Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Father Fights Back After Judge Orders Him to Pay Son's Killer

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Mike Whaley describes his harrowing journey—from battling addiction and navigating the emotional aftermath of his son’s overdose to confronting a punitive, “non‑modifiable” alimony agreement that he equates with “sentencing him to pay his son’s killer”—as he seeks justice across family, criminal, and civil court systems.⁣ ⁣ Mike's links⁣ Wisconsin Maintenance reform - https://share.google/7KN2MDuzJCpPbMg9B ⁣ Go fund me for Legal Reform- https://gofund.me/73a86649⁣ Petition- https://chng.it/hN8dtQKZbs ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. I can't keep paying my son's killer. That the money that the courts ordered me to pay was used to kill my son. I can't lay down. I'm not getting justice anywhere.

Let's go back to where my whole story starts, right? Okay. I got married when I was like 25, 26, but, you know, I'd been with my son's mom when she was, you know, about two or three years earlier. And obviously the little point of my life. Right. Okay. You know, I think at that kind of time of life, I was lost, didn't have direction, you know, really drifting. I was bouncing from job to job.

And her mom was a heavier part of year. do you know we we both had real problems and we ran down to North Carolina because she violated probation and she was going to get locked up what was she on probation for her it's selling she got caught from distribution of America and possession of okay right so you know you're at that age and she violated probation she knew she was going to she she she knew she tested dirty and so it was like you know let's let's go And I'm like, I got nothing here either, you know. I got problems too.

So, you know, we took off down to North Carolina. And we were down there about three months. And then I come home from work one day. And she says, oh, I'm pregnant. Well, that rocked my world, right? But it's the best thing for me because it snapped me out of where I was, right? Right. That reality of-

Life just got serious. Yeah, life got serious. And that realization you're going to be a. dad and it clean me up right so you know that day i'm like done with drugs right and then uh we were there a couple more weeks and it was like i can't have this kid down here we need to go home and you know good for her and now she's pregnant you're not going to throw her in jail uh so we made our way back with you know no money in the our pocket i think we even borrowed money from her sister to get home and uh got home and four or five months

into the pregnancy, you know, I get her to start going to AA and drug counseling and showing up the probation officer, and then it's good, right? You know, the rest of pregnancy goes well. And, you know, Jake's born. And, like, for me, you know, completely healthy, which was a really good thing for us. Because I worried about that every day, you know, when she was pregnant. And Jake comes along and we've got this really tumultuous relationship, right? Now we still both drink. So Jake gets to be about two and a half, and I realize that it's, the drink, it's a problem, right?

You know, before, you know, it's like, oh, well, just drugs was my problem, right? Then I realized, you know, drinking's my problem, too. So he's about two and a half years old. I come home from work. She goes off to work, you know, she's working at Cracker Barrel. And I watch a kid at night, and I'm sitting there, and I'm cracking beers and I'm watch TV doing nothing. And my kid walks over, and he hears my can tink on the table.

He comes over, picks up that empty can. He walks over to the garbage can toss it in, walks the refrigerator, grabs me a fresh beer, brings it back over to me. Matt, one of the lowest parts of my life. Right. Because, you know, I dawned on what I was doing. it, right? So I said, no, that's it. I'm done drinking. And, you know, she continued to drink, and then it really started to become a problem for me, you know, one drinking, one not, right? And so, so I gave up, you know, I gave up the drinking. She was fighting it to tooth and nail,

fighting it tooth and nail. And finally one day, I had a bad situation where she, would she come home about 3 o'clock in the morning, just drunk as a skunk. I mean, just, hammered. I got to get up, go to work at 5 a.m. And I got this two and a half year old kid upstairs. And I'm, you know, I go off to work. I'm worried about it because I'm like, she's not getting up. I go to work about three, three hours in for, you know, I'm trying to call home, make sure she's up, calling home, no one's answering, no one answered. And I lived about 15 minutes away. So I end up, first break comes, you know, hopping in a vehicle. I run home.

come home she passed out kids I go to check on the kid it's just you know we have these stairs and he's just starting to come climb over a baby gate and come down he's got the messy diaper and everything I'm angry I am I'm furious you know so I get the kid change him bring him downstairs set on my couch grab a glass of water throw it on or wake her up and I'm basically like we're done we're done I'm getting out of here, going to take the kid. That got her clean. You know, she smoked wheat. I could deal with the wheat, right?

Yeah. And that got her clean for about 10 years, you know. Oh, okay. But you were gone or just telling her you're leaving? She straightened up. She straightened up and I stayed. Okay. So I got a biggest mistake in my life.

We'll get to that later. If I'd left then, it would have saved me a lot of, a lot of aggravation. and things probably be a much different place today where we're at. Yeah, so, you know, from that point. And then, you know, now we're, now we're older, right? You know, you know, Jake's a teenager or whatever, and I start drinking a little again. She starts drinking, well, hers goes super heavy, right? and, you know, in marriage I knew it was really kind of winding down.

Right. And that's really kind of the basis of it, you know. But Jake overall had a good life. He was, you know, he had a great childhood, you know, lots of friends, you know. And I would say his mother was never the caring, nurturing mom, you know. Like, don't wake her up, right? I don't care if you are sick so the kid would come to me, you know. You know, if, you know, dad, I don't feel good, right?

I get up in the middle of night, take care of them. So I had a really close bond with them. I was real tight. You know, I didn't have a good relationship with my parents. And I always wanted a good one with my son. That was critical for me to have that. And, and, but, you know, at the same time, I traveled a lot. You know, at this point in time, and I'm in sales.

And, you know, I did territory sales, and I'm a director of sales. I'm a VP of sales. And, you know, I'm progressing, but, you know, I'm gone 100, 125 nights a year. And, you know, that's tough on any family, any marriage, right? But I was always able to be a coach. You know, I built my schedule around baseball games and football games and soccer games. And, you know, and that helped build that bond that I had with Jake, you know. And that really, I mean, those times that we share.

it really kind of kept us close. And I always felt like that was my, he was my reason for living. You know, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have accomplished and did the things that I did from a professional side of my life. Had he not come around, right? You know, I would have been like my buddies.

I would have been dead. Right. Or in and out of jail. Because that's where all my childhood friends were going at the time. and turned my world around, you know, changed it, you know, and, uh, yeah, so that. So he's 16, 17. Yeah, so he's 16, 17, um, you know, Jake starts having his own kind of issues, right?

There's, there's drinking, there's, you know, there's weed, then, you know, then there's Xanax. And he, you know, he, you know, he dictated type personality. Right. And always trying to work with him on, you know, trying to help him get clean, trying to help get him on the right path. And Jake was, you know, Jake would be great. Six months, no problem.

Then all of a sudden it's coming, right? You know, he's going to crash car. You know, he's going to get arrested by a copse for, you know, selling weed or something. So it was a roller coaster ride. And, you know, that continued through high school. and, you know, then, and then by the time he's 17, 18, mother and I are on the rocks. I mean, we're going different directions, you know, like, I know, my wife, CJ, you know, when we met and we talked about this, you know, sometimes in life you both start here and you start

working your way and then you get, you get, just be one degree off and 20 years later, you're 20 degrees off, right? You're sailing in a different direction. Right. And that's what happened with us. You know, we just weren't, we weren't going in the same place. I filed for divorce. And that's, I think that's another part where my, my life really takes a wrong turn, right? And it starts with picking a lawyer. One thing I figured out, read the reviews.

Right. You know, someone who recommended a lawyer to me, and I didn't, think much about it. It's like, yeah, it's a divorce, right? You know, lawyers, you know, no big deal. People make the mistake of thinking that all lawyers are competent and, oh, well, they all went to law school. They all know the law. It's not, it's not the case at all. Yeah. And how many, you know, some people might get three or four divorces in their life, their experience, right? They know what to pick the next time around, but when it's your first one? So, you know, it's like throwing a dart at the dartboard. And, uh, I, uh, I, uh, I, uh, I picked a, uh, I, uh, I picked a,

bad one. So I get involved in this divorce and I had three, four really, really solid years before the divorce. I mean, making tremendous money, you know, unbelievably well, right? Farthered than what I ever thought I'd do. But I start going through the divorce. My general manager retires. And then I know that it's probably not going to go good because.

I'm not taking over the company. And, you know, and I'm just, I'm struggling at a time. And I'm, I'm on burnout from work, too. And so we're going through the divorce. Her lawyer is asking me for like $20,000 a month. You know, like, well, we'll settle for 20 grand. This lawyer drag, this divorce drags on for almost two years. Yeah.

And, you know, you, you know, every week, it's five grand, five grand, five grand. You know, you're dumping money into this thing. and I get let go January of 2018. Yeah, 2018, I got let go from that job. You know, call it up. I'm like, hey, game's over. End of the party. They let me go.

You know, and I'm like, I don't have a job and I don't have that money. You know, and then they kind of start that thing like, oh, you got fired on purpose. I'm like, trust me, that kind of money I did not want to get fired. So now they want to sell the divorce You know her lawyer knows that like I fucked up I should yeah The checks are just gonna stop and I should have fucking

We should have settled six months ago Exactly yeah like he's thinking to myself I know I'm not gonna get it from her You know and so so we start to go through We start to go through the settled thing I get to arbitration you know After dragging us out and I'm going through the arbitration

And And we're Now there's they're, they're, I've got them down to like $3,000 a month, right? Well, you know, if you're making a couple hundred grand a year, it's like, that's jump change. But I lost a job. I was on a non-compete. I couldn't even work in the industry. I was blocked out for a full year. And so the only thing I got was like a sales consulting gig. And that carried me for, uh, you know, for a year. I said, yeah, I'll hire you, you know, you know, work and find me some business, bring it in. You know, you know,

paid me 100 grand a year, and, well, I'm a 1099, I'm self-employed. You know, I got my travel costs. I got expenses. I don't think, I don't think about these things. And, of course, my lawyer doesn't think about it either. So now we take, I'm going back and forth, fighting with them. I got it down to $2,650 a month. And my lawyer's telling me, like, good deal, really good deal. It's like, you go, you go for the judge.

that judge could give you a life sentence. Like, you know, I think we got him down to like 16 years. You know, they started at like 20 or 25. Is this for alimony? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. This is just alimony.

Jake's past 18. I mean, he's done. So, you know, they're like 20 year marriage. And I'm like, big deal. 20 years of hell. Right. They're telling me it's 20 year marriage. Mike, you're going to get hammered.

And I'd heard stories of other guys who did 20 years, and especially in Wisconsin. You know. He says did 20 years. Yeah. Like it's, it was a prison sentence. Oh. I understand. I hear you.

You know, and that's why I said. I should have got out at two and a half, you know. Now, guys used to be, let's say, would talk about prison with me. They'd like, man, bro, how'd you do it? Well, you know,

I was married to a Puerto Rican woman for three years. So I had, I already had some experience. Right, right, right. You've been acclimated a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You were, you were ready for some of it. Yeah. And, so I, they're telling me this 20 years. and they're scaring me with a live sentence. Honestly, this is like going to jail, right? And what you find out as we go through this story, I mean, it gets worse than jail. It turns into indentured servitude.

Right. And so I'm like losing my crap with the arbitrator and my lawyer. And my lawyer's not fighting anything, right? And then I just didn't even find this out until a couple months ago. totally screwed up the assessment. The minimum wage in Wisconsin is like $7.15 an hour at the time. And to this day, it's still $7.15. No, we make $7.15.

So 1% of the population makes minimum wage right now. And that's it. Right. But they base her earning capacity at $7.15 an hour. And then they take the length of the marriage and there's their multiplier, right, or earning capacity, all this stuff. And so my lawyer doesn't catch that, doesn't argue that. Then they don't take the asset side of it.

So when we split the assets, you know, I pay out over $200,000 in cash. Like I put $180,000 down on a house, right? And there was, you know, $20,000, and there's retirement vehicle. Altogether, I'm like $300,000 in. Well, the idea is, you know, of a limited term. maintenance is get people on their feet, right? Give them enough so they can get back on their feet. Right.

You know, when you get a life sentence on alimony, that is just to keep them, you know, to keep them up. Right. But on maintenance, it's like, hey, you're supposed to give them enough so you can get going. So my lawyer never took that into consideration. And here's the other thing about the $7.15 an hour. She was working, she's always working part-time, right?

Right. And the last five years, 10 years, whatever it was, she's. had her Dede's cleaning business, right? She makes $20, $25 an hour cash, an hour. Well, if my light bulb had went off, I would have been like, well, 20, 20, if she's getting 25 an hour cash and she did this whole time, she'd be making $50,000 a year.

Not $15,000. Right. So that's going to reassess the numbers. And never caught on it. My lawyer never argued it, never disputed any of it. And so now we, now I'm going back and forth and I'm at the 26, I think we're at like 2,700 or whatever. I'm at like 2,500. They're at like 2,800.

So, and I end up just going off on the arbitrator. Because again, I got my lawyer telling me and the arbitrator like, Mike, I think, I think you're there. I think you're at the bottom with them. They're going to take this to trial. You know, we're, you don't want to go there. and I'm like, buddy, I just paid you $350 for a two-hour session. You want me out of your office. You're going to tell me anything's a good deal right now to get out of here.

I'm losing my cool. And the arbitrator says, look at her. She doesn't even look like she's going to live another five years. You're sure I'm basing my decision on the hope that she's going to pass away in five years. So I look at him, because I'm kind of shocked. just said this to me, right? You know, because, you know, she's strong out, you know. She shows up, her teeth aren't even her in the freaking mouth, you know, for the

arbitration. And, uh, and then I look around my lawyer and she's like, yeah, she don't look like she'll make it five years. Well, you're both fucking idiots, right? And, and I'm like, maybe they're right. Um, and so I end up, I'm like, I'm done. I'm like, 2650 a month. I don't know how I could ever do more than that.

I'm leaving. You can take that or leave it. What if you don't pay alimony? What if I don't pay? Yeah, what if they say, hey, it's $3,000 a month and you say, go fuck yourself. I'm not going to pay. Can you get thrown in jail? Yes.

Oh, shit. Yes. We're going to talk about that, too. Can you get thrown in jail in Florida? Yes. Really? Nationally, this can happen to you. When I don't like that at all.

You're going to find out about maintenance and alimony. is it is one of the it's one of there's child support where you get thrown in jail yeah and then there's alimony and when you don't make a maintenance payment or an alimony payment you're defying a court order you're now held in contempt of court and I'm actually up against that right now

and October 1st if I don't pay $12,000 by October 1st I go to the county jail for 90 days and if I don't pay up judge can keep me in there. So they have it like a coercive action to like to, you know, it's like to entice you so that you pay up. So I call it debtor's prison, which they banned in 1830. Yeah, I was going to say it, but you're going to throw me in, if I can't pay it and you

throw me in jail for 90 days, how do you expect me to pay it? I was just in jail for 90 days. And that's the really crazy part about this, that they're using. you know, non-payment as, hey, you're, you know, you're going to go to jail. And you're right. I'm not working. How do we? You know what they told me?

We're going to give you work release. I'm like, so I get to go to work, but I come back to jail for not paying. Right. Like, I get it with a deadbeat dad, right? But I'm going to tell you there's situations out there and not just me. And I, you know, and these days I'm really passionate about this. And, you know, and I'm starting to work on, uh, I got to get the laws change because they're out of control. Let's go back to the 26. Let's go back to the 26th.

Yeah. That's it. I'm ready to leave. Yeah. Ready to walk out. Right. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Let's let's go back to that because we agree to this. I go home, lawyer says, okay, they took the 2650, you know, they're willing to do 16 years. You know, and when, when I'm doing all the calculations, right, I'm sitting there with a calculator. And I'm like, my God, I'm going to pay her over another $300,000. Cash. I'm like, cash out of your pocket. I'm like, this is crazy.

I've already given up $300,000. I'm going to pay her another $300,000. I'm like, by the time I'm done, I'm going to be $800,000 into this thing, not including what the lawyers cost me. And she might not make it. Well, for some guys, you know, that may have been an option. So we end up doing this. the agreement. Now, we go to show up for divorce court. And I'm sure she discussed this with me

beforehand. But I remember what sticks out in my head is we're talking about it and they're explaining the agreement and they do a non-modifiable agreement. So I don't know what a non-modifiable. What's a non-modifiable? She's like, you're going to love it. They can't come after you for more money. Mike, you go back and you get a job and you're making $300,000 a year again. she can't come back to you and ask for money. I'm like, man, that sounds really good to me. There's a downside to that. Downside to that.

Yeah. And so I, I'm like, this is great. And then, but then it dawns, I'm like, what happens if I can't pay?

You know, what's going to happen if I can't pay? Oh, you can't pay? Well, Mike. Oh, no,

no. It's like, it's like, oh, don't worry about it. No, I love this. Everything's don't worry about the negatives.

Yeah. But she's negative. If you can't pay, I mean, there's always a clause. I'll have been paid and I will no longer be, that'll be another lawyer's problem. No, actually, she would have loved if I came back to her. She would, you know, until she couldn't anymore. There's a clause. There's always a clause.

So she says to me, there's always a clause in the state. A lot of it says, if you can't pay, they have to negotiate with you. Oh, my God. All right. Now I feel really good about this. So I go through with this. I don't take nothing of it. And I'm telling all my buddies,

they're like, dude, that's ridiculous. You're paying $2,000, $2,000 a month? I'm like, yeah, and I got to keep a life insurance policy for $250,000 on me, which is, you know, another part of this, right? You know, policy like that's going to run you a couple hundred a month. And so really it's like almost $2,800. And because if I die, she's got to get her money.

Yeah. You know. So, you know, my buddies aren't telling me that's great. And all my buddies say I got that number hit on me because I used to make big money, right? And they're like, it doesn't make sense, you know, even at that number. And but I, you know, I live with it. It deals a deal kind of thing, right? You know, you sign an agreement and it's like, all right, I'll figure it out.

I'll get by. All well and good, you know, you know, I never end up really making much more than that. that, you know, a little less, little more COVID hits. And I'm working for a Chinese company and they call me up. Mike, it's really bad over here. We've got to enter contract. Well, traveling salesman, sales director during COVID. Yeah, yeah.

You're not a lot of opportunities, right? Travel, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we have a really tough, you know, four years, you know, just kind of getting through, you know, making business investments and trying to doing business things. Yeah, I get in five years later. I'm like, I'm broke. I mean, I've tried a couple different businesses, and I'm busted out now.

I mean, I'm tapped. And, but, you know, we're making a payments. We're getting by. And, you know, we're always working on the next thing. And, you know, pretty much work in a full-time job. And then, you know, we've got a, we've got some side business. You know, we sell on Etsy. You know, we do some antiquing and vintage stuff.

So we make it, right? But now comes, now comes the big day for, you know, the day that just is a day that put me on the soft white underbelly, right? You know, this is the day when, when my son passes away. So your son during this whole time, is he with her or with you? Yeah. So, so my son ends up really splitting his time between us, right? He's, you know, eight, go, I think he's 20 by the time to.

divorce finalizes. He spends most of his time with me, you know, spends a little time with her. She's got a brand new, beautiful house, right? You know, I got a house. We got a room. So he's kind of bouncing in between the two of us for probably the next four or five years. The last couple years, he was on his own until he had to go move back to his mother's. You know, he got hit by an uninsured motorist, totaled out his car, couldn't get back and forth to work, lost his job. that he loses his, you know, the trailer that he's renting. And so he's got to go somewhere. Well, he doesn't want to come live with us.

You know, we've got my wife and she's got, she's got two kids. They're at home. And he just doesn't want to burden us with it. Well, his mom's got her and, you know, three-bedroom house. So, you know, I talk him into it. And I'm like, hey, you know, probably going to be the best thing. He's like, man, I don't want to. to go there she's got problems you know he's got you know and he knows he's got problems and what i don't know

is his problems are worse than what i think they are and you know and he talks to me a little bit about it and i'm like well look man if you if you're dabbling that stuff the one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to be the guy who sold your mom a pill or got your mom a pill and she dies i'm like because if you think life's tough now try imagine living him with that living the rest of your life with that spot, you know, and he, you know, yeah, dad, you know, I get it, I get it, I get it, right? So he goes, he's late, he moves in January. Well, Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2024. I'd just taken a job with another company, you know, made a nice career move, right?

A little bump up, good future, looking bright. I'd just gotten home from a two-week trip to, from India. I've been home like three, three, four days. I think I had home at 11th. It's 14th. I'm making business calls. And he's supposed to come over and work for me that morning and earn a little money.

It's about 10 o'clock in the morning. My phone rings. And I see on there, McHenry Police Department. And I'm like, I wonder what kind of trouble he got himself into, right? You know, I'm thinking to myself. He's got himself into something. I'm going to have to figure it out. and, you know, like, you know, hello?

And it's like, yeah, this Mike Whittley? I'm like, yeah. They said, we, I mean, it was so blunt, so short, and, you know, it hit me like a hammer when it did it. You know, it's not that, hey, are you with someone? Can you come down here? You know, look, something's going on. Can we go by or send a, right?

Can we come by? Yeah, none of that. It's like, yeah. Well, Colin's informing you, your son passed away last night, and you get that what? You know, it's not registering, right? But it is registering. What do you mean? He's like, well, you know, Pierce said he overdosed.

I'm like, where? Well, he's, you know, at your ex-wife's house, you know, and address, whatever. I don't even know what to say at this point. Yeah, because it's so, so heavy, a blow that is so, it's your worst nightmare. Something you never want to dream about. You know, when people tell you, I can't imagine, and, like, I'm sure you've had people who've lost children, whatever, and you're like, man, I don't know what I'd do. I don't know how I'd handle that.

And whatever, however bad you think it is, magnify it by 100. because you got to think of it this way. If there's something that hurts you so bad that it can make you cry to the rest of the days of your life while you live 30, 40, 50 years, and you see parents who've gone through that, think about that pain. And that's what's what's hitting you in that moment.

I lose it to break down. Did they tell you what happened on the phone? They just said he passed away. said and my thing is why right and uh and and i get that well looks like it's an overdose okay and they're fucking they're brutal huh they're they're that that that dude needs it was it was brutal at the time right you know today i'm a year and a half end of this and i think about it and that pill problem we have in this country that we're all talking about you know the other F word yeah these guys are hit by it almost daily, right?

If someone's not dying, they're overdosing. And they're numb now. And in most cases, you know, there's that perception of, hey, another drug addict died, right? Another drug addict died. And they lose that. And this is a hunch, you know, it's my theory on it. And it's the only way I can kind of justify, you know, getting, you know, getting that message that way. So yeah, it's cold, it's brutal, but on the other side of it, I understand it.

This is the first phone call this guy's made. Yeah. Was it a man or a woman? It was a man. Yeah. Wasn't the first phone call. He's been making this. He's been doing this couple times a day for years.

That's my thought. Yeah. That's my thought. So, like, I don't blame him. Right. You know, if I was doing that, I'd probably get cold to it too, because how else can you deal with that? You probably have to rotate those guys.

You know what I'm saying? Like to me, if I was the police station, I'd be, I'd be rotating, say, hey, look, you're going to have to rotate this three or four times a year because people get... Yeah, well, we'll think about this, right? I mean, there aren't enough guys to rotate for that. You know, we lost 74,000 people to just f*** in all last year. So, and then from an overdose perspective, I think it, I think it was 120,000 last year, and the year before.

and basically the year before and the year before. And overdose, meaning that they end up at a hospital, not that they passed, or they passed away, okay. Dying. So we had 70,000 people die from, from that effort. Right. Yeah. Just, I'm sorry, it was 74,000 last year.

Okay, so let's go with Finney, right? Yeah, with the Finney. Okay. Yeah. And, okay, but you're saying 120 is from what? from other drugs. Oh, okay, okay. In combination?

Yeah, in combination with everything else. Okay. Right. And I have to assume when I look at those national statistics, when it's, you know, 120,000, 24,000, whatever it was, and they're attributing, you know, 75 of it to Fennie, I'll bet you it's higher. Right. You know, I'll bet you it's even more.

You know, if, if 30,000 knows, what? where, you know, from, like, the black tar stuff that they do. Right. I'll bet you it was mixed in there. Right. And that's, you know, that's my hunch on that. So it's a crazy number. There aren't enough cops to rotate through.

They just couldn't. And they're not equipped, you know, nobody got them ready for this either. Right. I mean, you look at most of this happened between 2016 and today. I mean, we're, the numbers that I, that I came up with is, and that I've had, if you take America today right now, 18% of America has either had a loved one or a close connection

that's lost someone to Fennie. Think about 18% now. And that's a compounding interest that we're getting. If you go with projections of what you're looking at, in the next 10 years, and this one should scare you, and it's just scare everybody who's watching this. In the next 10 years, that number will reach 50%.

One out of every two people in this country will have lost either a loved one or a very close connection. That's the trend mark that we're on. Ten years. So one out of two people. So if people think it's someone else's problem today, it's not someone else's problem. It's your problem. Listen, the boogeyman's real. and he's in your front yard right now,

and he's coming to take your kids. And that's really the way you need to start thinking about that problem. And I didn't know any of this until it happened to me. And, you know, and so I don't mean to get off track on it. But when they start talking about how big the problem is, people don't realize it. I didn't realize it.

You know, I didn't. Never imagine it was going to be that. So anyways, I go and her daughter's upstairs. Ashley's, you know, in her early 20s, I stumble in her room. And, yeah, she can't even really make sense of what I'm trying to babble out of my head, you know, and she figures that out. She calls her mom. Mom comes home from work.

They call my brother. My brother comes over, picks us up. And I drive out there. And she lives about 25, 30 minutes from me. get there and you know it all gets blurry right everything's haze tunnel vision right the shock is you know you're just kind of trying to figure it out i go through the door and out on the back porch his mom's wailing right she's wailing away crying and uh i'm just not even sure why i'm there right What am I going to do?

So I walk out to the back, you know, see his mom. They're wailing away, and, you know, I don't hate it, people, you know, but I sure don't like her. And, but in that moment, you know, we just both lost the son, right? So she gets up, she's falling. And, you know, she's shy, you know, reached out to give me a hug. I go to give her a hug. She says, telling me, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

and it clicked with me. And it just dawned on me like instantly. All right, you had something to do with this. All right. I just let her go and I told my wife and my brother, I said, yeah, I think we're done here. We can go. You know, we can get out of here.

In the meantime, and I don't think it was that fast. Actually, you know, we were there for another, you know, 15, 20 minutes, whatever was. And, you know, long enough for my brother. brother to hear my ex-wife saying she knows that she knows she knows she knows who sold him the pills she knows where he got him and she she actually my brother hears her say that she uh she drove him to go get the pills and you know now i i'm getting confirmation in my head already right of what's going on so we leave

And the next two days are blur. I can honestly tell you, I almost don't remember anything from the next two days. Just complete shot. And I couldn't put any sequence of events. We started to plan a funeral right away because I'm like, I got to get back to work. I just got this job.

I just started, you know, so I got to get this done, get it put behind me. And that's kind of my thing. Dig in, you know, distract yourself. get, you know, stay focused. So we're planning the funeral. But I'm also, I want to know who did it, right?

I want to know where he got it, you know. I want this person, right? I want someone to answer for what they did. I'm, nailing all Jake's friends on this, right? You know, I'm hammering, I'm playing super detective trying to get it. One of his buddies's cousin, like, Mike,

you got to back off, man. you got to let people you got to let the police handle this you got to let you know other people you know do this he's like you're just going to muddy the water right and uh so you know i started backing off but i get a text from a girl who uh my son was you know kind of seeing and first thing i do is what do you have to do with this right you know and i get that you know nothing nothing nothing well i get this text message that uh it says i don't do pills i don't do you know drugs you know she's like, I drank a little, and she said, I wasn't with him. And I said, what do you know? And she says, all I know is that, you know, the other day, Jake was with his mom. And she, he went to go get her pills.

And so he went to go get her pills. And that was, I find out that was two days before he died. And so, you know, now I got this, like, confirmation in my head of things. right. So I've got it. All right. I know she did something. Now I know she drove him. And so I'm kind of at this guy's going to get at a funeral home. She comes here with, you know, her family and that. I've got CJ, whatever. And I got this message from that girl. And I know in my head there's something going down that she's got deep involvement. So she says to me, she starts making demands about what she wants for the funeral. I look at her and I said, you lost your right to make demands here.

I said, you lost your right to tell us how this funeral is going to go when you killed our son. She says to me, you really think I killed our son? I said, absolutely, I think you killed our son. And she said, why would you think I killed our son? And I started reading this text. I said, sounds like Jake went to get you pills. said, you know, so if he went to get you pills and you did pills with them, you killed them. As far as I'm concerned, you're just as guilty as the dealer.

She looks at me and she loses it. Before this, she was like this shuffling, sickly, you know, fragile, but I know her. I know her well, right? I know if I push the right button, I'll see that, you know, the real person comes out for me. She looks at me and she says, I did one else. PIN' pill. I didn't make him take that pill. And then I got the information I needed. But he went to go get, they went, she drove him to go get pills for her. Yeah. He took her, or both of them, whatever. It, from what I've found out now, what I know for facts now, yeah, for both of them. Right. So for both of them. And, you know, the three,

three weeks before he died, you know, I think it was multiple purchases, right? But here's the other kicker for me. On February 11th, she drove my son out to pick up her maintenance check. I thought, I am wrong on that. So it was February 12th, they pick it up. On February 13th, that check cashes. On February 14th, my son's dead. My son had no money in his bank account.

he didn't have, you know, that's why he was going to come to see me to work. So she drove him. She drove. They drove together to go buy pills that she paid for. Right. Because she's the only one who had any money to pay for that. Right. With my maintenance money that I pay her. Right.

Because she doesn't work. She doesn't have another job. So I realized that the money that the courts ordered me to pay and make me pay was used to kill my son. That's a deep, deep thought, right? When, you know, when you look at it and some people say, you can't look at it the way. Well, I can't look at it any other way. So, and if you look at the laws for what drug-induced homicide is, right? If you, if you provide money, if you provide transportation and you use with that person, someone's up dead, that's all constitutes as a drug-induced homicide. So you're just as guilty as the person who sold the pill.

So I was in prison with a guy named, I was in prison with multiple guys with this charge in federal prison. There's a guy named Brandon that I'm going to say, I'm not 100%. I'm close on how much time he got. He was a bouncer at a bar. Even though it's funny if you met this guy, he's probably six foot four, but he's harmless. You know what I'm saying? He's one of those guys. He's a big guy, but you talk to it. He was like, hey, what's going on? You know, you're just like, oh, you're harmless. But he was, yeah, yeah.

He's the front, front gut bouncer guy. And the girls, you know, the waitresses and everybody, everybody likes him. So there was a waitress or a woman that was constantly in the bar, came up to him and one day and said, hey, do you know anybody? She wanted some oxies. and he said, I don't know anybody that has. Yeah, right. And then, but he did know a guy that sold H.

He's like, I don't know anybody with that. He said, but I do know a guy that sells H. He goes, maybe he, maybe he can get some or something. Like, I know a guy. Yeah. But he, and she was like, yeah, she said, can you give me his phone number? He's like, sure, gives, puts her in contact with him. She gets some H.

She dies. the police get involved. They see the text messages. They come to Brandon. They grab Brandon. They grab the guy. They charge Brandon. Brandon's like, wait a minute.

She was sick. She's like, I'm going to be sick here. He went away for this. I want to say between 20 and 25 years because he went to trial, because he was like, I didn't do it. Like, they offered him less. Yeah. But it's like 10 years or something. He's like 10 years.

She said, I'm sick. I need some oxy. Do you know anybody? I said, no, I don't. But I do know a guy that sells this. Maybe he's got some. I don't, he's like, I didn't make any money. Right.

I gave her a phone number. He's like, I didn't mean to. He went to trial. He lost. I want to say it was 20 or 25 years. He's out now because of, I think he got out during COVID. I think he's supposed to still be in jail. So I don't know that he got out.

He still did. like 15 years. So I want to say 20, 25 years, but only because he went to trial, had he had he pled guilty. He probably would have got about five or 10. Yeah. Yeah. I think they were all for him 10. Yeah. And if he didn't have much of a background. Oh, he had no background. You know, if you know, no background. He's in college. He's, he's working the bar. He's like in his early 20s. He's, yeah, he probably, you know, had a good lawyer. He probably could have got that down to about five or six and been out in two and a half. Yeah, but he, he felt genuinely felt he done anything. Yeah, right. Well, you did do something, you know, and in the eyes of the law,

and in the eyes of 12 jurors, you did something, and the judge you did something, and the prosecutor you did something. Like, I get, you didn't, no doubt in my mind, he didn't mean for any of this to happen. Right. Right. Right. But you did something. But you did it, and it happened, right? And so I look at that, right? So, I know this. I know this just right at the funeral now. and so I start talking to the detectives, you know, telling them what I know, you know, where I'm at with this. And the detectives actually do an investigation. And this is going to be a mind-blowing stat for you as well. With drug overdoses, they only investigate between 5 and 15 percent of the time.

I mean, there's 85 percent of the time these people die. and there's no justice for those families at all. Right. You know, and so it's 5, 15%. So I'm grateful for the attention that that police department gave to it and the efforts that they made to make an arrest on the dealer. They worked in conjunction with Kenosha, right? Because they were living in McHenery,

and this is going to be a whole other subject of, they're living in McHenry, they drove to Kenosha. and that's where they got the pills and then they came back, which I can't understand why the feds aren't in, involved in this, and like the U.S. Attorney's Office,

because I felt like this should have been turned over them, you went and picked up a Schedule 2 substance, cross-state lines with it that resulted in a homicide. So someone died from that. That gets you 20 to life in the feds.

But that hasn't come up, and that hasn't even been part of this. even brought up. So I start pressing the state's attorney. I'm like, I know she's involved this. You know, and I got some text messages. I've had conversations with her. Why don't you go interview her? Look at her phone. Look at his phone. So my first meeting with state's attorney, they tell me, let me look into it. I, you know, we filed the charges on this guy. Oh, they did find the guy. They did find the guy. So, you know, they're just now starting his his criminal case.

So the guy who allegedly sold them. You mean now or then? Just now. Oh, okay. So he'd been sitting in the Kenosha County Jail on other charges. Right. And so now they just, they just, I believe they just extradited them last week or this week they're doing it.

And he's going to now face the drug-induced homicide charges. So a year and a half in the justice wheel, right? So I started pressing the state's attorneys. I couldn't get a meeting with state's attorney. So Jake passes in February. They make the charges in May and make an arrest. So they moved fast. Yeah, that was fast.

Yeah, they did a phenomenal job on that side of it. Detectives and the police, super impressed with what they did. The charges going down. I'm trying to get information about this. It's November, I finally get a meeting with state's attorney. and I want to know what they're looking at for the alleged dealer, and I want to know where they stand with my ex-wife. And I get this, well, you know, I'm not that familiar with it.

Let me look into it, you know, and, you know, I'll get back to you. So I hound these guys for months, months. I think it's March. They finally agree to give me another meeting. I get the meeting in eight. April and I'm meeting with the state's attorney and the state's attorney ends up telling me, yeah, we looked into it. And from, you know, what we know, what I see, he's like, I think we're on the same page. Yeah, she, you know, she took him to get drugs. She did drugs with them and,

you know, it passed away at the house. And I'm like, yeah, what are you doing? Well, she's the only one who can identify the guy. And I'm like, so you're not pressed charges. You're like, no, no, you know, we've decided. I said, I think you need to review that with somebody else and get back to me. And I'm thinking to myself, you should at least take this to a grand jury, right? You know, let other people decide. And now we're not going to do that.

And what's funny in the federal system is they would indict her even though they need her because it gives them more leverage. That's what, right? Like you're still going to go to prison. That's what I said too. But you don't go to 10 years. You'll go for five. Right. If you test it.

If not, you might get 15 or 20. To me, that made more sense. You know what I, you know, obviously they're not telling me that. But this is one of those situations I think that they're looking at it. And they're going, A, got a grieving mother, you know, son died, you know, in her care. she's got to live with it. Right. She's suffered enough.

She's got to live with it, right? You know, not ruin another life, right? Well, that's not justice for me. Right. Right. And that's, you know, a whole different thing too, right? When you get into the criminal side, you know, and I've gotten really familiar with all this, I never understood the difference in the systems, you know, criminal, family and civil, right?

You know nothing about it. Man, I'm getting good. I know a lot about it now. And so I realize I'm not getting any justice in the criminal side. They're not going to pursue this. They're not going to do anything about it. So my next move now is, well, we need to go to family court. Well, I need to go to family court anyways,

because four months after my son passed away, I lost that good job I got. And I don't blame the company and, you know, I said this on soft white under bite. I mean, I couldn't focus. I couldn't deliver what they needed. And I wasn't meeting par. And they let me go. So now my son's gone.

It's like July 16th. I get luck go from that job. I got no income coming in. I'm already broke. Right. I make one more payment, I think in August. I call up my ex-wife. And I'm like, hey, bad news.

I'm done paying, right? I don't have it. Right. I'm like, I've burned through all my retirement. I've burned through everything I've had in the last, you know, six, six and a half years, whatever it was, try and maintain this. I'm empty. And I get, I don't get any response. Miss the date on September 15th.

And I get a call from her. Where's my fucking money? Where's my money? I'm like, hey, I left your message weeks ago. I'm like, I don't have it. I'm broke. She tells me, you're going to jail. You're going to jail.

You sell your house, you sell your car, you do whatever. You tell that wife of yours that you don't pay me. I'm like, if anyone needs to be in jail right now, you're probably the wrong person to be saying someone else needs to be in jail. And I said, well, I guess I'll see you in the court. So I'm like, this is going to be a mess, right? And I know I'm not going to pay any time soon. So I actually file in family court say, hey, I can't pay.

This is where I learned about non-modifiable agreements. Right. This is where, like, my whole world gets really crazy and I get this education about member, like, well, you can always get it lowered. Yeah. I mean, there's a statute there, Mike. And so, you know, I bring it to court. and, you know, I can't pay.

Now, keep in mind here, I can't pay her, and I end up not paying her for like four months, but part of the reason I couldn't pay her, I paid $8,000 for a funeral. Right. You know, I paid $8,000. I had to go borrow money to put a deposit down on your son's funeral.

You know how low you feel in a situation like that? Like, you can't even afford to bury your child that you've got to go ask money. money from someone. I mean, that, that was almost another, like, that was low in my life almost as a point when I met his mother. So, I shouldn't take digs like that, but I'm gonna. But, but that was like a rock bottom.

But, you know, I, I think we raised almost like $2,000 from family and friends and donations to, but, you know, it's still stuck me with six grand. So go to court and, you know, I come to the court. She said, look, I can't pay. I'm in this agreement, this, that, whatever. And I'm like, you know, and by the way, the money that I'm giving her was used to help kill my son. She's like, I need a lawyer. And so God gave her time to go get a lawyer.

They got a lawyer. We come back to court, and I think it was November. And that first one was November. we come back in January, January this year, 2025. It actually was November. And we come back in November, and she's got a lawyer now. And I'm like 12,000 behind, you know, and basically 6,000 of that is from the funeral. And I started doing everything I can and learn about family, core, grand a lot.

because I can't go out and pay 10 grand for a lawyer. You know, I don't have the money to get it. And I'm thinking, well, you know, it does not that big of deal. It's pretty cut and dry. I mean, I'm broke. Right. I got nothing. So I don't think it's going to be a big deal for me.

We get to, we get to court, and I'm prepping. I'm like filing motions. I'm like trying to get discovery on her bank records. You know, I want to build this big case, right? buddy i think i'm a i'm a boxer who's had a losing record who just got a shot at a title fight right right and i'm getting ready like i can win we go to court we go to court that day i was in and out there in five minutes her lawyer shut me down so fast it would be like if it was a championship bout i got knocked out in the first round in the first second on the first punch and woke up in the

hospital so what happened so what what do you say what happened why it went real quick uh your honor he sounded a non my non modifiable agreement he's he stopped he cannot ray he cannot lower his his maintenance he has to pay you can't modify the agreement it's nickels versus nickels uh patricus versus patricus There's four cases in Wisconsin that they hang their hat on for maintenance in mostly non-modifiable agreements. Something I'm going to tell you to about a non-modifiable agreement. 10% of all divorce cases end up in an alimony or maintenance situation. 1% have a non-modifiable agreement. That thing probably got in my divorce agreement is like a red herring

and was like supposed to be negotiated away in the very first. effort. Like if you, if you knew this as a lawyer, you're like, we're not doing that. I'm not going to let my client sign that. I mean, he's not worth $30 million and he's going to make $30 million next year or $60 million. I mean, it's an agreement that rich people typically have, right? So, so very few people get caught in this trap that, that I got trapped in. And they judge, like, yeah. Yeah, case law. It's over. Yeah, case law. Yeah, case law is over. I mean, incident. I mean, It's literally less than five. I come in there, I got boxes, I got bank statements and tax records.

I'm ready to prove I'm broke. Right. But no, I was in and out of there. And they said, well, then I can file a de novo review, right? Commissioner sets that one for you and it makes a decision on it. De novo review, you go in front of a judge, at least in the family court on this one. So I instantly filed the novel. And so I go in and I file the file for it.

and I've got like maybe a month or two. Yeah, so January, I think we come up again. Whatever it was. We come up to the de novo review. Same thing, man. I'm working at night. I'm up learning law. I'm learning about all this stuff as much as I can.

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Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox and use code Cox at the checkout. That's ghostbed.com slash Cox and use code Cox for 10% off sitewide. And in the meantime, I got some buddies. I'm like, you got to call a lawyer. You got to call a lawyer. Talk to three lawyers. They're like, buddy, you got a non-modifiable agreement. Like, I'd love to take your money.

I'm going to probably charge you $10,000. But I'm not going to be able to overturn this. Right. And I'm looking for every angle I can to fight this. We get into court. and I start you know we we do the back and forth this judge gave me time to talk first one I bet I didn't get 10 words out right right and maybe I did maybe I got 20 but this judge gives me let me make my argument let me make my case and I and I even get to present that and said

look she did drugs with my son and he died and If I get bank records, I probably approve it's the same money that I paid. And Judge said, she hasn't been charged with any crimes. Right. And I'm like, yeah, she hasn't been charged with any crimes because she's a witness. She's a protected witness here. And Judge says, I've been doing this like 25 years. She said, that's probably true.

But there's no charges against her. And even if she had been charged to weigh maintenance and non-modifiable agreements, that wouldn't have any weight either. It's still nickels versus nickels. If you meet the four pillars of when you sign into that agreement, it's like, is it equitable? Did you knowingly agree to this? And I forget what the other two are. But there's four things they say, if you did all four of those things, you're done.

You're done for life. You literally give up all your rights to challenge it in court. There is, you know how they say there's two things in life that you can't escape, death, and taxes? There's three. There's debt. There's taxes and there's a non-modifiable agreement. That's the third thing that you can't get away from. Can I get out of it. I go through this and I can see the judge is about ready to rule in favor and she starts, you know, citing the case law. And I interrupt. I said, Your Honor, I need to interrupt you. Before you rule against me, which I know you're about to, I need you to realize that when you, you're, you know,

you rule against me, you are sentencing to pay someone who was either directly or indirectly involved with the death of my son, and I'm going to pay this person every month for the next eight years. So when you rule against me, I want you to understand what you're sentencing me to. I'm going to be paying my son's killer. That judge looked over at me, calm as can be. Mr. Whaley, I'm not doing anything to you. You did it to yourself when you signed that agreement. Right. You had a bad lawyer. I had a bad lawyer.

Come to find out that lawyer has been suspended. Mm-hmm. You know, suspended, disbarred, and when I look it up, it says suspended. I didn't realize how bad she was until that moment, right? You know, I mean, I knew it was bad with how much I was paying. I knew it was bad with the length. I knew it was bad with how much I gave up. But in that moment, I really knew how bad it was.

and we went to a wedding in October. A childhood friend of mine was getting married. And I get seated at the table with, you know, with some couples I know, some couples I don't know. Turns out the couple next to us was someone who worked for that lawyer. And we got involved in the conversation talking about my whole case, my son. And she said, yeah, I'm like, you got a really, really bad deal. And I'm like, why do you say that? And she said, she's a raging alcoholic.

She's like, she got to a point. She couldn't function. She couldn't perform. She's like, we left because she wouldn't, she couldn't clean up. Right. Even with that, right, you'd think I'd be able to go in and say, like, you know, hadn't, you know, didn't you have good representation and all that? it's not going to carry much weight.

Think from what I would have read on it, I might have about a 30% chance if I could prove that she was incompetent. And I love numbers and stats. And I looked into this, I'm like, how bad luck do I really have, right? 1% of all lawyers at some point in their career will be suspended or disbarred. I am an elite one-percenter, Matt. I'm a 1% who got a non-modifiable. I'm a 1% who hired, you know,

who hired a bad lawyer that got suspended or disbarred. And I'm a 1%er who loses his child to a drug overdose like Fennie. I mean, you talk about a bad run. You know, I sometimes I feel like I'm a poster child for love and bad love. But what happens, I mean, what happens now? Like, when are you supposed to pay? Yeah. Yeah.

So, so what happens now? So as soon as they rule against me, her lawyer files contempt a court motion against me. And they're trying to get me to pay her lawyer bills too for all this, right? And so they filed contempt a court motion with me. and I tried to negotiate with them. I'm like, you know what? Fine, I owe $12,000. I said, how about you credit me

$4,000 for the funeral? I'm like, realistically, you should give me the whole eight. Right. Because it wasn't my fault. And they're like, no, can't do that. I'm like, listen, man, you've got to take, he's like, that's a separate issue.

Your 12 grand has nothing to do with that. The 12 grand you owe, I'm like, it has everything to do with it. And say, find me in contempt the court. And I have till October 1st to pay that $12,000. If I don't pay that $12,000 by October 1st, I get 90 days in the county jail. Think about everything I've told you right now. Right. I'm fighting for justice.

And I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm, trying like hell to get justice out there from a state's attorney. I come to the family court thinking I might get some. I'm coming to the family court and I'm thinking I might get some. But instead I get slapped down. And now you're taking the victim and the victim is now the criminal and the criminal is now the victim because I didn't pay her. So if anyone's going to go to jail over this whole thing, it's going to be me October 1st. what about filing a civil wrongful death suit against her?

Yeah. Brilliant idea. Thank you. Brilliant idea. Great minds think alike here. Okay. Or either either or we're both simpletons here. You're making me feel like something.

There's a, there's a. Oh, this is good. Because I told you I had to learn about criminal. I had to learn about family and I had to learn about civil. Now what we're talking about is civil. Okay. So it meets all the grounds, parameters, right? You got negligence.

It's all there. The criteria is there for a wrongful death suit. Okay. I start calling lawyers. I talked to, I got past 10 and I started losing count. Right. Nobody would take the case. And I'm like, what is going on?

Why won't these guys? I'm like, it's all here. I'm like, I can get you witnesses. I can get you statements. You know, we'll get the documents. You know, it's all going to come out. but they keep telling me no. So I got another friend who's a paralegal.

She said, Mike, call my boss. And I call, he's like, no, Mike, you need to talk to this guy. He's going to explain it to you. So they gave me a name to a lawyer, this guy in Libertyville. Call him up. Super great guy to talk to me. Anytime a lawyer talks to you for free, that's a good day. So he said, Mike, they told me about it.

I've looked at it. And here's the deal. No one's going to touch your case. And I'm like, but why? Right. There's no money in it, Mike. Yeah. If there's not profit and your pain, you're not going to get justice. And that's pretty much the way the system worked, at least the way it's worked for me. So what it is, there's no corporation, right? There's no malpractice suit. You know, you're going to chase someone, an individual who probably isn't going to pay, even if you get a big judgment, and say, you know, let's say, you know, I hit her for a half million, million, $5 million, right? And they get it and they win the judgment, which is slam dunk. They're going to get it. got to file bankruptcy. She's going to file bankruptcy. That money and that settlement is going to get tied up in,

it's going to get tied up for the next three to five years. And so they're not going to wait for their money. They're not going to take it. So I couldn't get any to take it. I literally had another call last week. Does she on her house? She does. And that's why I told him.

I said, hey, that house, I bought that house. It's free and clear. but even if they do she files bankruptcy on that because it goes into the settlement that lawyers don't want to wait for it so guess what Mike figures out how to file a wrongful death suit and when I talked to this law professor I said what if I file it yeah you could do a pro se I was going to suggest that and then yeah and that's why I did so I did a pro se he said Mike they're just going to get it dismissed on you I'm like maybe they will but I need to do something I can't lay down I'm not getting justice anywhere.

I got to do it. You know, I got to do this for myself. I got to fight to get, you know, the full circle here. I can't keep paying my son's killer. How are they going to get it? Why is he saying they're going to get thrown out? Because I'm pro se. So what?

Matt. I'm not that bright. Okay. But somehow they're going to find a way to get dismissed, right? Oh, it doesn't matter. I'll drag it out. I'll cost you $100,000. I'll make you fucking miserable.

I'll make you wish, I'll make you take a, I'll make you take a settlement of where I pay you a thousand dollars on what I owe you or I'll just drive you into the fucking round. Like I'm, you know what I'm saying? Because if I can file the shit myself, fuck you at chat GPT.

Pay $20 a month and chat GPT do. Matter of fact, I give you the phone number to my buddy or plug for Chad Marks. Yeah. Chad Marks will, we'll probably take this for virtually nothing. and or certainly nothing, not what a lawyer charges.

And I'm telling you right now, he, you know, him, P, fuck if Zach could keep himself out of prison. Any of these guys will, would fucking tie this chick up. And then her lawyers, you know, the whole thing is like, when the lawyers are like, yeah, I'll take your case, it's five grand. Yeah. Eventually she's like, I don't have it. And then they're like, oh, well, I'm sorry.

You guys, well, you're both pro se. obviously she's not mentally capable of handling this. Maybe it's going to be like, you're going to get that panic phone call. Yeah. Okay, look. Here, you can only pay, I'll have you pay me $5,000. Not go fuck yourself. I'll give you $500.

You're going to love this one. I file. And I want to modify that motherfucking thing, too, by the way. I give you $500 a month. Fuck you. You and I are looking at this. And you've basically expressed everything I went through. And every feeling that I had, I filed.

I filed the wrongful death on my mind. my own. What happened? So I start this and she misses the first court date. I love it. I know, right? I'm going to get a default judgment. Yeah. Right? Two weeks later, I get an email. I get an email from a major Chicago law firm. And they said, Mr. Way, we need to introduce ourselves. we've been hired by Allstate to represent your wife. How has Allstate? She filed the claim on her homeowner's insurance. For what?

For wrongful death? Because I sued her for wrongful death. How does that, how is Allstate, how's homeowners insurance protecting her? There was an accidental death in her home. Accidental death? Okay. Right. She's not proven guilty.

She hasn't lost anything. This is my only understanding of that. You know, in most cases, you know, I have you really careful about saying this. But I actually have the email that says, I'm a lawyer. I was hired by Allstate, right? Because most time you'd be like, bring that up and, you know, you're going to get sued. Well, I got the email, buddy. I got the email Allstate.

I reached out to Allstate. I was going to say, if that's the case, then it's also your son. Yeah. This isn't like she's got full custody of a 15-year-old. This is someone who died. Died in her house. If they, aren't they, if they're admitting to, it's still your son. I would think you're still a part of that.

You could, you could, um. There's, there's some tricky stuff in here. Can you join that lawsuit? Yeah, there's, there's some tricky stuff on that. And, I mean, it kind of gets deep and it gets deep into executive estate and this and that. I'm learning because we're in this right now. Mm-hmm. We're in this.

A couple weeks ago, they filed for a motion to dismiss. and I just recently had to file my brief and my response. I'm going to have a decision July 23rd on whether this case will move to discovery or it will be dismissed. I don't think it looks good for me. Okay. Well, so here's the thing. Have you re-contacted any of these attorneys that said no the first time? Because now there's deep pockets involved.

Yeah. And that, and I even did a second round. As soon as they, as soon as they got involved. Right. I sent out like 10 more, 10 new ones, right? And I had one that talked to me last week. And he came back. Not good.

Yeah. It's not good. Yeah. And he said, can't touch it. You know, so I'm going to get bounced. I want to get bounced on that. So like, you know, if you want to hate. Big insurance.

Because I started saying, I called Allstate and said, I need you to explain to me why you're going to represent this person and how. I never got a response. I reached out to a VP and sent a direct message and never got a response on that. So I don't understand completely why and how, right? But that's where I'm at. So we go through this whole story that we've been through today. I've been through all three sides of the court system, right?

And I've been, I've been, I just haven't gotten anywhere. I haven't gotten the justice anywhere. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose it. And if I wasn't going to lose, I'm sure that attorney will use this interview later to, you know, well, here's the other thing I'm thinking about. So, if they put a warrant out, because like I, if I was you, I'm not turning myself in for 90 days of jail. Fuck them. I'd go forever until they can catch, until they pull me or catch me. I'll drive somebody else's car. I'll get Colby will buy me a car. I'll drive in his

car and they'll with that tag. I don't get pulled over. Yeah. I'm a clean cut white guy that follows the rules of the road. So, but I'm wondering if there is a warrant, are they, do they file extraditable? I don't, I'm sure I'm saying this wrong. Extradition or extraditable. Let's say extradition. Do they file it? Are those warrants extradition warrants? Do you know what that means? Yeah, I do. So if you change states.

Yeah. I live in Illinois. And this is funny. Oh, you live in another state? Yeah. So get this. This is even funnier. I guess nothing about this funny.

You have to laugh or you'd be walking around crying all the fucking time. Right. Or breaking, you know, breaking tables, right? Yeah. She moved to Illinois like four or five years ago. and she sold the house that I bought her and then, you know, bought another house and so it's all paid off. And then I moved to Illinois two and a half years ago. We both live in Illinois, but Wisconsin retains control.

Wisconsin retains control of this case. And so whatever ruling that Wisconsin makes and Illinois upholds any agreement that you have, so from an extradition's standpoint. I think they do cooperate, but I couldn't say for sure. But they'll suspend your license and they'll garnish your wages. So they'll come looking for that money. Yeah, but if you're not in that state, you know what I'm saying? Like to me, if you move to Florida and Florida says, yeah, we're not fucking extraditing anybody on this fucking bullshit warden, then I'll just move to Florida. It's hot as fuck here. But still, it's a great state. We got a great, we got a great, we got a great governor. We got some great things going for us.

Yeah, there's some bad things. Florida is one of the five states that have actually done some work on modifying maintenance awards. So the other thing is, have you considered, have you considered, so this guy that's about to go to trial? Yeah. Have you considered contacting his attorney? I'm thinking about it. You know why, Colby?

I'm going to assume because he wants to help get his guy off. No, no, he doesn't want him off. Fuck that guy. He didn't want him off. I don't think. But what you could do, you contact that attorney. You end up on a witness list. Guess what the prosecution now wants.

Why are you on the witness list? Well, I'm going to explain that she bought the fucking drugs. She this, she that, she this. That's going to muddy the waters in his criminal case. And maybe they think, about charging the wife. Do you see what I'm saying? Maybe they go, okay, maybe I'm just, I'm not, I'm not trying.

It's, I'm not, it's not, I'm not, I'm not inter, you're not interfering. I'm just making him aware that there is an alternate theory to what happened. I'm not saying this guy's not a scumbag. Like the drug dealer is a scumbag, but she's a scumbag too. And the truth that needs to be taken into consideration. I'm just trying to find justice. So the point is, is that I think that the prosecution, probably comes in and maybe they say,

fuck it, we're going to charge her too. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, let's do the right thing here. I'm not saying that she, I'm not saying that she's, that she shouldn't get preferential treatment for testifying against

the drug dealer, but she needs to be charged too. I'm not saying she needs to do 10 years. Right. So maybe she should do 10 years if she was prosecuted on her own, but if she's going to testify against the drug dealer and having been charged, maybe we give her

lesser sentence. Not that you charge, not should you promise or that. Right. But take it into consideration. No promises. You do the right thing. We'll take it into consideration later. Yeah. That's how the feds do it. Right. And you wouldn't think it would go that route. And, you know, this is my thing about it. I want accountability. Right. You know, I want you to step up and own what you did. Own your part in it, right? And I'm shocked that that hasn't happened. And I'm not alone here. You know, I've gotten other stories where I've heard these kind of things happening. And so I'm not the first guy that's happened to.

And I'm definitely not going to be the last. And we need to change alimony laws. We need to change maintenance laws. I mean, these things were made 50 years ago, at least in the state of Wisconsin. Last time they updated it was 1979. Working conditions were a whole lot different for women in 1979. You know, when you look at the difference of pay, how many women were staying home, home, it's not even on the same level that it was, but we're still operating under those

rules and guidelines. And the worst part about it is judges have discretion. And they can decide when, if you, it's like going to trial, right, in the case, like you're taking that chance. Like they, like they were telling me when I was going through mediation, like, you know, you really don't want to stand in front of the judge. Judge having a bad day, you're going to zap you for 40% of your pay. You're going to be paying 3,400 a month. You know, and so, they start to scare you that way. You need a predictable outcome when, you know, you need a form that says, hey, you were married this long, income is this, and you're going to pay this long, and then you've got to have

sunsetting clauses, because there's guys who are getting hit for lifetime. You get to be 65, 70 years old. Your income's going to drop. Your earning ability goes down. That's common sense. Well, what's funny is you're saying it's maintenance pay, but she's not, it maintenance pay, in my opinion means that you're trying to, she's trying to educate herself, get a better job, get to where she's, she's at the level she should be. And then we, we fade that off. She's not working

at all. No. No, it's a lottery ticket, right? And the judge told me, she said, there's no laws about how she has to spend that money. Right. And I get that. But you got to build systems into place to say, hey, there should be some parameters you've got to hit, some benchmarks like, hey, you're five years in, what have you done? You're 10 years in. What have you done? Right? And there's nothing. There's no guardrails at all in the mainstream laws. I'm 54. 54. Yeah. And the job that you do, is it a physical job or is it something that you do over the phone? I do, I do, I do sales. So I do a lot of business development. I know what that means. Is that Zoom? So you have to go shake some of its hand or can you do most of this? I got to shake people down for work, right? You know,

So I've got to go, I've got to go find new sales for companies. Okay. So can you do this via Zoom and phone calls? I can. You know, you'd make less money. Could you make $2,000 a month doing it via Zoom? Oh, I can do anything and make $2,000 a month. I can figure that out, right?

I can go to McDonald's and make $2,000. Right, right. So Thailand. Thailand is amazing. My buddy is in Thailand right now. And if you, no, no, that's not true. Boziak is no longer in Thailand. He's in Cambodia.

because Thailand said that they he needs to leave for a little bit. Yeah. But you can you can basically go to Thailand. If you can prove to them that you have a certain amount, like it's like it's nothing. It's like 10,000. If you have 10,000 in the bank and you can show them that you make $2,000 a month, then they give you like a every year you re-up a visa that costs all of 75 bucks or something. So in Thailand, he lives when he was in Thailand.

He lived on the 30th floor of a brand new building. He was the first person to move in the building. He was spending $700 a month or $680, roughly $700 a month. And this fucking place was amazing. And I see your wife's face. Yeah. But I promise. It's nice.

And you're about my height. We're giants over there. Oh, I know. We're like six foot tall. Yeah. You're pushing people. I'll push the people around on the street in Thailand. You know what I'm saying?

I used to travel. I used to travel to Asia for work. I'm telling you. Boziak lived in Bangkok, in the middle of Bangkok. She's eating out every meal for $2. Yeah. Every meal for $2. And it's good food.

It's all like, you know, I'm just saying. I hear you. But you know what? I love my wife and I love her kids and I love my friends. How old are the kids? Youngest is going to be, he's 17, he'll be 18. I'm talking about. I love him from a distance.

He could come. He could come check it out? I love her parents too. Listen, that's great. That's what Zoom's for. That's what Zoom's for. We'll love them from a distance. It's going to make your love grow fonder.

Yeah, yeah. Really? Really, he's doing it for you. Really? I wish. Everything I do is for her. She would love it there. I believe that.

What does she do? She does home health. So she takes care of elderly people. So she goes into, you know, helps them with all their living day to day once you're, you know, beyond it. We're going to figure out how to do that via Zoom. Yeah, that one's going to be tough. Yeah, yeah.

But you can make almost nothing there. And so you can, like, a fraction goes a long way. Yeah. Unfortunately, over there, they actually take care of their parents and grandparents themselves. Oh, the family value. Yeah. Yeah. So something to think about.

Yeah. Yeah. There's really no good escape. And, you know, I'm talking to this guy out in Massachusetts, he's a advocate who actually was able to get the laws changed in Massachusetts for maintenance laws. I got to tell you this story about this guy. So Stephen Hittman gets divorced. And I think it was 2002.

he owns a printing business. He gets hit with maintenance, you know, long-term marriage, I think 25 years or something when he gets divorced. He gets hit with $39,000 a year that he's got to pay. Steve does the best he can to make payments. He gets along. His printing business starts to fail. So Steve starts taking on debt to keep his business afloat and to keep paying his ex-wife. He does this until he can't any longer.

He files bankruptcy in 2008. Steve goes through bankruptcy and then, again, struggles to make these payments, pays everything that he can. And then by 2014, he's filing bankruptcy a second time. Now he's in front of the court and he's behind on maintenance. And they want their money. They throw him in jail. I think he's around 65 at this time.

And so they throw him in jail. They keep him in there for almost two weeks. They brought in teams of accounts to go through his books and to verify that he absolutely had no money left. They finally, finally let him off the hook because he had nothing. He was homeless. He didn't have, you know, he didn't have a house anymore. He may have had a car.

But he'd lost everything trying to maintain this. So Steve went that far with and ended up doing time in jail at that age, right? He's got nothing left trying to maintain this. He got involved and he was actually worked to got the state to change their maintenance laws there and end like lifetime maintenance or have clauses that affect it once they get to a retirement agent. Now Steve's story has a very happy ending and a very sad ending. I don't know that there's a happy ending, but yeah, I don't know that there's. I mean, yeah, I understand you got to change, but still, that's, I'm not going to,

you've been drained of every single thing and you've gone through hell. Right. There's, and you can decide, you decide whether you want this to be the happy ending or the sad ending. So at some point, Steve's wife was a smoker. I, by from when you said happy ending, my first thought was she passes away. But that's quite I thought, don't say it. Don't say that. No.

It's one of those many, many times that something happens in my head. Unfortunately, Steve's wife needed a cigarette so bad when she was on the oxygen machine. She lit one and blew herself up. Wow. Did that kill her, though? It didn't kill her. It killed her. Did he?

Did it? It killed her. So very sad and tragic. It is tragic. It's very happy. I'm very happy for Stephen that he was able to figure out how to change the maintenance laws. I'm working with Stephen now, and I just set up a Wisconsin Maintenance Reform.org, because I have come to the conclusion. There is no way out of this non-modifiable agreement for me.

The only way I'm going to get it done is I've got to change the laws. I have to get a change the laws, and I got to get changed for me, but we got to, we got to change these rules, and we got to do these things that I'm talking about. You got to have predictability. You've got to know what you're going to get, you know, like sentencing guidelines, lines that are, you know, structured, and you've got to make it more fair. 98% are payers for maintenance or alimony are men. You know, only 2% are women.

And bad things have happened to women who've had to pay. You know, I heard another story of a woman in California who actually impacted change for maintenance reform. A woman was beaten up and got by her ex-husband. He did time. Judges ordered her to pay $1,000 a month maintenance to him. That created enough of a storm. California rewrote some of their laws and they changed that.

And so she doesn't have to pay that. I don't believe, and I got to believe that most of your viewers on this would think that it's wrong, that I've got to write this check to someone who was involved in my son's death. And the only way... I think even if you remove that, let's remove that from the equation. And the fact is, is that you were not in the same position you were in when you signed that agree. Agreed. Yeah.

Yeah. You were given false information saying that, you know, you would be able to modify it if anything went wrong. Yeah. And on top of that, in general for a money crime, you know, well, it's not even a crime, but whatever. In general, for money, I don't think you should have to go to prison, you know, at all. Like, it doesn't make sense. To me, I've always heard of, like, there can be no debtor's prison, right? Exactly.

And so it doesn't make... About us at 1830. Right. It doesn't make sense to me that I owe someone money. Put it on my credit. Yeah. You know, try and garnish my wages maybe. Yeah.

But, you know, you could... There's lots of things you can do. Get a judgment against me. Place it on any titled property. But to say, hey, no, no, now we're going to throw you in prison. It's like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Like, that's a very personal, physical thing that you're doing to me. That, that, you know...

You're not supposed to be able to throw people in jail for you. for their inability to pay. Yeah, that makes me wish that your ex-wife was a smoker, to be honest, it was on oxygen. She is. Not on oxygen. I would suggest oxygen, are you? Can you take a deep breath?

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I, yeah, that's upsetting. Like, that's some bullshit. I'm going to tell you another one that just happened. This happened in McKenery County where I have my wrongful death case. A guy in 2017, I think his name, was last thing with Denneke, 2017. Great job, great position,

make it $350,000 a year. He gets divorced in Illinois. He gets hit with $12,000 in maintenance and $7,000 a month in child support. So 19 grand. What the fuck, like after taxes, how am I supposed to fucking, what am I going to do? Well, he makes $350,000, right?

Still, now you got taxes, right? What do you got for it? Right. the bigger question I get is why is the wife worth more than the two children here right what first what what is and his lawyer had him sign it yeah yeah so so he got a deal done with his lawyer and he went through this a contentious divorce and uh over the two the two years after the divorce and he's making them the money and he's got a he's got a great paying job right she brings him in the court 260 times over a two year period his company had to hire a lawyer and put

it on staff. And eventually they said enough, right? And it was a family type business too, but they finally said, we're done. So they let them go. Well, 20 grand a month, it doesn't take you long to get in the hole, right? Let's say if you had enough savings, you got through the first year, whatever, you made to maintain, what percentage of the population make $350,000 a year? Yeah, yeah, less than half a percent. Yeah, yeah, somewhere around that, right? So the expectation like this guy can just go out and get another $350,000 year job and change things. Ain't going to happen. I mean, it's fictitious.

So he gets thrown in jail. He gets $125,000 behind. They throw him in jail. And you don't get out unless you hit the purge, right? You got to pay up that full amount and it'll let you go. The fuck do you pay the full of bounty? He didn't have a job. He's not making any money.

Right. Your janitorial job in Puckin' prison is paying you $12 an hour. I mean, what's... So he knows. And no one's coming to the rescue, you know, to pay him up with $120,000, no one he's going to get hit with another $20,000 next month. Right. This poor gentleman committed to the trial in jail.

There's something wrong with his wife, too. Absolutely. Or ex-wife. Yeah. And I don't know this for sure. I was reading on this one, and there's a wrongful death suit. filed against the jail on this. And I think that death suit was like 2021, 2021. You know, his name was Thomas, Thomas Doheny, so people can kind of look that up.

I think his wife, his ex-wife filed a wrongful death suit. That's balls, right? Yeah, they killed her, I guess they killed her money cow, right? Yeah, her cash cow. Yeah, she's, she's, you know, it's funny because a lot of, Well, I guess maybe I'm not going to say it's all women. Let's say scorned spouses. Am I saying that right? Yeah, scorn spouses, a lot of scorn spouses.

There are, right. Will cut their noses off to spite their face. It's like you dragged me into court 200 fucking times and got me fired from my job when I was paying you. Yeah. But a lot of them, like, they just want to ruin your life. Yeah. Yeah, and that's...

That's the goal. And she got lucky. I mean, she ended up ruining her life. I mean, ruining his life and he took his own life. Yeah. And these are tragedies, right? And that's why we need reform on this stuff. I mean, because you can go on and on and on with these kind of cases.

So you started, is it an organization? Yeah, an organization. Wisconsin Maintenance Reform.org. I just filed all the paperwork with the IRS and the state of Illinois. because I got to get this going. And I need support from people. You know, I've got the website, Wisconsin Maintenance Reform.org,

and on there's a link to a change.org petition that we have. I need people to get signatures on that. If you think everything I've talked about today is wrong, all you got to do is click and sign. I mean, I'll do the rest of the work. We'll figure this out and we'll start to change laws. we can change laws in Wisconsin, we change laws in Illinois. And the goal is to get people to sign the petition so that you can go in front of what the...

So now I can start getting the politicians to listen to me because this is a kid, you know, this kind of issue, politicians won't pick it up, right? Right. You're a small percentage of the population. They don't want to upset women voters. You know, they try to avoid changing these kind of alimony maintenance law, family laws. They just absolutely don't want to take it out. What's the win? am I going to give them $400,000 campaign donation, right?

You know, is there going to be something good in it for them? Usually not. So the only way to do it is people got to get angry and say enough, you know, and you've got to quit taking advantage of people. You've got to quit putting people in this kind of situation, like the situation that I'm in and other people. And that's the idea here. If I can get enough momentum behind it, maybe we start a movement,

maybe I can make a change. Maybe I can, maybe I can say, someone from going to jail. Maybe I can't save someone from, you know, bankruptcy and solvency. And, you know, I've got two missions. You know, one is the maintenance reform and the other one is about the Fennie awareness. And you and I can sit here and talk on another time. I can give you three hours of Fenni awareness and things that we need to do.

But I've got to get past this first fight so I can get to the second fight where I really want to be. but my hands are tied right now in this one and I need I need to get justice for my son and we need to make changes in the laws and maybe at that point I can really focus on the funny awareness because I've got a lot to say I got a lot of ideas and I really want to be able to help people there too but man I'm one man and I work two jobs and I'm doing this and I'm fighting to change things Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me favor, hit the subscribe button at the bell, so you get notified a video just like this. Also, please go into the description box and click on the link.

We're going to put the link to Mike's, to his website, so you can go and sign the petition. It is, well, the link's in there. You can click on it and go there, but it is Wisconsin Maintenance Reform. Maintenance Reform.org. You go on there, click on there, sign the link. I really appreciate it if you guys would help him out and do that. and thank you very much for watching it. Please consider joining our Patreon.

It's $10 a month and it really does help Colby and I make these videos. See you.