Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - FBI Most Wanted Con Woman - $80 Million in Bank Fraud | Portia Louder

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Stop leaving yourself vulnerable to data breaches. Go to my sponsor https://aura.com/matt to get a 14-day free trial and see if any of your data has been exposedPortia Louder became entangled in a massive real estate fraud scheme involving inflated appraisals and hard money loans, eventually leading to an $11 million restitution order and a seven-year federal prison sentence. Connect with PortiaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/portialouder/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/portialouderYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/chlouderWebsite: https://portialouder.com/Get 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout.Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [e-mail] 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/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen 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/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69

I had $60 million in real estate. This is arbitrage. I'll pay you the million five, but we're going to close it at three. You'll get like the half a million or the million back. You just commit a fraud. They don't know that. How could I have committed a fraud against a bank that's fully aware of all the details of the transaction? When they say, United States of America versus Porsche Lauder, that's when you're like,

oh, how could I have been so foolish? I started building a photography company, and my business just really grew. So we have these two kids. We buy a house. I start my own company, Chad's working, and for about four and a half years, life is going pretty good. About that time, the real estate market's going crazy, and I decide that I need to build a home to put my studio in. It's in Utah. What years is?

It's 2003, 2004. So I'm building a home, and the lots in my neighborhood are just going up, up, up, up. And I told my husband, I said, I'm going to go lock up a couple of those lots. I'm going to put them under contract. and I think I gave him 2,500 bucks, and he flipped. I came home, and he's like, what are you doing? How are we going to close those? What are you thinking?

So I wouldn't ask for the $2,500, right? I went and asked for the $2,500 back, and then the lot's, like, doubled in value. Right. I was so pissed off. I was like, don't ever tell me what to do again, you know? But about that time, my back went out, too. So I ended up having a pretty good injury with my back and had to have back surgery. Now, I know this about myself, the kind of drug,

addict that I am, if I use like one half of a pain pill, I'm right back at it. At that point, I didn't know that about myself. Like, I still thought, oh, I'm doing good, you know, I'm living legit. And so when I had the back surgery, I didn't tell the doctor and he prescribed the pain pills again. And I kept thinking, I got this under control. I'm not on the street. I'm doing everything right. But my addiction, the thing about me is when I use drugs, I like to hustle. They go together. And so I started using pills again and decided that, you know, I'm doing, I would put some more lots under contract, but this time I ended up putting a whole subdivision under contract. And I used hard money. So I borrowed a couple hundred grand. Well, more than that,

I think I had about half a million. And I had all of our equity line. I took an equity line on her house. So everything's locked up. And I'm thinking, well, I'm just going to build, you know, I'll get construction loans. Well, you can't get like 10 construction loans all at once. So my family, my parents, other people, I'm getting construction loans in everybody's name. Well, construction loans were hard to get. Yeah, that's a construction of perm loan. Yeah, very difficult. It's a lot harder than just getting, you know, refying your house or whatever. Well, I didn't know that. I'm pretty new in it. And now I'm paying this hard money every month, like 50 grand a month. Like how do you come up with that? I have to buy a lot and flip it and I make

30 grand. And so now I'm upside down. Plus I have my photography business, which is going, like I'm doing about 200 weddings a year. I mean, that's, I have employees. I've got a studio now. So life is crazy. I have nannies taking care of my kids. And my name's Portia, which is pretty unusual. Well, there was another Porsche. Her name was Portia bunker in the real estate game in Utah, which is, again, unusual. And I had a couple guys reach out to me and say, hey, can we borrow some money? She was a hard money lender.

I said, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not a hard money lender. They said, well, let's go to lunch. So we go to lunch, and they explain to me what is called an equity deal. They're like, hey, we've got this house. It appraises for $5 million, but you can pick it up for $3 million. and pull the cash out of it. An equity deal.

That's great. That's so much better than a straw man or cash out refi or cash down. I know, I know. Yeah. Have you ever Googled your name? With one quick search, I can find all of your information on very sketchy websites. Your phone number, your old addresses, want to know how scammers get your information? This is it.

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Anyway, it was an equity deal. So I'm like, well, why would it appraise for five? Like, why don't you sell it for five? If it appraises for five, right? And they're like, well, come take a look at it. So I go take a look at it. And I'm thinking, hmm, I don't know. So you're telling me that I borrow more than I'm paying for the house.

Like, then I'm upside down. And I don't know. It just doesn't sound right. I remember telling my husband that night, I'm like, I don't think I would want to get involved in that. But then next month, you know, my hard money loans are due on the lots. And so I go to a friend of mine that's also a hard money lender. I said, hey, Kim, look at this deal with me.

And he's like, well, it looks pretty cool. Like, we could pull that million and lend it at something else. And so it all looks really good. So we locked it up. We bought the house. Now, the problem with the $5 million house, again, is you know this. You're not going to get a 90% loan. No.

And the other problem with it is they're harder to close. Like anything under $3 million is easier to close. Right. That's what is under three million is jumbo? Over three millions. Oh, I'm sorry, over three million is a jumbo, so under three million is just a regular residential. Right. I'm that, that's like, I was going to say, I think in, I don't know what it was.

It was much lower than that in, in, in, uh, 2000s. Yeah, it was about, I was at the same time. Maybe it was three. I thought it was a couple million. Maybe it was Florida different areas. Yeah. It was a couple million. In 2004, 2005, three million was the third.

threshold. Well, I didn't know that, though. I didn't know that. So I go lock up this house. I'm trying to get a loan for three or four million on a $5 million home and we aren't closing. So now not only do I have these lots under contract, now I got this house under contract because I bought it with hard money and it was going to do a refinance on it, right? So you bought it? You did buy it. Yeah. And you're just trying to refine pull out the, pull out the. Right. Right. Oh, wow. Yeah. So now I'm really upside down. And I can think of a way to get the money, but it's a little more fraudulent than what you've currently done. Well, so now I'm like, I'm pretty upside down. So now I'm learning, too.

I'm learning that I've got to lock up houses that are under $3 million. And now I've got people hearing, oh, we're sure she does these equity deals. Actually, at the time, they're advertising them on billboards in Utah. Use your credit, get cash back, you know? It was crazy, right? So what was the $3 million, $3 million house? that will appraise at five, is it, or is it because there's a couple other comparables close by, that's what it is, but they weren't really comparable.

Well, what it was was just, yeah, it had a lot of square footage. It was in a nice neighborhood, but it was dumbed down compared to that comps. It wasn't really comparable. Right. On paper, if you're... It's all square footage. You've got to have the right square footage in the right location. So I'm learning this stuff, right?

You're lending money. If you're a lending institution in California or New York, it looks like a good deal. But if you were a bank down the street, they'd be like, yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Washington Mutual and ABC thought it was a good deal. They're not local.

They're not local. Oh, and they are no longer in business either. So anyway, yeah. So this continues to go on, and I'm learning more. I'm learning now that I have to close at $3 million. And the sweet spot is I've got to buy the house or lock it up for like a million, a million five. And then I'm also finding out through mortgage brokers that there's companies like Washington Mutual that will lend 90%. But they've got to get a little kick back under the table.

which is illegal, on top of the three points that they're getting, this money gets wired directly to this special person at Washington Mutual that's going to give us a 90% loan. Really? Yeah. That's nuts. Right. I literally got caught by Washington Mutual in time with multiple mortgages on a loan. And they had, like, they should have called the FBI.

Instead, their lawyer called me and said, can you just refinance this? Just get us our money back. We don't want to call the FBI. Well, they were major fraudsters, right? Right, right. Like, they don't, oh, I knew. I was, you know, talking to him and realized. or fraud that we were pulled by far.

When they're like, listen, nobody wants to call the FBI and think, I know why I don't. Why don't you? Like, this is Washington Mutual. Right. Like, you think they're legit, right? Yeah, no. No, they weren't. Yeah, they were selling everything under the table, really.

It wasn't going so well. The sad part was that when it all came down, I said, hey, I can give you Washington Mutual. And the feds are like, oh, yeah, we don't want them. We're bailing them out. Oh, that made me upset. Yeah. I was upset about that. So, yeah.

anyway. So three million. Yeah. So now I'm starting to learn and I'm thinking, you know what I could do? Like if I go in a neighborhood and I close a bunch of them at $3 million, now I have comps. Just close them with the hard money. Sounds very, listen, I'm going to, you don't want to. I don't want to know. Prior, so prior to us doing the podcast, Portia said, so your crime was what? Fraud? Real estate? I'm like, oh, wow. Like, so I'm going to send you I'm going to send you a short version of my story. And when you listen to it, you're going to go, holy shit. This is exactly the same thing. Because it was a farming scam.

I just created a bunch of comparables, drove the whole area up, borrow the money, let them all go into foreclosure. And made a few payments. So it looks like you. But go ahead. So yeah. And at this point, you know, they're doing the NIGAM loans. No-en-no-aset loans.

Lire loans. Right, the liar loans. And the mortgage broker is telling me, this is what they all do. This is arbitrage. This is what the feds do. They lend it this. So if you can pull a million bucks out, we can put it in the stock market. We can make a bunch of money. And yeah, so this is just an asset. That's what the house is. And so now I have all these currency traders that hear about me closing these houses. And they come in and say, hey, I want to buy that. So my thing is I'm the middleman. I'll make $100 grand on it. You take the loan because they're qualified. Well, they're qualified based on these loans. And then you, you'll get the bulk of the money back. You'll get like the half a million or the million back. I've closed them and made the comps and locked everything up in that neighborhood. And now everyone that builds a home, I'm locking it up. And I'm doing a joint venture agreement with them, right? So I'll pay you the million five, but we're going to close it at three. And I'll close it with hard money, which, what do we call that?

I can't even remember the name of that. Splash cash. Splash cash. So the money goes to the title company and then it just comes right back to basically to create the HUD. So are you struggling, still kind of, because it's, here's the way people hear this, is they think, man, she's bawling. But the truth is, you're, what people realize, like, like, I am freaking juggling.

I was going to say, I was, that's always, I always felt like they're like, well, how much money you were making? Oh, how much you make a month? And I hate that question. It's like, listen, I'm not selling drugs here. Like, this is, I might have a million dollars in the bank, but it's tied up in five different places. Right.

My account's doing this. Right. It's absolutely what I was happening. I can do what I want, but at no time do I ever feel like I made $4 million. No, no, no. Yeah. At any time I was thinking how, you know, freedom would be living in a home that was worth 300 grand and I owned it free and clear.

Like that, right? Like I'm like, I wish I had just been a middle class, average American, you know, welder. Right. The dream. The American dream. Right. That could watch my kids play soccer on the weekends. and vacation two weeks a month and had a retirement.

Like that would be an amazing life to me. Correct. During that time, especially. Yeah, it was so heavy. And I'm trying to manage all of this. And I'm just the weight of it. It was awful. Yeah, I've got everything tied up, everything.

Does your husband, does your husband feel sick to his stomach? Or does he think you're a rainmaker? No, he does not think I'm a rainmaker. Now maybe, but not that, no. We had some rough years because he's a pretty conservative guy. Right. So he has a normal job. He went to college.

He did all the right things. And he had a, I told him, hey, you need to quit your job and stay home and take care of the kids. I bet you've heard that thrown in your, brought a few times. Oh, he was so mad. I mean, I was like, I can't keep this going. I'm trying to, I've got photography. I've got all these real estate deals. People are shown up our house.

And he's just, he's like, do you know what you're doing? I mean, he, and here's the sad thing. My husband is, he works for banks doing marketing, but he has not, he doesn't know anything. I do, right? So if you're telling me, it's perfectly legal. He's like, okay, he's just, he's just like, this is weird. This is a lot. Are we ever going to be okay?

So he quits his job and he's taking care of the kids. Yeah, he quit his job. Yeah, yeah, no, it's going to get worse. Wait until you hear what happened. It's going to get worse. So anyway, he, there's some pretty rough years. Chad's just like, I hope you know what you're doing. I got people showing up at the house all the time, hard money.

I hear I'm under investigation, right? How do you hear this? So that Porsche Bunker girl, the other one that was doing hard money, she's under federal investigation. Two things happened. One, the feds are looking at her, so they're going to title companies pulling her stuff and they're like, Portia Louder, she must be an alias of Portia Bunker. So they dig into my stuff. So that's a really bad luck.

Number two. It's flying the way up. You could, how am I supposed to? How do I? I can't account for this, right? I can't account for this. I'm thinking portion, it's a unique name, but it just so happens. I'm tagged to somebody that's also under investigation for fraud.

So that was number one, really bad. Number two, I made a realtor mad that I wasn't paying him a commission on all the deals I was closing. He came to me and said, and I'm like, why would I do that? I don't even need you. So then he starts filing complaints and filing complaints. He goes to the division of real estate. Well, I'm not a licensed realtor.

They send me a letter, cease and desist. I'm like, you don't even, what are you talking about? Yeah, you can't stop me. I'm not a realtor. Yeah, but when the FBI, we hear a title company calls and says, hey, they just came in here with some, and they're pulling papers. And I'm like, subpoenas? Yeah.

How's that feel? How's that? Oh, it makes me not just even saying it right now. Listen, I always say that the amount of heat that shot up from my pelvis into my Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with a TD small business account manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play?

Get up to $2,700 when you open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. S and hit my face, like, I was just, when I first heard that, I was just like, that's not a big deal. I mean, I'm, I don't know about it. It's not a big deal. Look, it's fine.

I appreciate you calling me. Right. And I'm just like. You're going to throw up. Yeah. Yeah, it's over. It's over. Yeah, it's a nauseating feeling. So my thinking is, well, I'll just go talk to a real estate attorney.

And I'll just lay it all out for it. Can you go through one of the transactions that, like, for instance, like you're saying, like, I know because I've had, once you get about 10 mortgages in your name, they really don't want to give you any more mortgages, no matter what documentation, what you do. Right, right, right, right. So, and obviously, you don't want your name on these other transactions. where you're building, helping to build the comparable sales. So I'm saying, what do you do? You go to your, you know, your cousin and say, like, like, how does that work? Like, so, you know, like, I had a deal.

There was a deal. There was a house. So I went to my cousin, and I convinced him this. And like, how does the money come back out? Like, can you go to break one down? So for me, there's two parts to the deal. There's the hard money part. So let's say that I go to a builder and I lock a house up that he's selling.

could deal with him. Sell me the house for 1.2 or 1.4. And I've already closed enough houses in cash. Is that what you're asking? How did I close those houses? So you know those houses will, those are. They're going to appraise it $3 million. I've already got you crazy.

But you didn't buy it for $1.4. Right. How does the comparable sale show up for $3 million? Because I closed them in hard money, sent the money to the title company to create the HUD, and then that cash comes back and only this much goes to the seller. Okay, so there's an agreement, a joint venture agreement that's held at title that says 1.4 goes to the seller and the other 1.6 comes back to an LLC that I have set up. And whoever bought it doesn't really, what I did is I had people buying it that were going to refinance him. So we closed them in cash and then they would go and refinance them.

And I did have a few straw buyers like my husband or my brother or my mom or whatever. But mostly they were investors that were buying them to pull the cash. cash out themselves. Right. So when you buy that, when you go and you buy this house, the house is selling for for 1.3. Okay. You write up a contract for 3 million. Mm-hmm.

You borrow the, let's say, the 1.3, or the whole 7 million and it just comes back. I'm sorry, the whole 6, the whole 3 million. Let's just to make the numbers easy, let's say this. I'm going to buy this house from you for a million five. This is how I present it. but I'm going to close it for $3 million. So there's going to be a joint venture agreement. The house is going to be sold to the joint venture agreement.

You're going to get a million five. And the other million five at Title is going to come right back to me. We called that splash cash. That's money that just creates the HUD. So I had people that I could call and I paid them a point to send their money to title and it would come right back to them. Then we refinance it. We put a lien on it.

That's when the payday happens is when the refinance happens, right? There's a lien for half a million dollars, and when that gets paid, that's going to come back to my LLC, and I'm going to kick it back to the person that bought the house, and I'm going to keep $100,000 of it. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So when you close at a title company, it creates a transaction form for the county. So you're paying the extra dot stamps on the lien, the extra 0.007 dock stamps on the extra $1.5 million to create the comparable. Correct.

So now you've got three comparables. It's not just the comparable either, though. Now you've created the HUD for the refinance. If you've closed it and you've shown money coming in, we show that. So the way that they purchase it, we're going to show a big down payment from the buyer on that initial HUD, even though that money was never actually paid. It's going to come in and it's going to come right back to us. But it's going to look like they put half a million dollars in. So are you writing up the agreement in such a way that the title company doesn't really realize or that what's happening?

They didn't think it was illegal. They didn't think it was illegal? Okay, they're telling you, oh, yeah, yeah, it's fine. It's just creative financing or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, we're fine with that. Well, there were so, but here's the other thing. I never had a title company telling me now.

Yeah. No, no, no. We're always like, yeah, that's fine. But when I first started doing these deals, I will go lock up a house for a million five. I would call Washington Mutual or ABC lender and say, I would like to borrow this much money, and we have an appraisal for 2.9, and I'm only paying 1.5. And they would send their own appraiser, and their appraiser would say, Oh, it's actually worth three.

Their own appraiser, right? So in my mind, there's no fraud because how could I have committed a fraud against a bank that's fully aware of all the details of the transaction? But they don't really realize that you created the other three comparable sales. That's true. That's true. Like, I hear what you're saying? There's that. I know, but my argument to the FBI was, how is the bank a victim when the bank knows that I pay,

I mean, think about it, though. If the bank knows that I'm actually locking it up at 1.5, I'm getting a $3 million appraisal, and they're lending more than the purchase price. Is it fraudulent to the bank? I guess you're right. I mean, look, in the big picture, if they knew that they would have never cared. If they knew that their appraisal was based on false comparables,

then they would have cared. But here's the thing. They were selling all those loans. Well, I mean, I don't think Washington Mutual would have cared. Right, the underwriter. Somebody cared something. Let's take Washington Mutual out of it, and let's say it's a legitimate bank. Right.

They would have cared. Right. But I also think even a legitimate bank at that time, to this day, would have said, we're only going to have this on our books for 90 days. We're going to put it into a tranche. It's going to be sold. We're getting our money back. We don't care what happens on the secondary market.

Right. Because I don't necessarily know that, you know, whatever. I don't necessarily know that all banks understood what they were really doing to the economy, how bad it was. until it was too late. I consider us all conspirators. Yeah. Me, the bank, even title sometimes.

Yeah, I've mentioned this, uh, um, uh, George Carlson. I don't know if you've ever seen him. You know, do you know George Carlson? Yeah. So he's a comedian, right? He, he always thought he said it great where he's explaining a conspiracy and he's like a consp-you do not have to have a meeting of the minds of all parties involved in a conspiracy if all of you have a common interest and a common gold.

goal you're in a conspiracy right so everybody you don't have to sit i don't you don't have to sit down with the underwriter of this and all these you guys don't have to get together in a room right you're all all of your goal is the same thing create this device that i can get rid of on the secondary market and it's off my hands and i don't care what happens right so um okay so so you buy the property and then you've already got it sold to somebody you refinance it they pull out they get a loan for they get two and a half million whatever right and you just get the $100,000 off the top. And then they're pocketing $800 and see, that's what my lawyer's like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? You're not making all the money. You know,

I'm still making $100,000 for some paperwork. And then they're, they have to make the payment and they're getting the chunk of cash, right? But eventually they all defaulted on the loans and they took the big chunk of cash and I took an indictment. So none of those guys were indicted. So there was that. So I go in and I talk to a real estate attorney and I'd map it all out because I'm still saying, you know, it's kind of legal. I mean, they're advertising this. It's a gray area. Yeah, it's great. And so, but you know what the real estate lawyer says? He goes, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. That's what he said. I drew it all out and he goes, wow. And you close at this and then you refinance it at this and that. And he's like, oh, it's really next day he calls me. He goes,

I think you have some problems. Come back in. We were going to bring a criminal defense lawyer. I talked to a, yeah, I talked to a criminal lawyer. Right. That's what happened. So I go in and I talk to the criminal lawyer. And the criminal lawyer says, you're not that important. You should just slow down and maybe stop, but you're not that important. I'm like, no, but it's the FBI. Like, I think there could be some problems here. I'm thinking, you don't know. I've got a lot of money coming and going. I mean, like you say, I never have like, I mean, I have a lot of money coming and going. I'm closing a lot of deals. Right. So then the FBI shows up at my house. They usually don't do that, but they did. I was living in a $3 million home at the time and they

showed up now now i've got my last kid my youngest so she's three months old she's in my arms and my husband's at the house and when they come to the door they look at chat and they said hey you're going to need to decide what you're going to do because if you stand by her you could get wrapped up in a conspiracy because she's going to go to prison and i yeah so i mean they're just they just knock on the door yeah i mean they explained you like they just said yeah it's so weird that They came to my house. They usually don't do that, right? But they did.

And I remember Cameron Saksie and Agent Denning. And they knocked on the door and I'm standing there with my – and I told Chad, don't you say a word? He said, you step back now, friend. You need to go. You don't you say it. For somebody who's been saying, perfectly illegal, perfectly fun, say nothing. They're like, what?

He's got to be like, what do you say nothing about what? Nothing. Everything is all legal. He just – his face is white. He's just like, I know my husband, you know, and I'm like, I need to get him out. out of here. Like, you can't do this. Yeah, it was, it was terrible. I just remember the most sickening feeling like everything I have is gone. I'm going to lose it all. The most important thing, my family, you know, I've got these kids that depend on me. I have kids in high school.

I've got these kids in elementary, and I got a new baby, and I got a husband, and my husband quit his job, and he's home taking care of the kids, and he hates me. Like, he's going to leave me? Like, it's all gone, right? So I called the attorney back, and the attorney goes, oh, yeah, you probably have some problems. Well, wait a sec, wait a second. So the FBI knocks on the door, you open the door. They come in for a minute. And then they leave because I'm like, yeah, we're not talking to you need to go. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And but before they leave, they turn to your husband and say, you need to figure this out because she's going to prison. She's going down. That's what they did. And then they leave. Yeah. Yeah. And I spent two days in

bed thrown up. It was awful. Called the lawyer and she's like, well, let me see what I can do. I had a few different attorneys at this point. I didn't realize that my main attorney, His wife was also an attorney, so they're both like tag teaming me now. So she says, hey, let me set up a meeting because I don't think what you did. Everyone keeps saying, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I don't think it's that serious, you know? You're just a mom. It's not a big deal.

So they tell you that they're wrong about that. Right, right, right. It is a big deal. Oh, it became a huge deal. So anyway, they set up a meeting with the FBI and with the main prosecutor, a whole bunch of people in the room. And as soon as we walk in the room, my attorney looks at me and goes, there's a lot of people here. This guy is not instilling confidence at all. No, no.

And I was like, what do you want me to do? And they're like, well, you know, I think if they see that you're really sorry. I know. What crackerjack lawyer did you get? Well, I had to fire that attorney. I went through several attorneys. But anyway, at this point, I sat down with them and they're asking me questions about things that I really hadn't done. They thought that I was, I don't even remember exactly what they thought, but it wasn't what I had done.

They started off with Ms. Louder. Oh, they did. Yeah, Ms. Louder. Ms. Louder. I didn't really love that. I was like, like I thought we, yeah, it wasn't good. Get them on a one name, first name basis. Get them on your team.

Like, yeah. I tried that. I showed him a family picture. I was like, yeah. We need to fix this. I think these people are doing something illegal. It's exactly how it was. I was like, oh, you're talking about that.

Oh, yeah, I'm not doing that. Yeah, it wasn't like that. And eventually, I mean, they got pissed. In fact, I remember the FBI agent. He's like, Portia. No, he didn't say Porsche. But he said, louder, listen, people have lost money. People have lost a lot of money.

People with handicapped kids have lost money. And I was like, what? Like, wait a second. It was like the market has crashed. And I felt like this. This was about 2007, 2008. Okay. So it's crashing.

It's crashing. And they're looking at me like, I'm the cause of it. And I'm thinking, wait a minute. Like, I'm not the only one, right? But it was, and that's when the attorney says, hey, we need to take a break. And we go outside and they're like, I think this meeting's over. Like, they're pissed. And so we left.

And again, the attorney calls me and says, maybe we can get you, you know, you might do a couple years in prison. And I'm like, what? We went from, we went from, ah, you're not that big of a deal. Well, this is really brilliant to you're going to do a few years in prison. That's when I went and found a new attorney. This is like, yeah, this is like Tom Cruise wanting to hang off. the side of an airplane and his security or his his his his his his whatever the the stunt guy says you can't do that and he says so i got a new one yeah i'm just going to keep

looking for one until he's going to say okay yes you can hang off that's exactly that's exactly what i did i was looking for it's a really bad strategy i know this now because you can eventually find one that'll tell you didn't do anything wrong as long as you give me enough money yeah so that's what i did i went and found a lawyer. He was a, well, he wasn't a really good lawyer, but he came highly recommended, very expensive out of Boston. He used to be a federal prosecutor, right? He told me I was brilliant. It cost me a lot of money to hear that. I ended up doing a lot more time too, but, you know, at the time, that's, I wasn't about to have an attorney that was going to tell me I was going to prison, not at that point. So I hired the attorney and spend everything we

have, and we audit things, and we go through the, and now I'm just, and I have him go talk to and explained to him why I did, what I did wasn't illegal. And now the FBI's pissed. And now the prosecutor's pissed. And this drags on for, I mean, they didn't even indict me until 2011. So I'm like paying this guy to come into town and meet with them and trying to talk him out of it. It's not going to happen.

They're going to indict me anyway, right? So eventually, and I'm on pretrial release. So I'm home and I'm still kind of trying to keep the family above water. And my husband's really angry at me now. Now, this is when the marriage gets rough. And I'm really rough. And I'm just telling him, you know, I know I've ruined your life and you probably should leave. Like, you should probably go.

And he's like, and do what? I got all these kids. Like, what are we, you know, now buy a portion, no. And he was, it was just bad. In fact, I started a trucking company and said, go drive a truck then. Go do something, you know? And now his dad comes to me and he's like, what have you done to my son? Like, he's up in Montana driving a truck and he's really mad at me and things just aren't going great.

And I remember at one point I said, well, we should just get divorced. And he's like, I hate you. He's like, what have you done? Like, what have you done to us? And then he called me back the next day. And he's like, Portia, like, for real, I love you and I love our kids. We can work through this. And he told me when he called me back that day, he's like, I knew then that I would stay with you no matter what, that I would stick it out.

And I was pretty sure you were going to prison, but I was going to stand by you. But things got worse. So things got worse. It's hard to imagine, right? So eventually they indict me and they indict Chad. Oh, really? On a conspiracy charge. Superceded the indictment and hit up.

Yeah, he's in the house, right? I used his credit. I mean, of course I used his credit, right? I'm using, yeah, I mean, of course. He bought a couple of houses himself, signed the documents. He signed the documents, right? And so now they indict him on a. conspiracy and they indict my brother because my brother is also wrapped up in this stuff

and so and then my brother now and i mean god bless him i understand but the next day he goes and turns and says hey i'll turn on her and chad because he's scared and i'm like i get it like he wouldn't have done well in prison anyway so it's good that he didn't go i see your 110 pounds talking to your 200 pound uh brother saying saying listen you're soft yeah you can't handle It was kind of the case. It was kind of the case. I was like, yeah, just take your deal and be done. You're not going to do well.

You're not cut out for this like me. I'm a gangster. I'm the leader, right? Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, so even after I was indicted, I'm dragging it out. I ended up getting rid of that lawyer and getting another attorney. And at a certain point, like, they are so mad at me now.

Like, I've got the FBI mad. Everybody's mad. I'm mad. And I'm going to go to trial. That's what I decide. I'm going to trial. I'm going to the death. And if I have to, I'll fall on the sword and I will take all the heat and they'll let chat off. But that's what's going to happen. And I remember... You are delusional. I was so delusional. Yeah. I was and I was, I mean, really, I had fought my way out of a lot of hard situations and I could not see a way out. I would not take the deal. So three weeks... Did they offer you a deal? Yes, I had a deal that was four to six years on the table. Okay. I would get RADAPs, I'd get a year off. And I remember my lawyer saying, please take the deal. I was like, I'm going to trial. But here, by the grace of God, this happens.

So three weeks before my trial, I'm standing in a courtroom in the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. My husband's standing there with me. And in the courtroom next to ours, the U.S. Marshal shoot a guy. five times because he stood I know this is very whoa how that what happened there so it was his first day of court and he stood up with a pencil in his hand he was from a from a gang and he was mad at the guy that was testifying and the marshals instead of tasing him they shot him and killed him right so it was kind of a thing course they locked the whole courthouse down the marshals come running through I mean this is unusual right the marshals come yeah you don't see it every day

they come running through the courtroom my attorney the judge goes uh something's going on let's lock down the courthouse. So my husband and his attorney, now he has an attorney, everyone has an attorney, and they're walking down the front steps. Somehow I sneak out and go down the backsteps, and I walk out the front of the courthouse with the paramedics and the man that's been shot. And when I walk out, the press is all there and they want to hear what happened. Yeah. And they ask you? Yeah. And so they come up and I said, well, the U.S. Marshall shot a guy five times and killed him that had a pencil in his hand. My husband walks out and he's like, what is wrong with you? He's like, get, come on.

And he, like, grabs me and we walk away. And before I'm even to the car, my attorney calls and says, you're on the 12 o'clock news. What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how mad everybody is? The ATF wanted to come out and present. Why would you do that? She goes, they are so mad. And I go, I am mad too.

We're all mad. We're all mad. She's like, you'll be at the courthouse tomorrow morning. And I went to the courthouse the next morning, and they revoked my pretrial release and locked me up. They were so done with me. And then they take me to the county jail and take my clothes and throw me into a sale. And I spent a week, you know, locked up like that. Pretty much had a nervous breakdown at this point.

I've really never been in jail, right? So it's like... You were probably, you were, what, have you had even been processed? You've been processed. Oh, yeah. They just called me and told me to come down and do my fingerprints. Yeah, but that's very... Yeah, minimal.

And I still had an attorney that I was paying to tell me I was innocent at that point anyway. So, you know, I'm going to walk out of this. But anyway, so I'm at the county jail. I have a full-oninal breakdown. just saw a guy get shot on his first day. I'm three weeks out on my own trial and my husband we're going to, I mean, if we both end up convicted, my kids are going to be without parents. So I got the weight of the world. I'm broke. Everything is going just, I have a full on mental breakdown. I can't even speak. I can't. When I'm trying, they asked me my name, I can't even

say my name. I'm just completely not well. And a week later, when they finally let me out, my husband comes and gets me and my attorney tell, I go to meet with my attorney and I can't get the words out. My attorney says, we need to do a mental evaluation. So they lock me up again and ended up sending me on a plane to, well, they kept me for a week again in the medical unit and then they shipped me to Perump and then they shipped me to CTAC. I know all the con air experience in chains and shackles. I've never even, you know, experienced jail. And when I get there, I call my husband and he goes, listen, they're doing a mental evaluation. You better get yourself together because they can keep you locked up forever. You know, you better figure this out.

And so for 30 days, I, like, meditated, and I'm like, okay, I got this. I got this. Eventually, they said that I was confident to stand trial. They shipped me back to Utah. But now I've been locked up about three months. And I'm thinking, oh, they're going to let me back out, you know, and I'll go to trial. No, they're not going to let me back out. They're going to keep me locked up.

And I remember my attorney meeting me at the federal courthouse and saying, hey, listen, your behavior while you're locked up doesn't look good because I pushed the emergency about like a thousand times, you know. I'm pissed off. It's not going well. And I said, yeah, well, I don't like the way they treat me. My attorney goes, Porsche, really, like, it's important that you get yourself together. And I said, listen, if I plead guilty, will they let me out today?

They had just argued and said that I wasn't competent to be released. But if I pled guilty, they'll release me. I said, am I competent to plead guilty? Yeah. If you plead guilty, they'll let you out. So I pled guilty. And they let me out that day. Now, by the grace of God, I pled guilty, right?

You play guilty, but to a guideline range, correct? I pled guilty to a guideline. What is it now? Well, now it is, I, it was zero to seven years. I told him, I still had the four to six range, but because I, I can't imagine that I'm going to have to do four. I say, well, how about we start at zero? And they say, we'll start at zero if, if you'll bump it to seven.

I'm like, sure, I just want the, I know it's so, yeah, this girl right here, I'm thinking I'm going to get zero, right? I'll take the zero. Once I explain, once I get to talk in front of the judge, he'll understand. The judge will know. I'm a really good person. I have kids, right? Yeah.

So I plead to this. Every gang member that walks in the courtroom. Yeah. Yeah. Zero to seven is what I plead to. But as soon as I get out, I try to revoke my plea. Oh, now I have made everyone so mad at this point. I have six months and then I walk back into the courtroom to be sentenced.

And boy, do I remember that day? Because when I walked in, I'm standing there with my husband. And my husband and my kids are sitting behind me. I go sit down and as soon as I sat down, when you're in the courtroom like that, it is a very leveling experience. It's like all my denial and BS slips away and I can see, oh, he's going to max me out today. Right. When they say, United States of America versus Portia Lauder, that's when you're like,

oh, my whole country's against me today. Like, yeah, they're the superpower. I'm going down. And so I knew I was going to get the max. And I remember looking back and thinking, this is going to take a really long time. sorry Chad it's going to be rough for a while the judge gives me the chance to get up

I get up I just say yeah I probably deserve what you're going to do today what year was this this was 2014 2015 February of 2015 okay

I don't know I was going to say yeah better than better than better than it being like 2009 10 11 you know what I'm saying like those with this is that's when the yeah the heat yeah that's

when the judge is driving down the street and every other house in his own neighborhood is for sale correct yeah I had never thought about like that in my mind I just thought well geez I could already been done with prison by the time I walked in to get sentenced if I had made a deal you know because I drug it out so long and it's not like we could restart our life or anything through all those years so it's 2015 it's February and the judge says thank you miss louder I'm sentencing you to 84 months in federal prison. Yeah. And he says, you'll be a mother again someday.

That's when I was like, I'm pretty sure he can't take that away for me. I remember looking at my lawyer and my lawyer goes, and he goes, and your restitution will be 11,000, 32,000. I go, will he take a check? She looks at him and she goes, shut up. Because at this point, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Right. And the prosecutor had argued that, and I don't.

I probably had close to about $60 million in real estate, but I'm like, I never got no $11 million. Of course, the way they do their math, right? Like the amount that the house dropped in value based on this and that, and I'm like, if I had $11 million, I wouldn't be here right now, right? But that's what they hit me with. So now the judge was mad. Even though I had been on pretrial, usually they'll give you, you get to self-surrender because I wasn't a flight risk or anything.

But the judge goes, no, lock her up, get her, you know, they wanted me out the courtroom. He goes, Marshall's take her into custody today. And I remember, this is the same judge that has been going through this. All this. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's valid. He's so over me. He's really frustrated, right?

It makes sense. And my lawyer, even the prosecutor goes, we're not asking for that. My lawyer goes, hey, you know, I don't think that would be the best. I mean, her kids are here and he's like, take her into custody. He was ticked. Here's the crazy part. My husband stands at the podium. He goes, I want to hear what Mr. Louter has to say about this.

Now, keep in mind, Chad hasn't, he hasn't even pled yet because I'm going to go to trial, right? And we're waiting on everything with, and then I had pled. And he's still kind of hanging out there because I said, look, don't plead unless they will not give you a felony because you can't even go back to work in banking if you have a felony. So I'm like, you know, we got to work this out. So the judge, my husband stands up and my husband's crying. And he's like, Your Honor, please don't do this to her. Please give her time to say goodbye to her kids. she's going to need that to get through this prison time.

This man's a saint. Like, he's seriously a saint. I remember looking back and going, whoa. Like, I married really well. You know? Like, whoa. And the judge said, I'll give her eight weeks. I'm like, I didn't even need a lawyer.

I just needed a good husband. Yeah. That's, yeah. So he gave me the eight weeks, and I remember on my way home going, I couldn't even talk. I was in such shock. I was like, what if I'd done? because that's when all the denial's gone now

and I'm just like, what have I done? I don't know about you, but for me, I just remember thinking, how could I have been so foolish? How could I, I mean, I can see it all so clear now and how could I have traded everything worth anything for money? Money's just nothing. It's not.

Like, I could see that it just didn't matter. I mean, I had eight weeks left with my children. I had a 14-year-old, a 12-year-old and a 7-year-old now. Got two older kids that are married, and I'm thinking, what was I thinking, you know? I couldn't even talk for a couple hours. Chad's like, are you okay? Are you going to be okay?

And I'm just like, I don't even know what to say. So I spent that eight weeks. I had an eBay business at that point, too, and I just told Chad, I go, you can take that over. I'm done. I'm not doing anything else. I'm just going to spend time with my kids. And then eight weeks later, Chad drove me to Dublin, California,

because they don't have federal prisons in Utah. Really? Yeah. Okay. No. drove me 14 hours. and I walked into the FCI in Dublin, California, which has now been closed, and I was devastated.

I mean, it's different, right? Jail, prison. I mean, prison, that's when the time hits you. That's when the reality of the time hits you. And when I walked in, I was just like, I remember that I had another hour before I had to self-surrender, but I was really anxious, so I told Chad just dropped me off at the prison. As soon as I walked in, I was like, why would I waste that last hour? I mean, I really love my husband, you know, I could just see everything's, it's never going to be the same.

Like, I'll never, my life will never be the same. I remember looking at all the women, they're all wearing khaki and they didn't seem too happy. Like, I'm like, oh, this is not going to be good. I was so devastated and brokenhearted. I think for three days I didn't even leave the cell. I just laid there. At this point, my bunkies like, hey, you got to get out of here. Like, they're going to come in and throw you in a cell because you haven't eaten anything.

You're not moving around. You got to get out of here. And I said, just go. away. All I can see is my children's faces. I can't imagine how I'm going to do that much time. And I think the way that I coped was denial. Again, I'm like, oh, God's going to get me out of this. I'm not going to have to do all this time. It's what everyone says, right? I was going to say, what are the stages of grief, you know, denial, bargaining. Anger, all those. You go through all those. I had to. I had to grieve the years without my children. So three days later, I go

out to the day room and I sit down at a table next to a girl named Bubbles. I still don't know Bubbles first name. Bubbles is really good at watching TV, though. She's got it down. Like, she sits there for hours. And I remember I'm just sitting there with a picture of my kids. And I'm like, I'm just so brokenhearted. And Bubbles is like, it's okay, baby. Just keep breathing. Pain goes away eventually. She just keep watching TV. Look over. It's okay. I don't even think she knows my name to this day. That's what surprised me, though. It surprised me that the women were really like they were kind right you know all the stuff you see on tv it's like because they've all been through it yeah they've all been through yeah so they knew yeah guys uh the guys that come in

are laying in bed for two days all the other guys walk in and they'll they'll tell them rub some fucking dirt in it bro come out to the wreck yard you'll be all right i didn't get me there was no hugs no hugs no hugs no it's okay for bubbles there were some there were some bubbles that wanted to hug me but long bandy twizzlers can't Keeps the fun going. Keep the fun going. I hear it's different for men and women. I think women probably struggle, men struggle more with violence and women struggle

more with codependency. That surprised me. I was just like, you guys can't even walk to the kitchen alone? What's wrong with y'all? that's a little different. But for me, I finally went over to the track and had a serious conversation with myself because I was like, you've got to get it together. This is not working for you. I'm walking around the track. I'm like, listen, you've done hard things before. You can do this, you know? Get it together. And here's something that was interesting.

I had a, they made me go to a counselor because when I was dealing with the whole pretrial thing because they knew I wasn't well. Like, I wasn't really considering things. I was stubborn. They're like, you need to talk to a counselor. And I remember telling the counselor, I was like, I can't do seven years in prison. So that's not going to work for me. And the counselor's like, that would be really hard. It's like, yeah, it would be hard to go to prison for seven years because you know what's worse than that? Stand out here and being stuck in your addiction. That's worse. It's like, because in prison, you could still become an amazing person. You could still be a good mother in prison because you're out here in your addiction.

You're no good to anybody. Well, I didn't care that he said that because I'm like, I'm not going to prison. I don't even know what you're talking about. Then I'm walking around the track and I'm like, I can become an amazing person. It's going to work out. It's going to work out. I'm holding on to that, and that really did guide me. At that point, I was like, okay, I'm going to go find a job that I want, went to education, I got a job. What was your job? Well, I taught classes, but also I wrote a curriculum and taught photography classes

because I mean, I taught the basics of that. Ace course. Yeah, yep, taught an ace course. I thought the real estate, ace real estate course. Right on. Yeah, but you've got to find some meaning. You've got to find a way to find meaning, right? Yeah.

So I did that. Now, here's the problem. I had. I was still really stubborn. So I'm blogging about the prison and I'm talking about how messed up it is and all the things. Yeah. Such a bad idea. The lieutenant calls me over and he goes, listen, louder. You're going to make your time a lot harder on yourself if you do this.

And I was like, that sounded like a threat. And I know you weren't trying to threaten me. It's like, we're going to put you in the shoe. I'll ship you to a different prison. Yeah. Believe it or not, I can blatantly threaten you. I'm subtly doing it because I don't want to have to do paperwork. I can blatantly threaten you. Right. Right. So it's just like, yeah, that. And it's like, hey, this is retaliation.

Yeah, we don't really care about that. We don't care. Right, right, right. So, yeah. So anyway, he puts me in the shoe. They keep me there three weeks. And then they ship me to Minnesota. And I got to go through all the chains and shackles. You know, the U.S.

Marshalls show up with their big shotguns. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like I'm. It's serious. It's so serious. You're like, this is real. Like, I filled out some paperwork. Yeah.

I'm like, chain and shackle to another girl, diamond this time. She's doing 30. I'm like, why? Diamond. Chained a diamond, and diamond's looking at me like, here's the crazy thing. So they take, they put you on the plane. They give you that nasty bologna sandwich, that green stuff that's all greasy. Everybody says that.

Oh. I love the bologna sandwich. I had no problem with the, everybody's always completely, it was gray. It was fine. No, no, no. When I sit down, luckily the girl next to me, she's like, don't eat the bologna. She goes, here's the thing. If you get sick, they ain't going to let you use the bathroom.

So don't be eating that bologna. I was like, okay, okay, I'm going to listen. I didn't eat the bologna. So I got shipped to Perump. There were a bunch of us, by this time, I haven't had any water or anything. I think I ended, I honestly think I ended up passing out at some point. Like it was bad because everyone's telling me what to do. I'm nervous.

It's taken hours. I don't dare ask to go use the bathroom. I'm chained and chackled. Finally, we get out to Prump and then they put you in a holding cell for hours too. One girl wraps toilet paper around herself because she's so cold. It's miserable, the whole transport thing. Three weeks later, they call my name again. They ship me to Grady County, Oklahoma, which is like, we walk in and we hear a guy being tased in one of the rooms.

And Diamond says, you can't treat us like this. We're the feds. And by this time, I know way better. I said, Unchained me from Diamond. Yeah, Diamond has a bad ad, dude. She's going to get me tased. I'll let Diamond take her own chances. So they did.

They put Diamond in an isolation zone. They took me up to General Puff. I was like, bye, Diamond. I'm not you're on your own. So I spent three days there. And then they put me back on the bus. And this time I'm on the bus with a bunch of guys. Just me and one of the girl.

And the guys are yelling at the officers and stuff. Right. Hey, sweetie. Oh, I turned around. You know what I said? I go, you guys need to knock it off. I go, do you want me to talk to you? You need to be respectful.

And they shut up. Yeah. Just trying to get attention. They're just trying to get you to turn around and look at it. I did turn around and we had a decent conversation. It was fine. No cat calls or anything after that. So it was actually kind of cool because we watched the sun come up.

And I remember thinking, you know what? I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. It's beautiful. I'm sorry. Did you ever fly on the airplane club fed or? Oh, Con Air. Yeah. Did you say that? Yeah. I was, I was on Con Air multiple times. By this time, they picked me up in Dublin, took us to Perump on a plane. Then they put me on the bus. Put me back on the plane. Took me to Oklahoma. Then they put me on the bus, took me back to the plane and took me back to go to Minnesota. I don't know where I was when you said the plane. Yeah. Con Air. Club Fed. Yeah. So.

And so, and it's all duct taped and everything, and you're like, for real, it's it's, it's rough, it's rough. It's, what I always, what always killed me was the, you realize after taking that plane that, um, the way they take off is so outrageously, you know, fast and bumpy. Right. Like, yeah, you know, they don't mess around. They're not fucking around. When they come down, like there's no, you realize like these commercial pilots that take off

gently right you don't really realize you've even they're trained to do that and they come in nice and like you're like so this this is how it's supposed to be and right in the con air thing it's it's rough and it's yeah it's it's bad yeah yeah so i get to minnesota i remember the thing i remember about minnesota is we were on a bus for a long time i see none of this time i know where i'm going because they don't tell you they put me in the shoe then they ship you and they don't tell you where you're going right so at this point i get to minnesota and i there a couple things happen one I just felt really far away from my family. Because I've seen my family once or twice at Dublin, but I know now, like, they're going

to have to fly out to see me. They can't have. I left Chad completely broke. He's trying to rebuild and living with a neighbor. I mean, it's not good. And I'm not going to see my family. So I, when I got there, I went and found a job that I like, because that's the first thing you want to do, find a good room and a good job.

And I worked in the reentry department and I just go outside and I just ball. I think I cried for like six solid months. I was just sad because the reality starts setting in. I'm going to have to do this time. I'm going to be here a while. Yeah, I'm going to be here. And also, what have I done to my kids and my husband? Like, what the heck?

What have I done? And I remember, they gave me art out, but I'm still pretty stubborn, right? And I'm blogging, and they're like, we don't care if you blog. We don't care. Yeah, you're not that important, right? I mean, I'm grateful I blogged. It helped me stay connected to my community, but I didn't have any, like, soared with my blog or anything.

And so they put me in the Art Out program, and I'm ticked about it because I'm already mad that I'm in prison. I go and sign out, go back. I was going to say, that's a good attitude to have when you start. It's going to last. That's going to do really well. Yeah, yeah, it didn't. But a year later, when I am more, I'm realizing, yeah, I'm going to have to do all this time.

So I go back to Ardap and I said, hey, can I come back? My bad. And I remember I'm saying, why should we let you back in? And I said, well, because I want the time off. And they're like, that's not getting you back in the program. And then I said the truth. The truth does win. I said, because I'm really stubborn.

That's why I got a seven-year prison sentence. They said, if I were smarter, I would have taken the two years. I go, so I need help. And they're like, yeah, that'll get you back in the program. Yeah. You've got the right frame of mind now. Right. So I did ARDAP, and I, like, they made me a leader in the program, and I killed it.

Like, I ended up learning things that I waited my whole life to learn. It was good for me. So I have a question because this is what all the guys, all the kind of the con men, the fraudsters, you know, the smart guys on the compound, they always sailed through. the first two phases because I used to say the first two phases they're basically trying to get you to use utensils and say thank you. You're trying to get you to the point where you're a decent human being. Well, these guys come in a decent human being, right? Yeah. It's that third phase that they just obliterate these guys, manipulation, all the things that are true. Right. So these guys typically are so overall confident in the first two. They're like, I'm flying through this thing. Then

they get to the last one and you see them walk around the compound afraid to talk to anybody right you know they're like it's bad bro it's bad you know you're like yeah we thought you were killing it i was killing it's phase three they yeah look at anybody i'm mentally i had a friend nico who's super smart nico got nico is 135 pounds and five foot seven he was the nicest smartest guy he was thrown out of the program for mentally bullying his two cellmates who were two black guys in there for drugs thugs guys that have home invasions six foot two right and i mean and they and and he got kicked out and i'm like what he's like bro i don't i don't understand what i said i mean like anything i do it did they come after me everybody's i'm getting

pulled up left or right he's like i'm not doing anything i'm just yeah he was a nice This guy, you got thrown out of the program. Well, I took that program super serious. So what happened. What was the third phase is what I'm saying? What was that like? Is that right? Oh, right out the game.

Well, not so much for me because I was there the first month and I would, I, here's the turning point for me. So I'm in my first phase and there's this gangster girl that's in phase three, right? And she comes over and she goes, hey, louder, I got some vegetables, which you're not supposed to steal vegetables from the kitchen. She's like, let's go down to the rec yard and eat some vegetables. Yeah. So she, she, I go down to the rec yard.

And I remember eating those vegetables and feeling like I just smoked some major drugs for the first time. I'm just like, oh, my gosh, what have I done? You know, so I go back that night and I'm thinking, oh, no, I'm pulling myself up. I'm going to go pull myself up. So the next day I go up to the front of the room and I was like, I ate stolen vegetables from the kitchen. And you hear everybody gasp, you did what? And the counselor looks at me and said, Miss Louder, I know you didn't do it alone. Who made you do it?

And I'm like, it was me. And no, no, it was not. You got to stitch out who did it with you, right? You're better because she's going to stand up next and say, you're not taking responsibility because I was with you. Right. So eventually I just looked over and I was like, yeah, pointed at her. She looked at me and mad dog me so hard, she came up and she was just like, and so. She's just like, oh, you're going down.

So I had her and then I had another girl who was doing life. and they let her in the program, and I pulled her girlfriend up, and she goes, you're done louder. So right away, I was just like, making friends. Yeah, making friends. No, no, I sat in my bunk for about five minutes, and I thought, oh, no, she didn't. I walked downstairs, and I said, don't ever threaten me again. I said, do what you got to do.

You said we were friends, and friends don't threaten each other. And she's like, bad respect louder. I'll never bother you again. So, I mean, I held my own, and they made me a leader, and I told people, I'm like, I'm coming for you. Don't break the rules. So, yeah, I was fine. And I held myself up.

I mean, I pulled myself a bit. I knew everyone's coming for me. So I just did whatever I needed to do and took it. But it was good for me. I mean, I learned how to set boundaries. And I taught classes over there, too, assertive communication. People are like, you don't need to be any more assertive. So it was good.

So, yeah, I did my year there. And then, so I did three years in Minnesota. And then they transferred me back to a camp. So I finally did camp time in Victorville, California. I was happy. I was happy because me I love the sun I have this picture of me that like my mugshot getting to Victorville

I got a great big smile the ladies I never seen anyone so happy but I was so used to those 10 minutes moves and you know what people say all the time so what they did because my security level was so low they just came and picked me up and dropped me off at the airport they gave my wife and like three other girls bus tickets

and they just dropped in with like they literally drove across the whole country in their like outfits they're on the bus people Everyone says that didn't happen. I'm like, oh, no, it did happen. Oh, absolutely. You know, I've been behind, yeah, and I've been behind a fence for four years.

So at this point, I'm flipping out. I'd rather be on Conair. They put me in a car. I'm freaked out by that. They take me to the airport in Minnesota, and I walk up to an officer, and I was like, you help me get. All I had was my prison ID. I don't even have an idea, and I have to get on a plane.

So I get on the plane. I fly to California, and they gave me money to go find a taxi driver, and I'm telling the taxi driver, hey, you need to take me to the prison. He's like, why are you going to the prison? I go, that's where I live. He's like, what did you do? I don't know if I want you getting in my taxi. I said, oh.

I killed a cab driver. I'm like, there's lots of good people in prison. He's like, whatever. He takes me to the camp and I walk in. But a lot of people knew me, because I don't know about you, but with the feds, they transfer people around everywhere. So people knew me from Dublin and transport. And they're like, hey, loud.

And I was known for the girl that was blogging about the prison, right? So they're like, hey, louder, come on in. And they were happy to see me. And what I loved about the camp was we just had a lot of vegetables and fruit there because we ran the compound, so we always had good food. So that was good. The bad part was, so they called me in two months after I got there. And they said, hey, we're sending you home.

You did everything. They scheduled my date for May 9th. They were going to let me go have some halfway house time and get back to Utah. How much halfway house? Six months. Okay. So how long had you been locked up? at that point just over four years at some point is your husband coming to see you yeah i saw my

family a couple times when i was in um when i was in waseka and then when it well i told him don't bother coming out because they're going to ship me home right like i'm coming home so um so they told me they'd send me home home on may 9th this was about april so i'm calling chaddenham like hey i'm coming home. My son's graduating high school. I'm excited. And then May 7th, they called me back and said, hey, we screwed up. We're going to keep you another three months. Yeah. Dicks. Yeah, it was rotten. I remember that, that nauseous. I go call the husband and my husband's just like, man, these people suck. Like, I mean, he's like, so I remember just everybody's like, man, they did you dirty louder. If they do that to me. And that was a real turning point for me,

though, because what I decided was I was like, I am not leaving prison a victim. Keep me another year. I did too much work. I'm going home free. And I said, whatever. I make the best of the three months. So they do what they do. I do what I do, you know. Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah, Wagoe. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor about Wachovie. Yeah, ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. With the chair and everything? Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name.

Visit Wagovi.combe.com for savings. Exclusions may apply. Just kind of become stoic, kind of like... Yeah, do what you got to do. I'll do what I do. I'll spend more time in the sun. And so I ended up going home on May 9th. It was pretty cool, too, because...

Or August 9th, I remembered the day that I go home. Because I used to teach classes and say, we're here to become amazing people, and they're like, who are talking about? I'm here for a certificate. I want a certificate. certificate to give my counselor so she stops giving me shit because they're not programmed right but I was not I was all about like we're here to become amazing people are cheering us on and they're like nobody likes us nobody's cheering us on I'm like no the world is cheering us on you know I'm like I'm an optimist were you a super dapper do you ever hear the word do you ever hear the word I heard the word super dapper but I really wasn't I was saying that whether I was teaching an education I had it's what got me through my prison sentence yeah like I'm going home I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm

my life's, you know, like, I just, I'll do whatever I have to to make the most of this time. So, so the day that, the day that, you know, I walk out of prison, you know how long you wait for that, for them to call your name, right? I remember walking out and I have this little box. All these women have given me notes and cards, because I really did love them. Like, I worked in the reentry department. I was helping them prepare to come home, writing resumes and stuff. And one of my friends comes in, she's like, congratulations, louder on becoming an amazing person.

And I'm like, oh, I was, because I kept teaching. classes like we can become amazing you know right and when i walk out everybody comes out cheering for me it was pretty cool they're all like we love you miss louder we love you miss portia and then i walk out the front of the prison there's my husband waiting with flowers so that was oh i thought he wasn't no he came to pick me out the day that i came yeah he wasn't going to let me ride the bus home at that point i just told him not to come out and visit but he can't he he's waiting for me and i'll tell you like i really love him like all that he and i have been through together i remember holding his hand for the first time and thinking, this is way cool. Like, this is better than being married, man.

Like, this is better than the day we got married, you know. I remember feeling very overwhelmed. Like, I was super, I tried to go into a gas station and ran back to the car. When I got to the halfway house, I told my son to bring me four brown t-shirts, because that's what I wore when I was locked up. I was like, I'm not trying to do anything different. I just wanted to keep things really safe, you know? And I was at the halfway house for a couple months. I remember feeling really weird. like just wanting to go back to prison thinking I'd rather be in prison than here you know I remember a guy comes up and he sits down next to me he's like are you okay because I wasn't used to being around men or anything and I said I feel really weird I don't want to be here I want to go back

to prison he's like I saw your husband and your daughter come visit you last week and they seem really great you know you'll be all right and I go he goes you know what surprised me the most about prison I was like what's that he goes that mayonnaise makes everything taste better and I was just like that's when I knew I'm like I got to talk about it with other people like this experience is different and I can't because I live in a community of people that haven't been to prison and so I started blogging and talking about it out here and you said I live in a community that people haven't been right I lived in a pretty high-end community yeah so I think it's probably well yeah I'll guess there's some neighborhoods where everybody's pretty much been to prison

yeah yeah there are it it I just felt like I saw the world in a lot different way you know before I went to prison I just thought everyone in prison is bad like I can't I can't go to prison. I'm not bad, right? And then I go to prison and I'm like, actually, I'm probably worse than most of the people in here because I knew better and I was still doing all that. So it just changed. There's a lot of great people in prison that have grown up in pretty tough circumstances. And so for me, my view now of people in prison is that we're all just the same. You know, people out here, think about it. Think about those mortgage brokers that got away with it, right? Washington Mutual, all the big guys that the government didn't, that they bailed them out. They should be in prison. That was hard for me for a long time because I kept thinking about, you know, there were so many people that walked. Why me? Why me? And I had to shift and say, you know what? My integrity was bad. It doesn't really matter what everybody else got away with. Actually, no one really gets away eventually. You pay the price one way or another. So I paid mine in prison and, yeah, been home now for almost five years. And the cool part about my life now is my kids trust me. have a good job. A lot of people ask, like, how do you get a good job? I'm like, I did the work

when I was in prison to prepare to come home. And I'm super honest and upfront about what I've been through, and I have a beautiful life. So there's life after prison. I probably should also mention that with my husband, you know, he ended up having to plead guilty. And luckily, he didn't do any time. He got home confinement and took care of the kids, but he was never able to work in the banking market again. So that was just one more hit that he took, but it's worked out. But yeah. So do you remember when you were talking about how, like what we were talking about, you were juggling everything and you felt like I remember. So I would always always doing stuff, right? Like there was nothing that was going to get in my way.

I'm going to figure out a way around around this. Like, and I remember one time, you know where a section, section 32 loan is? I want to say. I know what section 8 is, but I mean, no, section 30. I think it's called, I'm sure somebody will correct me. I'm almost positive. It's called a section 32 loan. And what that means is that you're charging such an absorbent broker fee that you have to give the bar,

you have to have the borrower come in, sign everything. And then they have to wait like five days or something to determine if they really want the money. Like you give them like five business days. Right. So I, so one day I was refinancing this guy's house. I'm getting like a second mortgage or something. I forget. There's like a second mortgage for. 60 grand or something and I was charging them a huge fee and and the day before the closing they the lender calls me up and says listen you're charging an extra 4,000 or there's we have to change

your fee from 6,000 down to down to 2. 4,000 you're way into section 32 and I was like um and I'm thinking I don't I want the 4,000 that's no good I want it he's like or we can you can disclose to him and then he'll have five days to change his mind, five business days. So it'll, like, a week and a half, he'll get the money, like eight days or something. And I was like, you know, they don't count the day you close. They don't count the day that, you know, so it's like, they don't count the weekend. And I was like, and I went, you know what, cut my feed to the $4,000. Right.

And he was like, okay, cool. And I said, I said, okay, cool. I'm going to, I'm going to submit the, you know, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to And then, of course, he was refi, so he's paying off credit cards. Right. So anyway, I closed the loan and everything. I remember I go to my mother-in-law's house. My mother-in-law, by the way, worked as a processor in the mortgage division of Bank of America.

She'd been in banking like 20 years, 30 years. So I meet, I would go to my mother-in-law's house. My wife is there with my son. I walk in. We had dinner with him every once in a while. And usually my mom, my sister. My wife hung out at her mom's house all the time. So I go straight there.

I walk in. I said, Hey, and I used to freak her out all the time. She knows I'm doing cash back. Refai. She knows that there's straw men. She knows like she knows all kinds of stuff.

Right. So I walk in. She's, Oh, Matteo. She's Puerto Rico. Oh, Mattoe. How is today? How is your work today?

I said, oh, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. I said, it's funny. I said, I had a section 32 loan. She said, oh, you did? I said, yeah. And she went, um, oh, you, it just, she was, the funds release.

today? I went, no, no, no, it was today. Like, they called me yesterday and told me that I was $4,000 might charge too much. My fee was $4,000 over with, section 32. And he was going to have to wait. I said, so I told him to cut my fee $4,000. And she's like, oh, oh, like, oh, that's horrible. I said, yeah, I said, and then what I did was I went ahead and I submitted a list of all of the, for the payoffs of all of his credit cards. I said, it's funny, too, because when we got there, he saw like $12,000 for his visa, this visa, $7,000 for this one. you know, 15,000 for his car note, and then $4,000 for his American Express. And while he was looking at it, he goes, he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, he said, I don't have an American Express.

I said, oh, yeah, that's mine. Oh, no. I said, I told him, I said, here's what they were going to do. Boom, boom, boom. They were going to make you wait seven days to get. I figured, instead, I just cut it. I'll just send this to my American Express. And he, and the guy was like, oh, yeah, cool, bro.

That's no problem. Like, like, people, you know, people don't, they don't realize like, oh, my God, I just, you just committed for all. on my loan like oh my god they don't know that i'm like so i just figured that i said or we can wait i said i can disclose to you now we can redo it and you'll get checking a week or two he's like no bro i want my money now he's not good he's that's cool he's i get it it's no problem i said okay cool and she and so i'm telling my mother-in-law that and she says oh matthio i know you didn't do that no matthel no idios meo matthio you didn't do that and i said and i looked at it and i went i pulled the check out of my pocket i open it up and i go i go kela and i hand it to my wife

and I said, send that to American Express. She has, gotcha. And I mean, my mother-in-law just, oh, you're going to go to prison. And I was always telling her stuff to freak her out. And then, of course, it was always, you're going to go to prison, you're going to go. And I did go to prison.

Yeah, and it worked out that way. Yeah, she was absolutely right. You know, I don't know if you ever get this, but I recently shared on social media that I was doing these joint ventures or occupancy fraud, and people, I'll get people at call up and say, well, and basically what they're saying,

is I'm trying to do that right now. But it's different, right? Like I had this guy call me recently, and he goes, so you're saying that if we do the joint venture and we get cash back, but the bank doesn't know about it, that's a problem. I'm like, yeah, that's a problem.

Anytime you're lying or omitting information from the bank, you're committing fraud. Yeah, unless that joint venture. You could be charged with fraud. Right. If that joint venture agreement is disclosed to the bank, but they weren't disclosed to the bank.

So, yeah, it's a problem. So apparently there's gurus out there that are telling people they can do this. Oh, no doubt. There's tons of there's, there's guys right now that are helping you create what's called a synthetic identity. They're helping you create a synthetic credit profile. And what they call them, they call them, I think they call them CPN.

They'll issue you, you can go to this website, and there's dozens of them. But you go there and you pay, and they issue you a CPN that they'll tell you was issued from the government. But if you look into it enough, you realize you just randomly, you just made up a number. And now the reason they say their CPNs and their issued is they've run them through like Lexus Nexus or the Equifax, one of the credit bureaus, to make sure that that number has never been issued as a social security number. So really what they're doing is they're giving you a social security number that either is a child's that hasn't been used yet or it's never been issued yet. So they issue you one, and then they tell you, apply for some credit cards, you'll get denied, or go get a secure credit card. And then what they do is they say, if you pay us more, we'll add you to existing credit cards.

And then people put their credit card, they put their credit card on a website, and for 30 bucks a month, they'll add you to their, you don't ever get the credit card, but it shows up on your credit. Yeah, to build credit. to build your credit. So you do this for six months, and now you've got a Matthew Cox with a perfect payment history and 800 credit scores. Wow. And then you can go buy or do whatever you want to do. And yet, these guys will argue.

There are people that argue. They're videos on YouTube of guys saying the guys that run the website, absolutely 100% legal. And then you can pull up web, you can pull up all these articles. It's like, yeah, and this guy got arrested for this. And this guy, and they always, well, no, what he did was different. He, he didn't do, you have to do that. They have all these little things like, stop it, bro. Yeah, it's illegal.

It's illegal. But I have people all the time, they reach out to me and, or they'll reach out to you and they'll want to pay you for your services. And then you kind of start to realize, like, this isn't, you want me to, you want to pay me because you want me to help you figure out how to commit fraud. Yeah. Or, or, you know, hey, here's what's going on. How do I this? How do I? No.

What you do is you stay on your job another year. Right, right, right, right. They don't want to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. I like joint venture agreement. Sounds so much better than conspiracy. You know, it sounds, it sounds icky when you say a couple of conspirators, my conspirators.

Right. Right. We're joint venture partners. Right, right. Or what else did you say? I like splash cash sounds so much better than illegal kickback. Yeah, wire fraud, money laundering. The feds have horrible terms

I don't like it I've changed it I know when I got to prison when people asked what what did you do I'm like I got involved in some illegal real estate deals I keep it simple

I don't need that 19 count and diamond of money laundering wire fraud mail fraud it is what it is but yeah that's the same thing whenever people ask me

I'm like I was convicted of bank fraud and various related bank fraud charges yeah what do you mean I'm like do money laundering wire fraud

You start naming them off. It starts sounding really bad. Yeah, I know. You sound like a crime boss now. Just did some illegal real estate deals. Fine. Equity deals. Made a mistake on some paperwork.

Yeah, I made a mistake. Let's really trim this down. What was the dollar amount on your indictment? Is that what it? No, her, her, you mean? My restitution and what they. Yeah, what are they, yeah, I was going to say, what was the potential? You know, they gave you the.

They said it was 80 million and then they hit me with 11 million, 600,000. Restitution, yeah. But you're good for it. I told him, like, I said, I'm like, will you take a two-party out of state check? I'll get that right over. Yeah, I'll be paying restitution for the rest of my life. It's fine. My initial restitution, well, initially what they said was lost.

This is like, my lawyer told me this the first day we met. I'm like, what am I looking at? What this? She's like, well, they said, you know, it's $26 million. And I was like, $26 million. I was like, what is that? I was like, maybe that's borrowed. something like I mean that's borrowed and she's like no that's what they're saying is the loss the loss

amount I'm like that's insane right then it came down to like it was like 21 then it was 15 yeah then it got to my PSI says 9.5 and I was like I'm not going I'll go to trial I'm like I'm there's no way and then I got it down and my you know how they came up with my six million oh they went well the guideline is between six and nine and and a half the next one down is six and the next one down below that is three and a half and we know we can prove three and a half and they're like like if that's we've we've got it like yeah we've got the dunks on that right well just the secret service has three and a half and i was right it's probably true yeah and and so then i was they were like so you're where do you think you are

i was like below below six but three and a half and they were like we're going to go with six right well because it looks better for them right they've got a they've got to they like the guidelines they like the big number yeah so um and it's so funny too because i you know i just feel at that time when i was sentenced they actually had to have a separate hearing where all of the parties that lost money had to send in affidavits and proof that they had lost that money my loss was is it around six what would you be okay with six and that was and that was That was my proof. I realized, like, had I been sentenced three or four years later, I could have said,

well, I want to actually see the documents. And I don't think Washington, I don't think anybody would have shown up. Right. They wouldn't have said anything. I think I'd end up having a half a million dollars or something because I don't think anybody would have shown up, except for the hard money lenders. Right. Yeah. They have an issue.

Yeah. They're holding, they're holding resentment. That's on them, right? Right. Do you, is my wife took our dad. Yeah. Every once in a while, she'll go. It's dangerous to hold her in seven.

You don't want to do that. Everyone's all. I'll be like, no, we can do this and this and this. And she'll go, super optimism. And she'll walk away. She'll make throw out these terms. I love her. Yeah, we're going to talk. And all that's so funny.

Yep. Grandios. Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I just, at that point, I was like, oh, 11 million. Okay. Like, I'm like, you guys are worse with the numbers than me. Like, the way that you guys come up with us, you know, not okay, but whatever. So here I am with an $11 million restitution.

So you had eight weeks before you had to turn yourself in. What were those eight weeks like for you? Yeah. So I remember the eight weeks that I had, I just realized, and this became more clear to me when I was in prison, that like, none of the money mattered at all. What I had been hustling for and trying to make just was completely irrelevant. I remember watching my kids sleep one night and just thinking, how could I have been such a fool? If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of

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Driving my son to school the next morning and I'm crying and my 14 year old son is like, Mom, it's okay. It's going to be okay. And I'm thinking, what have I done? You know, I was fortunate. I just decided at that point, I posted on Facebook, hey, I'm going to. going to prison. Anyone that's willing to help my family get through this, I would appreciate it because I could see, like, for me, I was leaving my kids and my husband in a really bad

situation. And I was fortunate. My community was like, yeah, let us help. My husband went and lived with someone for a while in their basement. Like, it was really had to completely start over. I have no idea why he would have stuck it out with me, but he did. But it was tough. I mean, I've had people say, wouldn't it have been better just to go to prison. But I'm grateful that I got the time. And I've had people say, why the heck did you self-surrender with the seven-year prison sentence? But I'm like, seriously, where am I going to go? I mean, you've been on the run, right? I met women in prison that were on the run that they were like, yeah, it sucked. Like, it was worse to be on the run, always looking over my shoulder. Once you get to prison, that's when

your sentence starts. And I wasn't going to run to Mexico with a family. Like, it wasn't going to have. I didn't have any money at that point either. There's certainly I didn't have no $11 million. So, yeah. It was tough. Yeah. I actually loved being on the run. It was probably, Some of the part of the best time of my life. The excitement. But I'm not, I'm not a person. You didn't have a bunch of kids that you were dragging with. Right.

Like I was just kind of, for most of it, it was just me. And I wasn't some guy who was driving a, you know, driving around in a car with a broken tail light and a dot bottom in the truck. You know, I had money. Yeah. I had, like, if I got pulled over, like, I have a driver's license issued by the state department or like the state I'm driving in. You know, like North Carolina driver's license, South Carolina driver's license.

Yeah. A Nevada driver's license. You know, I've got all these, like, I can go into the DMV, and they'll issue me a driver's license. Yeah. And you don't really know my story, but I was, I would, at one point, this is where it got to. And not that I haven't stolen identities. Like, I would put an ad in the paper. It was a good, credit, bad credit, no problem, home loans available, call now free applications.

Right. And people would call, and I, you know, I pick up the phone, you know, hey. And I mean, listening, I've been, I own a mortgage company. I've taken a thousand applications. So I just, you know, hey, you know, what's going on? You know, let's talk for a second. You know, you've been on your job. What are you looking for?

You go through the process. You take an application on them. Yeah. And then they give me enough information to steal their credit. I mean, sorry, to steal their identity. Wow. And I just asked a couple extra questions, which was what states have you had a identification in? If you ever had a passport and, you know, have you ever been incarcerated?

Or have you ever been convicted of a crime? Yeah. And then they would answer those. But, of course, you know, in the back of the last page on the 1003, they ask you all of these types of questions. Sure. It's just one more question. Right. I would also say, you know, where are you born?

What state and county were you born in? What's your mother's main name for a security question? Yeah. And then they would say, I never once had anybody not tell me. Oh, yeah. I mean, they've answered three pages of everything I've asked. You are dangerous. Well, here's the thing.

I realized after taking a few of those and using those good. going and getting driver's license in those people's names. Right. I realized, you know, like one guy told me, yeah, yeah, I've been arrested. I had a DUI, but I got my driver's license back, and I thought, he said I lost it for a year. And he's like, but it's not a felony or anything. I was like, okay. And I remember thinking to myself, what if this guy loses his license again?

And I'm driving around. Well, that's what I'm thinking. That's really rude. Right. So what I realized was like I don't like hurting everyday people banks that's different No and I only did that a few times Not that I'm judging you already No no it's fine and then what I did this is worse

Oh no and then what I did was I realized you know who who I really need to steal their identities is homeless people I love the homeless what is wrong with you sicko I love them too I love all their identities yeah no I get that because they don't care. But I mean, I'm saying. They, I'd walk out. I made a statistical survey form. I made up, like, completely.

Like, when I got arrested, oh, my goodness. The Secret Service were like, where did you get this form? Wow. Because it had, like, government statistical survey. That's impressive. Form number 12.07, you know. So I would go around. I made a little badge that I worked was a statistical surveyor.

And I would go around and I'd say, we're doing a survey to determine where we place our next homeless facility. You're the real life catch me if you can, right? For real. They would give me all the information for 20 bucks. Wow. Oh, 20, yeah, they're the homeless. They pay 20.

That was like, that's big bucks, yeah. Get the information. And then I realize, okay, these four guys, they've all had driver's licenses in Nevada. Yeah. So I'm going to go ahead and this guy. I'm going to get them in South Carolina. And I go in there at the DMV. I order this stuff.

Yeah. Go in, get it. So if I get pulled over and driving a cop as Gary Sullivan, I'm sorry, if I get pulled over by a cop and I'm driving a car as Gary Sullivan, I'm driving Gary Sullivan's car. I have full coverage insurance. It's finance. Here's my ID. So for you is exciting. I've got passports as Gary Sullivan. I'm leaving in the country as Gary Sullivan and coming back. I got bank accounts. Like, I'm legit looking. For real. So I'm not, I wasn't concerned. But most people are like, they go on the run. Everybody says that. Like, I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm waiting for them to come get me. Yeah. There's the amount of stress they're under.

Your addiction to hustle's next level. Like for me, not trying to like. Says the 11 and a half. All the restitution ladies. No, no, but I mean, I, I mean, I was making a lot of money as a photographer before got into real estate. Like, I totally got in there and didn't think, I mean, for sure. Once I got in deep, I was just like, oh, yeah. Because now I'm starting to create assets for people with, you know, CDs and putting different people's names on them and all kinds of things.

So I know that I started out this way and then it got, but like, I still had an image in the community and a family and a husband. And it wasn't, I mean, I sold myself a bunch of lies for sure. When I walked into the federal court house, that's when I realized, oh, I'm a freaking felon. I'm a fraudster. I'm a criminal. I'm a fraudster. Yeah.

But I wasn't like, yeah, I wasn't stealing anyone's identities. Because that would have been too blatant. No, no. You're a better person than me. No, not better. Was there any articles about your case? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I was on the 10 o'clock news. There's a really, a couple of really nice ones out there that you can attach. Did you, did they ever call it? Like, the first time I read an article about me and it said I was, I was a con man. Yeah, that's what I said. They didn't call me a con man. They go with con man or they'll go with, you know, fraudster or, you know.

They didn't do that with me. Oh, I had all caught. Listen. Anyway, like the first time I read that, I was just like, I was so offended. Yeah. You don't know me. I mean, I just was disgusting. Gus, I was so just to complete denial that everything you said in that article was 100% correct.

And it was much worse than you guys even though. But I think it's rare for somebody to take that extreme of ownership that you do, right? And for me, it was, it took me a long time to get honest with myself. It took me a couple of years of my prison sentence. And that's when I got to the place where I was just like, I am going to own this. I am so sick and tired of feeling like a victim. because I had made the government out to be the worst. My judge was the worth, the prosecutors, the FBI were dirty.

There were so many people doing worse than me, those suckers, right? But then I got to this place where I was just like, just own it, just free yourself. And so, yeah, I did all of that and it's okay. But, yeah, I think it took me a long time to get to that place. And the other thing that was hard was I lost everything. Like prior to getting into real estate, I had a nice home. I had a good income. and really greed and my addiction took me to a place that I never want to go back to.

Like, I don't dream about fraud. Like, it doesn't excite me. I think your addiction is more of the hustle than, I definitely like the hustle. But my main addiction is codependency when I was younger, but mostly drug addiction. So I've been sober for 10 years now, and I'll never use a drug again. I'll die before I use a drug again because I know my thinking, because that hustle thinking for me is really connected to my addiction. You're unusual. You're very smart, and you're a hustler through and through.

Keep all this. You are unusual. No, like, I don't think I've ever met anyone as smart. Because a lot of people, I'm like, I'm sitting there in prison. I'm like, what? Like, you guys, you thought you were going to get away with that? What were you thinking? You know, because, I mean, I remember meeting my friend Macy and I was, at this point,

I'm really struggling to take ownership of my crime. And she comes in and she goes, I'm a drug dealer. They send drug dealers to prison. What's your problem? You're a fraudster. I'm like, ah, no, I'm a good person. I'm a good person, you know? Yeah, I am a fraudster.

And I made some mistakes. And I'm a good person. Right. I was just saying, yeah, they're not exclusive. Yeah, no. And so, but what's really cool is when someone like you, who's been through all that, like starts building on something really solid because you can just fly. It's cool.

And you don't lose it, right? Like, because that's, I never kept anything. I keep tell, where's my wife? I keep telling my wife, I'm an amazing person. You are. She sounds amazing too, though. Or I'll see somebody in, you know, out, whatever. And they'll be like, oh, my God, you're Macawks.

Oh, my God. I love your stuff. watch this and you know you're amazing and i always look at my wife i'm like amazing did you know you know you yeah um it's so funny too listen i have and listen i i i know colby i know colby's editing yeah i already know colby mentioned what you did during the eight weeks that you were out um uh what like you know with your kids and everything He went back to that Okay

Because he's trying to get me to cry I guarantee that is like he listen Have you ever cried? Oh, you kidding me? I cry every there was the fact that I didn't cry During this podcast and is only because I didn't throw out a couple of things that I started to say and I said Don't do it bro Yeah, I felt like we were man up

You got to get a hold of this and then when Colby mentioned it I thought boy that he's trying he's trying and he says oh i know it's going to be a good video of matt cries oh he'll do it he'll always he'll make a tic-tok and then i'll be like well nobody's gonna watch that and then he'll get one and a half million i'm like oh this guy well i intentionally didn't go into as much of the emotional stuff because i i could tell you were like you were being all tough and everything yeah i'll get listen sometimes like my eyes will start to well up somebody will be telling a story and my eyes will start to well up and i'll see them kind of subtly stop and they'll realize like,

oh no, this guy's about to cry. And then they'll pull back and I almost feel like, thank you so. Or they'll lean into it. And I'm like, you bastard. So the guys are like, yeah, they embrace it. They're like, oh, yeah.

It's a horrible thing. I felt like you weren't trying to go there. No, I didn't go soft on you. Yeah. Listen, I, prior to prison, I was a rock. Really? Just, just cracked me.

And then after, it's funny, you said, like, after a year or two, you were like, just embrace it. Yeah. It was about four years. It was really when I wrote, I wrote a manuscript, right? I mean, I wrote a memoir. Yeah. Obviously, my memoir. So I wrote my memoir.

And just during that process, writing it didn't do it because I really just documented what I'd done. And then I had, I got a literary age and he read it and he was like, you know, this is an amazing story. He said, you have to rewrite it. And I was like, well, what do you mean? To put the emotion. Yeah. He said, you don't mention this. You don't mention this.

You never. He goes through the whole thing. He said, when I was done reading this whole thing, he said, I thought, you got 26 years and I thought, good, fuck him. See, I feel that a little bit more. Mine is super emotional from a woman's perspective. Right. Because, yeah, it's just different.

Yeah. Well, during, I was going to say, during, I obviously rewrite, I don't say it twice, but I rewrote it again, and then he read it again, and then he gave me edit, more like edits, a lot of edits, and I rewrote it again. But it was during that process He sent me some books on how to write memoirs You're not self-publish No, I am self-published

Oh, okay, but you have a literary I didn't publish it because Well, I got a, because you know He kept dragging it and dragging and dragging it And then I introduced him to another guy And he had me write his book While I was incarcerated Got you

So it was like, then he somehow My book got kind of attached to his book Like, well, I'm gonna pitch both of them It's like, motherfucker This is years now, it's years The thing is he really had me because this guy's putting money like he you've you got to believe in somebody if you're sending him three 400 dollars a month he was sending me money he's sending me money and he's

coming to see me every two or three months this is a literary agent so it's like yeah what do I have to lose here this guy believes in me right pretty much the only literary agent that really answer it's hard to get a literary agent I mean I self-publish and to have somebody come and see you and pay yeah ultimately um let me I don't get it published so I after he actually dies and it's a little more complicated than that, but he does, he dies. And so I was a few years away from, I was like, I'm just kind of self-published. Like, I'd read enough articles where people were like, self-published people were making, you know, $7,8. Well, you own the rights, too.

There's like so many benefits to self-publishing. And there were interviews with all these guys. They were like, look, if you're a best-selling author, you can make some good money. Right. If you're not, the disparity between being a bestseller and not is massive. You make nothing. Right. And so I was like, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm not going to be the wiffle of Wall Street.

Right. And I'm probably good. I think you're smarter than him. No, I've read you're pretty smart. Get that on. Make a note. Make it that's a TikTok. We'll send it to, we'll send it to Belford's wife, ex-wife.

Yeah. We interviewed her. Yeah, I saw that. It's funny, too, she got a lot of you. She's got like over 140 or 130. Like she's, it's got, it did really well. Yeah. I saw it.

You know what I was thinking about the other night is Belfort interviewed his FBI agent that tracked him. We should probably reach out to that guy. Right. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. I don't really want to talk to my FBI agents again. We listen to this.

You don't know my story, but there was this, I don't know who this woman is. She was horrible. She was actually probably very good at her job. But she was a horrible individual. She's such a horrible individual that other FBI agents, when they would come see me in the prison, and they'd come and sit down, they'd go, so I heard you had Candace as your agent. And I'd be like, yeah, they go, what did you think of her? And I'd be like, she was a fucking nightmare. They're like, I know, bro.

She's two cubicles down. They're like, she's the worst. And they're like, she hated my guts. I'd never been. And she's like, oh, you're not alone. She trusts me. Why were they still coming to talk to you in prison? Well, I was cooperating.

Oh, you turned on everybody. Absolutely. I got 26 and a half years. Oh, yeah. You know? And I trimmed it down. Call me your favorite informant now. Yeah, I trimmed it.

Yeah, exactly. Like, what are you talking about 26 years? I'm with you guys. What can we do about this? Paul, John. Let's talk about this. Come see me. Oh, you are.

something oh man it's horrible when you read it you're gonna be like this this is the guy that they tell you about when they tell when the other inmates say don't discuss your case with other this is that guy you were doing that while you were locked up that was five years off for i recovered half a million dollars in Ponzi scheme that a Ponzi schemer was fucking and i was like listen he got the money i'm telling you right now you got to talk to this person and this person you are sunk i need something in writing from the u.s. attorney saying he'll consider it wow oh yeah wow Oh, I got my time seven years off and then five.

Yeah. Well, I tried. I mean, I, not, not. You're a horrible person. I tried. Yeah, you know. Mostly I tried on to, I mean, they called me the leader organizer and they wouldn't let me give them any information on banks or anything else. They weren't trying to get them.

So whatever. It was just me. I, you really have to listen. You've got to listen to my story. I'm going to dial out. I'm going to, on my way home. I'm going to listen to on the plane. I'm going to message you and say, what?

And, yeah. I'm going to, I'll send you the, how long is your, because there's a two-hour version, a seven-hour version. Yeah. I'll be listening to them. My flight's five hours, so I got some time. Oh, I was actually thinking about sending her, uh, Danny Jones's version. Um, and because the, you know who, uh, do you know who Lex Friedman is? He's a, it's a big time podcast.

Like there's like Joe Rogan and there's like Lex Friedman. And you were on his? I was six and a half hours. Wow. I mean, I thought it was maybe two or three. When he finally, he had a little clock, when we were finally wrapping it up, he said, he goes, he's like, he's like, how long do you think we went? And I was like, three hours? Three and a half.

And he goes, seven and a half hours. Oh. We trimmed it down an hour. Wow. I was like, what? My wife was waiting for me in the parking lot. She was in back seat. She finally climbed the back seat and went to sleep.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, she's going to kill me. My phone's on fucking, it's on airpoint mode. I got to see this. I got, definitely. Is it video? Yeah, yeah. It's YouTube. But I'll send you the one from concrete.

Yeah. It's reasonable. It's a reasonable length. Yeah. Like, it's like two hours. Well, I'll listen to it. Hey, you guys, if you like the video, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button.

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