Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - EXPOSING THE STEVIE WONDER ALICIA KEYS SCAM | FBI AGENT FRAUD STORIES

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

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They called it the Stevie Wonder Blunder, $187,000 from 15 different clients. Stold $9 million with a fake Alicia Keys concert. Sean White convinces her, sell me your arrow key for $2,000. Are we doing this? We're ready. We're rolling. We doing this? Yeah, I'm trying to think.

Yeah. Hello, Matt Cox. Oh, gosh. Yes. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, no problem. Do you cut that out? I think I'll leave it in.

I'll leave him in. You should leave it in. It's the immediate, you're completely uninterested in anything I'm saying. And then Colby says, okay, we're rolling. Hello, Matt Cox. We're talking about other guests on the show. I'm a jealous, man. I want to be your one and only, Matt.

So what are we here for today? I got some crime stories for you. That's great. Some of them involve me. Some of them do not involve me. Last two times I came with a theme. One time I came with stories about airplanes. One time I came with stories about women.

Yeah. This one's a little bit of everything. I mean, maybe if we had a theme, it would be lawyers, guns, and money, because I got stories about all three. Okay. Okay. So I just launch right into it? Yeah, absolutely.

What's the first one? You ever been to Maui? I have been Maui. Yeah. Do you like it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So I was an FBI agent in Honolulu. And the cool thing about being an FBI agent in Honolulu is you get to travel to the other islands to work cases. And what's cool about that is that Hawaii, unlike Florida or... or any other state, when you're traveling on business there, there's not like a Hampton Inn downtown that you stay in. You're staying at like a resort. Right.

Right. And so it's kind of an amazing, it's the best business travel experience ever had because you're staying at a resort, the guy, you know, you walk down to the pool to have dinner at the pool bar or whatever. You know, and the couple had been saving up their whole lives to go on this vacation or their honeymoon, for example. And you're just there on a business trip. And so it's always a very good deal for me.

So there was a woman in Maui named, Jedida Dwarosan. What is that? What's that? Philippina. Okay. Philippina, yeah. I'm shocked, shocked, you can say that.

I'll never be able to say that. I believe it's biblical. Okay. Which, of course, you would have no. And she decided to start soliciting investments from friends of hers and people in her church. She said that she had an inside track to invest money with high guaranteed risk-free Matt yields in that she was going to be investing in an oil well and a gold mine in Indonesia this sounds okay this sounds very solid Matt Cox what could go wrong I don't know

about a dozen of her friends and church members and all that all invest she gets $800,000 from out of a dozen people she gets $800,000 I mean these people are 50 to $100,000 investments yeah I mean some more than others I think they'd have a couple real big fish in there But again, guaranteed rates of return. This woman's in their church. She would never lie to them. Anybody who says guaranteed, it's already a scam. It's risk-free money.

I mean, it's going to blow up. But anyway, I think you're spoiling it a little bit because what actually happened in Matt Cox is that she did not, in fact, invest the $800,000 in gold mine and oil wells in Indonesia. She paid down her own credit card debt, which was pretty substantial to her. her credit. Right. She went on a lot of shopping sprees and she made a deposit on a plot of land in Maui that was not refundable. So she lost like, I think, 200 grand from that. I don't even know how that worked, but they, you know, you had to come up with the rest of the money by that point she'd already spent it down. And she ran out of church members. Non-refundable deposit, exactly. So what happens

when these people do not get, start getting their investment returns? Who do they call? They call the FBI. They call the FBI in Honolulu. And I get the, I get the, I get the, the case. So I was pretty new there at the time. It was my first time going to Maui. Pretty good deal, right? So I hop on a little plane, 45-minute flight to Maui, check into the hotel. It's this amazing resort in the ocean. You, the taxpayers, covered that for me because there's no other place to stay. And I go and interview the victims. They all tell me pretty much consistent stories. Get the financial records, take a look at that. It all checks out. What happened to the money? She's just pissing it away on herself. And so then it's time to go talk to Jed.

Right. So I go to our house, knock on the door. The Filipinos in Hawaii tend to all have many, many people, extended family members. I almost thought you said look alike. No. Okay. No, no, no. No. They're all. They live together, is what I'm saying. They like, they have sizable houses because many of them are in the trades. And so they build like extensions on the house and stuff like that. And there's many people living under the same house who are, you know, family members, type friends, aunties. stuff like that. And, you know, knock on the door, is Judaita home? No, she's not here right now, which is kind of sucks, right? I hate it when they're not home because then you, like, you're immediately we have to make a decision. Yeah. Do I leave my business card? And the next thing, you know, I'm getting a call from a criminal defense attorney, or do I slink away and just kind of come back later? Right. And this time I left a business card because this case is going to get made

with or without Judita. Right. She's done. She's done. Yeah. There's too much evidence that people deposit money and she's spinning on herself. So I leave my business card, and I drive over to, like, Maui Mall to kind of kill some time, and then I get a call on the cell phone, and it's Judaito. Can I help you, sir? Judita, I need to talk to you. Can you meet me somewhere? Can I come back over the house? He goes, well, it's real crowded here, a lot of family living here.

Why don't want to meet you somewhere? There's a restaurant chain, very popular in Hawaii, called Zippies. It's like a Denny's. It's like a Denny's of Denny's served spam. Okay. And Spam's a real delicacy. No, it's a big thing. Yeah, they eat it unironically.

And so we go to zippies. We get a table. Got to order something. Plate of fly fries. We're going to share a plate of fries and some ketchup. And I interrogate her right there at the booth. And this is just you? Is there somebody else with you?

I had to bring someone with me. I was someone a new agent. Okay. No, no, there's two agents station in Maui. I had another agent with me, just kind of doing a ride along. He need nothing about the case. He's just there in case I keel over. yeah well because i was wondering too you're knocking on the door like there's always two agents

yeah yeah it was me and an agent named steve who um who stationed in maui and i said you don't even need to know about the case just be there be there and avenge me if she kills me so um so we're eating the i asked her about the investment she's kind of going on and on about this went wrong and that went wrong and i said stop listen and i go and i go you took the money and you spent it on yourself and i go i go maybe you thought that something would come through but you told these people, you were going to be investing their money in gold and an oil well. Then when you get their money, you do something different with the money. You pay down your credit card debt and say, yeah, but I had other ways. I was going to maybe pay them back later and they just got impatient and just

a lot of excuses. It's their fault. It's always their fault. I said, I get it. I get it. There's no way on God's Green Earth you went into this with the intent to steal their money. But after you realized you had the money, then maybe you took a look at your life and took a look at the tremendous financial hardship that you've been facing lately, and he thought, this is my way out, and maybe I'll be able to make some money to pay them back. Is that fair to say? Yeah. And I go, and then when it came time to take more money from other people, that was probably, then it was just, it kind of got away from itself, right? Because she wasn't even paying him returns. This wasn't even a Ponzi scheme. Right. And so, uh, she's just theft. Right. So we take, you know, I'm taking notes,

I goes, let's, let's write this out. And so we kind of write out her version of the story in first person, turn it over. We review the statement together. She's like, I don't really like the way you said that. And so I'm happy to cross that out and write up her version of it on top. And I have her initial at the top and the bottom of the page and initial at the crossouts we do. And I have her sign the bottom while we're eating fries together at zippies. And then she signed the confession. I thanked her very much.

She said, what happens next? It's not up to me. I got to take this case to my supervisors. Got to take this case to the prosecutor. And then we'll figure out where we go from here. And then I shook her hand, took her photo. I said, listen, it's going to seem kind of weird. I need to get a photo of you.

She goes, why? I go, in case you disappear. And I go, and so I pull out my phone. And I go, you know, no one ever smiles when I do this. And I go, but if you're allowed to smile, you look great. You're a beautiful woman. And so she gives me this big smile. She's sitting there at the counter and at the booth.

Take a photo of her. Thank her so much. We get in our respective cars and leave. a month later, came back, arrested her, brought her back to Honolulu. Oh, my God. What does the FBI agent with you say? They see walk off and say, wow, you just got her to sign the confession. I mean, I got that a lot from my colleagues.

I was really good at getting the confession throughout the course of my career. Because I went to FBI interrogation schools, went to CIA interrogation schools. I taught interrogation. I teach interrogation now to kind of regulators and internal auditors and people like that. And so the agents often, who I don't know really well, who are writing along with me, are like, you're really smooth at getting that. But it's all about building rapport and trying to see the world through their eyes. Empathy is the thing, right? And so, you can fake that.

Empathy is real. Sympathy needs to be faked. Empathy does not. Empathy is my ability to see the world through your eyes. Sympathy is me feeling sorry for you. I don't feel sorry for her, but can I see the world through her eyes? Can I imagine the rationalizations that she tells herself? that allows her to look in the mirror every day,

knowing that she's ripping off these people from her church? I can imagine that. I can imagine that. You can imagine that, too. How much time you're going to give Judita after she pleads guilty back? Does she, I've already known the answer to this. She has no criminal history. No criminal history.

Okay. She's like, at this point, like a home health care nurse. I mean, she changed churches. No. Let me think. How much? 800,000. What was she was?

A dozen victims. I wonder if she was thinking, like, hey, there's a lot of churches around here. I can hit, if I can get all of them for $800,000. But she's not even trying to maintain the Ponzi, or the scam. The ultimate acceptance of responsibility as well. Right. Like, you know, showed no resistance. Can't literally did not have to meet with me at all, decided to come to Zippies with me

and sit down and share a plate of fries. How much time are you going to give Judait Adwara song back, Cox? I want to say below two years. Final answer? Yeah. Two years. years? All right. One for one. I'm keeping track today. I'm keeping track today. One for one. Get the Matt Cox scorecard.

Good. Okay. I said below, but that's fine. Two years or below. Let's go with that. Okay. That's pretty good. I'm good. I'm happy with that. That seems really. And it, it's probably there's a bunch of people to say it was, it's, she deserves more time. And, you know, but I don't know. Yeah. I mean, she was also ordered to pay restitution to her victims. And I promise you not a penny of that was paid. Yeah. Well, and now she's, she's a felon. And everybody knows what she did. It's a small community. Real small.

Yeah. It's, uh, it's, uh, yeah. I think that's, I think, and she's on probably paper for, uh, two years, three years, something like that, yeah. Yeah, I, I think that, you know, nobody's ever trust in her again with their money. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. Yeah. I'm, I'm curious to know. I am curious to know if she, uh, and we can move on after this. I'm curious to know, was there really an investment or she'd just come up with it. It was just straight fucking graph, just straight. I think there might have been some opportunity presented to her. She heard somebody.

It was nothing that was ever going to be realized. I just can't believe that. I also think, though, that this land in Maui, she had some intention to do something with it, but it was the last $200,000, not the first $200,000 that she was able to put down. Right. And then she lost that money. Just pissed it away, really, because it was non-refundable. Yeah, two years.

Two years. Yeah. You a fan of Stevie Wonder? I mean I've listened to his music yeah I mean you and I same age we grew up with Stevie One yeah I definitely have listened to his music You ever seen him live? No I mean either but I've seen I've seen you know videos

Yeah yeah sure I was really excited Right Yeah no continue this is your show I was super excited to see Stevie Wonder live Okay when it was announced that he was coming to Hawaii And Hawaii doesn't get a lot of good concerts.

Okay. Because it's so goddamn far from anywhere else. I mean, you know, you don't get, like, imagine the, the infrastructure that would go into, like, bringing in, like, a cold play or someone like that, like, you know, like all the instruments, all the equipment, all that to play in a stadium. They can't put it on an 18-wheeler and drive it in here. People do go there, but it's usually on their way to or from a Japanese tour. Okay.

Right. So we were all super excited when it was announced that Stevie Wonder was going to be coming to Honolulu to play a benefit show. for the University of Hawaii Athletic Department. Okay, right? It was amazing. It was like announced on TV.

Everybody was... Sounds off. Is he a big fan of... I know CPCB1 are being a fan of athletics. I mean, you can't watch them. He can't anticipate in them. I mean, the University of Hawaii Athletic Department has got a problem on their hands, right?

Because they have this terrible football team, and yet they have this tremendous expense. Again, Hawaii is probably the most remote, occupied place on planet Earth, and their away games cost them a fortune, right? You got to fly the entire football team to California or Nevada or whatever they happen to be playing, and so they're constantly strapped for money in their athletic department. It's not a moneymaker for them. And the team's also terrible, despite having the most significant home field advantage in college sports, right? Because everyone else is flying around the world to go play against

the University of Hawaii at the home games. You'd think the team would be able to somehow leverage that, but they're always terrible. Right. Okay. So the fact that Stevie Wonder himself was going to be injecting himself into the University of Hawaii Athletic Department to play a concert there was going to be amazing. It was going to, like, make the university flush with money. And tickets go on sale.

And people I know, FBI agents I know, were getting friends together, like, hey, I'm going to go get eight tickets. You want to end, and, you know, getting tickets for each other. Did you get tickets? I did not. I was out of town, but that's a whole other story. And then what happens is Stevie Wonder's manager gets a Google alert on her phone.

He's got a manager and an agent. The manager, kind of like a handler for him. And gets a Googler on his phone that these tickets have gone on sale. She calls the agent over at like William Morris and says, hey, do you know anything about a show in Hawaii? And he goes, no, no one's booked a show in Hawaii. I mean, they would have the contract and all that.

She's like, I don't know anything either. Stevie Wonder doesn't know anything about it. And so the manager, I'm sorry, the agent contacts the University of Hawaii, like general counsel's office, says, we don't know anything about this. And the University of Hawaii is like, we paid a $200,000 down payment to bring Stevie Wonder in. And he's like, who'd you pay that to? And he gives him the name and all that. And so eventually the call, they call the FBI, in this case lands on my desk.

okay and it's up to me to figure out how this occurred where was the money wired follow the money thank you you're good at this so it started with a um the money was wired to a guy named sean uh okay who lives in miami uh but he was from england like a british guy living in miami and then from sean's bank account i see that that like um 80 thousand kept like 80 000 bucks on it, bought his girlfriend and Mercedes with the money, and sent $120,000 of the money to a guy named Mark in North Carolina, who is a, part of a club promoter, then a concert promoter. And so there's some other stuff going on.

Bottom of mind is we're trying to understand what happened. I took me a while to follow the money. I mean, I'm telling the story in two minutes, but I'm subpoenaing bank records and things like that. This is evolving over time. Do these guys know this is happening? Well, what's happening is that the president of the University of Hawaii calls Sean and says, what's going on here?

My athletic department just wired $200,000 in taxpayer funds, right? Because it's a state school to you, you know, who is your contact with Stevie Wonder? Because there seems to be some confusion about whether Stevie Wonder is aware of this show or not. And he's like, well, we can't really tell you my contact with Stevie Wonder. I have back channels to him. And so he's kind of playing games, talking. about how, like, you know, that information's privy to me, but I can't share that with you. That's the how I make money is because I'm connected to people in the entertainment industry.

But as far as we're concerned, this show is happening, and your next installment payment's going to be coming in a zone. They're like, well, all right. The president of the university had contacted me ahead of time, and so we recorded that call, where the Sean Fellow is kind of doing this song and dance. Like, oh, yeah, no, it's, you know, that money's good. The show is going to happen. And so bottom line is, is, we end up arresting Sean and Mark and seizing the vehicle.

Sean bought his girlfriend, took it from his girlfriend, and she broke up with him subsequently. And so, and these guys had no contact whatsoever with Stevie Wonder. It's still to this day, unclear to me exactly what the end game was when there's going to be a stadium full of people stomping their feet saying, Stevie, Stevie, Stevie. And, you know, he doesn't come out. And, but they just took the money and pissed it away. I mean, Mark Hubbard for the 120 that he got, he just used it to pay down bills that he had. So wait, but it gets a little, there's an epilogue. So these guys are both pointing the finger at each other.

Sean is saying it was Mark's fault. Mark said he could book Stevie Wonder. Mark is saying, hey, this is your show, Playboy. I have nothing to do with this. And so these two have, like, now turned against each other. Sean comes in and agrees to cooperate against Mark. Sean pleads guilty to his part of this thing and in Greece to cooperate against Mark, who got most of the money, even though Sean was the one who initially received the money

and lied to the university president. We're still only talking 200 grand here. Yeah. And so then it comes out that Mark had done this in the past with a fake Alicia Keys concert, which didn't help. And while this seems like a relatively... Was it prosecuted on that one? No. Oh, wow.

So I believe there's a civil suit and he owed people money. That was the problem. See, they were taking investors on that one. This one, the actual university, was the investor who put a down payment on it. I believe that was the difference between the two cases. And so, so Sean cooperates against Mark. And, oh, I guess the other thing I would point out, even though this is a relatively short story to tell.

And this caused so much problems at the University of Hawaii. The president of the university ended up having to resign in disgrace. I believe the athletic director was put on administrative leave. They called it the Stevie Wonder Blunder. It was in the news every single night because there's no crime in Hawaii. And anything to do with a celebrity in Hawaii is big news. And it didn't do with the university is big news because there's the only game in town. And so it was embarrassing to the university that they screwed this thing up

and actually never did any due diligence to find out if Stevie Wonder is really in the link. It'd be like you or I just cold calling the university. so Sean cooperates against Mark Mark ends up pleading guilty as a result of that how much time do Sean and Mark get so Sean got 80,000 of the money Mark got 120,000 of the money right but Mark did not

Mark was waiting to the morning of jury selection before he pled guilty okay yeah so I'm going to say Sean gets, I say less than 90 days or less. I would say that Mark gets less than two years, two years or less. Okay. Is that? Well, you're good on Sean. Sean cooperates against Mark. He gets two months in prison and then deportation back to England where he's from. Okay. Because he's not a U.S. citizen. Right. Mark, the judge really threw the book at him. I think because he's,

Because the damage that he caused in this thing far outweighed the $180,000 or whatever, 120,000 books that you got. He got five years in prison. Whoa. And I think the judge looked at the Alicia Keys concert that never happened and counted that against Mark. What do they call it? Something. 404B, like other bad acts. Yeah.

Yeah, I was going to say they can. Relevant conduct. Relevant conduct. That's what I'm thinking. Relevant conduct. Yeah. Yeah, that's, you know, harsh. he's a you know he's he was you know whatever unrepentant probably probably plenty of opponent

while he's being sentenced but he waited till the day of jury like he's trying oh the other thing he did that that really pissed off the judge is he pleads guilty and then like right before sentencing he tries to withdraw his guilty plea he's playing games that was the perception of the judge I remember that now because we had to like we were gearing up for a potentially another trial right if the judge granted that but the judge did not allow him to withdraw his guilty yeah okay so yeah I'd say probably would have said three years five years seems excessive but yeah no big deal and I never got to see Stevie Wonder in concert no but then again he never got to see me so no that's so wrong offsetting penalties okay uh you ever been under

surveillance yes yes is it you feel like you're pretty good at keeping your eye out for surveillance and people following you even to this day Did it let us create an impact on you? No, because I didn't notice, it was actually one of my mortgage brokers. I actually saw the, realize they're like, like came in one day and said, so there's a cop. He's like, there's somebody across the street in a car watching us. He was there yesterday. He's there today.

He's been there for several hours. And we have, we were right, this office I had was right across the street. street from the post office. Okay. He's sitting. So there's this huge post office parking lot. Right. Then the post office.

So here's the main street, right? He's not parked, like, you got this huge parking lot. He's parked right here, right next to the street. Like, you could, if you're going to the post office, you would park close to it. It's completely empty. It's not a lot of action in the post office. And he's watching. You know, he's watching.

And so I was like, nah, but I mean, hours go by and hours go by. And you could see him, like, what are you doing? spending hours in your car and he wasn't that far away and if you if you know it like you wouldn't notice him unless you were looking right and so one of my brokers went over there to talk to him to say hey what's going on yeah and as he approached him he as he's walking the guys got the window down and as he's walking over towards him he's looking at him and he says uh he's like hey bro he's like are you watching us across the streets why are you approaching me don't approach me And he said, what?

He goes, do not approach me. The guy's poorly trained. Oh, and he said, so this is police officer or he says, no, no, this is police. This is the local police. And he says, do not approach me, get in your vehicle, go away. Now, that's what my broker told me, he said. Right. I later found out my broker, they had a conversation, a brief conversation.

And as far as I, and what ended up coming from that conversation was he gave his business card. because I didn't, you know, he came back and said, yeah, he told me not to approach him. He said, I can't talk to you. So he was lying. Yeah, I think my broker was lying. Yeah. Because later, one of my other brokers told me, the guy's name was Dominic, by the way, that had approached him.

He was like, you know, Dominic, I got that guy's business card, right? I'm like, what? He said, yeah, he talked to him. Because we watch. We're all watching. Yeah. And I'm like, he did? He's like, yeah, he got his business card for somebody.

So I'm assuming that Dominic basically went up. him and said, hey, bro, like, if you're watching the thing, give me your business car, I'll call you later. You know, something like that. Dominic has been in this situation before. He ran a used car lot where the owner was being investigated. They had approached Dominic, this is a state thing, the FDLE had approached him, and his, his, the owner of the company was not paying some kind of tax related to cars. So he was faking the stamp or something. that you get to save money on every transaction.

Something was happening, but they had approached him like, because he's just a manager there. Right. Like, hey, this is what's happening. So he knows the drill about cooperating. He knew to cooperate. Yeah. So he had, he cooperated immediately with that guy.

And it's funny, too, because once I went to prison, there was another case that he was involved in where he cooperated in that case. He's never been found guilty. And on my case, he's listed as an unnamed co-conspirator on my indictment. He was never. So yeah. So yeah, I've been that and then I've been followed before multiple times. I was followed on the interstate one time.

Okay, did you know you're followed or did you wait to the discovery and then you see it in the video. Once again, I did. No, no, this time I knew. This time I knew too. You saw somebody in the rear view mirror. But I didn't. The guy that was driving said, you know this guy. There's a guy following us.

I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, there's a guy following us. I said, no. He's like, yeah. Bro, I'm telling you. He's been following. And then so finally I said, we were driving. And he said, do you want me trying to lose them?

I was like, I don't know. We're on 70, I 75. So as we're driving, I said, you know what? I said, I don't think this guy's following us. I said, you know what? Pull over and stop. On the interstate. Yeah.

Pull over and just stop. He's like, all right, pulls over, boom, stops, bam. The guy drives right by and I thought, yeah, we're fine. And then he pulls over and stops. And I was like, oh, my God. No, no. See, the risk of losing someone like that is that they don't close the taste out and say like, well, I guess we're not ever going to get Matt Cox.

They begin putting, you know, trackers, drones. They stop using humans to follow you. Yeah, they're not giving up. I did a lot of surveillance when I was an FBI agent. And it was great when you're an FBI agent. It's fantastic because you have a lot of people usually who are on the surveillance team and you're able to kind of hand off what we call the eye to the next person. I would think it'd be boring.

It is boring, but it's possible to get successful evidence. My point is this. It's boring. It's really boring because most of the time you're sitting there watching a car that never drives or a door that never opens. But once you're actually moving, it's kind of nice because it's almost like a dance where I'm going to follow this guy for two or three blocks. And then I'm going to peel off and take a right turn. And the next car behind me is going to have the eye on him following that. And it's just kind of a very elegant process where the person's never going to see the same car bumper locked behind them for an eight hour period while they're driving around committing crimes, hopefully.

As a private investigator working alone, you're getting burned all the time because you're alone. And you're just hoping that this idiot doesn't look in their rearview mirror. But the good news is that most people don't pay very close attention to who's behind them in traffic. I suspect that some percentage of the people watching or listening to the show right now are doing it in their cars. And I would challenge them to think about without looking in your rearview mirror right now, viewer, who's behind you? And how long has that car been behind you? Most people aren't going to know. got a particular case I want to tell you about

Matt Cox had a dirty prison guard at the local prison in Hawaii the Halava Correctional Institute he was smuggling drugs into the prison for um he would meet like the girlfriend of the prisoner take money from her

take drugs from her bring drugs into the prison and then bring the drugs to that person and keep the money all right right I'm told there was some ice and and he was also smuggling a drug that I did not know existed before that called K2 a synthetic weed yeah you familiar with it yes oh I'm very it's it's everywhere in prison it's not allowed though right no all right just making sure I'm not crazy okay no it's actually a chemical and guys would they would you just ice or whatever mail you a book and and the guy would be like I'm gonna mail you a book and on page 122

They'd spray the page with 122, so they'd get a bookmailed in. They could tear out the book and roll up the things and smoke it. Because it was like a chemical. Yeah, I get it only. I mean, again, this is all news to me, but this was not my case. A much better looking and smarter agent, guy named Jeff Feldman, who just retired. Shout out to Jeff Feldman, was the case agent. But I was on the squad.

So I was doing a lot of surveillance in this case. So one of the prisoners had the bright idea to cooperate with the FBI. And he was going to have his girlfriend on the outside pay Mark, the prison guard, and give him drugs repeatedly in exchange for trying to get a deal for her man on the inside. That makes sense? I've seen it happen several times. So she's the one who's really doing the cooperating. Yeah, third party rule 35. Yeah, there you go.

And so we were, and this Mark guy was like a bodybuilder, like a steroid guy who would go to Gold's gym every day and work out. And so we knew his schedule because we've been surveilling him for a while. And I was going to be on surveillance. And the idea was that I was going to take him to a drug deal with this cooperating girlfriend, from the gold gym to the cooperating girlfriend, see if he stops and picks up drugs or does anything. You were going to follow him? Yeah. Okay.

You said take him. I'm sorry. That's how we describe it. Yeah. I'm taking him to work. I'm taking him here. I'm following him. I'm sorry.

FBI talk. And so I'm going to be following him. And we got maybe one or two other cars with me. It's not a real tight surveillance because we know exactly where he's going to be and when he's going to be there. But we wanted to see if he stopped. anywhere to pick up dope from someone else. Right. Okay, so that's the setup.

FBI cars have these amazing, like, walkie-talkie radios in it, like, C-Bs. Right. But they're bouncing off for repeaters. It's a giant, huge piece of machinery in the trunk of the car with the actual thing inside the car that's, like, connected to the electrical system of the car where I can talk and literally talk to someone in, like, Maui or Kauai or really far away, because it's a very powerful CB radio in the car. and, but I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to electronics and stuff like that.

So it was a beautiful day in Hawaii as it often is. I'm sitting there in the mall parking lot, watching the front door, the gold gym, waiting for Mark to come out to go to this drug deal. I turn off my car, but I turn it on so I can, you know, have the radio on and have my, my, the FBI radio, the Bucar radio. And I'm talking, and I'm talking to people. And then, and I think, well, I'll probably start the car. I start the car.

The battery is dead. having the car battery on, draining in this powerful radio in the car, the CB, drain my battery dry. Now I'm panicking, right? And I'm like, you know, I look in my trunk. I don't have a jumper cables. I look in, I don't have one of those, like, charge boxes. The other agents there, I'm trying to call them on the cell phone. No luck.

I'm like, I'm like really panicking at this point. I pop the hood to the car. I'm seeing, is there anything I can do? No, it's definitely a dead battery. I'm like watching the front door. He's going to be coming out any time from the Gold's gym. And so, you know, I call someone, I know in the area, can you come over to the mall and jump my car? Yeah, I'm on my way.

And so, but then as my relief is going to come to give me a jumpstart, who comes walking out, but Mark, right, right, with some big muscle head buddy, they see me there with my hood up, walks up to me. He goes, you okay, bro? You need a jumpstart? I should do. I go, yeah, you know, I'm sorry. I was, my, am I going, waiting for my dad, he's getting dialysis over there at the dialysis center. And my battery just totally died.

And I'm just hoping he doesn't see any FBI shit in my front, you know, in the inside, but the hood's up. We're kind of standing there's a picture of him on a clipboard. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, there literally was inside the car. And I'm trying to play it cool. And I'm like, I just don't know what I'm going to do.

And he's like, I got my truck right here. I'll jump start the car. Dude pulls up to me in front of the car. Niceest guy in the world. jump starts my car I said can I give you anything for this he goes down man just pay it forward he shakes my hand

I close the hood he gets in his truck I get in my car I follow him to a drug deal oh my god he does the drug deal takes the dope into the prison a week later I go to his house and I'm doing the search warrant

at his house pulling like barrels of cash out of like the sock drawers and stuff like that he doesn't even recognize me really did you ever say anything to him like do you remember me? No It wasn't my case. It wasn't my case.

I wasn't in charge of interviewing him and all that. Did you tell you the other FBI agents? Oh, they knew. What they think laughing? They were just, they couldn't believe this occurred. What bad luck. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think it's good luck.

I mean, you learn not to shut the car off. Well, yeah, it was a teachable moment for me. Yeah, for sure. How much time are you going to give Mark? How much, what was he charged with as far as dope? I don't know. This is where I gets a little fuzzy. I don't think it was a ton.

Again, it wasn't like K. Bringing in contraband. Yeah, basically, consider it more contraband. I don't think we ever intercepted any ice going in. It was mostly K2 and contraband and stuff that he should in him. He's taking a lot of money, you know, in the form of bribes. I think that was part of what he was charged with as well. Between three and four years.

He lost a job. Yeah. Between what, three and four years? Final answer? Yeah. Four years, eight months. I'll at least I'm in four years. Yeah, you're good.

I say that's approved. You're getting good at this. You're getting good at this. You're going to knock the cover off the ball. All right. Have you ever seen the northern lights, the Aurora Borealis, up north? I'm not in person. You familiar with them?

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, of course. It's what coming, it's radiation or the streams of radiation coming off of the sun, striking the, right? Yeah, I mean, I don't pretend to know the science behind it. I was way up in Canada once and stayed up all night watching it, and it was amazing. It was like a fireworks show, but pure nature, right? Yeah.

So there's a resort up in Alaska, a town called Salchia, Alaska. You ever been to Alaska? I mean, I'm thinking I'm doing Alaska cruise, maybe. Maybe do a cruise or something like that and see the mountains, Eskimos, igloos. Salchia, Alaska. Got to figure it's pretty far up high, all of Alaska is. And there was a guy who owned the Old Midway Lodge, a couple, actually. Brian Corti and his wife, Candy Cordy.

Candy was a big girl. Not that it matters, but I know you like to paint a visual picture for your viewers. Whenever I think of a lot, do you ever think, remember in the show, Northern Lights? No, Northern exposure. It's a good show. It was a good show. It was a good show. Yeah, it was a good show.

So the Cordy's had this idea. It was a brilliant idea. They were going to take this lodge that wasn't really doing very well that they owned, and they were going to convert it to a marijuana theme park where people could come to this lodge, smoke and then watch the northern lights while high. This was going to be their bud and breakfast. Bud and bright. I'm assuming that it's legal to smoke pot in Alaska.

I think this must have been after it was legalized in Alaska. I don't, there's no drug charges in the story. So it was going to be their Disney weed and they had this resort plan. And so they go out and begin soliciting investments to fund this fantastic can't lose idea. Because there is a weed culture in America. I know that you're not a user and I'm not a user, but it's the people out there with this opportunity might actually take the trip to go to this Disneyweed. I feel like those people are not going to Alaska to do this. I don't feel like those are people that have funds or enough. Regardless, I also feel like none of this money went into

this project. But go ahead. Either way. Great. Let's say it's a great idea. So 22 different investors. Okay. Give him $722,000. How are these people raising this money? This is insane. Well, here's the thing. They were promised that their money was going to grow 30-fold. Okay. You invests $1,000.

You're getting $30,000 back. That's how confident they were that Disney weed would work out. Is this really Disney weed? No, but that's how they're hoping it. Oh, sorry. Disney grass? Disney grass? I think the problem with Disney weed is not the weed part.

It's the Disney part. That's what's going to get you in trouble. No, this is their butt in breakfast. Their old Midway Lodge. So they get $722,000. Brian and Candy are stoked. So they take that money and they start using it to pay down their credit card debt

and to go on some vacations. Candy got to swim with the dolphins. Okay. It's a very good deal for Candy. You get to swim with the dolphins. But their theme park never developed. Right? And so the 30-fold?

30-fold never happened. No one got their 30-fold back. In fact, everyone lost their principal investments, $722,000. They might as well to lit it on fire for all the good it did them. So what do they do? They call the FBI, who opens an investigation. The investors. Not my case, the investors. Yeah, investors complained. I was on the receiving ends of a lot of complaints like this. This wasn't my case. But investors are very quick to complain. People say, where do you get your cases? I go, the investors will let you know if they got defrauded. And so they bring charges, wire fraud charges against Brian. and candy. Problem's this. And you kind of, we alluded to this earlier in a conversation we had off air. The case against Brian's a slam dunk. The case against candy is less so, right? She's enjoying the money. She's swimming with the dolphins. She's sharing a bed with Brian. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night or all of the above. That's where ghost bed can help. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, ghost bed is your go-to for cooling mattresses, cooling pillows, and cooling bedding. From their signature ghost ice fabric to

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Even better, our listeners can get 50% off site-wide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox, and use the code Cox at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off sitewide. Brian's the one who's kind of wheeling and dealing and handling all the money and stuff like that. She's just spending it. Right. It's a tough case against her. Yeah.

Right? So they decide maybe we can induce a plea by playing Let's Make a Deal with Brian. Brian pleads guilty and they drop the charges against candy. Okay. How about I get a better deal? How about I'm Brian and I cooperate against Candy because she was the ringleader and she was the brains behind this whole operation.

I think you're discounting love. Yeah, love fades quick when you spend four years in prison. Or three years in prison, whatever. He's going to end up getting... Well, does he plead guilty? He pleads guilty. They drop the charges against Candy. I don't know.

I'm assuming she stood by her man and waiting for him to get out. How much time... Candy was a big girl. She's a big girl. She probably stood by him. Yeah. probably did think of them. Big girls will stand by you. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And all that weed gave her the munchies. She's horrible. Okay. Hey, you're fat shaming or not me. I described a woman.

I described her as being a big girl. There's nothing wrong with that. Everyone's beautiful. Okay, so how much? 720,000 bucks. Brian pleads guilty. Negotiates a good deal for candy. How much time you give him Brian? Like two years. Under two years. Two years. Two years are under right damn do you look at my notes no but the other person got two years and under right two years two years two years that's the got just the guidelines he's never been in trouble yeah he cooperated right away he played guilty cooperated he signed a plea he didn't fight it they hate it when you fight it yeah and uh yeah so that two years seems reasonable two years yeah two years then he gets out and it's a tearful reunion with him and candy

hmm you get over there yeah i'm just thinking yeah i'm just thinking what you're uh i'm just thinking i wonder what he's about to say before his intro next you know like like uh have you ever been watched matt cox yeah exactly you ever painted a house yeah yeah well this guy like to paint houses matt we're about the same age high school class of 88 you were born in 69 i was born in 70 i was yeah yeah yeah yeah about the same age you remember fran tarkington Fran Tarkenton. Boy, that sounds familiar. Fran Tarkington.

I can't. Did you have any straight friends growing up? He's an NFL guy. Is he? Yeah, yeah. He was a quarterback for the quarterback for mostly the Minnesota Vikings. You can mention Peyton Manning

and Matt would probably be like. Peyton Manning. He played for the NFL for 18 seasons. Oh, okay. Phenomenal quarterback, mostly for the Minnesota Vikings. Here's why you might remember him, though. nerd

remember the TV show That's Incredible Yes He was one of the hosts Of That's Incredible Okay He was also a host of a show

That you never watched Growing up Evidently He called Monday Night Football No No All right This is gonna be lost on you

But I'm sure your viewers Will lunch Fran Tarkinton Was a huge celebrity Okay Like think Tom Brady Like level of celebrity You know

With a very successful career in media After he got out after he left the NFL. The reason I know Tom Brady is because of the FTX

His dabbling in white color crime and his roast Okay, yeah And that's it And I Listen, Jess and I Last night I think she was

We were talking about Like her mom's Trans whatever So trans in Or something went out and she said just said something she said she said that's got

she said you know in touch and such she said I mean it's got posy traction so and I went and I said she was you know what posy traction is don't you and I went and I said I go yeah of course and she says what is it I said it's when both the wheels are connected

on the axle they both spin and I said because normally both your wheels don't spin right like you have a slip differential typically, I think. And I said, one wheel spins and one doesn't. It's whatever one's getting traction.

And posy traction is both spin. And she was like, wow. She's like, how do you know that? I said, because in the movie, my cousin Vinnie, when he gets his girlfriend on the stand, she explains what posy traction is. And that's how they figure out that these guys did not kill these, beat somebody, because there were two tire tracks. And that would mean it was Ponsie track.

I mean, it was Ponsi Tracking. But I explained it. And she just starts laughing. She says, I should have known that you didn't know because of the event. Your time at engineering school. Yeah. Not because you've ever changed a fucking wheel in your life. She's just like, oh, my God.

So yeah. So, yes. Imagine a world where a guy named Fran Tarkenton was a big celebrity. Okay. And an older man now, probably 80s, maybe 90s. I mean, he was a big deal when you and I were kids. So this happened recently. Yeah.

He had one of his daughters married a guy named Kremend. Craig Allen. And Craig Allen held himself out as an investment advisor, and he told people that he managed money for Fran Tarkenton, his famous father-in-law. Okay. Okay. Right? So that's kind of getting his foot in the door with potential investors.

Hey, if this guy's good enough for Fran Tarkenton, he can certainly handle my money. Yeah, Fran wouldn't invest, but, yeah. That's incredible. Right, right? And so. Tom Brady wouldn't invest in some crazy crypto scan. So Craig had a fund called it the Cheetah Fund. Okay.

C-H-E-E-T-A-H- Cheetah Fund. And he said that he was making Fran Tarkington returns of 40 to 75% a year on his money. And because, you know, the son-in-law is a bit of a champion himself at trading stocks. Yeah, he is. Yeah, it's great. And so investors, based on this insane amount of return that he's getting and the connection to Fran Tarkenton, beloved local figure in, give him $9 million. Holy shit.

Over a course of a few years? A couple years. A couple years. Wow. But you're going to be shocked to learn that he does not, in fact, invest that money in stock. Are you sitting down, man? I was just saying, or invest any money for France. He basically moves it into other accounts under his control and then spends it kind of

living this lavish lifestyle, purchasing cars, sends his kids to exclusive private schools and just burns through the money. Right. But then he's got to keep this thing alive, right? Or the investors are going to start complaining. He needs to borrow more money. Well, he sends them quarterly statements showing that their investments are going gangbusters and doing really well with no basis in reality.

He's creating these quarterly statements at home on his computer. But people are getting it. Why would you take your money out if you're making that kind of returns? But eventually some guys need money. It happens. He's also sending them fake tax documents showing their, capital gains and dividends that they're earning. And these people who invested the money are filing federal income taxes based on the 1099-I-N-T documents that he is sending them that have no

basis in reality. Right. So problems, on top of problems, on top of problems. Took a couple years before all the money was gone and people started needing money for this or that. Hey, I want to move, you know, put an extension to the house. I'd like to take out a 700,000 bucks. and he starts ghosting them. And he's not returning their calls. He's, you know, I'll get back to you. Oh, yeah, I'll get right on it. And so excuses after excuses after excuses.

Then at one point he sends an email out to all the people who are complaining, saying, I can't deal with this right now because I need to go to rehab. And you'll be surprised to learn Matt Cox that did not give them a sense of comfort. No. That their money was safe. He's like, chill out, got to go to rehab. We'll deal with this when I get back. So the investors call the FBI, who launched an investment.

investigation. They assigned a forensic accountants to it as well as agents to kind of take a look at the inflows and outflows of money to learn the truth that this money was not, in fact, invested in stocks. It was just pissed away by Fran Tarkington's son-in-law. And to do that, what, they go to a judge, they get subpoenas, they get all the records. Yeah, you don't need to go to a judge. Now, the U.S. Attorney's Office administers the federal grand jury subpoena process. When I needed subpoenas in my cases, I would go to the AUSA, the federal prosecutor, and say, hey, I need a subpoena for this bank, that bank, and that bank, here's a word document. This is what I want you to write on the subpoena. They would issue that to me. I would serve it on the bank, six weeks later,

sometimes as little as three weeks later. I would get the bank documents, and we begin getting to work kind of scheduling that out and figuring out what happened to the money that this guy took in, right? And in this case, it was pretty clear. And I also want to be clear, Fran Tarkington did nothing wrong. Yeah, he hadn't, he didn't have any idea this stuff. Right. His lousy son-in-law, I don't even know that Fran Tarkinton trusted his money with this bum. Right. How much money are you going to give this guy? though? How much, how much did he lose? The whole nine.

Nine million gone. The whole nine's gone. Gone. Not a penny. I don't even think it was Ponzied back. Nine million. Nine million big ones, Matt Cox. God, plus he's making documents. I mean, like super. Right, right. Just unwinding this. The inconvenience. These people got to go to the IRS and file amended tax returns now.

Still, I'd say, he's never been in trouble before. we're assuming. Right. Did he plead guilty right away? Played guilty. I'd say probably nine years, less than nine, eight or nine years? Seven years. Seven years.

A little harsher on him. Yeah. A little harsh. I don't like, like, the making the fake document, like they're getting in deeper and deeper. Yeah. Like, you've got sophisticated means. You've got, you know, there's other things that are obviously enhancements. But then you get into the point where it's like it's more than just you're stealing now.

you're kind of really causing a lot of damage. It's messing people's lives. Right. I don't know. And the other thing is like, how did you possibly think this wasn't going to end a disaster? Like, it's just a jackass move.

But yeah, I'd say, I would say eight or nine, but you're saying seven. Yeah, I don't know if he had a substance abuse problem or if the rehab thing was just an excuse,

that was never really in any of the court documents. I would probably, if he had a substance abuse problem, I would probably knock off a year or give him RADAP. Oh, you give him a break for the substance abuse problem. The use of illegal drugs for you as a way to reduce the sentence, not to increase it?

Yeah, or get him Ardap. I'd probably give him a year off and then probably tell him you've got to take the Ardap program. You get another year off to take the Ardap program. So then he'd still be at seven. Listen, I'd still be harsher. Then he'd still be at seven. So you're saying that this is interesting to me because I don't necessarily agree. The sentencing judge should give him a discount on his sentence if he is a drug addict.

If he made the choice to use illegal drugs, became addicted and then stole money. I think if you could, I think if his life. lawyer could prove to the judge, document to the judge that it led, it helped contribute to his crime, I could see giving him a little bit of a pass because he had a substance abuse problem, which, you know, if you could say, now the problem is, is I'd have to see some kind of proof. But isn't that accounted for through the drug treatment program, the RDAP program in the Bureau of Prisons where you'll get your discount and your sentencing? You're saying that he should almost get double credit for being an addict?

Well, I think you don't necessarily pass the ARDAP program. I think it's offered to you. You have to pass it. And I think, but once again, I think it should be considered a contribution, like a contributing factor to why you did this. If you just did it, I just stole everything. But if you could say, hey, look, I had a substance abuse problem. I can show you documentation where I try to go to rehab, where I've got family members who are saying this has been a constant problem in his life. Like, you could show, show that it was a contributing factor. I

would, I would knock off. Not a lot, but I'd give you something off. Yeah. That's an interesting perspective. You know, yeah. Trying to have a little, little empathy for somebody. Yeah. I get it. I mean, it's not a crazy position. It's just, it's counterintuitive for most people. Most people be like, well, you should, you know, well, it's your problem or, you know, I didn't force, no one forced you to use powder. That's true, but it's an explanation, not an excuse. I think most people would say. I think, you know, and And I don't have a drug, I've never had a drug problem, right? I've never used drugs.

Right. But I, I, you know, and I've had, it's funny, I have a friend, I have a friend who's an alcoholic, well, I probably have a few. But one friend, even growing up was an alcoholic. And I remember going with his, driving with his dad one time, we were going to a closing. And I was actually flipping a piece of, a contract to his father, to his father and his business partner. Totally legitimate thing. So, and we were going, he was like, what am I going to do? with my son and we're talking about his son and I was like I don't know I was like you know

he's got an alcohol problem he and so we're having this conversation and his father former Marine was I just don't understand that like it's just a matter of choice if he if he wanted to stop he could stop I was like yeah it's not you Chris Mon I grew up with a father who's an alcoholic so I'm like it's not that easy you know and he's like but it's just a matter of of discipline so that he's just not disciplined he's just saying all these things and I'm like well I don't If it was that easy. But, no, no, again, I'm not saying that, like, there's not such a thing as addiction. Right.

I'm saying that it becomes a real slippery slope, a moral hazard to be giving people a pass on the things they do that harm others just because they happen to have been high at the time. I agree, but I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I'm saying if you can, I'm not saying you can just say it. Well, Your Honor, I got a drug problem. No, no, I want to know you've been struggling with it. I want to know your family are telling you this is a real thing. You've tried to go to rehab.

And then I can say, look, you're not making sound decisions. Yeah. You know, and I'm going to give you a pass, a little bit of a pass. Not a lot. You know, I'm going to take you from nine to eight. You see what I'm saying? Okay. Because you're going to prison no matter what.

You're not, this isn't, and I'm going to go from nine to five, you know, four. I'm going, I'm going to give you a year off because, you know, you have an issue. But I'm also going to send you to ARDAP. And if you complete ARDAP, I'm going to give you nothing. another year. I'm not uncomfortable with that. Right. I'm still, he's still a seven. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Which is where, yeah. But, uh, yeah, I could see that. I could, I could see having a little bit, give him a little bit if you can prove to me. But if you just get up there and say, your lawyer says, oh, he's got a drug. It was it was drugs, Your Honor. You

don't understand. I'd be like, I don't, everybody's going to say that then. Yeah. If it works for you, everyone's going to say it. I want to see. That's the moral hazard I'm talking about. Yeah. I want to see proof. I want to see this. I'm going to see he struggled. I'm going to see he's tried to to get over. I'm going to see his family. you know, you're going to have to give me some letters, and it's not just the letters. I want to see proof. They're like, well, I'm sorry, I never did go to you have. I never did try it.

I didn't realize, yeah, well, I'm sorry. You can go to Arda. I feel like, though, in that world in this Matt Cox universe where you get this great discount for being a drug addict, there's all the incentive in the world for me to run a Ponzi scheme, and then right when it's about to collapse, to shove us mud powder, possible up my nose. And you're going to get a little bit of time off for that. If you can, in this Matt Cox's world of justice. I always appreciate your perspective on these things.

You are the king of law and order. I don't think there's anything that gives you, anybody, a clean, you know, a clean sweep that they could say to a judge. If you've run something that, especially if something that has sophisticated means, you ever know, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I get it. Like, you put a lot of thought into this. You ran this for a long time, you know, there's lots of, there were lots of opportunities to change. Interesting. I always appreciate your perspective on these things.

You ever known a dirty lawyer? Yes. Yeah? Yeah. Was these people that you were kind of in the mix with on some of your own frauds or, um, uh, you know, what's funny is I feel like the lawyers that were involved or I came into contact in my fraud that did things that were clearly not, you know, I feel like it was willful blindness. Like, you know, you're, you're telling, like, I'm explaining to you that what I'm, what I'm telling you is clearly fraud. Yeah. And you're acting like it's not fraud because you want to charge me and help.

And you want to get the, you want to get the business? Does that make sense? I get it. Like you should have, you knew this is fraud. Did you ever know any attorneys who got charged with fraud type crimes? In prison, yeah, that if I didn't know him on the outside, I knew him in prison. Do you think the judge slammed them harder for being lawyers, kind of like the you should have known better thing we discussed earlier? No, I feel like they always tend to get, I feel like they get a lot of these guys, I felt like they got.

last time. Now, the one guy I know that really got slammed was a guy that was pretending to be a lawyer. Oh, that's a problem. Yes. They didn't like that at all. That is a problem. I investigated a lawyer in Chicago who, all of his law clients were Polish immigrants who were injured on the job and needed an attorney to help file a workman's compensation claim. Okay. The attorney's name, and I wish I was making this up, was William Malarkey. Okay. His name was William Malarkey. That's perfect. And a lot of Polish people in Chicago. A lot of right off the boat Polish people in Chicago who spoke very little English. But William Malarkey had some Polish translators on his staff, legal secretaries and stuff like that. So he would file these workman's compensation claims for his Polish clients who got hurt on the job. A lot of construction workers throughout their back or whatever. And he would, in the settlement checks, he would end up settling these cases and the settlement checks go to the attorney's office. Yes.

He takes out his piece. He gives you the rest. In the perfect world, he would take out his piece and give you the rest. But in William Malarkey's world, what he did was broke it very gently to his Polish immigrant clients that they lost the case. And he kept the money for himself. Oh, my gosh. That's horrible. That's horrible.

I know. These nice people. And they were, they were the nicest people in the world as victims. You know, I don't know. I lost the case. And my attorney said it was $187,000 from 15 different clients. Oh, these are small cases. Well, or maybe he's not really working super hard to negotiate these things and get the best settlement possible.

But $187,000. Right. And eventually a couple of the Polish people realize that there's a problem here. And they contact the ARDC, the attorney registration and disciplinary commission for the state of Illinois, who does their own little internal investigation to... You won the case. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. To take his law license away,

and then I get the criminal case against him, right? So interview the Polish people, nice people, they tell me their stories, take a look at the documents, take a look at the, how the negotiation actually went, and, you know, prove it up. And so then it comes time to interview William Malarkey. And no longer a lawyer.

Right. Because it's really, when you do that to your clients, it throws a real wet blanket on your law practice. Right. And so at this point, he's selling used cars. Okay. And at a new car lot, Chevy Place. And so I go to the Chevy Place and posing as a customer with another dude, another agent, young agent, and say, and go to the front desk lady and say, I'm supposed to want to see if I could buy a car.

Is William Malarkey here? And they're like, yeah, he's working right now. Hey, Bill, come over here. And he all smiles, comes up. Hi, Bill, good to meet you. And I go, and I go, come over here. I want to show you something. And so we go over to a car and I go, hey, man, my name's Tom.

I'm an FBI special agent. I do not want to get you in trouble here. Let's go on a test drive together. And he's like, what? And I go, I go, I got to talk to you. And I go, but I don't want you to get you in trouble. I'm trying to get you fired. Yeah, exactly.

You got to eat. Let's go get in a used car and go for a drive. And so, oh, okay. and so he gets the keys to some shabby equinox or whatever and we get in it, other agents in the back, I'm in the passenger seat,

Bill's driving for some reason, and I go, just drive a couple blocks and pull over. And it was like a mob hit. And pull over and put it in Park Bill. And so I re-identify myself, say, listen, you're not under rest, you're free to leave in any time.

I always tell them that because then I don't have to Mirandize them because they're not in custody. Right. And say, and walk to, him through it. And, you know, this is what I'm investigating. I'd like to hear your side of the story. Yeah, you know, it got away from me. He needed money. But, but, but, but, but, but practice

wasn't going so well. These are immigrants. Yeah. Oh, no, no. My job's not to shame him. No. No, I'm not kidding. You're laughing, but I do, my job is not to shame him. My job is to, no, I was thinking he was saying, what is, what is this, what's the big deal? They're just off the boat. What are these people? I don't know, yeah. I think he felt, uh, he feigned an appropriate amount of compassion for them. And, you know, but he, but again, you got to see the world through his eyes. This is the empathy versus sympathy thing. I don't have sympathy at all for this guy.

Right. But I can certainly have empathy for him and try to understand that the, no one is a villain in their own life story. Right. Right. He sees himself as someone who is a victim of the financial circumstances of his life, who was doing something to keep his head above water that he would one day make right. And that was basically the, the line that I threw him, and he latched on to it and said

that that was the problem. He was having financial problems. He was going to try to make it right to these people. Then one thing led to another. You get to your 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th. By the time you're on your 12th guy that you ripped off, you got to keep rolling at that point because someone's got to pay the light bills.

And so he was nice enough there in a, in a like new Chevy to sign the confession. And you got him to sign the confession sitting in the, during the test drive in the Chevy. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because, and the reason it's so important to me to get the confession from these people, even though I can prove the case in a financial crime without it, is because it supercharges the case through the criminal justice system. At that point, I don't need to kind of like follow all the money and figure out, you know, how, what which credit card was he paying down? What was he buying with this credit card and all that? I can just package that a case up, bring it to the U.S. Attorney's Office with the signed confession on date on the front page, and then the interviews with the victims and the limited financial analysis. And it rises to the time. top of the heat because the U.S. Attorney's Office, the federal prosecutors, know that they're not

going to have to waste the taxpayers' money taking this one to trial. This one is a plea. My confessions are all solid. They're never overturned. Right. How much time you're going to give under two years? William Malarkey. Two years. Two years is your guess? Yeah. Man, you must have hacked my computer 24 months in prison is what do you got? Why do you think he got? I'm thinking because he was a lawyer, right? Yeah. The judge went bananas. Yeah, should have been. Because honestly, like on the guidelines, they probably should have been less. Oh, without a question. Yeah.

Yeah. So I walked into this thinking that he could even walk away with probation. But the fact that, you know, this many victims, vulnerable victims, and then the lawyer thing, the judge went bananas over the idea that an attorney, a member of the bar, blah, blah, or profession, just threw the book at him. Yeah. So I, didn't I tell you, did I tell you about the guy that I met in prison that was, I could never remember his name um did i tell you about it was a guy he was pretending to be a lawyer right yeah you mentioned

that you had a guy who pretended yeah but i'm sure i must have told you about this guy because it's funny you say chicago um oh god i can't believe i can't remember his name can you can you give me a minute i have to say because a matter of fact i would love it to tell you this because i think you would love to look into this this is one of the things you should look at and come back and be like holy shit Because I'll tell you what I remember, and then if you probably look on Pacer and be like, wow. Oh, matter of fact, never mind, Jim Keegan. Okay. Irishman?

James Keegan. I used to play tennis with a Jim Keegan, different guy. Yeah, let's hope. You would never know what this guy. I'm going to tell you the story, and if I've told it before, you can. I have not heard the story, I promise. Okay. So I'm in federal prison fighting my case, right?

Loosely. fighting my case. Really, I'm just kind of writing stories and hoping that Frank will get me out. This other guy will fight my case. So I'm in prison and this guy comes on the compound. He just came from doing like four years or five years in the state. Okay. I'm pretty sure. Once again, once you look into it, if you're like, ah, he did 18 months, whatever. He, he had gone to state, got four or five years, actually supposed, according to him, had fought for three, years, his case, ends up pleading guilty in the state, gets some state time, time served, does another year or two, gets out, comes to federal.

So now he's got to do some federal time for whatever reason. The reason he said he was there was this, was that he had was consistently beating the, in Chicago. He was consistently beating state charges for gang members. He's like I was representing gang members for different murders. I had, he was a criminal defense attorney. Criminal defense attorney. I had like five or six cases where I won every single case, went to trial. So the gang leaders, they're coming to me.

He is, and look, he is admittedly, these guys aren't writing checks. They're giving us cat, giving me cash, whatever. He said a lot of them, their families would give them money orders, cat checks. He said at some point, they end up, they, the state ends up investigating him. And the feds come and investigate him is because the feds can get you for stuff that the state can't. So they get me for co-mingling funds. So he names off a bunch of stuff that he says they get him for. We don't know any better.

Yeah. So. But none of this is true. Yeah, none of this sounds right. Okay. This is what he tells. So, sure. He fights it. Well, first he says, I mean, he's got like, first they try and get them on this.

They have to drop that. They have to drop all these charges. So when you're in prison, you don't know what the fellow inmates are in for. What I know he's in for wire fraud. How do you know that? Is there like some sort of like, you can get a judgment commitment. Or you can just go on. you can kind of look and see what he's fighting.

Sometimes they'll put it on, we have like a version of Pacer, a limited version, or people look it up. But there was an article about him. So people had an article where they got him for like wire fraud. He got him for wire fraud, Jimke. And guys are looking him up.

And as that, because they're like, damn, this guy says he was a fucking big time defense attorney. So they look him up. And I mean, people are coming with like, bro, this is who Jim Keegan is. and they're reading it

and I mean he represented this this he represented this gang member two murders acquitted this one acquitted

this one not guilty this one like just boom boom boom he's like Mike Tyson in the 80s this guy is just he's amazing so guys are coming in him

saying bro he's like they're looking for legal advice take my case yeah yeah yeah I'm only gonna be here about about three years he really had less than that

yeah I got like three years I'm just right out bro i'm i'm just not interested um and but people are begging him and he's like i don't do federal i do state yeah and he's arguing at trial it's not like he's in a like an appellate guy right but and he doesn't but but these guys are you got nobody this is a real lawyer and so they're arguing you know it's like between him and frank amadeo who thinks he's gonna his troops are going to storm on Washington and he's going to take the country over you know it's Like, I don't know, I'm going to go with this guy who I can read who's a criminal defense attorney in the state.

Yeah. They're like, feds the same. He's don't know the feds is much harder. So, and he has these. And so he's having, and keep in mind, Frank Amadeo is there. He's talking to him. Yeah. Frank Amadeo was a lawyer.

He's, Frank Amadeo, absolutely, he's, he's a real lawyer. So, um, super, uh, anyway, so he's got other lawyers that are there. Nobody's questioning him. He's a lawyer. Yeah. So finally he said. Okay, look, here's the thing. I've read your case.

This is a pretty pretty, pretty, this is a slam dunk. And he's like, here's what I'm going to do. If you can give me, God, I can't believe this. If you, here's, look, my brother is a lawyer in Orlando. Absolutely true. Yeah. He said, uh, he said, my brother's a lawyer in Orlando. I'm actually going to go work for him.

When I go to the halfway house, that's my job. Yeah. So I will be able to kind of continue your case. And it's not that complicated. and I think I can get you off on blah, blah, blah. And he's always in the law library. Yeah. So he takes, you know, give me, have your family send me $2,500.

Send it to my brother. They send him to his brother. Another guy, this is probably he's three to six months away from being out the door. Okay. Nobody knows this, though. They think he's got three years to go. He's leaving for halfway house soon. Anyway, so they're giving him money.

money giving him money giving him money he's got like some i've heard different some of it's like he ended up getting 20 000 30 000 35 i've heard up to 40 50 000 dollars is what he got from in man and i know at least 10 because you know i don't know everybody's talking to but i know at least multiple guys that are like i said him 2 500 another 15 another 3 another so his brother got at at least 10 yeah um some guys are saying 40 and 50 so bottom line is a few months later he's like holy shit i got more to halfway halfway house i I won this, whatever, I'm going to halfway house. I've got a year halfway house, but I'll be working at my brother-in-laws, or at my brothers.

I'm not going to forget about you. I'm not going to forget about you. And he's, and he started filing paperwork or preparing paperwork. Like, I don't think he's, I don't think he's filed anything yet, but he's preparing. Drafting. And keep mind, you could have anybody draft up stuff for you. Like, there's, like, Frank has trained a couple hundred guys who are doing legal work at this place. Right.

And so he's doing it. So he leaves. Yeah. And nobody hears from him. Nobody hears from him. Finally, after a few months, guys start, keep in mind, people have there's, you know, you can only have like a year to file your 2255, and he's promised people all kinds of stuff. So people's deadlines are coming up.

They start calling his brothers. The actual attorney in Orlando. His brother's law firm. Right. Now, of course, they're not answering. Yeah. Then their families start calling. Need to talk to Jim Keegan.

He's handling my, this, we know Jim is your brother. Yeah. We know he's working there. He's like, my brother's not working here. He's in a halfway house. And they're like, well, he's doing the legal work for such and such. And so finally, somebody, they get him on the phone. He talks to him.

They're like, and the only reason he's even entertaining, talking to these people on the phone, by the way, is because they mailed a check to his law firm. Right. Your law firm got this check, or you personally got the check and deposited it. Yeah, the Orlando lawyer's. got an issue. He's got an issue. You're doing legal work here. You cash a check, even if it's in your name or you're, either way, you've got a problem here. And it's your brother. And he's saying

he's not working here. And so what ends up happening? And I may have some of the details wrong, but they start filing, they start filing with the Florida bar. Yeah. This is tell, and it's not one person. We're talking a dozen or so people are, say, with copies of the canceled checks. Apparently, go to the Bar Association is seeing the same name again and again and again. So they go to launch an investigation. He starts mailing people their money back, $2,500, $3,000, $1,500. I know one guy who wrote up a whole thing, who was explained that he had sent him like $1,000, not him $1,000, but had paid Kegan, who was going to work at, talks about commissary, a whole thing, he sent him $1,000. He didn't ever pay this guy anything. This guy is just desperately paying.

Anybody's making it rain. If a letter shows up, five, he yields me $500. He hears of money. He's going to lose his law license. Yeah. Okay, so here's, so here's the thing. As all this is unfolding, you find out he's not even a lawyer. James Keegan's not an attorney.

James Keegan's not a lawyer. So the question is, is there an attorney with that name in Chicago? His father. Oh. His father was a high-priced attorney. It comes out. So James Keegan, Sr. is the brilliant guy, junior, is this, moron. And the reason he did know about like Frank and everybody's like he was very well-versed

in the law. Yeah. Because he had gone to state prison and was doing state cases. He was doing, he was a jailhouse lawyer in state prison and you learn a lot. Yeah. You can get out like after three years of doing legal criminal legal work, you seem like if anybody who doesn't have a more knowledge than you, you're absolutely going to fool. Yeah. Came out. He's talking to Frank. This is where I went to school. They didn't go to the same school, but he knows everything about it. So other lawyers are talking to him. They're all like, I thought he was a fucking lawyer.

So, you know, Frank, of course, is like, I was always skeptical. Sure, you or I could pass for an attorney. Absolutely. Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, we might be able to fool an attorney. Yeah, maybe.

If they didn't ask too many questions. So if I, give me a little research time. So Pete could absolutely pass for an attorney. And he did legal work for guys for 20-something years. Anyway, so here's what happens is the attorney gives all the money back. And you don't hear anything about Keegan, right? But people are checking periodically. Now, here's what happened to, by the way.

So obviously it wasn't co-mingling of funds. They weren't out to get him. What he had done was he'd gone to work for a company that was like a pallet company or some kind of a company that had something to do with pallets. And he was doing their books. And he robbed them for like $400,000 over the course of a year or two. And he's selling pallets out the back. Simple embezzlement. Long-bendie Twizzlers candy keeps the fun going.

Keep the fun going. So while that's happening, he ends up going to state prison. He does a bunch of legal work. And then apparently because of the wire fraud chargers or something, he has to go to. So his story made sense. He ends up going to federal prison. Had Frank fooled. So he goes to federal prison where he runs this other scam.

He gets out. Once he gets out, somehow or another, he violates once. I know we know he violated once, went back to jail because they tried to send him back to Coleman. Right. He wouldn't go on the compound. Oh, yeah. So he stays in the shoe. And then I don't know how long he stayed in the shoe.

He would have gotten his ass handed to him, right? Oh, yeah. These guys are ready to kill him. Yeah. So some people, if they have like a year to do your 2255, they missed the deadline. Yeah, they're doing time because of him at this point. They don't have any recourse. So he ends up, so he does end up getting out again.

He goes back to Chicago. I know he goes back to Chicago because he picks up another case. Here's the case he picks up. This is how balsy this guy is. This is a true con man. I mean, just, just vicious. And I would love, I'd love to know the real. Like, I have a version of the story.

I piece together, but I don't know. And if you could get him to really tell the story or if you really could look into it, you'd probably be like, this is insane. So do we know if he's out now? Well, no, he's, he should be back in. Here's why. He goes to, he goes to, and there's articles about it.

He goes to Chicago. He opens up a law firm. I mean, the ball's on this guy. He's got the name, especially in Chicago, right? But he does immigration law. Okay. Vulnerable victims, right? Right.

Who better to take, who better to take advantage of than people that can't complain? So he opens up a law firm without being a lawyer and just holds himself out as an attorney to... You just open up, but we're going to go rent a space next week. I get it. I get it, yeah. Like the people that are renting in the space, they don't say, hey, can I see your law license? Yeah, yeah. Not that he, not that I put it past him, print and went off the internet, or paying $40 for you know, whatever, Varai legal law school.

Anyway, he, so he opens it up and he starts charging people, I forget the amount, I'm going to say $2,500, $2,000 to help them get their green card and get citizenship. Okay, so he's walking them through an administrative process that anyone who can follow directions in English could do. Right. So, yeah. So you're coming in, you're Mexican or Polish or whoever, you're coming in, you're giving him $2,500, $3,000 for you. I've got it. I know a guy. And then in six months or so,

he gives you a green card. He's making green cards. Oh my God, counterfeit green cards. Yes. So here's the funny thing. It's the amount in the paper was around half a million dollars he made. There was so many people. Yeah. In, in, so this was in, I think he kept it open for either a year to 18 months before the feds come in. Yeah. And they grab him and he goes back to jail. Like to me, what killed me, is, why did you go 18 months? Like, are you, you have to be foolish to think that this isn't, this isn't going to like, these people are being asked, they're showing green cards. So that's going to catch up at some point, they're going to say, I can tell you, I paid a guy,

I paid him, I know, here's where he is. And at some point, somebody, if you get enough of those guys, some agent's going to say, I, you know, I'm going to look into this guy. This is a name that keeps popping up, yeah. Kagan is a 90-year-old retired, or an 80-year-old who's retired, But his son, somebody puts it together, they grab him. He went back to jail. I want to say he got five or six years for that or something.

Or maybe he never got, I don't know. In my mind, it was five or six years. I'm assuming he's still locked up. Be a good guess for the show. I would love to pull the article on him and give it to you and see what you think. If you could look in, you could probably tell him because I probably got half that story wrong. Well, we'll take a look into it. Or I'm not going to have Pete look at it.

I get somebody look at it because I'd love to know what the real stories. I'd love to get in touch with him, but he's the kind of guy, a true con man, it's never going to really talk to you about this. Yeah. He was so arrogant, though. He was so, I,

how old do you think he is now? Oh, gosh, he's, he's probably in his, he's, he's in his, he's probably close to 60 or maybe 60, maybe 60s, maybe 60s, yeah. Old enough to know better. And he's apparently, he's always been a problem. Like, like, and I got the little bits and pieces

from everybody who had talked to his brother's ready to kill him. He should sell the film rights to his life. I would love to. It's got to be, he's got to be amazing. But once again, non-sympathetic character. Yeah.

Like your brother, here's the thing too. Think about that, would you have any sympathy for him? Because your brother, you were both raised by the same father. Your brother's a fucking successful lawyer in Orlando. And you're running around in and out of prison,

ripping people off, pretending to be a lawyer. It happens. There's always a fail son, right? Yeah. Don't. You don't have to tell my parents.

I wasn't pointing any fingers. Okay, so what's the next one? Do you know what an arrow key is? You ever heard the term arrow key? No, I don't think so. An arrow key is a unique kind of key that's in possession of postal carriers. It's a skeleton key, basically,

for the blue U.S. Postal Service mailboxes. Okay. Worth a lot to have an arrow key. You've got to be careful with the arrow keys where people can steal the mail very easily. There's a woman named Kristen Williams, who is a postal carrier in Mobile, Alabama. And she knows a dude named Sean White.

During the course of their relationship, Sean White convinces her, sell me your arrow key for $2,000. Kristen does it. She sells her arrow key to this guy for $2,000. Oh, Chris. 2,500, actually. So then Sean goes to work.

Not as many mailboxes today as we're back in the old days. The old days felt like every corner had a blue mailbox. But there's still one sitting outside the Bell Air Mall in Mobile, Alabama. And so Sean would drive up his car late at night, take his arrow key, open it up, start going through the envelopes there, looking for something that looked like someone was paying their bills, and would steal the envelopes that he thought would have checks.

Pop them open, and he had the checks. Think about the information that's on every check, right? You got someone's name. You got their address. You got a facsimile of their signature. You have the routing number. You have your accountant number. It's amazing that we ever wrote checks in this country with all the information.

We're just giving away on a check. When I was a kid, back when before Social Security numbers were things. Some people put their Social Security numbers on the check itself because you'd often have to put that down as ID. You know, in Tennessee, they used to have Social Security numbers. And this is back in the 90s and 2000, they actually would have your Social Security number on your driver's license. It was your DL number in Virginia growing up. That's insane. Yeah, that's where I grew up.

So what Sean was doing is he began producing counterfeit checks with all that information and giving it to his friends to deposit into their bank accounts, bang the money out, keep a little bit for themselves, and give Sean the money. And it was this nice little industry. Sean was able to steal $70,000 from this scheme. And how long of your time? You're always interested in that. Let's say a few months. I'm wondering how long the scam can go between before you have to change locations. Yeah.

So, Sean, I think we can both agree, brilliant criminal mastermind. Yeah, right? Yeah, a lot of thought. He ran into one problem. Kristen, the postal carrier, was one of his friends that he was having negotiate the checks. I was going to say, or the fact that you're giving these checks to your friends who are all going to roll over the moment, the moment that somebody knocks on their door. Right. So the U.S. Postal Service figures out what the point of compromise was in this case and realizes that mail is being stolen.

And they set up a nighttime surveillance at the mall. watching that mailbox all night long, day after day after day, they're watching the mailbox. Can you think of a more boring surveillance than staring at the mailbox until it's like two in the morning, a Mercedes pulls up, it's Sean, gets out, look both ways, tippedoes over to the mailbox, takes the arrow key, opens it up, and begins stealing mail, and then the postal inspectors move in. Sean hops in his Mercedes and starts driving. High-speed car chase, Postal inspectors are on his ass trying to catch him. You know, left turn, right turn, left turn, right turn.

Eventually they corner him and they stop him and they arrest him for stealing the mail. FBI joined the investigation really more on the bank fraud side. And it becomes clear that when they arrest Sean, they take a look at his cell phone and they see text messages between him and Kristen, just kind of laying it all out. She said she was having anxiety about her involvement in the whole thing in the text message. She's having anxiety. A lot of these young people have anxiety. You don't know anything about anxiety.

people have anxiety. So now they're able to get Kristen for selling him the arrow key. Sean pleads guilty. And the only smart thing he did is cooperate against Kristen. His idea from Jump Street, but he's going to cooperate against the mail carrier lady. Kristen goes to trial. He thought she had anxiety before. Kristen goes to trial. With the text messages and tax measures in which Sean as the key government witness in this case. So horrible. And you'll be shocked to learn a guilty verdict from the jury. How much time are you going to give Sean and Kristen?

$70,000 in losses. So again, not a huge case economically, but you got a postal carrier, right, who violated her like position of trust, right? That's an enhancement. You got Sean who's sort of like kind of orchestrating this thing. He's the ringleader of this. but he cooperates, pleads guilty. He does the right thing, right?

How much time you're going to give these two? First of all, I got... Who are you going to give more time to? Of course, Kristen. One of my, one of my enhancements was a violation of a position of trust because I was a licensed mortgage broker. Right. You knew better.

What does she get? Well, listen, she went to trial $70,000. She's getting five. She's getting four years. Maybe five. No, she's getting four years. Let's say she's getting four or five years. Oh, he doesn't get any time at all.

He's getting probation. It's 70,000 and he cooperated and he got on the stand. He could be in trouble in prison. He gets no time and she's getting more than minimal planning. He got a bunch of friends involved. Kristen gets 36 months in prison, the mail carrier, three years. I said four. Oh, I'm harsh on these people, aren't I?

You are a hanging judge. She went to trial. What are you stupid? What a waste of taxpayer money? The mastermind. Sean, 32 months. Holy shit. Come on, how did he get 32 months?

He orchestrated this giant thing. Giant thing is $70,000 and he cooperated. This is so elaborate, okay? Shame on him for not monetizing it more, but it's very elaborate. He's getting the skeleton key. He's going in the middle of the night. He's getting this mail. He's producing false documents.

He's luring other people into the scheme. He's wheeling, he's dealing. He's zinging. He's zangin. He cooperated and got and got, and she was. the lynch pen to this whole thing. She was the arrow key to this whole thing. She just provided him an arrow key and then deposited checks into her bank and then gave him a course of the money. I think he should have gotten three years paper or probation and I think she should have gotten three or four years, four years, four years, he should have got, she should have got four years.

He should have got paper. All right. Fair enough. Are you, you, you, you, he's, what would they going to give him if he didn't cooperate? It's $70,000. Well, he must have had a criminal history. He must have had a criminal history or screwed off, screwed up something with the cooperation. That's what I think. There's no way he gets, doesn't get probation. If he has no criminal history and he testifies, it's under $100,000, he should have walked. Something went wrong there. I think the criminal history thing is probably right.

Yeah, yeah. He's definitely got a high criminal history. This guy's a small time hustler. You ever run into the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and all of your travels? No, but I've met many people that have been arrested by them. They're basically to get a good agency. FBI agents. It's a good agency. I worked a lot of cases with them.

We always made fun of those guys. The post has been arrested. It's a terrible name. They have a real branding problem. They really do. Yeah, but they have guns. There was a TV movie, though. There was a U.S. Postal Inspection Service TV movie

that they all watch. What? What was it? You know, like there's been a million FBI TV shows and movies. There was one made-for-TV movies. movie about the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. I didn't watch it. Okay. I was going to say, please, I hope that they gave them a little, you know, a little credibility. All right. So, Matt, you've been doing pretty good today as far as guessing sentences. Yeah, with the exception.

Yeah. But these are all like white-cower crime sentences. We're going to dial it up. Okay. We're going to go to, we're going to talk about some, some lusty crime, some violent crimes and things like that. And let's see if you're good with those things. Because I think you got the sentencing guidelines memorized for fraud. I'm, listen, I'm shocked at this guy, that last guy didn't get probation. But other than that, I've been pretty accurate. Now, when you were on the run, you were a bit of a master of disguise, right, as far as changing your appearance? Yeah, there was some plastic surgery involved for sure. Yeah, that's like heavy. I mean, you had a getaway face there. That's amazing. And it clearly worked because

it stuck. You look fantastic. Well, listen, I had a comment the other day from a guy that said your plastic surgery is not holding up all that well. I thought it was a mean, but that may have been the most feared in a conversation I've ever heard. Is it like a comment on YouTube or something Yeah, it's not a comment. I was like, see, that's the thing. You get, I get the same experience, right? Where, like, you get, like, a thousand people. You're the best.

We love you. Oh, my God. This is amazing. Like, so it's a good job. That one comment of someone saying something shitty is the one that, like, sticks with you for a week. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah.

It was upsetting. Well, I think your plastic surgery looks fantastic. Thank you. Do you know who else was a master of disguise? Who? 31-year-old Cameron Thomas. Okay. Of Jefferson County, Missouri.

He liked to dress as a lady and Rob Banks. Lady Boy. I don't know what is, I don't know if that was a lifestyle or if it was a disguise, like Mrs. Doubtfire, probably more like Medea, based on what I've seen. What was, what would they dub him, the lady boy, bank robber? I don't think he, I don't think the, I was the guy at the FBI in Chicago who got to write those nicknames. And so, but this wasn't my case. Again, this is Jefferson County, Missouri. This is fairly recently, he walks into the first community state bank and does a note job, hands a note demanding money, dressed as a,

lady. Clearly a dude, you know, like Harry knuckles, deep boys. Right. He dressed as a lady. They give him some amount of money. Usually it's under two grand, not much. He, uh, he throws the money in his purse. Mrs. Delfire escapes with the loop. Gets away with it. It's amazing. Three days later, same dude, still in ladies' clothing, goes into a credit union in St. Louis County, Missouri. This time he points a semi-automatic pistol at the teller and says, give me all your money. Robert puts the money in his purse again and then runs off. The next day goes back to the first bank. It works so well the first time. Let's go back for more. This time cleverly disguised as a man. Okay. Points a pistol at the teller. Makes her put the money in the bag. While the robbery's happening, another employee

calls the cops. And so he gets his money and he takes off, gets in his Mercedes. All these guys seem to have Mercedes today. And police hot pursuit, you know, right turn, left turn, right turn, left turn again. And he bails out in an apartment complex, runs out on foot, wildly firing shots at the cops as they're chasing him down to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. He forces himself at gunpoint inside a woman's apartment and like basically burst into the place and goes running back into her bedroom. The deputies, to their credit, they go in, they go in, they go right in and rescue the woman, right? They're not going to have a hostage situation here.

And they begin clearing the apartment. They finally make it back to the woman's bedroom, and they find Cameron Thomas. He had at this point changed into the lady's clothing. I feel like almost feel like there's a mental illness going on. You think so? I guess

this is his last chance to be in ladies' clothing. So by the time they get there, he had just changed into the lady's clothing. They place them under arrest. I promise you. It's not his last time to be able to be a lady. But it's also not his first bank robbery. He had previously gone away for 10 years before for bank robbery when he was like 18, 19 years old. How much time you're going to give Cameron Thomas for these three bank robberies, fired shots at the cops?

Yeah. So the first time when he gave him the note, my first thought was he's getting three years. But you brandished a weapon. You fired the weapon at the police. Yeah, it's a problem. I mean, you're, he's racking up the decades. For the record, it goes federal. The cops handed off to the FBI, who brings the case across the finish line federally.

Um, and he's done it before. Yeah, he's a freaking flyer. 25 to 30, 25 to 30 years. Swish, 25 years, Matt Cox. Wow. I wonder that if, if. 20 yeah i i i would say he that the the the it would probably have been i would have thought if you hadn't if we hadn't said if if he didn't have the previous conviction i would

have probably said 25 i i would think the i was set through the five years in for the extra yeah so 25 so i'm off somewhere so there's some other thing that's that um but yeah that That seems reasonable. Twenty-five years, yeah. 25 years seems very reasonable. He's, what are you doing? Yeah. I mean, he'll be like 56 years old when he gets out. If he serves it all. Well, first of all, he was on the right path with the note. Like, if you're going to rob the bank, like, if you have, if you had to say, hey, Matt, what's possibly worth it? It's like robbing a note. You know what I'm saying? Or counterfeiting cash. The money gets garbage. No, it is garbage. The average, I've always heard that the average bank robbery is $3,500. That's about right. Yeah, I was going to say $2,800. But it's about right. Yeah, I was going to say $2,000. But it. in that neighborhood. But the moment you pull a gun. Oh, yeah. And things just escalate. You're looking at 10 years right there. If you've never been in trouble before, you pulled the gun, you get 10 years.

Yeah, there's a difference between brandishing it and otherwise using it. If you point it, you're otherwise using it. If you're just lifting it up to show the gun, that's a whole different thing. The sentencing guidelines are really specific regarding the use of a weapon in a bank robbery. And then if you do something along the lines, you pull the gun and you said, and you tell them like, hey, get over there, get over there. Oh, my God. It's like kidnapping. Yeah, exactly. You just move, you just told this person to move locations. You just kidnapped them. Like, that's kidnapping. Like, you've got so many problems. Right.

So, yeah. All right. You ever been to Benton Harbor, Michigan? I don't think, on purpose, nobody's been to Benton Harbor. I've never even heard of that. It's a small town. There's only about 9,000 residents. But if you live there, your chances of being a victim of a violent crime are about one in 30.

It is one of the most dangerous places to live in America. In Wisconsin? Michigan. Benton Harbor, Michigan. Okay. Yeah. You don't want to move to Benton Harbor, Michigan. If you guys are going to be setting up a podcast studio

because there's some tax advantage in Michigan, Benton Harbor's not the place to do it. We didn't even thought about tax advantage. Right. Two brothers. Darnel, Bishop, and Dantrell, Nance. Ages 30 and 32. Okay.

Darnel was 30. Dantrell was 32, for those of you keep in score. Okay. Regarding the violence in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Darnel and Don Trell are part of the problem, I'm not part of the solution, Matt Cox. A couple weeks ago, they went to a house where the manager of the local gun... Are you a couple weeks ago?

Mm-hmm. Okay. I mean, yeah, a few weeks ago. Okay. Maybe several weeks ago. I thought these were people that have been a sentence. No, no, no. Now we're doing current crimes. No, they've been...

I mean, this is all very recent, but there has been a sentencing in this case. So, I mean, we'll say 90... We'll get there. Okay. Maybe it's not a couple weeks ago. Give me a break. It was a couple weeks ago when I wrote this. Okay.

It's a true story, but these are all adapted from my Instagram feed, right? I mean, a true story, though. Okay, so they go to the house where the manager of the local gun shop lives. They kidnap the manager of the local gun shop and take him to, like, an abandoned apartment that they know. And they hold him hostage there at gunpoint until he provides them the security access code to the gun shop. to the gun shop where he works. Make sense? Yeah.

Okay. So with this information, Darnell and Don Trail go to the gun shop and they steal 123 handguns. And they pack him in two large Yeti coolers and take the guns away. The manager of the gun shop lives to tell the tale. And obviously the police and the feds are on top of this. And they are in a real pay. panic to try to find who these boys are because you inject 123 stolen handguns into Benton Harbor,

Michigan. Things are going to go from bad to really bad. Makes sense? Yeah, definitely makes sense. So a lot of pressure there, but there's a big clue that the FBI, I believe, was able to get to the bottom of. While the brothers were holding the manager there, it wasn't enough for them to just get the security information for the gun shop. They also made the manager log on to his cell phone and send them all the money he could from his cash app to the brother's cash apps. Brilliant. So smart, right?

Yeah. Because they're doing a financial crime in addition to stealing the guns. Yeah. But what's the problem with the plan, Matt Cox? You've been around the block a few times. I feel like those cards may be in their name. The cash apps were in the names of Darnell and Don Trell, which allowed. allowed the crack investigators from the FBI,

the best forensic accountants money can buy, to get to the bottom of it and identify the brothers. And so they went over to the brother's house, the search warrant. They searched it, and they got the guns back. They were able to keep the 123 guns, more or less, the stolen guns, before they could be distributed to the streets of Benton Harbor,

making it, you know, still the most violent place in America to be, but not as violent as it would have been otherwise. how much time you're going to give Darnell and Don Trell for this fantastic scheme of theirs? Do they have criminal histories? I'm going to go on a limb and say at age 30 and 32. This was not their first rodeo.

And they kidnapped the guy. They brought them to a separate location. Yeah. Did they harm them or we know? We assume it's just... Threatening him at gunpoint. No, I never got any information that they were abused or torture, that they tortured them or anything.

like that. I mean, obviously, they scared the heck out of him. Okay. And they, you know, they took money from his cash app. So. Here's a clue. Okay. The brothers stood firm, neither cooperated against the other.

Okay. They both pled guilty, though. And they both got the exact same sentence. I would say 25 or 25 years. Like, they kidnap some. I don't, like, there's some stuff. Like, if it was robbing, if you robbed a bank, even, you pull the, like I'd say 10 to 15, but the kidnapping, that's so serious. And the guns,

it's, that seems so serious. I can't imagine, unless they had no criminal history, I would say, they had no criminal history, maybe 15 or 20, but they have criminal history, 20, 25. Yeah, I don't have information about their criminal history. I may be just sort of figuring that that town has an issue and these guys probably come from a socioeconomically depressed corner of the town. But they got 15 years each. It doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem fair. It should be more.

It should be more. It's kidnapping. You came into someone's house and you kidnapped them and you move the location and you stole guns. I'm sorry. No. We need to talk about this. I feel like making a phone call. You're like writing a harshly worded email.

You're a hanging judge, Matt Cox. I mean, I said there's something wrong. And I told you the guys were adding. you would have given him a probation, right? I think if they, they've had to, first of all, they got the same sentence. So they couldn't have, unless they had the same criminal history, right? Yeah, I mean, I agree that criminal history is the wild card here that I just don't know about. Yeah.

So they never released that in the court records. So you're saying 15 years, I was saying between 15 and 25. You want credit for the win. I'm happy to give it to you at your show. I don't want credit for the win. Because I'm still, even the criminal, that the wild card. is that, I still say 20, 25 to 30, really. Listen, I don't have any, anybody comes into my home,

kidnap someone, hold someone hostage. You're going to be terrifying. Or moves them. Yeah. No fucking sympathy for you. Oh, you might as well, that might as well be, you know, a crime against a child. That poor guy's traumatized forever.

Yeah, he's done. He's not going to, yeah, yeah. And your home should be such a sanctuary that you should feel safe there no matter what. it was a good plan except the cash app part yeah well you know there's there are people that will go and like kidnaps like like

watch like a jewelry store and then go go into that go have a home invasion at two in the morning grab that person and have them bring them back to I feel like that's just so I used to play at a high stakes poker game pretty regularly in Chicago and we had a guy who won a bunch of money that night

and left the card room and drove home to his fancy suburb of Winnetka, Illinois, and was robbed at gunpoint in his driveway, you know, in like a really nice suburb. So somebody from the poker game called somebody else and said, that Asian dude, Johnny, he's leaving now, follow him. Right. And then robbed him in his driveway.

When you were locked up, was there ever any romance between corrections officers and inmates? I mean, there was an attempted. and I know there was an attempted one. I've told this story about the older guy. I don't know if I was on the show for that one, though. There was a, was it? I would say, go ahead and tell it because, yeah, our last CEO relationship, TikTok did it very well.

It was in real relationship. It turns out, much like the Catholic Church, when you have allegations against you, they'll move you to different locations. And there was a C. that had had several allegations of harassing inmates. With him moved from...

Dude CO? Yeah. And with dude inmates? Yes. Okay. So he's harassing him. And he was older, too. He was like in his late 50s early...

Like, he was an older CEO. Gay guy or just horsing around? No, gay guy. Okay. And so he showed up. He's a new CEO. And he was an asshole. Yeah.

Like, you weren't a cool CEO. You were an asshole. And so he shows up and I had an old Sully named, named Frank. Frank was in his 60s. He's probably in his 70s now. He was 60, 64, 65 years old. So Frank's walking by the CEO's office one day, and the CEO says, hey, can we come in here? And so he, Frank's grumpy. He walks in. He's like, yeah, what's up? He's like, I'm watching you. He's like, okay. And he says, you work out? And Frank goes, I used to work out a lot.

He's like, I don't work out that much anymore, but I'm trying to stay in shape. Yeah. Yeah, what do you do? I do this. And he comes like, you know, first of all, talking to a CEO is not a great look. Yeah. But he's just answering the question like this and this and this. Oh, I walk the yard.

I try and watch what I eat. Yeah, you're in good shape. How old are you? This old. Oh, okay. He said, yeah, he said, um, you know, is, if you're incarcerated and you have sex with another man, he goes, it doesn't make you gay. And Frank said, right, looked at him, he goes, yeah, it does.

And he said, ah, it does. And he said, yeah, I'm done with this conversation. He said, okay. He said, turn around and just walked off. He leaves. He comes to where my buddy Pete and I are. Me, Pete, and the guy named Donovan Davis were at a concrete picnic table down in an arrow he called Stonehenge.

So he comes down there, he walks. He's like, hey, he walks up. And he goes, listen to this. You know the fucking CEO? And I'm like, hey, listen to what just happened. And he tells us the story. And I, and I, and I, and he's like, that you even the motherfucker said that? And I was like, and I was like, holy shit.

And I go, well, and he goes, I can't fucking believe that. He's, I went, I said, wait a minute now, Frank. I said, this may be your way out. And he says, and he goes, what? And Frank, and I go, say, I said, you need to think about it. I said, I mean, you give, do a reach around or something. Like, I mean, and I said, that may be your way out. And on cue, my buddy Pete goes, save the sample.

Like that Like Monica Lewinsky Save the sample We roar laughing He's fucking assholes And he just turns around Walks off frankly But yeah

We after that We're all like Holy shit This guy's like a predator Yeah And he was And we found out like Like guys started talking

He's just happening a lot Guys start talking And the other COs are like Oh yeah They moved him around Over and over again He's a real problem He's been a problem

He's hard to fire these guys It's a very specific crime A statute that was passed that makes it a crime. Right, because the power, yeah. Great. It makes it great. It makes it great. It does.

The power dynamic between the inmate and the correction officer is just too wide. So a prisoner, like a child, is incapable of consenting to sexual activity. And so, yeah, it's an assault in the eyes of the law. So my wife was at Coleman Lowe. I'm sorry, at Coleman Camp. Right. when, so you know there was a huge, I don't know if you know this,

there was a huge lawsuit at Coleman Camp. They actually turned the camp from a female camp to a male camp. Okay. Listen, they just closed Dublin, which was a female camp. There were so many assaults in Dublin, they just closed the whole, the camp.

Right. Or low, whatever it was. Anyway, there was, I think, like 10 or 12 females, female inmates in Coleman that in the Coleman camp that were having relations with guards and eventually one of them gets together and puts together a whole

like as they're getting out puts together a whole crew of them they get a lawyer, they file a lawsuit and they sue Coleman they sue the federal government at Coleman and they sue these guards and they end up getting like you could look this up. I want to say it's like $80 million.

It's insane. Astronomical. It's outrageous how the amount of money they got, especially since my wife knows that although these, although by law you cannot give consent. Right. She's like, these girls are getting into arguments and fights over. They're basically like, this is my boyfriend.

Yeah. And she's like, they want, they want the. attention. They want the, you know, and these guards can bring in stuff for them. Yeah, yeah, sure. They're bringing in food, not just like drugs, but like food and stuff like that. So they, these girls feel like they have a relationship. Like they're, they're targeting these guys. Oh, yeah. One of the guys, by the way, that was listed on, one of the CEOs that was listed on the, in the lawsuit, oh man, his name was on the tip of my tongue. He came to, he drove to the prison

parked his car, he offed himself in the parking lot of the, uh, the president of his family and his pension. Yeah. And the thing is too, uh, out of all those CEOs there, if you had to say who was a decent CEO, he, I mean, I don't know whether the allegations are true or not. Yeah. He was not a smart guy. Like, this is a guy like a 90 IQ. He was not bright. He had been in some kind of a car accident. He, like you had a, he had a scar. He seemed a little slow. But he was just a, it seemed like a nice guy. He probably got targeted. And I'm not saying it's right or right. It's right. I mean, no matter what, targeted or not, you're supposed, it's a no situation. Right. But the, the allegations were like, oh, they were basically like the guards were coercing the women or forcing

them or forcibly, you know, doing. And my wife, who actually got picked up during the investigation and brought to and brought to the county jail to be questioned. was like, I don't know anything. She said, she's like, I told me I don't know anything. She said, but the truth is, she's like, I know that they were targeted them. Yeah. And she said, but, you know, she's like, but what the girls were saying wasn't true. Yeah, best to sit that out.

So there was a sheriff, the actual popularly elected sheriff, not just some sheriff deputy, in Knoxaby County, Mississippi. His name was Terry Grassery. The sheriff obviously runs the county. jail, right? It's their job in addition to patrolling and doing whatever, which included, in this case, the ladies' block. And there was a female prisoner at this Noxabee County jail. We'll call her Felicia. So pretty. So pretty, MacDak, Alex. Irresistible. Sheriff Terry took a liking to her. And so he gives her special privileges, including cigarettes, and a smartphone while she's in jail so he could keep in touch with his jailhouse crush.

Is that like, kind of like puppy love? Yeah. So he would use Facebook Messenger to text her. And he began soliciting nude photos and videos from her from her cell. And she complied. She was a very good online girlfriend. And he was very complimentary about the state of her body. He said sweet things to her in the messages.

Here's where it gets a little complicated. There was no evidence whatsoever that Sheriff Terry ever checked her out, you know, and took her out for physical sex, which, of course, as we just discussed, would be a serious crime. But the FBI still receives a tip from another inmate about this kind of inappropriate relationship going on. So the two agents go to visit Sheriff Terry, you know, pull him, maybe they sit in his office, and Sheriff Terry lies. He lies and lies and lies and lies, says none of this is true. This never happened. And I guess he forgot about kind of the electronic fingerprints that Facebook Messenger leaves behind. This is a very knowable thing.

You just have to reach out for Facebook and subpoena the records and you can get the text logs, which the agents did. So the only thing they really have, Sheriff Terry on, is this kind of inappropriate relationship. But what they charge him with is lying to an FBI agent. Title 18, Section 1001. And it's a crime to lie to an FBI. It's something I reminded my kids of weekly growing up. So, Terry, Sheriff Terry, every time something went wrong, I said, I'm asking you,

and you know it's a crime to lie to them. I tell them this, yeah. It took me a while to get that, too. So he loses his election because this is all out there and he's facing these charges. He ends up pleading guilty to the false statements to the FBI charge. And I'll tell you that the statutory maximum penalty for lying to an FBI agent is five years in prison.

what do they give Sheriff Terry in this case? I would say the moment you say lying to an FBI agent, I think three years. I know that it's like between three to five, depends on how serious it is. I would say between three to five, but I'm going to say one year because when you were folding the paper, I saw the word one. You're looking at my paper here. You're going to have to do something next time.

We're going to have to have a little blinders or something. Yeah. Well, I, or for the good, for the, how about this? How about this? I'm holding on. I looked down. I saw one. For the good of your own goddamn show, why don't you play along?

You could also do that. Okay, well, here's this. But as soon as you said, I thought, I thought he's getting three years. This is why you shouldn't look at someone else's paper. He got one day in prison. Oh, okay. He also got a fine of 2,500 bucks and six months home detention. That doesn't seem fair.

Should have been more? Yeah, I think it should be. I think I would have said three years. I mean, you're, I don't think you should. Well, also, by the way, I don't think that in an interrogation of any kind, I don't think that the government or the FBI should have the right to lie to a suspect. You know what I'm saying? But I think it should be an even playing field between.

Kind of, I do. You know, but I definitely think that you, you should, when you come in, if you're going to come in and you're going to start lying to me, I think that that, I think that, I think that in and of itself. I understand that that's not the case here, right? The agents sat down and asked him very specifically, have you. And he lied. Yeah. Oh, no, right, right, right.

The FBI agents are not lying to him in this particular story. No, this is, I understand that they just, we know what you did. That's a lie. That's not your, oh, I'm not going to talk to her. I never did this. Exactly. You're lying. Like, what are you doing?

If you're going to, if that's what you're, if that's your game plan, then just say, I'm not going to talk to you. I don't have to talk to you. Right. So I would have said, I'm not going to talk to you. But it does, apparently lying to an FBI agent is one day in jail. That seems reasonable. Well, right?

Unless you're Martha Stewart, right? Yeah. Like, yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. So it, that's not, that's not, it's because he's all law enforcement and that's, that's, or I don't know, I'm either, either he's cooperating, which there's no chance for him to cooperate. No. There's, you know, no criminal history, you know, like, yeah, it doesn't make, it doesn't make sense that you got that, that little time. It should be three years.

I mean, you want to give him some, you want to give him two years and a year. I still think it's three years. I don't think he gets any play at all. Because, first of all, you know better. Yeah. You're a sheriff, you know better. How bad do you think the conduct is? Is the conduct itself worth three years to you,

or you just offended that anyone would lie to an FBI agent? Because, right, the lying to the FBI agent charge, in this particular case, at least, is really just a Trojan horse for charging him with this underlying conduct. In fact, the agent probably says, Like, oh, my God, I hope he lies to us, right? Because I'm not sure what the federal crime is on, you know, for the, it's not really a civil rights violation.

But it's, it's, maybe, maybe it is? Introduction of contraband. Like, you gave her a cell phone. Cigarettes and a cell phone. But again, is that a federal crime? No, it's not. Right. No, it's not federal, but.

Right. We're talking to count, we're talking about the county jail that he's the, he's the boss of, right? And to a certain extent gets to make the rules. No. No. I'm making his argument for him. But my point is, I don't know that there's an obvious federal crime here. I don't, well, other than lying to the FBI, yeah, is there a federal crime?

So why did they even come and question him? Because he's a corrupt sheriff. Right, but you have a state, there's still the state law enforcement. Every state has its own kind of version of the FBI. They could have come and. Evidently, he had been a problematic sheriff in other ways and had kind of escaped justice from the state, from different state things. And continue getting elected.

So they probably figure bringing the FBI, he's going to lie to him. We know, like, they probably already know his history. He's got a blatantly lie. We're going to get him on the lie. It's not a bad plan. Straight in. He goes to jail. And then he still gets, you must be friends with the fucking, with the, with the judge.

Got six months home confinement. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. I don't disagree with you. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Yeah. No, I think.

And if you're concerned about his safety, because look, you don't want to send somebody to prison that's going to get killed. you know, or beat up or, okay, then you could keep him in the county jail for a year. He gets a year. He still gets a year. Yeah. Give him, put him in another county jail. Put him in a federal jail. Yeah. There's options. Yeah. I mean, you got a federal case. He can do if you said, okay, but he should do jail time for sure. Okay. Well, I appreciate your opinion on that. All right. So, uh, so this one's a real, real puzzler because the plan was so brilliant. Okay. So brilliant. All right. So we got to talk.

20-year-old guy. His name is Cy. Have we hidden? Have we hidden? Can we hide whatever is coming? 20-year-old guy. His name is Cy Candula. Born in India, but a lawful permanent resident here in the U.S.,

green card holder. No immigration problems. Everything squared away immigration-wise, right? Grows up here in the U.S., came over as a child into the U.S., lawful permanent residence. I want to establish that. lives in St. Louis, Missouri. So one day, he gets a one-way ticket from St. Louis to Dulles Airport in northern Virginia

outside of Washington, D.C. Okay? Okay. Lides from St. Louis across the country to Dulles Airport, takes an Uber to the local U-Haul place, and rents a U-Haul truck. Big, big U-Haul truck. No cargo, but just the U-Haul truck. 935 that night traveled all day long gets it 935 at night he drives the u-hall to the white

house where the u.s president lives 1600 pennsylvania avenue matt cox and he rams the barriers surrounding the president's home with the u-hall truck the barriers hold yeah i was going to say he's not getting through those barriers he reverses he's able to reverse it drives again accelerates into those barriers hoping that they'll buckle and break they do not buckle they do not break. The radiator shatters on the U-Haul truck. The vehicle's disabled. He's not done, though. Sy is not done, Matt Cox. He gets out of his truck and he removes a red Nazi swastika flag and he begins waving it around until the video of this, until the U.S. Park Service and the U.S. Secret Service jump on him, put the handcuffs on him, and arrest this young

man. Now, the FBI is in charge of conducting the investigation after they kind of like, you know, protect the president. The president at this time is the end of the Joe Biden term. Cy explains under interrogation, can you say that again? Joe Biden was president at the time. Okay. This is, and the, but the FBI has the, gets the investigation. Secret Service and Park Service stop him, right? That's their job. Yeah. But when there's an attempt on the president's life, the invest, or like with the Trump case, when he was shot, falls to the FBI. Yeah, the FBI conducts the investigation after the fact, right? So there's the protectors, and then there's the investigators. The Secret Service will investigate threats against the

president, but once that threat kind of becomes action, then it becomes the FBI's problem. I think that's how it works. Don't quote me on that. But bottom of mind is this, the FBI's case. They bring Cy in, Mirandize him, and say, and he says he'll talk. He's like, what's with the swastick? Here's Sye's plan. Here's the plan. He's a planner. He's a planner.

He's a planner. His goal was to gain access to the White House where he planned to seize political power and name himself the president of the United States. Because that's how it works, Matt Cox. And he would replace the democratically elected government of the U.S. with a dictatorship fueled by the ideology of Nazi Germany, putting himself in charged. He was going to be our dictator. Sy was. I'm going to mail him a book I've written called It's Insanity about Frank Amadeo wanting to take over the world. He said that he intended to

off the U.S. President in the process. We'll use the word off for YouTube purposes. And he's charged with destruction of government property. Did he have any weapons? No. Other than the little flag. No, it's kind of like capture the flag. If you can make it into the Oval, office. You get to be president. That's how it works, right? Then we learn that in civics class and we're kids. He's charged with destruction of government property.

Let me give you some dollar amounts here. $5,000 damages, $5,000 in damages to the barrier that he owes the U.S. Park Service. Didn't do anything. $50,000 to the U-Haul. Destroyed that U-Haul trial. He owes U-Haul of $50,000. And, you know, so he pleads guilty to destroy.

of government property how much time you need to give sigh isn't it funny I just think you're like a nut he didn't kill anyone you think he's a nut yeah

he I mean but I definitely would think you would first start with the threatening the life of the president which to me is super serious but let's keep in mind

he's only pleading guilty to destruction of government property. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. I think the idea is that he was so far removed from actually realizing his plan that the president was never really in danger. I think that's probably the logic of the prosecutors in allowing this plea.

And let's also understand that he is not a U.S. citizen. So whenever he's done serving his sentence, he's going back to India, under any president. So I think that so if that's the charge you're being charged with They're going to go off of the dollar amount Which is this case is under $60,000 under 60 grand Well I think the judge needs to understand the judge Certainly understood the totality of the circumstances and you know probably

Watch the video of him like waving the Nazi flag around at 935 at night in front of the White House I mean he's nuts I would probably have still taken it is he dangerous I think he is dangerous five years it's not a lot of damage that's your guess five years I mean if you had said he had

if you had said they were including threatening the president of the United States that was his intent I understand but you that's not what he pled guilty to now they'll take that in consideration that's correct now you got me thinking maybe 10 years because five or 10 I'm not trying to talk you out of it

buddy I just want to make sure I understand what you're answer is five or ten years in between there in between five and ten between five you want to pick a number between five and ten or you just want to say between zero and a hundred that way you're right every time uh I'm making me think like to me I thought it was very serious I was thinking this is very serious I don't want to influence you buddy I'm just asking the questions I want to say it's very here's what bothers me is that you could say you know if you could take it into consideration he's insane like Clearly you're insane. The problem is you are insane, but you got yourself on a plane. You got, you rented a U-Haul. You drove the U-Haul. You were almost like the-

he flagging or carry on. Yeah, I mean. Okay. I mean, I would say if I was taking all that in the consideration, I'd say, I probably said 10 years, but I'm going to go with five because he didn't plead guilty to that. He only pled guilty to, he only pled guilty to destruction of government property of under $55,000. That doesn't seem to me like a big charge. And I think the judge also knows that at the end of this thing, he goes back to India and he's no longer our problem. And how much do you want to have the taxpayers paying for his care and feeding? It's also 20 years old. oh he's a kid he's just stupid he's just stupid you kind of get a pass if you're stupid

like i always say you get a pass if you know women children and unfortunately retards i feel like oh are we allowed to say that no i think that would have been decriminalized stupid people i think trump signed an executive order we're allowed to say it decriminalizing that word um i'd say five years wait a answer yeah eight years eight years eight years I should have stuck with back to India five and ten

no 10 10 would have been closer if each if it was if they taken the the threatening the life of the president

more seriously I probably would have said higher yeah because I know a guy I knew a guy that got seven years in the federal system

for writing a letter to Bush but he already had a long criminal history he was in state prison yeah and he he um he there's no air conditioning and i tell you this no air conditioning in state prison and so

he was saying like how horrible it was he was complaining to his to his cellies and his cellies says you know what you need to do you want to be in federal prison they have air conditioning and he was like yeah and they said you need to write a letter to the president commit a federal crime they'll come get you and send you to your federal prison so he wrote a letter saying he was going to he was going to kill president bush and his daughter and uh he's going to kill well you better hope that you're her, his daughters, and he was going to the dog, which I always thought I was like that part. And as a result

of that, the Secret Service came and got him and they charged him and he went in front of the judge and his lawyer's like, listen, this is what happened. He explained about the AC. Yeah. Which to me, it's a reasonable argument. That's hot in Florida. And they explained the judge was like, yeah, I get it. I understand what he was trying

to do, but he still threatened the president. So the dog was never in danger. I don't think so. And I remember being irritated about that. Being raped. He got seven years. They give him seven years. Seven years? And I remember... Because is it concurrent or consecutive? Does he have... No, that was the problem. He sent him back and made him finish his state charge. And then... It's consecutive. Like, don't take legal advice from your cellies. Yeah. They're not going to let you serve your state time in federal prison if your state time is already running. Anyway, yeah. So, but I was like the fact that you threw in the dog.

Yeah, left his fingerprints on it. You know what the problem with him was. This is a guy that If you talk to him, he couldn't have gotten himself to Washington, D.C., like, this guy could. Yeah. Matt Cox, who was your hero growing up? Have you ever wondered what happened to the legendary Chuck Norris? I recently saw a video he made, and I was shocked. He's in his 80s and still kicking butt and working out and staying active. What's even more shocking is he's stronger, can work out longer, and even has plenty of energy

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Does it have to be real? Like, can it be Batman? Dude, it's your show. It's your hero. I would say, Frank Tarrington. What's his name? What was?

What was it? Tarrington. Fran Tarkington? Frank Tarkington. Well, wasn't him. Which Broadway star was your hero? Since you didn't watch football.

I would say it would be Batman or Iron Man. All right. Probably. You know why I liked both of them? Tell me. They were just rich guys with gadgets. Okay. So I used to think, I could be that guy.

If I just got rich and had the gadgets, I could be a superhero. That's fair. I don't like Superman because, like, I have to be born on a plant. Like, that's not happening. It's a whole other thing. And I'm not willing to be bitten by a radioactive spider to be Spider-Man. It's asking a lot. It's a lot.

Okay. So, yeah. Well, there's a guy, a 21-year-old Chance Seneca of Lafayette, Louisiana had a hero. And his hero was a guy named Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, my God. You know about Jeffrey Dahmer, right? Are you kidding? I just got finished writing a book about a serial killer.

Yeah, this is true. This is a good point. We're coming to the right place. See, he idolized Jeffrey Dahmer, and all he ever wanted to do was to eat and preserve the bodies of his victims, just like Dahmer did. So Chance becomes fixated on the fantasy of killing gay people. So he goes on the dating app Grindr. You're familiar with Grindr, right, Matt Cox? I have heard about Grindr.

Okay. Just making sure. We don't need to explain what Grindr is. It's like Tinder for gay guys. He picks up a dude and then he meets on the app. And so Chance meets up with his date and Chance kidnaps him at gunpoint and brings him to an abandoned house. Handcuffs the poor guy. And in the court documents it says he tried to murder him.

But Chance failed. The victim somehow survived. and escaped and lived to tell the tale. Must have been a terrible day for him. I mean, nothing but compassion for this guy. Calls the cops. The cops call the FBI in to assist in the investigation. They immediately arrest Chance, right?

Because there's only one suspect in this thing. And Chance says that he really wanted to be a serial killer of gay men. And he, when he said, you know, if you guys let me go, I'm going to continue my murder spree until I'm caught or killed by police. He explains this to the FBI agent in the interrogation. Who's he killed so far? Nobody, no, he's O for one. I was going to say, I'm going to continue what?

His name should be Ofer, yeah. But no, and he said he spent months devising his foolproof plan. You know, but fortunately for gay dudes everywhere, chances a bit of a screw up. And failed to pull off his first murder dismemberment, even though he probably really, really traumatized the poor guy he met on Grindr. Right. FBI charges him with civil rights violations, which is kind of a catch-all, like when you're doing something horrible like that, you're also violating his civil rights. But the judge gets to take into account one's intention and the risk in that civil rights violation. And he pleads

guilty. Chance pleads guilty to his civil rights charges in the Western District of Louisiana. How much time he give chance? Tell me first about what, kept, tell me about the guy. Did he actually he lured the guy somewhere, and he kidnapped him and moved him. Yes. Yeah, at gunpoint. Like, they meet in a park to go for a romantic walk,

pulls a gun on him and says, you're coming with me, get in the car, takes him to an abandoned building, like a haunted house. Criminal history? None. 21-year-old kid.

15 years? 15 years? Wanted to be a serial killer? Told the FBI, he intended to continue killing gay people and eating them. Matt Cox. Fifteen years, your final answer?

Um, I mean, kidnapping, I mean, I think maybe, maybe 20, 15 to 20? You're going to end with an L. Am I? What is it? It's 45 years. Oh, wow. Wait a minute. What about the other guy that they kidnapped the guy and they moved the guy and the, to do the guns?

Yeah. Yeah. That's different than doing it to intend to be with your first step toward being a serial killer. It's a very different motivation. It's a very different crime. It's a very different. So you think that statement that he made about like, I plan to continue to do this? I think intent matters.

And I think if you tell the police that you intent, that if you're let out, you're going to keep going until you're killed by the police, that's the type of thing that a judge pays attention to. Rightfully so. maybe 45 years I think he's got some mental health problems you think so yeah yeah so I end with the lose but overall I had a good I want to say you're probably I would say about 9 for 12 roughly yeah yeah you're in the ballpark to 80% 70% yeah we should give you like a two year yeah next time you're going to need to define the rules like okay what do you have a year yeah yeah but you can't be more than 10%

off. Yeah. And you can't give a five-year range. You've got to give a, what, a one to two-year range. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Smart guy here. Some somewhere between two and 30 years. Yeah, yeah, Matt, you got a right. Congratulations, sir. You're real genius. Well, the one I was like, you know, the one where I saw, I saw the one. And I was one day. I saw one. I was like, happened you started to fold it over. And as you were folding, I saw one. The word one. I thought, oh, you got one year. Yeah. See, but had you had you not been biased by your own attention? to cheat at your own game, then... I would have said, you know, it would have been... I've said it three, three or five years, right? Because he lied to the FBI.

He liked, like, you know what's so funny is that... I love the fact that you believe lying to the FBI is such a serious crime. That makes me feel good. Well, I think, uh, I think I didn't know it was a serious crime until you meet multiple people in prison for, and, you know, the more I thought about it, the more I was like, yeah, you can't be, you know what I'm saying? Like, don't have to talk. Here's the thing.

If you said, no, you have to answer questions, but I don't have to talk to you. You know, that you can say, I want to go talk to my lawyer, but you think you're going to just lie your way out of it. Like, you know, because to me, I know if the FBI shows up and sits down and starts to have a conversation with you, they already know the answers. I don't show up unless they have the answers before if I'm going to asking a subject in question, yeah. Vastly different than state detectives who are showing up. We're typically trying to get people to help them put together the case. The FBI tends to have already have the federal authorities. That's when you're interviewing the bad guy.

When you're interviewing witnesses, I truly want to know what happened. Yeah, right? Yeah. I've had police officers complain to me that they don't have that type of hammer. Yeah, they don't have the resources. Well, it's illegal for them to lie to you. It's not illegal for me to lie to me. I feel your pain. Yeah.

But yeah, I was going to say the, but the locals don't have the resources that the federal government have to put together an entire case. but also what makes me think of is that it's just got to be extremely boring like to me if you said hey you can be a detective with the county or you can be an FBI agent and you're going to get paid the same I'd be like oh I'll pick the county why's that because I feel like the FBI it's a lot of paperwork it's a lot of putting stuff together the paperwork is the same for a big city police detective working a similar type of case well I understand but to me I think that they they tend to go out and start questioning people and talking like they're they're looking for somebody to help put together the case once they've got that kind of they have those then they go out and try and charge someone where the FBI does it different the FBI will put together an entire case and we know everything about it now we're going to go have a conversation with you give you an opportunity to talk to us and you say no we're going to indict you now we indict you where it's the to me it's kind of the opposite so you're saying the police are more apt to arrest somebody and then try to build the case in time for trial

Whereas the FBI will investigate and then arrest. Yes, absolutely. I think so too. Okay. I think that's more fun. The FBI side? The detective side? The detective.

We get to go out and arrest the guy and then put together the case. It's not just, though. I mean, isn't it more just to investigate, build the probable cause? We didn't say right or wrong. I'm saying what would be more, to me, which one would be more exciting? I get to go talk to the guy like, hey, this is what I hear. Boom, boom. What's going on?

I get to talk to people. Yeah. And put together a case, as opposed to, I'm going to, order this. I'm going to subpoena the records. I'm going to put together this. I'm going to get this. I'm going to compile all of this information. I'm going to try and build the case before I even have a conversation. Now that's the smarter way to do it. I'm not saying it's not the smarter way. Yeah. I'm saying what seems like more fun. Well, yeah, but this is that's not the goal of law enforcement. Well, yeah, I get it. But, you know, I'm trying to think like, which one

would you rather do? Well, I'd rather go out and start questioning people. Do you know, do you know what happened, you know, who so-and-so is, you know. And we keep mind, during the course of any FBI investigation that I've worked, you're talking to victims and witnesses a lot first, and then you're making a decision when it is most tactical to speak to the subject of the investigation. Sometimes that is very early in the investigation. It's not going to culminate in an arrest or charges, but I like to do my interrogations and confrontation of the subject just when I have enough information because I don't want them catching wind of the investigation. I want the first time them learning

about an FBI investigation is when I knock on their door, smile at them, and tell them that I just need some help. I get some questions. I want to understand your side of the story. And let them bury themselves. And let them bury themselves. Because they're not in custody. I don't have to Mirandize them.

Right. We're going to share a plate of fries and talk about this awful situation that they find themselves in. Well, okay. That's all I got for you, Matt. That's it. Maybe. Maybe.

I might have to rethink my FBI versus detective, local detective thing here. I'm really thinking about it that way. The FBI gets to choose their battles more also. Like, the FBI rejects cases all the time. Like, it's not the best use of our time. And I think the detectives are sort of cases are thrust upon them more. And, you know, it's just, it's more, I think the detective probably has a more difficult job because they're not as well resourced and they're probably a lot more overlaught.

loaded with cases. Oh, yeah. Typical agent. Yeah, I definitely think that they're, they're,

that they don't have the resources that the federal agents have. If anybody needs any private investigative needs, where should they go? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so,

that whole thing. So I've been getting calls lately from Matt Cox viewers and everyone's so nice. Your fans are the best. But sometimes they'll contact me because they have a need for a private investigator

or they need that. And I'm always happy to take calls from Matt Cox people for free consultation. So anyone who, in the Matt Cox's audience, who needs a private investigator, I work in all 50 states, can contact me for a free consultation. And if they know someone who needs it, I will always make time for their referrals.

You know, I saw you. You don't want to throw in there. But if you don't have the ability to pay me, I don't waste my life. The guy's got to eat. Right. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. You don't have to lean back.

You're not. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button and the bell so get notified of videos just like this. Please share the video. Also, if you want to follow Tom Simons and you want to want his services or anything else, we're going to leave all of his social media links in the description box. You can go there, click on it, follow him. He's huge on Instagram and TikTok. And TikTok. And he's got other

platforms. So check those out. Follow him, subscribe. Really appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. See you. See you. All right. Really quick. I'm just going to have both of you say this because I don't think it's hard to remember who said what. So both of you say green and grass or weed. Green grass. Green grass. You know, wait, I know what do you see.

The K2. It was Disney. It was Disney. He said Disney weed. Disney weed. What you want to say Disney green? So you can put the whole thing. You can.

You said it a couple times. So I'm going to go back. Disney Green, Disney Green, Disney Green. And say the, say, you said they opened up a marijuana-themed, Marijuana-themed park. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on, give me a second. You can't say marijuana?

No, well, yeah, we had a guy come on that talks about, like, medical weed or something, and, yeah, that. Can you say cannabis? Is that different? I would just say green or grass. I think cannabis would be fine. All right. If you want to.

I don't think it'll be a big issue. All right. It's just going to be an green-themed resort. Yeah, yeah. I can't. If you say, I think the marijuana, I can leave it in there. You say grass, the grass. You can do this.

What the fuck's going to know what we're talking about? A quote-unquote. Yeah, they do. They don't seem to care. Like, all right. They were going to convert the lodge to, a grass theme park yeah that should be good

for people who wanted to get high and watch the northern lights yeah and then just say powder Tom powder you too just in case powder what do we say that was powder someone said cocaine once or twice for me

I don't touch the