Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Efraim Diveroli's Author Exposes War Dogs

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

Efraim Diveroli's Author Exposes War Dogs

You know, Deverelli's book. Do you make any money on that? I said, they're still looking for publishers. They haven't published it yet. And he goes, what are you talking about, bro? And he pulls out Oceans Drive magazine. Ephraim DeVroly is holding a copy of his manuscript, or sorry, copy of his book, his hardcover book.

It says, under the caption, Ephraim Devaroli at the 2016 Miami Book Fair in Miami. He's holding up my book. Once a gunrunner. And look at my name's right there. Ephraim memoir, Ephraim Debroli with Matthew Cox And you know what it doesn't say?

It doesn't say Based It doesn't say based on his truth on this story It says Once a gun runner The real story Like all that happened

And while you were in prison And got out and then you did Yes It's insanity It's insanity Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I am continuing on my prison story. This is part 12, maybe, because there's some questionable stuff going on with how we're labeling it and the parts. We don't know.

It's definitely part 12 of the prison story, part 20-something of my overall story, which, who knows how long that will go. I don't know. But here is where we're at. We're at the, we're at the Wardogs section. Or what I like to call, you know, dude, where's my hand grenade? So let me go ahead and give you some background information. I think on my last video, I talked about, I was talking about Ardap, the residential drug, residential

drug abuse program or something like that probably and how I was kind of trying to delay being moved to a camp and I wanted to stay in Tampa I was writing stories

I was I was there were multiple things my mother there were multiple factors that I why I wanted to stay in the prison I was at and I all there's a bunch of different things that I did to stay there

so but this is but in order to tell this part of the story I have to jump way back to 2011 is it 2011

I don't know whatever I think it was 2011 was it 2011 man this is insane Yeah, yeah, I want to say it was like 2011, 2012-ish. I don't know the exact dates. Yeah, I want to say it was late 2011.

So in late 2011, I had just finished my memoir. I had just finished my own personal memoir. I had been writing my, I started my memoir in, let's say, 2009, because I had gotten to prison in 2000. You know, I was arrested late 2006. 2007, I was kept in U.S. Marshals holdover while I was waiting to be sentenced. Then I got sentenced in 2007, late 2007, I got to prison. By 2009 or 10, I was in the low,

prison and I started writing my story so I wrote my I was in the middle of writing my story and multiple things had happened or were happening I'll give you it give you a it's like super complicated so if I'm if I'm stammering or seems a little sketchy you know cut me some slack bro there was a bunch of factors going on here and I'm also wondering how much I, how far back I go for context. So I started writing my memoir because once I, if you've been watching this, you understand that I was interviewed by a bunch of programs. I had been on the run. I got caught. I was interviewed by American Greed, Dateline, those types of programs. They came out. I was, I was trying to get my sentence reduced. I was doing a bunch of stuff. But one of the

things that continually happened was people kept saying hey you need to write a memoir so what i did was i ordered a bunch of books a bunch whatever two or three books and to be honest like out of whatever two or three books that i ordered the best book i read was a book by this woman who's written like three or four memoirs about herself and it was a book called about how to write memoirs and it was just this little tiny book It was probably maybe 50 or 100 pages And I read it And it probably had the most profound impact on me

As far as writing So what I did was I started writing I started writing my memoir And I had just finished Or was finished I just finished my book Which is Shark in the housing pool

Right here Shark in the house Shark in the housing pool. That's a good one too. That's a good. Right. Shark in the housing pool. So I just finished this book.

It's a very good read. And I called it Shark in the Housing Pool, by the way, because one of the articles about me and my co-defendant was in Bloomberg Business Week. And they called it sharks in the housing pool. So I went with shark in the housing pool. And I did this, by the way, before I'd ever heard of, the Wolf of Law. Wall Street because then, it's funny because when I named it that and people were reading it, they were like, oh, Shark in the Housing Pool, like with the Wolf of Wall Street. And I was like, like, what's that?

And then eventually the book got on the compound and I read, I saw the book. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay, that's cool. But actually, I just stole it off from, I sold it from Bloomberg Business Week. Anyway, I digress. So here's what happened. There was a guy named Ephraim Scrap. that i'll get that in a minute so i just finished my memoir i finished my memoir and i wanted to try and get it published well traditional publishing is done like if you want to have your book in books

barns and nobles let's say you want to be you want someone like double day or simon and schuster to represent you and to be your publisher right like you want a big name publisher then you can't really go directly to unless you're somebody major like a huge politician or something you can't really go to Double Day or Simon Schuster or Penguin or whoever you can't really go to them directly you typically have to go to a literary agent so what I did was I started writing letters to literary agents you're not going to believe this but there's a lot of literary agents out there and none of them really want to deal with some guy who's in prison so what happened was I'm writing letters I'm getting denials I end up calling my sister and my sister tells me

me, you know, I called my sister and I said, hey, listen, I would, I need to find a literary agent. And I don't, I don't know if you know anybody or maybe if you could look me up some addresses or whatever. I ended up getting a book and I was mailing out from the book. It's called a literary agent's guide. But I asked her and she goes, you know, it's funny that you say this to me. I said, okay, why's that? She was because a few years ago, Jack, which is my sister's husband was representing a guy by the name of Ross Rebac. Ross Rebac is an entertainment agent. He's also kind of like a literary agent, producer.

He's kind of like a jack of all fields. He represented some guys named Ron and Ron in the Morning. They were a huge, they were, you know, they're like Howard Stern or Bubba the Love Sponge, those guys, like he had represented them. like Ross was he represented a bunch of people well my brother-in-law had represented him in a lawsuit and they were flying to Los Angeles to settle the lawsuit and as they're flying to Los Angeles Ross oh well my brother-in-law says to Ross he says so what are you going to do after this he says um he says you know I don't know he said I'm not sure he said I you know what I

really what I want to do now of course Of course, Ross is a multi-millionaire. Ross says, you know, what I'd really like to do is I would like to, I'd like to produce a movie. Like, I'd like to be involved in actually getting a movie made. And Ross basically had purchased a book that was called Mob Lawyer. It was a book that had been written by a lawyer who'd represented a bunch of mobsters. And he was in the process of trying to get that movie made. well he says i i'd like to be a part of that and he said you know he's but it just doesn't seem like

the movie that the book that he was representing was going to be able to get turned into anything right so it had a bunch of big name actors um that were interested but you know you have to write a screenplay play it's called pay to play you have to pay somebody like you know you give some screenplay writer listen it's a very clicky business the point is he had some issues with it and he said to my brother-in-law he goes you know what would be He said, I'd really like to make some kind of a crime movie or something like, you know, catch me if you can or something like that. He goes, you know, he goes, there's a guy right now from Tampa that is on the run and the authorities are looking for him. And I've read a bunch of articles on this guy.

And he is super interesting. And he had just got caught in like a bank. And he talked his way out of it and they let him go. This guy is, I think he's like at the top of the Secret Service most wanted list. or something and my brother-in-law looks at him and says yeah i know who you're talking about he goes his name's matt cox he goes he's my brother-in-law and he goes are you serious and he goes yeah he said uh he's my brother-in-law he goes don't worry he said they'll catch him eventually he'll go to prison he goes and i'll introduce you so you know my brother-in-law had no confidence

in me um it just just coincidence that he was right so Anyway, so my sister tells me this whole, you know, tells me that Ross has always wanted to meet me and possibly represent me. I'm like, oh, wow, I just finished my memoir. And she goes, send it to me. So I make copies of it and I send it to her. She sends it to Ross. Ross reads it. Ross and my brother-in-law schedule a time to come see me.

Now, Ross, because he came with my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law was a lawyer, he was a lawyer. he ended up getting approved to come see me, even though I didn't know him prior to prison. See, typically to go see a federal prisoner in Coleman, you have to have a pre-existing relationship with them. But I didn't have one with Ross, but they approved him anyway, and I'm pretty sure I even went to my probation officer,

went to my counselor and begged and pleaded him. And he said, well, if he's coming in with your brother-in-law, then, you know, I'll consider him like, you know, a legal associate or something like that. I forget what he said, but he ended approving him, which was like a miracle. So they come in, I meet with Ross. Ross says, I've read the book, and he said, you need to rewrite, he said, he said, you need to rewrite the book. This actually took place over two meetings, but he goes, you need to rewrite the book. He was, because I read the whole book, and it just, it was, it's an amazing story.

he said, but you didn't put enough about you in there. So at that point, I was in the middle of reading these books that I had ordered. What is this going on and on? Is this too much? Is it too much? Too much back? Is it too much? Tell me, listen, you can always fast for it.

So I was in the middle of, you know, I read these books and everything and I was trying to. Anyway, I kind of, so I was like, well, what should I do? So Ross was like, I need to rewrite some parts of it. So I rewrite a few parts of it. and it comes back and or Ross reads it again he comes back and he says bro he was it was amazing you know you did an amazing job you know you talked about your father because I had left out some stuff about my father about you know his alcoholism about being raised by him having a learned disability like there's a lot of little things I had left out and I went and put those things

back in there beefed up the book a little bit more made me more of a gave gave the reader more of a background on me anyway the point is I met Ross Ross Ross said I'm going to represent you on the book on your book i said great while that's going on it just so happened this is now this is late now at this point we're talking about it's late 2000 or probably mid mid to late 2011 a guy by the name of ephraim devoroli came on the compound i'll tell you who ephraim devoroli is Ephraim DeVaroli is the guy or the character played by Jonah Hill in the movie War Dogs. If you've seen War Dogs, you know what the movie's about. And I'll get into that in a little bit.

But the background for that is there's a guy named David Packhouse and a guy named Ephraim DeVroli. Ephraim DeVaroli owned and was running a company called AEY. AEY, what he was just him when I say, running he had a corporation at a corporation and his corporation basically had gotten he'd managed to get himself approved on the government a government website that allowed you to bid on contracts and he was bidding on contracts well he brings in this guy david pack owls to help him he's a childhood friend and they're bidding on arms deals and we're talking about like providing like 10,000 AK-47s to the Iraqi security forces. And if you don't know what that is, the Iraqi security forces

are like, when we went into Iraq, we set up their security forces, right? Like their police and their armed forces, and we set them up. And we also funded them. We also gave them all their weapons. Well, there was a ton of weapons that were sitting around, which were from the old, from the Soviet Union. So a lot of countries had just stockpiles of AK-47, 7.62 rounds, drag-nose sniper rifles, you know, just mortar rounds, like all this stuff from the Soviet air. Well, Debroli was buying that stuff and then sending it to Afghanistan or Iraq.

Packhouse comes in. They end up getting this huge contract. Now, here's a thing. DeVroly had already gotten like a $50 million contract to supply weapons. These are little things that you don't know. that they don't talk about in the movie, but he was already doing massive deals.

And one of them was like a $50 million. He had like a $5 million contract, like a $2 million one and a $12 million, a $15, and a $50 million contract that he had basically almost completely fulfilled. He then gets a $300 million contract with this guy named David Packhouse, who was a childhood friend.

So they source all the, where they can get the ammunition. The bulk of this was just ammunition. So this is an AK-47. This is just ammunition for the Afghani security forces. Because by this point, the United States had invaded Afghanistan and needed to supply them with weapons. Now, this is back in 2000 and, you know, 2000, what, 2002, 2003.

Anyway, so he's been doing this. He's doing, so these guys get this contract, and this is where it goes wrong. wrong. It ends up going wrong where they get this contract, and keep in mind, too, they're going to places to buy this ammunition that the government knows is old. They know it's 20 and 30 years old. He ends up going to Albania, and they go to Albania, and they buy, the Albanians have a ton of 7.62 rounds. And so they go in, they get a contract with the Albanians to buy 7.62 rounds. The initial, initially, the rounds that were sent to Afghanistan were 7.62 rounds. Because you have to understand, let's say it's, I don't know, $100 million worth of just 7.62 rounds.

Well, even if it's that much, that many rounds, they don't ship it all at once. You can't, like, load that up on one plane, right? Like, this is 50 or 100, 200 trips. so the initial block of or task order they call them task orders the initial task order of 7.62 rounds was Albanian made 7.62 rounds well then the Albanians run out of their stuff they start giving them Chinese 7.62 rounds and they ship it they actually ship it several ship it several times before they realize that it's Chinese because they didn't actually have anybody really on site to

figure that out not initially well when they figure it out they decide you know what we're going to do let's just repackage it now they don't actually repackage it they don't they're not initially this is just according to Devoroli

initially they weren't repackaging it to hide that it was Chinese now you have to understand there was during Tiananmen Square in 1989 or 91 anyway during Tiananmen Square in China, in Tiananmen Square, there were protests. Chinese fired on their own people.

These were Chinese students that wanted to overturn China. This was after the Soviet Union fell. They were protesting and they were trying to overturn the CCP and make it a democracy. Well, the CCP wasn't having it and they ordered the military to fire on the crowd. And they fired on the crowd and they killed, I don't know, maybe a thousand of their own people. And as a result of that, the United States and a bunch of countries put, embargoed any Chinese ammunition or I think, I don't think it's just ammunition. I think it's a combination of ammunition and weapons in general.

So they put a ban. They said, look, well, you know, you guys are shooting people. We're not going to buy any more weapons. Like, you know, they could have said, we're going to ban all goods from you because of what you just did. But, of course, we wouldn't. We love our phones. So, you know, let's just go with. Let's just go with ammunition.

It makes it seem like we're doing something. So they said, hey, no more weapons from China. Well, so Devereoli knew and Pacals knew, hey, we're not allowed to ship this stuff. But they were already at the point where they were repackaging a lot of the munitions they were sending because fuel prices had shot up and DeVoli hadn't accounted for that. And also, the crates that everything was being shipped in were very heavy. So like 20 to 30% of the weight or 20% of the weight of some of these things was just the wood and the lumber that these things were crated in. So what they did was they would pull them out of the crates, pull them out of the, they call them sardine cans, these big cans that you peel off.

So they're hermetically sealed. They would dump all the AK-47 rounds or 7.62 rounds into plastic bags and just pile them up and wrap them up in Visqueen. and put them on these planes to be flown into Afghanistan. Well, at the same time that was happening, they also found out, hey, my God, this is Chinese. So as a result of that, it definitely appeared that they were repackaging the AK-47 rounds to hide them. Now, listen, it was really, according to Devereld, it was two-prong. It happened to meet both those standards, but we were already repackaging

anyway when we found out. So it just worked to our advantage. Well, they weren't allowed to send that, even though it was all pre-embarko. So prior to the embargo, the new BMOV-I-Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks,

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Only theaters July 18th. All this ammunition had been made, which means it's, It's not illegal to buy and sell it, but it was against their contract. Their contract said you cannot ship Chinese ammunition or sell us Chinese or use Chinese ammunition. They were using it anyway. Ultimately what happens is the, and I want to say DCIS or something. I don't know exactly the name of the, it's a military company, it's a military part of the military.

They get several complaints saying that Devereoli and Pac-Ollies, are shipping AK-47s that are being made in China and re-stamped in Hungary. This wasn't true. And that's what caused them to get raided. So their offices get raided because they think they're buying Chinese AK-47s, and they're not. And this was just a complaint that was filed by one of their competitors. Because you have to understand that they were, if you read the book, you'd realize, like, they were beating out their competitors all the time.

And the $300 million contract, a lot like in the movie, they were, I think, $50 or $60 million below the lowest bid. So you're $50, $60 million below the closest bid. You may be $100 million below some of the bids. I know this doesn't seem exciting, but it's getting there. All right. with that said their offices get raided

and they end up finding out that they end up finding out that they're shipping Chinese ammunition so hey guess what we rated you because of this reason but turns out when we were searching your paperwork some stuff came to light they ended up talking to pack owls

Pac-O's says, hey, look, yeah, we're shipping Chinese ammunition. And they indict Pac-Ols. They indict another guy named Ralph. And they indict Devereoli. Pac-Oz and Ralph come in and they cooperate and say, hey, look, this is, yeah, this is what happened. This is what we were doing. Sorry, my bad. They get probation.

Devaroli, on the other hand, ends up doing a deal on probation. He's going to get probation too. But while on probation, or sorry, while waiting to be sentenced, he ends up doing a deal with a guy, the guy that owns Knight Armaments, which is in Central Florida, and they make Knight sniper rifles for the military. Well, I mean, it's for anybody, really, I guess. Anyway, he's doing a deal with them, and he leaves the jurisdiction. He can't leave the southern jurisdiction of Florida because he's gone like a. He's on, I don't know if he was on an ankle monitor at the time, but he ends up leaving the jurisdiction. When he leaves the jurisdiction, he ends up, there's an ATF agent, and the ATF agent ends up handing him like a 9mm, telling him they're going to go shooting.

And because he actually grabbed the 9mm and held it, they arrested him immediately for being a felon in possession of a firearm. him just because he held it and he handed it to him he brought he brought the gun like listen devoroli totally got screwed on this by the way i mean he shows up he had told the guy i can't go shooting with you um you'd have to read the book to really see what happened and and and there's there's multiple versions of this story by the way there's my version which is devoroli's memoir which actually you know i can't be able to read it but and then there's also a book called up by gie lawson i should have brought that book down too i could have showed a that one. I have that one upstairs. By Gide Lawson called the arms and the dudes. Same thing.

Like Deverelli is doing this deal. He has to go to a meeting. They beg him to go to the meeting. They know it's outside the jurisdiction. He finally says, okay, fine. It's only like 20 minutes outside the jurisdiction. They say bring some weapons. We're going to go shooting. He says, no, I can't do that. He shows up without a weapon. The D-EA or the ATF agent hands him a gun. Just like hands it to him and Debroli grabs it and goes, he's like, fuck. And he looks at it, he goes, yeah, it's a nice piece, bro, hands it back to him. Hands him another gun. He's like, yeah, it's a nice piece.

He hands it back to him. Boom, they arrest him. Fell in possession of a firearm. So, as opposed to Packowls and Ralph, who abided by their, you know, the terms of their probation or supervision, or whatever we want to call it. Devoroli didn't. And as a result of that, Devoroli ended up getting six years? I want to say six years.

Yeah, yeah. I think he ended up getting six years. Or was it four? Might have been six or four. I'm not sure. Doesn't matter. It's ridiculous. Anyway.

Using a homeless man's identity, he once borrowed nearly $1.5 million just to see if he could. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. Devereux shows up on the compound in late 2011.

I'm on the compound in Coleman, Florida. I'm in a low-security prison. I've just finished my book. Devoroli shows up. I read I had a guy by the name I had a guy used to hang out with we called him slow motion

slow motion because he had a hernia and Coleman they wouldn't fix it so he walked around like this real slow anyway so we called him slow motion so slow motion I'm standing in the line with slow motion and he says hey man you know that Rolling Stone article I gave you the other day and I go yeah he said you know the guy in the Rolling Stone article

he was the kid the arms kid and he goes yeah yeah he goes he's sitting right over there and I go get the fuck out of there sure enough there was devoroli

now devoroli in most of the photos that I've ever seen is actually thin but he was overweight in prison and he was overweight before he got to prison

just before he got to prison because he had been on an ankle monitor and wasn't allowed to leave his house so he'd just eat and eaten so all these pictures you see of devoroli

being like a fat guy and he's played by Jonah Hill which is, you know, a guy that's clearly overweight also. He, um, he typically is not a fat guy. He's typically thin. The other thing about that article is if you read the Rolling Stone article, which was written by Guy Lawson about Pac-Alz and Devereoli is that, you know, he basically makes him sound like, you know, stoners.

And the truth is Debroli is more of a cokehead, he told me. He said, I'm not really a stoner. I'm more of a cokehead. So he basically was not super overweight. But he was when I saw him who was overweight, but he was working out. He was trying to lose the weight. So I see him and I'm like, oh, wow, okay, cool. And then my motion says, yeah, bro, he works out every single day.

He's on the yard. He's been here for like a week or two. So like, oh, okay. So like the next day, I go out to the rec yard and I'm walking around the track. And I look over and there's Devoroli. And I go, hey, man, what's your name? He's like, Devoroli. Why?

What's up? And I said, yeah, I said, listen, my name's Matt Cox. I write books. I just finished my own memoir. I was wondering if you were if you were trying to if you were doing anything with your stories like what do you mean I said like are you trying to write a story and he goes no I'm not no why I'm not really because I could I don't think I could write one and I go why he's ah man he's I'm bipolar he said I'm I'm up and down all the time I don't think I could focus long enough I said bro you I read that Rolling Stone article like what you did was incredible like you got to be pretty bright you should be able to focus long enough to write a story I said it live very least you could write an outline and have a ghost writer on the street write it because here's what people don't realize about devoroli is that devoroli's crime what he ended up defraught what they call it basically was a fraud he was defrauding the united states government by selling them

chinese ammunition so they they hit him with a fraud charge his fraud charge he defrauded the United States government by $43,000. That's what his fraud charge is. And he paid it. He paid the $43,000 before he even showed up for, you know, he just cut him a check. So Debroli had made millions and millions of dollars. So this guy's got four or five, had $4 million just sitting around, right? So I was like, bro, you clearly have enough money.

Why wouldn't you get a ghost writer to write your story for you? And he goes, well, I don't even think I could write an outline. I don't even know how to. I said, bro, I just finished my book. I can help you write an outline. And he was like, yeah, I'll think about it. And I go, okay. And he was really very arrogant.

So I keep walking the track. And maybe a couple of days later, I saw him. I said, hey, man, so what do you want to do? If you need my help, I'll help you out. And he's like, well, why would you do that? I said, bro, I'd just do it just to help you out. I got nothing else to do. I said, I'd already decided I wanted to start writing other inmate stories.

I'm just looking for one. and yours would be great I can help you hone my skills help you out see how the process works like that's all I'm thinking well he goes oh let me think I'll think about it bro think about it so we see each other listen I swear to you we continued back and forth but for like a month or two it starts coming up on I want let's say November or December and every time I see him on the compound we'd be walking by each other and he go bro still thinking about it and I'd be like hey like you douchebag you So, you know, I could get, like, at this point, it's like, okay, like, I'm trying to help you out. So then one day he sees me, he goes, hey, bro, what's up? What's up? Hey, what's your name? Matt? Matt, I go, yeah.

He goes, hey, Matt, listen, man. He said, did you hear that they, that Guy Lawson, the guy who wrote the story on, in Rolling Stone about my case? And I went, right. He goes, he just optioned the life rights of, or the film rights to the story. He just optioned the film rights to the story. I go, okay. He said, yeah, yeah, bro. He goes, he said, I go, who bought it?

And he goes, oh, Warner Brothers bought it. He said, yeah, yeah, rat pack entertainment, I think they call it. He goes, you know, the guys that do the hangover movies. And I went, I was like, like, that's like Bradley Cooper and like Todd Phyllis. Like, Todd Phillips, like, who? And he goes, yeah, man, he goes, they hangover movies. They're going to make, the guys that do the hangover movies, they're going to make a movie about my life. And I went, wow.

And he's like, right, cool, right? And I went, wow, bro. I said, you seem like a pretty smart guy. And he goes, right? And I went, you're telling me that the guys that made the hangover movies are going to make your movie. Yeah. And I went, do you know, have you ever seen the hangover movies? I said, the guys in the hangover movies are clowns.

these guys are going to make a movie about you and you're going to be a clown. I said, you're going to have to leave. Like, I know you, this seems like you're in here forever, but the truth is you'll be out of here in a few years. I said, in a couple of years, you're going to walk out of here. You're going to walk through the front gates. You're going to leave. And you're going to have to go back to being a businessman.

And let's face it, you're going to be a laughing stock. If they make a movie about you, I said, you're going to be synonymous with with Jeff Spacoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High like you're going to be a joke bro and he was just like

like wow wow he goes and I said wow I just thought you were smarter than that and I turn around I kind of walk away and he goes wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute he goes when can we do it when can we do it so I go well I mean you know we can we can work on it

and anyway we still didn't meet for like a month you know he's just he was such a nut job so we end up meeting like a month later and i'm sure i've gone over some of this before right so i've gone over some of this before it's a little repetitive but you're getting more detail now and i'll explain how it ends up how i when i end up suing him so what happens is so that happens and i end up writing working with him to write an outline well once i write the outline of the book. I'm just finishing the outline. He says, hey, can I read your book?

And I go, sure. So I bring him a copy of my book. And a few days later, he hands it back. And he was, bro, that's an amazing book. That's the best thing I've ever read. And look, to be honest, look, I later found out he's read three or four books his entire life. Like most of what he reads is newspaper articles and stuff.

So who knows? Not that it's not a good book, but still. he read my book Shark in the housing pool so he read the book and he loved it and he said hey I want you to write my book and I said wow you can get a professional writer he's no bro he's your professional writer I want you to write

my book and I was like okay he said yeah yeah he said do you have somebody that can represent us and I went I mean you could try and find somebody I said to be honest I said I have a guy that's representing me like he's just now kind of putting everything together like all of this is happening at the same time like so we can we can you know uh we can talk to him well i start writing the book right away and i'm writing the book and devroly as i'm writing the book he ends up getting like

an entertainment agent to come see him to write up a contract um and this was an entertain some entertainment agent from like orlander or something she drives out there and meets with Devoroli. At the same time, I have Devaroli schedule a meeting with his mother or sister, his mom and sister and his brothers come to see him. And I end up having Ross Reback come see me at the same exact time. So Ross can meet Devaroli. So Ross ends up, we both end up going to visitation at the same time, and we get there and

they end up meeting Ross we all end up sitting together and so Ross basically and I remember his sister was there and his sister was furious all right I mean his mom was furious and everything like you scheduled a business meeting like we just drove four hours from Miami

to be here four or five hours really to be here and you're gonna and he's like it'll take 30 minutes so we all sat down we talked for like an hour and Ross kind of gives them his pitch and says he thinks he can do and you know he thinks he can monetize the whole thing and that's fine so that ends up meeting ends up ending and then there's another meeting where his sister deveroli's sister

comes so now it's devoroli and his sister and me and ross and we all end up going visitation at the same time bam we have to be there at the same time because ross is unable to get on devoroli's visitation by himself so i have to be there so we're both there at the same time And at this point, I'm, I'm writing his story. And the great thing about Devoroli was, you know, as much as I may have issues with the guy, he's brilliant. He has, his mind works like a steel drum. I mean, nothing escapes it. And on top of that, he could recall details and dates like nobody I've ever met.

Like, I can't recall. I've been off, listen, when I was writing my story and I was getting in all my freedom, of Information Act and putting everything together like there were sometimes I was thinking okay well that was 2001 nope that was 2002 like I'd be off by six months or a year on some of the things that I had to track down Debroli was like yeah that was uh that was that was March uh I want to say was March 6th yeah March 6 2000 March 6 of 2000 that's when that happened it was like and then I get a document in sure enough March 6 like everything he was spot on on almost every single date

and the names of the people, I'm horrible with names. Matter of fact, I think when I told this story last time, instead of saying Jeff Spacoli, I said David Spacoli. People crucified me. I must have had 30 people saying, no, bro, it's David.

I mean, it's Jeff, not David. So, Debroli was, and look, his, he was just super, a super sharp guy, okay? Despicable human. being but as a sharp guy and very smart um anyway work ethic like you can't believe like all he wants to do is work well he ends up one day i'm writing well what happens sorry what happens is one day

we're all in the visitation we're talking and ross reback and deborola are going back and forth back and forth and I remember Ross kind of lays out all of the things that he'd done over his life and all of his successes and Deverelli's sister says well maybe you're just get maybe you just get lucky and he goes well if I get lucky I get lucky a lot and I remember and I said like well I'd rather be lucky than good and and so it was just like boom like we hit her a bam bam and she just shook her head and Deverelli starts laughing and he's and he's like yeah i i definitely think we need we can work together well while we're saying that ross says the most important thing is getting the book finished as quickly as possible and he you know they kind of look at me and

i'm like well i mean i'm writing i have the outline and i'm writing but you know it's going to take time Well, the problem was that Devereoli was getting moved to the Miami camp very soon. As a result of being moved to the Miami camp, I only had another few weeks or a month with him. And I did have the outline, but it was like a mad dash. You're trying to write a 300-page book within a month or two. like that's difficult so luckily i mean deboroli did have a ton of his documentation so we're going back and forth back and forth and we're talking and ross was like we have to get the book done and published before the movie or keep in mind at this point they haven't even made a movie yet

they had optioned the film rights to the movie and they were and warner brothers was writing a having a script written but the script it turns out the script when they when they went to Jonah Hill Jonah Hill wasn't happy with the script supposedly and this is what I was told later was that because it didn't have enough in there about Jonah Hill or about Deverelli's character now so this is they don't even know that the listen movies are optioned all the time let's say Hollywood options a thousand movies a year right the the various studios they make three so they pay for a thousand different options they end up making three so the average studio makes about three movies three major motion pictures a year

i mean you know the likelihood this was going to get made was slim to none it was possible but there's lots and lots of movies that i'm sure you stories i'm sure you can think of that you're like that was amazing that was it like oh my gosh oh that's great that's wonderful and that's going to be a movie that's got to be a movie but it wasn't they just don't happen like there's just too many great stories for there to be for there to be that many movies not that there's not a ton of content it's just that's just especially back at this time um with debor well reback keeps saying we got to get a book out we got to get a book out and i keep telling him it's going to take time it takes time it takes time and he's like look it's important we get a book out and and and I'm like

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into a book so we one we wanted our book out first two ross said if i can get our book out first i can try and get a series made or our own movie made and if we can get our movie greenlit before Warner Brothers movie most likely they will not do a movie and our version will come out okay that makes sense to me too they weren't that far ahead of us um the third thing was he said because basically uh deboroli goes yeah well what if that doesn't work out he goes if that doesn't work out he or he says he goes if that doesn't work out and Warner brothers makes the movie and Deverely goes, yeah. Reback said, then we'll sue them for theft of intellectual property. And we're all sitting there, and I remember being like, right, right, going, that doesn't make sense.

How can you theft of what? He's theft of his story. And I went, yeah, but the movie isn't being made based on Debroli's story. It's being made based on David Packhouse's version of the story. A lot of people don't understand this, but, so I have a girlfriend, Jess. If Jess were to tell her version of she and I's story and say, hey, I met this guy in the halfway house and we had this on again, off again, you know, romance, and then we ended up getting married, and we had three kids, and it was wonderful, and it's a love story. Okay. I can't sue Jess.

Like, I can sue her, but it's not going to go anywhere. because they're going to say, why are you saying, well, she told my story? No, no. She told her version of our story, which she's allowed to do. Now, the other exclusion of that is that, of course, I'm also allowed to tell our story. On top of that, because Devereoli and Packhouse's story was in the public forum, right? So there were multiple newspaper articles about their story, about being arrested, about them selling all of these, all this munitions to Afghanistan security forces and getting a contract with the government. There's all these articles about it.

That also excludes any right to privacy that they have. So for example, you have a right to privacy, for example, let's say my neighbor and I, me and Ted, I think everybody knows who Ted is, if they've ever watched Big Herk and I's interview. view my neighbor my neighbors named ted so ted and i do you know what i'm talking about it's you have to watch the big hurt big hurt uses the example of ted ted oh ted so ted you and ted you and ted go to barbecues together so ted and i me and my neighbor ted go to barbecues together um well if ted's telling me stuff about he and his wife's relationship and him and how he hates his job at walmart well let's say i'm a writer and i turn around and i write a book about ted Ted can sue me because the truth is

Ted has an expectation of privacy he was just telling a neighbor you know like he he didn't expect any of that to be public he didn't tell me for it to be public he has an expectation now if Ted were arrested for robbing banks

and I wrote an article about Ted because I read all the newspaper articles on Ted and said he happened to be my next door neighbor that's different now he's in the public he's in the public light. He's in the public forum. He loses that expectation. And if Ted is a public figure, for instance, there's probably 50 books written on President Barack Obama. He can't sue.

Barack Obama cannot sue. Why? Because you're a public figure. So you lost your expectation of privacy. Secondly, if you're found guilty of a crime, and even if it's not in the newspaper, and I were to go to public records and look up all at your indictment and all of the motions and read and read your transcripts and write a whole story based on that. Once again, you're a criminal and your information is in the public, is in public records. I'm allowed to use that and write a book. You've lost your expectation of privacy. So Devoroli had no prayer on expectation of privacy.

So I sat there and I said, I don't, to Ross, back in the, we're back in the visitation room. I was like, I don't understand. Like, he doesn't have an expectation of privacy. They didn't steal his intellectual property because I haven't even created his unique intellectual property because some intellectual property is still unique, if that makes sense. So, for instance, let me give you an example. Let's say you were arrested for robbing banks

and it tells all about the bank robberies. Well, that doesn't mean that you still have an expectation of privacy as far as your family is concerned, your private life. Like how, if I were to write a whole article about you, or a whole book about you robbing banks, and then I were to turn around and start telling you things that I knew about your family because your wife had confided in me or your friends had confided in me or something along those lines, like personal stories.

Well, then those were stories that unless we had some kind of an agreement, you told me these stories not expecting a book to be written. unless I told you hey I'm an author I'm a writer and I'm going to write a book then you lose your expectation but if I just told you because we were friends now you have you own or you have an expectation so I was like I don't

know and that doesn't I don't think that works the way you think Ross and he goes no no he said I can trust me we can sue them for theft of intellectual property and then Ross said we just have to get the book out there and we just have to be in a

we have to have the book available for consumption in some manner and we just have to allude to the fact that Warner Brothers obtained the book and used Devoroli's book to write the movie War Dogs or to write the screenplay using Devoroli's book so we need so Matt I need you to write the book as quickly as possible so that we can get it published first or at the very least have a manuscript to circulate so that

if they make a movie we can accuse them of having stolen his intellectual property and Deborah Roli loved it. He loved the idea of it. Debroli goes, oh my God, he goes, you know what? He goes, I have a cousin

that lives in L.A. And he says he's in the entertainment industry. And he goes, and Ross goes, is he? And he goes, well, he's kind of a schmuck. He said, I don't think he's much of it. He's kind of a douchebag. But he said, regardless, he was regardless, he, he said, regardless, he goes, he thinks he is, and he knows a bunch of players.

So we could probably get him the book and get him to end up connecting us somehow. Like, I don't know, but we can use them. somehow. And Ross was like, okay, well, you know, we'll think about it. He was the first thing is we have to get the book made. And I was like, and I go, I don't even know why you're talking about suing Warner Brothers. He was, no, Matt, he was, that's just a fallback. I'm just saying, he goes, Ross goes, look, if we're going to dump a bunch of time in this and you're going to write the book, he said, we need to be able to monetize it in some way. He goes, my first course of action is for you to write a book, publish the book, and we're going to have a

bestseller, and we're going to get ourselves a series or a movie. movie made. He was, that's the first course of action. And I was like, okay, okay. Because like, I don't have any intentions of suing anybody. I'm locked up in prison. I just want to become a writer. I still had at this point in my life, man, I still had, I still had, Jesus, bro, I probably still had almost 20 years to go. Like, I still, I'm still expecting to be getting out if I don't lose any good time. If I'm a good boy, if I'm a good boy, I get out in 2030. This is probably

2011, maybe 2012. Maybe early, January, February, maybe of 2012 at this point. So, I start writing the book. Deverelli comes to me one day

and he says, hey, here's our contract. And he slides a contract across to me. And he says, here it is. He's sign here, sign here. like already signed and I went um well I don't understand and I said well what does it say he was bro he is it just it says we're partners and on the top of the contract I want to say it said something like partnership agreement work for hire which I didn't know what work for

hire meant is it just means that like like I don't you know it's like basically we're partners but you know I'm hiring you as my as a partner like he kind of briefly explains it and to be honest like I was so excited to be a part of the project like I just signed it because I trusted what he was saying like I didn't realize what a scoundrel the guy was and I thought it doesn't really matter Ross is involved he's not going to screw me over so I'm good so I sign a contract sign the contract I keep writing the book as I'm writing the book more and more red flags are showing up like there's more and more things that I'm realizing like wow this guy's a scoundrel like he's telling me more and more stories that are just horrific about him

basically like bait and switch he's doing what's called a bait and switch he's he's doing things like he would go in and what's so funny is like this is like one of the reasons he probably doesn't even want the book out is because he's doing stuff like he would go in and let's say for like helmets he would go in an order he'd have an order for like 10,000 helmets and he would go into a manufacturer and say look I need these helmets for let's say the helmets are going for two hundred dollars he'd say I need him for a hundred dollars And they go, that's crazy. And they'd argue with them.

And he'd say, I have a contract for 100,000 helmets. I have 100,000 helmet order from the U.S. government. But I need the best deal possible. So they come down to, let's say, $110 a helmet. And he goes, okay, he goes, the first task order is for $10,000. And they give him $10,000 at that price, that super reduced price because they think they're going to sell $100,000. And he pays them. And then when they say, hey, hey, we're going to.

We're doing the next order now. He calls him a week or two weeks before they're due. And he says, hey, listen, you're not going to believe this. They canceled the order. But he got the $10,000 at $110. Should have paid $100 or $200. But he got a reduced price because they thought they were selling $100,000. Like, these are the kinds of things that he's doing, you know?

Or he would go and he basically said like it was a legal bait and switch where he would go in and he would, you really have to. he would go in and he would say he would he would he would he would bid on a contract for let's say sniper rifles for let's say night night sniper rifles

he would bid on a contract for sniper rifles at they cost $2,000 let's say really honestly they cost like $3,500 bucks he'd 3,500 but maybe if you bought a bunch of them you get him for like

2,500. He would go in and say, I can get them for $2,000 a piece, and he's going to get $2,000 of them. Let's say it's $2 million, a $2 million order or something. I don't know the exact numbers, but a point is that the government says, okay, fine, you won the bid because a lot of people are bidding on it. He wins the bid. Great. He then turns around weeks later and goes to the government and says, listen, I want to fulfill this order for you. But it turns out that knight armaments cannot, they cannot fulfill the contract in time. But I can provide you with an equivalent product. And that's allowed in the contracts.

In those contracts, you're allowed to give them an equivalent. So he would say, here's the specs for the knight sniper rifle. Here is the specs for the Panther sniper rifle. The Knight sniper rifle is made in the United States. the panther sniper rifle is made in South Korea and they go for 1,500 bucks

and he would then so now the government comes in and the U.S. government says well can you get them there to us on time and he says yes I can he says okay well they go we'll go with that keep mind this is some purchasing officer in

in in Iraq He's a purchasing officer in Iraq Who's probably a 22-year-old kid who doesn't care They meet the specs fine we'll take those Then he turns around goes to panther And he argues with them to the point where he can get that panther sniper That panther sniper rifle for 1,100 bucks

So imagine he underbid the he never he never was gonna give you the night The night sniper rifle you were never gonna get those like that $2,000 that he said he was going to get him for or $2,500, he was never going to give them to you for that. So he got up, he's now selling Panther sniper rifles for double what you could buy them brand new off the fucking shelf. And he sends them to the government and they get them and they pay him and he's made a ton of money and he's thrilled and, you know, so he's telling me these types of things and he's laughing

and joking about it and I'm just like, Jesus. row like this is this is rough like I and I remember thinking what did I sign with this guy so what ends up happening is Ross comes to see me one day he comes to see me and I'm still writing the book and he says to me hey Matt he says how are you doing I said listen I said this guy by the way is despicable and I said the more I I look at him and write his stuff, I said, the more, like, it's just, he's just, he's just, I said, he's just, like, not like a good guy. And I'm not saying I'm a great guy, but he's, I was like, I'm, I'm like, this is not good. Like, there's just no redeemable qualities about him. And he goes,

look, he said, like, write it in such a way, write it, we need him to be a sympathetic character. And I said, the best you're going to get with him is maybe. we can get him being like a like a Jack Sparrow type character from Pirates of the Caribbean like a lovable rogue you know like he's he's a bad guy but you kind of love him because he's funny and comical

he goes well then do that make him funny make him comical make him thinking funny things in his head make him and he does say funny stuff so I was like okay I can try and do that I was like I can try and do that but to be honest I just don't know that I'm going to be able to you know by this point Devereoli is like he's he's like leaving and um and and and i actually devil roll actually i want to say

devil roll he was at this meeting was he talking to his sister though anyway i'm talking to ross and i'm like listen man like i just don't know and i had written a book called stranger danger so months earlier i had written a uh a like a a kind of like a social satire about sex offenders and just about housing sex offenders. And it was like this satirical, it was just this super kind of devious, sick, sadistic, funny kind of book, right? About this guy that ends up housing sex offenders and turning him into like, you know, modern day like slave labor force. And so And so it's like a comedy

But a dark, dark, dark comedy Anyway And Ross had read it And said, look, it's funny He said, I don't know if there's a market for it But it is, but it is comical And I remember saying, listen Devereoli

Is I said the guy The lead character in Stranger Danger Has more, has better qualities in him than this I said then Deverelli does like he's a more sympathetic character than Devoroli is and he and I said plus I said there's just and he goes well I don't know I read that book he's like he's like and there were funny parts about that guy and there were there are parts of it where you kind of like him and I said you know he has a lot in common with Devoroli

like he has a mother that is constantly you know bugging him and and there's all there's a lot of similarities and he goes well listen he said I need you to finish the book as quick as possible He goes, pull scenes out of that book and put them into Debroli's book. He said, just to get it done as quickly as possible. Now, keep in mind, I'm a work for hire. So I'm not writing this as a journalist. I'm someone that you hired to write your book the way you want it written. And so I was like, geez, bro.

And I said, I don't know. And he goes, he's, look, it doesn't matter. It's based on his story. It's based on his story. Kind of like Frank Abagnale's book is based on Frank Abagnale's story. The truth is, a lot of that stuff is exaggerated and inflated. And in some of Frank Abingale's case, it's completely fictionalized. So there's another book called A Dangerous Mind.

I think it's called A Dangerous Mind. Anyway, there's several books that were written based on, they're based on the guy's life. So, Ross is going, look, we're going to do it. It's based on his life anyway. I just need the intellectual property created so that we can try and get a book deal and we can try and get a movie deal or something. And I went, okay, that's fine. I said, I'll finish it.

So I pull a bunch of scenes from Stranger Danger and I throw them into Debroli's book. Now, that book ends up when I'm finished with the book and I send it to Reback, I remember Reback telling me he got it like whatever on let's say a Tuesday and like Thursday I called him and I said hey what's up he said I just finished it I said oh what did you think and I'm expecting a whole bunch of rewrites like he kind of did a bunch of rewrites on my book like edits and he came back and he said man you knocked it out of the park he was just amazing you did an amazing job he said my only problem problem is you made Coleman, the prison, because you made it sound like a summer camp, like a rough high school summer camp. You made it sound like it was a joke. And I go, it is kind of a joke. It's not like a real prison. I said, like, I've been to real prisons. I go, this isn't a real prison. Not that people aren't getting stabbed and it's not violent. I said, but you know, look, half the fucking guys here are sex offenders. And I said, and to be honest with you, I said, the other half are softest cotton. Not that you don't get guys that are tough guys and stabbing. And each other and fist fights and stuff but i said it's not as bad as the medium and he goes it doesn't matter it's still prison i need you to rewrite it and make it sound like hell and i went okay so i rewrote the very last page and made it sound like the prison was you know just this this this really brutal rough spot that's just a horrible horrible place to be not the prison's not horrible but in general

it wasn't as bad as i made it out as bad as i made it out to be well Now I've got the book. It's done. And Ross ends up telling me, one day I'm calling, because now what Ross has done is he's kind of connected my book with Devoroli's book. He was holding off the whole time on pitching my book to Simon and Schuster and all these, he's acting as literary agent for me. But he didn't want to do it. he kept saying well I want to hold off so I can pitch both of the projects because he was saying getting yourself in the meeting is the hardest part once you're in the meeting you want to be able to have multiple projects so if you tell if I pitch them stranger if I pitch them uh Devoroli's book he said then and they say no I want to say well I've got this other book he said or if they say we love Devoroli's book I can also say you love that one you're going to love this one too and I was like okay I get it so he's holding me off. He's holding me off

on him pitching my book. But now he's got two books. So I was like, okay, cool, cool. So by this point, keep in mind, Deverelli's been moved. Deverelli's now in the medium security prison. I'm medium.

Devaroli is now in the camp in Miami. He's now in Miami. I think he's in the Ardap program in Miami. I drink this. like the when i have less coffee in me i started making mistakes well so i basically wrote literally about half of that book without deverelli even being there now ross sent the book to devoroli and devoroli reads the whole book and he comes back and tells ross it's amazing it's a great book

which is funny because, you know, portions of the book are fictionalized or completely, either they're fictionalized or they're embellished in such a way that, you know, Devoroli, obviously he knows like part, like, that never happened, like that never happened, that never happened. He also knows like, oh, yeah, that did happen, but not like that. Like, that's not what happened. That wasn't the guy. That wasn't. For instance, there's a part in the book.

There's a part in the book where Devoroli and his buddies sneak up on this guy. There's like a security guard that kicks them off of a, they were playing like basketball and they were like 14 or 15 years old. And I remember Devoroli had told me that the guy was, he was like a Cuban guy that had come over and like, that was just trying to like make a living like he was a nice guy. And Deverely and his buddy is like mouth off to him And the guy's like, come on, you guys can't be here And you know, you have to leave He's like, so we leave He's like, the guy was just doing his job

He said, you know, we were pissed He said, so we went home and we got our paint belt Ball guns And they waited until the lights went out And they shot him Four or five guys shoot him up with their paintball guns And the guy screaming and hollering and yelling And they shoot him up with the paintball guns

He calls the police, the police come and they end up, you know, running back to running back home. Well, of course, I end up having to rewrite that whole scene. Debroli, when he read it, was like, because Ross told me, well, you know, Devoroli said that, you know, he was laughing about how you change some of the scenes where, like, like, he's like, he said that guy was just a hardworking guy. And I ended up saying, like, he was, he had a mullet, he was a white guy. was at a mullet he was a you could tell he was a former football uh former uh football champion in

high school he had a pop belly he was you know like i have him say all these things he's dipping like like i make him a very unsympathetic character he's mouthing off to the got kids he's telling him like he's calling him names and and pushing them around and like they're just little kids and then they run home and get their so you when they shoot him you feel like oh good he has it coming but the truth is he didn't have it coming at all he's just doing his job like you can't be on the on you cannot be on the courts this late they're closed you have to leave well so you re I rewrote that whole thing because they wanted him to be a sympathetic character I can't have you running around with a paintball gun shooting security guards who are just doing their job like you know like especially

an immigrant who's you know he's Hispanic like okay now you look like you're a racist or something like I can yeah but you can shoot a white guy so I get I have him shoot a white guy with a mullet who's uh and ross of course loved it and laughed and said that was a great oh that's great i love it and but i did that throughout the whole book i'm altering things to make devoroli look as good as possible because you can't make him look the way he truly is like jonahill made devoroli look soft and cuddly in that movie compared to the real devoroli so back to the story what ends up happening is i got the book they love the book they're all into the book and ross calls me up one day and tells me, I said, hey, so how's it? Oh, he didn't call me up. I'm in prison. He doesn't call me. Nobody calls me. I'm in prison. So I call him up one day. And I say, listen, Ross, hey, what's going on? And he goes, oh, it's going great, man. Like, I just had a meeting with Simon and Schuster. I said, okay. He said, I've been talking to, he'd been talking to screenwriters. He's talking to, he had a contact that Simon and Schuster. They had read the book. They loved it.

They read my book The guy loved it He said he was getting a deal with Simon and Schuster For both Deverelli's book and my book That's huge Like that's huge So I'm excited

And the other thing he tells me is He's got the manuscript And Debroli's cousin Who is in L.A. had put him in contact with another kid who was a producer. His mom is the producer. His mother, there was a movie called Blackfish about orcas. You ever heard of that?

Like 20 years ago. Anyway, his mother owned a production company that did documentaries and she had done a super, a successful documentary called Blackfish. Blackfish. Well, her son, I forget his name. was partners with another kid. And they, Debroli's cousin had talked to them and said,

look, my cousin's, from Devoroli, he just finished his memoir. Would you guys like to see it? I have the manuscript. And they said, we would love to see it. And so I'm like, oh, that's great. And Ross says, what's even better is that one of the two partners, a guy by the name of Shimmy,

This is, I'm sure it's a nickname, right? Shimmy's father is, I forget his name. I have it written down. Somebody Spira, who is one of the, not CEO, one of the presidents. He's a president, not the president, they have multiple presidents. He's one of the presidents of Warner Brothers. And I was like, oh, okay. I said, so you want Shimmie to give the manuscript to his dad?

And Ross says, no, no, no, you don't understand. He said, Jonah Hill and Miles Teller have signed on to play Devoroli and Pac-Oaus. They're probably going to get the movie made. It's too late for us to get the movie made. He said, but these guys are signing on and they're rewriting the script right now and I went okay

and I said so I don't understand he said well I'm waiting I think he was waiting for those two guys shimmy and the other guy to get them

NDAs non-disclosure agreements he had sent them non-disclosure agreement saying I'll send you the manuscript but you can't give it to anybody they were like okay so they signed them and send them back

he is once I get them back I'll send them the manuscript And I was like, okay, I don't understand. He goes, well, the fact that his father is the head of the studio, one of Warner Brothers Studios, he's a president of the presidents. He goes, it just works to our advantage. That's all. It just helps us. And I'm like, oh, okay.

And I didn't really understand. You have to understand by this point, I'm already writing other people's books. Like at this point, I was writing a book called... bailout oh sorry bailout let's go this one I like this one this one's better for the book

this angle I think is better for the book so bailout which was a guy by name Marker Shrinker so at this point I've got guys lining up saying bro I want to you to write my book

so I wrote the book bailout put that one there so I remember being like okay cool cool cool to Ross like okay cool like I this is just a phone call where I'm telling them what I'm doing because he would send me we would send emails back and forth he'd be like bro he'd be like call me tonight tell me so we can talk I'd call it to he'd say hey here's what's going on with Devereoli

I'd go okay he'd go what's going on with shrinker and I'd tell him what's going on with shrinker and he was ordering documents for me for shrinker and mailing me stuff like he's helping me with shrinker I'm like okay even though he didn't want to represent me on a shrinker's book he's like no I absolutely don't want to represent you because shrinker's a scoundrel more so than most people. Yeah, definitely. Most of the other than most people. So I'm like, okay, cool.

So we're talking. And he tells me the thing about Shimmy. And I'm like, all right, cool. No big deal. I end up getting off the phone. I'm writing Shrinker's book. I end up finishing Shrinker's book. And I end up, I finished Shrinker's book, and I end up working on, I start working

on another book by this kid for this guy, Douglas Dodd. So Doug Dodd. ends up following me around really to be honest Doug Dodd is following me around and begging me to write his book it was called the book of the time I was calling it I called it oh God I called oh I called it um oxy rush we were calling oxy rush so and and Doug I remember Doug Dodd comes up to me it was just a it was a It was a story about a bunch of kids who were selling pills in Hudson, Florida. And they were doing doctor shopping.

They were selling oxycodone. So I remember Dodd follows me in one day. He's like, bro, you got to write my book. You got to write my story. And I was like, you don't even have a story. And we're going back and forth. And he goes, bro. I remember he said, he was, I'll give you fucking half of anything I'll, anything I make.

I'll give you half. And I said, of course you're going to give me half. So do you think I was going to write it for less than half? Like, are you insane? Not only are you, you know, by this point, I already realized like, like I should be getting these guys to attach their life right story, everything across the board to these stories because they can't write their own stories. So anyway, I end up writing Doug Dodd's story. He built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million because $50 million wasn't enough. and 60 million seemed excessive.

He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crimes, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. I tell Dodd, you don't even have a fucking story. I said, here's what I'll do, bro. I was like, here's what I'm going to do.

I'll write your story. I'll write a synopsis of your story. it'll be six or seven thousand words i think it was six or seven it was like seven or eight thousand something like that i'll write them and that's basically like a really large article i said i'll write the story i'm going to send that synopsis off to a bunch of different um reporters and i'll try and get you into like rolling stone or esquire or vanity fair something i'll try and get you into one of these one of these you know one of these magazines if i can get you into a magazine I said, then I'll write your book.

But right now I'm just going to write a synopsis because I don't think there's much of a story here. And I didn't know much of the story, to be honest with you. I just didn't like Dodd. So he was like pleading with me to do this. So I said, okay, so I write a story. I write his synopsis. I write the whole synopsis.

I send it to seven or eight different reporters. A couple of them right back, say, wow, it's amazing. You're an amazing storyteller. I don't have time to do it. I'm sorry. Or they said, hey, it's amazing. amazing story. If you could just give me six months to a year, I'd be willing to take on this project. I get one guy that writes me back, and it's Guy Lawson, the same guy that wrote

Ephraim Devoroli and Pacow's story in Rolling Stone. And Guy Lawson says, I could get to this right away. I said, okay, cool. Guy Lawson comes back. I'm not going to get into the issues I had with Guy Lawson but we go back and forth back and forth and I'm like listen man like I want he said I can get I can write Dodd story and get it into media magazine which and I was like I've never heard of media magazine so it's an online magazine you have to understand I'm in prison so I don't have access to the internet so I was like I don't want it on an online magazine I want it in back there that back then there was a magazine also called maxim is there still maxim anyway i was like i want it in maxim or i want it in rolling stone magazine or i want it in

esquire i want it in gq like i want it in a real magazine i want to be able to hold it because i can't he's like well i can print it off online and send you a copy no i want a magazine article that's what i want so he goes we're going back and forth you know how it works and it's way i could get it in here and i could do this and i go listen you know what here here's what bothers me about this conversation he goes what i said i've sent you all the research i wrote the entire article for you i've done every all the work for you i said you haven't even tried to get it into Rolling Stone. I said, now, if you'd already tried and you sent it to your editor and he read it and didn't want it, well, that's okay. We can talk about an online magazine. But I said, I mean,

you're not even willing to try. I said, if you're not willing to try, then I'll just wait for somebody that can try. Somebody will try. Like, I don't mind failure. I mind not trying. and he went, all right, well, I'll see what I can do. So he calls his editor. His editor's name was, fuck, I forget his first name. His last name's Wood. Anyway, goes to lunch with him, gives him the article. He reads it.

He says, I want to put it in the magazine. So a few months later, the, I immediately, by the way, as soon as I hear it's going to be the magazine, I start writing Dodd's book. But really, to be honest, by the time I had finished writing the synopsis of the story, I liked the story. Like, I had sat down with them for a couple, for several hours, you know, probably spent 10 hours just writing the synopsis. And I heard all the ends and outs of the story, and it was a good story. Like, I liked it. And the characters were likable, right?

So, and it was unique. There was a lot of cutesy, unique things about the story, which were interesting. And it wasn't just a regular bunch of scumbag kids, um, doctor. shopping. It was more than that, right? So it was like, it was a good story. So, okay, so Guy Lawson says he's going to write the story. And Guy Lawson said, I'll write the story

and he said, the story's going to be he said, I'm going to use parts of the manuscript. Now, by this point, Doug Dodd has left prison. He left prison and went to the halfway house.

And he has the manuscript. He sends a manuscript to, he sends a manuscript to Gie Lawson. Guy Lawson comes back and says, Matt, do you mind if I use some of the, some of the manuscript that you wrote and some of the, you know, the article that you wrote, the synopsis?

And I was like, well, I don't know. He goes, it's okay. He said, I'm going to do that, but I'm going to give you credit. So the article will be from Gie Lawson and Doug Dodd and Matt Cox. And I went, oh, wow. He is, you'll have been, you'll, you'll be a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. I was like, holy shit.

Like, yeah, definitely. I want to do that. Let's do that. So, a few weeks before the article comes out, Gie Lawson emails me and tells me that, oh, the guy's name's Sean, Sean Wood, the editor of Rolling Stone Magazine. He was Sean Wood, said, I talked to Sean Wood, and he doesn't want

you and Doug to be the authors of the article he said he said it'd be better if I gave you credit in the body of the work and I go no no no no no no we agreed we agreed he said no no Matt it's okay I'm going to give you credit in the body of the work it's still your art it's still your stuff

like I'm still going to talk say that you did the story you wrote the story like he tells me all this bullshit it and I'm like no absolutely not absolutely not he's like well there's no other way like this is it that's the only way it's going to work and I'm sorry it's just the way it is and I was furious but there's nothing I can do

I'm locked up in prison there's nothing I can do so the article comes out so the article comes out so the article comes out in Rolling Stone magazine here it is let's go that one Look, that's the front cover.

Okay. I'll switch here. That's the article. Right? That's the article. He calls it the Dukes of Oxy by Guy Lawson.

Guy Lawson didn't write any of this article. Guy Lawson pulled 95% of what's in here out of my synopsis that I sent him. He barely changed anything. he did however mention he did however mention right here

that a while back Doug Dodd and his writing partner Matthew Cox sent me a document titled oxy rush from high school wrestling wrestlers to oxycodone kingpin asking if I might be interested in writing about

the story more pictures more pictures more pictures of Don and his high school buddies they've got more pictures of Don more pictures more pictures oh more pictures so it's a good article it was a good article it was a good article like it wasn't great but it was good you know anything that Gie Lawson touched on the article that altered mine story at all made it bad I hated it So, anyway, no, it was a decent article.

It was a decent article. And, you know, because Dodd and I had an agreement, you know, in writing that I was going to get a portion of the, you know, we were splitting up the, his rights. Guy Lawson ended up optioning the Rolling Stone article. So he optioned it to New Line Cinema. And an option is that you give them 18 months. They give you some money and they get 18 months to turn it into a movie. And in 18 months, if they haven't turned it into a movie, then they give you another they pay you again and they can extend it several times this has been

extended i want to say four times for a limited time at mcdonalds enjoy the tasty breakfast trio your choice of chicken or sausage macmuffin or mcgrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax available until 11 a.m. at participating mcdonald restaurants price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery so he ends up they end up optioning and of course Doug gets some, well, of course, Gie Lawson gets the lining share, line share of it, Doug Dog gets some money, and I get some money,

which is great because I'm in prison, I have no money. And I, the best thing about that whole thing was that I was able to take this article and send it out to literary agents and get a book deal. Now, the reason I didn't go to Ross Reback and get a book deal is because

at this point, I, Ross had not pitched my book yet. He was pitching Devoroli's book. He'd pitched Deverely's book and my book, but they didn't have a book deal. Like Simon & Schuster is trying to get them to sign. Devaroli isn't returning any letters. Like I've written him letters.

I've tried to call him. Nothing. I've got nothing from this guy. Ross is telling me, well, Devaroli doesn't really feel like he should be talking to you. You know, like he just. got out he's concerned he's on probation he doesn't want to get in trouble for talking to a felon like it's it's it's all bullshit and it's just it's i just was becoming more and more

distrustful of everything reback was saying also by this point devoroli was being asked to be interviewed by um the new york times We're talking about the New York Times, the LA Times, CNN wanted to do a documentary on Devoroli and his memoir and the writing of the memoir from inside of a federal prison with me. So you're supposed to be promoting your memoir and you're not doing it. You're not returning calls. You're not doing anything. And at this point, I ended up writing, I end up writing, well, that, look, what ends up happening is Ross and I, like, we're, we're having issues. Like, I'm pissed because what's happening is he, he isn't focusing on getting a book deal.

All he seems to be focusing on at this point, because at this point, they're now making the movie Wardogs. They're making the movie Wardogs And all Reback seems to be concerned with Is suing Warner Brothers So now he's talking about suing Warner Brothers At the same time When this article and everything's coming out And I'm excited

I call Ross one day And Ross says to me Hey what's going He's like, hey how's it going? I go, oh, it's going okay He's like, you're not going to believe this And I go, what? He said, I sent the, I sent the manuscript that you wrote.

And by the way, it's called Once a Gun Runner. The name of the manuscript is Once a Gun Runner. Deverely's memoir. So he goes, I sent Once a Gun Runner to these two producers. One of them name is Shimmy. And this is months after he'd originally told me this. And I was like, right, okay. he goes well

I was talking to Shimmy and his partner on the phone I go okay and I was asking him how they were doing on trying to get funding to do a documentary about the manuscript okay because that's what they said they wanted to do and I said right

and he goes and while I was talking to them and they were telling me that the movie had been greenlit that there was no way to get a movie made at this point because Warner Brothers had greenlit

the movie Wardogs and they were now going to start filming it and Jonah Hill had signed on and Miles Teller had signed on and they were going to be shooting within months. Todd Phillips is involved obviously. Bradley Cooper is signed up to direct and he's

going to be in the movie so there's just no way to get a film made so that now we're just looking at doing a documentary and we're going to and so he said We're trying to figure out how to get the funding for the documentary. And I say to him, I'm like, okay.

And Ross goes, so while I'm talking to them, I say to Shemmy, Shimmy, how do you know all this information? And Shimmy tells me his father is the president of Warner Brothers. And I go, okay. Now, Ross told me that months ago. before he ever sent him anything when he asked him to sign the NDA he hadn't even sent him anything yet

and I was like okay and Ross says and I told him are you fucking serious if I had known your father was the president of Warner Bros I never would have sent you the manuscript for all I know

you gave it to your father father. And he tells me, he goes, I mean, for all I know, they used it to write the screenplay. And I was like, okay, right, right. And all I could think of was, why is he saying this? Like, why are you telling me this? When I, you've, like, it was like, I guess he forgot that he told me that Shimmie's father was the president of Warner Brothers? Like, why are you telling me this? I know that's bullshit. Like, that's a, that's total bullshit. You knew all this prior to sending him that. So he says he gets super offended with Shimmy. And he says, I can't believe that you guys did this. And he hangs up the phone. He said, so we're interviewing lawyers right now. We've got the one lawyer right now that I'm

talking to. And he this is. And he, that, and he, and I'm going, like, this is all he's focusing on at all. He's, and I'm like, what's going on with Simon and Schuster? Oh, well, you know, I'm still kind of working with them. And I just don't know if I'm, I'm not sure about, I'm not sure if that's going to work out. Like, it'll take them a while to publish the book. And, you know, I don't, you know, it's like, what the fuck is going on? so i end up writing ross a letter that says ross like i i cannot believe that this is what's going on

that i worked you know three or four months on this project that you guys have completely pissed away every opportunity like when i was like well he's got to do the cnn documentary like some woman from New York, I'm sorry, from like Atlanta, flew down to Miami, met with Devoroli, met with Ross, negotiated a deal with CNN, where CNN was going to allow them to run ads during the CNN, like a two-hour CNN documentary on Devoroli. They were going to allow them to run ads about the memoir and put the memoir out. How many ads, how many books do you think would have sold had they run ads on a two-hour documentary about Devoroli and about their case, that case, prior to or during the course when the movie comes out? Like, I'm thinking a lot of books.

I'm thinking that that's probably turns it into a bestseller. Wouldn't do it. Same thing. They both met with the guy who did Corbin. What's the name Michael Corbyn? I don't know. Somebody tell me in the comment section. Corbin, who also was in Miami, who wrote, who did the documentary Square Grupper and Cocaine Cowboys.

Same thing. They met with him. He wanted to do a documentary. Didn't happen. Also, wouldn't be interviewed by the New York Times. So I write this letter saying, look, you guys have completely fucked up this situation. Your only concern at this point is suing Warner Brothers. You're not even trying to publish the goddamn book.

Like, let's get the book out before Lawson gets his book out. They're not even remotely concerned about that because they've already set it up to sue Warner Brothers. So the idea of pushing to get this book, like, I'm like, let's self-publish the book. You're wasting your time suing Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers hasn't done anything wrong. And so that's what I write in this letter. I send this letter to Ross. So I mail this letter to, I send this letter to Ross.

And I don't hear from Ross anymore. Like I sent this letter like blasting him and Devoroli. Because he mind Devoroli doesn't, I don't hear from Devoroli. I don't hear from Devoroli. I don't hear from Ross. They've completely fucked up all these opportunities. I'm like self-published the book and do the CNN documentary and be interviewed by the New York Times, the L.A. Times, There's like a dozen magazines or a dozen newspapers that want to talk to him.

He could be in any magazine he wanted. And there would have been a 6,000 word article on him. And it could have been about, and I just wrote my book, like, you would have sold a ton of bucks. None of that happens. So I'm pissed. I mail this letter. And I don't even talk to Ross anymore. I haven't even heard from Ross at this point.

So look, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and, uh, So, I'm going to keep going for a second, just so I can explain one thing. So at this point, like, I don't, I haven't heard from Ross in weeks or months. He's not returning emails. I don't, you know, that's it. Like, I'm like, okay, this guy's got my book. He's got Devoroli's book.

Devoroli doesn't talk to me. Ross doesn't talk to me. I'm stuck in prison. Like, like, what do they care? They don't care. At this point, though, I basically go, I've now gone back to, gone back to sentencing. I've managed, I had 26 years when I started I managed to get it dropped down by seven years.

I got seven years knocked off my sentence and I explained that in one of the other videos so I'm not going to get into all that. So I end up knocking, at this point it's seven years that's been knocked off my sentence. Which keep in mind, Deverelli isn't, doesn't know any of this. So he and Ross are like,

this guy's locked up until 2030. They don't have to deal with me It's not hard You just don't email me You don't call You don't email me And you don't pick up the phone How hard is it to get rid of some guy in prison

Don't pick up the phone You don't have to hear from this guy again So I'm walking around the compound Writing stories Still writing stories At this point Actually at this point I think I'm writing

Bent By this point I've written By this point I've read it written the book, Bint. So I think everybody that's watching this probably knows who John Boziac is. John Boziac is a credit card, a kid who grew up homeless on the streets of Miami and ended up becoming a credit card counterfeiting, credit card counterfeiter. And he sold like, is it like $2.5 million or $3.5 million in counterfeit credit cards, the Russian mob. He's on

multiple different indictments. Super cool story. Check it out. Pick it out. It's on Amazon. Anyway, so I've written that story. I'm writing that story. I'm walking around the compound one day. And this guy that I was also writing another story about, this guy named Dennis Caroni. Dennis Caroni, I'm sitting at a table with Dennis Caroni and my, I'm sitting at a table in an area that they called Stonehenge on the compound.

It's like seven or eight o'clock at night. I'm sitting there. and I'm talking to my buddy Pete and we're talking and this guy Dennis Caroni walks by and he goes, hey Cox and I'm like

he actually calls me Matthew he's like Matthew Matthew I'm like what what's up and he goes he said you make any money off that book and I go what book and he goes that book

the book you know that book and I thought he meant I remember initially I thought he meant Because when I got the guys in Rolling Stone The other guys I had gotten a

I ended up getting a book deal for Doug Dodd We ended up getting a book deal I wrote his book I ended up writing his book And I got a literary A second So now I got another literary agent

Because I don't trust Ross anymore So I've got another literary agent And I end up writing this story This book Which is basically The article that was in Rolling Stone about Doug Dodd, I end up getting a book deal, I get in advance, it's on

the shelves at Barnes and Nobles, it was published, it's called Generation Oxy. Like, I liked my my title was OxyRush. Gee Lawson named his generation, no, Gie Lawson named his version

his totally stolen version of my story in Rolling Stone. He called it the Dukes of Oxy, and then I ended up writing the whole book, and we got a book, a deal with Sky Horse Publishing, and it's called Generation Oxy from high school wrestlers to Pain Pill Kingpins, which was a great subtitle. Anyway, so I end up getting this book.

So I remember, you know, Dennis Caroni says, hey, man, you make any money? I was like, and I actually, and I thought he meant this one, but I don't think this had come out yet or something, but I remember going like, what are you talking about? He's like, you know, Debroli's book. Do you make any money on that? And I went, no, I said, and I didn't want to get into it with him.

So I was like, no, they're still looking for publishers. And he goes, what are you talking about? I said, they're still looking for publishers. They haven't published it yet. And he goes, what are you talking about, bro? And he pulls out Oceans Drive magazine. Keep in mind, I have no way to check on anything. I'm locked up.

I can't check on anything. I can't. There's no internet. Ross isn't answering the phone. Devaroli doesn't answer the phone. Nobody's answering nothing. from me, so I don't know what's going on. He pulls out Oceans Drive magazine

right there and he shows me a picture of Ephraim Devereoli. Ephraim Devaroli is right here. Ephraim Devaroli is holding a copy of his manuscript or, sorry, copy of his book, his hardcover book.

It says under the caption, Ephraim Devaroli at the 2016 Miami book fair in Miami and he's got what looks like 50 or a hundred books behind him and he's holding up my book once a gun runner let's do this look right here we're just switch we're gonna switch once a gun runner he's holding up once a gun runner and look at my name's right there Ephraim memoir from DeBeroy with Matthew Cox and you know what it doesn't say

it doesn't say based it doesn't say based on his truth on this story it says once a gun runner the real story it says that everything

in the book is 100% accurate and correct told by the very person that lived it I remember being very concerned about that. I immediately, immediately, was just like, I just remember this wave of heat running over my whole body. And Pete, I explained Pete goes, what's going on?

Because I just met Pete. And so I tell Pete what's happening. And Pete is like, Oh, wow, that's crazy, bro. Pete goes to his mother, goes and gets on the phone, calls his mother. I end up going and calling my sister, and I end up getting several press releases sent in, and it turns out that they had just filed their lawsuit, and in their lawsuit, they explain. Ross explains that Shimmy had given the manuscript to his father, the president of

Warner Brothers, and they had used the manuscript to rewrite the screenplay and they were shooting, that the entire movie had been shot based off of Devereoli's book and not Packhouse. Not Packhouse's version, not the Rolling Stone version of the story, which is based on Packhouse's telling of the story. So it's really the whole movie is based on that book.

So, which by the way, I know is a lie. Like, I'd love to sit here and tell you, yeah, man, they used my book to write the movie and I got screwed. But that's a fucking lie. Like, that's not what happened. They set up Shimmy to possess the book so they could sue Warner Brothers. And let's face it. that's a great scam like that in front of a jury would play out amazingly so at this point i'm i'm like in shock at what happened and if you watch the next video i'll explain exactly

what ends up happening because my buddy pete comes in and pete's like you got to sue them you have to sue them What the fuck am I going to sue anybody? I'm in federal prison. Let me tell you why you can't sue anybody from federal prison. Because at some point, if you sue somebody in a civil lawsuit in federal prison, and at some point it goes to trial, even if you can manage to keep up with all of the back and forth with the court, state or federal court, if you can go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, you know what ultimately, ultimately ends up happening, you end up having to go to court.

and guess what? You can't go to court because you're in federal prison and that's a problem. But I'm going to show you what ends up happening and how I deal with it and how it all works out. So, if you like the video, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button,

hit the bell so that you get notified of videos just like this and leave me a comment and let me know how bad I screwed up on some of the story and how I need to possibly have my time. line down better but let's face it I'm really pulling most of the just just from my head so if my timeline's off a little bit you know you'll be okay um that's really it I appreciate you guys watching if you want to really if you really like it and say wow you know what I like this

series like Matt's giving me a ton of content I listen to this while I'm driving a lawnmower mowing yards or I'm in the back office and I'm loading boxes or I'm a truck long distance truck driver or whatever you do while you listen to this type of thing and you think you know what Matt's a not a bad guy, and I'd like to help support him. I have a Patreon. Please go to my Patreon. There's three different tiers. You can check it out.

All of the links are in the description. Check it out. And if you'd like to buy any of the books that I've talked about, and there's more books. I'm going to talk about there. There's more books I wrote, which all kinds of stuff's going on. So if you'd like to read any of the books, most of them are, I think pretty much all of them are on Amazon. And all the links are in the description. and almost all of them have audibles attached to them.

So check those out too. I appreciate it. Oh, by the way, you can thank me if you say, hey, you know what, I don't want to join Patreon, but I want to thank you, bro. You can hit the thank you button. You go to the bar below where it says like, you know, the little thumbs up and you scroll over.

There's a thank you button. You can actually thank me. You can give me $2, you can give me $3, $5. You can give me $50 if you were so inclined to do so. And I would appreciate that. but i'd also appreciate two dollars too because every little bit it counts and i appreciate it and thank you very much and thanks for watching and check out the next video when i do the next video because i'm going to it's all going to come together and you're going to be like wow it's going to

be like like all that happened and while you were in prison and got out and then you did yes it's insanity