Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - FBI's Most Wanted Cop Gets Arrested : Exploiting & Airlifting Inmates

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

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I had no consequences. So I'll just be quick to punch you or feel piss right in yourself. Because in order for a facility to run smoothly, you can't be by the book. A lot of inmates were getting airlifted out. But this is where my downfall came. I applied. And literally, I got the job, like, on the spot. Like, you can start, like, three days later.

It's, it's, it's fast. Wow. That's insane. Yeah. And the background check was, like, basically nothing. If you have a heartbeat and you're okay, you're talking and you have a heartbeat, Department of Craigs is to take it. Where did you end up?

Like how long before you actually went in? Was there any training at all? Like, or is it on the job training? So this is how Florida does it. I don't know about the other states. I know that federal doesn't do this. So when you get hired, literally they put you onto a shift. So I started working night shift on this one shift.

so seven and seven at night this is on the job training it's unbelievable but like they don't even give you anything to protect yourself you don't even know any policy they don't even give you a radio you just have what they call a panic button right hitting the deuses yeah the deuses and if that even works because it's supposed to pick up to the closest alarm of the dorm or if you're like in medical or something right and all the guards come immediately supposed to come immediately to run to right so help you right so ever know policy or you just hang out you're just on the job training until you're eventually on your own right so you stay there it could be a month it can be up to six months before they send you to the academy

oh so this whole time you're working they'll tell you oh go do um body searches you know you have to do pat down or go do a cell search it's like what am i looking for i don't even know you don't know what you're doing i got lucky because i got assigned to one of the sergeants that was in charge of the gang unit and the gang unit is called STG security threat group that's basically a gang unit and he liked me and he was letting me do a lot of things that a TEA which is as soon as you get hired you're not a certified officer so they call it a TEA the inmates will call you a new cock right but the staff will call you a TEA and the TA is not even supposed to be on his own supposed to be strictly in the dorm just pressing buttons letting people in or if you do like sell searches

and stuff you're supposed to be with a certified officer it's supposed to right because you don't have handcuffs you don't have pepper spray you don't even have a radio okay but i got lucky and i got to roll with one of the sergeants that was in charge of the whole gang unit and at the time it was only him and a captain and that captain worked day shift so the captain would do all they all the STG things in the daytime, and he was in charge of it at night. You know, whatever the captain would tell him to do, he would have to do and go talk to a certain inmate

or go lock an inmate up or something. So back then I was, you know, working out a lot. I was a lot bigger than when I am now. So he was a smaller guy. And he had a respect from the inmates, but I also noticed that he was too cool, like trying to be your friend. And there's nothing wrong with being friends,

and friendly and make a joke here and there. Right. But you're not going to let them dictate to you what they're going to do. Right. You know what I mean? Like, you dictate to what they're going to do. You're in charge here. And it's not a power thing.

It's just a respect thing. I have the badge. You don't. I work with you. I'll compromise with you. But you're not going to ever tell me what to do. Yeah. You're not going to say, no, I'm not doing that.

I'm going to go do this over here. Right. And he would go for it because part of SDG, geez, keeping the peace, too. It's identifying the gangs, making sure, you know, they don't cross paths with the other gangs, stop contraband, either drugs or cell phones or whatever the contraband is at that time, right? Okay. So it is part of keeping the peace, right?

But you're too friendly. They just walk all over you. Right. So I learned a lot from him, you know, but I also dissected what I didn't like I seen him do. And I never told him this. Yeah. But I'm just watching because from that moment when I worked with him and he was letting me do things that I'm not even supposed to do, I knew I wanted to do that. And I wasn't going to stop.

That's what I wanted to do inside of working in the prison. So I got to experience and get my name out there by doing a lot of things. Like, he would even let me fight some inmates because they would disrespect me to him. Right. Like, I looked at it as a racial thing. thing right because they said cracker right i'm from new york like we don't like we don't even use the word cracker like that unless you're trying to insult someone you know but and here in florida they say cracker yeah it's not a really an insult salt here so then i would say something to him and he

would say something back and next thing you know now now we have an issue and he wouldn't like he would be so nervous he'd be like and then i'd be like no this is what's going to happen and we would you know, settle a lot of problems. But it's insane, bro. It is insane. Yeah. But it got me the respect from the inmates, too. And I'm not sitting here and say, oh, I beat everyone's ass.

Yeah. No, not at all. You know, I didn't care if I got, or if you got off on me or if I got off on you. It was a respect thing. Yeah, I was going to say, it's, it's what you definitely really, honestly, you realize this in high school. Like, some, it's really, it's more about being willing to fight than it is actually winning the fight of course you want to win the fight nobody wants to get their ass beat right but it's so much much worse if you just don't fight you'd rather you'd rather fight and lose than to not fight at all

then it's much much worse than people then everybody disrespects you and that goes for officers too because now officers they talk some they talk reckless sometimes right so when an inmate talks reckless back you can't be quick to lock him up and put him in the shoe because you open that door to disrespect him he didn't disrespect you first in that situation you know and Now, everyone's going to just respect you. Now, good luck trying to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish as a correction officer. It's not going to happen when you don't have the respect. Right.

And I didn't go the best route, obviously, which landed me in federal prison as an inmate myself. I could have went about it a different way, but you still, I still gained the respect in a way. And that's, you know, we're men at the end of the day. You're an inmate, I'm an officer, but you're still a man at the end of the day. Right. have a job to do it's your job to do what you do and get away with it and it's my job to catch you and when i catch you there's no hard feelings and if you get away with it for a long time there's no hard feelings it's it's the it's the nature of the beast so what happened when you

did you end up going you go to the academy or do you go to the academy yeah three months later i go to the academy okay but by that time i'm already being recruited onto um STG from the captain which is unheard of. You know, I'm not trying to like, toot my horn here, but, like, you need to have years before you can get on it

because it's a very small unit, right? And being with that sergeant and doing what I was doing with the gang stuff, a lot of officers, you know, it's like gossip. It's like high school. Prison is like gossip. Inmates and officers,

everyone talks. So I was being recruited for the SRT team, which is basically SWAT. It's like emergency service. You know, if it makes riot or anything like that. Yeah, cell extraction, that sort of thing, right? Well, each shift has their own cell extraction team. Okay.

But not if there's a riot where the cell extraction team can't handle it, you know, they'll call in. Or if they have like a kite that came in that inmates trying to escape or there's going to be a gang fight or there's going to be a riot or whatever that has to do with that. that's not in the means of the staff that's there that day or that shift, they'll call us. Okay. So they give you an estate issued phone. You always have to have that phone on you. You can't live more than 30 miles away. If you go away, you have to get approval from your commander that you're going away because

they need to know if they're a man down. So I was re-recruited before I was even in the academy. So once I went into the academy, all these guys and even the war, Warden, the colonel, like, you know, we call it white shirts, right, brass, warden will come, all talk to me. They came and watched me get pepper sprayed. They made it worse because they made me go last. So the whole time in the academy, you have to, you know, run and do exercises,

get, open up your pores. Right. And then usually they just go a little, like right here, and then you have to open your eyes. and then you have to do like uh hit the bag then you have to run to the next bag elbow it then knee it after being pepper sprayed right and then you have to take one of the officers they have as a as a you know that's like a dummy and he has to like resist a little bit and you have to throw him on the floor and put the handcuffs on them while you're using the radio to the control room to let you know backup i need backup right they try to make it stressful yeah it's

really a joke but you have to make it stressful but since i had to all these guys in higher spots that all came for my spray day they made it worse like i was sweating i was exhausted from running because there's like 30 kids in a class so the whole time i'm they're making me run do pushups burpees they you know they're working me out they were like oh you want to be a part of srt we're gonna we're gonna make you work for it and then uh they were using the mk9 mk4 it's the smaller can of pepper spray okay right but they used it the mk9 on me and that's what only sergeants have and it's like a they call it black jesus right why because you're going to see black and you're going to be crying for jesus that's how bad it is

it's like it's bad they call it black jesus so you're supposed to have your eyes closed but they were messing with me and they were like they were like yo and i opened up my eyes and they and they sprayed me bad bad and then they have like these like padded like bats and they were all just, like, beating this shit out of me when I had to do all these, like, little obstacles. Right. But it was fun. It was a good, it was a funny experience,

but it was definitely a little rough. So, I mean, did you end up on that? Yeah, right away. As soon as I passed the academy, which is like three months, approximately three months, and you pass the state certification test because you have to pass a test for the academy,

and then you got to pass a state board. Okay. It has nothing to do with the prison. It has to do with, you know, FDLE, Florida Department and Law Enforcement. Okay. Then you're officially a certified officer. So. How much?

What is, what is the officer make the first year? This seems like a lot of fucking shit and a dangerous. It is. It is. It is dangerous. So what do they make? Nothing. Right.

34,000 maybe. I was going to say, I know that I think federal, the first year, like the feds they're like 35 or 38,000 or it's like it's very little money but it goes up more in the feds right like a captain here in florida makes maybe 50,000 hmm okay it's yeah you don't make anything okay really if you do it it's to be it's a it's a stepping stone to go to maybe county where you make more money or a police department maybe FBI something yeah yeah it's it's law enforcement it's an entry it's a entry bar into law enforcement it's an entry yeah if you stay there There's a lot of people that stay there, and they don't even want to promote up to sergeant, lieutenant.

And it's only a 7% increase. So if you're an officer and you want to be a sergeant, it's only 7% from that salary. But it is a state job that you can retire from in 20 years. You know what I'm saying? So it is not like there's not a pension that comes with it. Correct. But I don't know how much that pension is. And you have good benefits, but to me it's not worth wasting your whole career staying in that.

It's a toxic environment, too. toxic from the inmates and it's toxic from staff too well i mean i know guys that would go into they'd go into the military like 17 right because your parents can sign off right 17 go for 20 years retire go into law enforcement for 20 years retire and then they were working on their third now they're all they're in there like 50s but then they go in and they're working for like the bop right and you're like well you're working on your third fucking your third pension right now which is genius yeah if you if you can stay that course right if you can't a few and far in between it right i i definitely wasn't making it

right i definitely would have to try but um no it's it's a job you know it depends on it's what you make of it too but it is a very toxic it takes a toll on you right you know it takes a toll on you it's not just inmates that you have to worry about too it's the staff is is very toxic too yeah you know you don't have like the highest education you know people that are working there you You don't, very rarely will you see someone with a master's or even a bachelor's school work there. Yeah, no, I mean, you could tell. And this was, and this was the BOP, but they were just, they were constantly, like we talked about before, they were, these guards are fighting in the fucking parking lot. Like they're like, I'll meet you out fucking back.

You know, I'll meet you in the parking lot as soon as your shift gets, right, motherfucker. And they go out and they'd get into fist fights. Like, the guys would come back with, you know, both eyes are blackened or they would be in screaming matches on the rec yard. They would, you know, one guy closes a compound, then they open it back up. Then the other one closes the compound. And you're like, what's going on? Then the guys are practically yelling on the radio. Like, I said the compound, it's close.

One guy's saying it's open. One guy saying it's close. Like, you find out these two guys hate each other. Guards are female guards are fucking one or two of the fucking COs that they hate each other. That's where most of the fights come from. It's who's banging who. Right? That's where a lot of the fights come from.

Or not even, they're not even banging them yet. They just see a new, a new officer come in, and they're trying to claim her. And they're fighting. Like, what are you doing, bro? Yeah. What are you doing? One of these inmates is going to be at the bang up before you do anyway. So what does it matter?

I was just say, what was the one thing that happened? Oh, I know what it was. There were, there had to be, whatever. I don't know how many guards there even were at the low. I'm thinking the low. I would say there were at least four or five guards that were clearly, on like oxies like they were clearly on like they had an addiction problem and it was you know they're they're nodding off in the you know in the um the little their little office and you know

whatever it was like and in i go i don't know but i get you got the other inmates go no brother too that he's got i i'm trust me i know i was addicted they're like and they would say this he's fucked up or she's messed up or and then you find out later they'll send them to detot like they'll send them to a rehab for a cover up yeah and then come back and they start over again Yeah, it happens. There was this one officer when I first started. He was actually a sergeant, and he would come drunk. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I've heard that too. Like, I'm never, I was never close enough, but the other, the guys that would work with them, like at rec, you're working right beside the CEOs, right? Or if you're in commissary, like, you're right there. The COs right here with two or three of them, and they could smell the alcohol. Or was it this one, there was a, like a lieutenant, a female lieutenant who was. harassing one of the COs. And it was so bad that at one point she had got pulled over for like a DUI and she texted him at like 11 o'clock at night or so.

So the cop pulls her over, but they're like, look, call somebody to come get you. Like, I'm not going to arrest you. I want to leave your car here, but somebody's got to come get you. The guy she was harassing, she texts him at like, whatever, 11, 12 o'clock. at night, and she tells him, and keep in mind, now you're laying in bed with your wife. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night or all of the above. That's where ghostbed can help. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, ghost bed is your go-to

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You'll answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation. Even better, our listeners can get 50% off sitewide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox and use the code Cox at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide. And he's been chewing her off. Right. And text him and he picks up the phone and he, looks and of course his wife is who's texting you at 1130 or 1230 at night and looks at the phone

and she's saying come get me I got pulled over they're not going to be you I need you to come get me and he's texting back like no I'm in bed with my wife and she comes back and she says if you come get me I'll give you a blowjob um bro and that's when his wife's like let me see your phone and he's like fuck so he'd been trying to to try and just push it down like like from everybody i heard the rumor i heard was that he wasn't fucking her he was trying to get her to leave him alone right he'd actually transferred to another fucking put in for like a transfer to another because there's five prisons in coleman right but he's trying to get out of the pin and go to like the medium where she's not wife sees it

wife basically says you're going in tomorrow and filing a complaint on this woman or i'm packing my bags and leaving you and i'm taking your kids that's terrible Should have just hit it then. Yeah. It would have been better up if I'd been thanking her. So, yeah, the next day, he filed an official complaint. And everybody was like, bro, like they're trying to sweep it under the rut. He's like, I can't.

My wife, she's gone. He's leaving my, if I don't file the complaint. And he's got all the texts. That's a career changer for both of them. They took her from the pen and they transferred her to the low and she was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. I don't know how she survived at the pen. I'm surprised they didn't stab her at the pen.

She was such an asshole But that was and everybody And here's the funny thing too It's like everybody knew it Like all the staff were talking about What was going on like it was a blatant thing But it was the whole thing It was the overwhelming gossip

Right That two guards are banging this chicken Who's running commissary They call her commissary Barbie And she looked listen And honestly She was a prison nine You know she was a free world six

Maybe a five she looked good i'll take it yeah yeah and so and and and of course the the guys working with her no she's banging two of the guards and she's married and they're like oh that that that that marriage is done it's only a matter of time and sure enough like within a year she's divorced one of these guys is divorced i mean guys are fighting each other in the parking lot it happens all the time it's it's literally it's like it's like a college frat yeah it's fucking yeah it's horrible yeah it's entertaining for the inmates so they're like oh yeah oh yeah and the offices they don't realized when they talk, there's always

an imman around. Oh, yeah. They say one thing, it spreads like wildfire. And by the fourth inmate, it's twice as bad at what you said. Oh, it's twice as bad. Because they're like old women. But they know where you hang out on Friday and Saturday nights. They know what school your kids go to. They know what kind of car you have. They know

you just got some new jet skis. They know, they know everything. Yeah. I mean, I literally would have the inmates would be like, yeah, yeah, Thompson just bought two fucking jets kits. Yeah, yeah. He said, you know, it's funny too, because like last week he was talking about how fucking strapped he was and he was having to work a 20 or 30 hours worth of overtime and yet this motherfucker just went

on Boggajikis. Can you believe that? And I'm sitting and thinking, how the fuck do you know? Bro, it's unbelievable. And it's gossip on both parts. They'll know everything. Right. They'll know your dirty little secrets. You're sitting there talking thinking that no one's... There's an enemy right here. There's a fly on the wall. Everyone's watching. Everyone's

listening. But it is entertaining. I never really had a interaction like that where I had a problem with that. I don't really like to shit where I eat, you know, sometimes, you know, obviously we're men will be tempted, right? But at least in the state, half the female staff there, there's rough, but they always, they have a thousand inmates that are giving them love, you know? Because half of these girls, they don't get the love on the outside.

No one's telling them that they're beautiful every morning. No one's telling them that they smell good. It may be able to say the cornyest thing, but it works. Next thing you know, she's quitting her job, and next year when he gets out, she's picking him Yeah, that's, that's, you know, it's funny how common that is. It's very common. Like, guys will get out and hook up with the, like, they'd really been, we did the, remember we did the interview with the guy, the, there was an inmate that was flirting

with the guard, which is already, he was like, was dangerous. Like, that could have gone bad. Yeah. He was concerned. Like, he was like, you know, we really shouldn't have had a friendly of a relationship. It's called establish in a relationship. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, what happens is she was telling him, I'm leaving. Like, she was actually. leaving. She was going to go be a dental hygienist. Do you remember the guy I'm talking about? He put the, he has the company now that puts the TVs. Yeah. He did telemarketing stuff. Yeah. So he leaves, so she leaves like only a month or so before. And he actually asked her her full name. Because when I get out, maybe I'll look you up. He was, what's your full name? He was right then. He said, I could have gone straight to shoot. Like, he was, it was a ballsy move. Yeah, very bossy. And she said, she was like, look me up on Facebook. Here's my name. He gets out. He

He looks her up. They start dating. They got married. They've been together for like five years. They've got a successful company together. And, hey, that's, that's a success story, but it doesn't happen very often. Right. Next thing you know, usually it's a nightmare. Next thing you know, she goes to work and everything's gone in her house. Yeah.

Or she shows up and gets escorted off the. Well, that's embarrassing. I've seen that. Yeah. I've seen it, too. It's funny, we had one time a chick, her name was Miss Brown. This was when I was at the medium. I'd only been there like a year.

and there was a guy I don't forget his name it wasn't Jimmy but it was something kind of silly like Bobby or Billy or you know something silly right but I'd be honest he looked like he stepped out of a

a GQ magazine like you just this guy didn't look like he should be locked up I mean no I think he did have one tattoo anyway whatever and Miss Brown should not have been in the medium I mean she was she was she was a free world

10 she was a no she was a prison 10 she was a free world eight like she looked good bro and sure enough if old you know whatever bobby or jimmy or whatever his name was wasn't flirting with her and doing that and then one night he gets drunk he's in her office sitting on her desk and she's in there you know curling her hair and we're all like how long's this last like but i'm surprised that because the animates will tell that's that's what happens right that's what happens i think i want to say a week maybe two Listen, one, she would do like the, after 10 o'clock count, you know, they come around again. And we got doors.

You know, they count like every hour or two. She would come by after she counted, go up to his door. And they would sit there and talk through the door for hours. At one point, she got to a point where she would open the door. He'd go upstairs and they talk in the room within a week. They escorted off the property. 100%. There was a librarian.

She had to be 70 years old. I wouldn't touch this if I was if it was a like last moments on earth no not not happening right well this guy who was an orderly and I don't even know how he was an orderly there because he had a life right and it's like an area where it's kind of close to the front gate so I don't even think he should have been there but anyways and he had HIV well an inmate got upset that he was banging like the 70 year old hiberian lady and told staff and she got escorted off the, off the compound with, with that thing.

So, I mean, she's 70. Yeah. By the time affects her, she's gone anyway. But, but it happens so, so often. You know, there was this one in it that I was very, not close with, but I had a good relationship with him. He was a Nyeta, and I would have to deal with some of the Nietas at that time. and at that time I had free range of where I can put inmates and what jobs and stuff.

So I was very close with classification. And that's who actually determines on what housing unit you're going to, what job you have, etc. But I had a lot of leeway and a lot of pull on. Hey, I want this inmate here, please. I want this inmate here, please. So I would run all of it. So I ran the barbershop, grounds, outside grounds, the kitchen, any major job, laundry, any major job I was really in control of that as that was my secondary duty besides being a gang sergeant

because at that time I wasn't working a dorm I was in charge of the gangs and running like you know everything I just mentioned so I was cool with him so I put him into the kitchen as the head storage guy you know that's a high political spot to have right because you can steal out of the and you're in the storage room where everything is where it's locked up right You know, and only you can go in there and the officer and the civilian lady. So I would go in there and eat. I never brought lunch. Let me just make that.

If anyone complains about the state food, stop complaining. I ate it for all those years. I worked at. I would never bring lunch. And I love the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, by the way. So I was in there and he was making, every day, he would make me eat the peanut bun and jelly sandwich. And I noticed that the civilian lady, and she was a prison three. Right.

But he's in there for a long time. And I noticed her, she's sitting down on a box against the wall. And she's like, like this. And like I said, I was pretty close with this. Like, we were pretty close. We beat up a couple inmates together, like together. And he would, you know, help me out with his gang because they were kind of, they weren't really prominent like that, but they were some serious dudes at the time.

And I noticed she's like, This, and I look at him, and he looks at me smiling. I said, give me my damn sandwich, man. I got to get the fuck up out of here before I'm involved in any of this shit. So I knew he was banging out. I didn't say anything. I didn't really care, to be honest with you. They were going to get caught eventually.

I think he got transferred something else, but it happens all the time. It's actually pretty entertaining. Yeah, I was going to say, too, what about the familiarity? I knew. I actually wrote a book about a guy who, when he got to prison he was he got there and he's like within a couple days he was walking

in the child hall he looks up and he sees one of his friends from high school's older brother he's a CEO as an officer as an officer and he looked up and he saw him and he looked up and he was like hey he goes and turns his head and walk keeps walking so he said

like later on that day he was walking and he saw him and he gets he said he's hey he his inmate come here and he's like hey man what's going on He says, and they're like search him. He goes, listen, man. He said, if you fucking tell anybody that you know me, they're going to ship you, not me. 100%.

He said, I'll look out for you, but that's all I can do. Don't fuck, he is don't tell any friends. Don't tell your roommate. Don't tell you don't know me. You don't know me. He told him a little. He said, don't get comfortable with somebody to say, oh, I know this guy. He said, I'm telling you right now.

He said, everybody hears talking. Everybody hears a snitch. They'll all tell on you. They'll all tell on everybody. And you'll get fucking shipped. Is your mom ain't going to fucking be able to see you if they ship you to Because his mother would come see him, right? Right.

And that's, you know, they hold that over you, right? So they're going to ship you to fucking, you know, Kansas or something. And she ain't going to be able to see you. And you got fucking five more years or six years. So anyway, he was like, so he was leaving. By the time I was writing his book, he, like, yeah, yeah, you know, so and so. He's, you know, he's fucking his brother's here. And he told me.

But that had been five years later, five, six years later, he's about to leave. But I was going to say one more thing is that there was a black. chick that was a CEO and she was a bigan. She was a bigan. There's a lot of them. But there was a guy she went to high school who was there. This is the low. He's in her office all the time, flirt and talk.

And he's telling people, yeah, I went to high school with her. We're cool. And he's, listen, it wasn't a week pack. He's on the pack out and get shipped. And everybody was like, bro, don't tell anybody that. What are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing? It's necessary, though, because he's not doing it maliciously, right?

he's just running his gums right yeah but it's dangerous for her because she has a problem with his inmate and now that guy that inmate starts talking to him he can know where she lives he can know where our mother is you know a lot of these dudes are serious dudes especially in the feds yeah you know they get your family knocked off or they yeah or they you know imagine now his cousin or brother or friend can go to her house right and say, hey, can you bring a cell phone, just Jimmy, I'll give you a grand, you know? And that's how it starts, right? Like it's a friend of us, you know, or it's a way, yeah, that's a way, yeah, that's a way.

Think about it. You bring in, you bring in two cell phones a month and they're not searching you. They bring in two cell phones a month. That's an extra $24,000 a year on top of your 35,000. Like, you're now making a, that's a, that's, you're close to $60,000 a year. More than what you're making. Yeah, that's a lot. That's just a couple, two cell phones.

It's tempting. It is tempting. That's nothing. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, let's face it, two cell phones is nothing compared to what some of these guys could rake in if they bring in countrymen. 100%. And it happens all the time.

And mostly it does come from the guards. Yeah. Listen to this. Tell me how funny this is. The recruitment for Florida Department of Corrections, they don't go to the local high schools. They don't go to the local colleges to the criminal justice degree departments, you know? Right. You know where they put up signs?

just take a wild guess where they put up signs to advertise it the parking lot on visitation day really you can't make it up i can't make i can't even make that up i wonder why that why do you why is that though i think it's because they're all like literally like retarded well but i mean there's no other way what what makes you think i'm not the smartest person believe me i'm i'm i'm not okay right but i already know if i'm going to recruit i'm going to put a up signs on the highway, right? Yeah, I'm going to go to the college, the criminal justice degree department. I'm not going to go visitation day where the inmates' families are coming and put up signs now hiring. Yeah. You're like, it's mind-boggling. If you walked into a dorm

and you were blindfolded, right, and you heard the officers talking and you heard the inmates talking, you wouldn't know the difference. Yeah. Yeah. They had the same basic types of of interests, they have the same, you know, they have the, that's how they talk. They talk the same, listen, a lot of these guys were, we're like, you know, some of the COs were in gangs growing up. Some of them were. Yeah. Right.

And there's nothing wrong with that if you change your way, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying, but I'm saying, that's something that, I mean, you're saying that, but let's face it, whoever's running the BOP or the state, those prisons, like, they wouldn't want you to have been in a gang. You know what I mean? They would be like, oh, I don't think we want a guy that was a former gang member to be in a car. If they had a choice, but since it's so.

like little people that actually want to do it yeah you know i'm i'm no better i was all i was on the line you know i don't even know how i got that job either you know so i'm not saying saying i'm perfect you know look at look what i did right but they're definitely the qualification and the way you just recruit should be you know a little better that it's right it's not a good way to get the right type of people up in there well so so you were were you running the um Why can't I remember the name of this? I just want to say the gang unit, but STG. STG.

Were you running STG at this point or were you just underneath the other guy? So I was underneath him even when I get out of the academy. Okay. And then he- I assume that, yeah. And then he transfers, and not even a full year, transfers to another institution to become a captain or a lieutenant. And you can skip only one rank when you,

and you can only skip lieutenant. So if you're a sergeant, you want to promote a, up to the tenant and then be a captain you don't have to be a lieutenant that's the only rank that you can skip and become a sergeant than a captain okay because there's only two to three lieutenants on on shift for that whole prison there's not many it's not like every shift needs a captain it's only like two or three departments that need a lieutenant right so i i'm not sure if he want to be a lieutenant or a captain but he left and the captain was getting older and he just gave me free range

and then the captain end up leaving so now I'm very close at the time with my major who kind of was overseeing the STG and kind of put me in that spot on admin shift on charge of all of the barbershop and all the cafeteria everything like that right so now I'm basically running it

note mind you a little bit of training I don't know training whatsoever not like a California Department of Corrections or BOP where they put you to do strenuous training. It's just what you know from the street or what you think you know and just learning as you go into the field. But I wasn't really like too like gunhole

on learning it, to be honest with you. All I was doing was making sure that what my major wanted, not crazy amounts of contraband, not crazy amounts of violence because there was a lot and just keeping an order on on it that's it how many inmates are in this prison at this particular institution I was at

it was about maybe 1,300 1,200 that's a good size and Colvin was 18 the low was 1800 the the medium was 14 or 1500 so it was basically the size of the medium that's a lot of fucking people right and now this was it wasn't you know in florida they don't have a medium and low like that they just have like different like degree of like custody levels right so like if like for instance if

you got sentenced to the bop and you were a high you would go to a pen right right here in florida you would kind of be put on cm like behind a door so all like the maximum security prisons here in florida they're not really dangerous because the inmates are behind a door it's basically like the shoe the whole thing is like the shoe so the mediums what you would classify a medium is like a high yeah i was going to say a medium they're behind the door you can feed them through the doors you can you know right it's a little different the way the state runs it on bop so like to kind of like transition over to it would be like a medium but you have inmates that are high offender on there like dangerous to staff and they're they're they're basically like the pen but they're just not

like a. So you might have one guy behind the door that robs them banks, but isn't really that dangerous next to another guy who's there for killing five people and's never going to get out. This guy's got 10 years. He's getting out. He robbed three banks. Right. This, you know, this guy, you know, robbed three banks with a note. He's still going. And then this guy who's killed five people is never getting out of prison. Those guys would be right, could be right in the same. Correct. Unless your custody of it was so low where you have an outside gate pass, you'll be at a camp or you know or like a reentry center something like that a guy with three murders isn't going to ever get there no never get that but only recently the Department of Corrections have classification

where they would do your height and weight proportion to be in the cell so back when I was working there you can literally be 5-1-120 and be sold up with 6-6-250 yeah no that's that could go bad now it's not as bad classification has changed because of so much pria prison elimination act they had a lot of pria going on or you know accusations of fear no one's beyond the door i wouldn't even want to know right right like but only recently have they changed that but that's why florida is a very dangerous because a very dangerous institution just because the people that are running it you know it's a it's a free for all you know there there's not many things in in order that would have kept you safe.

Like you said, you could be a nonviolent offender, but being there for 10 years and being a cell with a dude that's serving three life sentences. Right. Yeah, it's funny because in Florida, you guys, they go to like a reception center where they, where everybody's mixed in together

until they classify you. But in the Bureau of Prisons, like, you're classified from the get-go. Yeah. You're not going to a pin, unless you're right pinpoint so a reception center would be equivalent to uh the same custody level as like a an fdc okay or uh Oklahoma City Transit Center yeah it's administrative yeah you're being processed you're being assessed yeah right I went through there Oklahoma City yeah

yeah I did too yeah well but they they got it down there don't they you you're almost as upsetting and depressing as it is the situation is you're you're it's it's it's oddly impressive like there those you swarm off that that plane and those guys it's an assembly line i've never had the cuffs taken off me so fast and everything that guy you walk up on a little stairs and stand you turn and i mean it's right and you're like oh what the hell like wooden plank stairs right yeah it looks like you're about to be executed yeah that's how i felt yeah and then you go down there grab a bag you grab a bag your bag lunch and you go in that room with all the diamond played it's like if it's like 300 people yeah but you just kind of you're in there you're not

that tight but you're in there it's there's a lot in there you're not sitting now everybody couldn't sit down that's for sure it you definitely know you're in a prison oh yeah you know you definitely know you're in a prison what's funny about that is uh i actually have a story i think colby's heard this i'm just kind of there's that story and then i'll stop i'll stop interrupting you just no no no go but but you'll appreciate this i've just bro i just i've been arrested for like like a month or so maybe six weeks right and so i'm standing there and i walk so i walk in there and i'm stuck by going to get in that that room and we're standing there and there's a toilet like in the corner but there was so many people this old guy couldn't see it was an old man he's probably

65 so no not he had at least be 70 in his 70s right 70s because he was old and there was a black guy that was there that had to be six two jacked up on steroids and had gold teeth that had fang i'd he looked i shit you not he looked like a comic book character he looked like the comic book character blade okay but from the comic book right bigger than uh what's his name who plays blade wesley snipes wesley snipes is not that tall he's not that big he's not like a six foot two guy this guy was a giant and i'm sitting there and we're not far away right where i'm sitting there and i you know we're he and i everybody's kind of sizing each other up right like that's what happens yeah we're standing there and the old man um he's standing there and he

said i got to go i got a bathroom and we're like um oh okay and he and he looks over the door and he walks over the door and grabs the door and you know he goes and he goes hey they got us locked in here and me and the black guy look at it. He looks down. We look at each other. And I go, yeah, it's probably going to be a lot of lot of lock doors from now off. And the black guy, he's got to start chuckling, right? And he looks at the black guy, looks at the old man. He goes, what are you in here for, pops? And he goes, and he looked at him. He said, I don't know. I was just taking, you know, my, my, my, my granddaughter, she's one of those, um, those lesbians. She's a, she's a lesbian and he goes oh yeah he's yeah and she she was she and one of her girlfriends they

they were taken they wanted me to take some some pictures of them and and i was taking some pictures of them and uh and they put them on they put them on the internet and they selling those pictures they were they were sell i wouldn't even selling them i just took the pictures and we're like glancing at each other because you know in that environment people there's not a lot there's no real politics at that point yet, right? Because everybody's stunned, you know, they're not like, I'm going to fuck you up because guys are waiting to go to trial, guys are still fighting their case. Like, I'm not trying to...

They're trying to take it easy. Right. Right. And the way he was saying it, you could tell it's almost like, he's old. I mean, I think you know what you were doing was wrong. But you're acting like, oh, I'm just an old man. I don't really know. And we're like, and we're like, right.

He's like, yeah, and they put it on the internet. And then they was selling them pictures. and uh and uh and and i was like sitting there and i and so i'm processing it right because i don't really understand what i'm not on that i've been locked up enough to start realizing what a show is and what makes it illegal and what you know it's right and and i'm not thinking along those lines because it's never something that's never entered my world right like when you're it's not your norm yeah and you're 17 18 years old you're you've never heard of underage this or under it wasn't as prevalent then it might even out there but i'm not even out there but

I don't know about it. I don't think about those things. So where I'm listening to him and me and the black guy are kind of glancing at each other. And I went, how old's your granddaughter? Because I'm thinking to myself, you're taking pictures of two lesbians, like, there's nothing, and putting them on the internet and selling them. There's nothing illegal about that. Why would you be here?

And then I dawns on me, how old is your granddaughter? And he goes, oh, she's 14, 15 years old. And, and listen, the, the, the, the, the, the, I do just got to look He's like Took a step back And he said He said I keep that

I keep that to myself pops He said you might not want to be telling a lot of people that And he was like well I didn't do nothing I was like yeah I don't That's probably not going to go over well Like that And anyway he ended up We ended up saying there's a toilet over there in the corner

And he goes over there's all these people here Well there's you're going to have to get used Book Club on Monday Gym on Tuesday Date night on Wednesday Out on the town on Thursday Quiet night in on Friday It's good to have a routine

And it's good for your eyes too Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers You'll know just how healthy they are Visit Spexsavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam Eye exams provided by independent optometrists Do that. You're going to have to. But yeah, that was, it was, that was

of those you're going to meet a lot of very odd people and odd situations and a hundred percent and that that right there would have pissed me off even if i was an officer and overheard him speaking i was probably would have slapped them right then and there i didn't do nothing at fourth that would really piss me off well we were i had bigger problems than to oh at that moment yeah i'm still yeah i'm still in shock from being i'm still in shock that I'm standing next to a guy who's six foot two has gold fangs and looks like a scarier version of blade.

I mean, he looked like a cartoon character. It's just like... That is. But as you know, in prison, looks are deceiving. Like, I've seen people come in with no tattoos. They look like a little geeky nerd. Next thing you know, they have tattoos all over their face, their head.

And I've already seen their rap sheet. How many times they checked in, the PC? It's like, who are you trying to fool with those tattoos? You know, it always seems like the guys that are super quiet, that, you know, that's the guy who's killed three people. He's quiet. He just keeps himself. He reads. He doesn't talk to it.

He doesn't have a bunch of friends. Yeah. And you're like, that's the guy who you're like, that guy's got a life sentence. And he's killed three fucking people. And he's been to trial four times and beat state cases. And now, you know what I'm saying? Like you look at his rap sheet. You're like, this guy is a menace.

And then the other guy who might be completely tatted up and just, you know, jacked up and walks around and everything. And you have a conversation with them, and you realize, like, you're a pretty good dude. Nice as fucking guy. And, you know, like, it's all for show. Right. Usually the big dudes, they already know what they're capable of. They already know they don't have to be an asshole. Right.

They're usually very respectful. Right. You know, unless, you know, you get on the wrong side, you disrespect them. But for the most part, yeah, it's usually a little skinny tatted up kids that actually, you know, run their mouth and give you a problem. Yeah, it's funny. I was going to say, it's always like the guy who's a professional boxer or an in an A fighter or who can just destroy everybody in the dorm who's just the nicest, politest.

Right. And it's funny how it works. Yeah. He just doesn't want any trouble because it's, you know, even though he knows it's not going to end badly for him, it's like no matter what, it's not going to end badly. No matter what getting into the situation means going to the shoe, I'm getting shipped. I'm happy here. That's it.

It's a little vacation for him. Right. Way from the compound. So you were, so you're basically kind of running this unit. Well, department. I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't working. a specific dorm, like I said. I would go into the dorms, you know, to talk to inmates about, you know, whatever's going on at that moment.

But I didn't work a dorm, but the power that I had, you know, I was reckless. Literally, I was so reckless. And everyone knew, all the inmates knew me. And not for a bad reason, not for a good reason. They just, you know, for both, they heard. And I was always respected. I always respected 100%. but the minute I was disrespected

they already knew it was a problem and not to say like I said all because they knew that I was going to beat them up maybe they can mess me up it didn't matter they knew I was going to get them one way or another I would make it very very difficult for them but a regular ordinary inmate

that followed the rules or whatever I never had a problem with them always respected even the high gang like the inmates that are that are high ranking in the gangs would respect me because they knew also that I can ruin their whole organization,

their whole scheme, whatever's going on in that prison right there, their hustle, I can ruin it in the snap of a finger. Because I already knew everything that's going on. And a lot of inmates didn't like that they had problems amongst themselves because if two inmates are from two different gangs and they're about to go at it, it's not like the feds where they got to have permission from their shot call or their shot caller to go. in Florida it's a free-for-all

there's no politics here in Florida and they just take off right then and there but if I hear something's brewing from two different gangs that's all I cared about I would go to the one I had the best rapport with on both sides and we would talk it out and tell them yo you need to handle this I'll make sure on rec time

that over here in the cut by this dorm is not going to be any officer for 15 minutes you got 15 minutes anyone who gets caught is you're on your own and so I was very unorthodox on how I handle things right so if I knew

one organization was in charge of all the cell phones and they're renting them out and they're letting no one else get no play on no cell phone because most of the time in the state of Florida if you're not in a gang you don't have a cell phone unless you're paying very rarely it's going to get taken don't care who you are this that's just how it is

so I really didn't really care too much about the cell phones but if it's out of hand it's flooding the whole prison now is my job to come up in here and make sure see who's going and I had a lot of snitches and not that I even asked for it they would just literally come in here and sit down like me and you were talking and come and tell me everything and I respected it but I didn't respect it

I already knew I can't trust you yeah yeah you know I'll take your information don't expect no favors from me from any anything because I don't trust you. So if you want an inmate hit off the yard, I can make it happen. I can go, I can go mess with them or I can get someone else to go get them off. If you're giving me information, I'll get them off. But if you're snitching like that, blatantly, I'm not messing with you.

You understand, like at the, at the, in federal, whatever, at Coleman, I don't know where is it everywhere. I know at Coleman. They would put guys on the payroll. So there would be a snitch and they would put them like on the payroll. They could actually put money on their books. Right. They could pay them as almost like a job, like a like a like a facility job where you're getting $95 a month or you're getting $210 a month to do whatever.

Sorry. Because I mean, I heard. Yeah, I heard about that. Because I would go in to I would get called in SIS because I was ordering paperwork on inmates, right? Like Freedom of Information Act and I was writing stories on different inmates. right? So I'm writing your true crime story, let's say. And I'd order your freedom of information. And so every once in a while, half the time it just got in. The other half the time SIS would get a hold of it first. They'd go through the mailroom. They'd call me in. They go,

Cox, what's going on? You have this guy, John Boziacs. You know, his, you've got his, this is police reports from fucking, you know, Miami Day, like what's going on? And I'd be like, I'm writing a book about him. And they go, well, what's the story? And I tell him, look, he was brought up. I'd tell him a quick version of the story. And they'd go, he does he know you're getting this? And I go, yeah. he knows and sometimes they would have to ask the guy right but after one or once or twice it was like okay does he know you're getting this yeah okay here and they give it to me which you know is not you're supposed to happen no but there were multiple times well not like probably just

twice so where they actually said to me like listen um you know like we could you know i was looking at your books i was looking how much money you get in like if you hear anything like you can i can like did you know of any cell phones do you know me and i was like bro come on like i'm i'm i i i cooperated in my case. Right. I went back to court to get my sentence reduced. Nobody's fucking telling me where there's a fucking cell phone. No way.

Like I couldn't help you if I wanted to. I don't know. But by him saying, you know, we can put money on your books. It was like, I was thinking myself, I wonder how many guys are getting money on their books. You know, that's crazy. I didn't know that. I didn't know that was true because they don't do that in the state. Like, I can't even offer you.

If you want to cooperate with me, I can't even offer you that I can get time. off your sentence or you get your good time back your gained I can't help you doing it for free they specifically told me we can get you a rule 35 like if you get help us get a case wow we we can we can actually put into the um was it the DOJ he goes he was we can actually file for a rule 35 from the DOJ and I was like I hear you and listen you saw my jacket I'm ready to go but nobody's fucking selling me nobody's selling me a cell phone

nobody's telling me where there is like I promise you none of these guys are going to tell me that and they were like he was like all right well keep your eyes open I was like yeah I would have been ready to sing too I mean yeah I'm ready I'm ready I wish I could help you but it was just too well known that yeah Cox is yeah right yeah too suspicious yeah too suspicious of you but I'm sure that there were guys that were

matter of fact there was a guy who had come to Coleman from another facility because he had been bringing in cigarettes, not even like drugs. He'd been bringing in cigarettes through a guard and got the guards in trouble.

In trouble. And they came in in the middle of the night, not banged on his door like after 10 o'clock count, bang on his door, and took him and moved him to another facility. They moved him to the medium. And he was at that moment, he was the biggest supplier of cigarettes.

He'd already gotten another couple of guards bringing in cigarettes already. Like he was whittling down. He was going from facility to facility, whittling down his time. To do it. Yeah. Right. That was his job. Just for cigarettes.

You know, because it's illegal to, it's contraband. Well, they don't look at it as if it's cigarettes or if it's any, a drug or a cell phone. They look at it as the intention. Right. It's your intention. You intentionally trying to make profit on bringing something that's not banned. So you can literally, it knows sounds crazy. you can literally an officer can get the same amount of time as bringing in cigarettes as a cell phone

it doesn't matter right it's the intention that's your intention of bringing in that contraband as an officer you're smoked you're cooked right they'll they'll cook you for that for sure so i'm sorry i didn't mean to interrupt i'm i'm going to stop doing that no no go ahead sorry you just keep reminding me of stuff i'm like oh my god like it's not like that no i like the conversation keep it's uh it's uh so all the power that i had The leeway. Right. And I was getting, at this time, I'm getting into a decent amount of scuffles, too, right?

With disrespectful inmates or if an inmate needs to be taken out for something, you know, sometimes I would even go get that inmate out. If he's a major problem and I came up to you, that's your brother, that's in your gang. And I said, yo, listen, I'm getting way too much, way too much complaints. I'm getting complaints from officers. this dude is crashing out I need them up out of here you better handle it before I handle it

because the way you handle it is going to be different the way I handle it right and if it wasn't done or to my liking or if it wasn't done at all that M.A. was going to get smashed and off that compound so what would

what types of behaviors like what are these guys doing that are making them such a problem what would an example be so in florida there's a lot of real dudes out there don't get this you know twisted there is but there's also a lot of snitches right right and a lot of snitches goes up the chain so now they're on my neck so it could be just a little thing that keeps getting brought up extortion right the staff don't really care if you get extorted but this guy keeps writing right and right and complain after

complain after complain he's getting everyone else involved now it looks bad on the staff right and the whole organization of the department of corrections it's an illusion the only thing that the higher reps care about is the maintenance the parking lot being painted that you know like the parking spots all the grass that's strictly uh like cut to perfection the expansion joints on the sidewalk no weeds growing up that's all they care about is the illusion for when region

comes and gives an evaluation because once you get to a certain rank there's only so much you can go up now like for a warden you can't be what's going to go higher

than a warden or what's going to go higher than a warden is becoming region so in Florida there's four or five regions I believe and they have a regional director which would be basically the warden

of all the wardens of that prison of the prisons in that region like south florida is like region three or four and they have like three or four prisons or five prisons that are in region four for the south florida okay so the regional director would be the headshot from the state of all in charge of all the wardens so people you know even the wardens want i don't know if they get kickbacks i heard they do i can't speak on it for sure but they get extra money,

extra bonuses for less crime and your appearance and stuff. It's crazy as it sounds. Literally, they don't care about the inmate safety. They barely care about the officer's safety, right? They just want the illusion of a beautiful prison. It's unbelievable. It's crazy.

Nobody's getting stabbed or killed. That the grounds are kept up while the prison appears to be in good shape. Exactly. And every complaint, you know, small complaint inmates are going to complain about the fucking most ridiculous thing it's always going to happen you're not going to stop it but if it's after one after another and it keeps going up the chain of of of the staff reading those complaints that's not going to look good on them right so they try to hush it or they don't care they would literally tell me we want him out of

here get him up out of here whatever you got to do right and I will go up in there and get him up out of there what does that mean I would either send another gang out of out on him, you know, and I would look the other way with certain things. And I know it's like, wow, you sound just as dirty as an officer bringing stuff in. I don't look at it that way. I wouldn't, I didn't bring in contraband, right? And I know that I can never stop the contraband. Right.

And the way I viewed it is I need to keep it to a minimum at least. Because in order for a facility to run smoothly, I believe, is that you need some things. You can't be by the book. you can't be by the book in order to have respect and the way you want the prison to run you have to be unorthodox

you may have to do some things that some people are listening be like wow this guy would actually let the gang attack another inmate this and that yes but it's for the better of everyone else so one guy got to go but it's saving everyone else

because it can create a riot it can create civilians that work in the prison to get hurt the inmates to get her so one guy gets hurt instead of maybe 50 stabbings that day. Right. That's the way I looked at it.

Right. A lesser of evil, I guess. Well, it's like, I was going to say, they'd let them, like, you're not allowed to gamble. You're not allowed to have tattoos. Right. Tattoo guns or tattoos. You're not allowed to, but they allow them to do it because it's a way to keep them entertain.

Like, if you said, hey, guess what? You know, everybody, you're going to go to your cell and you're going to read. And there's no TV, no gambling, no tattoos, no. Listen, they'll destroy that prison. They'll attack the guards. They'll destroy the prison and it won't go away. So you have to give them TVs. Why?

To entertain them. Exactly. Let them burn off some steam playing gambling. Let them burn off some steam playing a handball. Right. Let them. Right. Some officers, they try to be dicks and, you know, they don't even have wreck that day.

Right. Well, now you may have a problem now. You know, like I'm all for if there's something to happen. You got to shut the wreck down. Yeah. Rack yard down. You shut it down. But just to shut it down, just to be a dick because one inmate pissed you off.

Well, that's what happens with the TVs. They use the TVs as babysitters, right? They'll take them away for two days. And the other inmates will tell the other inmates, like guys would be causing a problem to shut your fucking mouth. You know, don't talk during Count White. He's not going to let us watch the fucking game tonight. That's why.

Like, they'll police themselves or access to TV or whatever. Right. They 100%. That's 100%. but I would only use the TV aspect or the rec yard aspect or something like along those lines just to get at you. So if I didn't like you and I walked into a dorm, right?

I literally, and we just didn't like each other, right? And I'm on to you and I'm going to get you one way or another, either legally or illegally, but I'm going to get you. And you're just as a jerk off as I'm a jerk off, right? I would walk in and be like, all right, listen up. Everyone's going to be locked down for the rest of the night.

It's like 2 o'clock in the afternoon. everyone's going to be locked down for the rest of the night because of this fucking jerk off keeps doing this and I'll make something up right right or and then everyone they're gonna police someone's gonna check them off yeah yeah you know yeah that and that's how I'll do or if I didn't like you I walked by you and be like yo

thank you for the information you gave me yesterday it was very helpful I'm gonna go get them later fucking god they would look like what I didn't say shit what I have the paperwork inside you want me to come show it or you're gonna shut your mouth which one you're gonna do But I would only do that with problematic inmates That no one even these other inmates didn't want

Right You know Like not too many inmates had a problem with me Except the ones that were You know, some of them are gang related You know, some of them were affiliates But there was a problem I had a reason to come for you

I wasn't just picking on you because You know your pants weren't tucked in Or you sucked your teeth or you didn't get up When we told you to get up It wasn't really like that I had a a job and that was strictly to keep things going

and to minimize the potential damages that these gangs cause. What are some of the issues that these guys are causing? Like the main ones that make you want to... So most of the problems that these MH cause are

what the gangs, at least, is the extortion. Extortion is huge and people write... Even if they're getting extorted, they're going to write a complaint on you. And like I said, the staff don't really care about that, but enough of them come, enough from enough different people come, now you have a problem that you can't handle.

The extortion, the gangs are running the prison, extortion, right? Enough complaints, it starts causing, you know, the wheel running where this prison can't get a hold of these gangs. Do we have to send in extra help to come and wash them away, or can you handle it with yourself? It looks bad on the higher ups, right? The contraband, the drugs, the synthetic, the synthetic drugs that they use is tremendously dangerous for everyone involved, even the people that are using it.

These guys that are smoking it and they're getting violent, they're drinking their own urine, they're eating their own feces, they are running around thinking that they're on fire they put it's crazy stuff that i seen no no they on the i've seen the on fire thing like i've seen these guys run or and they'll strip their clothes off they're running off naked and a lot of them aren't even meaning to be violent with you they just don't know what's going on so the minute you grab them you don't know if they have a knife on them not so it's tremendously it's funny that a lot of the inmates laugh about it and stuff but it could go south and the snap of a finger just because how dangerous is you're not in your right state of mind and the only thing that

really kind of works is like if you slap them from like you slap them out of nowhere like really hard and really fast sometimes they snap up out of it right some people say throw water on them i don't think it works a couple of times that i i did it i just we had to put him in a wheelchair just one because he was thought he was swimming so he was like like just swimming so we had to get him up in their wheelchair and we're bringing him to medical and i i seen what was going on so he's coming into medical and they can't get him up so i told the nurse hey go outside for for a second hold on just go inside for a second so she's like i said just go inside for a second so she goes inside and i just this just hit him as hard as i can just open hands and he stood up and it kind of scared

me it kind of scared me because he stood up and it's like like looking at me like he didn't even know what happened but he he snapped out of it right so i don't suggest any officers actually do that, but that's the only way you can actually wake them up, snap them out of it. But it's very dangerous. Because if an inmate dies because of the drug problem, the morning's going to, they're going to, it's not going to be good. Okay. Like, so, it was mostly the drugs, the cell phones, cell phones, people are calling in drugs to be thrown over the fence or to throw the, throw the bag somewhere on the grounds for the outside grounds to come in you know how outside grounds is a big portion of how the drugs come in right some guy who's mowing the

guys that are mowing the yards are doing it edging outside and they'll know that over by this group of trees they'll look for like a maybe it looks like a rock it's like a black like a whatever it'll be like a and a balloon maybe like a black balloon or something right so they can grab it and stick it in their pants and then they'll go when they come back in they get searched really haphazardly because they know their boss is going to really give a shit and he gets to get, bring it inside. Exactly, because the bosses, you know, they do the strip searches and everything.

Right. But you know where it's going. There's really, once it's up there, it's kind of hard to even know it's up there. You can tell by the way they, they walk or they squat down, but most of the time it's up there. It's fucking up there.

Right. And a lot of these, and a lot of these inmates know that the metal detectors in these institutions, they have, each one can be different. It's the sensitivity level. So if the,

sensitivity level is low because the person in the control room doesn't want to hear the beeping all day right so they'll lower the sensitivity so even if you have something that will go off and you put enough electrical tape on it and sometimes it won't go off okay so and each day is different so like if you're an officer trying to bring stuff in that would be one of the worst ways because you don't know where the sensitivity level is going to be that day um um yeah i was just uh i was thinking about this the guys bringing in stuff um the different ways and i was also thinking i knew a guard um had told me this one time was that he'd gotten a bonus for finding like a cell phone or he found something where they actually were giving the guards like bonuses wow or finding this is you know

bop or finding or finding and that was one of the things they were like listen if you know you know of any cell phones if you know and they were giving them bonuses right so that's why so suddenly guards this I don't know how long they I don't know if they did it if it was a normal thing or they did it for a certain period of time because they literally there was a good three to six months I remember we were in search like just all the time and somebody and and in being one of the guards had said that that yeah they were now given bonuses to find cell phones or something wow I would have been rich I know I would have brought in people I would think if you were a guard you just start bringing in cell phones you could do that too by damn you know if you just got a cell phone

It's not my fault. It doesn't work. I want my fucking $200 or $600. Right. But it's very easy. If you go to a certain organization and say, listen, for this time frame, I'm not going to mess with you. I'm not going to mess with your organization. I'm not going to mess with your hustle. But I need something from this organization over here because I already know I want them up out of here. Too many of them. They're acting wild. They're feeling themselves now that they have higher numbers. I want them up out of here. And I know they got a lot of cell phones. Eventually, you know, that organization will be able to tell you where they keep in their own where they're keeping their cell phones. And you just, you just, don't, you got to keep your word now. So if I tell you, hey, I'm not going to mess with you or any of your brothers, but I need something from these people and I need it by this day or I'm coming hard on you now, you'll have it. I guarantee you will have it.

But you can't act on it because prison has eyes. Everyone, there's always a fly on the wall. So if they see me talking to this one specific organization, right? Two hours later, you're in this other guy's locker. So I would have an officer that who was by the book? And he'd be that How do you know all this?

I would never tell them my secret. I would never tell. If I had a thing where someone's telling me something and I messed with you, I would never, ever give up your identity. He would always ask me, how are you getting it? How are you getting it? How do you know? I'm like, man, I just kind of know where they hide things.

So go check this area. Go check this area. Go check that inmate. It's going to be in this light here or the cinder block underneath or the legal mail. Because a lot of inmates get it messed up. They hide a lot of stuff in the legal mail thinking that we can't go through the legal mail. First of all, I don't even care if I can't. go through the legal mail. I'm going to go through your legal mail and I'm going to write up

the D or whatever it is, right? And I'm not, I didn't find it in legal mail. I found your laundry bag. Right. How are you going to prove that? I went to you. Wait, what's your argument? No, no, it was in my legal mail, not my laundry mail. Right. These dudes are stupid. But so that would be those things right there to someone who never really been to prison or worked at a prison may look like, oh, there's cell phones or, you know, there's, there's drugs in there. But it's very, it makes it very, very dangerous. And even the extortion makes it dangerous because now, now the people that are getting extorted, they may go to another organization to pay for protection. And now the ones that they're paying may have to do something to the other organization now because

now that's their hustle. That's how they make their money. And now you're trying to ruin their hustle. But the other organization looks at it is, now you're ruining my hustle because I was extoring him. Now you're going to get paid. So now something's very small like that can cause a whole fiasco people get stabbed and slice in prison for a lot less than that i know you mentioned it just real briefly but where are some places that they would hide contraband like good places or people the thing the average the place the average joe wouldn't think about like where they hiding these things so the craziest things that i seen was um one inmate had it in he had a very little small phone they would call finger phones they had finger phones they had

finger phones then they had some Android that you would like see but when I was working there they had the G star finger phones literally it was about the wide and as long as your finger and you would you would cut off like a you know one of the gloves yeah like a latex glove and you put it up in there right

and then maybe put it through another another bag or something right and hide it and where he was he was the orderly and I already knew I already knew that he had the phone because someone gave me information or else I wouldn't have never found it so he put it up in the bag and he tied it to the bottom of a mop tied it and then he put

the mop on top of it and whenever time an officer will come for searches and stuff he was since he was the houseman he would act like he was going and mop and you would never know where it is because who's going to go check the mop right you'll go check the mop closet you go check the shower you ain't going to check the mob right i mean i at least i'm i'm i'm going to do search i'm not going to go check a mob and he had it inside the mom boom that you're going to say you know oh that that happens too yeah yeah that happens that happens a lot but most of the people that have the phones they don't hold on to it themselves they have a hold down man yeah yeah right so usually it would be older older older inmates because people feel like oh no one's really going to go search them they're old

they're sitting there no those are the dudes that still have the mind of a young of young convict they just more mature and know how to go under the radar not be so loud and put attention on yourself so it would be like in common areas as well so a lot of inmates didn't like to have the stuff in their cell all the time because they do a lot of searches like this institution that worked at they did a lot of searches so they would put it in common areas um you know in especially in the open bay dorm they'll have like a long counter there's a little tall than this all the way down i have like eight sinks on one side eight sinks on the other side right and i had like a metal casing and i somehow they shimmied up and it's kind of genius because the officer

station is five feet away all they have to do is look to the left and they could see in the bathroom and see it so how they did it i don't know and they opened it and they opened it and And then they put some type of plywood. So when you open it, you just think that's the framing. Right. But that plywood, they must, I don't even know how they got the plywood, honestly. Maybe from the tool card or grounds workers got it. But they had the plywood.

And the only reason why we were able to find it is because the plywood wasn't as long as the whole, you know, counter of the bathroom. So it was missing about like a foot, two feet. So we're like, if that was the found, if that was the wooden framing of this, it would have covered it, right? So they're like, pull it up. And as soon as you pulled it up the wood, you know, plywood that they had, it just fell inside. And that's where we found all the alcohol. There was a couple cell phones in there. And they had it all organized.

So when they opened it. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a Small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes iced coffee and delivery. They know who's is what, like what sink it was in front of. Yeah, but if it's in common area, you don't know whose it is.

Right. And the other thing is so a lot of guys will have, you know, like there's one guy and they're like 10 guys or five guys paying that guy to he keeps the phone for you, keeps it charged up, make sure it's available for you all the time. And if he gets hit, if his place gets searched and they find the cell phone, he says, that's my cell phone. He's going to the shoe. He has to go to the shoe. Yeah. He doesn't say, oh, man, that's, give me fucking phone. You know, no, no, no, that's your phone.

You're going to the shoe. But he might be getting $100 or $200 from eight different guys. He's making $800 or $1,000 a month. He's living really well. Or they just pay him in, you know, drugs. Yeah. Or, or he's getting extorted to do it. A lot of times I've seen that too.

They're, you know, they're extorting you to do it. You don't have a choice. This is your safety right here. It's in a way it's kind of like putting in work. But most of the time. I was going to say everybody would make sure you were okay too because if you're holding 10 guys' cell phones then nobody wants to fuck with you.

Exactly. If something happens to you, everybody loses their cell phone. Exactly. So that's most of the time. Sometimes you would find, you would find more shanks in the cell than the cell phones. I was going to say in federal prison, And it's more, it's not really, nobody's really getting, if they are getting extorted, it's like friendly extortion at best, you know.

Well, at a low, I guess. You had a low, yeah, where they're just paying them, you know, if you've got to, if you're at a low, you probably have a family out there that can send you four or five hundred bucks a month or something, you know what I'm saying? You'd pay somebody to hold it. Right. So, you know, they'll sell their cell phone, their minutes on their phone. They'll sell, you know, there's ways to make money.

but so anyway you were so what's going on what happens so so with that free reigns that i have i don't even have a captain really to report to kind of just do what i want like i said it was to me i don't look like i was doing anything wrong i look at it as i wasn't by the book but i was i was unorthodox but it was working because i had the respect from the the inmates where they would actually sit down and tell me what's going on and I would let them handle it themselves if they can if they can't then I handle it but I was getting it was getting to my head a little bit and this is where ego and I'm young now and this is where ego starts coming in because how old were you you got me I was about like the early 20s okay right so now the ego comes in and I'm not I'm not afraid to say

ego does come into into play here right there's a lot of situations that I got where I fought inmates you know could have been talked out and I did talk out sometimes but something but something Sometimes I'll just be quick just to slap you or punch you or take the belt off and fight you one-on-one. But this is where my downfall came. I started getting into a lot of uses of forces, but they were undocumented. So I would fight you or slap you or something and it wouldn't go documented. I never put paperwork on you, especially if me and you fought one-on-one, I would never put paperwork on you. I would just, we would shake hands.

Sometimes we still said, fuck you, or if we want to go again, we go again. Or sometimes we still didn't like each other. But nine times out of ten, we had an understanding. We might not have liked each other, but we have an understanding that I'm going to do what I have to do. And you can do what you have to do. But if it's in a way of my hustle, you're done. Right. But I was getting way too reckless where the warden, all the higher-ups were telling me,

hey you need to take a chill pill you're on the radar way too much and i got put under investigation by the oig office of uh inspector general that's like um s i s okay but no way near is trained as s i they're they're a joke so they would come and say hey uh you're under investigation and they would kind of read you like a kind of a miranda right but not really because you're not really under arrest but you're under investigation and you have to go in the room you don't have to talk but You have to go in the room and hear them say whatever they have to say. And half the time I'd be like, where's the paperwork? Well, you don't have any paper.

Well, then why the fuck am I here? Because nothing obviously happened. Well, these are guys, I said, you're listening to inmates, right? Right. I'm in charge of STG. They don't like me because I can ship them or I sent their brother somewhere. They don't like me. Obviously, they're going to make up stuff.

So if you don't have any proof of anything, why am I sitting here? And they did not like me. They're the ones who end up actually getting the FBI involved. because inmates were getting there was hits on inmates no one died or anything like that where the oig he knew everything and inmates were snitching right because when they had a good if something happened and the hit went and it took place and that inmates in the in PC until he gets transferred out he would i guess enough of them went to the oig and started and started telling them everything that i'm working with this gang so they thought i was involved in

an organization but after I was arrested and everything I spoke to the FBI they thought at first I was a part of an organization but then they realized that I'm not I'm just working with numerous ones right so what was the what was the issue that got the FBI involved so a lot of the gang hits or my name like gang hits like murders well not murders for per se but they would be some serious repercussions or inmates are getting stabbed up a couple of times they're getting hit up they're they're getting sent you know out and where the prisons are usually they're not close to town so they got to get airlifted out so a lot of inmates were getting airlifted out and it was getting out of hand i was getting a little out of hand with letting

shit slide and you know putting putting my hands on on some of these inmates myself i was i was so out of control where i would walk through a dorm looking for an inmate and if i had to go piss or something I would just go piss right in your cell. Right. Like, you use your toilet, just piss right in your cell, not even flush the toilet. Like,

I was getting a little too, a little too out of hand. And all the staff knew it. And they would literally tell me, oh, you're on the radar. Please slow the hell down. Whatever you're doing, just slow the hell down.

And I didn't listen. And I should have listened. I remember this like yesterday. I was getting a haircut from an inmate. And the staff has their own barber, staff barber. That's an orderly. But I didn't go to him.

He was like, dude can't do a fade or nothing so i had an inmate that i put into the barbershop so it would be middle of wreck i swear to god it would be middle of wreck i would walk into the barbershop kick the inmate out that's getting hair cut sit in the chair and tell the dude to give me give me a haircut okay and that's just like you know that's just what's my mentality i was young and i was reckless literally whatever i thought to do i would do it and eventually i got it smart where i would be you know smart where if I was going to hit this in me or I was going to fight this in me or whatever it was I would do it in a place where no one can see but there would be sometimes it would just be

blatant in front of the middle of the in the middle of uh you know the walkway where all the dorms are or classification window was I was I was starting to let you know my my method my way and the the fact that I had so much leeway on whatever I wanted to do I was letting to get to me that that was my downfall was that so I'll tell you how this can go bad I don't really know how it went bad at this point but in Coleman there was a lieutenant big guy he's like six foot six he's met was married to

whatever I don't know if it was a lieutenant or cap I don't know what she was but she was in the shoe at the pen female and you know the you know they worked the shoe right like it's a it's a long hallway with a bunch of of uh um cells you can feed people through the cells through the yeah through the flap and so really these guys almost and in coleman they have a shower and a sink um toilet combo right so you really never have to leave that cell now they're supposed to leave like once i don't know if it's once a day to get 30 minutes or maybe it's once a week to get 30 minutes or an hour of wreck whatever well there was an inmate

that was constantly giving this woman a hard time. I mean, talking shit, you know, just calling her names or saying, really just being super disrespectful. And she really got irritated. I want to say he might have tried to grab her once through the cell. Something happened. He was being a dick. And there was another inmate, super nice guy, big guy, huge guy.

And so one day she's walking down, and I may have this slightly off. You've heard this before, I think. So she's walking down and one of the big guy who's been super cool to her, very respectful, says to her, or he's being moved or something. And he says either she tells him or he tells her, let me take care of that guy for it. Let me put me in that in the cell. Right. I want to say maybe she might have said what regardless, I don't know which we'll, Which, you know, I know that we had always heard one thing, you know, she said something else.

Right. Which was, you know, that he's, you know, the inmate had always said that she went to him and said, I'm going to put you in that cell, break his fucking arm. You know, I want you to break this guy's arm. Probably did. Right. Now, of course, he, you know, she says, no, he asked to be put in the cell. Whatever.

Either way, it was, for you to move this guy into this guy's cell, for whatever reason it was, it was completely inappropriate. 100%. But she moves him. into the cell. The guy gets in there. His intent is, I'm going to break the guy's arm. And what he, but the guy struggles. He doesn't want his arm broken. So the big guy gets him into a fucking chokehold and ends up choking him to death and breaks his neck. And all of this, the conversations, the back and forth, the everything is on video. So you've got an inmate

who this guy's giving her a hard time every time she goes by one day he's given her a hard time she literally goes across the hall says something to the fucking guy he cuffs up takes him puts him in this fucking cell you know cuffs up everything

very obvious what happened something's wrong and so the FBI there's a murder it's a murder the FBI is coming to actual crime scene now yeah yeah FBI comes in questions the big guy

what happened keep on there are other inmates who have heard the conversation, all these inmates are more than willing to say, yes, this female CEO was being given a hard time. She stuck that guy in. I'll say it. I heard the whole fucking thing. I'd like to get out of prison. So when the FBI charges her, they indict her. She dines the whole way through. That's not what happened. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Well, that's not what everybody else says. And it sure as fuck looks like that is what happened on the video. They come to her and they say they give her what i think is a sweetheart deal 10 years giving you 10 years you go

to prison uh for 10 years that's a gift you know let's face it we didn't murder we didn't lose a veteran you didn't lose a patriot here right you just lost an inmate that's got a life fucking sentence and is a piece of that is right she doesn't take it she goes to trial she gets i don't it's either 45 years or life i think she got a life sentence i'm not sure it's a life sentence in mind her um the lieutenant she was married to saw him every day big big huge nice guy you know right he was stern but a big guy um yeah his fucking wife is locked up three states over for the process of her fucking life so i'm saying that's the the fear is that those types of hey i'm let you do this and you're thinking they're going to beat his ass or they're going to the fear is

obviously and that's what i'm saying that no why is it so serious that these two guys get into a fight They're in two different gangs. This gang is being whatever. This guy disrespected this guy. This guy borrowed money and owes this money. I'm going to let him fight it out. The fear is he stabs him to death. You put this guy in a situation where he ends up getting murdered or get stabbed.

And I know when you say getting stabbed because I've been in prison, right? One of my stories is the first day I was in prison was that they do a lockdown. They start screaming. The P.A. is going off. They're locked down, locked down. And my cellie comes to me. He's like, I just got in there. I've been there a couple hours.

He's like, yo, yo, bro, we got to go in the cell. I'm like, what's going on? He goes, someone got stabbed in the wreckyard. I was like, someone just got killed in the red yard. He goes, no, no, no, bro. They just stabbed them up a little bit. I remember he did this. Right.

You know, what you realized, first time I'd ever seen that. You know, now if somebody's, I saw that, somebody do that. I'd be like, oh, somebody's going to get stabbed. Right. And he goes, they just stabbed them up a little bit. And I was like, come in a place where they say stab them up a little bit. Like that's, but I realize they don't, they're stabbing you with a knife that's something like this big. They don't want you to die.

I want to stab you a few times. I want you to get taken off the compound. Right. That's what I'm hoping. That's exactly it. They said, hey, do you want to murder this guy? You want this guy to die? Fuck, no, I don't want him to die.

I just want to stab him a few times so that it looks really bad. He's bleeding. He looks like he's been stabbed. He goes to the fucking hospital. he gets medevacked out goes to the hospital he never comes back here that's my goal

not to kill him exactly I just need him the fuck out of here right I have a question so as the CEO like you're trying to get rid of some guys

like you don't have the ability to just file some paperwork and send him somewhere else no that is a sergeant you don't have that and you still need some type of due process

like you need something to say wise is he a problem what's happening especially if he hasn't been locked up any D.C. disciplinary confinement, you know, shots or anything like that, you can't, you can't get them because the problem is Florida doesn't have that many prisons.

In the federal system, you could, you could actually say that he threatened you or something like that in the federal system and they'll take them. They probably can ship them, right? But it's, it's Florida. How many prisons are there? How many places can he go? Right. And how many times can I use that excuse?

Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm the guy who's shipping people all over the fucking. Right. Because I very rarely wrote a DR. Very rarely. That wasn't my style. I was going to get you out a different way. You know, I was going to get you out a different way or have someone else get you out a different way. So what ends up, what ends up happening? Like, how does this go bad? So what actually happened had nothing to do with the gang thing at all. I went to a backup call. They requested assistance. And I don't know. I very rarely went to them, to be honest with you. But this one day, I guess I was nearby.

I went and there was one YO unit there, a useful offender unit. But here's the thing. It was not like 12, 13-year-olds. It was like 21 to 24. Here in Florida, I don't know why, but you can still be a YO at 24 years old. So if you get charged for the first time at 24, most likely you'll be charged as a an adult. But like if you got charged when you were like 18 as a YO and you got sent to a couple of years, you still considered a YO up until 24. So this was a dorm that's introducing them

outside of the YO dorm to the main, to a main compound. So now they're in a dorm, but they don't eat at the same time and their dorm is sectioned off with gates. Right? Right. So they're still on the compound, but they're not really a part of the compound. I never even step foot in there. I never even talked to a YO. Even if I heard, oh, you need got to go check this YO out because STG related, I wouldn't even go talk to him. It's probably not even verified. He's not in the system. I don't care what he's claiming. I'm not going to waste my time. So I went there for assistance. And I had an officer that was kind of like not under my wing, but I worked with him. I was just a higher rank than him, you know, but I don't look at him any less or anything.

and he would put in a lot of at a lot of work he was he was he was kind of on a radar too FBI radar I don't know but definitely OIG radar which is internal affairs right so because he was he was he would be quick like maybe for no reason to do something to you like if if you were in need of help he's definitely one person that you would want there for him I'll give him that right so he happened to be there and um it was all female status at the dorm and these inmates were going wild and these are some big dudes when i'll talk about a little skinny 24 year old we'll talk about some big some big yeah some big kids you know that been in the system a while and some of the y-o camps here in florida are just as vicious as the main prison well if he's

23 or 24 he's a fucking adult if he's over 18 he's an adult that's how i looked at it right but in florida under 24 certain certain circumstances you still considered a y-o but that really has nothing to do with if he was a while or not but i was just explaining that he's he came in that dorm that's what the dorm he went to so they were they were being disrespectful to two female officers talking crazy so he he the officer i was with he said to the female officers what do you want what do you want to do so she said just talk to him see what happens right so she gives the officer the key to go into a mop closet outside of the dorm it's to the building, but in its own little room in a mop closet, outside.

So you have to literally walk outside the dorm and against the building somewhere on the cut is a door for a mop closet for the cleaning supplies. So we take them in there and we start talking to them. And there's one, there's three inmates in there and it's me and this officer. And this one inmate starts this like laughing. And I'm surprised that the officer I'm with is actually being nice. You know what I'm saying? Usually he's quick

to punch him and hit him on the radio or something. I have a crazy story about him and me and him tell him later. So we go into the we go into the mouth class and now I'm just getting pissed

at this inmate. It doesn't realize how lucky he is right now that this officer that isn't doing him. So I slap him but he wants to fight. So I'm like, all right.

So I had the officer take the other two inmates out. and I gave him my, my belt. I should have never have done that because now that made it obvious because now I don't even have my belt on me. Right. You know, because it's a delft.

A different story had you had the belt. Thank you. And I wasn't even going to put no paperwork on them, but it got too out of hand, too quick, too many people came and seen. Like I said, I never worked at dorm. I didn't know so many people come in and out of that dorm. Right.

So, if I don't one-on-one and now, My officer comes inside and he's starting to talk. The inmate's starting to talk to shit to him. So I'm telling everyone just to calm the fuck down because I'm not liking it now. Now it's just too much screaming. It's too close. I don't know the other two officers that well. So then the officers, he starts hitting him, beating the shit out of him with a broomstick.

And he's still talking crazy. So then I take the broomstick from the officer and I get pissed and I just thought. I said, fuck it. We hear, it's already, I'm already needing shit. I'm going in. And I just started beating the shit out of him with the broomstick and just beat the shit out of him. Too many people seen it.

The female officer seen he was all fucked up, right? I didn't put paperwork on him. I could have saved my ass if I would have said, he attacked me. I could just made up something. But I didn't want to do that to the kid. I thought he was, you know, he seemed like a, like a real dude. He was talking how he was living. He wanted to fight.

straight up like nothing bitch about this kid at all you know right so next thing i know two weeks later everyone's talking everyone's talking about what happened i'm like yo how to fuck the people know the officer got afraid and went to the oig the dude that does not like me because i've been interviewed by him by many times and i told him he would ask some stupid-ass questions i would clown him like i would tell him to go blow his father and like i would be cold in the water office the next thing like what are you doing come on like like what are you doing something you're not supposed to now you're just insulting this guy telling him to blow his father calm down you know but i just didn't like him and i would just i would just clown him so now

he has a hard on for me right and he definitely he got the better of me all these all these years of me clowning him he won at the end of the day i got to give it to him so he contacts the FBI i'm on i'm on um no inmate contact meaning that I can't work the compound no more I can't be around no inmates so I'm in the mailroom okay I'm in a mail room

like wearing regular civilian clothes just work in the mail room a week goes by two weeks go by three weeks go by and so was the officer who was with me he's in the mail room with me

right so and you don't know that he went to the you don't know that he went to the OIG I didn't know that the OIG went to the FBI okay no one knows right you know you don't know that he went to OIG no he didn't One of the female officers that we responded to, she went to the OIG.

Oh, I thought the other officer. No, no, no, no, no. With went, okay. No. She went. She's seen what everything happened, heard, talked to the inmates, everything. She went to a classification officer that I didn't even know. It was brand new.

And then she told her to go to the OIG. So now everyone fucking knows about this. I'm hearing about it. And I'm denying it. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. Right. So we're in the mail room. A couple weeks go by.

We're not called into the OIG office, which is weird. because usually you call him real quick. Right. He doesn't call me in this time. So now that gets me scared. I'm like, oh, all the shit I did, this is what I'm going to get hemmed up for. So I actually end up leaving

Florida Department of Corrections. What, you quit? No, no. I mean, yeah, I put my resignation in, but not because of that. I was, like, on no contact for like maybe six, four months, five months. So I'm thinking there's just, it's going to blow over. I haven't even been contacted. No one knows anything. We're good.

So I'm in, I moved to Detroit, Michigan. And I applied for a police officer spot and got it. I was in the academy. I was like the class president. It was like crazy. I kind of like had my same ways. Like I like, but I was like kind of changing my ways. Like realizing that kind of that last situation kind of scare me. So I'm like, let's kind of be by the book this time. Like, you know, let's be by the book. Let's not. run things the wrong way let's just go and if someone you know does something i'm not supposed like i don't like or disrespects me let's just be about a buck i'm gonna go home at the end of the day that stuff i did in florida we're leaving it behind you know let's use it instead of using uh

you know fighting muscle let's use your brain now let's brandon let's use your brain which is kind of hard for me to do sometimes but let's use your brain so i'm doing i'm doing excellent i'm excelling like I'm doing excellent and then one day I get called by my corporal yo um someone's here to see you I'm in my classroom and I got called down and it's what did you think it was I don't know I really didn't know I'm like who the hell is here to see me like you know so I go down and there's four dudes and suits and jackets because this is wintertime And they, one dude, the one dude was doing the talk and he reached out his hand, took my hand and said, how are you doing? I'm like, hey, what's going on? He's like, I'm here with the Southern District of Florida FBI, Special Agent King, something like that. Oh, he said, special agent from Southern District of Florida. I'm like, you didn't think he was coming about the application you'd put in.

I was already in the Academy of the time. No, I know. Right. I was like, I did apply for the FBI. Do you guys usually come out? I was like, oh, you guys are here to recruit me? Right. But I don't know what he's there for. I know it's nothing good, but I don't know what situation because there's so many damn situations. Right. You know, I don't know what gang member may be cooperated now and he's taking down everybody with him.

So I don't know what he's there for. Right. So they start asking simple questions at first because this is where I should never even talked at all. I didn't give no information, even about myself, like about myself. But I was just asking, I was answering some questions. They started off what, oh, how long have you been with the Florida Department of Correction? I said, well, I'm no longer with them. Obviously, I'm here in Detroit, working with, you know, trying to be police over here.

And they were this like, like, men, like I was making little jokes, like kind of sarcastic jokes, and they weren't going. They meant business, you know? And then in the middle of asking questions, sometimes I have ADD, right? So I'm like, yo, how'd you get the gun? He's asking me a serious question. I'm like, yo, how'd you get your gun here? You go on the plane with that? And, like, they all looked at each other.

Like, what is this dude asking you just do this question? And they just ignored it and asked the question again. So I really knew I was kind of testing. I was like, I already knew they were here for business. So they started asking me, how long were you in the Florida Department of Corrections? Do you know, they were just asking me certain names. That had nothing to do with the incident, like even as a witness. They were just asking.

I guess they interviewed, see what type of officer I was. and stuff like that. And then they started saying, so where were you, I forgot the date, maybe March 24th that happened or something? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't even know where I was last night.

Like, I can't answer where I was. And then they started saying, do you know, and they named the inmate's name? I said, I know a lot of inmates. That's a popular last name. And then they said, were you ever in Charlie Dorm?

that's the dorm I know now I know what they're here for and then I was like oh I don't remember I was all over the place and then they were like so tell me what you did

in Department of Corrects we see here you were in charge of STG and you had a lot of accomplishments I was like yeah I did they were like

how'd you get those accomplishments I was like well I guess you worked hard they're like oh that's what you want to call it no cheat codes the exact word, cheek coats. I'm like, what's a cheat coat? I came to work every day

and I did what I had to do. They were like, okay. And so you don't know anything about that dorm. So now they left the STG conversation. They went back to the Charlie dorm. I said, no. I said, hey, the question, am I witness or a target here?

And they sarcastically, like, chuckled and was like, you're a target, bro. Right. Like, you're a target, bro. I was like, all right, well, I really don't really want to speak anymore, then um i can't really help you out i don't remember anything about march 24th or about charlie dorm i really can't answer that i was like but if you have you know they're like hey we have some

video footage um we know you don't want to talk you don't have to talk would you like to see some video footage i said what so you can see my reaction i said no matter what i'm gonna laugh so you know like this is a joke i said this is a fucking joke now i start getting a little fucking like pissed off. I'm like, you fucking come here and I'm in the middle of this academy. You come here. Now, how am I going to explain to this?

I was like, you're, I was like, well, who the fuck does this? You have nothing else better to do? Then come here and ask stupid-ass questions. I was like, I don't fucking know. I was like, I don't want to see your fucking video because they had a laptop. I was like, go back to fucking Florida.

And they were like, well, we are. And here's our card. And I was like, no, fuck your card. And I just like, take the car. And I went through it. Should have never done that. I said have never done that And then they're like, I suggest you contact the lawyer

Because we'll definitely be in touch And next thing you know I contact my lawyer and I had to go meet with them And we didn't do no talking then We just wanted to go see Because my lawyer was like, hey And You know, there's no video footage in the mob closet, right?

I was like, no. I was like, there's hardly any cameras anywhere. really to be honest it's just going into the dorm and inside the dorm nothing happened and he was like all right so do they show you going i was like i don't know where the cameras are but i don't think it even shows you going into the dining i mean into the mob closet it just shows you coming in the dorm and out of the dorm that's it right which ended up being true he's like so i think they just shake we got to go meet with them just to see if they're shaking the tree they said some like i said i didn't do no talking one of the OIG was in that meeting with the FBI and the prosecutor and they said some things that I already knew I was fucked like certain inmates that I let um you know ran off the yard right um

one time I had it and this was brought up and I knew about this and I should have listened to the inmate and I let it slide one day I I go into a dorm and I'm talking to one of the heads of this organization and he's telling me something about another organization and we, I was in, I was in a cell. I thought it was his cell. He just thought that I searched the cell and it's fine to go and talk to. So we're both thinking that the cell is okay. I'm thinking it was, it was a confusing. Well, there was a little as inmate in the bed under the covers where it's flat you can't see. Heard the whole thing. of something that was going to go down.

I can't remember exactly. It was definitely a beating of some sorts. Of within the organization. And he heard the whole thing, this in me. And he went singing about it. And I'm dirty. I'm letting things. And that's, I guess, how it started where,

or helped the FBI and OIG think that I was running with these gangs when I really wasn't. Right. And that even came up in it. Okay. Like that conversation happened where, well, we have inmates that heard conversations that you're allowing certain things to happen and concert band to be brought in and I'm bringing in concert band. That was an accusation of mine. I never once, I would admit it.

I have nothing to hide. I would never brought in concert band ever in my life. But you know how inmates are gets the one inmate. Yeah, yeah. So it gets better and better. The story gets better and better every time somebody tells it. So they knew a lot of things. of like organizations being ran off the yard.

So they were trying to hit me with a, like, a conspiracy for like multiple civil rights violations. Meanwhile, I'm like, I don't know how the hell they knew it, but they can't prove that, right? Because they're going to take someone's word. Even if you hit me with the conspiracy, if not actually doing it, hit me with the conspiracy, you're going to take an inmate's word.

Now, if officers saying they heard it, then that's a different story. So I ended up ultimately copping a plea for one count of deprivation of civil rights for the mop closet incident. So after your lawyer and you sat down, you heard all the information. So they didn't have. So they didn't give all our evidence. Okay. They didn't give all the evidence.

But they would say certain things. And we would say, hey, can we have a couple minutes? And he says, what is saying true? I said, yeah. He's like, how many times have you done certain things like this? I said, dude, for years. I don't know. Right.

You know? So then they come back in, they continue. So eventually you leave. You get indicted or your lawyer just goes back and says, look, you know, well, what are you going to indict him for? And then they said, we're going to hit him for these six things. And he says, look, let's get it down to one count of, like, did you waive the indictment or did you get indicted? So I waived the indictment because I was trying to say, no, let them indict me. I don't know he said dude that's a bad idea

because he literally said to me he says what all these indictments I don't know the exact numbers but you're facing anywhere you know from 10 to 30 for each count of this of these charges he said can you do that time and I'm very real about myself right I don't try to be a tough guy I don't try to be you know something that I'm not

I am not living like that I'm not we've been federal much better than the state but even that I am not living like that. I'm not trying, like you said, I'm not trying to kill nobody. I'm not trying to try to go do 10 years in, no, no. Yeah, I mean, it sucks, you know, but it does suck.

It does. It's the worst feeling in the world. But the worst feeling in the world is not knowing your fate. Yeah, yeah. Are you going to get arrested or you're not going to get arrested? I don't know how people live like that for years. I wouldn't be able to be emotional a wreck. Well, you know, one of my co-defendants actually went and got a lawyer.

like she was never going to be indicted nothing ever and she went and got a lawyer because it had been so long that she was waiting to be indicted because there kept being newspaper articles talking about indicting her all these people right she knew she was one of the main people went and got a lawyer went down to the to the FBI office that I want to talk I want to tell I want to plead guilty I want to tell you everything that happened she got 30 months she only went for like 18 or 20 you know because they put her in a halfway house but they were like they would have never indicted everybody else who said i didn't do anything matt did they they all told on me but then they said i wasn't aware of this none of those people got indicted she went down on her

because she she was like look the guilt was kill me she's even if you told me right now you know if i knew them what i know now she's like i mean the guilt was just i was just i was just every day i was waiting every i was waiting to be arrested waiting to be arrested she said finally she said i just had to get it over i had to right no some people like that you know she that's a hilarious though you'll love this he was you've never met anybody so ill-equipped go to prison this is an upper-class white chick when she was sentenced you know they had to let her she got to turn herself in right she actually was she had like like they were gonna they told her well as you show up and it was like three months later she called down to the camp to arrange um to arrange a tour of the camp and the the guard was like like, I'm sorry, what? And she's like, yeah, I'm going to, I just got 30 months. I'm going to be down there about three months.

But I'd like to go and kind of, you know where I'm going. Like, I'd like to know the layout and what, what it is to expect. So I was wondering, is there like a tour that I can take? And then when we went, no, sweetie, there's no tour. That is hilarious. And when she showed up three months later, the woman, like, she showed up and she said, something happened. Then this woman comes out.

Right. And he comes over and says, hi, Alison. And she was like, I'm the person you call about the tour. And she's like, how do you remember me? Because we've never had someone call here and ask for a tour. In 20-something years of being there, never has somebody called and said, I'd like to come take the tour. There's no fucking tour. I wouldn't even know how to answer that if I was on the other end of the phone.

She said, is it Airbnb? Anyway, yeah. So, but that chick ended up going to, I mean, she did. I guess eventually, you're right. She did get the tour. She didn't get the tour. You got the tour, right? Right.

Got the extended stay. But, yeah, you made the right move, not letting him indictment you because... It would have been worse. Yeah, it would have been worse. Yeah. But the whole time, I'm like, a part of me's like, man, what if they were just... I mean, you know, what if I beat it? But the simple fact is that a couple of them, he's like, it's not about you beating.

a couple of the charges. Yes, it's hearsay, it's, you know. They're going to line up 12 guys. That's what he said. He's like, you know, and if more than one keeps saying it, especially if officers gets involved, he said, you're cooked, you're done. He's like, so let's just work out a deal for one,

this incident. He says they may want you to admit everything you did as an STG, which I ended up doing. Right. Right. So that's why everything I talk about today, they really knew about they didn't charge me with it. I'm not being charged with it.

And I pleaded guilty to the one count and end up getting 24 months in a federal prison. It's not even worth out in packing. I know. I know. You're still, you're still, uh, but it's still shit in Burger King by the time you, you know, by the time you get out. Still dream, still dreaming of the outside. Yeah, you're still dreaming of out the outside.

You know, it was, you know, in a way I was kind of upset because I didn't, I still didn't learn my lesson at that, at that particular time. Why? What do you mean? How much time did you do when you, when you went in, how much time did you end up doing? Like just under 24 months, like, like. Well, you said you got 24 months. Yeah, but I just did a little less than that because instead of halfway house.

No, they don't give halfway house to law enforcement, so they give you house arrest. Oh, that sucks. Right. Oh, so you did like like 19 months or something. Oh, you got like 18 months, 19 months. So almost like that. Oh, wait, no, you. Wait, hold it.

Yeah, you're right 24 months. You only got off like maybe three or four months. That's it. But yeah, it's about 19, 20 months. Right. Okay. So what do you mean you didn't learn your lesson? What?

You were just defiant or you just felt like you shouldn't have been? In a way, I felt like I shouldn't have been. Right. You know, because it was hard for me to admit things that I do wrong at the time. Right. Right. I, growing up, I kind of quit. If things got hard, I was a quitter.

I quit things. I would leave relations. relationships. I would move on to the next relationship. I always lied. I wasn't faithful. Just in anything in life, I wasn't faithful. And I always moved around. That's why I went to Detroit. I just picked it up out of a hatwife. I swear to God, nothing that landed me in Detroit, but me saying I'm going to move to Detroit. Because I always move, I always like to move around, even if it was just a different apartment. I can never be peaceful with one job. Like, besides the correction thing, like, just be peaceful with one thing. I was always trying to move and look

for something i was trying to mask whatever i had inside of me i was trying to mask it and make make you know um excuses for myself oh this person i'm not with this girl because she's a bitch or i'm not with this girl anymore because of this i i'm not everybody else's fault it's everyone else's fault and i the whole time i'm running i'm running but and i'm running fast and i keep running but i'm and i can never get away because you can't run away from yourself right following you and if every problem that I had followed me right away and I was just it was hard for me to admit anything I was just always mask it as a defense mechanism to not deal with the problems or reality and it took me a long time I'm not going to lie it took me a long time to really sit

down and really look in the mirror and be like yo do you want to be a jerk off your life or do you actually um like account for something like be a good person actually care for people go go and talk to these academies and and tell them everything that you did to not glorify it but to to make sure that they don't walk in the same step as you ego and you know like just having an attitude and not care for people because compassion and life goes a long way right you know did you do you feel do you feel like Like, when did you have that conversation? Were you in prison or did you, was once you got out of prison?

No, once I got out of prison. I'm not, I'm not going to lie. Maybe, maybe not even a year of feeling like this, you know? I burned a lot of bridges in my life with a lot of people that were good to me. And I just had an epiphany one day, like,

yeah, maybe it's not working for you. Right. Let's, let's actually, you know, care for people. So be compassionate because it really does go a long way, you know?

Yeah, I was going to say, by the time I figured out in prison, I was in prison, I still had like seven or eight years to go. It's like, no, no, I'm all better now. I'm, we can, but I still have seven years of prison. I'm like, maybe not act like an asshole the rest of my fucking life. You know, in one of your other podcast, you said something that really, like, resonated with

me that really, like, hit me, right? Okay. You said, someone said, man, it was along the lines that it's an honor to be here and it's a privilege and I look up to you or something along the lines like that. And you, you said, you're getting me all fucked up, bro. Yeah, you don't like that. Yeah. Right.

And you don't feel like you're worthy enough for that. Right. But that said a lot about you. Like, I'm reading you, and I said, that said a lot about it. And that's why I stayed in contact with you talking until this day, because it's not just because you have a high following or you're popular, you know, and it's not because you're successful. It's because I've seen inside of you. I've seen something for you to say you don't feel worthy enough. It wasn't because you don't have self-confidence in yourself.

Right. You know you're intelligent. You know you can do anything that you put your mind to. You know that. No one here has to tell you that. But that said a lot about you as a person, very self-listing for you to say. And that's why what attracted me to you so much is because by you saying those little words, really like I felt the connection with you.

Because sometimes I wish, I don't feel worthy enough if I had that platform or just in general, but it's because I wasn't really living that way. And that also helped me think like, let me be worthy of that. Let me change my life to be worthy of that, where I can help people, I can give advice. I know what it's like to be, to be down, you know? And now I live my life where I was down. The only place I have to go is up. And if the elevators broke up, I'm going to take the stairs.

Like, and I want to bring everyone with me up. And not just financially, just spiritually, emotionally, just be a kind, harder person. But that really resonated with me when I heard you say that on your last, a couple podcasts ago or whatever it was. Yeah. Jason Brewer. Yeah. That was a podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. It was horrible. It was a horrible podcast, bro. He had me fucking just all in tears. Yeah. but uh yeah but it showed a different side of you show the different side of you yeah you know it showed that well it's easier to be to act like a prick all the time you know what i'm saying

because you're masking something yeah yeah yeah you're coming off as a tough guy yeah you know yeah well i'm a tough guy but yeah yeah yeah like yeah yeah i know what you're saying you're trying to mask something you know so uh yeah he's yeah that was agonizing i i would much rather laugh and joke around and have, you know what I'm saying, and make light of stuff. Me too, but sometimes you need that to put your life into perspective. Oh no, you definitely need it to put your life into, to be humble and appreciative of everything you have because, you know, it's funny too because when you have everything, you're less appreciative than when you have nothing. Isn't that funny? It's crazy. You know, I read a book in prison and it was a lady that was in Auschwitz and she became a

psychologist forgot a name really bad name but she says a man doesn't know was worth until he hits rock bottom right you don't know what you're about until you hit rock bottom and everyone's rock bottom is different but you really learn about yourself when you're at rock bottom yeah yeah i definitely believe that it's it's it's interesting on how we all take you know take all these experiences in, you know, but you just got to learn from it. You got to help the next person. Right. So, how long have you been out of prison? I got out in early 2020, end of 2019. Okay. Well, I mean, so what, what are you doing now, though? To be honest, I haven't really done a whole month. Right. Like I said, I, I, I just, well, what are you doing for a living? Construction. Okay.

So I'm okay with on that aspect financially, but just finding myself, finding that inner peace, just, I was years of masking and denying. And I never really got to know who Brendan is. So I'm still trying right now to learn who I am right now as a person, honestly. And I know it's a process, but that's what I'm doing right now. Yeah, I was going to say the, uh, uh, uh, um, Kevin with the, uh, uh, uh, um, the suffering podcast. It was him and another guy. They'd both been in a police shooting separately.

Oh, wow. And they both took early retirement because, you know, it affected them, right? Okay. And so they started this podcast to basically say, hey, there's officers out there that are suffering. You know, that's a suffering podcast. And listen, they came here, laughed and joke just had the best time. You can watch the whole thing, right?

It's Kevin, and Kevin's the more boisterous of the two. And then the other guy, he's got a shaved head, right? His, Mike, his, um, most positive is Mike. If I got it wrong. Mike Dowd? No, no, no, no. But the other guy that was with him, he also had been in a shooting and a little more quiet, but still joking.

They just had a whole little comedy routine going, talking about the suffering podcast. It's great. And, you know, it was good. And talking about how, you know, how many officers think about committing suicide. Now he was suicidal and he was suicidal. and he was suicidal and then oh they're all better now and everything's good and now they're doing this podcast and it's just life affirming and everything's wonderful and you know i'm seeing his stuff and everything and then one day i i see something that it goes up and it's it's it just basically

it's like you know rest in peace you know and something and i was like who are they talking about resting and uh the his buddy held himself he said the next the day before talking laughing having a good old time when homes took a fucking gun in his mouth and blew the broken brains out had plans next tuesday we're doing the i'll be there on the podcast everything's great everything's wonderful that's terrible oh yeah you never know what someone's going through yeah you know that's that's that's that's unfortunate and you can you know you listen joked and laugh the whole time one of my favorite clips is where they were on a podcast and they were

talking and he said he gets asked he gets at uh kevin said he gets asked uh all the time like you know you've been around all these guys these murders and serial killers and real criminals and and um he said uh they said what's the the most the scariest guy you've ever been around and he said yeah he said matt cox and he goes what he said he said listen this is the kind of guy that shake your hands be great with you just a great guy and just on a whim take every single thing you've got from you and walk away and not think twice he said i mean it's it's terrifying he's i remember when i left his podcast he said i remember i check my wall and i said that guy is absolutely fucking terrifying and i mean and then the other guy mike jumps in he's absolutely he's because he could

the problem is is that he can do it and i mean i'm saying i'm right i'm showing this i'm showing people and they're just I'm like, look, I'm sitting up, listen to this. And they're like, oh, bro, that's horrible. I'm like, that's hilarious. Like, that's great. I made a TikTok of it. We put it on the buck in the thing. That's hilarious.

Good thing for me. I didn't bring my wallet that high. It was funny. So why would you do this job? Like, like if the month, you're not making that much extra, you're not making extra money on the side, right? No. Yeah.

It's like, why would you put yourself or why would anybody put themselves through all of this you know what I mean just seems like like you get so caught up in it like you're I'm doing this this guy this guy and I'm thinking to myself where's the benefit why would I do this you know what I mean like what you personally what was your mindset what did you ever think to yourself like why am I putting myself in these situations or were you caught up in it you enjoyed it you have a good goal I never I never really thought about like um why am I putting myself into it Because at the time, like I said, I was, I was in the moment, I was enjoying it. I was, you know, known and I had all these, like, responsibilities.

And some of it was a little crazy sometimes, you know, and it was an adrenaline rush. You know, the fact that, you know, you can prevent a whole war from happening or you can start a war from happening or you can help the person, you know, like just totally change their life. because not everything about me there was was badass you know i would sit and talk to inmates too and try to help them now i'm not saying i try to help everyone and that's the reason why i had this job this no it was just a job and i ended up just getting too into it and then me being reckless and impulsive i'm very impulsive it it was like i had no consequences you know at the end i did until you did. Right, up until I did, but I was just free to do whatever fuck I wanted. And if it's loved, you know, everyone loved it, including the higher-ups until the moment I was

indicted. Then it's like, oh, he was a rogue, he was rogue, man. I had, I couldn't control him. Yeah. They got, you guys got here. Like, what? You would call me and tell me, you want this dude up out of here and he's up out of here. And I would look from you and what a smile. Like, I'm a, you know, I was just being used. Right. Realistically, you know? Yeah, I was going to say, it's, to me, I didn't even think to ask. that because it's an awesome question because to me it's like I can I understand I can understand that because at first you know I could say oh I was committing fraud because of the money okay so your first thing is if I could just get like 100 grand then it's half a million then it's a million then it's two then it's three then you don't then the move you just forget about that and what you've just decided is that I enjoy doing what I'm doing and everybody loves me and it's it's a

great feeling of power when you walk in the room and there's seven or eight guys guys go, but Matt, can I ask you a question about this real quick? You're the guy with the answers. You're the guy that can make things happen. You're the guy that's pulling all the strings. You feel invincible. You're involved. You've heard, you've heard those guys like the guy that says, you know, the guy the other day that we were talking to, or we did the interview and he said, every time I would, you know, he's like, I started feeling just emboldened by the experience. So it's not the money, you know, it's, and I hate to say it's the power. So that feeling of power, or maybe it's just that feeling of being important. And

and loved by everybody. And, you know, you're important. I'm the guy that can make everything happen. Right. So it's not about the money, especially once you get the money. They're just like, well, why are you doing it now? You've got the money. Right.

Because I just love that, that feeling of being the guy that's calling all the shots. It's feeling a void of something. We may not even be able to determine on what it is, but it's a void inside of us. Maybe that we keep just doing what we're doing because it's feeling that void. Yeah. You know, like you said. Right. Nice.

Yeah. that's my really only question you addressed the other one because i was going to say and i figured you would you would bring a full circle because i read the comments on the chat marks interview um i was going to say like what would you say to your haters like to the people that are saying like this guy's a piece of shit like all this kind of stuff but you kind of like you know you bring it full circle with kind of like you know your new perspective so right yeah and were there a lot there's a lot of haters no there really was there really wasn't many but sometimes I like to try to predict, like, what people might think.

Right. There was, there was actually, I was actually very surprised. There was more people that actually, uh, supported it and was like, he's a real dude. He's, he's telling the truth than the haters. Now, for the haters, you know, it is going to hate. I can't, I can't make everybody like me, um, you know, and if you feel that way, if you feel like I'm lying, you know, these, you guys, these dudes, dude paperwork checks, you know, nothing I said.

Everything I said is authentic. And, like, again, it's not to be a tough guy. I've been beat up plenty of times where it may laugh at it, but they know I'll get there. And it's not about that. It's just a respect thing, you know, and, um. Well, you know what I was going to say is, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, I think people that haven't been to prison, and I always love the guys who went to county jail for six months and think they've been to prison.

I'm going to say this. You went to fucking county jail. You didn't go to prison. It's completely different. But it's. You just, the rules that are set up just, they, they can't keep things calm. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't, you can't expect that the rules of the prison will keep things on an even keel.

You know, and you see the staff massaging the situation constantly. Right. You know, and sometimes they'll be super strict, but then things get so erratic. They, it's like the tighter, you know, you've heard that the tighter you squeeze, the more things slip through your head. finger and so it's it's better to sometimes you have to massage things and but then some people like i said then that one chick is like this guy's such a problem i'm going to have this guy beat his ass and then he'll learn his lesson and he'll shut up that went wrong that went wrong so then that was too much you know i'm saying so it's it's that even it's trying to find the the balance right right

so you know your balance went bad you know i'm saying my balance won bad yeah it did and i admit that and i hold myself accountable for that well look listen my my wife has a whole thing when i don't know if you know this i'm sure you've heard this i think it's everybody probably heard this uh do you ever hear about the there was like 13 women or eight women i forget how many women they sued uh the federal government because they were in the camp the female camp in colman and they were being by the guards right right now what's funny is that my wife was there she knows every one of those girls right and she's like those girls would actually get into fist fights about who was going to date this guy they consider them like i'm dating this guy this guy's bringing in stuffed food for me he's like

now no matter what right you can't have sex with an inmate a female inmate or an inmate in general you can't have sex like that's it's it's they can't consent it's you're in charge of them it's it's right because you're a caretaker so you're but of course these girls are making it sound like he cornered me he me and of course my my wife's like I can tell you right now she would go in the room they would close the door I would be in the other room they would be like hey hey we're going to be in here for like that's the kind of thing that's happening like the girls are walking around right talking about who's fucking so-and-so who's doing like this is not the situation that was happening right like there are so many things that happen in prison that

are being massaged, you know, just like the thing where we had the guy that came on and that there's, there's riots. They let them out. There's riot. They lock everybody down for three months. They let them out for two weeks. Boom, there's a riot. They lock them up for three months. They let them out. Boom. There's a riot. At some point, which is unconventional and every booklet out there would tell you this is, do not do this. At some point, the warden goes out and says, this shot caller, that shot caller, who's respected in these groups? And he pulls them all out and has discussions. It starts going between from cell to sell to negotiate a piece so he can take the facility

off of lockdown. You know, like I need the, I can't lock these guys up forever. Which is unorthodox. Right, right. So eventually, but eventually he does and guess what? These guys are out for 18 months. Maybe there's a stabbing here and there. Of course.

You know, but. But it's funny, like some facilities run, you know, it's, those are the facilities that tend to run smoother because you've got somebody that are keeping the balance, you know, the problem is, it's probably, the fear is that eventually you, he's going to get out of hand. You get us out of hand and you get friendly with the guys and then boom, you have a problem, but you had 18 months where nobody got stabbed. Right. 100%.

You know, and for the prison to run, you need, like you said before, police, themselves. So if they know that they're safe, where if I act too crazy, I'm going to be, I can say whatever I want. Even though I know I'm afraid of you, I'm going to say whatever I want because I know that the CEOs are going to stop there or something's going to happen. But the simple fact is that if they know, yo, he ain't going to stop it. Maybe I'm not going to talk to you crazy like that. And that's just one example. Or, you know, like bringing in contraband or stealing or extorting or whatever the case is. You know you're not safe because this dude going to let the other do bump and now are you going to be as tough now that you know that the officer's going to let

you fight you know that happens a lot in confinement when they're in disciplinary confinement they'll be in confinement two dudes will be arguing you know they're both talking like they're fucking Mike Tyson you know and then the next thing you know the officers will be like all right well you guys were annoying me for the past two days with this I'm putting you in the cell in the cell together or for rec you guys are going to share the same rec cage right and sometimes the inmates are willing to do it sometimes now they're not so tough yeah yeah and now they don't want to talk so much

no more was the guy there was a guy white white Viking or the white Viking with the he had the shaved head yeah I'm trying to think what he was Viking mindset oh Viking mindset white Viking I never heard of hold him the Viking yeah yeah like that um he had a thing where

he had you know he'd been he was you know about that life you know I'm saying yeah that whole you know for for years but then he's still got years to go and he got to a point where he's like I'm done I don't want to be about he's the problem is every facility I went to now the guys are like oh this dude

he's like he's like he's gonna take care of business he's got and he's like oh shit he's like he's like my rep started following me and then guys are coming to me saying you got to take care of this you got this he's like I'm at the point where I'm like I don't want to take care of it right he gets into a fight one he's like and then one time these guys come to him

and they come in the cell and he said So we're fighting. He's like, I'm trying to get out of the fight, but we fight is we're fighting. He said, listen, he said, fighting for a minute or two is a long fucking fight. Two minutes of a fight is exhausting. It's forever. And he's sitting there. Remember he said he's had the guy in the headlock or something?

And the guy was like, or was it Brewer? He said, I'm sitting there and we're sitting there. He said, all I could think about was, where are the guards? Why? What's taking them so long? He's like, I'm fighting, hoping that just the guards will show up Because he's like, it's been forever And he's like, and I know they've got to be coming.

He's like, finally they ended up coming. So like, you don't understand this is the whole time I'm sitting there thinking Please fucking do you guys show up, please show up, please show up. I mean, it is a long time to fight. It's exhausting. It's dangerous. You're fighting in a cell. Everything is concrete or metal, the metal toilet, the metal bunk.

There's things that I think about now that I did. He's like, you know, I could have this killed, or I could have got killed? Like, what was I thinking? Was it worth it? Well, you, everybody's heard that story with the guy. The guy gets three or four years and puts him to a fight. Puts him to work. Guy ends up, they get into a fight.

Guy falls, hits his fucking head in the toilet and dies. Now the kid's got a 15-year sentence. Like, you just turned your four-year sentence into 15 years, you know, or 20 years or whatever. It's all nonsense. Right. Or some guy to, hey, go put in some work, just stab the guy up. He stabs him in the wrong spot. The guy fucking dies.

And now you got 20 fucking years. But nonsense. Just for absolute stupidest. Yeah, and I fell into it, you know, I fell into it. Do you think being a CEO and going to prison, do you think that worked against you? Do you think it helped you because you knew how it worked or did you get like, you know, pushback from the other inmates? Like, how do you think that changed your prison experience? Oh, yeah, how is the prison thing?

What did you tell people going in? Well, you probably went to a low, right? Right. Okay. But I actually went to Myelin in Michigan. Okay. And the politics are kind of heavy for a low side, as I was told. But it's still a low at the end of the day.

Yeah. So. Well, I'm not saying that there are things on. I saw as much violence in the low. I saw some of the bloodiest fights I've ever seen in a low than when I saw when I was in the medium. Right. So I'm not saying there's not fights. Right.

But you talk about politics. Right. Like are they heavy or not heavy, like a medium? Yeah. How much more danger? because having an issue in the mediums a lot more dangerous because they're willing to go further yes right yeah um no they they knew when i when i went in there staff knew when i walked into my land right when i walked into my land up there was a couple of dudes walking in two off out of okoma

city transit center so they already know they already do they and they and they they already they said to me mr f do c we've been waiting for you Oh, fuck. Right? That's the guard. And he's a country. This dude was country. He looked old geeky and shit, right?

Like, this, like, excited to, like, almost excited to see me. But I didn't know how to play it. Like, is he being a dick? Right. Or is he like, you know, I don't know how he took, how to take it. But he was like, he was like, we've been waiting for you. I was like, oh, great. Thanks.

And I end up going into processing by myself, which I'm like, yo, you're making this fucking hot, bro. And then the warden was there waiting for me. And SIS officers, right? And they were trying to say, oh, you're going to be in this dorm and this, this gang there. I said, I don't care. I really don't want to talk to you. This is like, I don't know if you're trying to help me or not, but this is not helping me. I'm going to go in there and set the scene myself and I'm comfortable with me obtaining my own information rather than you telling me.

That's just going to make me, like, I don't know. Just I don't want to know anything. And one of the officers is real cool. He's like, dude, I don't know. He's like, why I got to send you into this. dorm but this is the worst dorm in here he's like this is this is not good they're trying to give you a hard time because i made it and i don't know if this is true or not but the warden basically said well don't be coming over here beating up my amaze or something along the lines like that and he was

wearing like a like a like a like a polka dot bow tie and i said well anyone any anyone that can walk around this prison with a bowtie i think i like my chances here right yeah i don't know if that he if that made it that that comment like made you know him be like well fuck I'm throwing to the wolves type shit right and he was like don't be telling anyone what you're in here for but I already knew they're gonna find out dude I'm not lying because I already did time at FDC down in Miami right and everyone already knew too and I already know I went through Oklahoma City Transit Center was induced from Miami so they might have been talking to the other people now I'm on on the bus to my island now, you know, so I wasn't going to lie.

Well, and the inmates are going to get your name. Somebody's going to run your name. There's got to be multiple. They already knew when I walked up in there. Newspaper articles about you were going to come on. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And they already knew.

And they basically what they didn't, they didn't really care. Now, I'm not going to say they 100% trusted me, but I wouldn't even give them the opportunity, right? I had a seat in the TV room. Most dudes didn't even have a seat in the TV room. You got to sit in the hallway. You know, it's just I'm shocked that you didn't go to, you didn't end up in Coleman because in Coleman.

Don't forget, I was living in Michigan at the time I got arrested. So you were indicted out of Michigan? No. I was, remember I left Florida, moved to Michigan, and then Southern District of Florida. I got indicted out of Florida, but I was living in Michigan. Okay, so it's closer to your home.

Exactly. I was no longer living in Florida. Your residency wasn't Florida. Okay, I understand. Yeah, I was going to say because at the low in Coleman, like literally, I was locked up with a guy named Junier, which was a dirty cop from from Atlanta who killed somebody. Did he have a hard time? No. See, I seen a bunch of cops too.

I was locked up with two, one, two, three, four homicide detectives. No, not homicide detectives. I'm sorry, police detectives that were in charge of drug cases. I don't know why I said. Narcotics. Yeah, narcotics. He was arrested with one guy who was a DEA. I had been in transit with a cop, cop.

It was the same thing. When he got to Oklahoma City, because we were together, we got there. We went into the room that we talked about. That same type of thing. When he got there, as we were getting there, he told me, he said, they're going to pull me out of here. And because I'd been locked up in the facility with him when I, so I was in transit. A couple days I knew everybody was a cop.

Now, then we're in the van together. Now we're on the plane together. Now we're, so we're basically together the whole time. And I know he's a cop. And then when we got there, he said, fuck, you could see. You could see them out, the lieutenants and everybody outside. Right. They're through the window.

You could see them all go together, talking, talking. There was a whole ball of them getting together talking, talking, and he's like, fuck, because they're going to pull me out of here. I was like, why? He said, they always pull me. He said, he did like a year in the show. already because they didn't want him mixed in with population. So he's like, he had to file paperwork to get taken out of the shoe and put in general pop while he's waiting to be sentenced.

You'd already been sentenced. What? So at the detention center, basically, they put him in the shoe for that long? Yeah, the whole time. He had to file paper. His lawyer had to file paperwork to have him put into general pop. Anyway, so, and sure enough, if they didn't come over, open the door and call out his name, and he was like, fuck, he went out there, talked to him for five minutes and came

back. And they were like, listen, we don't feel comfortable with you. He was like, I don't care. Like you're, he's like, I file paperwork. I'll file it again. He's like, I'm this. You cannot keep me in the fucking shoe the whole time. I don't give a shit.

And I don't really, and I don't know why they were so harsh with him. I think it was just because it was transit and you don't really know who's in transit. Exactly. Right. And so anyway, they did let him back in. And eventually, I don't know what prison he went to, but I'm sure he went to a low somewhere. But yeah, there was a bunch of cops that had been, that were at the low. And I don't feel like any of them.

um you know cops can handle themselves you know i'm saying correctional officers can handle themselves you know what i'm saying like they're like oh you're in danger like yeah not really because you i don't know you're not you're not you're not guys there was a boston cops there was uh right you know illinois cops in there um and listen and the press is not coming like when you get these fucking articles on these guys the press is not kind it's fucking and the comments for the press is like one guy's like lock them up and throw away the key right i'm like well i'm out now bitch fuck you you're saying that yeah i you know it's hilarious though you got to laugh at them but no i wasn't and

i didn't feel like any because of that situation right you know what i mean uh not at all um when i first got arrested i was at the federal detention center it was i forgot what holiday was they uh put me the captain wasn't there and it's actually his call or not if you go to general population and that. So they pulled me in through them processing and put me into protect the custody for three or four days. The captain came and said, yo, what's up? What you want to do? I said, I can't do this. I'll tell you that.

Like, I've never been in the cell before. This is the first time I'm in the cell. I'm having crazy freaking dreams that the fire the freaking fire alarm breaks and the pipe burst and I'm drowning in here because I'm having crazy elusers. Like, get me the fuck

out of here. He was like, yeah, but you're in general population. I'm okay. Yeah. So he ended up putting me in general population. And it was actually a high-profile floor with some interesting people that were there. And it was half of that and then half of psych. So in the eastern region for the BOP, they only have like two, I believe, mental health evaluation centers. One of them being more up north, I believe, and the other one down.

Butner? Is Butler one on them? Maybe But I know for a psychological evaluation before you're actually. uh sentenced they will send you and one of them is in florida so we had like half of the half of the people from all over coming for a psychological evaluation and then half of it was like um high profile there was like a rapper there was a a serial killer a guy who was killing people down in florida with a samurai sword um there was a there was a cartel dude from venezuela right and now we're starting to see the effects of venezuelans people didn't ever heard of how dangerous they were years

ago. I already seen kind of what it was with him being in being locked up there. Is Venezuela where they just locked up? Locked up everybody? The other one where they built a prison that holds like fucking 10,000 or 100,000 people or something? No, I don't think that's Venezuela. But Venezuela basically

released half of their prison because they know the borders were open and they all came here. Yeah, yeah. That's the Venezuela thing. Those dudes don't play. We're going to release you, but you got to start walking. Those dudes do not play. They do not play. They do not play. But it was interesting because in Puerto Rico, their detention center is very small. So if they have an overflow of inmates, they have to send them, and they send them to Florida.

Yeah. So there was one dude. I've totally forgot his name. I think they called him Yogi, Yogi, Puerto Rican dude. He was a Nietta. And he went in for like maybe 10 years, but then ended up killing a correction officer, being part of a correction. And he was, had to go back to Puerto Rico for a court. case. So he was at the ADX.

Went to Puerto Rico, then it was going back to the ADX, but he's staying at the detention center now in Florida, because I guess Puerto Rico was full. Killed a correctional lieutenant. I'm sitting in here with him. We're working out. I don't know what he did. He doesn't know what I did. Eventually we start talking.

We, yo, we were so close. We would eat together every night. He didn't have much money I would give him. Yo, but we told each other what we were in for, and we just was like, yo, how life is ironic. He literally, literally killed a lieutenant correction officer lieutenant and i'm sitting here like fucking best friends isn't i have like full circle it's crazy it was crazy that conversation go you know so so what did you i killed a lieutenant hey i used to be a lieutenant and and i don't know how he wasn't

in in the shoe when he had to go back to the adx but yo it was so fun when i found that he killed the lieutenant he didn't tell me originally and he knew i was in for but he'd acted like we would work out and would eat and then one of my friends was like yo it's this is crazy he's like he killed a lieutenant i was like what do you mean he's like like i'm like get the fuck out of yeah he's like yeah so we start talking and we just like we're laughing about it we were laughing about how ironic the situation is you know like how weird it is it it was funny one of the things you're doing now is you just started so you started a youtube channel right yeah brenegade brandigate show what is it Brenegade show.

Brenegade. Um, uh, is that it? That's the whole thing. Berenegade. Or just Berenegade show. Berenigate show, yeah. Okay. Um, and so you're going to put up a, uh, an intro and then you're going to put up some, some videos and you've got, so you've got, so by the time this comes out, you'll have

several videos up. Oh, yeah. You'll be getting into it. Absolutely. What are you going to focus on? Like a broad view, but where I'm not stepping on any toes and be, you're not stepping on any toes and being different to saying my side of the story on, I guess you can say, you know, an ex-dirty officer's view on what I would do to certain inmates on how I feel on what I would

do in certain situations, some common myths that some people have about corrections, you can try to break that, get into both sides of the life on how there's politics on both sides that you only hear about the inmate politics and what the inmates would do if this inmate came in here, you know? Before you get to the inmates, you've got to come to the officer's side, you know? Give some hacks for officers and inmates on certain things

like a cell extraction on how to beat a cell extraction, you know, or... That's so good. You can't do it. Yeah, you know what? That's probably not a good idea. I was going to say, to put baby lotion on you, you know what I'm saying?

Certain things that I would do that. They'll strip down and put baby lotion and shit on them. But another way to beat it as an officer. Oh, as an officer. It's spray the fucking toilet with the water, right? Because you know, like when they spray it, they use the water in the toilet to clean their face. But if you spray the water with the pepper spray,

now they start doing it. And now they're wiping their face with the pepper spray. Yeah. Are you going to interview? like former inmates uh former inmates and and current um and current correction officers see um about policy and how they how they run how they work um maybe some of their identities would be you know changed a little bit i don't know if it's against

their policy but i already have a couple things and works and uh just holding people like how i'll be accountable you know like um it's okay to mess up you know we all start from the bottom and work back up. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so get notified of videos like this. Also, please go to Brendan's YouTube channel. We're going to put the link in the description.

So click on that. Go to his YouTube. He's going to have videos up, telling his story, interviewing people. So I would appreciate if you guys would go there and follow him. Also, please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. We're going to have a full podcast of this interview on Patreon. It's over three hours.

It's filled with a bunch of really. interesting stuff that didn't make the cut here. Please check it out. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Oh yeah, it's only $10 a month. See ya.