Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - FBI Agent Exposes Dark Criminals

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Retired FBI agent Tom Simon shares 12 real FBI cases involving investment fraud, body-part trafficking, elder exploitation, cyberattacks, and violent crime, showing the real consequences criminals ultimately face.⁣ ⁣ 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. ⁣ ⁣ Shop my merch: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MatthewCoxCollection⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ 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

Twizzlers keep the fun going. Yeah, I know. I just stopped whatever you were listening to to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony isn't my forte, but twisty, chewy, yummy Twizzlers sure is. So think of Twizzlers as a little pallet cleanser for whatever's queued up, which, by the way, should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going.

Colby! Comments are going to be strong. I swear! Hello, Matt Cox. Hello, Tom, Simon. It is so good to be here again. I love that you're here. I'm just thrilled to be here.

Let's jump right into it, man. We don't need any foreplay. Let's just jump right into it. Let's do this dry. I almost said I'm full of five guys. But it would not. Wouldn't be the first time you've been full of five guys? I thought I'd get a response like that.

That's so funny. Well, thank you for paying for lunch. Thanks, Colby from Colby Incorporated for paying for lunch. So here's what we're going to do today. I got 12 stories, crime stories, one of which I investigated, the rest were investigated by their FBI types. And what we're going to do is I'm going to tell you the whole story, from beginning to M, as much as I know about it, all the way through the prosecution. And then when we get to the sentencing, that's where I'm going to pause and let you fill in how long you think these guys got in prison from the judge. What was their federal sentence?

And if you are within a one year or 25% variance of the actual sentence, you get a point. Your goal is to earn over half the available points during this game. Got it? Sounds good. Okay, cool. And again, for those of you who don't know me, my name's Tom Simon. I'm a retired FBI special agent currently working as a licensed private investigator in Florida. And if you were to go into the Matt Cox Inside True Crime YouTube page and click on playlist,

go to the top playlist is Tom Simon. You'll see every historical episode I've done with you, most of which are playing this very same game. How many have we done? How many are there? I think we're up to 12, 21, 22 at this point. Let's get into us. Normally, my first story involves an FBI investigation I conducted. This is my first time I've ever brought in a case from my private investigative practice about a case I investigated. Nice. That culminated in a criminal sentencing. So I retired from the FBI in 2021. It became a private investigator specializing in financial crimes and scams and frauds. That's what I did mostly when I was with the FBI, and that's what I do now as a PI. I receive a call from a very nice family telling me that they

had lost a fortune investing with a guy. His name was Tyler Bassetti, and his company in Columbus, Ohio was called Boss Lifestyle. And he was a social media star, right? He's boss lifestyle this, boss lifestyle that. And he's just living the best life online and giving people a sense of comfort that that if I were to invest with him, then I could live the boss lifestyle also. It sounds like something I want to live. Perfectly plausible, right? I mean, how else could he do it? I want to be a boss.

Right. And so, again, we're talking private jets, designer suits. It was an intoxicating promise about what life could be, Matt Cox, if you were willing to take the plunge and join the boss lifestyle. So he's offering these high-yield, low-risk investments. Isn't that amazing? Because often if you're doing a high-yield investment, it's super risky. Or if you want a low-risk investment, it doesn't, you know, it may be able to get,

it just doesn't pay that much, right? But he had combined the two together, like a fusion. Best of both worlds. It's amazing. Like, I don't know why that didn't have occurred anyone else. Almost feels not possible. Right. He's promising 30% annual returns.

And he says he's going to do it by buying 30% annual, right? S&P 500 under good years, maybe 15%. on a great year. He is going to be investing money in distressed real estate in Columbus, Ohio, fixing the property up, Matt Cox, and then flipping it for a profit. And you could underwrite this and fund it by investing in the boss lifestyle. Right? Now, I don't know if you're sitting down, but this whole thing was a scam.

This whole thing was just a scam. He used the investor money to prop up his lifestyle and to invest in crappy speculative cryptocurrency. He also bought a $150,000 Mercedes. Do you know that a car could cost that much? I've heard. Yeah. And a luxury condo. But most importantly to me, because again, I'm working for my clients.

I'm not working for the government at this point. My clients lost their family nest egg, kind of the money they had put together as a family over years of marriage because they trusted this guy. And they hired me to see if I can get their money back. And failing that, see if some justice could come about to Tyler Bussetti, the boss lifestyle guy. So I conducted a financial crime investigation, you know, following the money, talking to, and eventually some people had been complaining about him on Facebook. I found those people, interviewed them, kind of got their statements about the stories that were told to them, the promise of high-yield, you know, low-risk investments, when they sent their money and all that. And we began putting together a sizable group of people who have been ripped off. But again, my only clients were my victims.

You know, we're the, I'm sorry, the only victims that I really cared about were my clients. But what I'm doing is I'm putting together an FBI referral report that I'm not sending to the FBI, but I'm putting it together. And then I reach out for Tyler Bacetti. I send him an email, introducing myself. My name's Tom Simon. I'm a retired FBI agent working as a licensed private investigator. I'm working for Mr. and Mrs. Jones. They've engaged me.

They invested X dollars in your program. I've conducted an investigation. I think what you're running is a fraud, I'll tell you. and my clients want their money back. You know, they just want their money back. And attached to this email, you'll find a report that I've done in my investigation. You know, I haven't given it to the FBI yet. My clients may elect to do that.

Who knows? It's up to them. But really, they just want their money back. And then we can all kind of walk away. Right. Okay. So Tyler gets this. Go ahead.

No, ask you a question. No, I was going to say, so you didn't just show up. Because that's usually what scares the hell. Like getting an email. Well, that's probably a pretty good email, though. Yeah, I mean, I could have flown to Columbus, Ohio, and knocked on his door. I've done that for clients. This client thought that maybe the best thing would be to send an email, like a demand letter, basically.

And with the attachment of the undelivered FBI referral report as sort of a promise of what could happen. And so instead of negotiating, instead of coming up with a payment plan, instead of explaining to me that this, was not an investment scam and I've gotten it all wrong, which happens sometimes. He went out and hired a lawyer to write me a letter, chastising me for sending him my letter and saying that I'm trying to extort his client and this is a crime that I'm committing. And so he's paying a lawyer a good bit of money to threaten me, not understanding that my clients have the right as citizens who've been ripped off in a fraud to contact the FBI if they choose, but they certainly have the right to ask for their money back.

and there's no obligation that they report this to the FBI. I'm shocked that a lawyer wouldn't have looked at him and said, what are you talking to? This guy's perfectly within his right. Like, what are you doing? Like, I'll write a letter, but. Well, I mean, legally, I'm not allowed to hold a gun to his head and say the FBI. But I mean, I'm not even promising that the FBI is going to open an investigation.

I'm just going to say that we're going to pursue all legal remedies in this situation. Just pay my back. Like if a guy steals your purse and you're, not your purse, but a purse. And is running down the street with it. You say, hey, man, stop. Give me my purse back. I'm calling the cops. Right.

You know, are you extorting him? Right. That's crazy. And so, again, I think I was being magnanimous by giving Tyler Bossetti, the boss lifestyle guy, an opportunity to make this right. His lawyer saw it differently. And I understand. And I was going to write a nasty letter back to the lawyer, but I thought, what's the upside?

This is the answer we needed. So I put it together and I bring it to my former colleagues at the FBI. While I'm doing that, I'm getting calls from some of the other victims. Tyler had reached out to the other victims who had not hired me that were included in my FBI referral report. And these other crime victims were pissed at me because they're like, if you go to the FBI, we're never going to get paid back. And they're like, is that what he's telling it? That's what the victims are telling me, but Tyler was clearly telling them that. No, yeah, that's what he's telling them.

Because again, some of the victims Tyler is cool with and he's stalling them for time. He's lulling them into not taking the action. that my clients did. And so the other victims are contacting me saying, how dare you put this in the report? You're going to queer my ability to get my money back. And I was like, dude, you're not getting your money back. This guy's a con artist.

And so they were super pissed at me. And they're like, well, have you sent this to the FBI or? Yeah, I just had a meeting with the agents at the FBI. They have the case. And I go, and my recommendation to you, and I'm not going to charge you anything to this, is cooperate fully. That is your only chance of getting money back

is if there's seizures or forfeitures or restitution down the road. And so they were angry. at me. But I've experienced that throughout my career, Matt Cox, where crime victims don't want to be crime victims because they don't want to be called crime victims or even on the list of crime victims in the FBI investigation because they fear that the FBI investigation is going to stop this con man from paying them back. Yeah. It has happened to me maybe a hundred times in investigations where people don't want to deal with me, don't want to talk to me. And I spend a disordinent amount of

calories burned pointing at people saying, no, you got to get your shit together. You are a crime victim, just like that this guy stole your wallet. The fact that he's still in touch with you and being nice to you and promising you that he's going to get some money together, that is lulling to lie to you so you don't contact the FBI. That horse has left the barn. You cannot unring this bill. The FBI is on this case right now. Right. Anyway, so a dozen investors lost $11 million. Wow. Wow. To Tyler scam against. We're talking like sizable nest eggs. And guess what? He pled guilty to fraud. Shocking.

Yeah. Right? And so the FBI, and bottom of my is, once I deliver it to the FBI, it's their investigation. It's no longer my investigation. But they love getting cases from me

because they're put together pretty thoroughly by the time they get it from me. And those cases tend to rise to the top of the heap. How much time did Tyler Bossetti, the boss lifestyle guy, get in prison for his $11 million scam with more than a dozen victims? Nine years.

Nine years in prison. Final answer? Yeah. The correct answer is 72 months, six years. I don't think you're there. No. Corbius. You put the calculator away.

Yeah. All right. Next one. Matt Cox. What do you want done to your body when you die? I'd like to have sex with my wife one last time. No, no. I mean, after attack.

Like, are you a cremation guy? You want to be buried. You want to be shot in a space. You want to be smoked by your crackhead friends. What do you want? want to happen to your remains after you die. Not like I want to go to heaven, be with my grandma. I mean, I'm talking about the physical body itself. I'm thinking a Norwegian burial, you know, a Viking burial. At sea? At sea. Set me out, set, build a, I'll have, I'll have,

I'll have Johnny Buck make a, a big Viking ship, just a small Viking ship, put me on it, light it. Well, Jess drives an airboat. She can make this happen on. Yeah, but the boat has to burn too. I can't have her on the boat. I thought you just want to be thrown into the water. You want the boat buried. You want the boat burned. And then I want, I want to have Colby go to the funeral and tell everyone that I passed away from HIV so that nobody will ever date Jess. No, I'm sure.

I heard that the other day. It sounds like a very healthy relationship. Or just have a, have, I like the one where they say there's a, some woman you can pay her like $2,000 and she'll show up at your funeral in a black. She's gorgeous. Gorgeous women in black dress just to kind of quietly cry in the background. And then everybody thinks like, what is what? This guy was. Yeah, he had a very mysterious life.

That's really funny. Never thought about donating your body to science? Nobody wants this. That's what I'm doing. Oh, really? You would. Yeah. Listen, did you hear about the guy that donated his, like, mother's,

body and then found out like the Marines had used her for shooting practice or something. I was just like, I'd be fine with that. Yeah. I'm for my mom. I was going to say. You know, you're not close with your mother. I don't, you know, if some med student could learn something from my body and that goes towards saving other lives, I think it's fantastic.

I think that's wonderful. Right. So this story is a twofer. So we're going to have two defendants that you need to guess. So you have an opportunity to rack up some real good points here. Once they're done with the corpses, though, the school is supposed to send the remains to a mortuary for cremation. That's kind of the deal. Right.

There's also the body farm. You heard about the body farm? Yeah, where they let them rot, just to study them? That's interesting. Yeah, and I've had lots of my colleagues at the FBI go to the body farm for classes and, like, you know, got to dig up a dead body and kind of learn about decomposition. For me, they'd have a special, they could have a special little caged area. They'd be like, this is what happens when a white collar. person dies in a suit in the woods.

All right. So our characters, Candice Scott, she worked for the mortuary that had the contract with the University of Arkansas to cremate the teaching cadavers. So it's Candice.

But instead of cremating the bodies that came in the door to Candice's mortuary, she resold those dead bodies to a creep in Pennsylvania. His name is Jeremy Pauley. and our producer has his actual photo. So she meets him in a Facebook group.

That's how they connected. There is a subculture of collectors who are collectors of oddities. You ever heard that term as a collector anything? Yeah. Yeah. What are oddities? Can you explain that to your audience? I mean, I was just think of very rare or odd things that not a normal collection.

They're not baseball cards. They're not, you know. It's like wanting a, a T-set with the Nazi symbol on. Yeah, a little more odd. Like this oddity's group were people buying and selling fetuses,

brains, hearts, lungs, genitalia, large pieces of skin and other body parts. He sends her $11,000 in multiple transactions on PayPal to, or I don't know how many bodies. I'm not entirely clear about that. It was a lot.

So I don't understand. He's getting the leftovers that are supposed to go to the... No, he's getting the actual dead bodies. How do you explain where the dead body went? Oh, because she's the crematorium. She runs the crematorium. So she's just like...

Oh, okay, I didn't know. Okay. It's not like the ashes. I was thinking she was like a bookkeeper. No, no, no. She runs the mortuary. She has the contract with the... I'm sorry if I'm going to explain that,

with the University of Arkansas Medical School to burn up these bodies. Okay. And I don't think at that point, it's not like you're trying to give the ashes of somebody, but if you needed to do that, I guess you could. Okay, so we have... this Jeremy Polly guy who pays her 11,000 bucks for some amount of one or more dead bodies that she was supposed to burn up.

Right. And he's an oddities collector. Interstate transportation of stolen body parts is a federal crime, Matt Cox. Crazy. Yeah. And Candice was arrested by the FBI, along with three other women in different states, including one from Harvard. But we're going to focus on Candace for this story, who are selling the remains to weirdo Jeremy. Got it?

Yeah. Okay. Jeremy eventually is first charged on state corpse desecration charges, and then he's been looped into a broader federal case and has pled guilty. He claims to be a blood artist and collector of oddities, which may be the case. I collect old paperback books. This hobby's a little different. So we have Candice, who was entrusted to burn up these bodies, but instead she's selling them to Jeremy the blood artist. Both plead guilty. I'd like to know from you

what their sentences were. It's funny, all the questions I have, none of them, I think, are really... How many bodies? Well, okay, so... We don't know how many Candace did more than one or more. My impression is that it was several.

But Jeremy's doing this a lot with three other women in different states. And so... We're worried about her, her right now. Well, I'm asking you for both. Okay. But, okay, let's start with who gets a higher sentence? Candice or Jeremy?

I mean, I think Jeremy, right? He's the ringleader. He's the purchaser. Yeah. Right? But she's the one in a position of trust. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that I want you to consider the abuse of trust involved in Candice's crime versus just being a collector of oddities from Jeremy's perspective. So I think that basically.

I'm going to say three years for both of them. Okay. Three years and three years, right? Like, you know, that might even be stiff. Is there a dollar amount? $11,000 is what they can prove that Jeremy sent to Candice via PayPal. But it may have been five transactions, or, you know, five transactions of $2,000 each and one of, you know, or something like that. I want to say 30 months, 30 months.

30 months for both of them. Yeah, each one of them got 30 months. Two and a half years. Candice got 15 years. Holy Jesus. She was entrusted to make sure these bodies were not desecrated and were burned up. Jeremy, who's just engaging in illegal interstate commerce by purchasing these things from people who are violating the trust, got six years. I mean, I get it, but I'm thinking we don't know how many victims.

I mean, they're victims, but they're deceased. but it's like to me there's no victim count, really. And then I get at the position of trust, okay, but without like, what is that connected to? Okay, here's the larger argument is that this type of activity might have a chilling effect on people like me who are willing to donate their bodies to science, the most selfless act ever. And for the better of mankind, if we think that we're going to end up in some, you know, some blood artists making a macrame out of my skin. I think you can, there's probably an argument for both. You know, you can. A couple months ago, we did a live broadcast where you discussed how transparent

you are with your history and with everything else and how it gives you kind of a sense of peace that there's really nobody who could say anything about you. It makes you Teflon. Remember that conversation? Yes. It almost seems like it happened last night, but to the people watching, it was a couple months ago. I don't want to know what they are, but are there secrets?

about you that anyone could blackmail you about successfully. No. I mean, it's nothing that, you know, not that I could think of it. Your dirty laundry's out there. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I don't, I can't imagine anything. Right. No.

I think back to the days of the FBI before 1997 or so when it was illegal to be a gay or a gay FBI agent. The idea is that you could not be gay and be an FBI agent. And the theory behind that for the first hundred years of the FBI was that you would be opening yourself up to blackmail if you had a secret that large and a foreign government found out about someone being gay. They could compromise you. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, we're going to tell your family and so we want you to steal secrets type of thing. But I think when FBI director Louis Free got rid of that rule, he did it quite wisely believing that even straight people could have secrets.

Yeah. That there's nothing unique about the secret of being gay. So I want to talk about a case involving people who, a guy who had secrets. Okay. His name was David. He was a senior citizen living in the town of Heldton, Oklahoma, H-E-A-L-D-T-O-N, Oklahoma. Hilton, Hilton, Oklahoma. He had worked his whole life.

And through savings and good investing, David was able to amass a million dollars in his retirement savings account to take him through his golden years. Right? He just did it right, working hard, saving. One day David receives a message on Facebook of a stranger, claiming that the stranger had derogatory information about David's family that would humiliate David if the public knew about it in his small town. Again, small town, everyone knows each other. Your reputation is everything, Matt Cox.

And even though the stranger was very short on specific, David was worried. What did David do? David must have had something going on or knows something about his family that he did not want getting out in his town. And he's scared to death. And the strangers, you know, maybe the stranger's telling the truth. Maybe the stranger's bluffing with the strangers like, I have derogatory information that will ruin your family, David. I mean, you sent out enough of those letters.

You're going to get some people. You don't have to know anything. The stranger asked David to hide $10,000 cash. in a remote spot in the town, like a hollowed out stump, I imagine. Right. So the embarrassing information would be kept secret. David hid the money as directed. He's scared.

He's got a secret, hoping this would put this issue to rest. But the stranger came back demanding more and more and more, which is why you should never pay the ransom if you're being extorted or sextorted. Over 19 months until the extortion bled David dry of his in. entire million dollars retirement savings. My God. All taken out in increments in cash and hidden in a hollow stump in the town of Heldston, Oklahoma. Do we know what the secret is?

I don't, do you? No, I don't. When David finally shares this information with his family about why he's now broke, they contacted the FBI and demanded an investigation. What does the FBI do? They begin, first of all, subpoenaing Facebook records. and let's find out who is on the other end of these things. Because it has to be someone local, right?

This is not a Nigerian or Indian or Ukrainian scammer thing. It's somebody who has access to a hollow stump in this town, and they find the culprit. It's a 45-year-old woman named Amber Picklesimmer. She lives in David's small town. Okay. The FBI interrogates Amber, who confesses to the scheme. The court records really aren't clear about whether she's

she spent or stashed the money, but none of it was recovered. Does she ever say what she thought the secret was? If so, it wasn't a... Nobody's selling about the secret. I want to know with the secret. I know. I know. You and me both.

We can imagine. We can imagine. I don't know what David's up to. But Amber pleads guilty to wire fraud and was just sentenced to federal prison, and she was ordered to pay David a million dollars in restitution. How much time you're going to give Amber Picklesimmer for her weird extortion scheme playing on the idea that David has a secret? Say 120 months, 10 years.

10 years. 10 years. That's a really heavy sentence for a nonviolent crime. Or is it on the money? And I'm just saying that. But we have to admit, for a nonviolent crime, really, she's just sending a guy text messages. She's not even saying I'm going to kill you or hurt you.

I'm just going to embarrass you, which arguably she has a First Amendment right to do. Really? Absolutely. If I found something terrible about you and I decided to go to the tavern and say, Matt Cox, where's ladies' underwear? But you're extorting me. Oh, that part's illegal. That part's illegal. The spreading of the rumors, though, isn't? Swartzon, I'll go with eight years. 41 months.

Damn. Do you ever win a contest or sweepstakes or drawing? Are you lucky? No. You don't win raffles at the church? No. No? Nothing like that? Nothing like that.

All right. Yeah, when you were a kid, remember getting those big publishers clearing house sweepstakes things in the mail? Did you ever enter those contests? Really? You never did that? No. It was a way to sell magazines back in the day.

I know. Yeah, or you get the CD. If you send them like a dollar, you get like a CD, there was a CD club. Oh, that's different. The publishers clearing house sweepstakes was a actual like sweepstakes, a contest where you could like be an instant millionaire. And I think it was, you remember Ed McMahon with the giant checks? I think that was a different contest, but same idea.

73-year-old Betty in Washington State was thrilled when she received a phone call saying that she had won $22 million in the publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes. Her entire life, she had seen the ads of people winning and the giant checks that come their way and the prize patrol and all that. She finally got the call. She had won. it was the miracle she had been praying for. Okay.

And even more so, because she had no recollection of even entering the drawing. Well, someone puts your name in, Betty. It happens, yeah. So the man from the sweepstakes tells Betty that all she needed to do was pay the fees and taxes up front, and then they were to release the $22 million to her bank account. Makes perfect sense. Well, you know, I mean, you got to pay your taxes, and sometimes there's fees. That's what happens.

And so, I mean, it's just a completely logical use of your money because $22 million. You're not even to notice it because the money is just going to boomerang back to you. And so... How much was it? He said the big deal, though, is that you can't tell anyone about this big win. Got to keep it kind of hush-hush until you receive the prize money. Then you can tell everybody. And the FBI is recording your phone calls, Betty, to make sure you don't squeal about this.

That's what they told her. Okay. The FBI's in the mix on this thing. The FBI is really interested in the integrity the publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes to make sure the winner doesn't leak out. So she was told to FedEx cash to an address that he provided her in Florida. None of this sounds sketchy. The envelopes with the taxes and fees kept getting lost or stolen in the mail.

Oh my God, that sucks when you send cash and it gets lost or stolen in the mail. Then you have to repackage it up and send more. But again, $22 million is coming her way, so she was happy to do that. She was forced to send more and more and more to pay those taxes and fees. She sent the payments to dozens of different addresses around the nation. but there was always more money needed before that $22 million could be released to Betty. Got it?

How much she... We're getting there. We're getting there. Betty ended up having to take out a home equity line of credit. Right. Right. And took cash advances on her credit cards, but there was always another delay,

another tax, another tariff. This went on Matt Cox for four years. Oh, my God. And Betty sent the sweepstakes a total of $800,000. in cash until she had nothing left. She had wiped out her home equity loan. She had maxed out all credit cards. She was so demoralized and bankrupt

that she finally told a friend what she had been enduring, even though the FBI is allegedly listening to her phone calls. She was just at her wits' end, and her friend recognizes this for what it is. It's a scam, MacDox. You figured that out by now. And contacted the FBI on her behalf. Now, what's interesting is that all these different addresses

that the packages are going to across the USA say, when the FBI case agent began looking into it, they were all going to senior citizens, people just like Betty, who were unwitting senior citizens who had been duped in a variety of different scams into being money mules for the actual bad guys, right? This lady here thought that she had a work from home job. This lady here thought she was doing a favor for her boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, who she meant online. So everywhere they hated different story as to why they were getting cash in the mail and then turning it in a cryptocurrency or wires or all that.

I mean, I'm sorry. No, I take it back. They were receiving the envelopes, repackaging the envelopes, and sending them to an address in Jamaica, which is a Caribbean island. So you're saying they weren't laundering the money? They were just repackaging it. Yeah. They were unwitting money mules are unwitting money launderers, people who were tricked and duped

into being money launderers where they wouldn't otherwise. To their credit. I think some money mules. I always thought that it was, they don't have to be unwitting, you know. At the FBI, we always called money mules the people who were duped into money laundering. Really? Because I didn't think they had to be dupy. Sometimes I thought money mules were just, they were people that were just involved.

They were transporting money. That's possible. I was on a white car crime, so I bet probably more, that money mules more like the drug kind, probably. I don't know. To their credit, go Jamaica. Jamaican authorities cooperated with the FBI. and track down the man receiving the cash. 34-year-old Rochard Kati.

He was arrested by the Jamaican police and extradited to Vancouver, Washington to face U.S. federal fraud charges. When he's done serving his... He pleads guilty. When he's done serving a sentence, he gets deported back to Jamaica. So there's zero chance of Betty getting any restitution.

She's going to have to rebuild her life from scratch at age 73. Oh my God. I know. I know. So $800,000, this one victim is sort of the heart of the case. There's probably other victims out there, but this is the one that we have the best evidence on. How much time you're going to give Rochard Carty? 800,000, one victim? 800,000, one victim over a four-year period. Maybe four years? Four years? Yeah. Wipe down an old lady.

Does the time, does the time, like, that he did that over four years matter? Like, if he did it over four years or six months? Does that matter? No, no. It doesn't impact the federal sentencing guidelines. It certainly impacts his ability to claim it was a one-time thing. Yeah, right. I was in some desperate circumstances. Right. Yeah, I think what, four or five years? Four or five years.

You need to pick between those. It's not multiple choice. But I want you to think about that and think about the damage this guy did. And pretend it was your grandma. I mean, I understand, but the, dollar amount, it was, but they're, she's a vulnerable victim, so he's going to an enhancement for that, but it's one victim. Yeah. I don't know, maybe five, I mean, you're saying, let's say six, say 60 months of probably more. What is vulnerable, like what is, what makes

somebody a vulnerable vulnerable victim, you know, like this guy was a success? Yeah, maybe they're, they had, they're an older person, so they're more vulnerable to suggestion or to being taken advantage of, or they're, let's say they're, they've got, uh, you know, maybe they're got a, you know, some kind of disability, mental disability, or, you know, there's just some people are more vulnerable. I think there's a Supreme Court or appellate court ruling that someone being old does not necessarily make them vulnerable. You have to show that they are somehow mentally addled or in the early stages of dementia. I don't know enough about Betty to know her mental state. I also want you to think, though, let me make the counter argument because it sounds like you feel I'm trying to push you up,

that this is also one of those cases where how much do we want to have to, the U.S. taxpayers pay for this guy's care and feeding before we just send them back to Jamaica? You say that a lot with these cases. Does the U.S. have like an official stance? No. It's up to the judges, but let's call it what it is. Some judges are more fiscally responsible than others. Some judges are looking out for you, the taxpayer, more than others. Some judges feel that why are we giving this guy three hots and a cot?

Six years. I mean, I'm 60 months, 60 months. Five years. He's really hung up on that. You're going to stick with that? Yeah. Okay. Final answer?

Yeah. Okay, correct answer? Three years. I had, I was at four years. He moved me off of four years. I was at four years, and I think I would have won at four years. Maybe. Yeah, well, four years years is within one year or three years.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it sucks to be you. What's the score now? It's over five. They got nothing. Over five. My goodness.

Shut out. You ever been fired from a job? Not counting being arrested from your career as a con artist. Have I ever been fired from a job? I mean, I'm going to say no. I've been, oh, I've been, what about laid off? Like they laid off our whole division. Getting warmer.

Okay. Yeah, I definitely, so yeah, I've been laid off before, yes. Yeah. Were you pissed off? No, I was shocked because I was like, okay, sure. Like, I get Jimmy over there. He's an idiot. And Todd, but me?

But a high performer like you? Well, it was so funny was I was the last person hired, and they were letting other people. people go in the division that I was in. They're like, and this guy's been five years here. This guy's two years here. This guy's four years here. And every time they did, I thought, yeah, I couldn't tell you that. But then they got to me, I was like, me?

I should have been the one that was fired first. I was like, me. And guys were like, I'm shocked that you've been, you've been here as long as you have. They let go Jimmy. Were you angry? No, I wasn't angry. Do you ever think about revenge? No.

Let's talk about a guy who did. Let's do that. 36-year-old Max Schultz of Columbus, Ohio, was an IT contractor for Waste Management Corporation. Okay. The company let him go. Sorry. You're done, Max. Max was furious.

Right. And vowed that he's going to show waste management how good he really was with computers. Okay. Okay. So he accesses the company network by impersonating another contractor to obtain login credentials. doing that, what do you call it, what do you call up of the social engineering? And once he was in the system, Max ran something called a PowerShell script that reset roughly 2,500 employees of waste management, their passwords across the country, instantly locking out thousands of workers out of their computers and disrupting waste management operations nationwide. Right? Imagine not being showing up to work and not being able to log on and not knowing why because it was max.

Mm-hmm. Right. The company spent months recovering from this attack. And the damage ultimately cost them $862,000 in losses, including employee downtime, customer service disruptions, and labor needed to restore the network. But waste management, Matt Cox, was not going to take this attack lying down. They contacted the FBI who put their best cyber agents on the job. From the Houston office, and they were able to track the attack to Max's home in Ohio, and he was arrested for hacking his former employer.

I guess he wasn't as good with computers as he thought. It's hard to cover your tracks from the FBI. Max was charged federally with computer fraud. He initially made some noises about taking the case to trial. He initially started with a public defender, but he did not like the advice he was going. getting from the public defender. So he fired his lawyer and then hired an attorney in private practice who told him that the FBI

had him dead to rights, advice he could have gotten for free, and that a trial would be a bloodbath. Jesus. Max wisely decided he could minimize the damage to his life by coming in on his knees and pleading guilty to federal charges, which he did. So the judge sentences him to prison and orders him to pay restitution. in the amount of $862,000 for the damage he caused by his PowerShell script.

That'll happen to the garnishment of wages after his release. My question for you is this. How much time are you going to give Max Schultz? I would say five years. Five years? Yeah.

Five years for hacking? Yeah, hacking. He disrupted their services, the employees. The employees. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Reset some passwords. No. No, five years. You're offended by this guy. I'm, I mean, I think it disrupted a lot of people's lives. It sure did. Right. But he didn't, okay, let me give the counter argument. He makes nothing from this. He's not enjoying this money at all, like all these frauds. And of another

position of trust. He was in a position of trust, right? Not at the time. Doesn't matter. Okay. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I got hit with position of trust. At the time, I wasn't even a broker anymore. I'd lost my license. They were like, oh, you had a person. Why, you were licensed. I was like, what wasn't licensed?

Yeah, I think five years. Five years? Yeah. Plus it's $800,000. He cost him $800,000, almost a million. Yeah, it's like vandalism. Right? Like, yeah.

All right, final answer? Yes. All right, correct answer is 24 months. I tried. I try and I try and I try. You're always looking out for me. He doesn't want to listen. What do you know about the Hamptons?

Matt Cox? Rich people live there. Yeah. You know where it is? Hamptons is, is it in New York? New York State. New York State? Long Island.

Okay. The end of Long Island. It's where a lot of finance. It's the gold. The gold coast. I read the book by Mills and the Mill. Yes. So good.

So good. Yeah. But yeah. So the Hamptons is. like a playground for the ultra wealthy mostly of New York City actually there are people who live in the hamptons but a lot of finance bros in the summertime like hop in their helicopter and get their friends together to go drink and and snort stuff and and like it's it's a really ostentatiously wealthy place where it's not even just about it being lovely and but but like you want to make sure

you are dressed to the nines at the parties it is the place to see and be seen and and and and And a lot of, like, super wealthy finance bros just flexing. Look at his face. Disgusting. Just delightful people. So no one is better suited to this lifestyle of the rich and famous than an investment advisor named Jeffrey Slothauer. He was a country club baby.

And he had a wife, his wife. She's a former Brazilian beauty queen who got into. a drunk driving arrest and physically abused a bunch of police officers. She's a piece of work herself. But this is really Jeffrey's story. Is their body camera, her body footage? Perhaps. They're the toasts of the town, right? This couple, this power couple. And so he had a pair of financial advisory clients in their 60s, clients of his, and they loved and trusted him. And so one day, he contacted this couple, and he said that I can invest your money in bonds backed by homeowners association fees that would pay you 8% a year.

That's an amazing investment. It's a hell of an investment return. Well over market returns. The nice couple and other clients as well send him $1.1 million, not knowing that these HOA bonds did not exist and were a figment of Jeff's imagination. Got it? Yes. These are trusted clients.

He used the client money to buy a hundred, $125,000 Mercedes-Benz SUV and to cover his membership fee at the Long Island National Golf Club. He also bought a $13,000 Rolex, $11,000 in Ralph Lauren clothing, and a $6,500 Chanel purse for his trophy wife. Have you bought your wife a purse that worth that much? No. Would she want one? No, she would not want one. That's good.

You married well. I know. Better than him. every now and then he would send I love the guy that you said when he had stolen all the money and you sat down with him and you said

you said so what happened and he goes I married a Korean woman or what was it Korean and the other FBI agent was like I understand it's like you what's going on yeah yeah this was a given

enough said yeah it was an educational moment for me Yeah, but Jeff's wife was not Korean. He was blue blood. Brazilian, just like her wax. Every now and then, he would actually send money to his victims to create the illusion of investment returns, but it wasn't coming from any bond. It was coming from their own money and the money of other investors. We call that something, Matt Cox.

What do we call that? It's a Ponzi scheme. It's a Ponzi scheme. It was actually when you were talking, I was like, this isn't even a Ponzi scheme. This is just theft. He ponzied a little bit. He gave a little Ponzi in there. A little taste.

Eventually, one of the victims caught wise that maybe something's wrong here and calls the FBI to investigate. Jeff is charged with fraud and money laundering. But rather than taking the plea deal offered to him, Jeff went to trial. Do you know why? He's an idiot. Because prison is for the little people, Matt Cox. Okay. The little people.

The trial only... Tell me he said that. Please tell me he said that. I'm projecting. Right. Like the... like the girl that said she was too, she was too pretty to go to prison.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeff is too pretty to go to prison. The trial only lasted three days, and Jeff got his ass handed to him with guilty verdicts on all counts. Fraud and money laundering. How much? $1.1 million.

Let's see, yeah, it's going to be a hard fall for this guy, right? Because he's coming from a place of privilege in the Hamptons. It's very lovely. And remains to be seen if Mrs. Slawthauer stays with him, stands by her man. She doesn't. You've read, you've seen this one before?

If that was the game, he'd get 100. Yeah. So how much time you're going to give Jeff? 1.1 million, a nice couple, and some other clients, don't know how many, but five clients or whatever. I'm going to say five years. Five years is your guess. Yeah, he went to trial.

Yeah, because he went to trial. Yeah. Right. Otherwise, he would have gotten off. They probably offered him three years or, something like that or two years. And he'd probably say, absolutely not. I'll go to trial.

I went to trial. I got five. You might have got more. Yeah, maybe. Five years, Tom. Are we trying to avoid a shutout here? Oh, yes, five years. Correct answer?

Well, yeah. You're done? Five years is a guess. Correct answer is six years. Oh, you're in. You're in. You got it. I was about to say, I don't want to play this.

I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go home. You ever spent much time in Daytona? I've been there several times, but for the day. Yeah. Where do they have that, the Spanish fort? St. Augustine.

St. Augustine. That's my turf. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, yeah. That's my county. Pretty cool. I've been there, and I've been to the matching fort in Puerto Rico. No.

San Juan. They've been in the exact right place. The what? Fort Matanzas. Is that what it's called? Yeah. Matanzas is Spanish for slaughter. Really?

Yeah. It's a very cool for it. Very cool. Yeah. No, it's awesome. Yeah. Daytona's not back, though. No.

No. Daytona has the Speedway. Yeah. My grandfather, Colby knows this. My grandfather raced on the beach in Daytona when Daytona Speedway was on the beach. Oh, interesting. Yeah. He's in the Daytona History Museum for being the first man to go three miles a minute, 180 miles an hour.

His name is Sig Hugdall. He did it in the Wisconsin Special. Literally. actually did it on the salt flats in Nevada, Nevada. How would you say that? All right. Yeah. Well, you should be proud.

Yeah. Daytona's not awesome. It used to be. Back in the days of like Annette Funicello and all those kind of like beach movies of the 1960s, Daytona was the place to be for like spring break and stuff like that. Can you still drive on the beach? Now while I was there. Oh.

I mean, I've been there a handful of times for like sports tournaments for kids and stuff like that. They also have bike week there, which sort of inject it. Not that bikers are bad, love bikers, love you guys' bikers. But there's sometimes among the bikers, there's a rough element. And so Daytona, and there's also a lot of poverty in Daytona. And so Daytona has its challenges, is what I'm saying. It's not the Daytona, Net Funicello and Frankie Valley.

But Daytona's covered by my old office, the Jacksonville office of the FBI. It's in, Daytona's in their territory. and the FBI teamed up with the Daytona police to make this case on a fellow by the name of Dilan Smith, 47-year-old pimp. He had street names. Okay. One of his street names was Fat Cat,

and the other was Big Blood, because he claimed affiliation with the Bloods Street Gang, right? So he's Big Blood. Got it? Yeah. Okay, clever. Silliness. Yeah.

Under his control, he had two. women. We're going to call them Candy and Mandy. And Dilan recruited them off the streets with the promise of drugs and the ability to make good money as prostitutes. They're driven by their poverty and their addiction. They agree. Dilan takes their photos and begins marketing them on the internet, on the web. And so when the customer wanted some quality time with one or both of the girls, Dilan would deliver the girls to these paying customers like DoorDash. What do they call?

Outcall. Yeah. Right? And this was not just a managerial relationship. He's not just like the marketing arm of these girls. He keeps all the money for himself. Well, of course. That's what's a pimps do.

Very typical. Yeah. And if the girls complained or fell out of line, he would beat them and choke them. Yeah. He's not taking care of these girls. He's no Pimp and Ken. Pimp and Ken wouldn't do that. He don't play that.

We interviewed Pimp and Ken. Okay. Good to know. When candy wasn't bringing in enough money to feed Dilan, because he's a fat cat, he discharged his firearm and then burned her with a smoking barrel. Jeez. I know. Not a nice guy at all.

Bad guy. And it was not unusual for these girls to get pistol whipped when they got mouthy and dragged in and out of Dilan's car by their hair. This was a very dysfunctional relationship among these three. I mean, you know. Right. And so at some point, an informant, let's... I hate a mouthy hooker. At some point, the Daytona police and the Jacksonville FBI, probably through a source, learn about this nightmare that these girls are undergoing.

And they team up and rescue the girls and bring state and federal charges against Dilan. Victim specialists from the FBI worked with the girls to try to get them into rehab, separate them, get them somewhere safe so they could perhaps rebuild their lives. And testify. And testify, you hope. But Dilan, no need to testify. He pleads guilty to these charges of interstate sex trafficking. My question is, how much time do you think he gets? Remember, he's 47 years old.

I don't know why 47. How much of your life are you going to take from a man who's 47? I'll take a chunk if he's got it coming. If he was over, if he was in his 50, like 55 or older, like I think then you probably, you can still give him the sentence, but I'd say you earn more gain time. Sure. How much, how much, how much of a chunk are you going to give Delon, do you think? How much time do you think you got? I don't know, five, seven years. Seven years in prison? Seven, yeah, I think seven. Did you miss the part where he burned him with a hot pistol?

They were mouthy. They were getting mouthy. Oh, Matt Cox. Remember who in the comments? You're going to get a letter. Yeah, I don't, let's send me. A strongly worded letter. Don't send me any emails. Okay, this is, this is. It's a comedy show. It's a comedy. Yeah, comedy show, real funny. Oh, please. Okay, so seven years. Seven years?

Yes. Final answer? Yes. Correct answer, 27 years? 27 years? These human traffic? He's torturing these poor girls. I need to use the bathroom.

Jeez. I show. Taking that serious in Daytona. All right. Thank you for your patience. Colby. What's our score looking like, buddy? One of eight.

one of eight okay you gotta hit a couple we got a couple two-fers in here and you get the next three right in the head yeah and we have some two-fers where where you can make it up this is one of them okay so you hit them both in the head that's four points which makes up which which means put you ahead of the game um in all of your adventures did love and romance ever drive you to make bad decisions ever lose your head over a piece of ass? Let me dump it down. Let me explain what I'm trying to say that. I've done a lot, you know, for the ladies, you know, because, you know, you're trying to be, yeah, be, you're trying to, you know, drive the nice car and you want money and you want to attract the ladies.

Right. But, no, I haven't specifically done anything stupid. You never like a toxic relationship. No, you know what I was thinking? When I met Amanda Gardner, which was the chick I was dating when I was on the run towards the end. When I met her, I was actually planning on just pulling out like a million dollars and leaving. You know, I'd only shown up to Nashville to run a scam and leave. I stayed because she convinced me that we can stay and you can just start a business. Why can't you just flip these houses?

Why can't she just work a regular job? And my fear was, like, I liked her so much. I can't leave because she's going to be left in the aftermath, right? Like, this is her real name. They'll be looking for her. if she comes with me so it was like fuck I got to stay here and just make a go of it yeah I get it so yeah

so that was a bad decision well love can make people do foolish things let's talk about Justin and Jenna lovely couple Justin Barnes and Jenna Wales they were a couple lovebirds living in Waterloo Iowa and they got themselves in trouble with the FBI Madcox

Justin had a checkered past with historic felony convictions for forgery theft gun offenses. Those are his biggies. At the time of the story, he's out on parole. And there's a warrant for his arrest also. So he's laying low in Jenna's house.

Matt, if Jenna was guilty of anything, it was loving too much. Okay. In her eyes, Justin was just misunderstood. She knew that she could change him. I could fix her. She's going to fix him, right? And make him a suitable life partner.

right? Because that's what she wants. I feel like that this girl may be living in my spare room right now. So one day, Justin comes home and tells Jenna that he has a plan that's going to give them the financial new start they're looking for. And Justin knew of an unoccupied house in Waterloo that had guns stashed there. All they needed to do was burglarize this house. It's perfectly reasonable. Then you could sell the guns and turn over. a new leaf.

Seems like a good plan, right? Yeah, it does. It does. Jenna did not think so initially. Oh. Are you crazy? She said, I'm no burglar. But Justin explained that all he needed her to do was drive to the house, act as a lookout,

and Justin would take care of all the dirty work of breaking into the house, stealing the guns and coming back out. Jenna just needed to drive the car. That's something you do every day. You drive a car. Yeah. That doesn't implicate you at all. It doesn't make you a part of the conspiracy.

Jenna, you drive all the time. You practically live in your car. Jenna reluctantly agrees, and in the dark of night, she drives Justin to the house. She waits in the car for Justin to come back, tearing ass back to her, with a pillowcase filled with 15 handguns. He hopped in the car, and Jenna drove back to her house with her lover and the weapons. Justin begins making calls to sell the guns, making some moves. You know what I mean? You know what that's like?

Yeah. Okay, yeah. He finally makes a deal for several of the pistols, but when he's on his way to the sale, he gets stopped by police in Waterloo, Iowa, who search his backpack and find a bunch of those stolen weapons. He tries to lie to the police about where he obtained the guns, but the cops just aren't buying it.

They know he's a liar. The Waterloo Police loops in the FBI and the ATF into the case, and they do a search warrant of Jenna's house, where he's living and find the rest of the guns. It's all gone bad. Right. So Jenna gets placed under arrest as well, and both of them end up pleading guilty to federal gun charges.

Jenna and Justin both got sentenced for receiving... I'm sorry, Jenna gets sentenced for receiving stolen firearms, and Justin gets sentenced for being a felon in possession of stolen firearms. Yeah. That's how it played out. And so you get to give two sentences here. Remember, Justin has a rap sheet a mile long. Jenna really does not.

But the entire story about the whole thing comes out. I guess she would probably get, let's say, I don't know, a couple years. Two years. And then he would get, let's say, eight years? Okay. Two and eight? All right. Let's talk months.

24 months and... Yeah, 24 months. and what is it? Is it 84? That's 96 months. Okay. So Justin gets 96 months. Okay.

Let's start there. Justin got 96 months. No, we didn't. He did. Nice. Yeah, you nailed it. So you get two points there. Look at the face.

What about the other one? Jenna, you said 24 months. She actually got 41 months. Oh. So my big question is, did you look at the paper while I was in the bathroom? No, no, I didn't.

We should have done that. Oh, that would have been great. To run the table. That would have been good. Yeah. No, you did good. You did good. I believe you.

I'm worried about you, believe me. No, I think, yeah, I'm actually wondering why she got, no, I guess it was, she's a getaway driver. She's a burglar. It is burglary. Because I was thinking she's not a felon. So there was weapons, but they are stolen. And I was thinking, a couple years.

Yeah. So what is that? make the score now, Colby. Three of ten. Three of ten. Okay. Come on. All right.

This is not happening. What are we doing? Yeah. Let's wrap this up. Let's just go home. I'm just joking. I plan for four more. I have four more stories.

Four? Four more stories. Are they double sentences? Uh, single, single, single double. It's double. Single, single. Double.

The very last one's a double. The last one is amazing. So if you get them all right, even just normally, seven or 14 is a win. If you're hating this episode, stay for the last story. I promise you will not regret it.

All right, but this one's a good one too. When you were struggling or down and out or rebuilding your life, you ever take a Greyhound bus? No, but I have been in a similar situation, which was a prison bus. Oh, yeah, probably worse in many ways. Greyhound bus stations seem to be a nexus for a lot of bad stuff. They're never in good towns, and there's always a lot of, like, nonsense homelessness, drugs, gangs,

prostitution around the Greyhound bus station. And I don't get it. Is it because people get off the bus and they're like, this day, well, it's great. I'm going to make a life for myself right here. I'm not even going to walk more than a blocker away from the station. But why are Greyhound bus stations just such magnets for nonsense? I don't know.

I'm assuming it's so cheap to travel that way. And then they also locate them in kind of shitty areas. Which came first, chicken of the egg. Yeah. It's like a halfway house, you know. people in nice neighborhoods just don't want them in their neighborhood. Yeah. It was a normal night in Rochester, New York, when the cops receive a call that there's a belligerent drunk at the bus terminal.

No, not at the barassing travelers. That's crazy. That never happens. The cops get there and they encounter a 38-year-old Orlando Justice, who was super intoxicated at the time. The police place him in handcuffs and bring him to Strong Memorial Hospital for medical. and psych evaluation. Orlando was furious about being arrested, and he spit on the officers telling them he's going to find the cops,

come to their houses, and kick your asses. Okay. The next day, one of the arresting officers, we'll call Larry, receives a call from an unknown number. He answers it, it's Orlando. I told you I would find you. He said to Officer Larry, you messed with the wrong one.

I'm a different breed of humans. Orlando then proceeds to recite Officer Larry's home address. The cop is understandably worried and hangs up. But Orlando wouldn't quit. He facetimed the cop and said, I'm coming to your home with my friends. And I'm going to keep calling you. Don't get scared now.

Do we have a picture of Orlando? What does he look like? Does he have horns? Officer Larry admonishes Orlando, stop calling me. But the harassment continued, calls, text messages, face-times. The Rochester Police Department requests that the FBI intervene. Not because they couldn't handle this themselves. I mean, pretty open-shut case. But the police want to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest in this investigation,

since the harassment was of one of their own. So the FBI gathers the evidence and goes out and arrests Orlando for threatening communications in interstate commerce, and Orlando pleads guilty. So my question is, how much time are you going to give Orlando?

What? Three years? He's a different breed of humans. I know, but those, they, three years? Three years? Yeah. 36 months?

Yeah. really why because he threatened something he threatened the cop did he really threaten him he just said he said he was going to come to his house maybe maybe it's low maybe it's lower than that maybe it's higher than that three years you're exhausted all right final answer yeah correct answer 21 months i got it you did not 26 months is oh oh come on you did not come on matt cox when we went to lunch today at five guys. I think you're changing the numbers. Can you imagine?

All right. When we went to lunch today at five guys, fantastic meal, by the way, you drove. Yes. And I'm not going to describe your car, but it's a big car. It's a big, very high-up car.

I'll say it's a Toyota, FJ cruiser with a five-inch lift kit and 30-3s on 33. How's it's good on gas or no? No, no. It's bad. It's not good at all. I can, if I fill up the tank, I can come here and back four times. Yeah.

I drive a big SUV also. Are you feeling these high gas prices? No, I don't really, I don't pay attention to it. It is what it is. You can't not come to work, right? Yes, who makes good money, drives by, and she's like, oh my gosh, It's 40. Guess is at 460.

Or she's always paying attention and I'm just like, I've never paid attention. My whole life I've never paid attention. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the things, why worry yourself about stuff that's out of your control? Right, I can't do anything about it. You're not going to sell your car. You're not going to, like, hitchhike. You're not going to ride a unicycle to work. It is what it is, right?

But a lot of Americans are feeling the high fuel prices this summer. And I do feel for them because a lot of people are on fixed incomes. Like you and I, we want to make more money. We just work more. Yeah. Right. All right. So I got to explain a couple things to make sure you understand this crime.

For the past 40 years, the federal government has operated a program called Laiheap. Do you know what Laiheap is? No. Laiheap is the low-income home energy assistance program. It's designed to help poor people pay their electric and gas bills so their utilities don't get turned off. Okay. Because utility companies are more often than not, you know, work as a private company. of some kind. They're not going to cut you a break because you're poor. So it's the U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services that funds this program through block grants to the states and who then distribute the money to pay the poor and needy's utility bills. Right. Got it? So state of Alabama, the LIHEAP program is administered by contract agencies. Right. You've got a contractor, a contract agency out there. And in Limestone County, Alabama, there was a community intake specialist who is with the contract agency by the name of Megan Tilleri. Her job is to meet with the poor people and assess them to determine if they could use this federal money to stop their electricity from getting turned off. Got it? So she's the decider who gets decide that.

But Megan sees this as an opportunity and begin shaking down these people for bribes. Wow. Basically, if you wanted the lie heap money to pay your electric bill, you needed to slip Megan a couple bucks. most of these grants are not big for like less than $1,000. Yeah. So she's not gotten a huge kit back or anything. Right. But for the beneficiaries, it's simple math. You either pay Megan for a couple hundred, you pay Megan a couple hundred bucks,

and as long as the economic benefit to the bribers exceeds the amount, is more than the bribe itself, you're going to be ahead of the game. Okay. So Megan takes in $15,000 worth of bribes over an 18-month period. Okay. much of what many of which most of which was actually coming from people who would not otherwise have qualified for the LIHEAP program okay okay right so maybe people who were broke but not that broke wouldn't have qualified so I don't I don't know how the FBI knows that number other than the fact the only way they could is if Megan was then depositing that cash into her bank account right eventually someone squeals to the FBI and Megan's scheme is is is revealed, and then it's an investigation. This is what's interesting to me. She gets charged with racketeering. Wow. And running a bribery, racketeering for a bribery enterprise. Okay.

Okay. She pleads guilty. Right. Right. Rocketeering, that's a serious charge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a big hammer for a kind of small-time bribery scam, bribery crime. But the bottom of mind is her, she made 15,000. I don't have the number on how much she granted wrongfully in LIHEAP benefits to people who didn't deserve it. But here's what I don't think the government knows. Right. I don't think that they were able to reverse engineer that, and that's why that information was not in the court filings.

But how much time you didn't give Megan for this bribery scheme that was for a program designed to keep poor people's gas and electric on? Remembering that she pleads guilty to racketeering. Do we know how many people? No, that's the problem, is that all we really have is that, I mean, the grants are for less than $1,000. She takes in $15,000 over an 18-month period. I'm going to say 30, 40 people probably. Right.

30, 40 people, sophisticated means, taking advantage of a position of trust. Probably, I wonder if they hit her for, they include the government as a victim. or just because if you consider the government as a victim, then that's another enhancement, by the way. The government is entirely a victim in this case. This is your money, but I was thinking that the people she was shaking down, they're also victims. True, true, but yeah, but she's stealing grant money, basically, by giving it to people who would not have otherwise deserved it. Right. So, yeah, if it was more than a million dollars from one institution, that would be another enhancement, we don't know how much she defrauded them of it.

It's not that much. Okay, so let's say, so I don't know, so we're kind of going off the dollar amount. Let's say three years. Okay, three years, 36 months? 36 months. Okay. Final answer? Yeah.

Correct answer is 28 months. So you did it. You're in the ballpark. Oh, nice. Yeah. So I have a question for you. Yeah. When we're, as we're talking about utilities.

Mm-hmm. Do you know how many gun deaths there are in the United States every year? Oh. No. I mean, I mean, 10,000? 45,000. Okay. Okay.

Do you know how many gun deaths there are in the UK? Oh, a dozen? I don't really know. I think it's probably a thousand. How much is it in the, no, no, not in the UK, in Europe. Oh, in Europe? In all of Europe. Oh, do you count Russia?

I mean, Russia, Ukraine? No, I wouldn't count, no, I wouldn't count Russian in Ukraine. I would just say. Like, due to crime type of thing? Yeah. That's probably more like 15,000. Yeah, probably, I would think, right? 10, 15,000.

Yeah. What do you think, Colby? What is it? Chat GPD can tell you. Yeah, so this is for Europe? Yes. Approximately 6,700 people die from a firearm-related injuries in the European Union each year. So ask ChatchipT this, how many people die from lack of air conditioning a year?

How many do you think? In Europe? What does that even look like? But, okay, I mean, what's cause of death? The lack of an AC. Right. That's not on your death certificate. good.

It's heat stroke. 50,000. 175,000 people a year because they don't even have AC. Yeah. Because there's so few of them have AC. So there's more deaths from lack of air conditioning in Europe than there is gun violence in the United States. Oh.

They just don't have it. There's no reason. Well, it's not that there's no reason, but keep in mind, too, if in the U.K., you know, in the U.K., the our poorest, our poorest state is richer than the UK. And that just happened to like a year or so ago. They just, we just, like, Alabama surpassed them. You know, they'd be the 51st poorest state.

But, but that's kind of- Well, we're the only country on planet Earth where our poor are morbidly obese. Right. I know. But, yeah, I just remember thinking, like, it was like, that's insane that there's that many people. Because I also don't think that Europe gets that hot. But if it does, it's catastrophic.

Like, people die from. heat stroke. That's insane. They need a light heat program. They do. Yeah. And that's why when you brought that up, that reminded me of that. And I thought, I thought, well, you know, that is a big deal. Like, if these people's electric gets shut off and they're poor, like, it could be dangerous, you know. I don't think people realize that. Because to us, like, poor people, even poor people have AC. Like, every place has AC. They don't have, you can't rent a place that doesn't have AC. I know. In Florida, for sure, you can't, you cannot rent a building or an apartment that doesn't have air condition. My first three homes in Chicago had no AC.

Chicago and it was how long ago? It was 100 years ago. Please. 90s. But yeah, it got hot, but whatever. Right. Drink an ice cold something. All right. Next story involves something bad happening to a child. So if you are in the car with your kids, dear listener and viewer, maybe this ones to put the earbuds in or watch it when you're home sitting on the toilet.

Air muffs. Ear muffs. Exactly. You into the video game Fortnite? No. Familiar with it? No. I mean, I'm familiar.

I've heard it many, many times. It's quite a phenomenon. I'm curious. Can you explain what it is? I think it's a first-person shooter game. Is that right? No. No, that's wrong?

No. What is it? Like, that's all you know. You don't know anything. That's what I thought. I just assumed it was. I assumed any popular game is a first-person shooter game because those are the only games I've ever played. I used to play Halo.

The last time I played Halo, they'd come out with Halo 2. Fortnite's probably more like Dungeons and Dragons. Is that fair to say? No. No. Then we're both wrong. So Fortnite is, it's called, the term is called Battle Royale. So it's 100 players, and you basically battle it out on a big old island until there's one person left.

I mean, is this, like weapons? kicking and punching? No, no, you find go. You land with no guns. You search the island. You find guns. You find weapons. And you run around and...

I feel like that's kind of like Halo. It's kind of. It's not first person shooter. You're moving an avatar around. Yeah, yeah. You can see the back of your person. You don't see like your hands. Oh, come on.

Matt was closer than others. That's the same kind of thing. It's kind of the same thing. The two kind of gimmicks that made this thing popular was you start with 100 and there's one final person left. Like once you die, you're done. And there was like, there's an. element that you can like build as you are playing well there's dances too right an element where you can like build as you're playing yeah and then there's dance now there's dances and you can buy

all bunch of cosmetics so you play fortnight i did like okay so here's a trivia question for you colby what is the currency of fortnight v bucks v bucks v bucks yeah so there is a whole economy behind it where people buy skins and things like that and there's like rare skins that kids will just go crazy over so yes. Right. And sorry, let me just... This is obviously close to... Yeah, this is not getting edited out. Well, now, yeah, I'm obviously going to have to edit some of this out. But there also is an aspect of the game that maybe this is what you're referencing in Dungeons and Dragons. It doesn't have like a Roblox aspect where you can create your own type of game. That's not even the gun game. Like we could create a tycoon business game where some... Which is like you're playing in universe?

Yeah, you can create your... You can create anything. Well, thank you for... I will trim some of this up. No, no, no, no. I think Matt's fans are really into Fortnite and they're going to like watching your Fortnite diversion for 15 minutes. They always find it funny

when I don't know something that seems so familiar to them. When I don't know, then they're just like, how does he not know? Yeah, because I'm not cool. I mean, my nephews were into Fortnite. You know, he was sort of on there on my radar screen as a thing that happens.

They would do these crazy dances. Oh, these are Fortnite dances, stuff like that. Wow. Yeah, so there was a video going around the internet of a fat guy coercing a boy into submitting to... Jesus, that took a left turn. Well, stay tuned. We're going to tie it in. The details of this were far too graphic for this particular forum of the Inside True Crime with Matthew Cox's YouTube show, but it involved an adult diaper and went downhill from there.

Let's leave it at that. Some great digital investigation by the FBI identified the boy in the video. through some facial recognition stuff and some context clues. We're going to call that boy Jimmy. So they traveled to Gulfport, Mississippi, to interview young Jimmy. With his mom's permission, the boy admitted that it was him in the video with the big fat guy. The question is, who's the big fat guy, right? Jimmy said that the man in the video is a longtime family friend,

who at the time was in town from Long Beach, Mississippi for a family funeral. Jimmy went to the guy's hotel room, rode his bike there to say hi, and was bribed into conducting with the promise of some Fortnite video game V-bucks. Okay. Right. Jimmy then identified the man as 47-year-old Jason Rhodes.

FBI agents at the search warrant, they bring Jason into a separate room of his house, they sit him down, and they interrogate him until he admits to the conduct. He's the guy in the diaper. Okay. Okay. Jason said that he filmed the encounters on his GoPro and had posted them to the internet himself.

He's arrested to the FBI. He pleads guilty of production and distribution of materials. How much time are you going to give Mr. Jason Rhodes of Mississippi? 25? What's the max? 30? you know, but if they plead's guilty, they give them 25, he didn't go to trial. So there's got to be some benefit for him to take a plea as opposed to going to trial and getting 30.

Right. I'm assuming 30 is the max. Per count. Oh, per. Okay, 45? You know what I'm saying? Like, okay, I didn't realize. I'm assuming they run them all concurrently. You get a little bit of time off and not going to trial.

He was charged with three counts. Okay. For the three kids. So let's say 45. 45? Yeah. 45 years? Yeah.

Okay. Is that your final answer? Yeah. Correct answer is 110 years. Oh, come on. How my... I say that. I say it's still, like, 45.

Wait, you're going to give him... Who's going to guess 105? That's so... 110? I'm 110. I didn't do the sense. I didn't make the sense. You're going to give him the point for that?

How old is he? Did he plead guilty to 105 or go to trial? He's 47 years old. He's going to get out when he's 150. So at 47. He's going to die before 45 years is up. So either way, it's a life sentence. Yeah.

So I'm going to give it to him, 6 and 12. Oh, my God. Are you kidding? You pick some ridiculous. There's no way I was going to get that. Talk about having your thumb on the scale. You know, who writes the check too. Oh, my gosh.

All right, whatever. Okay, last one, but it's a two-for. What's the score? So it is 6 of 13 right now. So you actually have to get both of these correct. Or hit one. Or one on the head. Yeah, yeah, because this is a double.

This is a deuce. You came back. You started off one of eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a real comeback story, especially with the little help from your friends. Ever since that bathroom break, you've just been on a roll. Yeah, and I wonder how.

No, that's not true. Matt Cox? You like a nudie bar? I die. No comment? No comment. All right. Maybe it's best I don't comment either.

there. I love this story. I love it with the heat of a thousand sons. I was waiting for this case to get sentenced so I could bring this one. I've been sitting on this one for a year. The Office Gentleman's Club in Lincoln, Nebraska, consistently great Google reviews. One patient commented that a night at the club was exactly what he needed to work out his prostate. Okay. Good reviews for this place. It's partially owned by a guy named Brent Seywick. And the bar was regularly inspected by the Nebraska Liquor Commission, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, an agency headed out by a guy named Hobart Rupp.

So these are our characters. You got Brent, the club owner, and Hobart, who ran the liquor commission and the inspectors. They happen to grow up together. No. I don't get that impression. Maybe they knew each other. I mean, Lincoln, Nebraska is a fairly big city.

I mean, by Nebraska standards, it's no Omaha. So everyone agreed that this place will treat your prostate right, but it also had lots and lots of liquor control violations, just constantly violating liquor laws for this or that, pouring too heavy, comping too many drinks, things like that. And Brent, the owner, is just getting weary of all the state government meddling in his business. He just wants to make a living, right? running a good place.

But he makes him deal with Hobart. Calls Hobart in. Sit down, Hobart. Can I get you a drink? And he says, okay, in exchange for overlooking the violations, the club is going to provide Hobart with cash payments. We call them bribes. And free VIP dances, Matt Cox, at the club.

Free booze and no cover charge. And if you wanted to go into the shableness, Champagne room, free sex acts with the girls in the champagne room. Normally, Matt, I know you don't go to these places. There's no touching in the champagne room. Not for Hobart. Not anymore. Hobart can be as handsy as he wants.

Hobart thought he died and went to heaven. This is the best thing ever. He enjoyed these benefits for over three years, receiving $67,000 in cash bribes during that period of time and countless last. lap dances to fruition. You know what I'm saying? He went to bed satisfied every night covered up in someone else's body glitter and makeup.

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That's ghostbed.com slash Cox, promo code Cox. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest bed in the world. Some exclusions apply. See sight for details. Jeez. Yeah. It's hard to explain walking in the office. Like, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's hard at work, as we say. For Brent, this was a solution to the problem with the State Liquor Commission, and the inspections and violations just stopped altogether. This could have continued forever, but you know what happened? Somebody talked. Somebody talked. The FBI launched an investigation, sent in undercover agents to kind of go hang out at the club, volunteers, and who were able to observe Hobart in action at the club, you know, getting the lap dances, drinking it up, back into the champagne room with Priscilla and candy and Mandy and the symbiotic relationship between Hobart and Brent got pretty well documented by the agents observing it with

their own two eyes. Both men end up getting charged with conspiracy to commit a variety of corruption, bribery, and extortion offenses. Both men pled guilty. So this is your big chance. I want to know how much Hobart the inspector got and how much Brent the owner got as far as time in prison. Let's assume no sizable criminal history for either guy. I mean... But clearly bribery of a public official. Right. There's two people. Two people, right? They did them both, so to speak.

24 months apiece. You think they both got the same sentence of 24 months? They're both equally culpable? Does anyone of their actions upset you more than the other? Well, I mean, the one guy's in a position of trust, so he probably should have gotten more time. And he's the one that made the money, but then the other guy's bribing him. I don't know.

Let's say Hobart I'm not saying they didn't get the same sentence I'm just curious to see if you have an opinion about who's more culpable or who's more bad Let's say 24 for the club owner And 30 months for the inspector That's your guess? Yeah, why?

You hit them both on the head. No, no, I did not. You did not. I swear to God, I did not. I did not. Are you joking? I know you're joking. You looked at the paper.

I swear to God, I did not. Look at the paper. Colby. I did not look at the paper. Hobart, the inspector, got 30 months in federal prison and a $50,000 fine. Brent, the owner, got 24 months in prison and a $20,000 fine. And I honestly, and I would have said 24 of both. I'm happy for you.

He doesn't believe me. I swear. Oh, the comments are going to be. I swear. And this was on the whole time. I want the bathroom break or the announcement of the bathroom break to be in the video, Colby. Yeah, we'll leave it in the. there.

Listen, I, I'll review it, but I'm going to cut out the bathroom break. And people are just going to have to guess about what actually occurred in the... No, you could do, you could speed it up. Because I never leave here. Or I can just make it black. Yeah. I'd just make it disappear. Final score after he racks up four points on the last question?

On the last question, 10 of 15. Oh, congratulations, sir. I'm good with it. I did well. I'm okay with it. I'm proud of you. No, no, no. That's insincere. It's just amazing how that would happen.

The first half of you just tips up. The second half, you're running the table. Like Minnesota Fats at the table. One for eight. When was the bathroom break? One for eight to 10 to 15. It's pretty good. Wow. Pretty good. Remarkable.

I'm proud of you, man. I swear. I swear. I did not look. It's not about me losing or winning. You need to speed that up. You need to speed up that so that they can see. I never even left here.

You got up and left, and we sat here. It was in plain sight, like, right here. It would have been the easiest thing in the world just to go, oh. That's not, I didn't do that, though. I believe you at your show. What do I care? All right, come on. Will you do a pitch?

Tell me, who are you? What do you do? All right, my name's Tom Simon. It's good to meet you. I'm a private investigator based here in Florida, but I work in all 50 states. I do free consultations for any Matt Cox viewer, and my specialty is fraud investigations,

and I'll always make time for a referral. from a Matt Cox viewer. I'm also a keynote speaker, so if you have a conference or a business that you run or want to hook me up with them, I give a speech on how to use FBI behavioral science techniques for business success, how to prevent fraud in your company, and how to investigate fraud,

if that's your line of work, or if you're a CPA or something like that. I also have a social media presence at Simon Investigations. And if you go there, there will be a link tree where you can click on it and see all my links. And thank you so much for having me on. It is always a joy. Thank you for coming.

Hey, this is Matt Cox. I don't even know why I said that. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button to the bell so get notified videos just like this. Also, we're in the description box. You can go in to the description box.

We're going to leave all of Tom's links in the description box. We're also going to leave the link to our website in case you want to be a guest. Also, do me a favor and go to my stepdaughters, her, YouTube channel and subscribe and watch some of her videos. We're trying to get her monetized. Her name is Maryshelly. The name of her channel is Crime and Curles. So it's Marysshelly, Crime and Curles. We'll leave the link. Go there, subscribe. Please. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Please share the video to anybody that you think might be interested. Thank you very much. See ya. Be cool.