Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Counterfeiter Exploited Celebrities for Millions

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

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I have a room that was like blockbuss. Something like a Medea would come out, I would make a thousand of them in a day. The actual popularity is the thing that was starting to be a problem. They're banging on the windows. Hustleman, hustle me, like it's a big deal. I'm a local celebrity, so I opened the door. And that was the worst thing I could ever did. Working at Lowe's, Lowe's was a pretty good job for about Oster.

Almost half of the population had worked at the Lowe's distribution. distribution center. It's like your job, your dream job to get on to there. But when your own child support, that money is so great. So now my check is cut by 25%. So I need some extra money to make up for what's being took for child support. That's when you're And I got into the bootleg game. I was already burning CDs with the computer just for my personal use. Right. Just to ride around in the car, had an old 84 Cutlass Supreme with the speakers in it.

And, you know, I'm playing the music. And everybody like, dang, you got all the music. But I never really tried to get into selling the CDs. I just made them for my purse because back then it was Napster. and line wire and stuff like that. We had dial-up in the beginning. So I know a lot of people don't know about the dial-up, but if you know it's going to make all those noises

and take forever to connect and probably would take at least 15 to 20 minutes a song to download. But, you know, at that time, that was no problem. And I'm just making them for my personal use. But people asking me to just, you know, can I buy those from you? Like, you know what? I think I should start selling these since people asking me because my car was known around town. I had Roll Whitt records all on the side of the car.

It was just a big show. And I ended up making the CD. and I put them in the cases. They look like CDs out the store. And I would make mixtapes and then I started downloading other artists,

music and albums and all that. So eventually I built up enough in the crates to start really getting out to, hey, y'all, I got CDs. You can get $5 a piece. whatever. Where do you go? Like a flea markets or just hang out at a spot where everybody goes?

That's it. You go to the spot where they're at and what's better spot than my job. I mean, half the city works here. It's like five, six hundred people on each shift. So when they get off, I popped the Trump. I got CDs. And it wasn't a lot of stores that sold CDs. And at the time, CDs were expensive. So you might pay 20 or more for a CEDs. CD in the store back then, I'm selling them for $5. So, of course. Are these full albums or you're just pulling the best songs of the multiple albums? I'm doing both.

Okay. I'm doing both. I'm making my own mixtapes and selling full albums. And my, when I popped the trunk, it was so many people lined up to get CDs at that point to the managers was like, yo, you got to get off the lot with like you got traffic held up like it's crazy because of course everybody looking through them and taking so much time people people not even tired from working all night they get off and they get to get five dollars CDs that that wasn't a big thing then later on everybody has CDs or were burning CDs but back then nobody really had the capabilities of

burning CDs. So I had them lined up, but they made me stop selling them in the parking lot. They didn't bother me about it being illegal or anything like that. The problem was I'm holding traffic. I got gobs of people every night buying CDs. So there was a little park down the road from the job. I would have them follow me to the park. And man,

of course it was dark i worked the night shift so from six to four 30 in the morning i'm at work so these people are lined up at like 435 in the morning to buy CDs so when they made me go to the park down the road of course it's dark at night or early in the morning i had a light that i could clump to the uh the little over you know it's like a little little building at the park so I would run a orange cord and from my charger in my car and hang up the light so everybody can see and get to see these. I even set up a grill and grilled hot dogs. It was a big event just to sell CDs. I mean, isn't this going to raise the, like aren't the police going to get notified or people around it going to be like what's going on?

four o'clock in the morning. There's, there's 30 people out here buying or doing something. Absolutely. But at the time, you didn't really, it wasn't really a thing. You never heard of anybody getting in trouble selling CDs. So even though I'm making noise and it's a lot going on, shoot, the cops are getting them too. Right. You know, because who wants to pay $20 for a CD? So this guy has $5 CDs. Everybody's buying them from. me and that was like the start of building an empire um how much were you making like a night selling those CDs um in the beginning probably a couple hundred dollars in the beginning i probably was making maybe two three hundred dollars but you got to think five dollars a CD that's a lot

the CDs to make that much. Well, how much do you have in each CD? How much is a CD, just a blank CD? If you do the math, probably less than 10 cents. Because you're buying them in bulk. You're buying them in bulk. You're buying them like that. So you might get a hundred pack of CDs for $10 or $12 for a hundred pack.

So $5 a pop. I can take $10 to $12 and make. Most all profit. Yeah, it's the most profitable business I could possibly think of. So I did that for a while, but it was, the demand was so high. I couldn't just burn on my computer. I was just burning on one computer at the time. And I was printing the labels for them too, so they looked packaged like the store.

But the demand was so high. I had to get a duplicator. So I just went for the, I just splurged. I had made enough money where I could afford to splurge a little bit. And I think I spent $1,800 on one that burns 10 at a time. That was unheard of. Nobody, especially in about Austin, even heard of a duplicator. So they knew that you could burn CDs on the computer,

but a duplicator, that changed the game. So now I can make a master copy on the computer, take it to the DVD burner, to the duplicator, and make 10 copies. Back then it probably took maybe 20 minutes. But you're burning 10 copies in 20 minutes. Right. So that's 30 an hour.

Yeah. So that changed the game. So now it's starting to be a demand because the VHS tapes are fade into black. But now they're putting DVD burners into computers now. That really changed the game. But in the beginning, we had to come to Atlanta, go to flea markets, to find the DVDs. It wasn't downloading at that time, not DVDs. You could get music, but it wasn't movies. I mean, with download connections, I doubt. Yeah, yeah. It's too much. It's too much. Yeah. That would definitely be too much. So we would go to Atlanta where they actually go in the theater. I don't know if they went in the theater in Atlanta. These could have came from anywhere. But they would go in the theater and record it and burn it on a DVD.

Who would do that? You never know who the person That actually recorded You ever seen these? Yeah, I've seen them Yeah, my brother used to download some of it I've seen some of them are horrible And some of them are like, I'm not,

Like you can't tell you're almost like, I don't Is this a bootleg? Like what's, like because the audio is good I always think those, it's got to be some kid That works in the theater Yeah That must be like, look, we're to run it tonight when nobody's here and we're going to get our camera we're going to do it like a really good one because

you couldn't do that yeah you can't you know how the silhouettes people getting up yeah you can't oh man it was bad you'll hear people snoring yeah yeah you just got like a plug of somebody in alina yeah yeah yeah i did that was that was that first you would go and buy well we'd go to the flea market okay and um he's buying a bootleg one and then you're mass producing it yeah right yeah okay so that's a three and a half, four hour drive from Badaustato, Atlanta. So, but it was worth it for the money that you was going to make. So I would go sometimes other friends that were in the business would go and buy. All we needed was one master copy.

But I was the only one in the city with a duplicator. So if I go up there and get a DVD, I'm going to be the only one that can make 10 copies. Right. within a few minutes. So that started the wholesale business. It started retail at first. I was doing DVDs for $10, much better than $20 some odd dollars. What they cost.

I was selling them for $10 or you could get three for $25. I think I was doing some kind of deal like that. And, oh, man, like hot cakes. The DVDs changed my. life more than the CDs the CDs. The CDs helped me out with child support, helping maybe pay my bills a little sooner. But the DVDs changed the game completely. What are some of the movies at the time? Man, every like Miss Doubtfire and you know what saying like that's what I think of in the eight or the 90s, you know, or the early late 90s,

early 2000s. Yeah. No doubt Miss Dalphire must have been in like the early 90s. But yeah, but. Yeah, but. I had stuff like that. But what are some of them? The number one, and boy, if he was to see this, he would hate me. But the number one was Tyler Perry movies. Tyler Perry movies, because, you know, we're in the Bible Belt. About us is like a big part of the Bible Belt. So a lot of the Christian people like the Tyler Perry, he had the plays.

And it's all kind of Christian-themed. They're horrible. They're horrible. You know what was not a bad one? one and they're actually remaking it is uh Alex Cross yeah yeah this cross yeah when he played Alex Cross and he was serious yeah like a serious role yeah okay fine but those ridiculous oh god that's just the worst oh my god but but down there medea is everything we know they're redoing the Alex Cross series that's like it was a book but books by uh was it James

patters who wrote Alex Cross series but Tyler Perry bought those yeah and he's filthy rich oh he's Filthy, filthy. He got his own airplane runway next to his house. He does. Yeah. Ridiculous. And a crazy studio. Outrageously large.

Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. But yeah, when those Medea films dropped, everybody wanted it. He was mass producing those two. Oh, my God. You can make those movies, those comedies that these guys make, they make them for five to 15, you know, million dollars, and then they, they end up making 250 million dollars.

Like, are you serious? Yeah. They. Rageous. I think about the money I made, so I can only imagine what he made. So when something like a Medea would come out, I would make a thousand of them in a day. And I would sell all 1,000 of them because people buying wholesale from me at this point. So you don't have to go down to the flea market or go to where the kids hang out.

You don't have to go there, right? These guys are coming to you and you're selling them. They're going there. Right, right. Well, there actually, all that came to a screeching halt when I met a friend of mine, Fresh. I met Fresh. And he was a younger guy, tech guy. That's who, you know, when I was doing my music thing, he would shoot videos like super tech guy.

he knew how to download the movies. And at that point... So you eliminate the bootlegger. I eliminate the bootlegger. That really, really changed the game. So when he came around, my money tripled. I was already making a killing. But now we don't have to go to Atlanta anymore.

So now I'm getting the stuff soon as it hits the internet. So that's keeping me, other people. Nobody had to go to Atlanta. anymore. Well, you're getting a better quality or is it still? No, it's still crap. It's still bootleg. It's still bootleg.

But you were saying like you were downloading them from like, you know, HBO or something. Sometimes you get like screeners. You might get a screener early. It might say at the bottom, this is a screener, not for resale or something like this. So those will be crystal clear. But the ones that everybody wanted was the bootleg. So even though you're going to see somebody walking in the theater or talking or snoring, that's the ones they want.

Now with these DVDs, are you having to sell them before they get released? Or are they time sensitive? Like, hey, I got two months before this comes out in Walmart where people would rather just watch the original. Well, back then, too, they weren't coming out that quick. Yeah, they was. That was back when, like, movie theaters were a big thing where they put the way they used to do it.

Like now, if it comes out. It's like a couple months, maybe. Yeah. Or sometimes if it's within, weeks you can go on YouTube and buy the thing it's like it's expensive it'd be like 30 30 40 bucks yeah but you can buy it almost immediately but back then they would run it in the theater for six months to eight months and then they'd wait another few months so it'd be like after a year after the release date then they would put out the DVD so it comes out yeah they run it for six or eight

months of the theaters then there's two to four months of it's just there's nothing yeah no way to see it. No way to get. And then the then the DVDs come out. Yeah. So the only option is theater or the bootleg because right, unless you're going to wait a whole year. Right.

Right. Yeah. Because I feel like nowadays it's like, yeah, pretty available soon. It comes out in the theater. Some guy goes and gets a really good, really good. Bootleg. Really good spot in the theater in the very middle and pulls his camera out and records the whole thing.

And then he, they put it on a DVD. He could then download them. Yeah. Yeah. So that made due to. Due to them not coming out for a year, they're willing to watch the bootleg. I mean, you're pretty much still getting the theater experience. You're going to see somebody walk just like you would if you went there.

You'll hear people laugh in the background just like you would if you went there. So you're getting the theater experience. But those sold like hot cakes. And it only took probably a few months everybody wanted to be. become a DVD seller. Like people, it was old people, young people. Everybody wanted to sell DVDs. So they'll want to buy them from you to sell them.

Yeah. So, and even if they didn't want to deal with me, they kind of had to because I was the only option. So even if you didn't deal with me directly, you still dealt with me indirectly because I was the only one with the capabilities of. doing that. So some people bought wholesale from me. Some people get one copy and go burn it with the computer one at a time.

They might have a burner that only burns one or two at a time. I believe someone would do that. The time. They have no respect for your fraud. I know. How long, I guess, how much would you, what would you like profit margins selling wholesale? And then like, how long does it take them to, burn a movie on the computer back then like half a day back then it probably took 30 to 40 minutes

to burn a DVD to burn one but once you burn that master copy you take it to the DVD the duplicator and you can make 10 in 30 minutes right so some people came about 100 200 300, some even up to 500 DVDs every day from me. And I'm wholesaling for a dollar. So the profit margin is still good because I only have maybe 10 to 12 cents in each DVD. Right. So even at a dollar, I'm still making 10 times what I got invested.

So I still had retail going on. And what's so crazy, I knew people that worked at Walmart. So when they got ready to throw away their displays, I say, hey, don't throw that display away, the DVD display, let me get it. So you got the display for Die Hard. Yeah. Die Hard 4. Yeah. And where are you selling those or just putting them in your house?

I have a room that's that was like blockbuster. Right. you walk in my room and it's three or four displays with DVDs and CDs. I'm still doing the CDs, but the DVDs are way more profitable. Are you still working at Lowe's? I'm still working at Lowe's. You're going to say, hell, no. No, I'm still, I'm trying to keep something, you know, legit and, you know, I got insurance and, you know.

At this point, what's the income ratio? Is it like 50-50? like between lows and the Oh, nowhere near it. I'm making five times what I'm making at lows on the DVDs. It's blowing it out of the water.

So before I would even go to work at Lowe's for a day's work, I probably after taxes and everything, I probably didn't even gross $100 a day. But I probably made $1,500,000 to $1,500, hundred before I even went to work. Right.

So it's kind of not a lot of motivation to go, but work. You got to keep in mind, work is where I make a lot of money, too. What about the, like, at some point, they start cracking down on these types of things. Like they'll notice something like this, you know, how that, how they get on to it. I don't know if people just tell them or if people get arrested. for something else and they see the bootleg CD or I know that like the sheriffs and stuff will go through

the flea markets and stuff. Right. So are people getting arrested? They, they wasn't cracking down. Like this was just free game for everybody. You know, they'll do that. Like the FBI will crack down on on counterfeiting

counterfeit clothing. Right. For like five years. And then they'll just stop because like we've really put a dent in it. Right. people realize it's serious now and people are getting sentences. So, you know, it kind of, kind of, you know, quails the enthusiasm for that crime for a while. And then they switch to something else like, hey, we're going to go after guys that are doing, doing insurance fraud. You know, because like every 20 years or so,

there'll be a rash of guys who will drive in front of like a truck. Yeah. And then somebody cuts them off. And then they hit the brakes and they hit the truck and then they, ah, and then they sue Walmart. Like it's a Walmart truck or a Chevron or something. And so they'll see such a pattern and then they'll go, you know what, we're going to go after all these guys. They'll spend five years doing that. But I know at some point, because I remember when I was younger, that there was, it seemed like for at least six months to a year, I was seeing like every few months, I was seeing these big busts for people counterfeiting CDs. Right. It always seemed to me, although this may be, I may be completely wrong, it always seemed to me like it was in the flea market.

They just busted some guy with 250 CDs for whatever it was, you know, DVDs or CDs or something. And that went on for a while and I was like, man, they're all over this. And then you never hear about it again. So I was just wondering at some point these guys started getting, have to start getting busted. Not so much about Austin. They wasn't really hip to the, because that's something that's technologically. They really don't even know what to do. If they do bus you, they don't even know.

It always takes them a while to figure out. Yeah, yeah. So any new technology is going to, there's going to be that lag time. Right. You know, they'll come up with a new drug and it'll be five years before the federal government will be like, hey, wait a second. This is killing people. Right. They're going to make this illegal.

Yeah. Yeah, we kind of slid through the cracks for years, like at least five, six years. It's going on with no problem. problem. The thing that really brought the attention was me wanting to be a celebrity still. I'm still doing music. And now I got money to finance what I'm doing. So I'm getting features with artists. I'm buying beats from known producers. You heard the swag surfing song? That's why. I surf. And they all just. Do the guy that produced that is from Baldosta.

So when he was doing beats, he was doing them to keep his phone on. He was doing just to pay his phone bill or just buy little things or whatever. It was his passion, but he was making a little change just to get by. He produced my whole first album. Once I heard, he was young at the time. He probably was a teenager when I had him produced. my album, but I seen the talent there. So, you know, he did the whole, I did a double CD because he would call and say, hey, I give you four beats for $80. I just need to pay my phone bill.

I don't bet. That'll work. So I end up just making a crazy amount of songs. I had a lot of features because, you know, my rep is starting to build up a little bit. I'm getting on with the DVDs, but now I'm still doing the music. So I'm getting features from known artists as well as the local artists. So everybody want to be a part of my movement. It's looked like I was moving pretty good. And that kind of got me known a little more in the industry, more so locally than nationally,

but I wanted more notoriety. I didn't want to just be local. So I had the brilliant idea of shooting videos, shooting commercials, whatever, and putting them on the front of every DVD. Oh, that seems like a good idea. That seems like that's like right down your address. Right. And right.

Here's who's producing this illegal bootleg CD. Yeah. So that actually, I wasn't even thinking of jail. or this is illegal. At the time, I was so hungry for notoriety and to, you know, make it in the mute. I love the entertainment business. I'm one of them guys that, you know, once Snoop Dog, that's what kind of motivated me to want to rap when I first heard Snoop and Dre.

I was like, wow. Because before then, it was, I didn't hear any gangster music. The only rappers I heard was like Chris Cross or Heavy D in the Hammer and the, People that didn't really curse. So when I heard Snoop and Dre, I was like, oh, this is fantastic. They send a lot of cuss words and I love it. So saying that, I wanted to be on that level at some point. So putting the videos and everything on the front gained me a ton of notoriety.

like because the other people that were distributing the DVDs some of them was in the military so they would come home we have a military base in Valdosta so some of them are in the military and then they'll go back to you know they'll get deported you know go somewhere else and take the DVDs with them and some of them were selling DVDs right so these DVDs ended up at some point probably in every state in the United States with my commercials on them.

So I had people calling me from New York, California, and everything, thinking I'm in those states. And I'm in Valdosta, Georgia, you know. So if I have a party going on, I put it on the front of the DVD, hey, come check out my party. Next month. It's going to be big. I'm bringing down such and such, such and such and such. And somebody in New York might see that and think, oh, I'm trying to. to come to the party and bring 20 people with me.

I'm like, I'm in about outside of Georgia. I'm not in New York or California. Right. Are you leaving your contact info or website info on this trailer? At that time, it was the MySpace page. I was leaving my MySpace page and my personal number on the DVDs. I can't imagine how that would go wrong. And you would think that would be the thing that,

gives me in trouble, but the actual popularity is the thing that was starting to be a problem. So I bowed to myself if I didn't make it by the time I was 30, I was going to stop rapping. It's a young man's game. So what's the guy who's a, what is that? What is that movie that's hilarious for the guys? Is it hitch where the chick is with the guy, goes on a date with a guy, he's unemployed? And he says he's going to be a rapper. And he's called, what's he called himself, 50% off or something better, 50.

Yeah. And she's like, you're a little old. He's like, man, people say that. Yeah. You're 40 years old. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, yeah. You're a rapper?

You've never seen that? Oh, it's funny. Yeah. I remember. I can't think of the name, but I remember it. But I vowed that at 30 years old. If I hadn't made it big with music business, I was going to, tap out.

So I'm 25, 26, 27 it's doing okay, but I'm not making money. Money is in the DVDs. I'm not making money from the music. Yeah, it's, uh, you're, you're, uh, going broke to

prove to everybody how much money you're making. Or, you know, these guys that, they're selling drugs to finance their rapping career. And after a couple of years, it's just that's where all their money's going to. Right. It's like, okay, well, the only reason I'm appearing to be a successful rapper is because I'm funding it by selling drugs. And then they get busted in prison.

And I mean, man, I'm shooting music videos. I rent it like I have a song called Southside Love. I brought two well-known artists to be in the video. We don't want to mention Diddy at this point, but Diddy had a group called Danny Kane, one of the group members. members, Dee Woods, I brought her to be in my video. And Rashida, which she's known for being on love and hip hop right now, but she was an artist too. I brought her to be in the video. I rented two stretch hummers, rented out a building, like a whole nine just to shoot a video, bought her crazy, you know, the cameras were still big then. So I brought a brand new camera,

the video still looks horrible. But at that point, that, was nobody in in my area had a music video this was like big for somebody to shoot a video so I did it in my hometown everybody came out I probably spent like seven eight thousand dollars just on paying people right renting the hummers and all that but I didn't mind spending you know that type of money just to shoot a video because I was gonna make it back in a few days so But that's how bad I wanted the music to work. And it just, you know, stuff wasn't really on. YouTube wasn't the number one place to go for videos.

You wanted your video on TV. What year was this? This was early 2000s, probably 2005, 2006, maybe. I think YouTube, I think it, and I can be wrong, but it was close to around 2005. Yeah. It had been out about a year or so. before I got arrested. And at that time, people were uploading, like, their home, their backyard barbecues or kids

opening up, you know, or silly videos. Lots of silly videos were a big thing. Yeah. But it wasn't podcasts. Right. Like podcasts weren't even, the word wasn't even developed until 2009. Right. And music videos weren't really being uploaded.

Right. For years after that, by big time musicians, right? Because they don't want my shit to be on. You're like, I want you to buy it from me. Right. So at that time, you still have the dream of getting a record deal and getting your video on TV. And that just looked like it wasn't going to happen. So I'm like, man, I love this entertainment business.

What else can I do? I really don't, I didn't have a plan B. I could sell DVDs forever. But I wanted to really make it in the entertainment. my business. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe I could be a journalist. Let me just try that. Let me just pop up next time somebody comes about us to perform. I'll see if I can get an interview with him because I was so deep into it. Like I'm, I keep mentioning Snoop, but I'm the guy like Snoop is 6-3, graduated from Long Beach, son and such, married to such and such,

kids names such and such I was a entertainment business historian not just with Snoop with MasterP everybody that was in the music business I just was obsessed with I had every source magazine

and double X-cell I was huge into the business the whole entertainment business so you want to be on the cover of magazines and you know really make it too and that wasn't happening.

So the journalist thing, like, maybe I can interview some people and still have that entertainment aspect to what I'm doing. So my first interview, I didn't even have a camera. Well, I had a camera, but it was one of the little cheap, little Panasonic. I think it might have been a mini-d-V. So they did have many, like the little small tapes. at that time. So we had graduated from the VHS.

It was those. But the quality was not the greatest. I didn't have a microphone or anything. Was it 4K? 4K wasn't even thought of at that time. But a guy, his name was Dre. He's a pretty popular producer with a group called Cooling Dre. He came to my hometown.

So I looked on the flyer, seeing who was doing the promotion for the show, and called him. And, you know, everybody knew like, hey, this hustling me. And I'm trying to do interviews now. And I see Dre is coming. I want to get an interview. So he gave me the manager's information. I called the manager. The manager, like, okay, I think we can set that up.

So I ended up, I could get in it, all the clubs for free. So I ended up going to the club and recording some of his performance. And then catching up with his manager like, where y'all going to be after the show? I want to do an interview. So he went to the lobby of maybe the Marriott or something like that. And I caught up with him and impressed him. Like I knew about a restaurant that he had just opened. I knew about his dating life.

I knew about kids. I knew about everything, what all you produced, your music career. And every question I asked him, he was like, oh, you know about, yeah, I love this. So once I seen that, I'm like, let me see how to get on these red carpets and maybe go to other events and see if I can. interview other artists, they're still being funded with the DVDs. Still not making money. What are you doing with these?

Are you writing articles? I'm not writing the article. I'm freelancing. You're doing the interview, but you're not posting it or writing anything. Well, the interview is going on the front of the DVDs. Oh, okay. So that made me super popular when they see Rick Rawls and,

uh, T.I and all the popular rap. Trick Daddy and all that stuff. They're seeing me interview them on the front of the DVDs. Since I can't go mainstream, I can't get on MTV, BET, VH1. Right. The DVDs is my VH1 MTV BET. So what's crazy is I'm interviewing the same people on bootlegging.

So I might be on the red carpet interviewing red roast. and I got 50 CDs at the house, you know, burnt up. So, but I started to getting on, started to build a little resume. So now I'm applying to go to the BET Awards. I'm applying to go to the Billboard Awards. I learned how that process works. Yeah, we got that now. Yeah.

We got, we go to like crime con and pod fest and we'll say, hey, I'm writing, we're writing an art. article and then we'll get a couple free tickets so we don't have to pay the 250 bucks to get in. That's exactly what I was doing. And even if I couldn't get in, I try to get in as a seat filler. Sometimes they're holding up a sign like, hey, seat fillers need it. And you can probably get in as a journalist to interview. Well, you don't actually get in the show, but there's where the journalists sit.

So you can actually interview people, right? I had a good run. Well, I've seen all the pictures. There's a bunch of pictures of you with all these different celebrities. Absolutely. So I got into a lot of places. Some of them, I might have had to climb a fence, so go in the back door to get in. But I work my way in. And when you're coming in with a camera, at this time now, I have a microphone. Like, it's looking super legit now. So when I say, this is Hustleman with the Hustleman show. We're coming in. Da, da, da, da, and you got to be confident when you're doing it. You can't act scared and all that. Yeah, like they should know who you are. You should know, like, yeah, exactly. Like, you don't see my name on the list.

Yeah, I'm Matt Cox with Inside True Crime Magazine. Right. We'd like to schedule a, you know, like this is a thing. Right, right. So now I'm going to Vegas doing interviews on the red carpet at the Billboard Awards, BT Awards in L.A. And hip-hop awards in Atlanta. And at the time, it was an ozone awards in Miami.

And I'm starting to bump into the same people. So these artists are starting to know me. And if you watch some of my videos, they'll come up to me. Man, what's up, man? Like, they starting to know me. And don't forget, I'm still doing the CDs and DVDs. So when they come up, the same people probably dapping me up right now. Right.

I'm going to go back home and sell a lot of your stuff. So. You should put the, I was good. Well, yeah. So you're putting, are you putting the interviews on the DVDs or the, or the, the CDs? Because I was going to say, if you're, if you interview Snoop Dog, I would put the interview at the beginning and then put his CD, you know, put all of his music on the back of one. Then you got a package. That would have been dope.

That would have been dope. And we got 20 of his best songs. That would have been dope. But I was putting them on the DVDs. So at some point, you were watching 20 commercials. It was almost like watching television. You're watching 20 commercials before the DVD even comes on. But so for the people that didn't have a remote where they could skip them,

you had to bear through 20. It's interviews, it's commercials. I'm even doing commercials because at this point, retail-wise, I'm selling DVDs $5 for $10. So all the other bootleggers hated me. Yeah, they can't make any money. But I'm still y'all suppliers. So even though you hate me, you still got to deal with me.

But I kind of crossed them up by putting the commercial on the DVD saying, hey, I got them five for ten. Right. You know, like, I'm like, look at me. And, but still, that's not the, that wasn't the smartest thing to do, but that's not really what the problem was. The show that I was doing with interviewing the celebrities, it was more than just interviewing celebrities, the Hustleman show. And I didn't name myself Hustleman,

a guy that I worked with at Lowe, Cedric Tyson. That's my guy. I would come in with a book bag, and every day I'm popping the trunk and all that. He started calling me Hustleman. They get that from Martin, the Martin show. It was a character on there. They called Hustleman, which was Tracy Morgan's character.

So Tracy Morgan, he hustled everything. If you needed a wedding ring for your wedding and you lost yours, he'll come to a house with a wedding ring. It might not be real, but he had it. If he was hungry, he might not bring ribs and chicken, but he might bring some roasted pigeon from the window seal. It's really an episode like that, too. They were snowed in and they didn't have nothing to eat. So he brought in the roasted pigeons. But so they started calling me, he started calling me that and it spread.

So everybody at Lowe's Hustleman, Hustleman, Hustleman. So I didn't name myself that people, well, he gave me that name and it just spread, spread, spread. So I built a brand with it. So the Hustleman Show, now back to the Hustleman show, it aired locally from Tallahassee to Albany, Georgia. You actually got a Hustleman show. I got a Hustleman show. Is this like an infomercial type thing where you can buy space? Yeah, it was.

It was. But on the show, we would take the many DVD tapes to the station in Tallahassee, and the commercial would already be in it. And I went to local businesses to try to get commercials, and most of them was, I'm sure the name didn't help the Hustleman show. You want me to give you money for a commercial on the Usselman show? So I did commercials for free for all the local businesses. I'm like, this one for free so you can see it's legit.

Next one is cheap as $50. Just give me $50. Right. To shoot edit and air your commercial, I'm only charging $50. But my spot was only $200. So it was room for 12 commercials. So I was going more than double. with my money and then eventually as the show became more popular, you know, raised the price.

I'm just trying to get started here. And so the interviews were on there. But the catcher was I was on some civil rights somewhat journey, some power to the people type journey. because in my hometown, a lot of injustices going with the cops and the jail system and all that, and I'm bold enough to speak on it. That doesn't seem like when you're running a criminal, you know, I don't say organization, but, you know, enterprise. Yeah. Then bashing the local cops, it's probably not a good idea. Definitely not a good idea.

Especially since all the merchandise you're selling can be directly related, you know, directly tied back to you. Right. Right. But I'm interviewing local activists. I'm going to the malls and interviewing, you know, just random people. But I'm doing positive stuff too. I'm saying, we talked about teenage pregnancy and A's interview the guy that had an AIDS. and, you know, we talked about his life and a lot of just random, like I show you the fun stuff.

You see me interviewing celebrities, but we put a little, little medicine in the candy too. And actually, one thing that probably was more than a problem, we're traveling, we're going places for me to do the interviews and everything. And one night on the way back, we were kind of like ambulance police chases. And we seen them like, where are they going? We're going to record it. You know, so before phones, we was rolling around with this big camera recording stuff. And one night, it was like this big thing going on coming back from Tallahassee. We were in a city called Thomasville.

I don't know if you're familiar with Thomasville, Georgia, small town. And it was just to be that small town, it's. like 100 cops at this gas station. So we pulled over at the little car dealership next door and kind of hid and set the camera up because something big had to be, it's no need for 100 cops to be in Thomasville. It's probably not even 10,000 people in that town. And who knew that we would record a cop kicking and punching a guy on the ground. Um

bringing that to the local local uh local uh whatever affiliate station a news station no no we didn't we didn't do that I actually called the NWACP and um because no matter what the crime this guy did

they was beating him to a bloody pope so it was like ooh and we got this on tape NWACP if it's not making getting a lot of media coverage or They didn't seem very enthused to deal with it. So I kind of was like, I don't think I need to touch this in this way. So what I thought was smart was to cut up the clip of them beating the guy and put it in my intro to the show.

So you'll see me interviewing people, but you'll see a little two-second flash of cops beating this guy. And at this point, I can't say that's what turned them on to me, but it's very possible. That could be something that pissed them off. But in doing that, every time you've seen the show on TV or even on the DVDs for my promos, that little clip was in the intro to it. So I end up doing one season of the Hustleman show at this point. That's not really making money because the people didn't want to pay for the commercials.

So I said, I don't need to air this on TV. I just put the whole interview, the whole show on the DVDs. And it got to the point where some of the artists that I would see on the red carpet knew me from the DVDs. They had bootlegs too. Okay. So when they see me, Hustlemen, like I never, how you, you know me? I had to realize they watched bootleg DVDs too. Even though they got a little money, they watched bootleg DVDs too.

So I did that. And in June of 2009, that's when things came to a screeching halt. With me being the guy in the city that was known for making money, at this point, if I made $7,000 a week, that was a bad week. Okay. Yeah, $7,000 was a bad week. Usually it's more than that.

So I'm getting to be known to be a guy. guy, they more so thought they didn't believe the DVDs is what made the money. They thought what I was doing with the celebrities was making money. So in my hometown, a lot of people thought I probably was a millionaire. But I wasn't making money off of that stuff. I was the DVDs was the money. But people would bring stuff to me when they, everybody who needed help, your kids need money for football, you're selling cookies, donuts, whatever they sell.

and they're coming to me. And usually, yeah, I'm buying. And I gave kids money for making honor roll. That was part of my show, too. So the kids made good grades. I would give them $50 and all that type of stuff. So when you see stuff like that, that makes you think, oh, yeah, he, he's making money. And he's giving it away.

Let's try a shot. So people would come to my house, and I was very accessible. everybody knew where I stayed. I was the DVD man and sometimes I would have a line outside the door. I was doing more DVDs than the drug. The drug dealers was trying to sell DVDs. It was to that point.

But people would come with vacuum cleaners. They would come with dishes. I want you to buy them. Anything they could possibly, hey, I have a set of dishes. I have this vacuum cleaner. I have a stove. I have just like, man, just give me $50 for this laptop. You should open a pawn shop.

It was becoming that, but really I didn't even need that stuff. But if somebody tried to sell you a laptop, you'd be like, nah, I'm good. And be like, just give me $50, man, I really needed them. I'm messed up. My kids need this. And they come up with some excuse and like, all right, $50 for a laptop cool. Well, I did that with the wrong person. So I bought a laptop from somebody.

And it was old. It was an old lap. It had a floppy disk drive in it. It was that old. But just to help them out, I'm like, $50, I can have my guy that I told you do my recordings. He could take a computer apart piece by piece, put it back together. I'm like, take this floppy disk drive out, put a DVD room in it, you know, and maybe we can sell it for $100, $150 or something.

So that's what I did. So a guy hit me like, hey, you got any? Because I was known to have little stuff so people would call, say, you got a DVD player, or do you have a computer, or do you have a vacuum cleaner? You know, people might ask for that. I'm like, yeah, I got something like that. And it was no need for me to even involve myself. I was making too much money to deal with something petty like that.

But I did. And a guy called me. and say, hey, it's a lady that works with me that asking me about a laptop. And I'm like, okay, I do got a laptop. Now, it's old. It's really cheap. You can just give me $200 for it. And the guy was like, okay, well, I'm going to tell her $300.

I can make $100 off of it. And I didn't even have to do nothing really, you know, invest in. it to make that $100. That's a petty hustle, but I'm not thinking too much of it. But I told him, don't bring the lady to my house. I'm not thinking law-wise. I'm thinking, this is an old laptop. If it tears up, she's going to bug us to fix it.

So don't bring her here because if you tear up, I don't want to deal with her. He did the opposite of what I asked him. to do. He still brought the lady to me because he didn't want to give up the initial $200 to make the $300 that he wanted to sell it for. So he brought the lady. The lady gave him to $300. He gave me mine. Done deal. Lady left with the laptop. Done. I mean, you're not thinking nothing of debt. I wish the lady knew that we worked on laptops because just like, Like I thought the laptop did tear up and she put it in the shop. And when she put it in the shop, turns out it was reported stolen in 1998 from one of the colleges down there from the technical college.

Which I don't know where this stuff come from, but the computer was so old. Right. I was like, I would never thought it was, you know. Stolen? It's a very good chance it could have been stolen, but definitely not from, you know, the technical college, the worst place. Like maybe you stole it from somebody, but not the college. So I guess when they worked on it, they've seen signs that it came from technical college. So they called her in.

The police called her in. And boy, she started turning like no other. and she pretty much told them everything I had gone. And the little time she met me, she bought a couple of DVDs with a laptop. So it wasn't a setup from the beginning. She was just there for a laptop. She actually, I guess they scared up. They probably told her you'll do 100 years.

This was an older lady. This lady probably was at least knocking on 60, at least at the time. Um, so I don't know what they told her, but obviously they scared up. And she came back to my house with a wire. Jeez, all this for a laptop that already are covered? A laptop. So the police, I didn't know at the time, they was in a van across the street for my house, surveilling, doing, you know, surveilling it.

And her and the husband came back over and like, hey, this such and such, you remember me? I'm like, yeah, it's cool. But I'm still working at the time. So I'm working the night shift. So she came like eight and eight, nine in the morning. I just got off at 4.30 in the morning. And then I get off and do DVDs and all that. So I probably had just laid down at the time.

So she came to the door and I opened the door. and that was the worst thing I could have ever did. But I opened the door instead of just saying, hey, I'm tired to come back another day. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night or all of the above. That's where Ghost Bed can help.

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another computer. Only reason I had a computer for sale at the time is because somebody asked me. I had kind of, that was becoming an annoying, aggravating thing to deal with electronics and all that. So I had kind of backed off of it. But Fresh, the guy that helps me with my editing and the computer nerd guy. Right. He, I shouldn't call him a nerd.

He's too cool to be called a nerd. But he's a smart guy. But, I don't think nerds really, like when you and I grew up, it was a, I'm a little older than you, but when we grew up, nerd was an insult. But the nerds are basically running the world. Yeah, the nerds run in the world for sure. So, for sure. But his aunt wanted a computer. And, of course, I knew somebody who had one.

So I'm like, I got it. I get a computer, a desktop computer. It didn't even have a DVD burn. It had it like a DVD room in it. So I had that and she never came to get it. Therefore, making it available for this lady to buy it. When she bought that computer and a couple of DVDs, they had me. They had her own surveillance, had her wired up.

And, of course. They got you on the wire. Oh, I'm on the wire. I definitely have the discovery to this day of the wire. Because when I first got locked up, I had no clue. Like, I'm thinking it's the DVDs. I'm thinking, oh, they finally got me. I'm going to have to pay a big fine and get out of jail and never worry about it again.

I'm thinking it's something with the DVDs. actually it was the computer stolen property stolen property so um they came later that day they didn't come right then they came later that day and but as we as i heard on the wire later when i got my discovery she told them the whole in and outs of my house he has a room in there that set up like Blockbuster. He has other computers. I don't know if he's selling them, but he has like eight different computers.

He had these big burners that he's using to burn the DVDs. And if you go to the right, he got computers over there. You go to the left. It's over there. And she told the whole ends of out of everything. So when they came in. Yeah, they know exactly where everything is.

But, you know, I- They kicked the, door down? Did they knock on the door politely and ask to come in? It wasn't polite at all. So when they came to the door, I'm like, Lowns County, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, like, I'm thinking they're already trying to knock the door down hard as they're knocking. So, of course, I'm hesitant to open the door. I'm like, oh, Lord, I got a whole enterprise going on here. Like, I wasn't prepared to, it's like, where can I hide, you know, if you got a little bit of drugs, you might can flush it or something.

You can't really flush a whole blockbuster business. So I took too long to open the door, of course. They kicked it down. They kicked the back door down. They kicked the front door down. They came in with guns, moved, we'll blow your brains out. Get on the ground. It was like you would have thought I was Pablo.

Right. So I'm on the ground with my hands. Like they tell you to go, you know, put your hands on your head, get on your knees and all that. So I'm scared because I've never been, you know, I've never even had detention in school. So this is my first time being in any kind of trouble. And this is around the time where cops are starting to get known for killing young black men. So I'm like, ooh, I hope I make it out. out of here. Not to mention when they came in, I had cameras everywhere. So I, you know,

seen what was going on beforehand. But when they came in, they cut the wires on all my cameras. I even had dummy cameras with wires that wasn't even real wires. It's just a dummy camera. They cut those too. So that really scared me like, you coming in here, kicking down my door, putting guns to my head, and these guys are cutting the wires on my camera. I thought it was over for me that day. But it didn't kill me, obviously. But I had to sit there on my knees while they take everything out of my house. And they took more than just the DVDs.

They took TVs. They took computers, every single thing I had in my house, including my cars. They took, at the time I had an escalator, bends. I was living the life that would appear to be a drug dealer's life off of DVDs. And as they're taking all of this, they're saying, yeah, I bet you won't be on a red carpet this year. So obviously they know, oh, you got a bends and escalade. We can't even drive anything like that. I'm like, if y'all only knew, I know somebody worked at the bank, these repos.

But yeah, F-150 probably costs more than what I paid for this bins and escalade. But cool. So it definitely was a little personal. So they already, this was something definitely planned because the news crew, as soon as I got in the police car, the news crew pulled up shortly after. And, you know, they took me on the jail. by the time they book me in it,

I'm still not knowing what's the official charges. It's not like they read me any Miranda rights. Of course, like, what's going on? I can play dumb all I want. But in my mind, I'm still assuming it's the DVDs. Right. But once I finally do get booked in and see the actual charges, the charge initially is death by receiving.

even something like that's the original charge but once they empty my house out i think i ended up with 36 new charges what are the what are some of those i mean this is uh manufacturing is it they call it a legal reproduction of copyrighted material and they call my DVD burners a tool to commit a crime. So I'm like, because it's just saying a tool to commit a crime. I'm like,

I didn't have any illegal guns, anything. Yeah, but if they find a, a screwdriver and your backpack, that's a, that's a,

that's a burglary tool. Yeah. Not a screwdriver. That's what my lawyer told me later. He used that same analogy. Like, if you had a screwdriver,

it's a two to commit a crime. Yeah, when I'm charges, I was, or one of the enhancements I got on my fraud was, uh, using a specialty device in furtherance of your crime you know what the specialty device was at a laptop oh my god it's like well everybody in america has a laptop yeah if you were using it to

further your crimes like okay whatever you guys are just making stuff yeah see that's what i thought when they said the burner was a tool to commit a crime i'm like well you can buy burners out you know, I'm not realizing how that works. So by the time they got me booked in and it was a long wait because in Lowns County, they're locking people up like water. So if you go into jail, it probably takes you a little while. You're going to sit in the holding cell for a while. And they put me back in population just soon enough to catch.

the news yourself on the news that's a good feeling yeah so the people in jail knew me so as i'm walking down the aisles of the jail they're they're banging on the the windows hustle man hustle man like it's a it's a big deal i'm a local celebrity so it's like we're seeing a celebrity some of them had never seen me in real life some of them didn't even know i stayed in vald lost us. Some of them thought I was in Hollywood somewhere. And so I'm coming in and as they close those doors behind me, of course, all the people in there greet him. Huston, man, man, what's going on? And look on TV and the news, I was pretty much the caption for the rest of that day, tune in at 12 o'clock to see Hustleman get locked up for DVDs, tune in at 6 p.m. to see Hustleman

get locked up for DVDs. Tune in at 11 p.m. to see i was the highlight of the the whole next next news cycle oh the news cycles had me and it was on all the stations all the local stations so the tallahassee station all benny station all that's shown about us so everybody seen that everybody seen my mugshot they seen videos of them taking everything outside out of my house and loading it up and it's just a big deal and um On the newscast, they actually said he may be facing federal charges. And even in my mind, I'm like, because I'm still not knowing how deep all my charges are. I don't even have all 36 charges at that time.

I only got the theft by receiving. So they had to call me. They ended up calling me out three times to like rebook me. type situation. Once they come up with new charges, they book you in again. So those initial charges, go book me in for 12 more. Go book me in for 10 more. Like, oh, my God, what?

And then I don't know how they get in these numbers because I had thousands of DVDs. So I would think I would have thousands of charges, but I don't know how they was coming up with this stuff. What did your lawyer say? Had to find a lawyer with no money because, you know, I had cash money in the roof of my house. And I had money in the bank also. They seized the money in the bank? They said they would, but they never did. That's what I was always scared.

Even though I knew this was illegal, I never thought it would get this big. So I kept some, you know, I keep like 20, 30 grand in the roof. Just in case something goes wrong with the bank, I still got money. So when they definitely called me in an interrogation room. And they was trying to get me to give up somebody on a theft ring. Like it had been a lot of burglaries around that time. So, of course, they, hey, you want something to drink? You want a hamburger?

Like, no, I'm good. You want a cigarette? I don't smoke. They're thinking, what are they thinking that the, that's part of the burglary ring, what part of the burglary ring had stolen the computer? Yeah, they're from Valdosta. Right. Right.

And you would know where, you would know that person. Yeah, they was trying to, if I didn't give up somebody, they, was going to look at me like I'm the guy that sending these guys to break in people houses or something like it's not that serious with me and I got old like this this was junk

really that I bought um but as they sitting in there I'm like okay I watch first 48 I know not to say nothing these people always tell on themselves so I'm like I want to see my lawyer man I'm not talking to y'all

I say I watched and I actually told them I watched first 48 I know what y'all trying to do I'm waiting on my lawyer uh so one of the detectives came and whispered in my ear you say yeah and we found what was in your roof too which was my little stash my stash and it wasn't obvious something was in the roof right like but I didn't know they didn't leave no part of my my house unturned, they pulled up the carpet, tore up my refrigerator, sofas. Like, they were looking for more than DVDs. But once he said that, I knew, oh, I'm in trouble now. This was my get out of jail.

Free money. Like, I could call my mom, like, Mama, get somebody to go in the roof for me and get me out of jail. Well, they took that ability. So I had to call Mama. With the worst call you can possibly want to give. I thought the worst call was my mom about to be a daddy. I thought that was the worst call.

But to call my mom, her only child, I'm the only child, and tell her that I'm locked up in the Lounge County Jail, which is notorious for unexplained deaths, scared of the death. So, of course, she did everything possible to get me out. I made so much news coverage. We couldn't get a state appointed attorney. We had to get somebody that was powerful. So we end up, well, she had to big and borrow and take out mortgages and all kinds of stuff.

But we hired one of the most known lawyers in Vodos, his name, Converse Bright. He's got off potential murder. murderers, drug dealers, everything. He takes those cases. Not saying they did it, but he takes those type of cases. I'm the DVD guy, so he's already looking like, you know I'm kind of like the drug dealer, murder type lawyer. You know, I doubt there's a DVD guy.

Yeah. The specialized is a pretty unique. Yeah, it's a unique. The first time this has ever happened, really, as I found out later in the state, state of Georgia are in most states, but definitely Georgia. And so definitely about Austin. So they didn't even, they just get, it's just a guessing game what to charge me at this point because this is the first time. So the lawyer, he gets some, you know, the discovery and kind of show me what. Now I'm seeing what all they got. And he told me from jump, he said, man, you,

made so much media there's no way I can get you all Scott free from this you're gonna get something only thing we can do is try to make sure you don't go to prison and so of course I'm nervous

never been to jail fight broke out at the club for a disorderly conduct as a teenager but that got dropped later too so that that was nothing But now I'm in here for something that might be a little more serious.

And my lawyer is up here already telling me you're going to get something. Now I'm like, I don't know if you're worth the $10,000 I gave you off top. Like he wanted 20. We gave him half then, had to give him another half later. So like for $20,000, you seem like, Like I should get something decent. So I end up sitting in jail for a few weeks. A few weeks.

I didn't get bun. I got denied bun. And finally, I was able to get a bun three weeks later. But the bun was crazy high. The bun was $75,000. So you need $7,500 just to get out. Yeah, just to get out. So my mom, you know, we already had, well, she had to beg and borrow and take out mortgages to get the money to give him.

Now you need $7,500 to get me out and that just wasn't going to happen. So my escalade that they took, eventually they had to give it back. Right. It was actually my mother's name. but eventually they gave it back. And when they did, that's how we paid the Bunsman. The Escalade was worth way more than $75,500. But, oh, it hurt my feeling when my mom say,

I got you out. But see, this is what I had to do. Had to give the Bunsman. And he didn't really want it. He wanted money. But, I mean, who's going to turn down an escalade sitting on 24? was in dash green pipes on it. It was all hooked up, tinted up for $75,

that broke my heart because I put a lot of money and time in that vehicle to just really just lose it. So now I'm out on bun. I'm going to see the lawyer probably every couple weeks. We're not really getting too many of us. updates on the case, but he's more concerned with, hey, I need the other half of my money, though. Right. So now I'm like, I don't know if this guy really going to try to help me with my case, because he won't the other half of his money.

He's ready to drop me, but you already got 10,000. Like, I can't hire another lawyer. So now with me making the news, I'm in Valdosta, so everybody knows me. Everybody knows the family. People in my mom's church, like, it's your son, okay? Like, it's, like, everybody knows. So I'm not getting, I went back to Lowe's.

They still have my job. I went back to Lowe's. I was still working at Lowe's. So at this point, I've been at Lowe's for years. And I went back, and, of course, when I showed up, it was all lies on me. And I knew I didn't have long to be at that job. From that day on, they were trying to come up with just anything. Because technically, I hadn't been officially charged.

Chargers were pending. So technically, you couldn't say, hey, you got this charge. So you're out of here. But they were coming up with anything. Like, hey, you scan this product in wrong. And, oh, your production isn't good. whatever. So I was able to last on that job for eight, nine years. And now of a sudden, I can't do my job right for nothing in the world. So I think they let me work for maybe two weeks. Then they

fired me. Um, so my back against the wall, guess what I went back to doing. What I know best. I went and found I didn't have the money to buy a big DVD burner again but I knew somebody that was 7-1 that would burn three at a time that's a long way from

the ones that would burn 10 I had like three of those so I was burning at least 30 at a time and I had like five or six computers so it was I had all that stuff running at all times but they took all that didn't they they took all that

So I found a guy that was 7 to 3 burner. And at this point, Fresh was still around my tech guy, but I had to learn how to download these movies myself because nobody was really, I was hot. Right. He didn't want to be a part of it. No, nobody wanted to. And I didn't want him to be around me and possibly get in trouble too. So I started doing the DVDs myself. Right.

I had to buy another computer. I had to start from scratch. So I had one computer in a three DVD burner. And not too many people would mess with me. But the feud I was like, man, I'm glad you're back. Man, we've been out here starving because you got to think these people, I worked a regular job. These people were living off of selling DVDs. They were taking care of their own.

the families, making the car payments, mortgages, and everything from DVDs. Yeah, you're just helping the community. Yeah, that's it. Just helping the community. And so those type of people were glad that I was back. So it was a long road in the beginning. So I might have two or three people that would buy a few from me. So I was making a couple hundred dollars here and there.

and gradually over time, I bought another Tim Burner and another computer while these case still pending. But I have to pay this lawyer. He's going to drop me and no job is going to hire me. I'm big time news. It's not like I went to jail and just made a small article. I made the front page. I was on the front page, so it's not like everybody in the city don't know what's going on. So I went back to doing that, slowly built myself back up, was able to come up with the money to pay the lawyer.

I couldn't give them another $10,000, but I'm like, hey, here's $2,000. Right. Here's another $1,000. So he worked with me. I still had that ambition to be a celebrity, too, even with all this going on. So what happened? So I'm still trying to do the music a little bit. Now I got a chip on my shoulder and I want to release it with some new music.

I haven't quite hit 30 yet at the time. I'm knocking on it. I'm like 29. I'm like right there. Like I said 30. So I'm going to do one more album. And on this album, I got a chip on my shoulder. So I'm probably like Tupac.

I'm like going crazy on what I'm talking about. And I'm still on my, with my chip on my shoulder. I'm still on my, the police are bad type of situation and like a fool they had an NWACP meeting in about

Austin because I think another person died at the jail and this has been a thing there and it's always mysterious so they had an NWACP to meet NWACP meeting and people like all sharp then and all that

they all been involved I don't know if you heard about the Kendrick Johnson case where the young man they found rode up in the wrestling mat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was my hometown. So that type of stuff and it's still no, they won't even call that a homicide when there's so much evidence saying that it is. So just to give you reference on how my city works. So I went to the end of ACP meeting. And after going to jail, I had some positive words, too.

I was like, listen, I've been through the meal. A lot of people have been through the meal with the legal situations here. But jail is not supposed to be paradise. Right. Jail is supposed to be tough. It's just they got some inhumane things going on or whatever. And who knew that the local newspaper was there? So the next day, you're on the...

They printed. what I said. My lawyer said, Stop talking. You just got to be the dumbest person ever. He didn't literally say that, but in so many words, he was like,

don't ever go to another NWACP meeting because he's trying to figure out why do they hate me so much and I'm thinking that he's starting to see why they hate me. They don't hate me over DVDs because when I went to court for my bun hearings,

even the judge had a thing for me. This person might have a cocaine charge. This person might have a theft charge. They were like, okay, no bun, keep it moving. $500 bun, keep it moving. Oh, you got cocaine, no bun. Like everything was like no problem. When he got to me, the big bad DVD man,

Mitchell, you know better. Why are you doing the DVD? Huh? Huh? Why are you yelling at me? Like you... Right. So it seemed like it was something personal, but to this day, I'm like, I know I was wrong.

I know I was doing something illegal. But why did it seem like everybody from the detectives to the DA to the judge had something personal against me for DVDs? It was weird. But now, you know, thinking back. Like, I did go to end of ACP meetings. I did have a TV show. I kind of spoke out. What did you end up?

How much times you end up getting? I actually, when this was all said and done, for this case, this was not the last time I got jammed up. Okay. For this case, I ended up getting probation. The lawyer did his job. Right. They gave me five years probation. I paid.

Once you pay that fine, they kind of don't need you no more. Right. So I got off in like two and a half years. How much was the fine? The fine was $2,000. And so I paid that off. And two and a half years I'm off. And I pleaded under the first offender.

So if you complete the bond, they dropped the whole thing. The whole thing. So you don't have a felony. Right. So I was able to still have my gun rights and everything because I had they thought they had something with that. They found I had a gun in every room. Really, I thought at some point somebody would try to rob me. So that's why I had cameras everywhere, guns everywhere.

I was more so worried about that. I was never really thinking about the police. So when they came and they found all the guns, they thought, oh boy. because I'm sure they thought I had felonies. And then I had an AK-47 under the bed. So, you know, in their search, I told you, they left nothing unturned. So when they flipped the bed, here goes a big AK-47. And they definitely thought that probably had some bodies or it was rigged up to be automatic or something like that.

And it was, I bought it from the pun shop. Like all my guns I bought from the pun shop legal. I had a license to carry everything. So they couldn't get me with that either. So I was able to restore my gun rights and everything. And I was back to being a law-abiding citizen on paper. Yeah, we back at the DVDs. After you got out.

After I got out, I'm back doing that again. But with a smaller device. With a smaller device, one computer instead of five or six. And but slowly but surely it built up into becoming just as, oh, we left off where I, the case was. Yeah, you have five, you have five years. Yeah, I got five years probation. All you have to do is not make more CDs and you'll be fine. Yeah, that part.

So in my mind, I'm thinking, well, the last. My laptop got me in trouble, so I just won't let anybody else bring hot stuff to the house. I won't buy any electronics because initially it wasn't the DVDs, so I'll just stick to DVDs now. So, yeah, I crank it back up and tons of people started slowly. At first they were scared of me, but it was a drought. Right. But I mean, yeah, I don't know how much trouble are you going to get in buying CDs. Like me buying the CD, I'm probably not going to get any trouble.

Right. But some people, knowing how Lowndes County works, people are a little more scared of the police than the average. So, but once time went by, they got where like, oh, he's fine. He, all that's said and done. And he back at it. So go get your DVDs. So slowly but surely, end up buying a bigger machine, more computers. started doing the DVDs all over again.

And you remember my dad that I mentioned that was a drug addict? Yeah. He would come by time to time to ask for money. And, you know, I got a business going on, people coming in and out. I don't have time. He had $20 seed. So against me. my mother's advice, my mom was like, don't give him no money. Like you aid in what he's doing.

Like, stop giving him money. It's like you making him depending on you. You're an enabling him. Yeah. But I just wanted rid of him. So I don't care what you do with the money. I just need you gone. I'm already hot right now. And you know, you're going from the drug house to here and back and before now you, you might make them think I'm doing other stuff, which they may already think that. So, you know, here the money, go. So all that did would just make that be a habit of him coming and getting money going. So it become a regular thing.

And I'm back jumping now. I'm back. People coming by the house. And I got people lined up just like they were. before. So one day, later on that night, I'm kind of done with 70 DVDs, another bang at the door happens, just like the police before. Lowns County, Robert Mitchell, my dad, and I have the same name.

So, of course, I'm thinking, oh, they got me again. So I wasn't going to open the door. It wasn't the huge amount of cops like before. It wasn't as aggressive as before. So I was dealing with a young lady at the time. And she's like, you're not going to get me killed. I'm going to open the door. She opened the door.

Of course, that gives them permission to come on in. They looked at me, Robert Mitchell. Yeah. And it turns out once I seen They actually had a warrant and everything. So as I'm seeing, they're already in my house now, so they're seeing the whole setup. But they were really looking for my father.

He had a warrant for failing to go to court. He got pulled over. And I didn't even know this, but he got pulled over, had drugs in the car, and went to jail. I guess he got out. I had no clue all this was going on. So I guess he gave them my address. And so now, even though your objective is for him, you're looking for him.

But now you came in, you've seen I got the same set up again. DVDs everywhere, burners, computers, the same setup and everybody in the city knew every cop everybody knew what initially happened so when they seen that because they didn't even these cops wasn't the same cops they got me before so but once they seen all that they realized who I was and like uh let's call for backup so once again but every cop everybody flooded the house once again they took everything I didn't have quite as much as I had last time, but it was enough to take me to jail once again.

They ended up finding my pops and locking him up too, so we was locked up at the same time, not in the same cell, but at the same time. So when I went to court, it was actually a guy in there that knew my dad, and he seen me, and he was like, hey, I'm in the cell with your dad. You want to pass him a message or anything?

And even though I didn't care too much for the guy, he actually gave me some good advice in life. He told me you don't have any friends in this world, just me and your mama. That's all you got. Well, with friends like him. Exactly. I mean.

So I was like, you're not too much of a friend. And he told me about my daughter's mother he was like because he actually smoked dope with my mother's

mother I mean with my mother with my daughter's mother I don't want to say baby mom I hate saying that but but yeah so he told me that girl

I call up my ex-wife and I call her my baby I said how my baby mama doing she's like just don't don't do that Yeah, man, I just hate that. But he warned me about her and I didn't listen. He was like, yeah, you're going to get her pregnant.

She's going to put your own child support and make it like miserable. And that's just what happened. It's all good now. You know, my daughter's 22 years old and I have a granddaughter at this point. So it's different. But at that time, oh, it was horrible. So he gave me good advice. but coming from him,

I didn't listen to anything. Right. And that's what I told the guy to tell him. I said, man, I should have listened to some things. I just didn't want to hear it coming from you or whatever. And I actually told him, still love you though.

Because, shoot, at this point, I don't know what my future holds. So, and he did pass him. the message and um but of course we had to call the lawyer once again the same lawyer same lawyer of course he was very disappointed well i mean he should he's she should be doing it for a slight discount this time because he's all caught up on the law you understand he understands he already knows the case you don't need a 20 you need 10 do i need another 20 i need 10 i need another 20

I need another 20 And This time he won't All the money Up front He really pushed I want it all But my mama is such a sweet

Church going Lady Great at sweet talking We was able to negotiate Giving you half of it And more Of course my mother is just distraught at this point.

And I've made the news, the newspaper again. DVD king pen? DVD king pen. That's exactly what it was. That's how they labeled me. They had all the DVD, just like the drugs. We lined up on the table. They had all the DVDs, the burners.

It was like a trophy just lined up all on the table. And even when they got me, they said how many DVDs you got here about 1,000, 2,000? I'm like, I don't know, but y'all would probably say it's 10,000 anyway. Y'all would add to the number. So I guess since I was being as smart as they was like, you know what, when we put it in the paper, we're going to say 12,000. I hadn't built my rank up back.

Now before, yeah, it was more than that. This time, I probably had built it up to maybe, three or four thousand right this these are just the the masters this this is not the ones that i'm selling but i had like three four thousand master copies like different dvdies but that took me having to call all the other bootleggers hey can y'all bring your notebook over here and let me copy all the dvds again there's no way i can download all this stuff so people let me hold their notebooks and i work all day and all night re-burning every DVD that I ever burned.

So I accumulated them all over again, started back selling them. And I had got to the point where I was almost where I was in the beginning. But I got jammed up. They took everything. Start from scratch. Got to pay a lawyer now. So am I going to get a job with this pending? Probably not.

Did you get out on bond? I was able to get out on bond, actually, in one day. But, okay, about what? Yeah, another 75. Did, so what did they offer you? It wasn't even any, I had, it was, they didn't have like complete charges at that point. They had the legal reproduction of copyright, you know, that same old stuff. But before we could get the resolved in that case, I think I had, I think they gave me four charges that time.

It was just four. I don't know where those four. They actually charmed me with specific ones too, like Superman, the Man of Steel and Angels and Demons. It was a movie called Angels and Diamonds. Of course, Tom Hanks. Yeah. Yeah. See, I had every kind of DVD you can possibly imagine.

So they charged me with specific ones. Come to find out later, it was people that bought them from me. And, of course, the tool to commit a crime with the DVD burners and all, you know, the same charges the last time. But all the first stuff is gone now. So it's like I'm starting from scratch being charged. But people, I didn't realize. I thought everybody loved.

love me in the city, but apparently not because people was writing statements. And it was people that wrote statements the first go around. People that I worked with at Lowe's wrote statements. Hey, I worked with him at Lowe's. I knew he said. You're not even involved in this situation. You're volunteering the right statements. I'd ask girlfriends and stuff.

People that had nothing to do with my case at all contacting the FBI and say, listen, if you need any, if you need to know anything, if you, it's like, you don't. have anything to do with this. Right. Right. So that's where the charges came from. Somebody brought a DVD, brought some DVDs back while the police was there. I was already, they had already hauled me off to jail.

But while they were there, somebody brought some DVDs back. And from my understanding, I guess they didn't play good enough for them or they didn't play or something like that. So he brought them to the police saying, hey, I was bringing these back because they didn't play or whatever. Yeah, I write a statement on them and all that. So those were the only things they really charged me with in that situation. So I get out, I burn out. We had a house in the country.

My folks owned a house in the country that was actually in my name. So the mortgage and all that stuff. I could take out in my name. You know, with my mom's help, because I'm still, you know, somewhat young and new, like I don't know how all this works. So we took out another mortgage. But it's a big house, man.

And so that's how I was able to get the money. So now it's like, might end up losing the house because now we got two mortgages. And of course, my mom is just, at this point, my mom, the first time my mom had left my dad. My mom left my dad had left my dad at this point. So it's a battle. So my dad, like, he rather me sit in jail.

But he was in jail too, but he got out shortly after me. So he played the card of, I'm a drug. addict. I go to rehab, you know, whatever stipulations, whatever he had to say to get out, he made that work. And he did have to go to a rehab place. But he was fierce with me because he thought I was going to make him lose his house and property, ignoring the fact that when I was really rolling in the money, I saved that house several times from being lost. Because once my mom left, you just consumed yourself with smoking and didn't pay the mortgage. So the bank would call me because it's in my name.

So since it's in my name, of course, here, so I'm forking off thousands of dollars to save your house without asking for anything back. So long story short, I'm a free man, case still pending, but I'm out. But you know what I did? The thing that I always had to do, went back, downloaded more DVDs, downloaded more movies, burnt them on the DVD. And at this point, somebody was selling a one burner. They were pretty much giving it away.

I think they told me, man, just give me $40. because at this point other people was buying duplicator. I mean, I keep getting jammed up. So they learned that we're going to have to be self-sufficient because we can't depend on this guy. We got to be able to still survive when he get locked up. So they started buying duplicators. Some of them learned how to download the DVDs and whoever the person was that learned to download the DVDs became the new me.

Right. So they would go to them. get the master copy, burn them, whatever they had to do. But nobody ran business like me. So I bought the one burner. Of course,

that was super slow. But it was enough to start getting back. At least I can start back paying the mortgage and paying the lawyer and all the stuff I need to do. The few people that was, still dealing with me, you know, help me get back on my feet a little bit. But this is the thing.

My pops got out. He came by just like he always did, want to borrow money. Of course, I'm super hot. But at this point, I'm like, I really need my money. So I'm kind of being a little more against him. Like, I don't want to give him the money. Now I'm being a little more resistant now. Like, no, you're not getting the $20 today.

I need my money. I'm, well, I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm out of gas. So if you don't help me get gas, I'm going to hang around here. Like, he knew. So he told me one thing. He said, and I know you're still selling DVDs or whatever. So I'm like, yeah, I got to.

you're going to make it hot. So I was making enough. Remember the apartment that I first started with that I was only paying $240 for rent. I skipped the whole part where my mom gave me a house that was left to her. So all of these raids and stuff happened at the house that my mom gave me when it was left to her. It was a pretty torn down house. But I put in my money. fixed it up. She helped me decorate and everything. So it's the house that she was born in. So I was

a little resisting on, I don't know, mama. I might rather stay in these apartments. This house, the roof is missing and the floor is, you know, but I put some money in it, fixed it up. So this whole time, I was in like a family house. And so that's, every time I got raided, I was over there. Right. So now once my pops found out I was still doing DVDs, I knew I had to, I've been jammed up twice at the same location. I mean, I shouldn't be doing this here anyway. But I know it's time to go when he said, hey, I know you're still doing it. He's suggesting that he might say something if you don't help him out.

Exactly. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go see if it's a space available at those old cheap apartments that I used to stay in. I went over there, found an apartment. At this point, I think it was maybe $350,400 a month now, which is still a dirt cheap compared to what we're paying these days. And I'm only using it to pretty much trap DVDs out of. So I moved my whole operation to those apartments.

and I still got a case pending at this time. So I'm doing the wrong thing, but I'm trying to move a little more carefully. And Pops is like the thing that's going to trip me up. So to get away from him, I moved it. So I'm sure he came to the house plenty of days. I wasn't there then. He didn't know I had to place the old apartment again.

So I probably spent the next two years or close to two years, or close to two years. The case still pending this whole time. It's like really no court dates. It's still pending. I don't know what's going to come out of it. But people are coming to the new place. And I'm actually in a better location because I'm on the south side.

I'm crossed the railroad tracks at the house. Some people didn't really want to cross the railroad tracks. Because that's the, you know, I was on the bad side of the time. I was on the south side of town. What most people, I stayed where older people stayed. So I wasn't really where all the crime other than myself was going on. Right.

So, but people just, the south side is the south side. And it just has a rep. But it's good people that way. But the rep or the south side, once you cross those railroad tracks, you might be in danger. The other place is in a key, the apartment is like in a key location where all the businesses are at, It's more central to. It's more central.

It's more central. Absolutely. So I set it up like Blockbuster. I still got the same Walmart displays. And I turned it back into what it was the first time. So now I'm back to making five to ten a week, five to ten grand a week. And the people don't mind. Like it's so much going on.

Like, but all the neighbors, I made sure to somewhat look out for them if they ever needs. Like, I know I'm filling up the parking lot. I know I got a lot of traffic. But hey, here go some DVDs. He go a few dollars. Get you some cigarettes. Like, I took care of everybody out there. So nobody was going to tell on me or really bother me because I looked out for people.

But one day my pops came by the house. And he said, I don't know how he finding out this information, but I'm pretty big. So I'm sure somebody said something. Yeah, somebody he knows. Yeah. So he was like, I know you at those apartments where you used to stay back in the day. I know you at those apartments. And he said, the police watching you.

I'm just letting you know. So I don't know if he had, I don't know if he became an informant or he was just trying to scare me. me or whatever, but I couldn't put anything past him, but he was, he, he, he broke it down. He's like, I know you at those apartments, sending the DVDs and the police watching you. You're going to go down. He said it just like that. So, of course, I'm, yeah, I got to get out of here instantly. So that same day he told me that, I found another place.

It was in a horrible location. But it was the only thing I could find that I could get in. in that day I was that shook. I wanted to be gone. And I found this location, moved all my stuff to this location. And I had to get everybody, because I'm not in a central location anymore, so I'm not as accessible. But I have people that come on bicycles, people that walk, people that now a lot of those people I wasn't going to be able to do that.

And I had to reach out to everybody to let them know where I was. And so I had to kind of work on that. And in working that out, I was only at that new location three weeks. And it was a guy, young guy. He was trying to sell his DVDs. But he was poe hustling. He would come and buy five here, 10 here, two here, three here. And he was, I didn't know he was young as he was.

I thought he was at least 18 or 19. This kid was probably like 16 or something. He would ride a scooter like a moped to the, you know, come get the DVDs. And he would come several times a day because he, I guess his parents probably put him out. So he wanted to get a room, something to eat. So he had to, you know, scrape up his little money, his $10, $20, whatever, until he got up enough. Well, one day he came over there. The police came behind him. I've only been over here three weeks. The police came behind him, seen that he came in my place. The moped, he didn't have a license

or nothing. He's riding it in the road and everything. And apparently the police had already gave him a warning. They seen him again doing it. So they pulled in my yard. And, at the new place. He came in my door. And shortly after he came in, I heard a knock. It wasn't that aggressive police. It was just knock, not, not, knock.

So I'm thinking maybe it's another customer or somebody that was with him because it was like five seconds after he came in the door. So I just opened the door. When I seen it was the police, I tried to close it. He put his foot in the door.

He's like, oh, whoa, oh, oh, open his damn door. And so this is the city police. This isn't the Miles County police. This is the Voddusta city police. So they've never been involved in nothing I've dealt with. So it was a Hispanic cop. So I knew he didn't know nothing about what was going on.

So he came in and boom, the whole setup, blockbuster. I always used blockbuses. I know it was others, but that gives you an idea of the setup. And he came in and said, do you have a business license for this? And I actually did. This whole time I had business license because I had my production company. So I'm like, I sure do.

And okay, well, show me your business license. I'm going to pull that out right behind him. A black cop came in. And he knows everything about Hustleman. And that, uh, is skinfolk kinketkinfolk type stuff, uh, he came in and said, no, it don't matter if he got a license or not. This is illegal. This is Hustleman.

He's been in trouble for this before. And I should call the detectives because he knew the detective. It was one that was, I don't know if you watched American Gangster. Yeah. The cop that was after Frank. Russell Crowe's character. I had a cop. I had a detective that I won't even say his name because it might bring me nightmares.

But I had one of those. He was at me. So this guy obviously knew that. And we'll just call him Russell Crow. Hey, I'm going to call Russell Crow and telling me you over here doing this again. I'm like, oh, God, you call Russell Crow. Crow, I'm in trouble. And so he made a big deal.

I probably could have got away because the other guy didn't know. This guy made a big deal out of it. The guy on the scooter, they called his parents to come pick him up. They was done with him. He caused all the trouble. But, hey, once they got the big fish,

they him go, call his parents, pick him up, get him out of him. We got Hustleman now. So they called back up, and it was a big scene. There's people standing all around just like the other times. And they took everything. And in my mind, I said, if I ever, keep in mind, the other case still pending, it's not resolve it.

Right. In my mind, I know I'm in trouble because I still got a case pending. So I'm not, I know I'm not getting bun now because I'm already out on bun, really. And I thought about death by cop, whatever the, I'm like, I should just run. For a counterfeit charge? Man, listen, I was so, and it's all my fault. I had to take accountability, but it became like, man, these people.

It's them. They're the problem. But I didn't run, and I sat there the whole time. They was a lot more nicer. they was more of hey man you thirsty you want me to get a bottle of watering like they had me in handcuffs on the ground and all that but they was like you want me to get a bottle of water and you know put the bottle to your mouth that you yeah please i'm dying over here like this is this is a lot which is my fault but who thinking DVDs are this serious y'all um

So they load up all my stuff. Now I got a city charge. Now I'm in with the city. The whole other time I'm in with the county. Now I'm in with the city. Still going to the same jail. So they locked me up this time. Go to my bun hearing.

And once again, we make the news newspaper the whole night. Like, we got them again. I always made the front page. Always make the news every single time. So that definitely don't help my. case. Of course, my lawyer is just, dude. You should have been paying him the whole time just for a retainer, just to build up that retainer and be like, I already paid you your 20 grand, 25 grand into you for this one. All right, prepaid for this fucking thing. So this time,

he gave me the half off. It's like, we haven't resolved this other case, so we're going to try to do it together, but give me another 10,000. So now I'm 50,000 in with him. course didn't have all of it, had to give them five. But others distraught by the lose of mine. I know I took some years off her life. Your son is constant. Like I can't go to jail in private. I'm going to jail for the whole world to see every time.

Well, yeah. So what is the U.S. attorney? I mean, it's U.S. attorney. It's not U.S. attorney. What's the district attorney saying? But you don't know or what are they saying now? Now they've got to be wanting to wrap this up. Yeah, they definitely want to wrap it up.

So, of course, it's more. Before you can get any more charges. Oh, God, yes. They don't let you out, right? They don't let me out. No. So the other times, first time set three weeks, next time I got out in the day, this time it's no getting out.

This time you try looking for a bottom bunk and a regular chess game. Yeah. In your case, Checkers game. Yeah. Yeah. I tried the chest. I couldn't, but I was whooping them in checkers. I was killing them in checkers.

But I sat in there, like, I'm watching everybody because keep in mind, it's still something pretty new. I'm the only case study you got to go by for these charges. Yeah, yeah. These guys don't. There's nobody else in there with that charge. Yeah. Even in jail, like, I can't get any casework because it don't exist. So they're trying to figure it out, too.

so why they're figuring it out. I'm sitting in jail. I'm watching all the drug dealers get out. I'm watching all the people that rob people, armed people, armed robbers. All kind of people getting out. I'm like, I'm the DVD guy. I know I've been in here several times at this point,

but, man, like, is there any info on my case? My lawyer, he's not communicating as good as he. He wasn't really communicating the greatest before, but now it's like dead silence. And I'm talking to my mom like, are you hearing anything from the lawyer like no he's where when you were outside you care less when this case gets fucking settled but now that you're inside it's it's going in slow motion it's slow we got hurry this up we got hurry this up right but really you're working on whatever time

you that you got coming anyway absolutely absolutely so I'm thinking the law you're not working but you know of course especially being from about the lawyers they all in the DA and the defense the turn. Everybody plays golf together. They gamble together. And so I know a lot of those negotiations go on during those poker moments or whatever. So my lawyer is, you know, I can't say that for sure, but allegedly he's one of the big shots like, hey, we'll negotiate this one. We'll give you this one, a little bit of this and whatever. So he came to me with an ideal once I sat in there four months. So I never been to prison.

I never did years and years. The longest I did in one stamp was this period here, which was four months. But they came up with a negotiation. He said, if we take this to trial, you're going to have to give me another 10,000 and risk doing 10 years in prison. But I talked to the DA, everybody on the same accord, we can banish you.

Banish you? Banish me. Let's just get them out of the county? Get them out of the whole district. So you can't drive through Valdausta no more. You can't drive through the district of the northern district of Georgia. Is it the north? No, it's not in the north.

The Southern District of Georgia. The whole Southern District of Georgia. You should be allowed to drive on the interstate at least. Yeah. Should be. Should be, but no. So, of course, that's like, you know, after four months in the Lines County Jail, like I didn't have it better. It sounds like a good deal.

Yeah, it sounds good, but at the same time, I don't have nothing no more. And y'all banned me from like, I can't go stay with my cousin that stays. in another county or another city because you banned me from the whole southern district. Is that like a elite, like that something that they can hold up legally, like you're banished? Like you cannot. It's unconstitutional as they call it. But at this point. But they'll enforce it.

Like the young thud, I'm sure you've been keeping up with the young thug trial. You know, they just did that with him, banished him from Atlanta. So. Listen, Pete. They told Pete's lawyer, they came to Pete's lawyer and told him if he ever comes back to, I want to say what county it was. It was like, whatever the county it was, they came to him and they said, when he gets out someday, if he comes back here, we're going to arrest him and we're going to put drugs on him and we're going to make sure that he never gets out again. It says to tell him that if he's ever thinking about coming back to this county, forget it. And he told him that and Pete was like, oh, I have bigger problems right now.

It's like, okay, I'm good with that. Yeah. So, of course, that was a no-brainer because at this point, who won't even go to trial in a face 10 years. So, yeah, I'll take the banishment. Where did you move? That's how I ended up going to Atlanta. Well, Atlanta is a better market, bro. That's a bigger market.

But see, at this point, DVDs... You make moves in Atlanta. Man, listen, streaming is starting to come in now. DVDs starting to kind of... Fucking technology. Technology. Yeah. So that...

Technology killed the bootleg. Yeah. Blockbusters just like it killed the real blockbuster. Yeah. It did. It did, man. So, of course, I'm like, yeah, let's negotiate that. So that was negotiating.

in two or three days, and they let me out. Like, as soon as you get out of here, report to the probation officer. I report to the probation officer, and he's calling me dumb and stupid and, oh, yeah, I've seen you've been in jail several times for the same thing, you stupid. It's like he's trying to provoke me to cuss him out, which I'm not really that type of person, but I'm definitely not going to cuss out my probation officer. So, yeah, I'll be dumb and stupid for now. I'm about to be out of this city. But I had to call my friend that stays, one of the guys that I did music with. I called him up, and I'd give him a shot back.

At that time, he went by the moniker Jimmy Hennessy, but his real name is Jimmy. So my friend Jimmy, I say, remember you said if I ever wanted to move to Atlanta, I could sleep on your couch until I found a place. that was when I had a lot of money, and I know you didn't mind. But now I have nothing. Is that option still open? He's like, yeah, man, you know you good. Come on.

You can stay with me until you figure it out. So, because that was my only option. He was the only person that I knew that stayed by itself that was out of the jurisdiction of places I could live. But keep in mind, they took all my money. You know, so it's going to be a little hard to maintain. When you started selling counterfeit cologne, which is, I'm assuming. Now, those are real. We're smart enough not to sell anything counterfeit ever again.

But so once he gave me the thumbs up on that, I'm okay, I know where I'm going to go. I just got to get up a little bit of money to. What do you mean by getting a regular job? But not that way. I just wanted to, a few things in my house I had that they didn't take. I had maybe a rice cooker. I had a five-gallon jug of grease. I had some shoes, an old printer.

Just anything around the house I could get up a little money. But I didn't know only had 24 hours to leave. So when I reported to the probation officer, fresh out of jail, after he got done, calling me dumb and stupid and all. that stuff. Is this a felony charge, by the way? It's felonies. Seriously, you got to sell your guns.

Yeah, the guns, they never gave them back. Oh, that's bullshit. I didn't even try to get them later because. That's bullshit. I want my guns back. Yeah. I didn't. Since your mom up there to get them, I could pawn off.

Yeah. That would have been a thought. That AK was worth $500. For sure. Minimum. I had two nines and a 38. Ruger. You got a grand right there.

Yeah, so. It might still have them. Might be worth a call. I don't want to. Worth a letter. I don't want no more problems with them people. But, um, so when I reported to the probation officer, he was like, so where are you going to move to? I'm like, I'm going to move to Atlanta.

I just need to get up a little money. So it might take me two or three weeks to get up enough money to, um, leave. He's like, two to three weeks. I need an address right now where you're going. Right now. I literally just stepped foot out of jail after four months. So, of course, my whole life is going down to drain in those four months, especially financially. You're like, well, I need an address before you leave here.

Like, are we going to lock you right back up for violating? So I had to call my friend. Like, hey, I'm going to have to come to you like sooner than expect it. Can you handle that? He was like, yeah, come on. I'm in Atlanta now. Right. There's no such thing as a $240 rent.

And the stuff that I had in about Austin, now we're approaching $1,000 a month for rent. Before the pandemic, this is way before the pandemic. Yeah, like I said, not now. Yeah, there's nothing under a grand, but I think the rent was like $600 some dollars. And then they add all these extra little charges, bring it up about seven something a month.

that was crazy. So the job wasn't paying me enough to cover everything because I still got a car payment now. I still got insurance. I still got legal bills that's still lingering. So, but when somewhat of a blessing that happened, my pops burnt house down. Oh, good for him. That's nice. I've always made money on a fire.

So I can't say he did it on purpose because he was a smoker. So he claimed that he was smoking a cigarette and went to sleep and, you know, the cigarette caught a bed on fire or whatever it was. And that could have happened, but I doubt it was a cigarette you were smoking. But regardless, he burnt the house down, so that took care of the mortgages later. Okay. So that helped me out. That saved me. But I'm still trying to, you know, figure life out.

And that's when I stumbled across a young lady came up and wanted to, wanted me to show her Atlanta and, you know, a lot of these young ladies open boutiques now and they sell a little costume jewelry and clothing and accessories and stuff like that. So they knew a place that, you know, sold all that type of stuff. So I took her over there and it just so happened. It was a fragrance supplier in that area too. So when I first. Bootlegs fragrance.

That's what I thought. When I first, see, see, I always was a fragrance guy. Until a TikTok came out, that wasn't a thing to talk about. So you weren't going to tell somebody, hey, I got 50 bottles of cologne. Like, that wasn't something. worth mentioning, but I always was into it. And so I seen it and I kind of looked in the window, I was probably fake.

They didn't think nothing of it. So they wanted me to take them back to the place that, you know, has all the supply, the beauty supply boutique stuff and all that. So I took them again. And of course, I don't want to shop with women. I don't want to go looking at women clothes. I'm like, let me just step foot in. this fragrance spot and just see what they got.

As soon as I walked in, I knew instantly, oh, this is not fake. This is the real deal. And of course, they got a whole where they got a showroom, but they got, it's almost like a warehouse in the back. And I'm like, oh, God. So I went to him and I was like, yeah, what do I need to do to be a part of? it is like and they told me we need your business license we need your um text ID you know the whole now I'm like okay I got that with my entertainment stuff so I'm like can I use this hey

we don't care what the name and whatever it is we just need that tax ID bet grad a few bottles just a test because people used to try to undercut me on the DVDs and I was selling them for five dollars then later two dollars a piece and people would try to shortchange me on that so i was scared that you know fragrances are expensive so i was scared they would try to shortchange me on the fragrances and uh to my surprise i sold the first little batch i bought i sold them instantly like within an hour made a post on facebook it was over tried bought went back and bought another batch same thing. So I'm like, okay, I think I found something here.

Profit margin not crazy, but I can make some money. I got some extra income now. And as time went on, I have became a major player in the fragrance game. Just to mention the, I'm still going by the money or Custleman so that don't really fit in with fragrance. but I still kept that because I built the brand with it. You know, it was a lot of ups and downs. I bought, I bought Cologne on a lot from, like I went on Amazon and bought.

And it's like they got the same size bottles. Yeah. For like 75 bucks. And then this was 40 bucks. And then I'm looking at them. I'm like, there's no way that this $40 went. But I ordered the one for like 40 bucks. Yeah.

And it smells the same exact thing. I'm like and it's in a bottle, I'm in the box and everything. So I don't know if it's real or not, but probably not. Probably not, but it's fine. It's almost empty now. Yeah. But if it works, you know, but. Yeah, I'm not buying it for the for the label.

Yeah. Yeah. If it works and it, you know, you smell good. And yeah, it's. There's a couple guys mixing up in their bathtub. Yeah. And that does happen. But with me, it's a, I got a little niche.

customer base that look for certain things so I kind of got known for getting hard because I'm a what they call a fraghead too I love fragrances myself so when I sell you a fragrance I'm coming from like I say

I'm the dealer and the user fragrance wise so you feel a little more comfortable getting it from somebody that really uses it and enjoys it themselves so I have become a major player in that game.

And actually, my celebrity, and I still interview celebrities to this day, I end up getting all my rebuilding. I got all my equipment back. And now I'm bringing fragrances into the interview space. So now when I sit down and interview somebody, I have fragrances lined up on the table. And we'll discuss that. As you ever watch the hot one show where they eat the chicken wings? why they interview people.

I'm doing something similar, but with fragrances. So we'll smell fragrances as we talk. So that's becoming a thing now. And I'm getting more looks with that. Instagram? It's on Instagram, YouTube, every platform. TikTok? TikTok, definitely TikTok.

And that's getting more looks. The celebrity that I wanted to become and the big time rapper and journalists and all this, I'm getting bigger with the fragrances. I never would have thought that. The fragrances get more looks than anything I did with celebrities. So who would have known? Who's this that came?

That's my guy, man, Alan Worthy, man. He, uh, he, uh, he's the one that put me on to the podcast and I actually met him when I first started working at Lowe's. And, um, we've been- He ever buying CDs? You can tell me. You know what? It's just you and me.

You know what? Maybe a few, but he was the guy that he's a true collector. He had thousands of CDs out of story. He collect them. He still have them to this day. That's a potential raid right there. So there's no way to do counterfeit lotto tickets? You know what?

If it was, I would have a talk with my mother. This is because I'm not. able to play myself since I worked for them, but I probably would have a talk with my mama. No. I did have one question. So I think everybody had recognized the FBI warning at the beginning of those VHS tapes. So that never came about because it says, you know, what, $250,000, $250,000, five, five years in prison.

Right. So that never really came about. They probably just didn't focus on it since the locals had him. Yeah. And when you don't see anybody else, like we've seen a million people get jammed up with drugs, but never seen anybody get jammed up with DVDs. Also, like I said, they focus on it in different period. They'll focus on the insurance. They'll focus on mortgages.

They'll focus on counterfeiting. They'll focus. You know, they kind of shift. And it's not, you were selling locally. Like the FBI might have a minimum that they'll accept. Like they might have been like, did you cut? Did you hit this guy? Did he have more than 10,000 DVDs?

And they were like, nah, he had the 1100. Yeah. And was he shipping them internationally? They're like, no, they might have been like, yeah, it doesn't really meet our criteria. You got him, charge him. If you don't charge him, we're going to charge him. But then they were like, we already got him. He's done.

We got him on tape. We got the whole thing lined down. Right. You ever try to record a movie by yourself? No. Not at all. I didn't have the balls for that way. Yeah. You know what's funny is like I got

What is it? YouTube Premium. Premium. And when I first got it, you could buy Like I could buy like a movie. Yeah. And you can buy you spend 14 bucks and you buy it. Now it's in my library. I would do that so I could go on

I could go on an airplane and listen, watch movies for four hours while I'm flying. But then. And just recently, remember this, like six months ago, maybe four or five months ago, remember, oh, no, no, oh, it wasn't he was Jack with, with ice coffee hour. What happened was, and I could do this. Keep in mind, I had Tom Cruise movies, everything. I'm downloading like, it's great. So then I flew to Vegas and I downloaded Dune. And you can download it, and I can watch it. I got both the Dunes now. But if you Download it to your downloads

It changes the language So it's in French And I'm like What the What is going on? Or it doesn't Play it at all It does like a trans

It just transcribes it And tells you what So it stops playing like the music And this is not just this one This is multiple ones Yeah Yeah So like

Because I was thinking They're letting me buy these and download them. Like somebody could just mass produce these things. You could. Not anybody's really. Yeah, it's just,

oh, for that. But yeah, they, I think they kind of figure that out. Yeah. This has nothing to do with anything, by the way.

But it just was funny that that happened because then I went to the, I went to Las Vegas. I went to the ice coffee hour and I actually went to Jack and I was like, hey, bro, can you figure this out from him? I did something wrong. He's looking and he's like, sounds to me like when they download it or when you save it to the downloads,

it's changing it. So you can't. recorded on other devices. Right. Yeah. I've tried downloading videos to edit. Like, and they, they transcribed like a different language. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. They have a dubbed. Yeah, they're very slick. Yeah, it is. It is. Wow, man. So.

Are we good? We good. You're true. All right. Hold on. Let me wrap this up. Do you have anywhere you want people to go? Yeah.

You can check out my website, shot with hustle.com. And if you want to see some of my interviews, You can go to the Hustleman Show.com to see the interviews also. Are they, are they? Or is it, is it YouTube, TikTok, are they all? If you type in the Hustleman show, you can Google it. All right. Everything is going to come up under the Hustleman show.

And my tags, Hustleman 101, across the board. Okay. Yeah. All right. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. If you like the video, please share it with anybody you think might be interested. Please subscribe, hit the bell so you get notified videos like this.

Also check in the description box. We're going to leave all of the Hustleman's social media links in his website. I have no doubt that if you want to buy a fragrance, he'll mail it to you. So also, please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. We put Patreon exclusive content on it. It really does help Colby and I make these videos. Really appreciate you guys watching.

Thank you very much. See you. Thank you.