Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - FBI Agent Exposes Corrupt Cops, Thailand Scams, & Million Dollar Frauds | Tom Simon

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Tom Simon, a former FBI agent, joins Matt Cox to break down shocking true crime cases involving corrupt authority figures, highlighting shocking abuses of power.⁣ ⁣ Tom's links⁣ https://www.instagram.com/simoninvestigations/?hl=en⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@simoninvestigations⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@simoninvestigations⁣ https://www.simoninvestigations.com⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ 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

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Just like running like running away from the camera. Hello, Matt Cox. Hello, Tom. Happy 2026. I'm calling the shop, man. This is going to be our year. Yeah. This is going to be the year.

we get a call from a production company saying that I love what you guys do. We're going to develop a whole game show around you two guys where Matt competes against three contestants picked from the court TV audience or whatever. And it's going to be a daily show, a weekly show, and they're going to throw a ton of money at us doing our little game show on national television. I want it to be true. This is going to be amazing. I'm going to finally for the first time get paid for doing this.

We did, bought, we have bought you lunch twice. Yeah, twice, it's amazing. Twice from five guys. Exactly. But then you sent me a 1099 for the cost of lunch. That was kind of a rat effing. So speaking in that game show, here's what we're going to do today. And I'd want to reintroduce this because I know people are constantly finding your show.

And your numbers, by the way, amazing. I mean, you're closing it on a million. I think a million by Valentine's Day, you think? Yes. Valentine's. Yeah, yeah. February 1st? Absolutely.

February 1st. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's been like a 30, 40,000 per subscriber leap just over the past, since, you know, over the holidays.

60 a month. Yeah, it's about 60. That's fantastic. Congratulations, you deserve it. And I'm proud to be the wind beneath your wings. So we're going to do a little game show today, as we've done, I think, 14 times so far where, isn't that amazing?

I know, it's like 28 hours of content. And where what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you a crime story. usually from the files of the FBI. Some of the cases are cases that I had some involvement in. Other cases are just other FBI agent cases. And then at the end of the crime story, I'm happy to answer any questions you have, to the extent that I know the answers, I'll answer them.

Then I want you to guess the sentence. How much time was this person sentenced to prison for? And you make your guess, and then you change your answer four or five times, because that's what you do. And then at the end, we reveal what the actual sentence was, and if you are within a 10% variant, Is it 10% now?

20%? 20%. 10%? My God. Wouldn't it be great if it was 10? 20% variant of the actual sentence. You get a point. Colby's going to keep score and you will either win or lose.

I've been losing it 20%. I feel like it should be 25%. But anyway, go ahead. Now you drop it drop it. I'm hoping you would get better at this over time. You would think. All right. You ready to launch into the first story.

And we have some bonus. Oh, and we have a bonus round. Tell me about the bonus round. I've picked two, even though I think it was supposed to be just one. Anyway, I've got a couple of cases of mine where I can tell you what happened and you can guess.

Oh, the shoes on the other foot. Yeah, absolutely. I've done some show prep on your own show, my man. This is a new year for you. Matt Cox is turning a page. Today's a little more of a themed one. We're going to be talking about authority figures

and authority situations. Position of trust. Yeah, kind of. We're going to stick it to the man today. We're going to be talking about prison corrections officers who kind of break bad, do the wrong thing. We're talking about some dirty cops, maybe ex-cops. We're going to talk about some dirty politicians, and we're going to talk about some CEOs who did the wrong thing. Okay.

We're going to be talking about authority structures today, and we'll see if we can find a story in there that Colby can latch on to for his clickbait hook that he does on YouTube. Is there anything about Somalian daycare centers? People keep asking me to cover that. I am not covering it yet because no one's been charged. Right. And so I'm happy to sit here and like shake my fist at the world about how awful the Somalis are if they were truly doing this in Minneapolis involving daycare centers. But I like to cover cases that there's a resolution.

Not even a resolution. I'm happy to cover an indictment. But there's not even that yet. So I'm going to keep my powder dry on that issue. But I think it's really, these were very interesting cases. Let's tell you about a story I had some involvement with. I wasn't the case agent on it, but it was back in Hawaii. One thing I'm very proud of during my career as an FBI agent is that I was,

and it was never a supervisor. I went 26 years without a promotion, okay? This is exactly. Seriously, I went 26 years without a promotion. I had the exact same job the day I walked into the FBI as I did 26 years later, and that was being a special agent, working cases, which I think is the most honorable job at the FBI. Did you ever even think that?

Were you interested in being as a supervisor? No, because once you're a supervisor, you're not working cases. you're managing people. So now you're a manager. Yeah, right. And you're caught behind a desk. I want to be out on the streets, getting off my ass, knocking on doors,

solving crime, and putting criminals in prison. People like you. Nothing personal. And, but one thing I did do and volunteered to do because I had some success as a case agent is we had people who were training agents. And so a new agent right out of the academy has a training agent for his first 18 months in the field.

And it's kind of like that, like the movie Training Day, but without like me forcing them to use cocaine and stuff like that. It's just me, you know, them being able to come to me with questions, me running leads with them, kind of teaching them how to be an FBI agent on the job after they've already been educated from the academy. And I'm very proud that the agents who were my trainees, that I consider them like my kids, they've all gone on to be fantastic agents. Some of them have gone into management.

They've gone on to do great things. There was a fellow about the name of Elliot Potts. He was a new agent right out of the academy. me. And for some reason, and it wasn't clear to me, because I usually got the white-collar crime guys who had accounting backgrounds. They wanted people like me. And I think he was one of those guys. He may have had an accounting degree, but he was not assigned to me as by trainee. But he was near, it's just kind of a Barney Miller, a bunch of cubicle type of situations on the squad there in Hawaii. And he was assigned a female as his training agent. And she was a fine agent,

but she was not a very personable person. She's a real introvert. And, and, and, and, and, you know, and just sort of had a kind of kept to herself. And so one time I had Elliot run some leads down for me, and to interview this guy and that guy, just again, you try to get the new agents out there on the streets, he comes, I ask him to do it nicely as a favor. He does it. He does a fine investigation.

He's a great agent, but the paperwork was all left up. It was just terrible. And so I look at the paperwork, and, you know, he was shredding his handwritten notes, which you're supposed to maintain those and stuff like that. And so I walk over to his cubicle, and I was like, Elliot, good job in the investigation, but the paperwork's a mess. I go, who's your training agent? Right.

And he's like, says the girl's name. We'll say her name was Carol. Right. And Carol, and Carol's sitting over there. And she goes, what's going on? I go, why don't you teach this guy, this kid how to do, be an agent? And I go, he's clearly a new agent writer at the academy. He's got talent, but you're not doing anything to mentor him or just show him the way the FBI paperwork works.

She burst into tears. No, no, no. She got in my face. She starts yelling at me. Like, why don't you mind your own business? You got a problem with me? I go, I don't have a problem with you. I'm telling you to be, I do your job.

You are being, part of your job is to train Elliot and you're not training him. And I go, I'm happy to do it. You know, if he wants to, you want to say you're no longer able to be his training agent. And she said, why don't you mind your own business? And poor Elliot is just sitting there with his eyes wide as saucers. He did not, he was not interested in being a part of this fight. I took Elliot under my wing informally, and he became a fantastic agent, and he's still, as far as I know, a great agent to this day. I haven't talked to him in a couple of years.

What happened to Kelly? She's, I don't know. Whatever her name was. I don't know. She may still be there. I mean, we don't really get along, but we made peace after that and did some cases together and stuff like that. But she's a fine agent. She just should not have been a training agent for anyone.

Right. Right. So I'm just sort of setting this stage. Elliot had a case, and this is his case, but I had some involvement with it on the periphery, and we'll talk about that. So you're aware from your history that is a crime for a prison corrections officer to have sex with an inmate. I've heard that. You've heard that?

I've heard that. Even if it's ostensibly consensual. Yes. What are your thoughts on that? So my wife was at Coleman Camp when it was a, a one. woman's camp because it's now male man's camp after COVID they switched it. But she was there and multiple officers were were tied up with in a lawsuit and the whole thing. But basically the women were, you know, like they were going out of their way to flirt with. Like they're trying to

get these guys into relationships because once they get them a relationship, that guy will bring them in stuff. And like it was absolute was more than just consensual. It was that they're the male. The women are being seductresses. Of course, of course. And these guys are, you know, some of these chicks, like, there's no way these guys are, you know, come on, you're never getting this chick. You know, you shouldn't, you know, you know, you know she's not in love with you. But, I mean, obviously, I think it's wrong because it puts everybody in a bad situation. And it puts the guards in a bad situation and everybody across the war. In fact, in one case, one of the guards was named in the lawsuit and he was so despondent about it that he actually took his service, uh,

piece and went at the beginning of his shift, he drove and parked his car in the parking lot. And I want to say, somebody said he actually took the gun and put it to his chest and pulled the trigger and killed himself. And I actually knew who that, I knew that CO. Oh, my. But yeah, I mean, obviously they can't do it. But I think that, you know, they charge these guys. We're like, a lot of these guys get charged with like, you know, like forcibly. Yeah, yeah, the R word.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the idea is that it's considered to be a sex crime because the power dynamic between the guard and the inmate is just so vast that it's almost like a child. They can't consent.

Right. But here's the thing. Yeah. Is that the way the lawsuit's written up, it's the guards targeting the girls. But because my wife was there, she's like, it's the women targeting the men. But also keep in mind, too, what can they say? Yeah. Because you're going to believe these women because they're in the vault.

vulnerable position, and the guards are these big, huge, hulking guys, and these women are like, I didn't want to do it. He forced me, and he got me in a quarter, and I picked it out. Yeah, but the inmate didn't take an oath of office. Right. No, yeah, you're right. You're right. It's just a horrible situation. You just avoid it.

They should be avoiding it. Right. So we had a, we have a, in Hawaii, the, what do you call it? I guess, an FDC, a federal detention center. It's right there at the airport, actually. It's got the most beautiful view in the world. Like, you're overlooking the ocean. on Oahu, but there's no exercise yard. So you spend all your time, you know, in the cell just

just sort of looking out pawing at the window. They got the little tiny. Yeah, yeah, they do. They do. It drives them insane, especially the ones who are actually from Hawaii. And I think you could only, you serve the, maybe the end of your sentence there and while you're awaiting trial or any sentence less than one year. But it's also, it serves as an immigration detainer jail for people who are going to be committed to crime or, you know, and are going to be sent back to their home country. So there was a woman named, I can't remember what her name was, but she was from Thailand, and she was going to be, she was there on an immigration detainer. I don't know what crime she committed that wound her up there

to begin with, but she's waiting to be deported to Thailand. And there was a guard there named Richard who took a liking to her and began accepting oral favors from her on the, on the rig. And this Thai woman was no fool. At one point, when she accepts his load, she, she takes her shirt kept the sample spits it into the uh the shirt and uh and then like crumples it up and like puts it in her um in her cell and then reports it and then my buddy elliot gets the case and he interviews her very interesting you know do you have any proof she was why yes i do and uh she basically delivers him the soiled jumpsuit which he then has to um get a DNA sample of the guard and then send it to the FBI lab, and it came back with his stuff on it.

Right? Pretty solid case. Yeah, you think. Right. And so he gets charged with whatever the crime is. Yeah, yeah. And pleads guilty. So there's two little stories.

My favorite part of the story is, do you know what the guard's name was? I said it was Richard. His last name was Seaman. His name, and I swear to God, you could Google it, was dead. Dick Seaman. Really? Yeah. Dick Seaman, and this was his crime.

That was his undoing. It was his undoing. So I was the media coordinator, in addition to being a hot shot agent, younger agent at the time. They wanted you to do a press release? Oh, oh, no. I got all the media there on the courthouse steps. I'm talking about Dick Seaman this, Dick Seaman that. And I was very, very friendly with the reporters and the media in Hawaii and the cameraman.

because I was out there in the courthouse steps a couple times a week because there's not a whole lot of crime in Hawaii, right? So every time something happened and I would kind of pitch them the case, they were like, let's do it, because there's just not a whole lot that goes on there. And so, and I was decent on television. They liked me. To this day, there's still my friends. And right now I have a contract with Hawaii News Now as a crime analyst where I still do TV work for them. But, and so I get them outside and give my talking points, and they're waiting for Dick Seaman to leave his initial appearance.

And he does the dumbest thing. I've only seen this once. He comes down the courthouse steps. The cameraman flock to him and start asking him questions. And then he starts sprinting down the street. Just like running away from the camera. The cameramen are thrilled because they'll get the most boring job in the world. They start running after him.

And he runs up the street. He runs to the outdoor shopping center. They're chasing him around the shopping center. He's trying to hide behind it. It's all on YouTube. I put it up there because it's just I've never seen anybody run from the cameras like that as opposed to just saying no comment and walking

away. He chose to sprint away. Good little Dick Seaman. So given all that, how much time are you going to give Dick Seaman? He probably got probation. Really? I'm asking. Yeah. I think

let's say let's say he got let's say 12 months. So he loses his job, right? Yeah, of course. Right off the bat. And so you're saying he gets one year in prison for the, legally, the R word against this poor vulnerable woman. Well, you know what happened to like the eight guards that were tied up in the Coleman thing? What happened?

Nothing. They all lost their job. Administrative sanctions, basically. No, no, they lost their job. Yeah, they lost their job. They were charged. Never charged. Interesting.

Right. Well, they didn't have young Special Agent Elliott on the case. So, I'm. Do you think it was because it was a he said, she said type of thing? On theirs? Yeah. Oh, no, they had all kinds of proof. Like, it absolutely happened.

There was, I mean, and I think that most of these guys, I think almost all of just kind of admitted that it had happened. Was it, was the investigation done by the, like, Inspector General overseeing it, or was it done by the FBI? I don't know if it was the FBI. And the FBI just walked away with a no-pros on that? Not, I'm saying that no one was prosecuted? I guess we should look it up.

No, I mean, I'm surprised to hear that. Coleman lawsuits, like sexual, whatever. Sexual. Rape, you know, lawsuits, correctional officers. I'd say it was 2000 and, it would be like, I'm sorry, it would be 20. 2021, May 2020, 21, 15 women. Let's see. Who investigated?

Who investigated? Like, you're talking about like FBI? I mean, it's either the FBI or the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General. A lawsuit was settled in May 2021, where 15. woman allegedly had years of sexual assault? Let me see. That's a civil suit though. Yeah. Federal government paid? I don't think they were ever charged. I think they all lost their job. That's the whole thing is that because Jeff like followed the whole thing. Well, I can tell you for sure because I was there. Dick Seaman was charged. Dick Seaman pled guilty.

Dick Seaman went to a sentencing. My question for you is what happened at that sentencing, Matt Cox. 14 months. Really? Because you were at probation. Then you were 12 months. Now you're at 14 months. I know, but you know, you get me rattled. So 14 months. All right. Do you want to, the correct answer? 20 months. Fucking months.

All right, let's do another story with a very similar fact scenario. But I want to ask you a question first. I know you've only served time in the federal prison, but I know you spent a lot of time with other people and as part of your show who've done time in other prison systems. Do you think it's fair to say that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is the best funded and most professional system of prisons in the, U.S. Yes, in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think anybody would deny that, yeah.

That would be better than like, you know, Vermont state prisons and... Well, I think other prisons, they don't have the budget. Like, they give... Other, other state, state-run prisons might give the inmates more, you know, whatever, more, more programs and like, because there's a lot of states where, like, you can have a, you can have a TV in your cell. You can have, like, they give them all things that I'm like, oh, you got a TV? Like, you know, insane things. There are lots of programs and things of that nature. But for the most part, like the federal prisons, like they're all their conditioning.

They're all very, they're all fairly nice. They're all well funded. You know anything about the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, California? I mean, only that I know that I know people that have gone there. Okay. We have a 36-year-old corrections officer named Andrew Jones, who worked at the Dublin, California, FCI. Okay.

As part of his job, he would supervise the female prisoners who would work in the food services department, right? They're making the meals and stuff like that, and he was going to be their guard, their supervisor or whatever. And he began accepting oral favors from three of those inmates. I'm starting to think that some of these guards are unsavory. Shocking. Or these women are just insanely good looking.

In the kitchen, the bathroom, warehouse, and the utensil. storage, closet. More soup, please. It's important to note, as we said, it's illegal, even if it's consensual, ostensibly, for all the reasons we discussed earlier. But Andrew was a little rougher. He demanded that these women have a code of silence and don't tell anybody. And he enforced that through violence and threats of violence against the girls. I want you to keep that in mind when you're guessing the sentencing. Okay. Right. Eventually, of course, it's going to spill out. He can't keep a secret like that. So the FBI and the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General investigate. Andrew's interviewed and Andrew lies and lies and lies in his interview

with the FBI. But even without a confession, the evidence is strong enough to make the case. He is charged with multiple counts of abusive contact with prisoners. That was the crime. He pled guilty and he was sentenced in federal prison. I'd like to know from you, based on on that slight different fact scenario with three named victims, threats of violence, lying to the FBI, how much time are you going to give Andrew? I think lying in general is like in a couple years, like three years? I didn't see that he was charged with a specific count of lying to a federal agent. That was not in the court documents I reviewed.

But it was definitely brought up at the sentencing and brought up to the judge. So the judge was aware of it. I'm going to say 120 months. 120 months. I mean, yeah. That's 10 years in prison. Yeah. Thanks for the math.

Yeah. I'm a CPA. I'm a CPA by trade. But don't you think that's a vastly different, you know, situation as opposed to the other, you know, the other woman who... You're ready to give the other woman probation. The other CEO probation. Yeah, because I felt like it was more consensual.

With this one, it doesn't sound nearly as because you've got three women saying that no, it's threats of violence. lens, you know. No, it's Thirst sublime is to keep your mouth shut. You've got 100% control over this person. You're making my argument for me. I'm the law and order guy in this conversation. Yeah, I think that seems reasonable. Okay. It seems reasonable. And look, he's going to get, he's going to do, actually he's going to do about eight years, eight, eight and a half. I don't think he'll get, I don't think he'll get any FSA credits because it's a no, he, you know what? He would get FSA credits. He probably still get FSA credits. Right. How much time he actually does is a whole different

Yeah, that's irrelevant. I'm just saying for you give him 10 years, he might be out in six and a half. Okay. It'd be fine. So you're going 10 years on this guy? Yeah. Okay. The correct answer, Matt Cox.

Eight years of prison. Come on, man. I got that. No, you do not. What are you talking about? 20% of eight is... 20% of 10. It's not 20% of 10.

It's 20% of the sentence. Not 20% of his cockamamie guess. Come on. I don't make the rules, buddy. It's your game show. I think that we need in the comments, people... I think that that's, come on. Ridiculous.

I don't know what to tell you. The art of writing letters has pretty much disappeared from this world. People just don't write handwritten letters. But I imagine that's still a thing in prison. Was that a big deal getting mail and sending mail and people would write long handwritten letters to each other? Was that a big thing in prison? It's huge. It's huge.

You get to your name called, that mail call. That's a big, you know, might seem like nothing now, but you're so deprived of, you know, any kind of stimulus. And you know people are writing you a letter and they're, yeah, it's good, good. Even though you have an email system. That's really what I wanted to ask you. Has it been replaced by the emails? Could your wife email you while you were in prison? Yeah, she can email you, but it's still nice for someone since you a postcard or you get something like that.

Okay, got it. And prisoners often wrote letters out, right? That was a thing? Yeah. Were those letters read by the prison or they say they were? It depends. It depends on what the left. Like, if you're an ADX, everything you have is read it.

Or like the pen, almost everything's read. Here in the medium or the low, they randomly select them, supposed. Just like they randomly select the emails to read. But they have a system that picks up on words, obviously, in the email system. Yeah, interesting. So there was a Georgia inmate, it had to be a federal prison, named Travis Ball. And he was serving two years in prison. I'm thinking it was for credit card fraud.

I'll explain why in a minute. And he cooks up a scheme, a brilliant scheme. to get out of prison. What he does is he writes a letter to his sentencing judge, pretending to be the U.S. Secret Service agent who investigated his case. The letter explained to the judge that there was a mistake during the investigation, and Travis should be let out of prison. Good plan? I'm sure in his mind. I don't think this guy's a rocket scientist. actually, I'll explain you later why Travis is in prison. It was actually not credit card fraud.

But that was his plan. So he writes this letter to the judge. The judge gets the letter and he smells a rat right away, right? Probably because the envelope was stamped inmate mail by the prison. Right. So the judge calls in the FBI to investigate. And the FBI matches this up this letter to another letter received by the local sheriff purporting to be from the FBI asking that that Travis be released so he could work on a top secret undercover assignment for the feds. Right? So the FBI is now aware of two letters that are basically asking Travis to be released from prison. Taken together, those two letters are what the investigators called a clue.

Okay. So as the agents are preparing to interview Travis, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, the people who do public housing, they get a letter threatening to burn down the building and kill the government employees inside. Same handwriting, same fingerprints, same DNA on the paper. Okay. It's Travis.

We're shocked to learn. Now is a good time, I think, for me to explain that the reason Travis was actually serving two years because he was sending threatening letters to the government containing fake anthrax. That's how he got himself in trouble with secret service. He's got a real problem with the mail system in general. He doesn't seem to understand how this is supposed to work.

Right. You're not supposed to be doing this. I had a pen pal when I was a kid. It was nothing like this. So given that, I keep mind, Travis is in prison. How much extra time, little curveball for you? Travis pleads guilty. Yeah.

How much extra time did they tack on to the end of his two-year sentence for this, these letters, threatening HUD and trying to scam the judge and scam the local sheriff? how many extra months or years in prison? Or zero. It could be zero. I know you would like that. 33 months? 33 months?

Yeah. Talk to me about your thought process there. I hate it when you do this. I think the audience likes it, though. I have a moment where I feel really secure with my answer. Hey, this show is inside true crime with Matthew Cox. They tune in, not for me. They tune in for you, my man.

They want to know what's going on inside that brilliant scheming little mind of yours. Exactly. That was, yeah. I don't know. I'm thinking, because I'm thinking it's kind of like, I don't want to see. I'm not sure what the charge would be. It's not like, I don't think it's like. I guess my mail fraud.

Yeah. Okay. And maybe the threat for HUD. And mail fraud, like you can get like 20 years for mail fraud. 20 year maximum sentence, right? But. So he also has a criminal fraud. criminal history category.

Yeah. But he only got two years for sending fake anthrax out. But you're in prison. And you've got an extra criminal history. And I'm pretty sure. I don't know what the time frame is, but one, you're in, he's now got an extra criminal history because he's, is in prison. But two, I'm pretty sure that if that they give you an enhancement of another criminal

history point if you're, if you commit another crime while on probation. Yeah, I know that's true. Okay. So I feel like that's two. So even if I was going to say, he's going to get about a year, he's not getting a year anymore. You're going to have to really jack it up.

So I think 33 months seems. 33 months? Yeah. Little shy of three years, a little more than two years. Yeah, because it's just the stupidity of it. It's almost like you want to say,

like this guy doesn't have a chance of getting out. It's really not about the possibility of him pulling this off. It's that he doesn't know that. Right. You know, his intent is he thinks he's going to be able to, escaped prison. Well, this is a new Matt Cox for 2026, because it sounds like you're really sticking to your

guns that 33 months is the way to go for this guy. Well, I also know guys that have escaped prison. Really? Yeah. And didn't get recharged. They actually just lost time, or they hit him for, like, gain time. Like, you know, they lost, like, 35 months. I know a guy that actually walked away from a camp and was caught, like, three years later,

he's caught. and they bring him back. Of course, he goes to the medium now, and he got, I want to say he got like 34, 36 days taken away for good time. Like, that's it. Now, he can mind, he said a couple months later, he got caught stealing bread. You know, you just take a couple pieces of bread, put down your pants. He got patted down, and they found the bread at the chow hall. He got 54 days taken away for the bread. It's like lay miss. Right, but my escape, like my escape, I got 34 days. So, yeah. Yeah, so sometimes they don't even charge them.

Right. But let's say 33 because he's such an idiot. I tried to talk you out of it. So 33 months, he got an additional five years. I feel like I did my part. It's not, I'm like over 40% off. Fuck. Five years.

Five years. He's an idiot. Yeah, he's an idiot who ought not to be out on the streets. He's an idiot who ought not to be impregnating people. He's an idiot who ought not to be writing letters. They need to take his stamps away. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

But he sounds like he's harmless. Yeah. Talk to me about health care in prison. What am I? I'm three. You're 0 for three. But I will say if you hit it on the head, you get double the points. Oh, is this the rule for 2026?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, fair enough. I'll try not to feed you the answer like I did last episode. Talk to me about health care in prison. Like it was a good, bad. I mean, the price was right, but you get what you paid for. Really? Yeah.

It's not good? No. No, that's fine. And you can tell you, I actually have the story. I mean, I've seen three or four people just die that have gone to medical over and over again for problems. Talking about what is at medical, and I'm going somewhere with this. Is it doctors? Is it nurses?

Is it paramedics? Is it just like an inmate who with a can opener? What is it? No, it's like a, what are the RNs that can prescribe medication? Nurse practitioner. Yes. Yeah. So it's one of those.

And everybody, and they'll call them doctor. So they'll have one local doctor for like the whole common. complex that supposedly is monitoring everything. But usually it's just some doctor at a hospital who's letting them use their license. And the nurse practitioners are the ones that you see. And when you walk in and you tell them what's wrong, they type it on a computer. So you're saying you have a rash. You're like, yeah.

And then is it itchy? And they type it all up and then they come back and they go, okay, here's what's wrong. And you know, you're like, you have it, that's not much wrong. I've been here before. Poisoned too much. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's what happens is that they just don't really have anything. They give you some medication or they give you whatever medication they're allowed to give you.

Like, oh, you should get this medication, but this is what we're told to give you. And it's like, fuck. It's interesting to me that someone would go to the trouble of being a nurse practitioner, which kind of means you can write your own ticket and chooses to work in a prison or a corrections environment. Well, you're not going to believe this, but nobody gets to the top of their field and ends up working for a prison. A lot has gone wrong in these people's lives. Okay. And you can tell. Like even the medical professionals that you were doing?

Yeah. I mean, listen, it's a, it's a lot of broken English, you know? It's a lot of broken English. Interesting. Oh, so what is the problem? You know, like, oh, boy. I just thought maybe some people just like the idea of a government job with a pension and things like that. Listen, every once in while, they'll bring in like the military.

So they'll bring in like military guys and it's like, like these are these are like trainees you think? I think what happens is sometimes they get so like people have quit. And so it's like an emergency And we have to bring in people like doctors From the military to come swoop in and help And they'll do that And so three months later they'll have a new guy And he'll be there for 18 months

Then he leaves and then you know what the This is the funniest thing Do you know what was decent As far as medical is concerned? Dental Now it's slow Like you're not getting a cleaning every year But I had them rebuild a tooth

Like I had literally broke a tooth out and they went in. He was like, I can pull it. He's like, the truth is. He's like, I think I can rebuild this, too. Now, help me out, is that dentist and a federal employee of the U.S. Bureau of prisons or is he on contract or is he like, is it a side hustle where he's billing out by the day? Or how does it work?

I don't know. I mean, they don't, they don't, but I do know that they're pretty much all the time. Yeah. And they're giving cleanings and they're giving their, sometimes they're just pulling the tooth. Like, you've got a really bad cavity. And it's like, okay, I can pull the tooth or I can. And a lot of these inmates are idiots. Like, they're, like, just pull it, bro.

Just pull it, like. A big gap in your mouth. Yeah, like, what are you talking about? These are your fucking teeth. But I never get a YouTube show like that. Yeah. So, but yeah, yeah, they, it's funny because I would put it in and I, you know, probably only had my teeth cleaned three or four times in the 13 years.

But I have had, like, they will fix stuff. Like, like, all they got, you know, it's like if you only have a hammer. Every problem looks like a nail. Every problem looks like it. Let's pull that fucker. you know. Interesting. So about 45 minutes from Detroit, 45 miles from Detroit, there's a federal prison in Milan, Michigan. Okay. At low security facility, housing about 1,600 male inmates. Fun fact, John Dillinger served time there in the 1930s. Oh, yeah. Nice. The prison employed a dedicated

nurse practitioner. We're going to call her Allison, and she provided on-site medical care to the inmates. Our subject, though, is 24-year-old Taiwan Gray. When Taiwan was 18, he went to state prison for criminal sexual conduct. And when he was out on parole, Detroit police caught him carrying a stolen gun. And then he went to federal prison then for being a felon with a firearm. So that's how he wound up there. He was sentenced to three years in this Milan prison.

So just giving you some background. It's what brought him there. Okay. So one day nurse Allison is performing a medical checkup on Taiwan, and something happened, and the inmate snapped. He grabs Allison's throat, smashing her head against the wall. Bam, bam, bam. And then he grabs her wrists, preventing her from radioing for help. Okay.

There was no corrections officer there at the time, probably in violation of all sorts of policies. Allison falls to the floor. Taiwan knees her in the abdomen and starts choking her. strangling her out. Blackness is coming for poor Allison, and then another inmate, who I'll say as a hero, you may not say he's a hero, but I'll say he's a hero, sees what's happening, and springs to Allison's rescue dragging Taiwan off the nurse until corrections officers could get there and intervene. Saved her life, I say. That's what I say. You may not say that. I say that. Nurse Allison's

taken to the hospital, and she's treated for her injuries, and let's hope she's doing okay. Bless her heart. But this attack. took place on a federal reservation, which means that the FBI is called in to investigate this attack. And the investigation culminated in Taiwan being charged and pleading guilty to this assault on a federal reservation. How much extra time is Taiwan going to get at the end of his sentence for attacking nurse Allison? I don't think we've ever done an attack. No, this is a family show. Manson family.

Um, God, you know, it's so funny because, like, violent crime doesn't get that much time in the federal system, but it's against an... It's inmate on inmate. Yeah, if it's inmate on inmate, but if it's inmate on civilian, which is pretty much what she is. I'm gonna...

And this guy's off the... I'm gonna say, like, I'm gonna say another 10 years. Say 10 years. 10 years? Yeah, he tried to choke her to death. He tried to choke her to death and he's criminal history. And once again, you're incarcerated. He's already been.

Let me say it differently. Only 10 years? Only 10? I mean, this is a functionally attempted murder. I mean, I think that 10, I said, yeah, 10 years. 14, 14 years. 14 years. I don't mean to push you up.

I could push you down, too. I'm just, I got the joystick here. And guys in the comments are like, bro, he's playing you like a fiddle, bro. All right. I mean, again, Taiwan has a history also. I mean, I know. I'm assuming at least two to three. A firearm, criminal sexual conduct prior to that.

I mean, he's only 24 years old. This takes place on a federal reservation. And Allison's a pretty sympathetic victim, right? This is not some inmate. But is it federal prison? Yeah. It's a federal prison on a federal reservation. I mean, on an Indian reservation?

No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Federal reservation is the term for any land that the federal government owns. Not Indian reservation. That's a different term. The federal reservation. If I murder you at the Pentagon, that's a federal reservation. If I murder you at City Hall, it's not.

Right. Okay. Yeah. 14 years. 14 years. You're going with 14 now. 14 years. Okay.

You feel comfortable with that. She didn't die. Oh, you're so heartless. I want to know what happened to the guy that yank them off. I do, too. And I tried to, and he did research on that. Is there any mechanism to give him some favor? Yeah, of course.

If you, I mean, of course, there's a Rule 35. They could cut his time and a half or let him out, say, maybe he was four years from the door. Probably his name was never publicly disclosed. There wasn't any in, it obviously wasn't. It wasn't in the case file involving Taiwan's case. Okay. All right. Tell me, let's move on.

Where are we with Taiwan? We're at 44 months. 144 months. 144 months. That's 14 years. That's 12. What am I saying? Anyway, 14 years.

14 years. Okay. Correct answer, you're going to love this. 10 years. Do you see what he did there? Do you see what he did there? I still got it, though. Wait, 14 to 10.

Oh, listen. I'm going to the bathroom. We can both use a break. That is such bullshit. All right, we back? We are back, and we are 0 for 4. We are almost 2 for 4. That's a bullshit.

We are over four. It's cool. It's amazing if I pitched a no-hitter. I should win if I get 20. This is, okay. I mean, what I have to get over, you're saying I have to get over 50% like I don't know what the rules are.

Yeah, first day on the show. Have you met Carol from HR? Yeah. You've talked a lot about your prison experience, and I've learned a lot from you on that. I have not heard you, because I don't watch your show, talk much about your experience at the halfway house.

Right. What's a halfway house like? I know you used it as a dating pool in a way to meet girls and maybe audition a bride or two. But what's it like in the halfway house? Is it restrictive? Is it just like living at home with your mom?

Give me a short version. What's it like in a halfway house? Is it a house? No, no, not usually. Usually it's like it'll be attached to let's say a goodwill. You know, Goodwill will have an operation, right?

They're selling whatever stuff. And then they'll attach it to like a huge area in the back. And let's say you've got, and they're all different, right? Like a homeless shelter? Yeah, like a homeless shelter. It's all different. Sometimes they'll have separate rooms. They'll have like 10 guys per room.

Sometimes it's a big room and you'll have, you know, 80 guys in a big room, just bunk bed after bunk bed after a little bit of space. But what they do is they count you. just like prison, you're still in, technically you're still in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Custody. Yeah. And so what happens is they help you supposedly, help you get a job. And then you check out in the morning, you go to your job, you come back after the job.

They take, they used to take. I've been told that they don't do this anymore. When I was there, they took 25% of your growth. And so, and then you have to save 10% or 20% whatever's left over. they make you go open up a savings account and you have to save money. And I've saved way more than that. But yeah, that was it. And, you know, they feed you.

Like when you leave, they give you like a bag of lunch. Like mom. Exactly. And everybody would complain like, oh, the bad look. I'm just going to buy a lunch. I'm like, you're going to buy a lunch. Like, buying a lunch, like it's $15 a day for five, six days a week. You know, I'd do the math.

It's like, look, I'll eat the fucking bologna sandwich. I'm trying to save money. Right. So, yeah, but it's very restrictive. right like if you don't have a job you have to clean all the time um they're counting you all the time they make you miserable while you're there because they want you to get a job and a lot of these guys are just jerk offs they don't want to get a job they just want to just want to go to home confinement and you know these there's just you're not going to believe this is inmates federal or state are just not typically the sharpest uh knives in the drawer and but yeah it's it's uh

and i think most of them from my understanding almost i don't think i've talked to anybody that hasn't said that they're they're not all they're all they're all co-ed, you know, they're all, all of them. So there's always men and women. Obviously not living in the same giant bunk bed farm. No, no, you have men room. You have a men's room. But yeah, that's it. But it does suck.

And keep in mind, like, you can't drink, you can't, all the things. Does it suck because you've tasted freedom now? Or is it just such a joy to be there after actual prison? Or is it about the same? You know what I'm getting? I think it's worse because. It's like pulling out a thorn. Like, oh my God, this halfway house is the best.

I can't believe where I was a month ago in this federal detention center. No, because I think the... No, I do not. It still feels like confinement. Oh, it's absolute confinement. It's worse. And I've said I would have, and almost everybody that's been in one, and they're all different, like I said, most people would tell you if they could do the rest, all their time in prison,

and then just go straight home, they would. I, of course, had no money. So I'm grateful for getting seven months and being able to save money. I was, like, terrified of, I know guys that they let out. They have no money, nowhere to go. Okay, report within 48 hours to your probation officer. Like, where am I going? They leave you at the bus station.

Like, what's happening? So that's why I was thrilled because I could save money, and I did. I saved a good chunk of money. But a lot of guys down, you know, like that I was absolutely. It's still confinement. It's still confinement. It sucks. Interesting.

Let's talk about a guy, Latavis Macroy, 28-year-old fellow. he served 85% of his sentence for bank robbery and then he's released to live in a halfway house in Orlando, Florida. Okay. Okay. And he generally... What was his name? Latavis Macroy, M-A-C-R-O-1.

This is an African-American gentleman? Yes. How'd you know? With Mac, I thought you might think Irish. Sure and begoran, I'm Latavis McRoy. Always have to be lucky charms. Oh, my God. We're going to get some flog.

Hey. I don't know how you figured it out. Because he generally behaved himself, he earned the right to a weekend home pass to spend time with his family. Nice. Yeah, pretty good. And so during his first weekend home pass, he robbed a bank. I was going to say he robbed the bank. Using a demand note.

Okay. Okay. Next weekend gets another home pass. And he robs one bank on first. Friday and two on Saturday. So he's got four bank robberies under his belt during his halfway house, two weekends in a row. Stepping it up?

Problem is Latavis, he left his demand notes behind. And the problem with that is that the FBI, having been there myself, is pretty good at lifting fingerprints off a paper. You just spray it with stuff, and this purple thing, and it comes, and the fingerprints come right out. further investigation found that Latavis was wearing clothing in his current halfway house wardrobe and during the robberies. And cell phone geolocation placed him at the site of all four robberies.

And his ankle monitor and the pass he requested said I'll be going by the bank. As you can imagine, this criminal mastermind was arrested and charged. him. They're putting the cuffs on him. Had you figured it out? Well, he took it to trial. And he lost. No.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The evidence was pretty good against Latavis, our irishman. Given that fact scenario, and the fact that he was at the halfway house when he did this, how much time are you going to get was he sentenced after his trial? There were notes. Demand notes. You're still in custody.

Volume. There's also a volume factor here. Right. I don't know the content of the demand notes, but let's say they threatened violence if you didn't hand the money over. It wasn't pretty pleased giving the money. Right. Most guys I know that use them note get, you know, if they're free, they've never been in trouble before. They get three or four years.

But this guy is off the chart. So let's say, I'm going to say 120 months. I want to say 180, though. I want to say 15 years. You're a hanging judge today. I don't believe the thing you say. I don't say 120. 120.

All right, so that's 10 years in prison. Yeah. Right. Probably, I think he gets another crack at a halfway house when he gets out? Does he get the 85% deal? Does he? I was an honest question. I was going to say, I don't know.

If I was his counsel, I'd be like, I don't know. I don't know, Latavius. Yeah, lucky the Irish. Yeah, no. He did not go into another halfway house. He does not get another house. He has to serve every day of what you think is going to be 10 years, he said, or do you go 15? I'm going to go 10.

Okay. And the final answer? Yeah. All right. The judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Wow. Yeah. It was a note.

Four notes. Wow. And he went to trial. Yeah, I was going to trial. You know, you get penalized for going to trial. But still, because if he had pled guilty, he probably would have got, I don't know, they might have been offered him five or ten years if he just pled guilty. Yeah.

I don't know why you went to trial. No, he's an idiot. Yeah. He should have known better. Poor Latavis. Still there today. There's a lot of Irish guys to keep him company. All right.

corned beef. Every new time with the ex-cop? Yes, several. Yeah. What were they in? Really? Yeah. Interesting.

What were they in for? Generally. Either corruption or like taking bribes. Or I was locked up with, I want to say, Justin, I forget his name. He's the cop. And he's out now. He's the cop that was in New York that beat up a slug. suspect and then took the, was it the broom handle?

Oh, I remember that case. Yeah. Right at the hoo-ha. He got 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the question. Do the police officers have a tough time in prison?

Like, are the other prisoners out to get them and stuff like that? Like, I was thought about that as a former law enforcement officer. If something went sideways in my life and I wound up in prison, would I be a target? No, because, you know, like, it's the, Or do they have any special protection or something? Yeah, I was going to say, it's hard to say this without, because there's always, you know, you always say the majority, right? What the majority?

And then there's some idiot who comes in and says, no, well, I know this one guy. So that's one guy, jackass. You know what I'm saying? Like, overall, the prison is trying to not have people killed. You know, there may be, you know, instances where things have, you know, didn't work out that way because of prison guards. But the system in general is not going to take a correctional officer and place him in to the pin in general population,

they're going to say, no, no, no, no. And plus if it's not violent, they're going to give him the benefit. They're going to be like, look, let's send this guy to a low, someplace that he could be protected. I mean, not that there's not danger there, but I don't really see that you get, like at Coleman, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Even if other inmates didn't like you, as long as you're not an asshole, you're probably going to be fine. Greg Jr. was there. He was a guy who in Atlanta, they served kind of like a fake no-knock warrant, and they kicked in the door of a retired schoolteacher in a shitty neighborhood. And so they kicked in the door. She wakes up in the dead night and basically thinks she's being broken into.

And she pulls a gun out. When they come through the door, she fires and she shoots Jr. right through the vest, right? kids the upper and they shoot and kill her and it was um and it was because they were they thought they were going into a drug house yeah yeah sure yeah because they grabbed a in they grabbed a guy and they took drugs off him and they said tell us where you got the drugs and we'll let you go so he said okay and he gave him the address you just misdirected them or he just gave him a fake fucking address and they went to a judge and told the judge that they had a

They told the judge, we have a, like a certified informant. An informant's always given them good information. And so the judge signed off on a no-knock warrant. They go to the house. They kick in the door. This old grandmother, schoolteacher. Think she has a home invasion happening. Think she's having a home evasion.

Turned around. As soon as they come through the door, she fires at him, hits Jr. And boom, junior executes her. Wow. How much time did Junior get? What's his crime? He murdered. First of all, it's a crime.

The whole unit is... Let's establish that the whole thing is a nightmare. But I'm trying to think of what... He was given bad information. Right. They grabbed... They grabbed a drug. So they pull over a car.

They search the car. They find drugs. They steal the drugs to resell. It's a complete... I missed that part. Right, right. So this guy that gave him the information, that guy...

They don't even know that guy. Right. The cop was also... He was robbing these... They were robbing dope dealers. And the whole thing was going to be a rip-off. He was not looking to make a... case. Right. And then they tell that guy, that guy gets 15 years. That, that the, the

junior, uh, junior got, uh, junior got, I want to say, and I probably what does, what, how you, how you suppose name? It's junior. Okay, junior last name. Yeah. No, they know, his first name is Greg. His last name is Jr. And you said Atlanta, Georgia. I'm going to say in the state he got like, for the murder, he got like five or six years. Mm-hmm. But, they ran it. The civil rights violation. Civil rights violation got him four or five years and he went to, or maybe seven

years or something like that. And so he's got to serve his state time in federal prison, which he's not stupid. It's a good deal. Yeah, when it all started falling apart, he was the first one to go to the fucking FBI. First one out of the gate, like, hey, boom, I'll make a deal. I'll give you all these guys.

He gives up his whole unit. He had a lawyer giving him very good advice. He kept all of his money that he'd been stealing for 10 years. I hate to hear that. And the whole time he was locked up with me, complained about how he got too much time. And I mean, I literally remember sitting there with him at the front desk when you walk in the unit because he was our head or early at the time.

And I went, he was complaining because he got, let's say he got seven or eight years. It was going to, I want to say he was only doing five total like four or five. And he said, and he was like, he said, yeah, well, I, I, I, I should. should be getting out now. He said if the fucking judge had gone with what the recommendation was, but the fucking gave me the top in top into the guidelines. And I was like, bro, I mean, I said, what do you expect? And he went, he said, I mean, let's be honest, bro.

Like, you killed a woman. She shot me. I go, you broke in our house. And he was like, you don't understand. I'm pretty sure I do. It's amazing how people can rationalize their behavior. A retired school teacher. Fucking, yeah.

92-year-old lady in Atlanta. 92. I was about to say she was probably 75 or something. She got off a shot. Yeah. She's a gangster. He was sentenced to six years in federal prison. Six years in federal prison.

On top of his state. His state, so whatever the state was, the state was over long before or before his federal was up. So he was smart. He knew he wanted to send his, do his time. Listen, not a lot of people talk to Greg. I can imagine. Not a lot of inmates talk to Greg. A dirty cop who's setting up drug dealers, stealing everything they have, and then breaking in other drug dealers' houses.

I'm just surprised he didn't have to live with his head on a swivel. Yeah, this is straight training day. Yeah. Straight training day. That's amazing. Well, let's talk about Jason Rodriguez. He was a NYPD officer who allegedly, the story he told people, quit the force because he was making so much money trading foreign currencies. Forex.

I don't know anybody makes money on Forex. Well, he wanted to share his strategy with other people, right? And he's an ex-cop. And so everyone's like, well, he's got to be legit. So he forms a company called Technical Trading Team, TTT, and begins taking money from other people, telling them that he was totally safe because he had put guardrails in on his trades to prevent any kind of trading loss. And there would be only upside to the business. He was telling them that he can make 18% to 24% per year trading Forex. Who are you going to trust?

You're going to trust an ex-cop, right? Well, you know and I know, Matt. There's no such thing, right? You're already in major trouble. He takes in $4.8 million from investors and begins spending the money on himself. I was going to say, what do you buy? Luxury car, rental, leased them, expensive vacations, and just other personal expenses. Now, in his defense, he did try trading foreign currencies with some of his client's money.

And like most people who dip their toe into the Forex waters, he got his ass handed to him and lost a bunch of money. In which case, he figured out, well, this trading thing is clearly not going to be a good idea for me. I need to preserve the capital. But I also need to keep my investors happy. So he starts paying the investors out using their own money and the money from new investors in what we call a Ponzi scheme. Right on. You've learned a thing or two. So the net loss to the investors when he ran out of money was $2.3 million. Okay.

Okay, got that? So eventually this House of Cards collapses. It always does. He stops paying people. They call the FBI. FBI investigation reveals that not only was his investment program, a big, fat scam, but the reason that he left the NYPD after seven years of service was because he was not because he was a wildly successful traitor.

You might be surprised to hear, Matt Cox. But it was because he got caught committing some misdemeanor crimes, and there was a big internal investigation on him for these disciplinary infractions and stuff. And so he resigns from the force in disgrace and then begins launching this Forex Ponzi scheme. He gets indicted on fraud charges, pleads guilty. How much time you're going to give Jason the ex-cop?

Let's assume that there's no real criminal history other than those misdemeanors that were causing him problems. Again, the money he took from investors was $4.8 million. The net loss to those investors was $2.3 million. Because he'd been paying him back with their own money. So the net loss, I'm going to say 60 months. Did you, do you know, maybe 48? 48 months? What do you think? 48 months? What are we asking? This is one player per hand at the poker table. What do they call a Ponzi scheme before the Ponzi? That's a good question. I don't know.

Peter Paul? Yeah, Peter Paul scam. Yeah, Peter Paul. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so. Okay, so let's go through the factors again.

So we have a loss of $2.3 million. I don't know how many investors there were, but let's say it's a lot. Let's say it's in the, you know, 20, 30, 40 range. I shouldn't believe him. Well, no, I mean, it's not one rich guy. But we also have. have the factor in aggravation that this guy's a former law enforcement officer. So you think a position of trust? I think that's kind of the ultimate position of trust. And he's clearly trading on that,

right? Like, listen, I'm a former NYPD cop. I left the force because I, you know, was making so much money trading for X and I want to share that with you. Look at my new least car. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'm living like a baller. And you can too. I'm going to guarantee you 18% to 24%. I think you're trying to hit. And I put, I'm just recapping for the audience. It's not for you, Matt Cox. It's for the audience. I'm here in service to them. I'm with them. And so I guess I'm asking you how much time he was sentenced,

given all of those aggravating and mitigating factors because he played guilty. 60 months. 60? 60. That's five years. 60. Yeah. Okay.

Are you sticking to that? Yeah, I am. Boy, if it's 48 months. I'm quitting. You seem real irritated. I'm leaving if it's 48 months. Okay. Well, it's not 48 months.

Oh, my God. The correct answer is 36 months. Oh, okay. Three years and preemptive. I still would have missed it at 48. You did. This is such a, I was, the first couple I did pretty well. Yeah, well, we, we, we, we did, that was 10 episodes ago.

We did, we did, we kept score and like the last three or four or five episodes it was. That's, I've been decimated. Yeah. Okay, Colby, I like you to put your interns on, I want an individual story score, not an episode by episode score. Like we've done, what, a dozen times, what, a dozen times? 10 of these or whatever, eight of these, you know, like, we're at like 120 stories. I want to know what Matt's score is on that thing. Put your interns on it.

Yeah, yeah. So like, get the intern. The ones massaging my feet under the table. Yeah, have you put all these into a playlist? A playlist? Why don't, why would you, what are you doing? People love these. Some people would binge watch the entire thing.

Or some people wouldn't say, yeah, create a playlist the same thing as its own channel, like the Tom and Matt. Matt and Tomlin. Yeah. Go for it. That's the whole thing. People in the comments have been asking for that. Right.

I don't know. I don't know about that. But I mean, I know that people have been saying like they'll watch an episode and they'll be like, whoa, this is the third episode. I love these. It's like you've watched three episodes. There's 12. Like they don't really know that there's 12. Well, they'd have to scroll down.

YouTube's just bad, right? Because you've got to scroll. Right. You've got to go back in time and scroll it or, yeah, it's not user-friendly. If they're watching now and they go to the home page, there will be a Tom Simon Playlists. Yeah. No.

Because think about it. You've got these guys that like it. Well, they like one episode. They just binge watch all of them. Yeah. For sure. I mean, at this point, it's, you know, it'd be 36 hours of content. Damn here.

More money for you. Ever serve any time with any crooked politicians? Yes. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. Let me think about this. Hold on. Ah.

Oh, see. if I could, I wish, see, it's horrible. If, like, if I could ask one or two guys, they'd be like, fuck, yeah, remember so-and-so? Yeah. I can't remember. Law enforcement, yes, but,

and judges, serve time with a couple of judges, but they're elected. Yeah. And state side, yeah. Yeah. I was on a political corruption squad for several years,

and I always just sort of wondered what it was like for those guys. I did bribe. I did bribe. a council member who ultimately became a county commissioner and he eventually was caught up in in a bribery charge and then fought it and went to prison did you testify I've tried I tried no the FBI actually came to talk to me about it but by the time and I we had you know we talked a few times. And then like a year later, he got indicted. The problem was the, it's only like,

the sexual limitations is only like three years or four years or something on. So by the time, so they weren't able to charge him for my bribery. And, uh, and so no, I was never, so I wasn't indirectly involved in the new case, you know, and then I guess, you know, I was kind of hoping, like they'd call me, like a 404B witness. Right. For other other bad acts. Yeah. No. Interesting. Well, Alabama State Representative, John Rogers, has been serving the people of Birmingham, Alabama, as an elected official for 40 years. Imagine being in office for 40 years. He was also corrupt as hell. Okay, so here's a story. As part of his job in the state legislature, he had access to a fund for community development. and he was given $400,000 into that fund in discretionary money to fund a local youth baseball league for low-income kids in Birmingham, right?

Can you think of anything better, right? These kids in Birmingham poor as heck, and now that he's going to have a, he has $400,000 to form a baseball league for them. You know, we're talking bats, we're talking mitts, we're talking umpires, we're talking assistant coaches, uniforms and all that. Right. But Big John wanted a taste for himself, Matt Cox. he wasn't good enough to give the...

So he forced the league's executive director to give him a $200,000 kickback. Sheesh. Half the money. These kids can play with half that money. $200,000. I want $200,000 for myself, or your league gets nothing.

That's what he said. Nothing. I think they still do get everything if this guy played his cards, right? Because what's that money going for? Just sitting in an account? Like, you got to give us the money, right? Didn't work back that.

Sounds like he's in charge of, doling this out. I mean, he's John Rogers. So the FBI catches wind of this and launches an investigation. And then what John does, he starts trying to obstruct justice by offering a witness, a bribe to tell another witness to give, whether he gives one witness a bribe and tells them to lie to the FBI. And yeah, and so, and that fails. His cover-up fails. He gets federally charged with whatever bribery embezzlement, whatever it was. But he was really cocky. So standing on the courthouse steps, I'm going to do this in John's voice.

You say, I am so innocent, I ain't even worried, and I look forward to a court date. I wouldn't do anything that stupid. This is going to be a royal affair. I will enjoy kicking their asses. That's what John said in the courthouse steps after his arraignment. Do you imagine? Did he go to trial? Oh, a little cocky.

Six months of this bluster. and bullshit, he finally pleads guilty. Six months of it to fraud and obstruction of justice. As part of his plea agreement, he agrees to resign from the Alabama House of Representatives. So good riddance to bad rubbish there.

The thing is, he's 83 years old. And that's what happened. So my question is, how much time is John Rogers going to get for shaking him down and stealing $200,000 from the baseball kids Matt Cox? I don't even know if he

do any time, really, but I feel like he's in an elected position of trust. It is, but he's also provided service to the community for 40 years.

You'll pay for that. You're fine. I'm not taking that into consideration. Think of the children, Matt Cox. They just want to be shortstop. I think another judge,

I think a judge would be pissed about it. Another judge would be, I would think another judge would be like, what the fuck are you doing, bro? You know what I'm saying?

I'm saying a judge, I understand he's a part. politician, but I would think that another elected official, like a judge, would be like, yeah, the problem is federal, right? So there's no, those judges are not elected. Oh, yeah, they're appointed. Yeah. Either way, I'd be irritated. How much time is John Rogers going get in prison for his misdeeds? I think he'd get probation, but I'm going to say three months. Three months in prison. He's an old man. He could die in prison and be a life sentence. Could be a life sentence, right, 18, 83. And he's been huge.

Humiliated and let's face it like I admittedly there's kind of a victim But it's not like there's you know like it's like the victim's like the taxpayer like you know and you we all know the politicians could care less about the taxpayer Um maybe three months. Okay. Yeah, because he's an old man. He's been embarrassed. He's been humiliated. He's gonna be uprobathe From grace. It was a fall from grace. Yeah, he's yeah, it's no good three months. Okay, that's your final answer? Yeah, you seem pretty comfortable with that one. I think he should get three months. All right, well Um, you got 13 months. Motherfucker. I'm giving you that one. How dare you give that to him?

Under one rule, are you going to give him three? There's just not much variance. He's a little man. Between 13 months, one year and one month and then 90 days, that's what the judge weakling here is going to give him? That's within a year. Within a year. It's 20% or within a year. No, no.

That's the rules. It's 20% of the months and 20% of the years is the same thing. 20% of point of 20% of 31 point whatever whatever there's no way he got that I'm not trying to I'd be thrilled if he got it I'm on team Matt but I think he deserves 13 months absolutely really absolutely this person is a piece of shit yeah I know he's I understand but I mean he's he could buy in prison again this money was for underprivileged kids we can laugh about that but that's a thing yeah that keeps that keeps young people out of prison and stuff like that these youth programs I I I understand they got half.

I'm not saying he's not a piece of shit, but I'm saying, you know, you kind of got to look at it like he's super old. You're also not thinking about the obstruction of justice. He's out there trying to get a witness to lie. And he pled guilty to fraud and obstruction of justice, I said. I mean, I think he should do time in jail. I thought he was going to get probation. I know you did.

But because it's a dollar amount. Right. The dollar amount is not astronomical. Yeah, yeah. It's not outrageous. But again, I think the dollar amount understates the, societal harm that he's doing by defunding this youth baseball program. Do you know what bothers me the worst is that he was because of his, like, asking for

half the money for a kickback? Yeah. Like, how are you expecting to, like, how do you say this is worth 400, this was 400,000, or this is 400,000 when it's only two? Like, does that make sense? Like, you're, like, you're definitely got to get caught. You're, you're, like, if you said, hey, give me 50. then you can say

350,000 is 400 you can spend 350,000 and say, yeah, we spent 400 and people are going to be like, yeah, that's probably about right. Yeah. But we spent 200,000 and you're saying, no, we spent 400,

they're going to be like, I don't know, you got ripped off, bro, like this is a 400,000 worth of fucking money. No, I agree. This thing was destined to fail. Yeah, yeah. And listen,

you think this was the first time doing something like this? No, I was just thinking that. How long's he been doing this? How bold are you to say, I want half the money for the take back? Yeah, I agree. All right, so you give him

a point for that, Colby? One for seven. How do you, again? Within a year. That's within a year. It's not within a year. It's within 20%. Yeah, but, you know, if it's at like one year, it's hard to.

No, your thing. He'd have to hit it on the dot on the head. No, he could get the number of months right. The variance between, if you call it five years and 60 months, 20% of that is the same amount of time. I am shocked I'm getting any of these right. I haven't got anything right. I

yeah tomorrow come at Colby in the comments people tomorrow we might have to go up to 25%

you know depending on the result of the last one it might have to go up or down this is not easy you're thinking

in terms of years these things are in months 20% is the same thing 20% is 20% doesn't matter if you

we did in days it's still 20% is how upset he is I'm not upset he is well he was wanting to shut out

I don't no no I don't I'm always rooting for you but I want you to win under legitimate terms, not because you're highly paid employee. You don't know me very well.

Because your employee has his thumb on the scale. Looking for a win, period. All right, all right. Well, let's stick with the crooked politicians, and this one involves a church. Okay. You know what's so funny is that I was telling Jess when I was trying to pick mine, I was like, you know, the problem is I said almost always Tom is picking like embezzlement. You know what I mean?

I was like, they're always embezzlement. I was like, I don't really have any embezzlement. You know, so I was like talking to Jess about it. I was like, so I'm just going to go with people that I know. So I'm instead of sticking with an embezzlement, I said, I'm going to stick with people that I actually have met and know the case. And so that's why, where I came up with my cases. And then we get here, man, you got, you got, you got, you got, you got. Well, I try to mix it up for the audience.

I mean, at some point, they're going to fall asleep if we do the same type of case again and again and again. So I always try to do a potpourri. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disrupt. that can be. When you're not resting well, everything else feels harder. Your focus, your mood, even your recovery. Ghostbed is here to help you fix that. They've spent decades perfecting how to build a bed that's comfortable, durable, and designed to actually help you rest. Every ghost bed mattress features premier materials, proven cooling technology, and their exclusive pro core layer, a targeted support system that reinforces the center of the mattress where the body is heaviest. It helps

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Calvary Baptist Church in Philadelphia. They employed 68-year-old Willie Jones to be a deacon in the church. And the pastor put him in charge of taking up the collection at church. You've been to church. You know, they take up the collection from the good people. And Willie's also in charge of making the deposits and paying the bills for the church. You've got one man in charge of too much stuff. Willie's trustworthy.

He was not only a deacon in the church, but he was also. a popularly elected Democratic ward leader in Philadelphia's 44th ward. And he also had a salary job as the director of operations for state senator Vincent Hughes. Right. So this guy has one foot, firmly planted in local, like, kind of grassroots politics, and one foot firmly planted in his local grassroots church. What neither organization knew is that he was stealing from both of them. At the church, Willie was issuing checks to himself and then recording them in the church as accounting records as reimbursements for non-existent expenses. The pastor was not keeping an eye in the books.

He trusted Willie, and Willie stole $57,000 from the church in 82 fraudulent instances. Okay. So we'll go through the numbers again later when you're coming up with a sentence. Meanwhile, in its political job, Willie begins using the debit card of the Ward office to pay his personal credit card bills and fund a family member's funeral. Okay. Okay. And he doesn't.

He hadn't stole enough of the money himself to fund it himself? No. He did this without the permission of the Philadelphia Democratic Party. And he was able to keep the scam alive for four years stealing $86,000 from the local Democratic Party office. Okay. Okay. I don't know, and I tried to figure it out and find out which embezzlement case was caught first.

But my impression is that the church probably discovered the fraud loss first, and then the FBI begins looking into his bank account, and then the FBI uncovers the political theft. It doesn't really matter for guidelines purposes. But I had several cases like that where one victim contacts me, I begin looking at the subject's bank account. I'm like, oh, this guy's up to way more than I thought. Right. I think that's what happened here. Why would the FBI be involved in a church embezzlement, though? I would think they would get involved in politics first.

like politics falls under the FBI, doesn't it? Any kind, the, any sort of fraud involving males or the mail or wires could be, could in theory be the FBI. A very low dollar amount. It is, it is. And the sad fact is that local police, especially in a city like Philadelphia, are often not fully equipped to handle financial crimes. Okay.

And maybe the fact that this guy was, was a politician of sorts in Philadelphia, also just sort of triggered the idea of the FBI coming in because having local authorities to it may be perceived as a conflict of interest. I think there's a lot of reasons why you could justify this as a federal crime. Okay. And I've certainly investigated smaller, dumber crimes myself. Any case, Willie rolls over on both cases,

pleads guilty to the two schemes in one omnibus charge. The cumulative loss is $143,000. And that's pretty much how it went down. Please guilty. How much, he's 68 years old? Three months. Three months is what you're saying. Yeah.

If he gets any time at all. Three months. Three months. Three months. Yeah. I don't even think he should get three months. Are we relying on the Colby rule here, where if you say three months, he gives it to you regardless of what the sentence is?

I think if I'm within a, listen, this is. Within a year. I'm just going to give it. Oh, my God. We are really moving the goalposts here. Three, I mean, the dollar amount is so low. And I get a persistent or trust. Due to the Colby rule, why don't you say 365 days?

That way you have a much broader range for him to give you a freebie. Six months. Three months. Three months. I'd like you to say it from the heart, not because you're being tactical. Three months. Three months is your guess? Is that final answer?

Yes. All right. the correct answer is 12 months. And as we know, when you guess three and the answer is 12, that's within 20 percent. And so you get the point, I guess, huh? Within a year. My God. Two for eight.

Don't you think it's harder? Like a year sentence, it's harder to get within that 20 years. No, Colby, because a month is a number. There's a number of months, and within 20% of that is a number. and with just like it is. If we said 120 months, you can still compute what 20% of that is. Yeah, but I feel like it's easier to hit like a 20-year sentence.

Dude, it's your show. It's your show. I don't care. I have no dog in this fight. I just know what the comments are going to look like. I, I, I, I. And it also is two of eight. It also is two of eight.

I get no joy out of Matt losing. I don't believe that. Right? I get no joy out of this. I would love to see you get 12 out of 12. I want this thing to succeed. I want you to succeed, buddy. What do you know about diplomatic immunity?

A lot. Do you really? Yeah. Talk to me about your thoughts on diplomatic immunity. Does it make sense? Yeah, sure. I think so. So anything, any dwellings that the diplomats are occupying are basically like it's in their own country?

Same thing with the embassies. Same thing with their vehicles. Right. It's more than that. If I go out and commit a murder, if I'm a diplomat, and I go out and I'm assigned to Thailand, I work for the State Department there, I live in an apartment in Thailand, and I commit a murder. I murder some lady boy in Thailand. In your own dwelling or just, I go to her house.

I cannot be prosecuted in that foreign country. Oh, I didn't know that. That's too much. It stretches pretty far. Yeah. Now the problem, and we'll get into the story here, is that I may face justice in my own country, you know, for embarrassing the U.S. government and committing those crimes. and there's laws on the books that make that so. Yeah.

Yeah, so American diplomats working in foreign countries, they enjoy diplomatic immunity from any kind of foreign prosecution. And it goes both ways, right? And so we have a 63-year-old Dean Cheves. He was a U.S. State Department employee who worked at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines. Okay.

During his time in the Philippines, he developed a WhatsApp relationship with a local 15. year old girl. No, Bueno. No. And he pays her

to make him sexually explicit videos that she would send to him on WhatsApp for his own enjoyment. Okay, so he's paying a

15-year-old girl. I don't get the, I don't get it. You know, I've never understood that. The pictures and the videos and the,

like, no, okay. During that same window of time. And he's in the Philippines and she's in the Philippines?

Yeah. Well, then why do I need to think? you're in the Philippines. Like, I'll just come over. Right? Like, you know?

Well, okay. With her, with her, he has a sexting relationship, and she's making videos and sending him to him. He has a second person, though. A 16-year-old Filipino girl, he was actually in a physical sexual relationship with, and he was filming his sex acts with her. Okay.

The problem is both of these things were happening on his U.S. government cell phone. Okay. Maybe you see where this is going. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm sure if he's in trouble no matter what. I mean, he's just getting to make it easier for him.

So there's an agency that I really enjoyed working cases with the U.S. State Department diplomatic security service. Okay. They handle investigations internally of State Department people who do bad things. They handle security at the embassies, kind of coordinating the Marines who guard the embassies. And domestically in the U.S., they investigate passport fraud. They're a very good agency. And actually, I know two FBI agents who left the FBI to go with.

with the State Department DSS because they had the travel bug and wanted to see the world. They also provide protective service to the Secretary of State. So like, I guess Marco Rubio has a protective service from those guys. Anyway, Dean's love of sexual mementos kind of sealed his fate when the Diplomatic Security Service

Office of Special Investigation seizes his phone and finds all the evidence of him having sex with a 16-year-old Filipina and the text messages and the payments and all that. So he gets charged, even though, now the Filipinos can't charge him. He gets charged in the U.S. Would they even care? Like for them?

I don't know what their age of majority is. I know a lot of dudes who are really up on ages of majority in all 50 states and foreign countries. Not a preoccupation of mine. He gets charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, for engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place. It's the charge and pleads guilty. Okay.

How much time you're going to give him? He played guilty. Like if he'd go on a trial, he'd be in real trouble. Because they charge you like per photo. And the way it works is the videos. They'll break up the videos into everything. Like, oh, it's taking, you know, 60 photos per minute. And you end up having, you know, 55,000 photos for that four minute video or something.

Like, oh, my God. So I know he's served in the Philippines for, four years. I have no idea how what window of time and how many instances were on the phone. But if you plead guilty, it could be 40 videos. If you plead guilty, they'll drop it all down to probably one. Yeah, I'm sure it was one count. But the judge gets to understand the totality of the conduct. He is a toucher. It's not just photos. Yeah, no, yeah. He had a ongoing sexual relationship with a 16-year-old Filipino girl in the Philippines while working for the U.S. State Department with diplomatic immunity.

I knew a guy at Coleman. I want to say he got like 12 years. He got like 12 years for something similar. He wasn't a State Department, but he was in the military. Let's say, yeah, I'm going to say 12 years. Even though we have two victims? Yeah. Yeah.

I think, I'm thinking maybe 10 years. Let's say 12 years. You sure about that? I mean, 12 years. Yeah, I guess you're super cocky now that we have the... It changes nothing because the 12, the 12, the 12, yeah, 12 years, the one year mark is less than that, so. So it's one year or 20%? Yes, yes, that is the new rule.

The new rule. I think you should, okay, all right, we'll talk next. We'll talk, we'll talk. After this is over, we're going to renegotiate. It's just like changing your pants mid shit. Yeah. All right, your guess is 12 years? Yeah.

Well, congratulations. You won this one legitimately because the correct answer is 15 years he got. All right. Is that right? It is because 20% of 15 is three years. Okay. You nailed it. Congratulations.

You got one point. You a comic book guy? I think we talked about this. The fact, comic books. What's up? Go get them. Wow. That's the Joker.

Yeah. It's amazing. And you did that. Yeah, I did it. And I did... How much of this is you painting and how much of this is sort of a kind of collage that you created with the art that pre-existed? Okay, no, so this is like cut out... Panels from comic books?

Yeah, panels from comic book and I glue it down. And then I cover it, seal them all up. Well, I mean, they're all glued. I seal them up. You get like squeegee out the bubbles. And then I got a screen, a silk screen. Yeah. And I silk screen Batman.

man. And I paint it. I do an underpainting. Then I silk screen it. So it looks like a comic book. Yeah, that's fantastic. And that's it. Yeah, if I have not kissed your ass enough, I love your art.

You're really, really talented. Thank you. And so I was going to kind of try and start mass producing those, just to have something, you know, fun to do and sell. You'd like set of a booth at Comic Con and sell that stuff. I don't know. I don't know. I have so many little side.

Listen, I have so many ridiculous side projects that I start and then I don't, finish. And that's one that, and actually we're having a guy who's a professional artist, whose name is Art Williams, who's a, like, one of the most famous counterpish. He's an artist named Art? Yeah. And he actually is in Chicago now and has his own art museum. Museum, no, art, what do they call it, gallery? He has his own art gallery where he showcases his own art and other people's art. He's coming tomorrow, no, Monday. Monday. He's coming Monday. And I wanted to show him these, because I hear he, I took pictures. I took pictures. I said him to him.

And I told him, I want to see him because I was like, what can I do with these? Because he saw those. He was, bro, I could sell those absolute. Like, I sell those for sure. Wow. So I want them to actually see them in person as opposed to a photograph, like really be serious. Like, if you're serious, I can start making these. That's so cool.

Yeah, I like them. You've been to a comic book convention? No. I'm, no. You know, all you have to really do is go into the comic book stores and see the guys behind it, arguing about the number 12 original Batman. I used to work at a comic book store in high school and college, and I was not like a comic guy.

It was just a job. And I would also work the conventions for the store. And it's an interesting breed of people there. So a fellow named Brian Brandenburg. He founded Salt Lake Comic-Con. The problem is that Comic-Con is a registered trademark for the real Comic-Con in San Diego. And so Brian had to pay $4 million for the trademark violation for his lack of ability to do a Google search for his Salt Lake Comic-Con. Okay.

I don't know how that works. Well, I mean, I'm assuming at some point I can't just open a store of a restaurant and call it McDonald's and put up the Golden Archers. No, I understand. But I'm saying, how do you hit them with that much of a fine? Is that just an automatic thing? Or did they sue them? I'm sure it was a lawsuit. So his comic convention rebranded as fan X.

Nice. But Brian had to take a permanent leave of absence because he had some bad decisions. He also was sexually harassing some of his employees. Oh, okay. Allegedly. So he relocates to Hawaii. I'm done with Utah. Utah was not very, very good to him.

And he was also getting a divorce in Utah. Divorce in Utah. And so he just wanted to get away from the whole thing. And so the Utah courts were taken a while. to rule on his divorce. Sometimes these things crawl through the system rather slowly. And so Brian sent an email to the clerk of courts in Utah, and wherever he lived, I imagine Salt Lake City.

And the email said, so go fuck yourself, all of you, I guess I'll just have to bomb the city. So it sounds like he's ticking a page from, what's his name's playbook? The first guy we talked about. So he follows it up with more emails to court employees, saying he was going to bomb the courthouse,

the University of Utah, the mayor's office, the sacred Mormon temple, and every Ivy League school, as well as the federal courthouse in San Diego, where he previously had his ass handed to him in the lawsuit involving San Diego Comic-Con. So my former colleagues,

the FBI in Honolulu, they pay Brian a visit, and they read him the emails. And Brian confesses, yeah, I sent the emails to pressure the court in Salt Lake City and get their attention. Well, you did. Mission accomplished, right? So the FBI places them under arrest, and instead of taking a plea deal, after confessing to the FBI,

the dumb, dumb goes to trial. And the jury finds him guilty on seven counts of sending email bomb threats. Okay. He was actually being held in jail during the course of the trial and all that and awaited sentencing in jail. Then they finally brought him out in the orange jumpsuit and he was sentenced. How much time are you going to give Brian Brandenburg? 48 months. He went to trial.

He did. He did this again and again and again and again and again and again. Yeah, he's a moron. Yeah, I don't doubt that. He was a CEO. But, you know, it's like, I don't know. The problem is I would be taking it into consideration. I would take into consideration the fact is that this guy was not going to do any of these things.

Or a high head. Yeah, he's just a jerk off. But he did go to trial and they hate that. So that's why I'm saying. I was saying most likely they would have had him plead maybe he got 12 months at best. But going to trial, okay, let's say 48 months. I don't know, maybe it's a little bit more than that. but I'll say 48 months since I don't believe you

and your... I'm just asking you're concerned about my answer one way or the other. You got a real bur in your saddle today. Your answer's 48 months? 48 months. All right, well, I tried to help. Correct answer, 70 months. See?

He wasn't trying to help. Sure, I said he did it again and again and again and again and again. You a cruise guy? You like going on a cruise? Like a carnival cruise, Royal Caribbean cruise? The only cruise I've ever been on is a European cruise. was it Norwegian? I don't know.

European cruise. I think they probably have like true crime cruises. They do. They absolutely do. We gotta get booked on one of these. I know that we should. CrimeCon has a cruise. Seriously.

Crime Crown, they do have a cruise. Listen, here's what bothers me about Crime Crime. Crime. I actually sent them an email one. Like I filled out the form to do to be one of the speakers. I did too. Yeah, I never heard from them.

Yeah, I've done it twice. Like, I don't know who's running this thing. Yeah, and who's bigger. than you and I. No one? But we were talking about doing a live show at some point. The idea of getting booked on the CrimeCon cruise, us three go. We bring our ladies and we get a free vacation out of it.

And we do the, we make the magic happen. Honestly, I think if we just, we probably get free tickets. If we just said, hey, here's what our social media presence is. Here's the true crime thing. They might say, hey, we just want these guys on there for the fans. because they'll recognize that. Oh, my God. It'd be amazing for them to see us.

We don't even have to do anything. Now I'll give it a little speech or we could do this or whatever. It'd be like going on a cruise with like the, like, Belle Biv DeVoe or some of the hip-hop stars of the 1980s. And they're just some, you know, they have music like train. That band has a cruise and stuff like that. So will you get one of the interns on that, Colby? I will. And I will make a clip out of this.

So there's a potential that it just gets shared around. And who knows. All right, cool. definitely happen. All right. Do you love true crime? Then it's time to experience it on a whole new level. Inside True Crime has launched a brand new documentary channel, Dark Docs.

And we're taking our best interviews and transforming them into powerful one-hour documentaries. With cinematic reenactments. And he just looks me dead in my face and he says, I'm going to fucking kill it. Immersive music. They pulled up beside us. And cleaner storytelling. You'll see these cases like Never. before. Subscribe now to our brand new documentary channel where every story takes you deeper into

the criminal underworld that we know you crave. If we were to go on this cruise, would you hit the dance floor? No. Really? You're not a dancer? I'm not a dancer. You don't want to see me, Dan. It's like watching me jog. Like, I'm not built for jogging.

I jog like a tank. How about you, Colby? You're going to hit the dance floor at the cruise? I would. Yeah, the last cruise I went on me. Really? I won Mr. Chicken Lead. legs.

Nice. You know, they do like little dance thing right when everybody's getting on. So, okay, so here's a question. If you were to go into the dance floor at like the nightclub there, would you wear shoes or dance barefoot? Oh, me? I wouldn't be at the nightclub. I'd be at the casino.

But I would definitely wear shoes. You would dance at the. I dance at the pool deck, you know, where everybody's out. Okay. So you may not be wearing shoes dancing on the pool deck. Pool deck, no shoes. Nightclub shoes. You know what's great is that Jess doesn't dance.

Oh, no. I feel like, did you ever see Seinfeld? That's a catch because most ladies are like, come on, dance with me. We're at the wedding. Dance with me. Did you ever see the Seinfeld where Elaine dances? Fucking, it's hilarious. I mean, she's the worst.

I don't even know how they came up with her dancing. And I picture Jess dancing like Elaine. It's like, it's painful to watch. I mean, she's like, she's all like. It's great. We got to make this happen. We got to get all six of us on a cruise. Yeah.

Fantastic. All right. So Kenneth DeGeorgio, he was the CEO of a mortgage company called First American Financial, a $6 billion title insurance and settlement firm. Okay? Big company. He's the CEO. He takes his wife, Nicole, on a cruise on Virgin Voyages ship called the Resilient Lady.

That'd be nice to be on The Resilient Lady with your. lady. So it was after midnight. So corny. Go ahead. It was after midnight in one of these cruise ships, uh, dance floor cocktail lounges,

things. And Ken and Nicole are they're having a drink. They're having the best time. It's like a second honeymoon for them. I mean, you know. And, um,

and there's a bar guy there in the bar. We'll call him Mike. And Mike is dancing and drinking and having fun. You know, just one of those guys is just like uninhibited in the bar. But the thing is, Mike was dancing with no shoes on his feet. All right, unlike Colby,

who would insist on wearing shoes at the dance club. But something about this barefoot dancing really repulsed Nicole. She's not into it. And it's seething inside her. She's watching him. He's dancing. He's having fun.

But this isn't her husband. No, no, no. It's just this dude, Mike. She's with her husband. They're like having cocktails together in the... So look away. cocktail lounge. But she keeps looking over and she sees the son of a bitch Mike

dancing with her shoes on and is making her crazy. Who does he think he is? Who does he think he is? So Nicole walks up to him and says, look, we're all grownups here. Will you put some shoes on? Oh, Karen. Mike was having none of it. Mike was having none of it.

He says, shut up, you effing bitch. But he used the effort, the real effort, right? And then he holds up his middle finger to Nicole. Okay. CEO Ken is there, and he sees his bride, his soulmate, getting disrespected by Mike the barefoot dancer. And CEO Ken snaps into a rage. I'm going to effing kill you.

He screams, lunging at Mike and grabbing his throat, like Thanos. Mike, there's alcohol involved in this old. Mike later tells investigators that CEO Ken was strong and that Mike thought he was going to have his throat. throat ripped out. The bartender snaps into action, breaking the two men up and calling ship security who reviews the surveillance film of the assault. Ken was sent back to his room until the boat docked.

Go to your room, Ken, CEO. Boat docks in Puerto Rico, and he's met there at the disembarkment by the FBI agents in Puerto Rico. His crimes on the high seas, Matt Cox, are automatically FBI jurisdiction. What are you going to do? Yeah. Um, Ken is charged with assault on the high seas. And so I'd like to hear from you how much time he got. 12 months probation.

12 months probation. No prison time whatsoever. No. He could have ripped this guy's throat out by the Cox. Not buying it? No. Not buying it at all. All right. I'm not going to torture you. You get the point. The case was dismissed at the request of the government. But what happened is he got fired from his job as CEO of the $6 billion company for embarrassing the company But before you cry for him, he got a $18 million severance package when they fired him

So this this barefoot dancer could have been the best thing that happened to him financially Yeah Justice are crimes upon the cruise ship or in the high seas like the ones on the air? Yes Where it's just like yeah, yeah, there's just no one else. So I did a murder on a cruise ship once. I investigated a murder on a crew. Let me make that clear. They never found the girl. Yeah, but yeah, same thing. So anyway, you get a point for that. No prison time for CEO Ken DeGiorgio. Get about an $18 million payday. What do you have about insider trading? I mean, I watched the wiffle wall street. That wasn't insider trading. That wasn't? No.

It was a pump and dump. Oh. Yeah. Insider trading is when I work at a company, I get information about something that's not public. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just making sure you understand it. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, all right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because he was creating the companies and pumping them up and dumping them up and dumping. No, they were real companies. They were just green sheet stock companies. Then he was creating people, he was buying a bunch of shares of it, getting people to, then his sales staff were getting a bunch of people to buy these shares at an inflated price and then he dumps his shares and makes money before that these

you know worthless stocks yeah well the the public's is the public's the public's the public's the public has bought thinking it's going up and then they get because he has these like high pressure salespeople yeah entirely different than insider trading inside trading is is I find out we're getting a government contract this company's about to get a government contract to build five subs more often than not it's earnings like I'm in the accounting department I know that we're going to have a kick-ass quarter coming up and And that's going to make the stock price go up, but it hasn't been publicly released that we're going to have a kick-ass quarter or earnings per share.

And so I buy a bunch of shares and all that. Or you're going to have a horrible quarter, and so you short all the stuff. Same thing. Insider trading is inside of trading. So we have 40-year-old Deshaunt Gupta of Hillsborough, New Jersey. He had a big secret, Matt Cox. He had a big secret. He was the director of data strategies at a drug company called Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals.

Now, the company is based in France and developed medicines that cancer patients can use to kind of alleviate their pain and suffering. But one day at work, Deshaat finds out that his employer is going to be purchasing a smaller drug company in Massachusetts called Epizime. Okay? We're going to be buying this company. But Deshaat, don't tell anybody. This is hush-hush. It hasn't been announced yet. Epizim was a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ.

and Deshaun is sitting on some very juicy, non-public information, Matt Cox. Imagine how heavily that must be weighing on him to know this. So he knows that if he goes out and buys a bunch of epizime stock, he could get himself in some trouble. So Deshaunt got cute, got clever. Over an 11-week period,

Deshaunt bought over 300,000 shares of Epizim stock in his wife's brokerage account. He's thinking. He's thinking. Three days after the acquisition was announced, the stock price goes up, and he dumps his shares in his wife's account, and he makes a cool $260,000 in profit. Nice.

Yeah. Never been easier money than this, Matt Cox. What could go wrong? It seems flawless, didn't he? Well, one thing he forgot is that the Securities and Exchange Commission has some pretty sophisticated software running about, these type of trades where someone buys something, the stock price jumps up, and then it's sold right afterwards. And it didn't take them very long before the SEC started smelling a rap.

Now, as you know, but maybe not everyone in your audience knows, the SEC has no criminal authority. They're very good investigators, but they're a regulatory agency. No one has ever gone to prison. No one from the SEC has ever put handcuffs on anyone. What they do is they call their buddies at the FBI to come in to investigate this jointly with them and make it criminal. It's a good deal for the FBI because you've got the SEC and their expertise. in this area, and it's a good deal for the SEC because the FBI put some teeth and muscles behind their investigation. And that's exactly what happened. The FBI investigation culminated in securities fraud charges against Deshaant Gupta. He pleads guilty. And again, he made

$260,000 profit off of this thing. But insider trading is a funny crime because the victim is sort of the system itself, right? There's not a one person who lost $260,000. It's just him cheating, as an insider, cheating to make that money off the market itself. How much time you're going to give Deshaant Gupta no criminal history? 18 months. 18 months, a year and a half in prison for what some might argue is a victimless crime. I don't know why you're talking about. It's going to be a great show if we're going to not talk.

18 months. 18 months. Yes. All right. Well, you seem hell bent on this. 18 months. 18 months. All right.

You're holding firm. Yeah. You don't want to tweak that up or down a little bit. I wouldn't know which way you haven't. I'm not giving you clues. I'm just saying that one could argue, and I'm positive his lawyer did, that this was a victimless crime. Right. I understand.

Right. But I don't, the fact that you're saying that, I don't believe that I'm assuming it's going to end up being like eight months or something. But, yeah. But I've already said 18. I mean, if you really think it's going to be eight, you can change it to eight. Because if I change it to eight, you're going to be like, turns out it was 20 months. Who knew? I'm going to say eight.

Okay, I'll say eight months. You'll say eight months. Eight months in prison. Eight months. All right. And that Colby rule gives you some latitude there, right? Because if it was 20 months, you would still win. And if it's zero months, then you would still win because of the new Colby rule, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So eight months is what we're going with? Yes, eight months. All right. Now, you were very positive when earlier, and then now we went down to eight.

And so I just want to double check and make sure that you're comfortable with this. I don't want to hear any whining from you if it doesn't break your way. I feel like signing a confession right now. I haven't done anything. This is how you wore it now. I just wanted to get out of the room. I'm so tired of my personality. All right.

So you going with eight months or are you going with the original one? I remember what your original one was. 12 months. I'm going with 12 months. You're going with 12. 12 months. All right. All right. The correct answer is two months in prison. He also had to pay a fine of $20,000 and he had to forfeit the $260,000 he made. So two months in prison for Deshaun Toupden. I'm assuming he lost his job as well. That seems reasonable. That's fine. Yeah. That's all I got for you. Colby, you want to give him the enhanced score with the curve? The score as it stands right now with the unofficial rules. is five of 12. And Matt has two stories. I have two stories. So now these same rules will be applied to Tom. Oh, let's see. Let's see here. Let's see how good you do. See how easy it is. It's not easy. I already know it's not easy. I wish you'd sit. I, actually, I should have done was had you send me your little format. It's difficult. Oh, hey. It's not that easy. Yeah, get it. It's not so easy to do a daily two-minute crime story, is it? Yeah, it's maybe it's,

maybe it takes a lot of talent. Your format is, I was trying to kind of copy your format, you know, and I was, but it doesn't come out of chat GPT that way, I'll tell you that. You got to tweak it a little bit and move some shit around. You got to tell you, exactly. And then I don't have the whole, you know. You need chat, T-O-M. That's where the, that's where the money is.

I don't have any of the cute little, you know, you ever go to Bank of America? Do you like money? Do you like Gator? You like movies with gladiators? You ever seen a grown man naked? I don't have any of those Because I thought about that later It's like he always does a kind of a

I got my fingers written in pencil on the top You know that funny feeling in your tummy When a dog drives him gets your life I don't have any of those legs Fuck it, I gotta go Okay All right tell me a story, Matt Cox I'm not going to be very good at this

Because I should have Practice it more But let's say let's go with Have you ever been to Mexico Yeah Is that what I'm supposed to start? Tom Tom Simon

Do you like the Dominican Republic I do like the Dominican Republic I've been there twice on vacation Really? It's always funny to me And I'm probably going to get in trouble For saying this That the Dominican Republic is on an island

Called Hispaniola Or Ispaniola Which actually is the same island That has two nations on it You know what the other nation is? It's Haiti And Dominican Republic Share the same small island

Oh yeah yeah And the Dominican That fence That fence means a lot Yeah It's just crazy crazy how there are two very different cultures on the same small island. And the Dominican Republic side has been able to monetize their nation as a tourist destination that's relatively safe and

not a terrible place to be. And Haiti is... Hell. Is not. Hell on earth. Yeah. You said it. Not me. Now Haitians aren't going to hire me. But yeah. Right. I get it. Okay. So that's my experience with the DR. James Cadledge. Okay. works for a company called Impact Net Worth. They specialize in financial education and investment products. So people give them money, they invest it, or they give them, they explain where to invest it, you know, whatever. I'm not sure exactly how that works. But the point is, is that he's got a large sales force, and he's been doing this for quite a while, you know, several years.

he's doing well. He's at the top of the food chain of the company. He is, now his customer base, because they do so many products for them, and they're so kind of ingrained in their financial aspects of their life, one of the things that they do is they're looking for different types of investments for these people. And real estate is one of those investments that they've been approached for. And he starts thinking that he should be investing in real estate.

So at some point, he is a. approached by a father-son team, a development. It's a father-son developer. Right. Okay. Their name is Fred and Derek Elliott. And the Elliotts are looking for money to develop houses. He has investors.

They can match them up with each other. Yes. The Elliots are actually halfway done with a hotel condo. a building or development in the Dominican Republic. Got it. Yeah. And they need more investments to finish the project. Right. They need more investments. Exactly.

Got it. So first they meet them. I want to say first, they get together and they meet them and they pitch the whole thing and Catlitz feels very good about the whole thing. Then I'm pretty sure they fly them in to the Dominican Republic to see, to stay at one of the hotels and see the development that's partially built and what they need and the whole, everything's legit. They look over bank accounts. They look at their due diligence. Everything's great.

And what they come to him and they say, look, here's what we'll do is, you guys raise the money, we'll continue the development, and you get a portion of whatever you guys raise, and then your customers end up with either, I believe it's something like either a portion of the hotel profits. And I believe also there was something where they were buying condos. It was kind of like a, you get a condo, whatever. So they raise a. ton of money.

This goes on. So the first development is completed within six months to a year. Everybody's happy. And by the way, I want to say, wasn't it Beyonce and Jay-Z? Beyonce and Reggie Bush, I believe. Right. We're there. Like, these are, they're celebrities that they're raising money from celebrities.

Celebrities are coming in. It's very up and up. And the, what was the name of it was, it was Maxim. Maxim Magazine. was involved, the whole thing. So he feels great about it. Raises the money, gives them the money. They build the development.

It's complete. Everybody's thrilled. They've come in with another development. Same thing happens. Build another development. Everything is great. Everybody's receiving the money. Everything looks legitimate.

This goes on for five years. Okay. They are now in the middle of the third development. They're supposed to be halfway done. and it comes to Catledge's attention that the money doesn't appear to be going into development.

Interesting. It's being diverted somehow. Right. They're saying, hey, you've raised, let's say at this point, whatever, there's $180 or $200 million, something like that, has been raised. And his sales guys, because they actually have salespeople like on the grounds, you know, at the other development

so they can bring them over the new one. These guys are going by and they're saying, I don't see $100 million in this development. Like, something's wrong. Right. Keep in mind that all of the brochures, all of the marketing, everything is handed to him from the developers. Right. He's just a middleman. He's a middleman.

He's saying, hey, this is what's going on. He's getting a piece. Everything's disclosed properly. Whatever. But Catledge and his sales team are the ones that are. talking to the investors. Yeah, they have the face time with the investors who will ultimately be the victims in this, I'm sure. Right. This goes on for five years. They build two hotels. They've never had a problem. Like I said, he realizes something's wrong. Katledge ends up hiring

investigators to do a thorough audit of all the books. They do the audit of the books. They come back. They say funds are being diverted. The money's not going into the hotels. There's a major issue here. Katledge immediately goes, gets his attorney, goes to the FBI. Okay. I want to say it is the FBI, right? Shit, I should have written that down. I'm pretty sure it was the FBI. If it's FBI or postal, I mean, there's the only two people who would do this. It's not a tax issue. Yeah, I feel like it's the FBI. It's not secret service, so it's going to be FBI. So he goes there, he pitches, he explains things. They says, hey, this is, this thing may fall apart, but I'm coming to you because I'm just the middleman here. Right. You know, I was ripped off as well,

but yeah, I was lied to by these Elliot's. Right. I get it. There's an investigation by the FBI. They indict the Elliot's. Right. And they indict a few, I want to say a few, maybe some of those salespeople, maybe, I'm not sure, but we're not really talking about them. Sure.

But they end up indicting Calage. Really? Yes. Okay. The allegations are that he knew there was a problem and continued to collect money from people knowing there was a problem? I guess, I guess they just, I don't know, whatever the reason was, it ended up saying, they ended up deciding that, listen, you, you were not following the, you're asking, even though he's the genesis of the investigation. There was no investigation already from,

I've actually seen this happen a couple times. Surprised. So he ends up fighting the whole thing. So he starts, he immediately gets attorneys, he starts fighting. Yeah, yeah. Like, hey, I came to you. I didn't know, these are my, this is crippling to the company. It's crippling to my, Salesforce. I've been in and out with these, you know, I can, there's no emails, there's no nothing. Everything I'm getting from these guys, I'm handing over. And I believe that's kind of part of the problem. Yeah, but you didn't really check to make sure any of this is good. You didn't do your due diligence. You didn't, whatever the reason was. Right. Always maintained

his innocence. He fights for five years and he's going to go to trial. Okay. His attorneys end up convincing him to take a plea. And I remember he told me the conversation they had where they, he was saying, I'm going to go, I'm not going to plead guilty to this. I'm not going to sign something saying I'm guilty. Yeah. And never signed a plea agreement to something you did not do. Right.

So he, they said, and I remember that I believe the conversation was we can, you can do the next, you know, so many years in prison. and the whole time you can tell everybody how you were in how you're innocent you know or you can do this very little time in prison you do a whole bunch of time and tell everybody you're innocent but you're going to prison like I agree with you I've seen it I think you're innocent but I also think that they're going to put you know they're going to put 50 or 100 or 200 people on the stand that are going to say you came to us you told me to invest half a million dollars they're going to get some old ladies on there that they're going to get some old ladies on there

that are going to cry about how this is their pension, their pension, and it's gone, and now they have to live with their grandchildren's, whatever, you're done. So he gets, he's concerned, he ends up pleading guilty. And provides a false elocution about the crime he committed at the, at his. They went on for about six, I think he said three to six months. They went back and forth, back and forth on what the language of. Negotiating the plea. Negotiating because the things they wanted him to say he had done or knew of, he didn't know.

He's like, I'm not going to say that. Yeah, because he would have to swear under oath and provide that verbal, admit culpability. You don't just walk in and say, I'm guilty. You have to walk in and say, I'm guilty, and here's exactly what I did. And I believe that what he had said was that at this point, you know, I should have done this. At this point, I should, you know, I this, I, what is it, what is the term that they use, you know, you knew or should have known? Okay, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Okay. Willful blindness? Willful blindness, right. Like, Willful, this should have keyed you off on this and that. So I think that's more or less what he kind of came up with. Okay. I'm not sure. Yeah, once again. Right.

Always maintained his innocent, but didn't go to trial. Okay. Okay. So, and I'm using this for the, as kind of an example, which you have countless examples. Yeah, yeah, sure. Of the difference between going to trial and not going to trial. That's astronomical. I actually just interviewed a guy.

His nickname is Red Bull. His name is Andrew Levinson. and the whole time he was saying he went to trial because he had like a, was it, $50 million loss or $30 million loss? Something like that. And he was saying I'm, he basically had to go to trial because he was saying he's at the top end of the guy. Yeah, there's no discount.

Right. He's like, so I might as well go to trial. And I was trying to tell him, no, if you plea, a lot of times they'll drop a lot of the enhancements and you can negotiate the money and you don't get. He's like, that's not true, that's not true, that's not true. Okay. Whatever. You know, I've met multiple guys that have $100 million and they got X amount of years.

And it's like, a plea is a negotiated thing. Correct. He's going to have some foundation and reality, but yeah. Yes. Okay. So I want to give you what, so here's what it is. It's over 200 and, yeah, over 250 victims, I'm going to say. Okay.

He pled guilty to one count of mail fraud. Okay. $180 million in loss and over 250 victims, he did he cooperate against the Eliot's? Did he cooperate against the Elliott's? I believe the Elliott's had already, keep mind this one, his plea negotiations? Well, he dragged out trial for five years, and then it was another year or so. Right.

Well, when he played guilty, it was like six months I think of negotiation, something along those lines. Yeah. The, the Elliott's had already pled guilty. And they both got very little time. Okay. How much time? Hold on. No, that's not true.

I don't know what they got. Whatever. I want to tell you what the government, because he told me what the government was asking for. But anyway, 180 months, 180,000, oh, motherfucker. $180 million in over $250,000. I believe it's over 250 victims. I want to say he might have said it was less, but I don't think so because it's the dollar

amount so high. I could be wrong on that. Sure. Okay. So my analysis is basically that the guidelines are through the roof on this thing, right? I mean, it's straight up on the guidelines, he's probably looking at 20 years. But the- No criminal history.

Right. Right. But I'm assuming that the plea agreement, you know, willful blindness is not, you know, it's a crime, but if that's truly the way it was being structured in the plea agreement, the judge might be able to read between the lines. And I'm positive at the sentencing, his attorney went on and on and on about how this guy is not the mastermind

behind this scheme. This guy was an unfortunate middleman. Then you have the raw numbers there, just astronomical. So I'm going to come in at 13 years in prison as his sentence. I don't think that was justice, but I think that's what he actually got

because the judge was probably trying to be kind. because the judge could have given him all the 20 years. I think 13 is my guess. Okay. Are you positive of that? No, not at all. No. But you're not going to change it. Because I don't have any better information that's going to make me change it. So what's funny is he told me the whole time during his plea, like you go in, the lawyer goes on and on and on. And the judge kept saying over and over to him, are you sure you don't want to go to trial? Judge has been there for all the motions for five years. Like, are you sure? You understand you're saying this. understand that and he's like your honor I cannot risk going to a trial he's like I don't know you

know the government's asking for government's asking was asking for 28 years that's what they want that sentencing that's what they're asking for sure sure um and like I said the elliots had already been found guilty and gone to prison and we're willing to they're willing to cooperate like they're willing to testify they'll say anything right yeah uh so what he got was 60 months five years. Five years. Okay. For a 180 million loss. But, and the judge was okay with it. I'm glad to hear that, actually. Because she'd heard this for so long. He said, he said, let me tell you something. He said it, well, I think he said at one point, they went

back outside and his lawyer had to convince him to go back in and continue the plea, because he was literally kind of feeling like, she's telling me that I should go to trial. He's like, that's not what she's saying at all. Like, you're, she may be saying that, but you don't want to go to trial. You know, they're going to put these people. People on the stand, they're all going to say that they all know you. Not that you lost their money, but they did. They lent the money based on his credibility and how much and how likable this guy. That's kind of the whole thing.

And, you know, it breaks down very quickly. Listen, I'm thrilled to hear it's five years. I mean, that's just clearly an injustice that he had to end up eating the charge at all based on what you told me. And I got hung up on the astronomical dollar amount of the loss. I thought that would just drag everything upward. And the judge giving him 13 years would be a bargain. But I'm glad he only gave him five.

So I'm thrilled to be wrong. Okay, so I'm going to tell you about his prison sentence, I mean, his prison stay, by the way. Do you know him inside or did, okay? No, I just, I know him now. I interviewed him. Okay, yeah. And I know him now, and I love him.

Yeah, yeah, right. He's, we went to San Diego together. Oh, okay, cool. Listen, this guy, every time we have a conversation, it's almost a whole story in an episode. It's hilarious. He's great. You would love him.

Good. just their super character in general. But so, you know, once they sentence him, he knows he's going. He's going to this one prison. Taft? Is it a Taft, a private federal? Where at? Taft.

It's in California. I think. Taft federal prison. It's a private prison. Yeah, I'm familiar with those. Okay. They give you the minimum amount of calories that are required due by law. So did you look it up?

Where is it located? Let's see. In Taft, California, Taft correctional institution was a low security federal prison for male inmates located in Taft, Kern County, California. Yeah, must be it. Okay, so Taft California, Taft prison. I want to say it's a, maybe it's whatever. Colby said it was a low. I felt like it was a camp, but that's fine.

Whatever. Low camp. So, but it's a private prison just before. So he's let out and allowed to turn himself in. five years. Yeah. So he has several months while he's waiting. Keep mind, the bulk of his friends have stuck around him because-post-sentence pre-reporting day. Yes. Vincent knows it's five years, got to turn himself in in 90 days or whatever. Yeah. So he's still out. He's still playing golf. He's still hanging out with his buddy. And the bulk of his friends, he said, like, stuck with him,

right? Some of them, he said, turned around and walked the other way. He said, but, you know, anybody knows him. He's like, knows I didn't do this. So he's like, and, you know, it's great because you get to know who your real friends are. And so he said he was playing golf one day? I forget how it happened exactly, but one of his buddies said, listen, there's a guy, or maybe it's a lawyer or whatever, there's a guy that can you pay money to and he can get you sent to a certain place in the federal system. No, this is true.

I've no multiple. And by the way, this is a great thing. It's usually 3,500 or 45. This is like our buddy Walt who can like kind of. Kind of. Walt knows this guy, by the way. There's actually a guy you could pay. He's like a lawyer or something. He has contacts.

He can usually get you moved. If he can't get you moved to the prison that you want, he'll give you the money back. Which I thought, what a bonus, right? Yeah. So you give him $35,400,000, whatever. So before that happens, he goes and they say, we want you to get yourself sent to this prison. Okay. He says, okay.

Gives the guy some money, whatever. And if I'm getting anything wrong, James, I'm sorry. Okay, hold on. It's good. No, no, we're good. You're going to love this. So he goes to somehow or another, he gets introduced to the guy who owns the prison. Okay.

The private prison who built the prison and owns it and is running it for the federal government. The defendant meets that guy. He meets that guy. He makes him, shakes his hand. They talk for a little bit. And he says, look, you're going to understand if you do get here and this or that. I'll come see you. Once you're settled in, I'll come see you.

Make sure you're doing okay. He's like, okay, great. He's like, so I don't really know. Yeah. He goes, he said, after about six weeks of being there, he gets called up to like the lieutenant's office, right? They call him up, comes up. And he goes up there and the guy walks in, he walks in, he's like, hey, he's like, stand here. He goes, do you know Roger Johnson?

And he's like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Old friend of the family. He's like, he's coming to see you right now. He's like, oh, okay, okay. And so when he gets there, Johnson gets there, whatever, he says, listen, Mr. Johnson, you want to, we can move this to a, to the warden's office, whatever they call it, such an office, because I don't think it's private, so I don't think they call those.

But we're to the, and he goes, no, no, James gives him a big hug. He's like, you understand the other, the inmates can see this. The owner of the prison. The owner. So they do a whole thing, and he's like, is everything okay? How are you doing? You being treated right? Is everything?

And he's like, yeah. And keep on everybody, all the officials, because they're, They're around this guy. Like, they can't let anything happen to this guy. Right. They're around him. They're watching him hug and hang out with this inmate. And supplicate to him.

Right. And everything. He's like, well, yeah, no, everything's good. Everything's good. He's like, is there anything, anything, everything working? Is everything working in the unit? He said, well, you know, there's a couple of the, you know, like the microwaves don't work and some issue with one of the TV.

But it's not a big deal. No, no, no. He said, write down what's wrong? Give it to lieutenant so and so. whoever, and it's like some woman who's there, and she's like, she's like, I'll take care of it immediately. And so what happens is he gets back and he goes and says, look, this is the list that, you know, and he says, was within a day. He said they are going and grabbing shit and bringing it and fixing the TV.

It's seen in Goodfellows where they're like slicing the garlic thin. When you hear this, if you heard him tell the story, you would be going, this is insanity. And he goes, of course, now the other inmates, and this is a low, by the way. So it's not like, hey, you're a cop and like they hate you. they're like in shock this guy's got juice and they're coming to him saying listen man i'm in i'm in b1 and and our TVs uh you know whatever and he's like okay well i can't promise you i'll mention it and he writes it down and then 24 hours later they come in yank the tv off and put a brand new flat screen in do you think it made it to the CEO or you think that the the staff there

understood that this guy's got juice and uh no he he would go he'd go because the like whoever let's say the manager what they call like the ward whatever that person was a woman at the time. And he said, literally, you could go up to them like at chow. They'll go to chow. And so you can walk up, you know, usually you stay in line and wait to get called, right? So he would walk up and she would see him. She'd go, James, come here, what's going on?

What's up? He'd go, I, um, so, and look, I understand you're busy. What do you need? What do you need? What do you need? And she was just told, you fucking take care of this dude. Wow. And he'd give him the thing and he said, 24 hours, boom, fixed, fixed, fixed.

Charmed. He's so, everybody. So he did not have the same prison. The Matt Cox experience. It's so funny to hear him. There's an argument that he shouldn't have been there in the first place. Yeah,

but it also makes me feel good that he didn't, you know, he's not getting into fights and having to be, you know, I'm walking around with his shank so he doesn't get, you know, skilled or stabbed or something. But yeah. Anyway, he's got a ton of funny, hilarious stories, but I thought you would find that super fun. And he has an episode on your show, right?

He does. He has an episode on my show. I will check it out. Thank you for a down with me. Christopher Whitman owned a company, and this is in 2008, he owned a company called United Logistics. It was out of, what, Albany, Georgia. And what? Trucking company?

It's a trucking company, yeah. And they have a, they move things for the Marine Corps. Corps. Got it. They had a government contract to move Marines from camp whatever to base whatever. No, not the Marines. Equipment. Oh,

shipping like we're shipping in, you know, 4,000 gallons of milk. Not the personal goods of the soldiers, but the, you know, the Marine Corps. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah, they move something. They throw it on the truck and, you know, all kinds of. A corporate account for that. Right. Yeah.

Close, whatever. And of course, a lot of that, he subs out. Yeah. Right. So he's just kind of a middle. man once again. Most of these trucking companies are. Right. And then they have the independent operators driving the trucks. Exactly. So he has, so he slowly, he figures out one time a glitch in the system, which is he realizes that the Marine Corps wants to have these, these items on these three

pallets moved to Lakeland. Yeah. And they also want to have something moved to Tampa. Okay. And, but they don't realize that all of this can be placed on the same shipment, right? The same truck. Right. And so what he ends up doing is it starts by he starts billing. Double billing. Yeah, he's double billing.

Yeah. Like, hey, each pallet is $750 to get moved. You got three pallets, you know, it's a whatever, 22, 50, 2150, whatever it is. That's what that's going to cost. And then there's another pallet. That's another $750. So he starts double billing everything. everybody, putting it all in the same truck and then making sure.

So it starts slow and he gets away with it. Then it becomes, he starts getting very friendly with the logistics like agents or managers that do this inside of the military. Okay. And what he does is he figures. In those people, his points of contact with this client. Yes. So he's calling up and he starts bribing them where, because they get.

very friendly, and they start saying, you know, for expedited movements, they pay like three times as much, right? So instead of 750, it's, it's like $21, $2,200. Yeah. If you can get this done in 20, we need this done in 24 hours. So what they do is they end up, but keep in mind, it's still a bid. It's still bidding. Yeah. So what he does is they say, look, we want to move. Is every shipment its own bid, or he has the contract that he's bid for? Probably a combination of different types of things. I want to say it's every bid, but he's getting a lot of the bids. He's got a trucking company that's right there.

Okay. So, and a lot of these guys don't sign up. You know, you have to get vetted and everything, but he's vetted. Yeah. So he ends up going to them, and this is one of the things that this is really kind of how he got caught. He says, hey, they have a lot of equipment, right? Because, you know, it's a military. They have tons of bulldozers, but they're not using bulldozers all the time.

So they've got 80 bulldozers. So they say, hey, we want to move these four bulldozers. But they have to be moved right away to over here to a private facility. Okay. And he's bribing these guys. And so they'll put in the bid that he's known that has been, he knows this has been coming for two weeks. Yeah.

So he already has guys lined up. So they put in the bid. He immediately bids. He gets the bid because he can do it within 24 hours. Nobody else can because they didn't know this was coming. Right. he did two weeks ago. So he gets a nice chunk of money right away, whatever it is, $8,000, whatever. He comes in, has these guys waiting, they go pick it up. Here's where it gets even crazy.

Then he drops it off at this facility, but they only drop off three tractors. Okay. There was four. He drops off three. But the people on the base don't know that there's not four sitting in here. Right. So he has the tractor refurbished and sold. He rips off the tractor. Right. Okay. By the way, so this goes on for like... So he's overbilling, he's paying bribes,

and he's stealing the actual physical items that he's supposed to be moving. And one more. He's also on the express, right, these express movements of... Right. That he's getting paid $4,000 or $5,000 a piece on. He's then going to the independent contractor truckers. and he's saying, you're going to get eight grand, I need you to give me back, too. So he's also getting kickbacks.

Okay. And they say, I'm not sure why all of these tractors and offloaders and cranes have to be moved within 24 hours. Yeah, what's the rush? Why was there a rush on so many of these? That's a good catch from the auditors. Right. So they then, that ends up sparking, you know, this huge internal audit. Then they really get crazy and look into everything and very quickly.

people start cooperating. Yeah. And the whole thing goes to shit, and Whitman ends up getting himself indicted. So the investigating people were the FBI and the defense criminal investigative services, right? And the – PCIS, yeah. So, like I said, probes turn into audits, turn into the law enforcement investigation. What city?

They believe guilty in or what state? Georgia. Georgia. Okay. So he ends up, to what they uncover is that he grossed $37 million. Wow. Yeah, and four years. It wrongfully.

Like that's the- Well, well, it was, yes, yes, wrongfully, and $20 million in government losses. Okay. All right. So he, even though multiple people rolled over immediately, are ready to testify against him, he decides, fuck that I'm going to trial.

Okay. Why you would go to trial? I don't know. Bad advice from an attorney, probably. Yeah, so he's, by the way, he, after the trial, he's obviously, you know, this is in March of 2015, he's found guilty of,

he's convicted of fraud, bribery, theft, and obstruction of justice. Yeah. Not sure why the obstruction and justice. Nice is guy. Niceest guy. Young. Young, too.

He wasn't like he was like 50 or something. He was like in his 30s or late 30s, maybe early 40s. Yeah. Worked out all the time as people do. But that was it. Yeah. Nice guy. So how much time?

Eight years. Eight years. Eight years. Eight years. He went to trial. And lost. Eight years. So, so 20 million in loss.

Went to trial. Yes. No criminal history. Eight years. No criminal history. 22 years. Wow, really? 22 years, listen to this.

And he has to surrender $18.8 million plus over 100 properties, including vehicles, boats, and rental. Wow. They threw the book at him, didn't they? Yeah. If you're so overwhelmingly guilty, why would you go to trial? Like, doesn't a judge have to be like? What are you doing? Well, you know, I mean, let's, I'll make the counter argument.

It's his right. It's not a tactically smart move, but it's his right. To force to force the government to rise to its burden of proof. You know how many people I've met that it's like the government like, oh, they offered me three years, five years. And then they go to trial and they get like 19, 20. And you're like, and you're like, you're so overwhelmingly guilty. What was this guy like? Because you knew him in the joint, right?

I mean, very personable. Yeah. You know, white guy, like I said, late 30s, as far as I can recall. I don't know what he is now. But yeah, just the nicest guy. Do guys like that spend a lot of time rationalizing their behavior and saying how they got screwed and they really do it? Or are they comfortable with the idea of that I was guilty, I got caught? That's exactly.

Like, he was like that. He wasn't saying like, no, you don't understand. Like, this is normal. It wasn't like that. He was like, yeah, I was doing this. I was doing that. I just didn't think, you know, I didn't think they could prove it. Yeah.

So he wasn't, he'd come to terms with the fact that he did something wrong and that's what he was paying. Yeah, I don't think, I think he just thought he could win. Or maybe he thought he'd get a better deal if he went to trial. Is he still inside? Yeah, he's, he's still, he's, or he might be getting out soon. He'd probably getting out soon. Yeah, he's, he's got to still be in prison. Oh, that's a harsh sentence. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I bet you would have gotten a few years if he'd pled guilty. Well, I have a new appreciation for what. you go through. It's agony. It's agony is what it is. It's agony is what it is.

All right. I'm gonna say five of twelve. I'm gonna say this episode was Tom, victory. So by a hit. It's not my victory. It's not by a hair. I am an impartial arbiter here. I'm not looking for Matt to lose. I want Matt to have the courage of his convictions though when he guesses a number. It's not true. I do. You move me. You keep moving Moving me. Just weakness on my part, really. Well, I think that's the it.

Don't allow yourself to be manipulated. Tom was very solid on his answers. He's like, this is it. Well, and I was wrong. So for all the good, that did me. But I'm hoping my competence came through to your audience. But that's what the sentences should have been. But judges are, maybe Wilden.

I'm shocked at you admitted to murdering that woman on the cruise. I know. I did a murder on a cruise ship. All right, well. So what do you do nowadays? Oh, yeah. I'm so glad you asked. I'm a private investigator now.

I retired from the FBI after 26 years of service, and I now have a private investigative agency licensed in Florida in seven other states, but I honestly work in all 50 states because most of the cases I work are fraud cases. And so I'm working in a state where I'm not licensed, I hold myself out as a forensic accountant. But the bottom of mind is I can investigate fraud cases

for people who have been victimized. And that's mostly what I do. And so if there's anyone here watching Matt Cox fan, you're welcome to contact me, but assignment investigations.com, and I do free consultations all the time for Matt Cox viewers. And I'm not looking to make money off of a phone call.

And if there's something I can do to help you recover the money that was stolen from you or refer this case to my former colleagues at the FBI for whatever investigation they deem appropriate, I'd be honored to be able to help you. So feel free to contact me. You should also follow me on my social media, which is at Simon Investigations on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. I do these two or three minute crime stories every day.

They usually end in the sentence, and that's kind of where I'm drawing from these cases that I present to Matt. I also do public speaking. If you have a group or organization or company that brings in outside speakers, I'd be honored if you could introduce me to the person who hires speakers for your organization. And mostly, I just want to thank you for watching. And I'm really, really proud to be part of the Matt Cox family. I didn't know you were licensed to seven states. Well, Florida has reciprocity with seven states. Oh, okay.

I was going to say, what does that take? Like, did you have to take a test or something? Okay. Take a test in Florida. That gives you the seven states. I'm able to play it cute because I'm not doing surveillance work or anything like that. So I'm not going to be found in like North Dakota sitting in a car in some subdivision with my binoculars. You're not sitting in a Walmart parking line.

I don't. Why would that be illegal anyway? Like, why can't? I can't. It's called stalking if you're following people around. You can't get paid for it. Yeah, yeah, there's also that. I know guys that do it for free.

Yeah, yeah. But because I'm not doing those type of cases, I'm doing fraud investigations and expert witness testimony and things like that, I can work in all 50 states. And I do. I have a good firm, and I'm proud of my little one-man firm. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so get notified of videos just like this. Also, if you like this episode, we're going to be having a playlist so that you can go to the playlist and it'll play all 12, 13, 14, 15, by the time you see this.

There may be 30 of these things in the playlist. Tom's like, oh my God, 30. If you're interested in being, we're also going to leave all of Tom's social media links in the description box. Also, we're going to leave our website in case you want to be a guest. You can go to our website. You can go to the Be a Guest page, fill out a very brief application, and leave like a three-minute video, and we will get in contact you.

Thank you very much. See ya. Be cool.