Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Disbarred Attorney Reveals What Really Happened With the Black Mafia Family

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Rand shares his life story and how he was involved in helping take down Big Meech and the BMF.⁣ ⁣ F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code COX15 at theperfectjean.nyc/COX15 #theperfectjeanpod ⁣ https://theperfectjean.nyc⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news⁣ ⁣ 🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit ⁣ 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt⁣ 🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/re⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I could crank out a wiretap in the day. Are you now tied into someone in the BMF organization? Absolutely. But we just could never really get Meach for murder. Until... What was the first big case that you worked on? The famous case of the Black Mafia family. I was locked up with Terry.

Okay. Southwest Tea. Yes, Southwest Tea. But I was locked up with him. We talked a couple times about writing his memoir. His brother, he'd already optioned his life rights to, 50 cent. But I don't think he'd written anything. Like, they're optioning they're right, but they don't have anything really written down at the time that I know of. I don't think they still,

still don't think they have anything. Everybody else is written about them. Exactly. So anyway, I think 50 cent ended up hiring somebody to write, you know, write the whole series for him. Anyway, so we were trying to convince him, let, let Kay write your memoir. And he didn't want to. He wanted to write a book. I always called it a self-help book. But it was basically about how he was the brains behind BMF and he was the kind of semi-shot collar

with the business side of it and the whole thing and I was like, and I was like, yeah, that's fine. You can talk about that, but it also needs to encompass your life and the case and the whole thing. No, I don't want to do all that. It's like, bro, what are you doing? Like, you ran a business that was an illegal

business. Like, that's not a, you can't write a business book. Right. You know, so I, we had that conversation a couple times. He disagreed. The seven habits of highly affected people in prison. The drug deals, yeah. So, uh, first pick a product that people absolutely will get addicted to. So anyway, that never panned out. K did end up writing something. I forget what their, what their agreement was. But I had talked to him a few times. That was when I first heard about, uh, BMF. And since then, I've, I've listened to a couple of documentaries and I've constantly hearing about it from people.

Sure. But I don't really know what, Like from a prosecutor's standpoint, like, when were you introduced to? When's the first time you heard about it? Like, how does that, how do you guys put together a case? You know, like, do they come to you and say, hey, we need wiretaps? How are they convincing you that it's okay to put a wiretap on? Sure. It's a question I've answered multiple times.

And it started with a DEA agent, a name of Jack Harvey. Really, the story began, without Jack Harvey, the world does not know about being. Okay. Jack Harvey is just one of the most amazing, one of my favorite people in the world that I've ever met. Jack, so when I was in Forsyth County, I'd gotten to know Jack. He was on, he was a DEA agent, and one of our deputies was assigned to his task force. And always talk about Jack Harvey, DEA, and I'd hear these stories about, you know, special agent Jack Harvey, it's Irish. You know, you build it up in your head. Even now as I sit here, it's like, I think, like, Jack Harvey's seven feet tall and broad

shoulder, red hair, you know, beard, right? And so, Mark, our deputy brings Jack in one of the go. I'm going to introduce you to Jack. I'm all excited. And there he is over there. I'm like, behind the leprechaun? Like, you know, it's a skinny guy, you know, and very soft-spoken. And Jack, it was a case.

You don't remember what it was, but he did a fact. He needed a favor on a case. We did it. It was done. And we became friends. Then he started, we had disagree on when this happened. I think it was a little bit before I went to Fulton, but he started talking about Black Mafia family, BMF.

And Forsyke County at the time, I think, had a total of maybe one black family. We sure as hell we're not going to try some jurisdictional bootstrap to bring the entire Black Mafia. Think about how we would justify that to the county. Hey, you know, you're Lillywhite County, but we're indicting all these Detroit gangbangers. So, but he would keep bringing me evidence. We would talk and eventually when I moved to Fulton County. By the time I moved to Fulton County, everybody in Fulton,

everybody in the U.S. Attorney's Office, nobody wanted to touch this Black Mafia family case. Why? Well, because in my mind, all it was, it was Black Mafia Family slash Black Mafia Entertainment. It was a music label. Yeah. And from my point of view, it was like the last thing I'm going to do is indict or go after, start an investigation into two brothers from,

Detroit who made good. We had, you know, there was rumor, there's an innuendo. And a lot of prosecutors, especially these days, they'll, they'll just run for the headline. I was running away from that headline. There was nothing that ever tied that convinced me at that point that there was a Black Mafia family that was engaged in drug dealing. Yeah, I was going to say, the documentaries and stuff that I've watched have all been like, this guy got busted or something, but wouldn't say anything. Exactly. They're trying to get, they're busting little guys trying to to get them to tie it in and then and they just wouldn't and then and then um they were talking about how there was there were all of these bust and they felt they they knew that what was going on but

they couldn't make a connection and it wasn't until i guess they got wires or something but anyway you sure right and that's what happened and jack would jack would lobby and then APD a good friend of mine brian burns my other second favorite person um he was working it he was he was close with jack he was working it from the APD's angle. They were talking to informants and they were pulling together this case. And up until that point, there was an IRS agent, I think out in Detroit who was working BMF, but nobody else was touching it because, again, it was, people would get arrested with drugs. We would think that they were BMF, but we couldn't even prove there was a BMF at this point. Other than the label. Other than the label. And he put a billboard up, you know, the BMF, the world is

or BMF, the world is ours. Oh my gosh. From the, that's from a scarface. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I had to drive in every day. And it was almost, you know, I think at one point I even accused Jack of actually putting the billboard up just to get me to say yes. You know, and it was like we're not doing anything with this, Jack. And then there was a murder, a young girl, Misty Carter, who was with her boyfriend, Ulysses Hackett.

They were in her apartment and a home invasion. They came in. They killed. Ulysses, and then they shot her in cold blood. And that's, to this day, that still eats a jack. And so everything was about getting justice for Misty. But we could not, we thought we had an issue, but we couldn't prove it. And it finally got to the point where I didn't want to talk about it anymore.

You know, I'm trying my own cases. I was handling five courtrooms. I was a zone prosecutor, which meant I had to deal with the public, which was not my favorite, you know, that's not my cup of tea. I was riding with the police officers tonight in the zone. I was doing a lot of work and eventually and Paul Howard, the DA, he didn't want to touch this either.

He was tired of hearing it, but what happened was they rolled up BMF, some of the guys rolled up in a Krogeroff Cascade one day. And there was an elderly lady that Paul Howard had known from the neighborhood and they knocked her over. You know, she said something like, you know, all rude and they threw signs and talked about black mafia family, BMF.

And she called Paul, which Paul called. Jack and called me and told us, you know, I want a child to do something about this, BMF. Well, you know, now we had a problem because Paul Howard believed we had a problem. But we still didn't have anything. We, you know, we just sat around. What about the IRS guy? Like, these guys are buying vehicles. Like, this is what I had heard. They're buying, you know, like, they're buying vehicles. They're buying how, like, they're buying ridiculous stuff with cash. So I'm sure that's why the IRS got involved. Like, there's, you're saying it's coming from this label.

okay, well, then it should be, we should be able to track this money and you can't. Right, right. But they're getting, these were leases and false names. They guys, you know, doing it for him. Doc Marshall, Bill Marshall was handling these cars, we call him bustouts. You know, you lease them and then just not pay on them and just abandon them. And a lot of these guys who are working for him or part of the Black Mafia family in Atlanta were hood rats. I mean, that's all they were.

just drug, they were rock slingers until they started, you know, they came up, they met, you know, and they would go in a group. And so, again, there was nothing I could put to say there was a, yes, there were people connected to each other who were engaged in, for lack of a better word, fuckery, and crimes. But to say that that was part of the BME, to say that's a part of a massive organization is that's a huge leap. Right, too. And, and, you know, being a prosecutor, you know, in Atlanta, you have to, you can't be ignorant to the fact that, you know, if you're going to go after a black, two black entrepreneurs, you better make sure, at least that was my, my thought process, you better make sure you have something and it's not, you're not just attacking them. Because I don't want to be,

and I would tell Jack, I'm not going to be, you know, standing up there and telling the judge, well, judge, they're black. Right. You know, they have mafia in their name. We needed more evidence. And he would get more evidence, but there was never anything to tie it together until, I mentioned this guy, Bill Marshall. He and his buddy, they had a place in Old Fourth Ward. And one night, the guys come into a home invasion. So Bill waits for them down in his basement. There was a vault. They just vaulted it out.

And he killed them, you know, in self-defense. They were coming down to steal drugs and money, killed them in self-defense. called the police, all well and good, except that they left the 11 kilos in the vault when the cop got there. So they get arrested. And we're at a bond hearing and we're talking. And all of a sudden, his attorney stands up and says, Judge, you know, we object to any comments by the prosecutor related to BMF, the Black Mafia family. There's no evidence of Black Mafia. And keeps talking about the Black Mafia family. Nobody said anything about the Black Mafia family. Right. And in fact, I said, as it,

well, I guess now we have proof he's part of black mafia family. And it was, it was, you know, immediate, you know, Bill stood up. He wanted to, he wanted to cut a deal. So that was where we were finally able to say, hey, we have a black mafia family. And he debriefed with the feds. And in the meantime, we were started trying to get a formulated plan. But again, if you're going to wiretap somebody, you better know who you're going to wiretap and you have to have a phone number.

we didn't know anybody. And Bill was not, Marshall was not coming off of that at the time. You fast, and I think that was in 2004, early 2004, so around August of 2004, Paul Howard wants to do a wiretap. It just happens to coincide with one of our investigators at the task force who wants to do a wiretap

on the Pittsburgh area of Atlanta about this young kid who's, you know, he's selling drugs, that the, you know, getting 12 and 13-year-old girls come home with him off the bus stop. And there's a real menace. And so I'm tasked at that point with doing a wiretap, trying to figure out a wiretap. And then the promise is made, oh, Mr. Hap, one of the investigators, we'll be up on BMF in two generations, in two steps.

You know, nobody ran that by me. And Paul's like, yeah, we'll do it. We can get wiretaps. We can do that. I want money seizures, and I want BMF. You know, and this guy, Raphael Allison, they called him Smurf. Because, you know, he was so black, he was blue, and he was short. And he's just a scumb bag.

It's just really a dirt bag. And just selling rock. We never, we couldn't understand him when we finally went up on our wiretap. Everything's all day long. It was like mush mouth. Right. He was just an idiot. Yeah, there's just no other way to say.

His whole family were drug dealers. They're just, there's just, their dwells and we're listening to a wiretap one day with some of the guy the uh two of the officers who were uh listening to it they were going back and listening like i think we have his source can barely understand them right we couldn't yeah right because all of a sudden it's like and then you have he's talking to a guy very articulate and we have we have spotters out and he's driving a nice vehicle we're like he's got to be you know why else would you be with smirp is that south what that terry no no no no we never

It's what even Terry? We don't even never. I've never even seen Terry. Oh, he was all out on his own out and west. That's what I had heard. Like, it was,

it was Big Meach, who was the center of attention, but Terry didn't want anything to do with that. He was always off the side. Exactly. You know, Terry was the brains behind it. Right. In fact, they got him on one wire.

And I'm talking to somebody else saying that Meets was going to be the downfall, their downfall, that he was out there too flashy. It was like John Gotti. Or it's like anybody, like me even. You know, I mean, it's just, you know, wanton hubris, you know, that you just think you can get away with it.

And, but no, so Smurf was getting his drugs from the guy named DeCarlo Hoskins. And DeCarlo was getting, well, DeCarlo was getting his drugs from an associate of BMF, Omari McCree, the young gangbanger who eventually became the, the informant that brought him. brought the house of cards all crumbling down. And so, but we were going up on Smurfs wires. We kept going up on him, and it was painful, you know, listening.

It was just painful. And when we finally took down that part of the wire and arrested everybody, they were just like little rock cases. You know, we had enough, but we couldn't just let it go away. But it was just painful. And I don't think that kid changed his clothes. I think we were up on him on for 45 days. I'm pretty sure he never changed his clothes.

It was just terrible. It was just the morning that we hit his house, he lived in some house that had been abandoned. It was just a disaster. And he still didn't understand it. It's like you're under, he could not, you know, we were not getting anything from him. But DeCarlo was our next step up.

And from him, we got, we caught him selling a bunch of kilos to some out of state guys. and then we arrested him on, I believe it was game six of the National League Championship Series in Atlanta. I got caught on camera doing that right downtown. Okay. So it was, it was a waterfall. So do those, does he lead anywhere?

I mean, you're saying you just kind of, does it, is that, okay. So DeCarlo, we catch him with kilos. Does he cooperate? He does, he does. And in fact, he tells us, hey, you know, if you guys were listening to him, listening to us on the phone during this time, you have my source. And going back before that, they're watching the wire. I don't know if you remember the wire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So these knuckleheads, they're watching the wire. They're talking about it. On a Monday night, right? Then they talk about the next day. Oh, yeah. No, we're listening to them talking on the phone while they're watching the wire. Oh, okay.

Right? And then the next day also. And it's like, they're like, oh, man, you know, it's like they're almost there. It's like when you're a complicated math problem. Like you have it if you just fill out the next step and we're waiting for them to, you know, to say, man, we should dump our phones. Instead, they're like, oh, man, these guys would never know that we got our phones from Boost. You know, we got, yeah, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, give me your new number. So they're giving out each other's numbers.

And we're like. And then ditching that phone and you just get a, you just go and get a wiretap on the new number that they just gave you, right? Exactly. Right. And every time they do it, every time they get a new phone number. Right. It's like, oh, here's your phone number. Okay, I'm killing this phone.

Well, we had continuing orders and stuff. So we just kept going up on it. And when we arrested him, it's kind of funny. He said, he goes, I knew I should have dumped the phone. So I'm like, dude, you were watching the wire. You know, and commenting on how stupid we are down here. So I have a question. How hard is it when someone does that to get another wire on the new phone?

Is it like a week-long process or is it basically a fill out a piece of paper and we got the next one? It was the way we did it. It was the next day. What would happen is the district attorney. when you're doing a state wire tap, but you have to comply with federal law, obviously, and with state law. But I would notify him that the next morning I would be bringing him a new application, notifying that at this point we had a judge assigned to us,

notifying the judge, we would be bringing a warrant, but they would simply be the same warrant just changing out the phone number, and we'd have a brief page on the front. And how, like, I mean, how bad does that look? Like, you know what I'm saying? like just the fact that you're swapping out phones looks bad. Like even if I have nothing on you, you keep swapping phones. You are doing something.

Exactly, exactly. And we would put it on the front. We would say new facts compared, you know, so that the judge wouldn't have to read it all again. You know, we would have, you know, I'd sign an affidavit saying that nothing else has changed. And we'd put on there saying all these comments. And some of the judges, it changed. But some of the judges would look at it and be like, you know, you're wasting my time. other judges would be like, oh, this is great, you know.

And it's like, you know, we didn't want the commentary. You know, the initial draft of the initial warrant took 45 days. It was hundreds of pages of information I had to go through. It's like a master affidavit or something. Yeah, absolutely. So by the time you do the application and then you also do it as the, there's a warrant, the wiretap warrant itself. So it's all copied.

But I think we were at 200, 300 pages of affidavit. And I would just sit there with the investigators. They would bring, you got a mold, you know, coal through all this. And, you know, it's just, oh, this is important. You know, and again, God bless them. But sometimes, you know, what's important to a cop is not what's important to the law. Right. You know, so you got to keep out all the, all the conjecture and opinion, be like, oh, she's a ho.

Well, how does that help me get a wire to have, you know? Or, you know, oh, she got pregnant at 13, you know. So-and-so's baby mama. Right. You know, it's like, you know, you say like, well, who said that? I did. It was like, you know, it was an habit in Costello. So, but by the time we're up after the second or third, um, phone call or phone on Smurf,

we had it, we had it running pretty well. I could, I could crank out a wiretap warrant in the day. And so now you're connected, are you now tied into someone in the BMF organization? Mm-hmm. Because these are just little guys at the bottom. Absolutely. But we're also, you know, if you're familiar with it, a RICO conspiracy. Yeah.

Rico, I don't have to, you know, it's the latter. So I've got Smurf and then from, and I've got everybody he deals with, plus his mother and his brothers who are in prison. And we even caught them bringing drugs to a brother in prison and stop that. But then I got DeCaro Hoskins and the people that he sold to. And then from DeCarlo, we got the guy, Amari McCree and Jeffrey Lear, who were brothers. And they were Atlanta residents, Atlanta natives who somehow, And I don't know if we ever fleshed it out. Somehow they got hooked up with BMF.

They started hanging out with them. And for a while, they were runners. They would bring the, so they would take the drugs. They would sell it, bring it to the people who paid for it. People like DeCarlo Hoskins. But eventually, they were told to stop. Why? Because Meach had gotten himself into a considerable trouble.

And there was a lot of heat on him at that point. He got arrested for a false ID. He felt that there was an informant that somebody was working against him. No. Right. It's not true. Right. Who would do that?

Well, you know, it's funny. Nobody would at that point, but he... Oh, so he didn't realize what was that it was happening? No, he didn't. He was just, he was just assuming. Right, because he didn't know about Decarlo. He didn't know that Amari was doing. Amari and Jeff were double dealing.

Okay. So De Carlo, people, they were selling, that Amari was selling, they were pulling pulling kilos off the top and selling them on the side. You've got to think about this. You have so much supply that two, three kilos a week can go missing and nobody notices. Where is all this coming from? I mean, like, I understand that they eventually lost like a source and then they actually went out to California or something and got a source.

They went to Mexico. Oh, Mexico. Oh, okay. They went to Mexico. Okay. Yeah. So they went to that's ballsy, bro. Yeah.

They went to Mexico and they cut a deal with some sheriff down in Mexico. It brought it across the border. And the routes that they use, I mean, the routes that are used today by the cartels are the routes that BMF established, the St. Louis-Lewis routes, the Louisiana routes. These are the routes that were established by BMF, the hubs. But yeah, they had it, in fact, years later when I was hanging out in the party scene as a defense attorney, and thereafter. Every once in a while,

people would know that I prosecuted BMF, they would tell me about how I ruined the COSupply in Atlanta moving out for a few months. My bad. Right, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, well, add that to the list of shit

that I regret, I guess. But that's what they were doing. And the word came out, the word went out to everybody in BMF that meets wants everybody to meet. This was the first night we were up on O'Mari. It was a Friday, Amari's phone. They were told to stop what you're doing,

Nobody sells any drugs. Let's go have a meeting. And so, okay, okay. And turns out that then they turned around and they kept fucking around with drugs. They kept talking about it. And that's what led to the end of the Black Mafia family. We caught his brother, Jeff, with kilos. We pulled them over on a traffic stop.

He and his girlfriend. We took the drugs. I introduced myself, gave him a business card and told him, have a nice night. And then we went back to the task force and we listened to that phone call and had a good laugh, you know. And the poor guy, he was stuttering. I think he probably still stuttering. And that was it. Meach was furious.

The word came out, you know, they were worried that they were going to get killed. That was it. Why were they worried that were? Because they were told not to, they were told to stop all this. Okay, sorry. And then you get pulled over with 10 kilos. Oh, yeah, he's furious. Yeah.

I told you to stop fucking dealing. They couldn't figure out, how did you get caught with 10 kilos? kilos. This is the first time I've revealed myself, you know. Right. We have agents there, and they could not figure out if we were dirty and took the drugs. They just, and again, they still couldn't figure out, hey, there's an investigation. They just didn't understand. So then not only does Jeff have to explain why he's out driving around with drugs,

well, what did you do with the drugs? You know? Right. Because nobody was, they were, they did not believe that we had taken it. It was, you know, it's called, we call it tickling. the wire. You know, when you, when there's no chatter going on and you want to create some chatter. Right. And it worked well. Yeah, I was, I was going to say, I actually think I listened to that phone call. Like, because, you know, when you listen to these documentaries, they'll play certain calls. I almost feel like

these guys were going back and I feel like it was between him and might have been Meach where I think they were talking, between him and somebody and they were saying, oh, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's another call where they searched the car and they didn't. didn't find anything, but it still upset them. And they're having this conversation like, yeah, they got nothing. Right, right. Like, you're still talking about it. Even though they did have nothing, they searched the car, they found nothing.

He's like, yeah, they're just upset because we're making big money. But if you listen to the spirit of the call, you know, they're basically talking about how like we're so good at selling drugs that they can't catch us. And the feds, I think they're talking about the feds or the, you know, the law enforcement is upset about it. and they're just trying to shake us down. And they're saying, you know, but it's like if you're a legitimate, if you're a legitimate, you know, record label, this is not the conversation you're having.

Exactly. You see what I'm saying? Like it doesn't sound right. Right, right. It's like you and I are not going to have a conversation that you get pulled over, you know, for speeding, you know, and we're not going to have a list, this, like, you know, side to, you know, side of the mouth conversation about podcasts, you know, it's like, you know, yeah.

I mean, obviously, it was a criminal enterprise, and they just couldn't help it. You know, and if you think about it, you know, you know, criminals love to talk. Well, you know what I was going to say, you know what's funny too? So I've written a bunch of true crime books while I was locked up. And of course, that's why like master affidavit. Like I've seen all the FBI 302s, the DEA 6es. Like I've read all these. And I remember reading the transcripts and these guys are talking the transcripts where they're like calling one another up.

My guy, which was named Doug Dodd, he's being called by this guy. Lance Barabbas and Lance is like, yo bro, I need what's he's saying? He's like, I need 15 blueberries and I need 30 green apples and Dodd goes, what are we fucking?

He goes, what are we fucking, a farmer's here? Don't fucking call me with this shit. And he, I told you, don't call me.

And I hanged at the phone because he's like, you know, Dodd would say to Lance like, they're not stupid. Fucking green apples and blueberries. Like,

they know what those are? Like, what are you doing? What do they think we're fucking farms? I'm like, what do you? Don't call me with that. He's like, yeah, they don't know what it is. Like, stop, stop. They play that in front of a jury. The jury's going to be like, come on, man, you're not talking about apples and blueberries, bro. You know, and, and but they think they're so smart,

it just, it still looks bad. Juries aren't stupid. No, it's like, you know, when I, you know, obviously, we'll talk about it, you know, when I, you know, started doing drugs and it was getting deeper and deeper and much more, you know, I couldn't get out of it. I would call people, you know, say, hey, you got, oh, you mean, you have any, yeah, we have. three cows. How many cows are sheep do you? I'm like, motherfucker. I'm like, my farmer, you know, again, I'm not farmer browner's like, oh yeah, what, you want four Rolexes? How the fuck am I going to afford four

roller? Just give me the eight ball for grace. If they're listening, we're done either way. Right. It's like, you know what I fucking want. I shouldn't think, you know, it's been, you know, but it's like, oh, you know, you know, three nuns, oh, four, seven-year-olds, oh, great, well, give me a, give me a child, charge ball right, you know, it's just like, you just want some, you know, but yeah,

And that's what these guys were doing. They were talking about laundry and, you know, you know, we got four bales of laundry. Well, you're like both, you're like, Amari's skinny as hell. You know, they're both under five foot fucking 10. Why do you have four bales of laundry, you know? Yeah. Or trees. Well, you got laundry and trees.

You know. Yeah. Any judge signing off on any Warren's going to know this is. They're talking in code about drugs. Sure. I'll sign off on it. Right. You know, and it's funny, you know, but it's like it's always a stupid shit.

It's like, it's never like, you know, can just give me, you're better, like I said, you're better off just saying four, you know. Yeah. But it's trees and laundry. And remember we're all sitting there and what a guy goes, why would they have to, is it out a nursery? We're like, no, motherfucker is it. You know, it's like it's code.

Tree, the laundry is a kilo, tree is an ounce, you know. Oh, okay. Birds. Right. Birds. Yeah. The birds, the flights. My, I'm sorry.

My favorite story, or my, is that, is that, is it. I was, is that when I first got locked up, I've told this story before, but I tell you'll find it funny. I, when I first got locked up, like, I mean, first guy, I mean, I just walked into the little, the little cell that they're keeping me in like 15 other guys and I go to use the phone. I can't use the phone. And the guy, this guy, black guy comes up to me is like, you call you peeps. I go, what? And he caught peeps.

I'm sorry? You know, he's peeps, you peeps. And I'm looking around like, and I know he's speaking English, but I know. like I'm unequipped to talk to talk to you. So I look around this black guy comes, I'm sorry, this white guy comes up to me who's got horns tattooed on his head, facial tattoos. And I'm looking at this guy like, this guy's terrifying. He walks up, he goes, your people. And I went, my people. And he goes, your family. He wants to know you're trying to call your people. He goes, I got this. And the guy and walks off. And I don't know what, I don't know what I is. I don't know

what that means. I just know he grunted and walked off. He's like, he wants to know if you're trying to call your people. Here's how the phone works. And he explains to me. He's like, see the little bar. You put this. This was a county jail. Sure. So I make a phone call, but I remember at that moment thinking to myself, bro, you are, you are not equipped to function in this environment. You're going to have some problems. You need to get out of this. Like, you're not going to be able to even communicate. These guys are speaking English, kind of. So three years later, I've been sentenced. I'm at the, I'm at the medium. I'm standing behind, Have you heard this story?

I'm standing behind two black guys in line for the chow hall. There's 150 guys. You know, you're waiting 20 minutes just to get your child. And I'm standing there, and they're having this conversation. And the one guy says, uh, how you fall, man? And he said, shit. He said, uh, nigger got a nigger fucked up over two birds and a stack. And I, and I, and he said, nah, I'm saying?

And I sat there and I thought, oh, my God. I do know what I'm saying. Over $1,000 and two keys, another black guy, you know, snitched him out. And I thought, oh, God, you've got to get out of here, bro. You have to get out of here. I mean, immediately, I could have had that whole conversation. And, you know, just with them, you know, how many birds? Well, what was your source?

Like, I knew all the slang within three years. And it was, that was a horrible realization that I understood completely. So when you're talking about the guy mumbling and couldn't understand him, Andy's talking in code and he's talking in that slang. It's impossible. It's virtually impossible. It was terrible. Smurr, play said, his wiretaps, this is how his wiretaps went.

No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I mean, that was like the first 97 calls. They were like 13 seconds each. I remember looking at all the agents going, what did I?

You know, it's like, like, you know, it's like, And when the guy with the horns comes up to you, it's like that moment when you realize perhaps I made the wrong decision. And that's how it was. And, you know, it was funny. They were talking about bumps. We're like, you know, they got 17 drug agents. I got DEA.

I've got GBI. I've got narcotic, you know, from multiple agencies, right? I'm looking around going, what the hell's a bump? Yeah. This is, you know, we're just, you don't realize it, you know, we're not equipped. None of us were in the club life. You know, I get it now. I know what I'm up there.

But we look, when I look back at it, it's like, hell, we had just known what a bump was three weeks earlier. Yeah. We might have spent this thing along and talking about bumps and this. We just thought they were talking about, we were looking for a road that had a bunch of bumps in it. You know, and trees and laundry. It was like, you know.

I'm sorry, but I got ourselves. Yeah. What happened with the, so Meach was furious at these guys who got busted. Yeah. And they had to go between. They had a mediator. So a woman, they called her yogi. She was like a, like the house mom.

And she took a liking to Jeff and Omari. And so we got her talking all over the phone. And she would pass messages from Meach onto them. And when this happened, when the kilos were taken, she was not aware of what they were doing. and it was very clear, come to see me, Meets is pissed, drop your phones.

And the phones got dropped. No new numbers. No new numbers. That's upsetting. Right? So we did what we, you know, we did the only thing that we could do

was I went out and paid Jeff another visit to his house, trying to arrest Omari at the time because we had enough on him and he alluded us. But again, they had no chance. choice but to pick up their telephones. We kept them running so they couldn't stop at anyone.

Can't drop one phone and lose all the numbers. So they started calling on it again. And this was towards the end. Meets was liquidating. He wanted to get out. And eventually, I think it was the night had he already been arrested. Oh no. Oh, okay. Sorry. This was he just then. He just knew things were going wrong. He knew he knew shit was was going south at that point. It was right before Thanksgiving. We caught them talking to one of his attorneys. We'd gotten permission on our wiretap. There were some other, you know, a lawyer can give you legal advice, but a lawyer can't be a co-conspirator.

Yeah. When you cross that line. So we were getting ready. We wrote our warrants. They had money coming. They were doing a lot of counterfeiting. So they had... I hadn't heard that.

I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. And a lot of counterfeit. So Meach was famous in Old Fourth Ward Day. got up in a helicopter and threw all this cash out upon the masses. It was a Robin Hood moment. It was counterfeit. And this is one of my most favorite,

this is one of my most favorite moments. You're all going to jail. Exactly. Here's one of my top ten favorite moments with the fumbling, bumbling idiots of the Hoover building. We have a guy coming in from Nigeria. Apparently, I think he was like a seven foot tall Nigeria. at the Ritz Carlton Buckhead with two suitcases of counterfeit cash.

So he blends right in. Yeah. Just, you know, this guy is like, nobody can pick him out of a crowd. And he goes up to the top floor, right? We know where he's going because he's going to give them, I think, a million or two million in counterfeit bills and take real cash as payment. FBI wants to be part of this now. So we give them one job, right?

It's one floor. It's an elevator. only an elevator. You know, you can't get up there without the elevator, right? And then you stand down at that special elevator waiting for him to come off

and arrest him. But yet they somehow managed to lose him. Not only did they lose him, they lost a counterfeit cash. So, you know, well before Trump didn't like FBI. Right.

I was... You were doing it when it, you didn't like him when it was... Right. Before it was cool. Well, they live up to... They're famous, but incompetent.

That's exactly what FBI stands with. They're just... Yeah, they're, bunch of an accountants. And they screwed it up so bad and we are doing our warrant. And then they decide, well, they're going to go to their supervisors. And they tell us, oh, you can't issue your warrants, your search warrants tonight. We're like, otherwise we're out of here. I'm like, oh, you know, okay, well, throw us in that briar patch. Well, I mean, you know, please, can you please stay and fuck up our case a little bit more? You know, now that we have two million dollars

in negative currency out there. Right. And then they did. Later on, it was my second favorite moment with the FBI. They're just, yeah, they were just, they screwed that up so badly and then they would drew it because I yelled at them. Right. Because you can't yell at the FBI, you know. You got to coddle them. I didn't have a good experience either.

Yeah. They're just, yeah. Like I said, at one point in my life, I looked up to them and then I realized that they're just, you know, the other agents, the other alphabets do well, but these guys. It's funny you say that because I've always said that my, with the FBI agent, agents that were on my case. I said they were like glorified thugs. Like they were they were they were not. I had always thought they were the top tier law and law enforcement. But the truth is when I actually sat down with them, they didn't know anything. They were extremely unprofessional.

They were rude and they were really they were reliant on basically just threats and being thuggish. The Secret Service, which you know, I didn't even know they did anything other than protect the president and look into cat look into um counterfeit uh case counterfeit cash cases um they were extremely polite professional the whole way very detached never got angry never got you know it was always mr cox this mr cox that would you like something which is very professional very like they're you know very business like yeah that was not my experience with the fbi yeah the i you know and i've worked with them i've worked across from them i worked against them it's always the same thing you know it's it's it's the it's the aura of being FBI.

You know, DEA, they're the gritty guys. They work, they're the hardest workers. DEA, postal inspectors, those are the guys who actually get down in the dirt and dirty. ATF, you know, it's just, you know, used to say drink, smoke, shoot. You know, it's just, you know,

they usually just bootstrap it along, you know. But we had everybody in our, in this case. You know, the marshals are pretty cool to work with, but the FBI, they just, they, if anybody should be charged with obstruction, it should have been them on this case. because they just, you have one job, and then they took their marbles and they went home.

They're, you know, it's okay, well, the three of you can go because we have 340 other agents sitting here. Right. By the time we closed the job down. And then later on, we seized a Hummer, um, uh, um, v limo. Um, and again, we knew that there was money in this. They had all these traps and whatnot.

Trap door, little trap doors. They felt in. Yeah, turn the air conditioning on, tap yourself on the head. I knew it was in there. I knew it was in there. there. And in fact, I even knew where it was. But, you know, they assured me, they said, I want to know, we're going to bring the FBI into their, their forensic, you know, auto forensic team. And these guys are the, these guys are the best, right? And then they reported back, no,

you know, they even sent me the affidavit, they certified that they'd searched this vehicle. There was nothing in it. Okay. You know, you fast forward to the movie scene where they're auctioning the fucking thing off. And his older man, he's, you know, he's cleaning the goddamn limo and the roof opens up and all this money falls out. Right? It's like you really got to hand it to the FBI. It's like certified it. Did you? I mean, how hard is it? You're talking about that much of gap. You can't figure it out. Right. We got the money and he got a finder's fee. But again, it's just their forensic auto unit. You know, might as well been their forensic detail unit. I have a hard time imagining that I would have called that if I had bought a limo was cleaning it and

a couple million dollars fell out of the ceiling that I would think I need to turn this. And that'd be a moment for me. I'd be a, I'd have to give myself a stiff like, you know, honestly, this is probably drug money. And it's probably be better off spent by me than go in the federal coffers of the federal government. I feel like they're, I would feel how much trouble would I get into? Come on. It's nobody's going to volunteer. Well, exactly, right.

I mean, you own it at that point. I mean, he did, you know, I think in his mind, and that's, I can't speak more. thing? Well, you know, he's an older black man. He's lived through, lives through the changes in, you know, in society. I mean, you think about it. He's sitting there. He's cleaning out right and thinking to himself, you motherfuckers are trying to set me up. This is the FBI. Because again, he doesn't know that they're a bunch of idiots. Like I know, right? He doesn't realize that it was negligence. He's thinking, they're trying to send me, you know, it's, I guess in dealing, in working in the phone, the older generation, they remember when cops were shutting them up.

Right. And they had family members, the generation above them who were lynched. And so there's a lot of distrust. And the FBI is not, you know, the FBI is not getting invited to reunions in southwest Atlanta. You know, the taste is still pretty bad in everybody's mouth. So what's the finer fee on a million turning in? Was it a million, right?

I think it was a million, yeah. I think it's 10, 15 percent. You got a good chunk. I mean, yeah. I mean. Yeah, I take it all. I would have gone to the press simply to say see the FBI screwed up again. You know, it's just, it's just, it's, it was frustrating.

You know, you think, you think that, I'm sorry. No, no, I was just going to say a mitch at this point, Meech is liquidating. Yeah, he's gone. And so we take him down. We do the warrant. I'm not trying to rush you. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure we go back to the same spot.

That's all. I got to stay on track. It's like, oh, there's a dolphin. I mean, you know, so it's the night before, two nights before Thanksgiving, we hit the search warrants. We go to his house and there's still, there's a pot. I'm sorry. Well, how do you get that? How do you know what, how do you know now we're going to take him down?

Was it because you thought they're liquidating? We don't have a choice at this point. They figured it out. They're not selling drugs anymore. They're liquidating everything. We need to take them down now. We still have a case. Yeah.

That was the idea. It was because we lost the seven foot, we lost the seven foot Nigerian counterfeit. So they, and they knew we were on them. Right. They, they, and it was an accident. We were at McDonald's on Cheshire Bridge Road. And they just happened to be right there in front of us. We were not following.

We were having lunch. Right. And it just, he just thought he was being followed. He talked to his lawyer. They wanted cash, you know, liquidate. wanted, you know, pay off people in the department, you know, talking about the sheriff's department at the time, that they had some people there.

They wanted, he wanted to know who was after them, what was going on. It was time, you know, and everybody's phones didn't care who it was, drop everything. So the phones went dead. That was, that was, there was nothing else going to happen. So we issued the warrants. We wrote the search warrants. And I think I started, I think at 3 o'clock that afternoon.

And, um, Judge Etheridge filled, Ethridge was a, uh, said that he'd be a bell. And went out to his house at 10 o'clock that night. And he started signing, reading in, and Phil Etheridge was a great judge, but he read each, he just read every, every, every, every letter of each one. Even if they copy, you know, they were the same affidavit, he made sure. Um, and, uh, he was very much law and order. He signed them. So the locations that we had, because we'd follow them or we were able to determine from, we went, I went to Meach's house. with the group out there.

And we missed them. Again, it's up off Mount Paren Road. And how in the middle of, right before Thanksgiving, this black man running down the street wearing flip-flops and boxer shorts. Oh, when you say you missed them, you don't mean he drove away

and you shut up 30 minutes later. You mean he bolted it. There was a blunt still burning and there was a pot boiling. He runs right out the back door of these million-dollar houses and nobody sees him. A black man running down the street, right?

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Again, again, you know, I'm not, you know, if we'd had the FBI, I can say, well, that's how we missed them because they were supposed to watch. But he escaped us. And we were, I was, we issued a warrant for his arrest, but I was long gone by the time they arrested him. I had already left the DA's office at that point. Oh, okay. Because again, nobody, the feds, you know, the feds don't issue arrest warrants.

They indict. Yeah. And at this point, the amount of money, the amount of arrests, the amount of drugs, just the amount of evidence was building up. We knew, you know, the FBI. U.S. Turing, they were smelling blood in the water. The cherries were ripe to be picked. We knew they were going to take our case. It was never my intention to have the BMF case in the courts,

in a state court. So that's where we were headed with it. But they can't issue a warrant or they wouldn't issue. They didn't have time to get to the grand jury. And I'm not sure they were all convinced at the time as yet. That they had a solid case. So Jack Harvey said, can you get an arrest warrant?

Yeah, we put it to the grand jury. The grand jury had already been hearing about all those BMSs. So they were giddy. We indicted and got the, and got a bench warrant for all of them. We didn't get a lot of them arrested. They turned themselves in later, like once.

The feds, though the warrants went to the feds. It was just, it's common place. You issued the state warrant. The feds pick them up on it and then the feds take them, you know,

for the first appearance, and then run them through on a complaint to the magistrate. We just could never really get Meach for murder. What we call the club chaos incident was Meach and one of his guys, a mean height, who they called Bull,

got into a shootout with Anthony Wolf Jones and there was another fellow. I had a dispute. And people wanted, at that point, this is before our investigation. And there was some at APD, you thought, well, this is it. we can get Dmitrius Flannery, but it was a good shoot.

You know, at the end of the day, you know, if you're going to, you know, if you're going to go after somebody, you know, you know, at least make sure you're a good shot. And Anthony Wolf Jones, his greatest claim to fame was dying, you know, dying horribly. The humanity did it. Yeah. They didn't lose a soldier. Right, right. You know, I mean, he was P. Diddy's, you know, he was Diddy's bodyguard at one point. So, hell, he'd probably be a witness or a defendant now anyway. Right. But really, I mean, he couldn't even die right.

I mean, you know, it's just... So what happened? There was a shooting in a club or...? Yeah, Meach and, I mean, hi, go to leave the club. And these idiots are out there waiting for them and to ambush them. You know, they're waiting to ambush them so that you, you know, presumably you have your gun ready. Right. And they didn't.

So they returned fire and killed them. And even Jack Harvey at the time said, there's no... There's no there there. Yeah. You know, as much as he wanted, we wanted them, or he wanted them at the time, there was just nothing. It was a, it was a good shoot. He should have gotten a medal for it.

Right. What ultimately happened in the case, though, that, did these guys pled guilty, right? They didn't go to trial. No, no. So they, they, from the top down, Meach and his brother, Terry, and their father, they all pled guilty. And they got time. I think Meach and Terry both got 30 years, if I'm not mistaken, federal.

I was, again, I was gone. I had nothing to do with it, and there was a federal. Terry was eventually released on compassionate release because of COVID. Right. And I believe Meach is out in a halfway house right now. Right. And then from there, I prosecuted Omari. And again, another misstep.

It was so much going on that when we had arrested him, apparently some of the agent, Steve briefed him, and he admitted, he laid it all out. He's the one who really hooked Meach into the conspiracy and what his role was, et cetera. But the minute he pled, I mean, the minute that he pled guilty, the FBI came and took him away and brought him up, you know, to the U.S. as a cooperating witness. Do you know, in general, how many people in total were pled guilty or were involved? I don't. I don't. Because it kept going on and on.

Right. Right. 128 conviction. And it was over 100. And that's just the, that includes the lower end from where we started going up. St. Louis. You know, the unsung heroes and all this. You know, it's, I'm the, you know, this sounds funny, but I'm the reluctant face of

this thing, I never wanted to be doing documentaries. It started with the Gangland documentary, and Jack called me and said, oh, I can't do it because, you know, we need Justice Department approval and, you know, you owe me. So, and that's where, you know, I never wanted this because it kind of led to my downfall, too. But, you know, South Carolina had the folks out in South Carolina, they did a great investigation. They had a big hand in officers in Orlando. Orlando had a huge role in all this. St. Louis, Detroit, L.A.

There's so many other agencies, but we're the ones who did the wiretap. And I think what kind of captured everybody's interest was that we spent so much money in doing the state wiretap and we coordinated all these different agencies. If the Fed swoop in and pick up a case that you've been working on two years or 18 months or whatever. Do they reimburse the state for that, for that cost? No, no. You would think they would reimburse the costs.

Well, it's really, I mean, so the, all the, you know, the task for each member of a, of the, so we were running through the high, the high, the high intensity drug trafficking area task force. So you're already getting federal funds? Right. So it's already run through there. But each, you know, every time, so every time, let's say, I see. sees $10 here. Everybody who's part of an agency,

their agency gets a pro rata share of that. And so that's how, you know, that comes back in the forfeiture money and the vehicles that get auctioned. It's also what got me the district attorney of the year award from Paul Howard because we started

getting these checks coming in. And not just the stuff that we'd seized, but from the entire investigation that had, you know, this is an investigation that had the same case number throughout the country. So you're seasoned 100 grand in Detroit. You got a million in L.A.?

Well, the Fulton DA's office gets a portion of that. Right. It was free, you know, and it's free money, you know, for purposes of, you know, there's no accounting for it. Once the feds give it, give it to us, the DA can do anything with it. So I have a question. When you, if you seize 200, 200 kilos, what happens to kilos? They destroy them?

Yeah, I mean, they get sent to the lab, though, tested. Did they hold them forever? Or they chuck? When the case is over, it gets burned. They get burned. I was willing to cinerate them. Because they, they, because I see these guys in prison who are fighting their cases and they'll have, you know, computer servers and all kinds of evidence that they're, it's like, this is 15 years ago. You're telling me there's a box somewhere or boxes and boxes of evidence and they just keep it like, they must have fucking warehouses.

They do. And it's in so long as that case is on appeal. They just keep it. They just keep it. It's, you know, I got to see the Wayne Williams, you know, the Atlanta child murder, the files, hit that file. It's an entire room at the district attorney's office dedicated just to, I mean, a room of boxes and boxes and boxes, you know. Yeah, you just have to keep them. So why did you leave the, uh, the district attorney's office? So, After BMF, which was closed right around December 7th of 2004, we started on another wiretap case. It was a cold case in California.

And it was a cold case? A cold case. In California? So we were going to have to. But you're in Atlanta. Correct. So we were going to have to get a wiretap here and get orders out in California. We're going to capture the.

captured the call in California, but routed through an Atlanta listening post. So it was dual jurisdiction warrants. And it was a cold case murder, I said. And we were scheduled to go out there on March 11, 2005, and that, unfortunately, was the day that Brian Nichols got loose in the courthouse and killed Judge Barnes, Roland Barnes, and his court reporter.

and Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy Sergeant Hoyt Teasley and Dave Wilhelm. He was a federal agent. And it was, I wasn't there that day. I was on a plane. In fact, I was on a plane when it all happened and phone call went like this. And it's like, you know, the prosecutor on the case, on Brian Nichols case, was my girlfriend at the time. Eventually became my wife and mother of my child and now my ex-wife.

But she was late because she was dropping me off at the airport. But the phone call I got as we were leaving was, where's Gail? Judge Barnes is dead. Julie's dead. And then the phone was dead for the next four and a half hours. Shortly after that, the way our office handled it, the way it was handled in general left the bad taste in people's mouths.

So there was a mass exodus from the full and DA's office. ADAs were leaving. Why? Why specifically? Because, I mean, let's face it, that was, I mean, although it was, you know, a horrendous event, it was extremely uncommon. Sure. You know, like you can think to myself, that's happening every few months. It's that, him getting away and the circumstances and.

Oh, it was a confluence of idiocy. Yeah. And just, just, just an absolute. lack of professionalism and procedure. I can't speak for why everybody left. Some already had jobs in the works. Usually at the time at Fulton DA's office, when people left in droves,

you leave in groups of three. This was the mass exodus. It was a cathartic exodus. People had had enough. Not everybody was as gung-ho crazy as I was. And again, I didn't, wouldn't gung-ho crazy about trying, you know, being in the unit.

I like just being out there, you know, running free with the cops and running the investigations. I stuck around. I probably shouldn't have. But it had an effect. I mean, I started drinking. I went from two drinks a week to a bottle a day, which eventually let, you know, and hanging out all night and showing up to work, you know, fucked up, just fucked up. Which eventually led to drugs.

And so I left. in June of 2006 and went out in a private practice. You know, the practice flourished. We did well. I did well. But as I continued to be successful, I, uh, continues the appetite. You know,

I continued to use and more, you know, it was the constant being out. I mean, that was my thing, you know, I was out, you know, out and about getting to know people. And the more you win, the more money you make, the more cases you get. Yet, the more, you know, again, I think I said, it was just hubris. Until eventually, you know, I found myself, you know, without my wife, without my child, about my son, and I just kept going.

You know, at that point, it was, for me, it was, you know, it was going to end. I just didn't know how it was going to end. I figured, I figured, you know, eventually I just wouldn't wake up one day. the amount of drugs and alcohol I was putting into my body. Well, can we jump back real quick to one of the guys that I was locked up in Coleman. We talked about this. I was locked up in Coleman. And I was I want to say it was in B3?

B4. Anyway, at the Coleman Low and I was locked up with a guy named, everybody called him Jr. he always used to say he told me one time his name is my name is actually junior but he's like but nobody can say it so it's so junior um and then you were and then we were before you got here or before we started you happened to mention that you were his his attorney can you talk about his case because it's funny because i know about his case by one i read like one article and then I know his case by talking to him, you have like, like your, you know a lot more.

And I understand you can't talk about a lot of it. You can talk about what's out there. But I have a skewed version of his, but even the skewed version that I have of his case was still brutal, you know, and talking to him. But he was, he was big on, this was a guy that just, you know, he just was, we're locked up together and he just was not, he, he just would not take responsibility for anything. He just wouldn't do it. And it was like, you know, like they didn't put you in here.

He got a sweetheart deal. Like what we talked about. And, you know, and wouldn't take response. Still was even locked up in prison was bitching a mon that he had to do any time at all. He's recalcitrant. Absolutely. I can't say that because that's just an observation. Yeah, Greg, I need Greg. He was one of the first narcotics cops. I think, I met when I started in Fulton County. I liked him. Appable, personable, great guy. APD narcotics at the time was divvied up into teams.

He was a team leader. You know, and I was friendly. I tried to maintain good relationships with all of the narcotics officers. You fast forward towards the end of my career in Fulton County. That group was, we were gun shy. Our unit was shy about taking any cases from that group. There was just, there's something, things weren't sitting right. The anomalies or the, every case was too similar.

We didn't have a full-blown policy, but it was a, you know, do what you thought best type of attitude at that point. So then I left the district attorney's office. And in Thanksgiving, I believe, of 2000 and Thanksgiving, 2000. And it was a little narcotics group. They were a narcotics team, right? They were team one, team one. And it would change.

You know, officers would get moved in, get moved out. Ideally, and it probably would have been best for me also, is that you should transfer your narcotics people out every couple of years so that you don't run into these problems that we have. But around Thanksgiving of 2006, and again, everything in my life seems to hinge around Thanksgiving issues, they, the call went out of shots fired. And they had on Neal Street, the home of Catherine Johnson. The APD narcotics had breached the door upon breaching the door to execute a search warrant now. She shot, elderly grandmother shot at them, and they returned fire killing her.

And the initial reports, and I believe Greg was hit by one of the bullets, the initial reports coming out was, you know, must have been a grandson, or somebody goes, they'd gotten a confidential informant to buy drugs from this house. And they had like a no-doc warrant or something. They had a no-knock warrant. They actually, there was two doors on that house. One from which you would enter and go. The other one was a pretty much a welded burglar bar door that they closed in that wall.

So they basically came through her wall. She didn't know what was going on. She thought she was being invaded. But the initial reports that they doubled down on was that, had an informant who bought drugs from this house. And obviously it wasn't her, but it could have been a grandson. People couldn't piece it together. And so after a couple days, it became very clear. Well, so they break in the door. Right. They break in the door. She thinks she's being, it's a home invasion of some kind. She fires at them while trying to call 911. Right.

They return fire to they kill her. Okay. And she dies on a scene. And again, from far as what the world knows, they know the official statement that we had an informant. What's going on behind the scenes is that, you know, Greg and his team are told, you better, you better get, you know, you better go and get your informant in line here. We need to figure out what's going on. They're trying to track the informant down. In the meantime, the informant runs to the press saying, I'm being, he gets a lawyer and says, I'm being threatened by these guys to say that I made a buy. I didn't make a buy there. Right. So the feds start getting. getting involved.

And this is within days. This is within days. This is just one of those things where it's just, it avalanched so quickly. Can I say to say what Greg had told me? Yeah. Whether it was just George. So Greg had told me that what they were doing was they would, in this case, actually, I think it was in this case too.

And you could tell me if I'm wrong. But in this case, I believe he said they had pulled somebody over. ask that guy, where'd you get the drugs? Just give us an address. We'll go, you know, just give us an address. We'll let you go. So he says, oh, and 1915, you know, 24th Avenue, you know, and they go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know where that is.

So they all, like, they understand where it is. They say, okay, they let them go. They then go to, he said, you have like, I may not have this perfect, but it was like certified CIs. He's like a guy that his word is good, We've gotten many search warrants based on his word. And he said, so we get him to, or they use his name. They write up like an affidavit.

They go to a judge and say, our certified CI has said he purchased from this house. And we've, he's done 15 different, whatever. And the judge's like, okay, and it's good. Yeah, yeah, it's good. He signs off on it. Then they go and boom, they break into that. They do the no knock warrant where they just start basically just go in the house without. saying anything.

They just go in. And so they go through the door or they go through the wall or whatever. And that's when the, and really, it's not the whole, this whole thing is the initial guy they pulled over

gave him an address, but it was a bullshit address. He'd never bought from that woman. He'd never bought from anybody in that house. It's a random house. So when Greg and his team go into the house, it's just some old retired school teacher who's never done.

done a fucking thing wrong other than be a school teacher and retire and live in her life. And these guys break into her house. She pulls out her little gun. She's on the phone. She fires. They return fire. They kill her. They murder her.

Yeah. They murder her. And it's exactly right. A regular warrant, a regular warrant based upon a, a, a CI by would say something to the effect of, you know, the affiant, you know, knows the confidential informant, the informant has worked in the past, knows the informant not to be unreliable, to be trustworthy. And that also, I gave them 15 mark dollar bills. I watched him go to the house. He then came out of the house. I immediately searched him at a, you know, without losing eyes, line of sight. I searched him again.

And he did not have the dollar bills, but he had $15 worth of on him. And I can, from that, I can conclude this is what happened. Yeah, there's no way he could have swapped that. He went in the house, got the money. Yeah, exactly. He bought something. So what happened in this case and what turns out what was happening in all these cases, you and I are on the team together. And I say, hey, you know, Matthew, good. You know, you need a warrant, don't you for your quota? Oh yeah. You know, you haven't done enough warrants this month. Um, well, that house over there. I've got a CI who did, who got to buy. And it's CI 422. And while you're at it, once you sign out a voucher so I can pay him, right? Right. And, you know, so you say, in your affidavit, you say, I personally observed

CI-422, go to the house, right? But you didn't. You weren't there because I told you that this is what happened, but you're making it sound like you did the observation. That makes sense? Yeah. So what they were doing was passing off, it began with passing off their observations so other eight officers could have their numbers, their warrants. It ended with, just making a bullshit, just to execute warrants. And that was one of the things we were seeing, you know, that all these warrants were coming back, you know, negative. You're like a little bit of weed.

And, you know, like you're saying you have in the house, but in guns, but you're coming up with a pill. You know, it didn't make any sense. But again, and this is where I did everybody, I think, at this service, because I believed Greg. And I, not just Greg. I believe these officers when they told me, oh, this is what happened initially. So the feds gave out and sent out notices to this team that they wanted to know,

come up for your interview, you could have a lawyer. I took, the first officer I took, I'd known him for years, he had been on the DOI task force. This is after the shoot? After the shooting, the feds started doing interviews. It was voluntary interviews. I didn't have Greg. I met with Greg, but I took the other. Kerry Bond, he was a great guy. He got caught up in bullshit. He was brand new to the drug,

to the drug squad, didn't really know any better. He was a phenomenal DUI cop. And we went up, we spoke to the feds. And Sally Yates was there and an FBI agent. And we talked, and it all went very well. We were in and out in 30 minutes. And as we're leaving, Carrie makes a comment. he goes, should I, do you want to know about all the warrants that, all the fake warrants or something like that? And it was like, what? It was like, you know, if you had somebody with a trombone and been like, war, war, war, you know, and thus began the longest, the longest day of my life at that at that point, we were there for hours. And by the time, we, you know, we went from walking out of this thing free and clear to, okay, we need to talk, you know, proper letters and, you know,

federal sentencing guidelines. Right. That was just on Kerry. And then Greg had already informed them that day he intended to hire me. I didn't, and again, that morning, there wasn't a problem with conflict. Right. By the time I got out and Carrie, everybody agreed that, you know, Greg wanted to hire me. I went and spoke with him.

And, you know, he told me some of, some other things. Eventually, as everybody knows, he cooperated. Right. not even I could and he's been open about it but not even I knew about the scope and the breath of just how how ratchet the whole system had been yeah it been going on for years years years years not only that they had a racket going a security racket so you you know the people the businesses who paid pay for that extra for the extra security from his team now these are cops who are supposed to be out there. Like 911 calls,

they send police, right? But instead, Greg was running their, they were running their own security. So if you needed 911, you called Greg, and he sent, he sent patrols. And so he paid these guys,

the patrols extra. But if you call Greg and you've been late on your payment, well, you didn't get your patrol that night. Right. It's just, and I don't know how you get to that point where you think that this is okay.

It was just, catastrophic and the amount of officers that whose careers were ended because of it. It was, it was probably, as I said earlier, you know, that moment where you decide, when you think of yourself, I probably should not have done this. Right. It was not a good case. But, and as you said, you know, I think you mentioned when we're talking, you know, that he's griped about my, my services.

Well, he could have gotten the death penalty for what he did. Right. Well, he goes into the feds. Yeah. And he cooperates against the other officers. All the other officers. He's the first one to talk, so he gets the best deal. Right.

The two that were on the team that were part of the lie, because they were made up of threes, and then starts telling on all the other, about all the other bad cops. Right. But yeah, initially, I think the opera was 40 years. He could have got, he was eligible for the capital punishment. 40 years, and we got him to six.

you know right but as you said it's nice to know it's nice to know that he's still he's still griping he's still griping about it yeah the whole time he was in the unit he became he was the head orderly and uh he we we'd had many discussions and it what's funny is at one point this one of the guys got his um they had somebody from the outside mail in some articles on him and they were passing around the articles. Like, you know, these are all guys that, you know, they're all stand-up guys and they want to make sure that everybody's, you know, everybody's square and good.

And they wanted everybody to know that, you know, this guy's a fucking, you know, he's a fucking snitch and he this. But, but, you know, which is true. But one, he's a heterodally and two, you're at a low. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're not going to do anything. Like, you just want what? Everybody to know?

Like, Greg would tell you. He didn't give a shit. He really didn't talk to me anyway. I mean, who in a federal CIA did not cooperate or give a little bit of information. Right. So he's in there. So he and I had had many, many conversations. And he had told me some horrific stories, not even about this, just about like, just horrible

story. Like they were chasing a guy one time and the guy like on foot. Oh, yes. Oh my gosh. I always wondered if that was true. The guy, they were running across an overpass. Ran across the air pass and jumps. And the guy jumps off the overpass.

And Greg said they almost jumped off, but he said they stopped the last minute, realize when the guy initially was running, the overpass was starting to go down. And he didn't realize that an extra 10 or 20 feet, by the time he jumps off, it's now a 30 foot drop. And as he's falling, there's a fence down there. The pole of the fence, Pike's fence hits him in the head and yanks his head right off his body. The body is laying on the ground. and his head's on the spiked fence.

Right? I mean, yeah, he just knew it. Greg had told me the story in prison. And I remember thinking that cannot be true. There's a scene in Predator in the movie Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he takes the skull and the whole spine out of the body and just drops the body like a sack.

Oh my God. I mean, horrible. But he had tons of these stories. But at one point... The guy had dreads, but he had just look at his face like, oh shit, perhaps I should. horrible he was not he was not on the olympics synchronized diving team but time that very well i i remember um gregg one time he had gotten something in the mail or his wife had come to see him or something

and they had tons of money and i was he was bitching about how somehow or another you know his fear was that he was going to get out of federal prison and have to go to the state you know so his fear was he was trying to get put in for like a year halfway house. Right. And he, but the state wouldn't sign off on a lap, they wouldn't remove, like they'll have like a hold on you. Sure. They wouldn't remove the hold because he's still in state custody also.

They wanted to make sure that he did his time. As much time as possible. So he can't go. He's basically going to walk out the door, no halfway house. So he's trying to get out, get on halfway house so he can get on ankle monitor, but the state won't sign off on it. And he's bitching about it. And I was like, well, I mean, it's an extra year.

It's not that big to be. He's an extra year. He's like, this is bullshit. And he's complaining. And I was like, he's like, I'm doing six years. I shouldn't have done any time at all. He's like, oh, and he said, I had an agreement or started talking about having an agreement for a few years or five years or four years, whether that's true or not or no. And I remember going, I mean, Gray, I said, let's put it in perspective here, bro.

I said, you killed someone, you know? And he's like, and he goes, she shot me. And I go, you broke in our house. He's where the fuck? He's worth the police. I go, she's a grandmother who's never broken the law. And I go, bro, come on, man. Like, I'm not trying to start an argument here, but come on, bro.

Six years. And he's like, you don't understand. And I'm thinking, yeah, I do understand. I know tons of people that are entitled and don't think that they've ever done anything wrong in their life, despite the fact that you just murdered a fucking innocent woman. And that's how it was every day. In fact, I had co-counsel of the Superior Court Judge, Gino Brogden, had just left the bench voluntarily. He wanted to go back into private practice.

And he was on the case with me. And we, you know, again, without revealing any confidences, but again, he showed, you know, Greg never understood that if a police officer breaks the law, he's not a police officer. Right. He just happens to be a criminal with a badge on. Yeah, his first thing was, right. Where the police. Right.

First thing he said. You know, you could be, you know, the host of heaven. If you're breaking into the house, you know, you're fair game. Yeah. And the argument was always, well, how did she know that we didn't have the proper authority? Like, because she's 78 fucking years old, watching Wheel a goddamn fortune, and you're breaking into a welded door. Right. And she's never broken the law.

And again, this isn't a door that, you know, it swings open that people come in and out of. This is a burglar bar door that has been welded to the frame. So they're prying this thing open. what do you think is happening? You know, you know, it was just, it's, again, it was one of those nightmares that recurred for quite a while with being on that. And I, you know, I still stand by. And, you know, he would tell anybody, you know, well, Rayne was fucked up at the time.

Well, of course, I was fucked up at the time. It was a shitty case. It was a horrible case. The facts of the case were miserable. They were terrible. You know, you know, I'm sorry. I was going to say, I think. that deep down, I think he knew something was wrong. Like, I told you he was, listen, he was bone

thin. I mean, I mean, bone, like, we were, like, people were like, bro, you have to gain some weight. And he used to say, well, it's the food here. It's not the food here. He was puking in the bathroom every time he'd eat. His teeth were being eaten out of his, by the acids, they were being eaten out of his fucking mouth. So we used to, and the guys would say, like, bro, somebody needs to say something. And they would say, yeah, that's his conscious eaten at him. Maybe. And maybe it was. Like, I mean, he, he, you know, even though he bitched and moaned about it, but I mean, deep down, deep down, I think you've got to know, you think no. I don't. I just know it. He's just an asshole.

You know, I made his parents, his parents were wonderful people. His wife, Tammy. His wife was beautiful. Yeah. But, you know, it was very, hard. And I had a hard time back then. Now I could tell anybody. You never, never wanted to, you know, insult my clients. You know, back then, I told people what they wanted to hear, not what they needed to hear. And again, the constant conversation was, well, he's a hero. He's a hero. Well, he puts his life on the line, but it's like, but you don't really, but you're not a hero. Again, you can't sink the fucking ship and then expect to get accolades for saving the survivors. You choose one or the other. And it just, it never, and it got to the point between the two of us

where I just couldn't take it anymore. It just, there was, in his mind, there was nothing that, that I could do to make him happy, you know, the initial deal with the prosecutors, you know, of course, you're sitting down on your initial, it was like, of course, you could get no prison time here. Of course. But everybody knows that's not going to happen, right? Right. And, you know, when you get, You know, the state, Paul Howard wanted to, you know, brought him up on murder. He was going to run his own investigation. He and I were going at it in the press. The feds were trying to get everybody back to the table.

And we got a calls for Maine justice telling us to cut the shit out and get back to the, you know, get a deal done. Everybody wanted this deal done. And it was a phenomenal deal. Again, you murdered a woman under the color of law. You threatened an informant. you admitted to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of evidence, planting of putting hundreds of individuals and citizens in jail under convictions, right?

And then you only get six years? Yeah, it's a bargain. It's a bargain. I was a hell of a lawyer on that case. I don't mind a hell of a deal. But I don't say something myself. You know, I'm not going to break my, you know, I'm trying to. I'd break my arm pat on my back, but that was a hell of a deal.

Yeah, that was. And everybody said to Coleman. Yeah, yeah, Coleman was great. Coleman was great. Back then, too, it was great. He should have been, you know. It's the garden spot of the BOP. Right.

I mean, he could have gone, he could have gone to the Atlanta Fed. Oh, he could have had a problem. Yeah. Anywhere else he had gone, he would, he probably, probably, probably, I mean, if it was a low, he'd probably been okay, but he could have had a hard time. He had a sweet spot. Yeah, he had a sweet spot. I mean, and he had a sweet job.

And all the officers liked him. You know, because they're all semi-corrupt. So they all thought he was okay. There's camaraderie. Again, I think if you look at it not in a vacuum or in a vacuum, it's he made a mistake. You know, I don't know at what point that those lines got blurred. You know, and again, I liked Greg. Don't get me wrong.

You can like somebody and not like what they did. Yeah, I was going to say, he was never a prick to me. He was always very polite. He was always willing to help. He was always, you know, very professional. you know, who wasn't a dickhead, but when you talked about the specific things, he just was delusional. But for thinking that he deserved a medal for all that, he's a great guy. Right.

So, you know. Oh, I was going to say, so what happened? So, I mean, after that case, I mean, are there any, what, basically, like, what happened after that case and why, like, why aren't you a lawyer? Well, after that. since you put it that way. I mean, like, why, why leave a career where you dealt with such great individuals and the cream of the crop that you were dealing with? It wasn't necessarily voluntary. So that was right after that, we got pregnant.

My wife got pregnant. And she was tired of my bullshit and kicked me out. And again, don't blame her for it. She tried for a year, you know, she tried to help me. I kept practice in law. And on my own. And without any accountability, you know. And so I'm drinking, you know, I was going to clubs.

I was drinking. I represented, you know, again, I represented some of the nicest people in society. You know, I represented cartel members and Russian mob guys. and, you know, who the Russians can drink, you know, at all hours a day, you know, and they're not coming to the office. You know, you're meeting them where, you know, and the nights just turned into days that turn into nights. That's all there's to it.

And I was still winning for the most part. I made some mistakes, but I was representing a cartel. And I had money. You know, I didn't really need to be out there hustling the DUI cases. And, you know, I got so caught up in it. even know which which way was up. What happened with your partner? You were,

you were partners initially with someone, I thought. Right. It was my wife, my wife and I. Oh, and then we had another one up in South Dakota. Because we did sports management stuff also. And that just,

that didn't work out. So I was on my own. It was on my own. And again, I, you know, in my mind, I was the greatest lawyer anyway.

So I was handling it. You know, I was just kept working. I was working, drinking, druging, working, drinking, drug. You know, every night of the week, I was at a different club. I mean, I knew everybody,

you know, every bounce. I knew everybody. Um, and it's just that lifestyle. And I just, at some point, I just figured, I knew I was never going to be able to quit. It just, my mind, I was just figured, might as well just ride this wave to the end. I mean, did you, did you ever go into a rehab? I did. I went into a treatment, uh, to detox. And, uh, I lasted, I think about three months on the outside till, you know, it just, Again, I represented drug dealers. Right. You know, I was around it all the time.

And it's just... Did you ever try and go to AA meetings? Yeah, I did. I did. Didn't really... I'm sorry. It didn't. Yeah, I tried to AAA.

Here's what worked for me and what finally got me clean. Well, I got arrested a couple times, but not even that got me clean. Are these for DUIs? No, I got arrested for drug possession. Oh, okay. My, in 2012, I was arrested for drug possession and then, I ended up having to plead first offender on that in Fulton County. And then you're an attorney? Oh, I was.

Okay. Was that the nail in the coffin? No, no, no, no, no. I went and got special nails for my coffin after that. Shortly thereafter, I was in Cobb County and fucked up beyond, you know, all recognition pretty much. And Judge Grubbs in Cobb Superior Court. gave me the options. She said, you're messed up. I can tell you're messed up, you know, go home. So what did I say? No, Judge, I'll take a test. Oh my God. So I spent five days in the

whole, in a custody for contempt. And at that point, um, the bar was done with me. It was an emergency suspension and I didn't contest, uh, disbarment at that point. Um, well, got, you know, But no, what got me clean was my son. You know, in midst of all this, and I was still showing up and being there, but nothing, you know, my son is the most amazing young man. He's 16 now. And it was tough.

I'd love to say, like, oh, looking, holding him, I knew I would immediately stop drinking and drink. And I'd get my shit together. It didn't work that fast. But right after I was arrested, I was sitting in my law office and my lawyer, who I, he had, he owned the building, was sitting there trying to talk the shotgun out of my hand

because I was fucked up. I was in all the press and I didn't see a way out of it and gave me the best advice. You know, I said to him, he said, what are you doing? I said, I can't, what am I going to tell my son? I'm going to lose my law license. And he said, what am I going to tell your son? He said, at least you'll be here.

And you tell them, you know, you say, hey, you know, you get knocked down, you get back up. You know, and he goes, and if nothing else, you're the example, you know, that tomorrow, he said tomorrow, Daniel Kane was my lawyer, Danny looked at me, he goes, tomorrow, I said, yeah, he goes, it's going to be shit. He goes, next week's going to be even shittier. He goes, you're going to have a couple of really bad months. He said, but there's going to be a tomorrow.

You wake up, and it's going to be so much better, and it's going to get better, and you just got to keep fighting until you find it. And so I concentrated on being a dad, a good daddy, you know. showing up and being there and hanging out with my son. And, you know, I said he's, he's, he's, he's the best of both of us, his mother and I as, you know, just I couldn't, you know, every, you know, whether you're a father who has a son or you're just a son to a father, you know, all, you know, every man knows, you know, the fathers and sons, you know, it's just, it's that issue, you know, and he's just, he's

brilliant. He saved my life. It's just wanting to be in his life. And it was the best advice I ever got was just being there. And hopefully he takes it with him and he says, you know, when things get hard, my dumbass dad did it, you know, he kept getting back up. But that's what got me through it. Yeah, life's not a, you know, it's not a fantasy.

Things go wrong. Yeah. It's not perfect. Things go wrong. People fuck up. So I'll say. So Raiden, you know, is my son saying, you know, at least that he's, he's the best. of both of us, you know, but he got me through it.

So, I mean, after you lose your license, you, what were you placed on probation? Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So in Fulton County, they put me on, this is this amazing sentence of, this is phenomenal. So I get caught with possession of a couple firearms. They suspend the firearm charges, two years on probation. and to be suspended immediately upon completion of a drug rehabilitation program under First Offender and 20040 hours of community service speaking to local bar associations to other lawyers about drug use and alcohol.

No. No? No? No. No? No. No. But so I went to Fullen County to do my probation.

and do community service there, and I spent a lovely day down there picking up trash. At which point they told me, hey, you're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be speaking to local bars. Like bar associations. Right, yeah. So I said, well, we can't find anybody

who wants you to speak there. I'm like, okay. And they said, no, well, don't worry about it then. Okay. Okay. Throw me in that briar, badge. And then it was like, are you going to the rehab? I'm like, no, I'm not.

Okay. Well, just don't report anymore. Okay. So that was fun. which then led to the Cobb County, which gave me six years of a three plus three consecutive. And they wanted random drug tests three times a week for six years. And $45 a pop, that gets a little rich. So they didn't do that either because they sent it down to Fulton.

And Fulton said, well, you're fine. You know, and all the AAs and the counseling, at some point it becomes a gimmick. And like I told the judge in Cobb County, you just let me do it my way. Let me just show you, and I'll be clean. And it worked out. I, you know, after I lost my license, after the old Cobb County arrest, I decided, you know, hey, you know what, I need a change in my life. So I'm going to go live with a woman who sells drugs in Forsy County for a while.

Because that's the kind of change I needed. One good decision after another. You know, it was. It was. I'm going to write a self-help book, too. But, and then in March of 2015, I just had enough. And folks offered me a job in construction. And something about being 86 feet in the air, you can't really do drugs and be walking that at the same time.

And I've been doing construction and carpentry ever since. You've never, are you able, if you wanted to go back to the law, would you be able to, you think, get your license back? There's an avenue there, but I don't want. Not even interested. I'm really not interested. It's not sour grapes. I just, I look at the state of the way it is today anyway. and I just so wanted to put up with that bullshit.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of people think, you know, law and order is, I mean, or sorry,

being a lawyer is like being, you know, like law and order or like it's a bunch of, it's like, it's exciting and it's, but it's a lot of filling out paperwork and. Well, you know,

I was a, I was a real trial lawyer. You know, I tried cases to fill out some paperwork. Sure. Absolutely. It's still a lot of stress. What I'm saying is all,

it's, that's all who got me in trouble. I didn't fill out enough paperwork. But you're right, though, it is. And it's, you're taking, you know, and it's that, oh, like, we're held to a higher standard. Well, maybe, maybe not.

But, you know, we're taking out, you know, the criminal lawyers. And I was unable at some point to compartmentalize all the bullshit through all the years. I'm not making an excuse for it. But obviously, I couldn't handle it. Something snapped in my head. But we're taking on, you know, everybody's problems. Everybody. And it's like, you couldn't go anywhere.

Everybody's like, oh, you're a lawyer. Let me ask you this. and that's all you ever talk about. It's all you ever hear about. It's like, oh, my Lord, and then people want to argue with you. It's like, well, then don't ask me questions. Then it's just the shittiest fucking set of facts you can.

Nobody ever says, oh, hey, you know, let me tell you, oh, I need, you know, will you come be at the baptism of my granddaughter? You know, and, oh, I thought I had cancer, but I'm cured. No, it's like, oh, my granddaughter was by my son. You know, it's always some bullshit, you know? And it's a lot of people, you know, and it's a lot of people. obviously millions of lawyers do it can do it every day. I just don't want to do it. I don't. It's nice. I don't want to hear about other people's problems anymore.

Yeah, I was going to say there's something satisfying about, I don't know if you get this in the law. I can't imagine that you necessarily do. Well, maybe I was, maybe if you build a case and see the case through it, like I think from a prosecutor's perspective, it might be different. But I was going to say, it's, it makes me think of like when you mow a yard and you could step back for that moment and go, wow, you know, that feeling of accomplishment, you probably get that in construction more than you maybe do in the law. That could be wrong. Oh, it's funny you say that because yesterday I'm putting up these large format tiles on the wall and step back and looking at it.

And then it became a metaphor for my life as one after the other fell off the wall. And I was like, oh, that is a metaphor for my life. But you're right. You know, you step back and you look at it like, you know, the freshly collect. cut grass. And when I, when I prosecuted, even, I think a little more so when I defended in one a jury trial, that was a little more satisfying. Especially it could go the other way though. Well, and it wouldn't be satisfying. Right. And there was a couple I lost that I should not have lost. The last, the irony is the last case I tried up in Hall County. A couple days before

I was all taken down a Cobb. But I was, you know, arguably, I, It was under the influence in Hall County as well. And it was a 13 ounce. So my client was charged with trying to purchase 13 ounces of methamphetamine from an informant who was audioed and videotape in the vehicle. That seems tough. That seems like a tough case to win. It was tough for the prosecutors because the jury came back in 13 minutes and acquitted.

Huh. Right. So, you know, it was, you know. That's a nice case. Yeah. It was a fun case. Yeah. You know, it was, you know, the influence.

Foreman had himself. They still had all the audio video, the officer. And I just, you know, you hear my client at one point saying, you know, I'll take one. And, you know, so we just argued that they were trying to push 13 ounces on them. And all county jury, you know, but again, there's a case I shouldn't have won. So I ended, ended that on a good note, I guess. Or a good note before all the bad notes. Right. But it is what it is. You know, I, when I was in law school, I was going to quit after the third day. and I got to meet Chief Justice Robert Benham. And I didn't know who he was at the time.

But his little old man was encouraging me to stick with it and to leave the law in better shape. And I found it and do right by it. And then he goes, go sit in the auditorium and listen to the next speaker. And it was the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. And I did not. All kidding, I said, I did not leave the law in better shape than I found it. I, you know, I disgraced it. I get that.

There's nothing I wouldn't do to go back and undo it. But I can't. I can't, you know, it's enough. I think I've beaten myself up enough about this over the years. And I'm still a better lawyer than most people will ever meet. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button.

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