That's what they do to everybody else, right? But for some reason, they want to, I mean, I know the reason. The reason is because I was known, right? It was a headline.

And it was a feathering your cap type thing. So they decided to, you know, send me the criminal route. And so we're talking through that. And so they're like, okay, we'll take the case. And so a couple days later, the prosecutor calls my trial attorney. He says, hey, I'd like to try to get together to see if we can resolve this case. It wants you to play. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm naive, right? Like I said, never been in this situation. So I'm like, Nick, let me know what time and stuff. I'm going to show up. He's like, you can't come. I'm like, this is about me. He says, and it doesn't matter, man.

And he's like, Jeremy, I'll be there representing you. I'll let you know what's said, right? And I'm like, okay. So now I've already told Nick, his name's Nick, I've already told him, like, I made this statement that I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees and that I've worn uniforms and I've ate bad food for a lot of years of my life in the military, right? I'm not worried about prison. So I'm not, that's not the scariest part of it for me.

The scariest part for me is it's an attack on my character, right? It's a tackle my integrity and also the part about my family, right, the attack on my family and how it's going to impact my family financially. And so I didn't know he was going to say that later, right, in that meeting. So he's in that meeting and I guess they're going back and forth. And so the deal that the prosecutor had was if Jeremy pleads, then he'll do six months home confinement. He'll never go to prison and he'll have this restitution.

And my lawyer said, no, he's not going to plead. And he said, we should try to bring this down to a misdemeanor. And I don't know exactly how it went because I wasn't there. Who said we want to bring it down to a misdemeanor? My attorney. Okay, he said, let's bring it down to a misdemeanor. Yeah, he's just trying to give me the best. Yeah, yeah.

Right. And so the prosecutor says, well, really, I don't have much say over this case. Really? That's weird. Yeah. And so my lawyer says, well, wait a minute. I've been a prosecutor. And we choose our cases. Who has say over the case? And he's like, that's way up the flagpole. So my lawyer says, well, that's who I need to be talking to. And he says, that won't happen. And so my lawyer said, well, then looks like we're going to trial.

And Jeremy says that he's eating bad food and wore uniforms for a long time as adult life. So, of course, that didn't appease him, right? So that was the last deal that they were going to make. And so now we're preparing for trial, right? And about a couple weeks before trial happens, one of my attorneys falls off, right? So I had to get a new attorney. So that was kind of stressful. What do you mean?

Why does he? He bows out? No, it was a female. Now, she left, had to go to work for the state as a prosecutor for insurance reasons. Okay. Right? Because she had some medical issues, which I think it worked out for the best. But nonetheless, we had a new attorney.

We had to get up to speed. And the ambiguity and the complexity of this case, it's not cutting dry. I mean, because you're talking about mental health. You're talking about subjectivity. And now the lawyer that I have, Nick, is great with murder cases. He's great with those types of cases. And so, you know, he's trying to make this case into one of those cases. And so I'm kind of pushing back on him and the other guy, and I'm saying,

we can't think of it like that. Like we've got to attack the mental health portion of that, the mens rea, right? the mind, the intent, the knowing, it's a knowing and intent case. So we're going back and forth. We're trying to prepare for trial. We think we got it. We go to trial, right? And jury selection, anybody that's a veteran, gone. Anybody that knows a veteran, gone. Anybody that's been in the VA, gone. Right? Then there was this part where they ask, is there anybody who would have a problem sending this man to prison? Like eight or nine people got up and said, no, I know, what he does, there's no way I can send him to prison. So they're gone. So then I'm looking at

this jury who don't know anything about the VA. In five days, they have to learn the VA disability process. Right. Now, you think about how many veterans don't know the disability process. In fact, that same month of trial in the Indiana Bar Association magazine, they had an article about the complexity of VA disability claims. So I know that I'm hurt right there, right? So we're we get done with that part and we start opening statements and all that. And we start getting into, you know, witness testimony. And there were a lot of parts of trial. And I will say this, man, you know, there's a lot of people that don't go to trial, right?

And I know why. It's brutal. 99.9% of everybody, yeah. It's brutal, man. Like, I've been through a lot of my life and I will tell you that it was very difficult to sit there for eight or nine hours a day and listen to all these people talk about you and your life

and what you were thinking and you can't say nothing. Like, it's probably the highest form of torture because nobody's getting it right. They're all just guessing. You're sitting over there like, what the fuck? Like, it's way off.

And I'm elbowing both lawyers. And it got to the point, man, where they had to hold my chair. I'm spinning around in a chair. I'm so anxious. I'm turning around looking at my wife, trying to let her be like my calm. And I remember before it even started, my lawyers was like, Jeremy, you can't show any kind of, you got to be stoic. And I did that for the most part, but there was just some things, man.

They were just, so they started doing cross-examination on the agent. My lawyer asked the agent, says, is there anything that Mr. Harold would have ever received that said that he couldn't volunteer or that he was doing something wrong? The agent says no. It's good for us, right? Then the VA expert gets on there 12 years. VA Rader. Lawyer says, is there anything in the regulations within the VA manual that says that Mr. Harrow can't volunteer or there's a restriction on how much you can volunteer?

No. Is there anything in that whole regulation that has the word volunteer? No. If Mr. Harrell volunteered at an animal shelter for eight hours. would that, would that cause you to do what's happening here today? No. Okay. So we're like, good, right?

So then the last person that we needed to talk to was the examiner, the doctor, the psychologist, right? Who does the CMP exam, the compensation of pension exam? She gets up there and my lawyer says, did you know before you did this last exam on Mr. Harold that he was being investigated by the OIG agent? And she says yes. And he says, so you have confirmation biased. She says, potentially yes. He says, well, how do you give an accurate exam?

With confirmation bias, right. Right. And she says, well, I'll just try to do the best I could. Right. And then she goes on to volunteer this information. It's in the transcript, man. She says, and I even had to put boundaries on the agent. because in order for me to do my job, because he continued to push.

And he's like, okay. And so later down the line, she talks about coming up with her findings, which were consistent with every other exam that I got, right? Right. But then the agent sent her an addendum. So my lawyer is like, was this addendum medical evidence? She says, no, it was links to news interviews and podcast and things that Mr. Harold had done and basically saying, well, look what he's doing.

She's trying to sway. I mean, he's trying to sway her by saying, look, he's doing this. He's doing that. He's functioning fine, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And so he says, so he turns around and looks at the age, and he says, are you a mental health professional? he says no. He says, well, why is he giving you an addendum?

Right. And if there's no medical evidence, you know, my client's able to talk, right? And that kind of thing. So she was just flustered, right? And then I had a letter from my actual therapist who just happened to be the chief of the PTSD clinic at that hospital. He has seen me every month since 2008.

When I first told him that this was going on, his exact words in his office, which probably frowned upon at the VA, but was, what the fuck are they trying to do to you? Right. I said, I have no idea, but this is what they say. He wrote me a letter that, you know, saying that Mr. Harrell is right at the way he should be. He has significant impairments and this, this, this, this and this that affects social work and all these other things, right? I send that in. They come back and say that the agent's report was more persuasive than my psychologist's report.

Now, understand, like, the agent is a law enforcement officer. Right. This is the chief of the PTSD clinic, man, the exact diagnosis that's in question here. And they wouldn't let us subpoena him either. So we're still feeling good, though, because of those issues there, right? I mean, if there's nothing about volunteering, if I never received anything saying I was doing anything wrong, and then she's got all these issues with her exam that I was never supposed to have, by the way, they said in 2010, I was permanently and totally disabled with a static disability, no future exams.

I don't know what you think, Matt, when you hear permanently and total. Right. But when I hear it, it means forever. Yeah. 15 years later, you got to all of a sudden you change your mind, right? And so anyway, the jury goes, does their thing two hours later, calls us in there. Sure enough, man, guilty. And dude, I felt like my legs were going to fall out from under me, right?

So I look at my lawyer and the first thing I say was how in America do you go to prison? Because I knew you're going to go to prison. generally any Fed case for the most part. If you go to trial, you're going to prison. 100%. It's a guarantee. I said, do you go to prison for volunteering to help people? Right?

And he's like, Jeremy, first thing we've got to do is keep you out. Right. And I just remember hearing my wife, man, and my kids back there, you know, like, my kids are crying. My wife sighed so loud, dude. Like, she just took her breath away, right? My daughters are wondering, like, isn't this, isn't this what we're supposed to do? My dad's just doing what he's supposed to do. Like this is what, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Well, then my lawyer is like, you know, judge, we asked that my client, you know, remain out on bond until sentencing. And the judge says, you know, one thing that we heard this, one thing that we learned this week is that Mr. Harrow absolutely is not a danger to this community. And so there's no real reason that we don't think he could remain out on bond. and the prosecutor didn't want me out on bond, right? And wanted me to... Like, a cucker. Yeah, he's like, well, we think Mr. Rero should be, you know, should be remanded. And, of course, that didn't work, obviously.

So I left on bond. A couple months later, I go to Senate. And this is where things get really weird, man. So that was in August, December. I go to sentencing. We go in there. We have 250 people in the courthouse. Just people support me.

the prosecutor tries to do this little mini trial, right? So he puts the agent back on the stand again. And it's just really weird. It was like a five-hour sentencing, by the way. And this is one thing I thought was I. You're talking about prosecutors and stuff. And so I sent about 70 letters in or people did, right? From generals, the chief police, to politicians, all these, you know, prominent people.

And so they must have really got. got to him, dude, because he stands up. He's visibly shaken. He said, Your Honor, I'd like to address these letters. It's like the first thing he did. And he says, you know, I don't always read these letters, but I've read every one of these letters. And he said, I want to read some excerpts from these letters. So he starts going on. And he goes, these letters are a bunch of keyboard Warriors, Your Honor. These aren't even sworn statements. He said, these are Mr. Harrell's loyalist.

He's the great deceiver. You know, he's just going off. Now, most of the people that wrote those letters are in the gallery. Right. And, I mean, you're talking about general, you know, generals and, you know, he's just calling them keyboard warriors or stuff. And he's just going off about these letters. and you can just hear some grumbling.

And the marshal kind of gets the edge of his seat because everybody's getting a little. And so finally he does this thing. And they says, you know, these letters, Your Honor, should be aggravating. These should be aggravating because this shows that Mr. Harold has no acceptance of responsibility, that he actually has these people believing that he was targeted, that this was political, blah, blah, blah, right? So he, I mean, I thought he was going to have a heart attack, dude. So then he, and he's a young guy.

But he finally calms down. And then the judge, you know, he says, he starts doing this thing. And he says, you know, before we go any further, I want to address the court on something. He says, you know, he says, I read every one of those letters. And he says, Mr. Chapman, I don't agree. He said, you're a fine prosecutor. But I don't agree with what you said. He said, I read every one of those letters.

And I believe everything, everybody. he wrote in those letters. And he said, I believe that's who Mr. Harrow is in large measure. I believe that's a character of who he is. And you would have, man, you should have fired up, right? And just shut it down. And so we're sitting there. And of course, you know, he's talking about how I should have 24 months,

three years, you know, all the things, right? He's going off, all these, you know, aggravating circumstances. He has still yet to accept responsibility. In fact, here's a Facebook post where he called this Iranious, an Iranist conviction, and where his wife, look at his wife's Facebook post. And, you know, it's First Amendment, right? And so, you know, my lawyer was going back and forth. Anyway, they're doing their thing.

And then I had a chance to do my allocution, right? So I just got up there and just, I basically, respectfully as I could just told the judge, you know, I wasn't up there trying to beg, plead, trying to save myself. I just said, you know, this is why I did what I did. There's people out there hurting. There's people out there killing themselves. People that I served with, people I haven't served with, but people I care about. I feel like I did the right thing.

I volunteered my time. You know, I'm disabled. I had time to do it. When I felt like I could do it, I did it. And I said, no matter what happens today, I'm going to continue to help people. I'm going to continue to make sure they have what they need, you know, and I'll do that here. I'll do this in prison, and I'll do it when I get out of prison. And he just kind of smiled, man.

And he said, I have no doubt that the work that you've done will continue. And in fact, Matt, the craziest thing, man, to this day, I've never been complimented so much by any man than I was that judge that day. Of course, before he sent me to prison, because after we got through all the, after we got through all the, you know, all that, all the compliments, right? but when there's a verdict of guilty, right, which he goes through all the, you know, all the rig and row of why he made his decision and, you know, I think there's this and there's that and it kind of meets in the middle and what are you got? And he gave me, he gave me six months in prison, six months home confinement. And when you're a supervised release and, of course, restitution.

And, man. What's the restitution? The restitution is 207,000. That's what they say I owe. And the way that they come up with that number is in 2019, when we formed the nonprofit. Now, I don't own a nonprofit, right? It's to make sure everybody knows, like, no one person owns a nonprofit. Right.

But I signed a docu sign with my initials, right, as an officer. Right. But they say, the government says, when I did that, I become employable. Okay. I don't know. I've never seen, where does it say that? Like that was just the decision they made. Yeah, they just come out thin air with it.

If that's the case, every disabled person who signs their initials or their name, if that means you're not disabled anymore, they're in a human being alive that's disabled. But that's, that was a standard for me. So that's how they got the number. big enough to make this a felony, big enough to go to get me to that guideline, right, to get me over the probation hump, right, to send me to prison. Somebody, they had to send me to prison, right? My lawyer did ask for probation.

That was his last like Hell Mary. You know, he did that whole, you know, your honor, just get my client, 10,000 hours of, what do you say, of community service. serving veterans. And the judge says, well, it sounds like we don't need a, we don't need an order for him to do that. Sounds like he does that already. But, and then I remember the, the prosecutor asking for something else. And he says, he says, Your Honor, you keep punting everything that we're doing here. And I remember the judge saying, we're going to use sports references in federal court. You know, he was a little upset that the prosecutor,

but the prosecutor felt like everything he was throwing at me that the judge was just kind of kind of pushing it off. And so I think he's still mad today that essentially I kind of got pretty much the same sentence that I would have got had I pled. So there was no trial tax. And it was kind of a 60% variance. But the last thing, you know, the judge said, he says, Mr. else is going to hurt you for a little bit.

He said, but I don't think it's going to hurt you for a long time. And so when that happened, I said, look, I just want to go as soon as I can to get this over. I don't want to do it. So, you know how some people want to push it off as far as this. So the next month, right, I self-surrendered in Ashland, FCII Ashland to the camp. And so in January, I go down to the camp and you got to check in at the low, right? So we were kind of doing like this documentary, and we'd been filming up to that point. Funny story is the guy, the production company, they wanted to do a drone of me.

I said, don't you, I said, listen. You get you thrown in the pen. I told him right. I said, man, whatever you do for the love of God, don't do that because that's going to fall on me. And luckily he didn't do that. But can you imagine? That would have sucked for me. Yeah, you'd have gone to a pen.

they would have thought that was cute at all. Yeah, I was like, I don't think you understand. They don't care if that fucking drone is over the, oh, it was over the parking lot. I don't give me a shit. Yeah. Did you ever hear the one, the guy that was, I don't know if you've ever heard the, I've told the story a couple times before. There was a guy who got, I don't know how much time he got, whatever, six months a year

at like a, at a low or something. Maybe it was a camp. I don't know, it was a low, low, it was like a joke, right? Like, you went to a camp. Like, you get there and you're like, this is a joke, right? Like it's not a prison prison. It just sucks. It's a really shitty summer camp.

Right. But this guy got to like the low and his father, his family owned a construction, large construction company. Yeah. And so let's say he goes to the low. Calls his dad. He's talking to his dad one day. He'd been there a few weeks. He's like, oh, what's going on?

I'd spend a couple hours in the yard, walking the track, whatever. Oh, okay. It's like, how big is the yard? He goes, it's pretty big. It's probably, fuck, it's probably three football fields. Well, you know, we got the cop. We got the helicopter. I could land in a helicopter and it pick you up.

We go to lunch or, you know, take off. What he made a joke about landing the helicopter and taking off. And they laughed about it. He's laughing and they joke about it for a little bit. Okay, they talk, house mom, whatever, but okay, hanged at the phone. Guards fucking, the guard, it was one of the random calls that they listened to. And you know what's so funny is instead of that guard being like, this is clearly a joke. They didn't schedule a time.

They didn't. It wasn't serious. They weren't talking in semi-co. They were clearly joking about this. As soon as they heard it, called the lieutenant's office, cuff up, brought him to the fucking shoe, sat in the shoe for whatever, however many months. And he spent the rest of his time at the pen. That was their highlight of the day, man. Yeah.

Like that, that, like, you know. And I get it. There's certain things. You don't joke about certain things. Right. I understand you don't joke about certain things. You know, somebody's on the, on a plane. You know, there's certain things you don't say.

They don't even fucking joke about it. Right. You know, and I get it. It is a joke, but it's inappropriate. Yeah. But that was clearly, like, what are you doing, Mel? Come on. You know, we're just.

And he can't control what someone else says either. Right. And his father said it where he's different if he said it. Right. And you could tell there's just two boneheads. They just don't have any idea. You know, this is to him. He's probably got.

I don't know what he got, six months or is an 18 months. I don't know. But it was so low that he ended up in a camp or a low. Right. So if you go directly to a camp or a low, like it didn't get a lot of time, probably. Right. So anyway, whatever. But yeah, yeah, they don't, it's not funny.

So that drone? Yeah. They would have done. Yeah. I'm glad that I knew he was going to do that. Just imagine if I didn't know he was going to do it. I just happened to see him have it. And I was like, no, listen, me, you can't do that ever.

Yeah. So we didn't do that. But I walk in, you know, say goodbye to the family, walk in. And, you know, when we get in there, there's the metal detector writer, the CO there. And I have my Veterans Club shirt on because we've been filming. And, you know, they ask brilliant questions sometimes. And he says, you a veteran? I said, I said, I am.

He said, what did you do? And I said, well, this is what they say I did. He said, you got to be shitting me. I'm a veteran. Right? And I said, no, I wouldn't just be here, man. Like, I said, this is what, so he's like, so he walks me through and stuff. This is the CEO that greets you when you walk in the door.

Yeah. So as we're walking through, any veteran CEO that he sees, he says, tell him. Right. So I'm telling him, because they're all on some level of disability too. Yeah. Right. And he's like, what? They're all like, what do?

Well, as we get further in, there's a couple that turn the corner, they come down the hallway, and they recognize our organization and they recognize me. they say, Jeremy, like, what are you doing here, man? They're like, wait, we just order some of your hoodies and your t-shirts and stuff, man. And I said, oh, I appreciate it. And they thought I was there on a tour, right? And I said, no, man, I'm here. You know, it's got a sentence here.

And they're like, you got to be shitting me. I'm like, I'm not. They're like, for what? And I said, well, just Google it. Yeah. That's the first thing that pops up, you know. And they just couldn't believe it, man. It was so awkward, right?

It's kind of weird going to a prison in Kentucky, right? And so we get down and do the, you know, strip search and all the stuff you do. And then I remember them saying, all right, when you go out the front, there's a path. And you just walk down this path and over there is the camp. And I said, you just want me to walk over there? Like, wait a minute. Like, is this a setup? Well, there were some other guys with me who just come from higher security, right?

And they too were like, there ain't no cuffs or nothing. wait a minute, man. So everybody's kind of weird about it. And they're like, no, just walk over there. I'm getting my truck. I'll meet you all over there, right? The counselor. So we finally get over there and we get in there.

And one of the other things that I do is I'm a chaplain with Billy Graham Foundation. So with Samaritan's purse, like, for example, when Helene hit and Milton hit, I come down to Punta Gorda and I did some ministry down here for those people. So when I get over there and I'm just getting my stuff, right? you know, everybody is able to look you up right before you ever get there, right? There's a lot of devices. And so they come up, hey, man, we don't have no chaplain here. Can you lead Sunday services?

And I'm just thinking, surely, the God ain't the whole purpose of this thing is to come here and lead Sunday services, right? So I'm like, well, wait a minute. I'm like, wait a minute, man. Like, you know, I didn't even put my stuff down. I don't even know where I'm going to sleep yet. So we get our stuff and go sit down. And sure enough, I start doing it.

doing that, right? And that's basically what I did. When I was there, I did that. And then I tried to find a job. You know how you got to work. Yeah. This is kind of funny, man. I was so naive. I go into the counselor's office right one day and I say, hey, I know you say that we got to work. I can't find any job listings. Like, where do y'all put the job listings? And he said, what do you think we got indeed.com here or something? And I said, I don't know. I mean, I'm just trying to do what you asked me to do. It says, you walk around and you ask CEOs. And I said, okay. So I start walking around. And he says, go out to the garden. They sometimes need help. And I'm like, well, where's the garden? He's like, oh, it's about a quarter mile, maybe a little more on the other side of the low. I said, well, you want me just to walk down there? He said, yeah, you just got to have a vest on. I can't believe this, man. I'm like, you want me to walk.

walk out, like just walk. So I go up to the bubble, we call it, right? And I say, hey, can I get a vest? I'm going out to the garden. What for? I'm looking for a job. Sure enough, it gives me a vest. I just walk right out, man.

It's just strange walking on the side of the road, right? And you see everybody's green uniforms, walking up and down the road. Well, you're outcusty. You know, my wife, Jess, they put her in like four other female inmates. They dropped them off at the bus station. They got on a bus and they took a bus, you know, across the country. I think it was, I don't know if it was a day or two days, but yeah, they just drove their, just, you know, in their prison, in like their prison outfit. Yeah.

To where's she, Illinois? I think she went to Illinois. But yeah, from Coleman, I think she went to Illinois. She was there for like two years and then back to Coleman. Yeah. It was the same thing. She was on the lawnmower crew. Like the guy, like there's literally, there's like eight vehicles and they just go off.

Nobody's watching them. It just don't make sense to even have a camp. Well, that's, but that's Trump's point. That's why he wants to close all the camps. He's like, these people are out custody. Why aren't they on just an ankle monitor? Right. And they can go to work and stay with their families.

Why can't you do this? Pay taxes. Yeah. Right, right. Why are we spending, you know, $200 million a year to keep a bunch of camps open for people that you're saying are so non-dangerous to society that they don't. that they don't even need a fence around these places. Like, this doesn't makes no sense.

Yeah. Donovan Davis had the keys to a truck that the guards called his truck. Oh, that's Donovan's truck. Like, nobody drove his truck. Yeah. He was like, no, I had the keys. I parked the truck. I drove around all day.

I mean, he was there. Like the town driver. Yeah. No, no, he didn't drive anybody. He had a truck because he's fixing diesel equipment. They're shipping equipment across the country to the Coleman facility so that he could work. on it because he's a diesel mechanic he's like listen for 25 cents an hour of course of course he's got his own truck he's got like it's like they loved in there he's driving around he's like oh you

could do anything he's like i just i could drive their truck off they they wouldn't know for hours they would never know i think that's probably the main reason they don't close camps because they take care of everything oh they do all the moan they do all the yeah yeah they mow all the The low, mows all the, all of the, does all the, um, all the mowing, all of the, uh, uh, landscaping, everything. The low for two pins, the low, I'm sorry, the camp, the camp, the low, the medium, and two pins of the entire area. Yeah. If they close that camp, now they, they might, actually that they, now the people at the low would

have to do it. Right. Yeah. Which they want to do it because they want to get, they want to get out of the fence anyway. Yeah. It, listen, the job. makes your time go, boy, if you're just sitting in the unit, it's miserable. It's miserable. Sorry, but you go ahead. I know how it feels. Like it feels uncomfortable.

Like it's like weird. It's very, you keep thinking somebody's going to yell at you or, what are you doing out here? Get on the ground. You know, look. Yeah, well, you know what's, and then, you know, just, I couldn't find a job. Nobody hired me, which is weird, right? And then I come back to the counselor. I say, hey, nobody's hiring me. He's like, what's you doing? He's, So I said, well, I was a CEO of an organization. He goes, oh, you ain't going to be no CEO in here. I said, yeah, I understand that. And he said, well, listen, I'm just going to put you down as a compound orderly.

There's about five trash cans around the compound. Everybody fights over who's going to take it out. If you see a piece of paper, just pick it up. I said, it's fine. So he puts me down as then. And so I went to the education room, right? And I said, I asked the CEO in there. I said, hey, can I teach a class for people who want to know how to start a nonprofit?

Because there was, you know, guys, there was like, hey, we're going to back to my community and teach young kids. Yeah. You know, they can. I want to help reentry. I want to start something to help guys get out of prison. They were like, no, you can't do that. I'm like, wow.

They're like, that's part of your crime. I'm like, had nothing to do with the organization. Right. But really, what it really was is they didn't want me to create a group. They didn't want me to ever have a group of people, right, for whatever reason. So I did it informally. And then basically, I would go to this table every day. man, and guys would slowly start coming to this table, and we'd talk about whatever.

I started mentoring guys, guys who never had anybody tell them anything. You know, there's so many guys in prison. Like, it's weird because there's some of the most brilliant men I've ever talked to in prison. And then there's men that I feel like, I don't know where they ever, like they lived under a rock their whole life. And it hadn't been exposed to anything, but crime, right? It's just a weird paradigm. And here you are living together. And so I would try to help these guys with whether it's faith, whether it's just life, being a dad,

how to, you know, relationships, whatever it was. And all of a sudden we have this big group at a table. And so I just basically did that until I left. And then when I left, before I left, I found out that I was going to this halfway house. And it gets interesting here too. So I don't believe I'm going to a halfway house. And I've refused to accept that I'm going to have. halfway house.

And that shit doesn't work either, right? My refusal to accept, you know, I don't know what I thought was going to happen, right? But I'm like, no, I'm not going to halfway house. The judge didn't tell me to go to a halfway house. So they're like, we'll go talk to the secretary. So I go to the secretary. He looks like, I don't know, man. The guy looks like he never leaves that office.

And he's just looking straight at the monitors. And I said, you got me going to a halfway house. I'm not supposed to go to a halfway house. We're supposed to go directly to home confinement. Let me check. Nope. Going to a halfway house. And I'm like, something's wrong.

He said, whether it's wrong or whether it's right, on this day, you're going to go to a halfway. Right. So I called my wife. And the judge isn't running the BOP. I've heard that a million times. Yeah. But the judge says the judge doesn't run this. Yeah.

The judge don't care. Yeah. No, no, it's not that. It's the BOP doesn't care what the judge said. Right. He can recommend. Right. But what does that mean?

Yeah. So my wife comes and gets me. They give me two hours to get. It's about how long it takes to get there. So they give me two hours to get to this halfway house. I get to the halfway house. And, man, if I knew. Did you just stop for an hamburger?

Man, I did quickly. But I will tell you, it destroyed my stomach. Really? Right? Because I hadn't eaten anything like that, you know? And so I had to stop to do that too. But if somebody would have told me how the halfway house was, I would have stayed longer in prison.

Oh, how many times have you heard me say that? Yeah. The only reason I went to the halfway house at all was because I had no money. Like everybody else, you know, like otherwise, I said a million, I would have rather have done all my time in prison because the Halfway House was so horrible. Just there were so many rules. The nice thing about prison, I don't know how it is at the camp, but is that, and even at the at the, you don't, you don't have to have any interaction with the staff if you don't want to.

Right. At the low, you could go, you could literally go from one, you know, like once a year they have a meet, you have that meet with like your counselor. Yeah. You could literally go from one year to a next and just meet with your counselor. Like, and almost have no interaction other than a guard walking by you and counting you or something. You know, they, so you just don't need them for anything.

And so, but at the halfway house, there, it's every day you're having to deal with these people. And they're so ignorant and they're such assholes. Like, they really are such assholes. So they really try to act like CEOs. Yeah. But I had to go because I needed to, I needed the seven months. Like, I'm glad they exist. Yeah, yeah.

I had to go so I could work. Right. So you can make some money. Yeah. And back then, I understand somebody told me it's not like this anymore. is that back then they took 30% of my gross pay. They still do. Do they?

Okay. Somebody told me they don't do that anymore. They did where I was. Okay. Yeah. But everybody- They say they're saving it for you. Oh,

no, saving it for you. No, I didn't, nobody saved anything. I don't know that they save it for you. That's what they say. So you have a nest egg when you leave.

That's what they say. Did you get a nest egg? I didn't go nowhere. Oh, you didn't work. Okay. Yeah. Well,

typically what happened, is, and what my understanding is now that they, because when I did it, if I made a thousand bucks, they took 300 off the top. And of course, you still pay your taxes. So I was working for, I was making like 50 cents up for every dollar. Yeah. You know, but, and guys would complain all the time. And I was like, yeah, but wait a minute. Like, and they all wanted to go home and go, I want to get on ankle money. I want to go home. And I was always like, yeah, but where am I going to live for 30% of my pay, especially the pay that I'm making, which is nothing. Like, they're feeding me three times a day. And even when I go to lunch, like, I eat in the

morning and then they give me a bag of lunch. And these guys complain about the bologna sandwiches. I like bologna sandwiches. I like you, I could put mayo and the mustard and eat my bologna sandwich. I don't even care. It's gray. I don't care. It's good. So, but they would complain. I'm like, these guys are feeding me three times a day paying all of the bills. And I guess, Electricity and water. Yeah. Like, I'm like, where are you guys going to see? They all wanted to get home to fuck some, their girl or meet some chick or, you know,

they have ulterior motives. Right, right. I didn't have any. Or maybe they wanted to get home to their kids, right? I don't have any kids to get home to, you know. So, so and I needed the money. So, but yeah, it, it sucks. Yeah.

It does suck. Yeah. So we get there. And, you know, obviously, when you just see your family, right? Right? It's hard to say by, right? And I was supposed to be there for a certain period of time. I want to say it was about a month. And so I go in and I realize really quickly that they're trying to play that game, you know.

And they're doing all that and filling out all this paper and they're throwing some of the stuff I have away or not letting me have some of it. Whatever, no problem. So get acclimated. But didn't realize, though, that like the food was better there, right? and you can have more of it, right? And, you know, just trying to hunt a good. Of course, there was a female side, which was a little different, right? And, I mean, there's probably six of them, right?

And, you know, learning how to use the computer to ask to do certain things, you know, all that kind of stuff. They had a little gym. But it was tight. And the state guys were over here. The fed guys were over here. They loved the fed guys because they get more money for fed guys. Well, anyway, it was coming up on the time where I was eligible for home confinement. And in that time had come, and I asked the director, I said, hey, I should be on home confinement.

And she's like, Mr. Herald doesn't work that way. There's a lot of paperwork. And, you know, it's just a lot more to it than what you know. And I said, well, I called the RRM in Cincinnati, which is the regional office. And they said, my day is now. Right. And she said, yeah, but. The RRM doesn't always talk to the BOP.

I said, that doesn't make any sense. The RRM is the BOP. You mean they don't always talk to the dismiss charity? Is that what you're trying? She's like, well, there's just a lot to it. She's like, I'm not going to get into it. And I said, well, look, I'm just trying to get out of here. And I'm just trying to leave her quietly.

I just want to get home and get back to life. She said, Mr. Hill, nobody knows you're here. This is a very confidential place. It was the weirdest. We're just staying. And I said, okay. Okay. So I called my wife because I can have a phone in the halfway house.

And I said, I don't know. That does sound like they're going to let me out. So she gets on X, my wife. And she puts this a message. They're not going to let Jeremy out. She taxed Savannah. And she taxed Savannah. She tax Savannah, Chris.

How is she in contact with her? On X, right? Oh, okay. And Savannah reaches out. Okay. And. So Savannah, Chrisley is from the TV show, the Chrisleys. Yeah, the Chrisleys, yeah.

And with Todd Chrisley. Todd and Julie. Yeah. And they have a podcast. And she also has a podcast. She's worked with Trump to get her parents a pardon. And so, and she has a, she has a podcast where she talks to. Is it just, it's not, it's not just like inmate or guys, is it?

No, she talks to all different kind of guest. Yeah. Yeah. But I know she had like the pardons are on and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she has a good mix of people. But somehow, because I'm still in there, somehow Savannah gets a hold of Aaron. Who's Aaron?

My wife. Oh, okay. Right. And Aaron's kind of telling him to the story. They're not letting him leave. And Savannah's like, this is unacceptable, right? So Savannah, this is just the very next thing after her mom and dad was pardoned. This is the next week.

So Savannah's like, she's in this zone of helping people, right? Emboldened. Yeah, she's fired up, right? So then she gets a hold of the director of the BOP and somehow, I don't know what happens, right? I'm in this halfway house, but Aaron's working with him. And then Aaron all of a sudden calls me and says, hey, there's going to be this guy who's going to call you. And she sends me a picture like a screenshot of X where this guy takes a picture. of the airport coming to Louisville, Kentucky,

says, Jeremy, he tags me on, on X, says, Jeremy, we're coming to get you. And my first thing that Aaron was like, Aaron, you can't, you can't get spun up about this kind of stuff. This is impossible. Like, people say things, you know, I can't leave here. You know, it's like, it's an escape charge, you know, okay? She's like, no, I think this is real, right?

And so anyway, I said, okay, well, if it's real, we'll figure it out. Then all of a sudden, this guy calls. Who is this guy? It's a guy named Derek. Okay. Right. And I don't know much more about this guy, right? But he calls and he says, hey, we're going to come and get you.

And you're going to leave tomorrow by 3 p.m. I don't know like the way this sounds. And so. I mean, I'm sure it's perfectly fine. But so far, from your perspective, I'd be concerned. No, I was concerned. But it ended up being real good. Right.

So what was interesting is the BOP calls the RRM and says, hey, this guy needs to go on home confinement. So the next day, the director and the counselor at the halfway house calls me into the office. She's like, I'm going to give you this bracelet. And it's now looks like an Apple watch, right? I'm going to give this watch. We're going to go home confinement today. Really? So I played, you know, oh, that's good.

And I'm so glad, you know. So she's telling me all these rules, right? Did you, you didn't tell her anything? You didn't tell her anything. He said, no, no, listen, it doesn't work like that. I didn't say anything. So she puts this thing on my arm. And I said, so what time can I leave?

And she was like, well, we're still trying to figure that out. And I said, okay, if he tightens it up, we go down. And then I'm just kind of standing in the hallways. And I'm getting these phone calls from this guy who's like, hey, we're all staging. at this parking lot, and we got five news stations, and we're going to be there about 2.30. And the goal is to have you out of there about 3 p.m. Aaron was there, you know, a senator was there.

Yeah. So Savannah's on the phone. And so all of a sudden we're standing there. Some of the guys are standing there. I have all my stuff in my laundry bag. It's all that. And all of a sudden I hear this dude go, Man, why's the news in the parking lot?

And I was like, here we go. This is going to go over like socks on a porcupine, man. And then all of a sudden, the direction, because they got this little office, right? And she comes out and she looks straight at me. And I said, I just wanted to go home, like, quietly. You know what I said that, you know? And so she's like, what's going? So anyway, they come in and say, hey, you know, Mr. O, it's time to go.

And I said, okay. Okay. And she's like, no, you can't leave. Like, you can't leave yet. So on the phone, it's Christy Brashear, who is the communications person at BOP. He's trying to talk to this director, says, you know, Mr. Herald is to be released on home confinement right now. Right. And they still don't believe this. And, you know, to their credit, they don't know what's really going on. Right. This is not usual. Yeah, yeah. And so they're calling their director of the dismissed charities. Right. So their directors on the phone or whoever their main person is at the office on the phone.

They're going back. I'm standing there like just with my damn laundry bag. I'm looking at my wife outside. Everybody's confused. And they're going back and forth kind of arguing. Right. So then the director himself calls on speakerphone and is saying 15 minutes. He used to be out of there.

Right. And so then the district district is like, you know, you're on federal property. You need to leave. And then that to who? To the guy that's representing the BOP. And he says, well, this is Kwanzaa federal property. And it's only because you have a contract. Yeah, I was going to say, you guys are, you, you fucking retards are about to lose your fucking contract.

That's what are you thinking. That's what he said, right? And so then they were like, well, we're going to call the Lexington Police Department. And he's like, okay, well, then I'll just call the FBI office out of Louisville, Kentucky. We can have them here, too. And again, I'm standing there. It's more stimulation I've had in a while, right? And so I got one foot out, one foot in.

Then they look at me, right? The distance, and they're like, go to your room. I got a 12-year-old, you know? And I'm like, and he says, it'll be just one minute. So I go to the room, you know. Of course, all the guys are, what's happening out there, man? I'm like, dude, I'm just as confused as you are. But hopefully we'll find out a minute.

Sure enough, he calls me the phone. He's like, let's go. So I get ready to go out. their representative, whoever's high in the chain there, gets on the phone and says, Mr. Harold, you know you're eligible for home confinement. And I said, well, yeah, this is what this whole thing is about. I was eligible two weeks ago. She's like, well, what are you still doing in my building?

And I said, because your director wouldn't let me leave. Right. She's like, well, you are to leave and you are to go straight home. You cannot speak to the media under BOP policy. Fuck off. So then they come, so then he hears that. And then so Christy Bersheer said, He says he has explicit permission from the director to speak to the media.

So I go out. As soon as I get out the door, of course, my wife comes up, she hugs me, whatever. Then this police officer comes up. He's like, you missed her here. And I'm like, here we go. And I said, yes. He says, look, we're just going to make sure that when you're out there doing this interview that these guys don't bother you. I'm like, well, that's a change of pace.

Yeah. Wow. That's nice. So I go to, and then Aaron gives me the phone, Spence is on the phone. She's like, she's like, hey, I'm so sorry this is happening you. She's like, thank you for your service. She's like, I'll keep fighting for you on her stop. She's like, it's just the beginning of this process, you know.

And she's like, you know, I'll talk to you later. I know this is a lot. So we hung up the phone. I went and did this interview. And while I was doing that, the guy with the BOP is just like filming it with his phone. He sends it into them. I get in the truck to go home. And it's about 45 minutes away.

I get pulling my neighborhood. I look down the street in my driveway. there's three news stations in my driveway. And I'm like, man, this is a lot. I'm just trying to go take a shower and hang out with my people, you know. So we get in there. I do these three interviews real quick. They ask the same stupid questions.

How does it feel to be? You know, all that kind of stuff. What's the future of Veterans Club? You know, all that kind of stuff. And they leave. And then the director of the BOP calls. And he says, how are you doing? And I said, well, I'm better now.

He says, good. I'm glad you're better now. He said, listen, he said, he said, you know, I'm currently developing a team. This was in May of 25. He had just been appointed in April of 25. So this is right when Josh Smith and all then were being, I guess, coming on board. He said, I'm starting to develop a team. He said, we were almost done.

He said to make sure that these kind of things don't happen. He said, but what I would like to do if you can transition quickly is to come up and testify with the chrizzlies up to Congress about some of these issues. And I said, yeah, you know, just give me some time, you know. I'll try to do that. And, I mean, he was a solid guy, right? Good conversation. Hung up.

And, but I was a little perplexed, man, because I'm like, I don't know that I'm supposed to be talking to the, because I'm still, again, I'm still a BOP inmate, right? So I'm like, should I be talking to the director? Is that even legal, you know? I mean, I don't know, man, because, you know. He's the one who's making the, he's a turn. determining what's legal and what's not legal. Listen,

you understand that the warden of a prison technically has the ability to allow you to leave. No, I don't know that. Yeah. I mean, they, you know, whenever they do the whole,

oh, we don't have the funds and we can't this and we have to get permission. No, legally, you could, you could let me leave. Like, you,

like, it's like if the judge orders, oh, you have to move him to a camp. I'm not moving him to a camp. Like, it's like your, your jurisdiction,

their jurisdiction ends at the door. Oh, So, you know, that's why whenever these, the judges, they'll say, judge, we'd like him to go to a Coleman federal prison. He'll be like, well, I can recommend. Right. But that's all they can do. And they'll recommend. And look, the BOP will take an investigation.

That's what the judge said about me. Yeah. He's like, I can recommend, but I can't guarantee. Right. My judge wrote the warden of, I was at the low. Right. I'm not a flight risk. I'm at a low.

I actually, my points were actually like a one. Oh, okay. I was supposed to be at a camp. Under 10, you're supposed to be at a camp, right. But I had too much time. Oh, okay. It has to be under 10 years. 10 years to go to camp.

Yeah. My judge wrote a letter to the warden asking him to allow a film crew to come in and film me teaching a course because I wrote a course while it was locked up. Yeah. It's an ethics and fraud course that they use to train the nation's mortgage brokers. It meets the continuing education credits for federal. for loan officers. And that was one of the reasons they reduced my sentence.

So, but they wanted to the court, after I wrote the course, they wanted to get a film crew to come in just to teach, just to have me teach the course, you know, just go over what the, and really I just had to tell the stories that I had kind of written up. Yeah. It would have taken probably a couple hours. He wrote the warden, the warden said, no, we're not letting a film crew in here. Yeah.

Period. They're big on that. It was a two-page letter. It was probably the, it was an amazing letter. No, we're not interested in that. We're not doing that. You know, I had to request when I, same thing. My prosecutor wanted them let a camera crew and wrote a letter.

Same thing. They were like, no, we'll put him on the telephone. He can do the interview on the phone. What about cameras? Can we take it, bring a camera in? No, we're not letting a camera in here. And you're not letting it in the prison. We're talking about the visitation room.

Like, you can't even see the prison from inside the visitation room. Right. No. No, not interested. Yeah. This is a federal judge. These are a prosecutor. No, not interested.

They hate cameras, man. Yeah. These places. So, you know why that is? Is you, you're, so in the 80s, they haven't let cameras in since the late 80s. Yeah. In the late 80s, um, Barbara Walters did, uh, I don't know, what was she with? 60 minutes.

60 minutes she did. And this is where the term club fed came from. Oh, okay. She brought cameras into a camp and interviewed inmates. Used to be able to bring cameras in. And I don't know if it was Egglin or which, but it was, it was one of the nicer camps at the time. Yeah. And they had, you know, they had like a put putt putt thing where it wasn't golf, but they could, you know, they could kind of put kind of like a green set up.

Yeah. They had a tennis court. They had, like, they had a pool. A pool? Yeah, they had a pool. Yeah. It was a camp. It was a, that's what I'm saying.

I didn't have a pool. No, obviously. Because when this happens, they interview and they're talking about the food in prison. Right. And she's interviewing, well, they're talking about lots of different things. But one of the things was she asked one of the inmates, how is it here? They're like, that's nice. It's good.

I mean, it's a prison, but it's not. And they did several, several of them. But one of them was that they asked him about the food. Yeah. And he said, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. you know, sometimes we get lobster and sometimes we, and he's going through all the things that they feed. He's like, we don't get it.

And she's like, you get lobster. He's like, well, not as much as we used to. We used to get it a couple times a week. You know, they make the eggs for you and they, you know, he's going through all these things, right? Like he's not realizing that she's baiting him, right? And he is just leaning into it. He's just all in. And you can tell like it.

And she's like, it sounds like, like, you know, like you're at a country club or something. And he's, well, he's like, you know, yeah, I mean, it's, it's pretty nice. I mean, it's, and so if you were, think about it, this is some white collar criminal that you lost your life savings to, you're disgusted. Really, anybody would have been disgusted. Oh, yeah. And so they come out with this thing called club fed. And next thing you know, man, there's hearings in front of Congress. What are we doing?

Are these motherfuckers eating lobster? Yeah. Are you serious? And so it was, they dragged the Bureau of, the head of the Bureau of Prisons in, like who's, you know, who's some guy. who just got this job six months ago. You know what I'm saying? Like, this was all set up. This is how you Congress set up the whole thing.

You're paying us for this. This is where the money is going. And, you know, and there was a big thing, too, because it used to be back in the 80s that they were, you know, these were, there were no dealers, you know? Those guys weren't there. There were maybe, you know, it wasn't really even like a cartel. tell leaders, right? Like, there wasn't, the type of criminal that, that, that, that populates the BOP didn't exist then.

It was like 80%, you know, white collar guys. Right. Politicians that have been caught, you know, for corruption. And that's maybe 20%, 30%, you know, some bank robbers and some, like, these are more sophisticated crimes that are not, you know, maybe some Ponzi's, you know, but it wasn't what it is now. Right. And this is also before like the war on drugs. Yeah. So keep mind, Reagan suddenly started locking up. The local guy selling dime bags on the corner, you know,

who's selling, you know, during the, the, you'll have to beat this, but the epidemic. He said, and then gang members. Okay, you know what? Oh, the local police can't handle it. Okay. We'll go in federally grab them, lock them all up for 45 years. Oh, dealers, lock them up for 30 years. I don't, well, he was, he had two bags of crap.

You know, and a pistol, but 30 years, you know, let's, a hundred to one ratio, you know, for difference between powder and hard. Yeah. And it's like, but that was, when they did that, they turned the federal prison system into kind of like almost like a big state prison system. And then they, of course, after that, the club fed, it was so horrible for the BOP. Like they gave them such, when they went through such hell, they go in. they paved over the pool.

They paved over the, there's no put-putt golf. There's no, which, look, I'll be honest with, there shouldn't be any of that. But it just, you know, and it just turned into a state prison system with air conditioning. Yeah. And I'd say less violent criminals, but there are, not that there's not violent criminals. There are. But like the state system doesn't have anything like the BOP as far as the camps and lows. They call them camps and lows, but it's packed with drugs.

drug dealers and they're still cutting each other, stabbing each other. My whole unit was gang members and drug dealers. Right. I tried to get in a 50 plus unit, right? Because that's what I was told by a guy who, a politician that was there. Try and get the 50. He's like getting the 50 plus. It would be quieter, but I was 44.

I was going to say, are you 50? You're not 50. But I thought maybe, you know, I was close enough, but they're like, no, you can't. A lot of places will have veterans units. Coleman had a veterans unit. Did they really? Other than the art app unit, the best unit, so quiet and just calm. And, you know, all these guys have been in the military for so long.

Right. So they were, you know, they were, you know, they make their bed. They're their closer press. They're, you know, they're going through the motions of everyday life. Right. In the military, only they adapted it to the prison system. And, you know, and they were also older. A lot of these guys were older.

So it was a much quieter unit. It's so clean. Whenever they would have a tour, that's always the unit they brought it to it because it was. Everything sparkly. Not just that. There was no, like, there was no peeled paint. Like they would, pooh, blah, blah, they would sand it down and paint. It was a great. It's amazing unit. Pete was the head orderly in the, in the veterans unit. My buddy Pete would, he would do like the tour. They'd come in and he'd do the tour and he'd say, oh, and where'd you serve your time? Oh, I served my time at such and such and he was in the Navy. And he had a whole bit about how he had an injury during his time serving on the, whatever the name of the submarine that he was assigned to. Yeah. And if you heard the whole spiel, you walked away thinking, he didn't say this, by the way. He doesn't, he didn't, he used to say, it's true but misleading.

Yeah. He was, he took like the course for, what do you call it, for like the, it was like the, it was like the, the cryptology course or something. I'm sure I'm saying it wrong. But it's super smart. You got to be that smart. Yeah. He took that.

He was assigned to a sub, a boat, a boat, you know, they call it a, blah. You got to be a special kind of dude. Do you want to do that? Right. He was injured during his time in the Navy. Yeah. He did less than two years in the Navy. His injury was a skateboarding accident, which he then had to.

The only reason he went a couple of years in the Navy is because Once they did the surgery, he had to stay off it for six months. And just as the end of the six months was off, he went skateboarding, re-injured it and didn't want to sign back up. They begged him to sign back up because they don't have enough smart guys like it. Never stepped foot on the sub, but he was assigned to it. So if you listen to Pete, they were like, wow, he was injured during his time working as a cryptologist on the sub. Never been on the sub. skateboarding accident.

I mean, just, it's whole, when he, but if you heard him say it, you'd be like, and to this day, he will say, well, you know, when I was injured in the Navy, I'd be like, stop, stop. And he. Zavibro, you, you never left the base, you know, you never got on the boat. That's crazy. But he would, they would have him do the tour. He'd get there and the, and he said, listen, he said, you're so hilarious. These guys are shaking in my hand.

Thank you. for my service. What are you doing? So anyway, sorry. No, no, man. And so, yeah, so that's kind of how, you know, that part ended. And, you know, every since then, and we've been fighting this case, you know, we just, we just had oral arguments a couple months ago, just found out.

Oral arguments in what way? Did you file in 2255? No, I do have a 2255 filed. Right. They haven't responded to that yet. Now, the judge, when I filed that, I did. that I just come off of supervised release June 10th. Right.

Right. So June 8th, I filed a 2255. The judge responded with, well, you know, you need to do show cause on why this isn't moot now. Because now you're not on, now you're not in custody. So now you have to show. Yeah. Well, he said, now you have to show, and this is ridiculous, but now you have to show continued collateral consequences. which is very easy to do.

I mean, like you said, I'm still a felon, still have restitution, still have forfeiture, right? All the, you know, loss of opportunity. I mean, the sky's the limit, right? So, you know, I do this myself. I'm doing this pro se. I'm doing this myself. Resubmitted it. And all of a sudden, the government come back.

And I thought, oh, they're going to try to crush this. But they didn't. What was weird about the government's always been super aggressive with me. You know, my lawyer has always, you know, know, he's always said that they've treated me like the John Gotti of the veteran community. And, but in this, in this part of the case, they come back and said, in this context, we agree with Mr. Harold that his, his collateral consequences are not moot. But we do want to wait until he gets the opinion back from the forfeiture appeal.

So they just bought them some time because they didn't. So that's the opinion. But I did get, we went to oral arguments in April and Detroit, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. We had a three-judge panel. One of the judges was a chief judge. And that was interesting, man, to set through oral arguments. They only do that about 10% of cases.

And I thought it was weird that the chief judge was on a panel for forfeiture, $108,000. It's a lot of money to me, but it ain't me think about the grand scheme of things. And I did find out why when they published the opinion, it set precedent, which is why he was on it. But I had a lawyer from Paul Weiss, which is a big law firm in D.C. They picked up my case pro bono to fight that. I thought it was a good presentation. The chief judge looked at her at the end and said, had you been Mr. Harold's trial counsel, you probably wouldn't be here today. However.

In typical government fashion, right, we got the opinion two weeks ago. And although there were over seven procedural errors with what the court did, for one, one of the issues was that I wasn't present when they amended the judgment and added criminal forfeiture. Now, the Constitution says that when you sentence a defendant, he must be present so that he can object or ask for clarity. Well, they amended the judgment three times while I was incarcerated to add punishment, and I never was informed about it, right? So you would think that that alone would kill that case, but they called that a time-precedented error, not a process error. And there were some other ones, right?

Some invited errors, some other issues, and they wrapped them all together and pretty much just said, they were our harmless errors because Mr. Harold knew, from indictment that they were going to do forfeiture. And basically saying that my trial counsel didn't put up a good enough fight against forfeiture. And so that's another $108,000 that they're somehow going to try to come and get. But it does say that they published it. So the $180,000 is what you've already paid it down to.

You paid it, you paid off? No, I've paid over $94,000 in the last year. Okay. Right. Right. Because you owed it about roughly 200,000, right? Well, that was before a forfeiture. So, 207,000 is for restitution. 108,000 is for forfeiture.

It's two different things. Oh, okay. So restitution is what they think I owe the VA. Right. Right. For the benefits, they think I wasn't eligible for, right? And then forfeiture is just a penalty. It's just like punishment.

They think that's what, they think that's what I gained. Right? So they're saying, you know, we're just going to charge you that because of what you did. So now it's $300,000 some thousand, right? And now they don't have to do, restitution's mandatory. Yeah. Forfeiture isn't. Yeah, yeah.

And typically, they only do forfeiture like if they're trying to apprehend something, like a car or a gun. In my case, they know that I don't have, you know, I wasn't a millionaire, right? But yet they're still, they wanted, again, they've always real aggressive. with me, right? And so, so that's what we're dealing with now. I could have took it to Supreme Court, but at the end of the day, man, the government is designed to win. We are not designed to win, right? But I fought it every step of the way, and I just feel like it's fruitless now. I mean, the Supreme Court takes very few cases. They're not going to take a $108,000 case. And I'm on a different track for clemency. I'm just going to focus.

more in that area. And hopefully, that looks good. And Savannah's, is she helping you at all? Because towards the end, she said, I'll never stop fighting. Yeah. When you were walking out this, so I'm wondering if she's still, is she still actively working behind the scenes or anything? Yeah, I think there's opportunities where she, you know,

she mentions my case to people. I can't confirm it. You know, we don't talk every day, you know. I try, I know that people reach out to her constantly. Yeah, yeah. So I try not to do that. But, you know, anytime I've asked, you know, hey, can you write this letter or, you know, she's always willing to do that. Have you, so did you, who put together your clemency or your pardon petition?

So I put it together. Okay. With an attorney. and sent it up. And then we have some different advocacy channels that we're working with to kind of see that through. The application isn't hard. I say that. It's it's cumbersome.

It's time consuming. Right. We have to give certain documents together. So much. We want to see your. PSR. What about your indictment? Yeah, yeah, all that.

All the. I mean, all your references, character letters, people have letters of support, you know, all your background information. I mean, it is, it is time-consuming, but it's worth it. You know what I mean? And so, you know, the last thing that I've heard about that is my probation officer back in April was contacted and asked whether or not he thought that I was suitable or not suitable for clemency.

What do you say? He said, yeah, man. You know, from... Sounds like your judge would say yes. I think so. You thought about writing him a letter and saying, hey, great if you could throw a letter in there. Well, so my probation officer said, we said.

So my hope is that he's part of that we. Now, I will say, like, in my PSR, the probation office recommended no prison for me. I mean, the judge didn't listen to that, right? Yeah, that's some bullshit. But they recommended no prison. And they've had it this from the beginning. And the first meeting I have with my probation officer out of prison, he says,

he says, if you need me to write a letter for you, I'll write a letter for you. Now, I never, I never let him do that because I don't want any issue, right? Okay. No kind of, no kind of bribery, none of that kind of thing, you know. But I think he was able to communicate through the suitability response. but I remember talking to him, he said, you know, I've only seen one guy in my four and a half years ever get pardoned. And what they generally do when that happens is they call and ask me for information.

And he says, usually that's a good indicator. Yeah. That was day one of then in April. I asked him to go out in my district for something. I always do that, right? He says, approved. And oh, by the way, they called me that, you know, so my hope is, in a future.

Right. Maybe, you know, maybe I get the nod. But you just never know, man. It's always up to the president's discretion. And I think I have a good case for it. You know, I mean, here's the deal. You know, I volunteered to help people, you know, stay alive. You know, we've helped thousands of veterans.

I've never gotten anything for it. Well, I mean, I think the problem is, is that they were paying you. And their expectation is that you would spend the rest of your life sitting on your couch playing. What is the, what's the war one where they play with? Fortnite. And look,

I do this. This is how long. That's Atari. We're old, man. This is how long it's been since I played. Yeah,

no, now they do that. It's the thing. They got 19. They got 19 freaking things. I'm not even coordinated enough to play these games. I have actually contemplated

getting like a, like a Xbox. Something. When Grant, that's Auto comes out. Yeah. We'll have you play it and we'll, Mike,

we'll do a video about it. Okay, listen. Yeah, that's it. because it can't come. My fear is that I'm like, I see these guys and I'm like, this is almost like an addiction to these people. Yeah.

And I think I have an addictive personality, right? Like I'll get on something. Yeah. Like I'll start painting and then I'll knock out six paintings in, you know, a painting a week. And then it's done. Yeah. I'm exhausted there. I'll decide I'm going to open.

I'm going to start a website. I'm going to start a website. And I'll start three websites. Yeah. And I'll work on them straight for three months or four months. And then that's done. I'm done with that. Yeah.

And then, so my fear is I'll be fucking playing video games nonstop for six months because these guys get, you know, there's a guys that's, they go to work and they come home. That's it. And that's it. Yeah.

Yeah. Because it's not like productive. It isn't. That's what bothers me. Is that? You get nothing for it. I don't know. These guys,

they get something. They get an adorphine, you know, an adorphorfer from reality. It is. Yeah. It is like an escape. This is.

I'm barely, barely grounded to reality anyway. anyway. So I can't do it. I can't do it. I'm not doing it. Um, but the thing is, man, it's like, I don't have an intellectual disability, but you're right. They want, here's what they want. I think, I think they rely on, I hate to say this, man, but it's true. I think they rely on veterans sitting in their basement by themselves with a bunch of empty pill bottles and a pistol to their head. Right. Right. Because when veterans do that, they don't have to pay out benefits for the rest of their life. I mean, they don't. Right. And then, and then the other part of that,

though. The other part of the story is, for the first time in history, like, they don't always invite non-government organizations into their system. And they invited me to be a consultant to their executive leadership team. And they used me to help build their trust scores between the veteran community and the VA. And so I was in their system, right, helping them be better. And they were having, like, mental health graduations at our headquarters. They were giving flu shots out of my headquarters. I was doing their mental health staff retreats at our farm. So all their mental health providers would come out to our farm and I'd put them

through a similar program with the horses, including my own therapist. And never once did any of them look at me and say, hey, Jeremy, we think you're better because you do this. In fact, to be honest, my therapist, when I seen him in therapy, he says, I love that you do this, but I think part of the reason you do this is because you avoid your own stuff. Right. Right? Because you're so focused on this person that you're not dealing with your own stuff. And that's true. No, that makes total sense.

Yeah. But yet, but yet they considered a problem. And since this case, like my inbox is full of guys, man, that they're doing the same thing, too. In fact, I got a message from a guy. Apparently, he's on furlough. He's down in Montgomery. It was on furlough. He sends me a message. You got 33 months. He's like, dude, whenever you talked about how they invest. And whenever you talked about this assessment that that psychologist did, it was exactly what they did to me. Because there was this assessment that the psychologist made me take in this exam. It was like, I want to say 100 questions. They were true, false. And I remember looking at her saying, what if it's not true or false?

And she looked at me and said, well, you just pick the answer that you think best comes close to what. I said, but that's not an accurate assessment. And she goes, well, fill it out the best you can. Well, she used that against me in court saying that my answers were off the scale as if I wasn't being truthful. But she never did tell the court that I had brought that up and said, hey, I don't think this is a good way, you know, good way of testing. The guy said they did the same thing to him. And so they used my case as, let me try this and see if it works. and now they've been doing it to other guys.

There's a guy actually in Key West. He was a Navy SEAL. He had anoxic brain injury, which means he didn't get oxygen to his brain, and they kicked him out, right? And so he got the same disability rating. He was like 80% than IU, TDIU, like me. And then some people think, just to be clear,

because this is a big question, some people think that you can't be individual, unemployment and permanent in total, but you can, right? Because my stuff said permanent in total. So just for the people out there who think they know everything, that's not the case. But this guy calls, he says, hey, I wanted to reach out to you because I know you've been through it. She said, but I had some investigators come out to my house when my girlfriend was there last

week when I was out on the boats. He's got the biggest or the most successful charter in Key West for fishing. Right. Now. They don't like that. No, they don't like that. But one thing he did. Now, here's what's different.

He's getting paid a ton of money. Right. I mean, $60,000 a month, something like that. But he did tell him, he called them prior and said, hey, I don't think I need this anymore. Don't give it to him anymore. I'm making money, right? And so the issue wasn't that he didn't do that. The issue was they say he didn't do it soon enough.

Fucking. So now he's selling boats. You know, he's in the South Florida. You know how they are down there? Yeah, yeah. And so now he's having to sell us. But he's a man, and I was 12 years old. I dreamed of this.

He's like, it's like they don't want you to do anything productive. No, they don't. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like we're supposed to just sit in the house and just rot for the rest of our life. Well, it's, it's, it, you know what it feels? It feels like you're probation, like when you're on probation, yeah.

Anything that you could do that would make you successful, they have an issue with. Yeah. Like what they want you to do, they want you to work at McDonald's. that they want you to work as a bag boy at a grocery store or they want you to do something that's, you know, I mean, not that I'm trying to, you know, say anything derogatory about anybody that's working. Right. Like any job is is admirable, right?

Right. Right. But let's face it, if you're, if you're a bus boy, you know, you're probably not. They don't mind if you be, you're a bus boy. as long as you don't become a waiter and then become the manager and then you become, hey, they're considering me to open up an outback steakhouse and they're going to make me a partner. And then it's like, oh, no. You can be a bus boy. You can be, but you can't be more successful than your probation officer.

Yeah. And so they don't like that. They don't want you to be empowered. No, no. And same thing with, you know, my probation officer, my initial probation officer, when I was like, yeah, yeah, I told her I was painting. Yeah. And she was like painting. She's like, what is that?

That's not a job. And she's like painting houses. I was like, no, I paint art where I have a degree in fine arts. I'm painting paintings. Right. And she goes, no, no, no, you need to get a job. And I went, no, I'm paying my bills by painting. I sell paintings.

Right. I said, I also have books that I sell. I wrote a bunch of true crime books while I was incarcerated. I put them on Amazon. And I was making a couple thousand dollars a month on that. And I'm making a couple thousand here. Like, this is what I'm making money on. But no, no, you can't.

And I was like, I have a degree in fine art. that allows me to make a living as an artist. And then she said, well, and I said, so I can go to the judge, but there's nothing in my judgment commitment says, I can't do this. And then she said, well, then you need to go, I'll let you do it. Like, she was like letting me, but you have to go open a business and you have to get, the business has to get paid. Like, it was like, what are you fucking doing, lady?

There's no, there is no IRS bill that says I have to open up a business. I can sell these as a private individual. Like, it's just like, and I've seen so many times when they just, if you want to do anything that is outside of a very basic job, they give you hell. Yeah. Well, because if you have too much confidence, it's harder to control. Yeah. And what about the traveling?

Yeah. And you know what's so funny is I started this podcast. When I first started, I kind of weaseled my way into it. because she didn't she told me I couldn't be around felons. Yeah. So you can't be, this is my very first. I was on like very high,

high, on a very high level of scrutiny when I first got it. Now they have different levels. Yeah, yeah. Right. I was like one like the highest. Like I'm getting urine tests.

I've got that I have to call into the codophone every day. And it's like, I don't have a drug case. Like, but I'm calling in. I'm, you've been pissed tested three times, two,

three times a month. She's stopping by my house once a week. I mean, it was, it was insane. Yeah. And look, to her credit, I did steal $11.5 million under their watch the first time I was on probation.

So I get it. And I was on the run for three years. I'm not saying there, but I'm all better now. And I was all better. I did 13 years. I got out. And, you know, so I kept telling her that. But, you know, they just don't trust you anymore. So, but so she's stopping by all the time. And she's giving me a hard time. And, you know, whatever. It is what it is. And it. And it. it was a constant. So she initially, you can't be around any felons, period. And so I was, okay, that's fine. I was like, okay, well. And then one time I went and I did a podcast. So I did a podcast and it blew up, right?

It got like $2.3 million, $2.5 million. I know what it's at now, but millions. Then I did another podcast. Well, then I had to travel for one. I had to go to Atlanta. She wouldn't let me go to Atlanta. And then I had to, then the next. one came and I started arguing with her about it. Like, this is how I sell books. Now, I don't have a

problem if you don't want me to go. I get it. That's fine. But there's going to be an issue when you ask me to pay my restitution at this point because you're not allowing me to sell my books. This is how I advertised to sell my books. The last time I went on, it went up. You could see that from the blah, blah, blah. And I started arguing with her. And then I said, you know, look, do you know, mind if we asked the judge, do you? And she's like, and she could, I was constantly saying, I don't like you to put, I'll put a motion into the judge. Let me put no, no, no, it's fine. Right. I started realizing that bothered her. So then she started letting me travel. Well, is this person, you can't be around any felons. Then so finally, I had a guy that allowed me,

or I had a book I'd wrote about a guy in prison who was a credit card counterfeiter. Name John Boziac. And I said, listen, I'm going to go, I need to go on this podcast for this guy's story. I wrote a book about him. He's going to be there. They're interviewing him, but the podcaster that is doing it wants me to be there too. He's coming, he's flying in, and then I want to be there too. And I wrote a book about him and she went, and she's like, and I said, I mean, we could, honestly, I don't mind. If you want to ask the judge, like, we can do that. That's not a problem. Like, I get it. I always made it sound like, like, like, I understand this is a lot. Like, let's just ask the child. Like, I'd like to help you. Like, I'm helping her. Like, I get it. I know

it's kind of on the edge. So we should probably ask. the judge. She's like, fuck. No. So I go and she said, okay, you can, that's fine. For the purposes of work, because I told her, I said, what is the difference between me getting a job at Starbucks? And I'm the cashier and the barista is, is a convicted felon. Yeah. What is the difference? We work together. That's all. I said, I'm not hanging out with this guy. Right. I don't want to go to dinner with him. I'm just, we're meeting at the podcast studio. And she was like, all right, you're right. So I go and I do that. She said, for the purposes of work, you can be around him.

That was a mistake. Because for the purposes of work, you can be around felons. I said, oh, oh, we had an, oh, I feel like that's an agreement. Yeah. Listen, I meet Colby. And our first meeting, I was like, listen, I'm going to start this whole thing. We're going to interview all these inmates. We're going to interview felons.

They're all going to be former criminals. I'm like, and I feel pretty good. Do you remember me kind of going over that? I remember he saying, like, think of it. I think it's going to, I'm going to be okay. The other reason I thought, like, it was going to be okay with it. Because you understand, I didn't ask. We just started, we just, boom, start putting them out.

The reason I thought it was also going to be okay is because when I moved and COVID had hit and I moved, I got a new PO probation officer. Oh, okay. And when she comes by the house, I'd already talk to Colby. And I had already told her, well, I was going to start interviewing people too. I said, yeah. Oh, you're, oh, okay, yeah, yeah. I said, yeah, I'm going to build a studio here in my living room. And she's like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

That's right, you do podcasts. I said, yeah, yeah, I got that all cleared by whatever the first one's name was, you know, Jennifer or what I said, yeah, yeah, Jennifer cleared all that. She said, no, I saw something about that. She said, yeah, yeah, we already cleared all that. She's like, oh, okay. So, yeah, then we start interviewing people. And then, like, six months later, she's like, oh, I saw one of your podcasts the other day.

Oh, my gosh, what was that guy's name? And she starts talking. She was, he was a police, he used to be a police officer. And I'm thinking, oh, my God. This is Mike Dowd, who was like, who fuck, he went to prison for 10 years or 12 years for being a corrupt police officer? And I'm thinking, oh, shit. Like, I wonder if she watched the whole thing.

But then, then, so then from there, I get transferred again. The next one comes in, walks in, sees my stuff. She's like, oh, that's right. You do a, you do a podcast. That's right. You do like a true crime pod. She's like, I love true crime. I said, oh, yeah.

And we start talking. And keep mind, every one of them, they're lowering my security level. But I never texted. God, any ever got permission to be around this, these people. They just kind of adopted what the last one did. They didn't really adopt anything because I'm lying to them every single time. Like, I'm telling them like, yeah, so-and-so didn't. Nobody else said, this is how I make my living.

You know what I'm saying? Like, well, this is how I make a living? Oh, no, no, I understand. But the truth is, you're not allowed to be around felons, right? And obviously, these guys are coming to my house. These are, they're all felons. They all think I've got permission. I never got permission.

I just started running with it. Yeah. You can only say no. And then also the argument was, how do you expect me to pay my restitution if you don't allow me to work? Right. Like, I don't have a problem, but we're going to have to go back to the judge. And then what did they don't want to do that? They don't want to go to the judge.

Right. You know, and I can come here. I try to come here twice. Yeah. Yeah. No. And it was a no. My PO was good with it.

Right. Oh, the supervisor. Yeah. His supervisor was like, I guess he watched a couple of your episodes. I'm not a, not everybody's a fan. And he was like, no, because he's going to talk about his case. So what? And I'm like, so what?

Well, if the government's sure, they did the right thing, who cares what I say? Yeah. Right? I say, you know what the real problem is if you don't let me go that when I do get to go, I talk about you. I talk about you. I talk about PO. I start mentioning names. I started, that's the real problem.

Yeah, I was going to say, too, Savannah should have you on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, should the Savannah? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't reach out to her. I haven't talked to her in a while.

I've tried to get on Todd Crisley's podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is the name? What's the name of it? It's, uh, I think it's like, like confessions of the Christley. I forget, what is it called? Chrisley Confessions. Ooh.

Chrisley Confessions. I've tried to get on with him. You know, I think I'd have a blast with him. I think we'd laugh our asses off. I mean, you can't be in a room with that guy and that laugh. It's impossible. But you know what is also impossible? Getting in touch with him.

I have left. I have left. I've left DMs for him. I've left. And I'm not, it's not like, you know, people DM me and they're like, they're like, hi. Like, don't, don't send me high. Right. So I'm not going to research who you are like, hey, bro, you should have me on your show.

Look me up. I'm not looking you up. I'm not looking you up. But I mean, like I sent him a whole thing. And honestly, anybody who looks me up, anybody. Anybody who checks on me at all is going to be like, oh, wow, this guy's gotten. My interviews have gotten millions. I probably got 20 million views out there.

I got two and a half million on softwit end belly, $2.6 million or $8 million or something like that on Patrick Bet David. Danny's got 2.3 or four or something like that. I mean, I've been on Lex Friedman. I've been on, like, all the big podcasts. I just went on no jumper. I like, I've been on all the big. Number two.

You wouldn't. No jumper? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. Do you want to see something funny? Yeah, yeah. But how tall are you?

Five nine. Five nine. Oh, my gosh. Listen, I, um, so I went on, uh, so do you know, how tall do you think that, um, uh, what is it? Adam 22 is. How tall you think he is? I'd say six five. He's a fucking giant, bro.

Look how big. This looks like AI. Yeah. It's not. This is just me standing next to him. Look how I'm 5, 6, bro. This guy looks like he's two feet taller than me. Look.

That's a. He's got to be 6, 6, 6, 6. He's a giant. He's a giant. But, yeah, so, I mean, I've been on Vlad. I've been, I've been on all the show. Like, listen, I need to get on, I need to get on Todd Crisly's show. Yeah.

You know, I need to get on that show. That would be fun. I could drive up to Atlanta. I'll drive. I'm not a, you have to fly me in. Thanks to Nashville. Is it in Nashville? Yeah.

I love that. I stole two point. I stole three point five million dollars in Nashville. I love Nashville. I'm a huge fan. They're very trusting in Nashville. You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean, Todd?

You know what I mean? So yeah, it's, it's great. Keep trying, man. Keep sending any messages. Yeah. You'll get back with you. Eventually. Maybe.

Yeah, no, he will. I mean, from what I mean, from what I can't. From what I understand, like, he's pretty good about that, usually. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, maybe just decided, you know, he just doesn't like me. No, he's probably got a lot of irons in the fire. You know, he's riding that wave.

He just got out and took off. Oh, yeah. You know, they're doing the show again now and doing some business stuff. Somebody told me that. Somebody told me that. They started the show up. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

What happened with the guy yesterday who said he tried for two months to get in touch with me and get on the show. Like I said, he was better in person. Yeah, this is a guy here. I had seen it. And I was like, yeah, maybe. Typically, people send in like a two or three minute video. And really, honestly, we're just, you know, they're trying to do like a whole thing on the,

and the truth is we just want to make sure you have all your teeth. And you can speak well. Right. That you actually can speak well. People send in videos? Yeah. If you apply on the website. Oh, okay.

You know, we have a website and it has a one of the pages on the website is, be a guest. You go there. You literally, you answer like, it's like five questions. It's like, you know, your name. It's kind of a good idea though. Yeah, yeah. Are you willing to travel? Your name, are you willing to travel? What was your crime? You know, give me a brief explanation of it. A short, very short. Yeah, yeah. You know, oh, I robbed five banks. You know, and I was a police officer and I robbed five banks while I was a police officer. I went to jail for six years. Okay, cool. And then they do, and send it with your iPhone, do a minute long, two minute long video. Like, you don't have have to do a 20 minute.

Do it short, less than three minutes. Yeah. Like literally, but what we're really looking for is we want to make sure that, like, you're presentable. Right. And send it in. And then we'll get back with you. And I guess he sent in a couple of those.

Maybe he said he said in a couple. Hit me up on Instagram, sent me an email. But then he followed up. And I'm so big. I get so many people. Yeah. That if you don't follow up. Right.

You know? That's what people don't understand. And they take it personal. Yeah. You know, people can't take it personal because they don't realize what's going on in the background. Well, and then sometimes somebody will send me one email or, or I'll be up at, I got about like 830 or 9. Yeah. I wake up at two or three.

Right. My wife gets irritated if I get up and go downstairs. Immediately, where are you going? What are you doing? Go back to sleep. Get back in. It's like, I'm not bothering you. I'm trying to leave.

So what I do instead is I lay there with my phone, like a child. And, you know, let's put the light down, turn the light low. And I, and I, make sure the volumes down. Right. Because every once in a while, it won't be down. And I'll go on something. It'll be like, yeah, some starts playing. And I hear that.

So I, I, I, I, I've had guys where they, literally, they just DM'd me a couple hours. And I answer them and say, hey, text me in a couple hours. Text me, you know, after 9 o'clock, and I'll call you back. Right. And then they text me. And then I say. hey man, you ready, can you talk right now? Sure, we get on the phone right there.

And we're talking about, we talked for like five, ten minutes. I go, yeah, bro, it sounds perfect. Let's schedule something. And we schedule it. And they're like, bro, so easy. And then you talk to the other guy is like two months. Every possible scenario, every possible avenue I couldn't get touched with you. And the other guy, he sent me a text at 1130.

And by the next morning at 9 o'clock in the morning, we've scheduled something. You just don't know. Right. You know, you got to hit me at the right time. Yeah. Because any time today, if you texted me, I can't respond. I'm not responding. I'm sorry, if you DM me or sent me any, I didn't do any of that today.

I'll try and catch up in the next, if it might be three days, I don't check any of it. And I'll try and catch up, but, you know, I'm not good with DMs anyway. Because if, because it goes to a different folder until I accept it. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it goes to the, like a request. Yeah, yeah, you're right. I think it is. Yeah.

So sometimes I don't even. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I have two different. I'll people that will send me stuff on the Cox Pop art because I have two of them. Yeah. A Cox Pop art is the one I had set up when I was selling paintings, which I almost never, I check it like every six months.

Right. And then I have another one, which is Inside True Crime, or Matt Cox's Inside True Crime on Instagram. Yeah. That one I checked pretty regular. There was a time when I didn't check it for, I wouldn't check it maybe once every month or two. But now I check it. That's pretty much the one I check pretty regularly. the problem is though you might you might text me yeah i'm sorry

dm me whatever the fuck they call dm me and then the so colby and everybody has access to that so then they put up a couple of videos and people start liking the videos or leaving comments or doing something on the videos or the story right and so your your dm gets shoved all the way down the people start bang bang bang bang bang And it's like, and it gets way down there. And so now you're number 80. What are the chances that I ever get to 80?

Yeah, yeah. Very unlikely. Yeah, man, it's just luck of the draw. It's got to be at the right time and the right place. So I got to keep what we need is we need, we need some fans to reach out to Todd Crisley. Yeah. And Savannah, we need them to start saying, Savannah, you should have this guy on. What are we doing?

He's going for, he's trying to get a pardon. What are we doing? Yeah. Are we just leaving this? We're not leaving our soldiers behind Savannah. Are we? Is that what we're doing now? No, man, I don't think so. I think she's going to, she's always helping me, man.

She's good at it. Like, you know, that's one of her things, man. It's, I don't think she intended to ever do that. And then, of course, she fought so hard for her mom and dad. Yeah. And just relentless. And, you know, she talks about it in that show, their new show. On hers?

So she's on her own. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so it's one that the, the Crisley show. But she talks about like, you know, there was nothing that was telling her ahead of time that they were going to get pardoned. Like she wasn't like she got a heads up because of who she was. She was walking in. She was on her way to Sam's Club when she found out. So it wasn't like somebody called and said, hey, on Tuesday, you're going to, you know, all of a sudden, you know, she gets a message on her phone that says, hey, can you take a call from the White House in 15 minutes?

And then, of course, that was President Trump telling her that her mom and day got part. pardon, but she had no prior notice. And that's typically how it works. It's a good day. Yeah, it's a good day. Yeah. But, I mean, you know, for just people out there who are discouraged, like, you know, even, even she didn't know, right?

So, you know, because some people tend to think that, you know, you know, celebrities or, or, you know, I don't know, how else to say it, like, high value people. Right. Right. Have some sort of insight. Now, you know, at the end of the day, everybody in the world could be advocating for you, but he can look at it and go, no. Right.

Because if we know anything about the president, he does what he wants to do. Right. And very much you can do about that. On the other hand, I mean, I'm sure there's some instances where he's like, everybody's like, no, he's like, you know what I mean? So again, man, you just never know. But I'd like to think, you know, that, you know, when I talk to people who have been down that road, you know, they say that, you know, this looks like a textbook, right?

I mean, I mean, even the judge, I mean, if you were to sit down and read the 1,300-page transcript, it probably, it probably blow your mind. I mean, the judge looks at me and he says, it ain't like you were enriching yourself. You didn't buy boats or going vacations or, I mean, everything that you could imagine, I mean, I remember standing there going, well, why am I here right now? Right. Like you're telling you, giving me all the reasons why I shouldn't be here. Right.

But I think what it really boiled down to is when there's a verdict of guilty, they have to do something. I mean, it's the respect for the judicial system. And they take that guilty verdict very seriously. But one thing I learned going to trial is that with juries, I think there's a lot of reform that needs to take place. Yeah, they have no clue. Well, they say jury of your peers. Right. I mean, there was no veteran.

There was no nonprofit leaders. I mean, I don't, I didn't see anybody. In fact, you know, I thought it was a little unfair that a lot of those jurors were Department of Correction employees. I mean, the jury foreman was a Department of Correction classification specialist. I mean, she's probably looking at me like another one of these dirt bags. Right. You see what I mean? Like right before.

But what? I did think was weird, man, is that when they come out with the verdict, right, we all know that it has to be unanimous. I think out of the 12, I want to say there were five or six who were ugly crying about the verdict, right? Like, we're bawling. Right. It doesn't seem like that's unanimous to me. Right. Right. If you're, including the foreman, why are you crying so hard? If you believe in what you're doing. So, I mean, there was just a lot of issues there, man. But, but again, and then I remember going through trial,

seeing a couple of them, like, rolling their pencil down their arm. A couple of them, like, playing with their notebook. Some of them falling asleep. And the problem I have with that is if you're going to be able to change someone's life so dramatically, there should be some level of penalty. if you're not going to pay attention. You see what I mean? Right.

And then the other thing that I didn't like is they compared, the court compared my service. I think, and I can't, you know, quote this verbatim, but something to the fact that, you know, we appreciate your service to this country, but this jury also served. I kid you not. Are you serious?

Jury duty is equivalent to serving in Iraq. Man, I kid you know. I wish I was kidding. Makes sense. But they also served. And I'm going, they were sleeping. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be.

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Some exclusions apply. See sight for details. They were sleeping, dude. Come on, bro. I don't care if they were awake the whole fucking time. That's not the equivalent. That's not a little bit. That's not a day of service.

So that was one of the parts where I got a little bit, a little bit flustered because I'm just thinking. But I think ultimately, man, what would hurt me with them is it wasn't about the disability itself. They talked very little about the disability, mainly the prosecutor. He tried to say that I give false statements. You know, they love that. Right. But I just want to be clear for the audience on this is that, you know, that's a formal charge. It's a felony to give the Fed's false statements. Right. They didn't charge me with that. And it wasn't because they liked me. Yeah. So for all those people out there who would like to read that, that DOJ press release

that pops up on Google the first thing when they talk about how I lied, blah, blah, blah. Well, they didn't charge me with that because they couldn't, right? But they did use that to try to, because the disability theory wasn't working. So they went to this false statement thing. And then the other thing they tried to talk about to this jury. Now, understand this jury, and this is not anything negative towards eastern Kentucky, right? But the economy in eastern Kentucky is bad. Right.

So this prosecutor is talking about, well, the average CEO of a nonprofit, or he just said average CEO in America makes roughly $200,000 a year, right? Mr. Harold could have made $200,000 a year. Well, that's not true. I think my organization couldn't afford that, right? First of all. but you got these jurors who are probably making $15 an hour busting their back every day. So they hear $200,000, right? They hear they're pissed.

And my back hurts. And I'm only making it. So they used their disadvantages. So you see what I mean? So they used that to play on the jury. The other thing is like when you go through discovery and you see all the prosecutor's notes, I have his handwritten notes. And when I look at all the interviews he'd done with witnesses, he writes, warning,

Harold politically connected, warning, Harold connected to media. No negative reports. Harold considered a subject matter expert when it comes to veteran issues. He circles it. Nothing about disability. All right. What's the problem here? The problem wasn't about disability.

The problem is they thought that I was going to run for Senate, right, in Kentucky. They also thought that I was going to, for whatever reason, and all of the responses of the witnesses that he talked to, there was a question in there. And this makes me laugh every time I say it, man, because I have no interest in this position at all. And I think it's, I mean, I'm kind of flattered, like that this is even a question, but I have no interest. He asked them if they thought that I was going to run for governor of Kentucky. I have no interest here, tomorrow, or 20 years from now of running for governor of Kentucky. It's a no-win situation, right? What does that have to do, man, with disability?

None of that's relevant to disability. And so what happened was they started investigating me in October of 21. They had a formal complaint, they said, was filed against me that started the investigation. This was December of 21. And the anonymous tip that coming to the VA was somebody called in and said that they thought I was living too good to be on disability. But they didn't want their name mentioned. And so they thought I was taking money from my organization. That has nothing to do with the VA, by the way.

Right. Well, that's when they did the forensic audit and realized I wasn't taking anything. Why didn't they close the case? Right. Right. But that come in December, I have proof that they started the investigation in October, but they said, oh, shit, we probably need like something from the VA giving us a reason to do this, right? But the October thing started because in August of 21, I went viral for criticizing President Biden for his withdrawal. of Afghanistan.

I called it the most botched military operation in history. And it went all over the place in the news. And at the same time, and I wasn't trying to be political, just the way it worked out. At the same time, President Trump established a VA Mission Act where veterans could go outside the VA for private care if they couldn't get seen in time at the VA. And I was praising him for that. right? And so because I was a voice on Fox and CNN and News Nation and all that about these things, what I said held weight. And so apparently that pissed them off. And so that's why, like right before the end of that administration,

I was sentenced in December of 24. Like my trial was in August of 24. That's pretty quick for a federal case. And then in 25, we know that, you know, the president, President Trump was elected and took office. So they had to clean that up and get that done before, you know, the new president. So really what this was was politics. And so when I called all these attorneys throughout the country, you know, prominent attorneys, whatever you want to call them, Number one, they said, Jeremy, you're a victim of your own success. Number two, the problem wasn't a problem. And I said, well, why would they want to attack a guy like me, right?

Like, I'm not trying to be a politician. Right. I'm not trying to run for anything. And they said, that's why. Because you're in rooms that people have been trying to get in their whole lives, and you're not even trying. You're not carrying water for anybody. You're doing things and solving problems.

They've been getting paid millions of dollars to do, and you're not asking for anything, right? The VA's coming to you asking for direction. That's a problem. You're undercutting people, whether you're trying to do so or not. Of course, I wasn't. I wouldn't even thinking about that. Right.

But suddenly I was. And so they're like, you're dangerous because of that. You know? And because you don't know it, that makes you even more dangerous. And so you put all those things together. And, you know, when you get paid by the government, they have a way in all the time. But I think the scariest thing for people listening, everybody should understand this is the federal government anytime they want to, no matter who you are, what your socioeconomic background is, no matter how protected you think you are, anybody can be a victim.

I mean, they can go after anybody. they can just make, make a reason, right? They just made a rule in the VA's policy that doesn't exist that you can't volunteer as much as I did. They just made that, they just made that up, right? Like, I don't even know if it's still, I don't even know if it's today. But it was, yeah, but it was that day, right? So they can, so that just, I mean, I think, I think that's the scariest takeaway from this is

if they want you, they'll get you. And nobody's safe. that's just the bottom line. But for veterans out there who are running these nonprofits, right, they're the ones who have time. The ones who are rated like me, right? They're the only ones who have time to do this. And all the progress that we're making in that community,

it's falling on the backs of the little nonprofits around the country. Don't stop doing the good things just because, you know, because what happened to me. You know, we got to do what's right. And that's what I told my kids. You know, my kids are like, you know, I don't understand how this happens. Like you're doing the things that you should be doing.

And I said, listen, whether you, whether you do wrong or whether you do right, people are going to hate you. They're going to hate you either way. So you might as well be hated for doing good, you know. So, but man, you know, this case is, again, like I tell everybody, it's a one-on-one. And I think that's what's so intriguing about it. And I think that's what has, you know, caught the attention of people around the country. And again, you know, I think there's just going to be more cases that pop up since they were able to do this from veterans around the country who are in the same boat, right, who try to get up, right, who have been hurt, who are trying to recover and trying to do something productive, right? Who are trying to find some sort of mission purpose, which should be celebrated.

I think it should be celebrated that the veterans who have these issues are still trying to do something. Right. Right. Or I think the other thing that I think needs to happen, and my hope is that soon I'll be able to talk to the VA secretary, Doug Collins, is to let him know, you just need to get rid of this unemployability thing and just give people the 100% rate, right? Because there's 100% permanent in total where you can make a million dollars. you can do anything you want to there's no income limits right but if you're 70% which is not total right um you have these limits it just doesn't make sense so just get rid of the unemployed if you think somebody can't work give them the 100% right and then it takes away this gray area because if they would have gave me this rating back in 2010 uh and of course I'm a lot different now than I was in 2010

but if they would have gave me this rating and said hey Jeremy I'm going to give you this but you can't do anything, man. I said, go kick rocks. Right. But they don't tell you that. So basically, everything that they didn't do, right? You know, I'm kind of catching the wrath from that. So if you believe that your doctors did the wrong thing,

how come you're not indicting them? I mean, they're the ones who did the rating, not me. Right. You know, I'm not a doctor. I didn't get to pick it out. So if you're saying that I'm not rated, right? Why aren't the doctors held accountable? Well, of course, they're not going to do that, right? Because that's the government. So anyway,

there's a lot of problems with this case, man. So my hope is that the president will help me fix it. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me favor. Hit the subscribe button to the bell so get notified of videos just like this. Also, if you want to get in touch with Jeremy, check out his socials. We're going to leave all of his socials in the description box. Also, if you want to get in touch with them through Veterans Club, we're all, also going to leave the website there so you can go there, go to the general mailbox. You can send them an email if you need to talk to him about anything or just get in touch with them or tell him you feel for his plight. I really do appreciate you. Thank you very much,

you guys. Please share the video. See ya.