Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - From Badge to Bars | Cop Ian Murray’s Arrest

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Ian Murray tells his story about how he was setup by his own co workers. Follow me on all socials! Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/matthewcoxitc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxcrime Follow my 2nd channel - Inside The Darkness! https://www.youtube.com/c/InsidetheDarknessAutobiographies Want to be a guest? Send me an email here! [e-mail] Want a custom Con man painting shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Get a custom painting done by me! Check out my link! https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to True Crime Podcasts anywhere! https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my prison story books here! https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Cox/e/B08372LKZG Support me here! Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

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 $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. That Friday afternoon, I'm sitting in my living room in my house in Nassau County. I get a loud knock on the garage door of my house. I open that door and there's four guys standing there in like flack vests and full duty gear and all that. Can I help you?

And they're like, are you Ian Murray? I said, yeah. And they're like, corrections officer Murray. I said, yeah. One of them grabs me, cuffs me and says, we have a warrant for your arrest. I thought it was a joke at first. They came into my house. One of them went and used the bathroom.

Is this the sheriff's department? Yeah. The same department that you work for. Same department I work for. Hey, this is Matt Cox. And I am here with Ian Murray. Ian is a former correctional officer and he's got

he's got an interesting story we spoke on the phone maybe a few weeks ago and I asked him if he'd come by and tell the story on camera it involves a lawsuit corruption in the sheriff's department a whole thing so check this out all right so the whole thing

like we had talked on the phone and you were in you were in the army Army Reserves. Army Reserves? Okay. So you were in the Army Reserves and you ended up getting it. You had already had a job though with like the Sheriff's Department right in another county or something like as a.

A long time ago. Yes. I'd worked as a corrections officer in Charleston County, South Carolina from 2004 to 2007. Right. And then so so then you what then you ended up getting another correctional officer job? Yeah, I left that job to pursue some other. opportunities, some different careers. I drove semi-trucks for a while. I got my commercial driver's license. The economy took a tank in 2008, that time frame. I was living up in Charleston. I was

originally from Jacksonville, and I have a friend of mine who told me, he said, hey, I know you're looking for a job. I know you have corrections experience. They're hiring like crazy down here at the county jail. So, you know, maybe you should come consider and I came down, took a tour of the facility, liked what I saw from a standpoint. I figured, sure, let's give it another chance. It'd be a good way to get another stable job. They had a really good benefits package and all that. Right. Why'd you stop the first one? I'm just wondering, sorry. There was just not really a lot of opportunities for advancement. It was one of those things. If you were a corrections officer, you were pretty much

going to be a corrections officer forever unless you had some kind of stellar ability. I mean, even to go on to the police side of the house, it was very difficult without having all the right credentials. So I just wanted to pursue something else, do something a little different that might have been a little more interesting. So yeah, like I said, I went out on the road, drove over the road trucks for almost a year, drove local. I actually liked it. I like to drive, you know, and I've always been in a cars and trucks. So for me, it was kind of being a younger guy, it was kind of a you know a good gig but then like I said when the economy tanked in 2000 I think it was around 2008-9 era I lost my job getting another decent driving job was very difficult and like I said

I was offered the opportunity to come work corrections and move back down to Florida so I decided to take the chance okay so you went down there you you toured the facility you do you take a test or anything or yeah it was a very long hiring process you did have to take a test I passed the test, had to do a lot of interviews, came down because I was out of state. They did consolidate a lot of my interviews. I had to take a psych evaluation, physical examination, polygraph, all that stuff. And then finally, after a while, they called and said, yeah, we'd like to hire you. We can start you.

I had to go through their academy. We can start you in the academy on this date. I believe it was around December of 2009 when I finally actually got to begin my first day of academy training. Okay. And so how big is the facility? How many inmates does it hold? Oh. You guys call them inmates? You call them defendants? No, they were inmates. We called them inmates. This particular department had three facilities. The main jail downtown. It was a pretty large facility. It was six stories. Each story was like a double tier system and there was two wings. There was a like an east and a west type wing. And then there was a center control area. and I forget the exact inmate population, but it was a lot. It was, you know, in the four figures, thousands.

There was another facility that I started working at. It was called the Montgomery Corrections facility. It's kind of like a county prison. Right. When inmates were sentenced to terms, I believe it was less than a year, they would be sent out there. And most of them were on some kind of a work detail. And I liked working at that facility. It was closer to my house.

It was the parking was better. It was just an overall nicer atmosphere. Didn't have to deal with downtown traffic. How many inmates were in there? That one, there wasn't quite as many. I want to say there was probably 900 maybe in the whole facility. There was two large wings. Each wing had four housing areas.

It was like an open bay type setup, you know, where there's just rows of bunk beds and they had foot lockers and your basic living area. I mean, most of the inmates weren't there during the day. They only slept there. Yeah. But 90% of them would go in the morning. They'd get on their details and go out and pick up trash or do whatever the county decided to have them do. Okay.

So, yeah, I went through the academy, started, you know, got through the academy. It went pretty well. Training went well. Having prior corrections experience helped. Right. Obviously. It was very in-depth. Their academy compared to the previous.

department was like four or five times longer than Charleston counties. Charleston County, they sent me to the State Corrections Academy. This one, it was their own academy. So I got to say they had a really good training program. They really, they spun you up on not just how to deal with inmates, but the laws. There was a lot of history involved in how things worked and corrections and stuff. They actually had some like college level professors teaching the, um, courses in fact i actually got some college credits going at academy okay so and then you so you started how long did you work there i worked there until this incident happened pretty much um in i think it was around july of june or july of 2014 i forget the exact date so about six years

and i was actually even after this happened i was still employed there technically until the end of 2015. That's when I actually left the position. I decided to no longer be a part of that sheriff's office. And so yeah, it was about six years. I was on the books as being employed with them. And they knew you were in the reserves. Oh yes. At the time I was in the National Guard when I was hired. So at that point I'd been in the military for almost eight years. So what is the, So if you have to go, you're called up or... Is that what they call it called? Called up.

We have, you can get called up, but we also have a scheduled calendar of events. Like when we have our monthly battle assemblies or drills, we get a calendar. It's pre-scheduled. Right. Those, they can't do it. Like, they know you have to leave in October. Yes. Like, I'm leaving in October and the law says you have to allow me to leave and allow me to come back.

And I can't lose my job as a result of that. Correct. Okay. Yeah, that's like a federal law. There's lots of stipulations in the federal law for that. So, yeah, they knew I was hired. During the interview process, they were very aware. In fact, they actually, during the interview process,

I remember when I was doing my board interview, they even reminded me, oh, yeah, we have military leave as part of our benefits package for you to be able to take leave and still get paid. Oh, okay. Like they were encouraging me to use the military leave they provide. it so all right okay so what was what was it that happened that started like the lawsuit and the whole retaliation and the whole thing like it was just yeah i um it had been um the supervisor that started this whole thing i don't know it was more than one person but i don't know what their

problem with me was i mean i came to work i did my job i never made it a point to get on anyone's bad side but you didn't have like a long running feud with anybody any incidences nothing just no no i mean i but um what happened was in um i think it was in 2014 there was a government shutdown it was when we first had started having those um sequestrations with the budget issues in the federal government i'm not sure if you remember that yeah well when this was happening i uh was supposed to go on a one of my schedule weekends i had the orders i had everything in hand it was a standard thing i'd already been approved for the time off so we go to show up my supervisor in the military says well because the government shut down we're not actually going into the armory but

you still have orders so make sure you're available in case we get called up because like nobody knew exactly what was happening what was happening so i did just that and this wasn't the first time in my military career where something like this had happened. So again, to me, this was just a standard run-of-the-mill type situation. So I said, cool. I stayed at home, waited for them to call, nobody called. The next day, we went into drill. Everything went according to plan. And several months later, we got updated drill calendars because they had changed one of the weekend days. and the previous day they had adjusted that weekend to reflect that we had only come in two days instead of three. So I turned the updated calendar in, updated my future military dates, and my lieutenant, the individual who started this whole thing, she calls me into her office and says, can you explain this?

And I explained the situation. and she said, well, if you didn't actually go in to work that day, I need you to change that day from a military day to a vacation day. I'm like, but I had orders for that day. And she said, it doesn't matter. I need you to change it. She then called me back again the next day in front of my sergeant and told me the same thing. So I was a little confused about that.

I went back to my military unit and explained to them what was going on. And they're like, they said, yeah, you had orders. That was an authorized military day. But if that is your civilian employer's policy, you should follow that because you don't want to get in trouble at work. Right. So then I went to talk to my union representative. Explain the situation to him. He said, yeah, if you had orders for that day at that time, you're fine. But again, if your lieutenant is ordering you to do it, you need to go ahead and do it because if you don't, she can write you up for insubordination. He's been known to cure insecurity just with his laugh.

His organ donation card lists his charisma. His smile is so contagious. Vaccines have been created for it. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

So I went in. My next workday did exactly what she said, withdrew the military leave from several months before, put it in as a vacation day. Then she denied that leave request that she told me to make. She denied the vacation day. Yeah. That she told me to put in.

I then found out about a week later from my military command that I was being investigated by our sheriff's office integrity division for criminal misconduct of some sort of, of some sort. So I was like, wow. I mean, I hate to say it, but coming from her, I wasn't surprised. She's done this, she'd done this to other people within the sheriff's office before. So I contacted the union again.

I said, hey, what's going on? I did what I was told. They're like, yeah, we're not too happy about it either. But if you had orders, the detectives will do their investigation. Everything will be fine. if you'll be clear of any wrongdoing. I said, okay, cool. So several months went on. I went to work as normal. Everything seemed to be fairly normal. Everyone knew this investigation was going on. And one of the detectives called me to come in for questioning. I called my union lawyer,

said, hey, I'm being called in for questioning. What should I do? He said, yeah, just call him back and tell them all your orders are on file and there's no need for you to go into questioning because if he finds the orders you'll be fine so i said okay i called the detective back said hey my orders are on file with the watch commander's office all you need to do is go find him if you can't find him call me and i'll fax them or email them or i can even bring him to your office we worked in the same building so i um hung up the phone and what did he say did he say no fuck that you're coming in he just said no he just said okay he just said okay fine um he didn't make a big stink of it he's like okay fine it was like to that nature we hung up and um from what the lawyer

told me if they were going to take action like that should have been the end of the investigation like they were either going to come arrest you like that day or they were going to go find the orders and this whole thing should have been closed come arrest you for for for what like what would that be whatever they were wouldn't it just be you're fired no it's not necessarily Like I said, this was not an administrative investigation. They're saying it's fraud. Yeah, they were trying to say I committed fraud somehow. But anyway, so yeah, the rest of those next couple days, I was kind of looking around,

waiting to see if they were going to actually come pick me up for something. They never did. About a month later, I got orders to go on a 90-day training mission. And I came in, same thing, put the orders in, gave them to my watch commander. and this was on like a Thursday afternoon I was taking the Friday off I was already off that weekend I think I was taken the Friday off just to have some extra time with my family and friends I was scheduled to fly out on Monday morning that Friday afternoon I'm sitting in my living room in my house in Nassau County and I get a loud knock on the garage door of my house not the front door the garage door for like we walk in the garage so they walked into the garage they walked in the garage they walked in the garage they walked in the garage garage. I opened the front, I opened that door and there's four guys standing there in like flak vests and, you know, wearing the full duty gear and all that. I'm like, can I help you? Right. And they're like, are you Ian Murray? I said, yeah. And they're like corrections officer Murray. I said, yeah. One of

them grabs me, um, cuffs me and says, we have a warrant for your arrest. I thought it was a joke at first. Like I thought some of my buddies at work were just playing a going away prank. Right. and yeah it was not a joke they took me um they came into my house handcuffed me some of them were walking around my house i don't know what they were doing in my house but one of them went and used the bathroom and stuff and they took me down to their um their precinct or wherever it was and started questioning me is this the sheriff's department the same department that you work for same department i work for um that same detective who called me um he eventually came in the room and um they started asking me all these questions and it wasn't just about this one

day um they started asking me questions about all these other days i was on military leave and i asked them well what did my orders say and it was pretty clear at that point they never even went and looked for those orders right so i was like wow well um they didn't they started making these excuses well if you just been more cooperative with us and this and that trying to turn it on me somehow i'm like i'm thinking to myself you know this is your job right i mean i don't understand what i really more i needed to do here so they took me to the jail um i was booked fingerprinted photographed like right i went through the standard booking process uh one of my colleagues who was working said hey um it's all over the news and um they tipped off the news and they arrested

one of their own and were yeah and they completely lied to the media they said that i didn't have orders when i did um when i saw it made page two of the florida times union i'm not sure if you're familiar with that newspaper but yeah it made these not the front page but the second page of the newspaper it was on the radio drive time it was on the channel four news all the local news outlets aired it and um my military command actually that's how they found out this had happen. Like, I hadn't even been able to call them yet. Right. They called me and said, hey, what's going on? And I told them, because they knew I was under this investigation. And they're like, how did this happen? I'm like, I don't know. So, anyway, um, the following Monday, I found out

that weekend I couldn't go on my training because my clearance was being suspended because I'd just been, um, falsely arrested for committing felony. They were trying to charge me with, um, official misconduct and grand theft, arguing that the amount of leave time that I, allegedly had mistaken was over a certain amount of money. Right. So, I couldn't go on my training. The amount that you had orders for that they're allowed, that they have to pay you, that they, yeah, yeah, okay.

Yeah, they're now saying there were no orders when in fact there were orders. There were orders. And in fact, the following Monday, I called that same union lawyer who had told me this whole time I had done nothing wrong. Right. All of a sudden now, oh, well, I can get you a plea deal. where you can, we might be able to save your pension if you're vested. I'm like, but you told me I didn't do anything.

He's like, well, if they got a judge to sign a warrant, you must be guilty. Oh, what a fucking idiot. Yeah. So it was pretty clear at that point who he was really working for. You can get a judge to sign a warrant for anything. I know. I trust me. And so fortunately, my family, my stepfather, knows a very good, well-established attorney in Jacksonville.

We went and saw him on Monday. And, yeah, of course, he immediately said, yeah, this whole thing is. unbelievable like yeah i'm so i hired him um within a week of me hiring this real attorney um this non uh union attorney i think the detectives did more investigating that week after the arrest and they did the whole four months prior right they went to my military unit i tried to question them and at no point prior to this arrest did they go to my army unit go to anybody in my command to talk to them about what i was doing on my military duty days right so i don't even really know what they did during their investigation.

Well, you know, I had been, I had this explained to me by my attorney one time. And he had said that the way the state works, he said the state law enforcement, they don't have the budgets to do much investigation. So what they typically do is they arrest you and get you scared and then hope that you'll plead guilty. And if you don't plead guilty, then they do an investigation. where they do a very cursory investigation initially. The feds, like when the FBI shows up, you're done.

Yeah. They've done all the investigation. They've got everything. You're the last piece of the puzzle. It's like, okay, we know we can arrest this guy. We know, or we've been investigated. We know he's guilty. We know we can try him.

We know we can convict him. Go arrest him. Where it's the exact opposite with the state. So I totally understand what you're saying. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. And the sad thing is, I mean, they, from what I was told later on

like they have done this to so many people and gotten away with it because they can't afford to hire a lawyer or they get them so scared they'll take a plea deal or something and plea to a lesser charge and I wasn't about to do that because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.

If you've done something wrong then when they arrest you, you are scared because you think they know everything so typically you say look I'll take a plea deal and they okay now tell us in your words what happened but the truth is they don't have a clue what happened so you're just telling them what happened. Yeah they were and that's the thing

thing. Like I told them what I'd already told them once before. Right. And that wasn't going to change. No, it wasn't going to change. Um, they were expecting me to change my story and admit guilt is something and I didn't do that. Um, but yeah, they went to my army unit, tried to question my full time staff. My full time staff, most of them were like, uh, yeah, no, we're not talking to you guys. You never came to speak to us prior to this. And, um, we're not going to help you with this at this point. So then they came back with subpoenas, started making threats towards my full time staff. telling them that they would be taken to jail if they didn't cooperate. Yeah, they got really nasty and aggressive.

I think at this point they'd realized they'd made a pretty bad mistake. All right. So now it's kind of like we got to make sure that this looks like it looks at least. At the very least it looks like he's done something wrong. We need to put somebody on the stand. We need somebody to start saying some negative things about him, that sort of thing. Like they have to start building a case at this point, whether one exists or not. Exactly.

Because they'd, like I said, they had gone to the media and told. them he didn't have orders he did this right when in fact I hadn't done it and I think they realized from that point that like we have a problem we have a problem yeah right so um yeah this went on they uh the only person I think they actually to my knowledge they actually interviewed was my squad leader my first line leader and he pretty much confirmed everything like yeah he had orders for that day we were in kind of a limbo period but when you have orders from the military that is your priority right you are supposed to be made available to the military And so other than that, I don't know who else they interviewed, if anybody.

There were other days where I was at MEPs because I was changing from the Guard to the Reserves. Again, I turned in those orders to get the time off to go to MEPs. If they had actually done, made the trip over to records and gotten those orders that I had already submitted, they would have known that. But yeah, like I said, within 48 hours of my arrest, we were able to furnish all these orders that they had already had at their fingertips. Right. So it's pretty obvious. even do the basic functions of an investigation at least from what i can tell right so it went on for about almost two months um i was on administratively without pay um fortunately my army unit

was very helpful they were able to coordinate with some other organizations get me some like administrative order days to help me with money so right um i ended up having to sell my car my ex-wife and I, we had to sacrifice a lot of things out of our budget, things like that. She had to pick up a lot of extra overtime. She had to cover health care costs and stuff. So fortunately, I mean, I try to be financial responsible. I did have some money and savings. We were able to not lose anything of a necessity.

You know, we were able to keep up with the house and the bills and everything. Some members of my family helped me out. a little bit here and there when they could and how long did this go on well the post arrest investigation went on for a couple months finally the state attorney said i can't charge this guy um and he ended up dropping it from what i understand he didn't even do the charging paperwork for it like that's how weak it was to begin with right so yeah i was cleared of the um in fact um another interesting thing is when my clearance as i mentioned earlier got flagged from the military I have a T.S. Top Secret clearance.

They came in and did an investigation on their own, the people that handle the clearances. Right. Looked at the whole thing. And while this was still pending, reinstated my clearance. Like, that's how little faith anyone had in this whole thing. Right. So, like, I got my top secret clearance back about a month before the charges were actually formally dropped. So the state attorney dropped it.

That alone was a huge relief. You know, it was enough to make me realize I wasn't, hey, I wasn't going to get falsely convicted of some crime I didn't commit. Well, I mean, you know, here's the thing is, is like, you know, until you go through like that process, like, even if you're 100% innocent and you go to trial, there's still a chance you're found guilty. Yeah. Like people think, oh, well, if you're innocent, go to go to, you know, they should go to, you should go to trial. Yeah, I get that. But the truth is, innocent people are found guilty all the time. Oh, yeah.

And all you need is a couple of guys to get on the, get on the standard. or for them to suddenly conveniently lose some paperwork that you're saying was filed. Well, we couldn't find it. And then next thing you know, you don't have a backup. It comes, you know, it comes out of nowhere. You're not prepared for it. You know, who knows what happens. Or you just get a couple jury members that just dislike you and they sway the jury.

Like, it can go bad. Even if you're not guilty, it can go bad. I agree with you 100%. So that's pretty, that in and of itself is stressful. It was. It was very stressful. I mean, it was, um, I mean, it was like being in the twilight zone. I mean, you know, you, you know, I'm already doing a job that no, almost nobody really wants to do. Right. I'm making this, you know, at this point I'd been in the military for 11 or 12 years, I think. Um, and I mean, it's just something you never expect going to work for a law enforcement agency that they're going to do this to you for simply trying to meet your obligations of serving your country. Right. Even on a part. basis.

Yeah. It was just a completely, I mean, the words can't describe it. I mean, I didn't, I mean, I just scumbag move. Yeah. And, I mean, I know there had been situations where people had done abused militarily before, but I wasn't one of those people, you know, I, I mean, that's the thing. I had faith that they were, these detectives or investigators or I had faith that they were going to do their jobs, that they were going to do what they were paid to do,

do the investigation. I mean, this whole thing should have been cleared up in a couple hours. Right. And they had four months and didn't even do the basic essential functions of clearing me of doing anything wrong. So, yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable. And, you know, these are people that work in the same organization as you, that you, you know, it's like we don't work in the same building or in the same division or anything. But, you know, like, you know, these are people I would consider my colleagues to some level. Right. That would do this to me. You know, I mean, it just really. is unbelievable. So when they drop, when the state attorney said, hey, I'm not filing this.

Like, did they reinstate you and say, okay, well, then we're going to go at you, no, put you back on the, you know, okay, start work on Monday. No, they did not. They referred the case over to internal affairs. Internal affairs has, they handle the administrative portion of things. Right. So they went from trying to charge me criminally to trying to say I broke some kind of rule. And when that happened, when we got the notice that that was happening, my lawyer did two things, from what I understand.

First, he sent them a letter saying, Mr. Murray is still represented. If you have any desire to contact him, please go through our law office and to arrange any meetings or discussions you'd like to have with them, something to that nature. Right. He also took the entire case, like, I don't know what you call it, the case file. and sent it over, I think it was, to the city manager, I think, and explain the situation to them. The city manager sent back a letter within about a month stating that I had violated no rules and broken no policies or anything. So, you know, we got that out of the way right away. Right. So they continued to do their investigation on the administrative side. I found out

the individual who was doing the investigation was also in the military guard or reserves. And at First, I was actually like... Oh, good, he'll understand. Yeah, he'll understand. He might get this. I might actually have someone on my side. Boy, was I wrong with that? First, I get a call from my military command saying, hey, are you under another investigation?

I said, yeah, they're investigating me for administrative things now. He's like, yeah, because the detectives who's doing this, he is also apparently an investigator in the reserve component or the guard component and is going around representing himself as such. Like instead of knocking on one of my commander's doors saying, hello, I'm detective so-and-so with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, he's flashing his military credential saying, I'm investigator so-and-so with this military agency. I need to talk to you about one of your soldiers.

So I found that out. I was like, whoa, because that's a big no-no. I'm in an Intel unit. You don't do that kind of stuff. Right. So then, not too long after I find that out, he calls me directly on my cell phone, demanding that I come in for questioning. And I'm like, did you not get the letter my attorney sent you? And he starts yelling at me, telling me, I'm not asking, you know, you're going to cooperate with me.

I'm like, okay, can I get your name and your contact number? I hung up. I called my lawyer and say, hey, this guy called me. He's demanding I come in for an interview. I think that's y'all's department. He's like, yeah, I'll call him back. So at that point, my lawyer told me not to acknowledge any more phone calls from him or the sheriff's department. Law enforcement often questions him, not because he's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating.

He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. join Matthew Cox's Patreon. So my lawyer calls me back and says, yeah, let's go ahead and go in for this interview. I mean, because our ducks in a row, you know, this way we can say we were cooperative and we did everything we could to try to resolve this.

So we went in for questioning. I sat down with this guy and my lawyer and one of the other internal affairs supervisors was present. He starts questioning me and the questions he just asked me were, completely off the wall. None of them had anything to do with me. I mean, he was even asking me to explain why my command staff of my military unit would do something different from his command staff of his military unit. I mean, it was very vague, indirect questioning. None of it had anything to do with anything really to my case. At the end of the interview, my lawyer had to interject a

couple times because he was trying to get into stuff that wasn't even like relevant to the case um so the interview concluded and um around that time the training i was originally supposed to go to when i was falsely arrested i got orders to actually go to this was about a year later so i was you haven't worked for over for a year now roughly not really no i had had like i said my military unit was giving me some um administration of orders they were having me come in just to help them around the office and yeah but that's not going to be the same as no it was definitely not as much money as i was making with my job for sure but i mean it was better than nothing right um you know it was enough for us to like i said earlier we

were able to keep the lights on my wife at the time had a job we were able to sustain at least right and you know in spite of having to you know get rid of some of my assets we were able to at least live a a halfway decent lifestyle um without having you know we were able to eat we eating you know ramen noodles and peanut butter um every day but anyway um like i said um i got orders to go on this training and i was like yes finally so um i get the orders i go through all the you know do all the packing the paperwork i fly out to arizona to do the orders i'm on orders and the same detective again tries to call me and per my lawyer i just ignored him I called my lawyer, said, hey, this detective left me a couple of voicemails.

He's like, yeah, I've already talked to him. He says the investigation's been completed, and they want us to come in to reveal the results. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm on orders out in Arizona. I'm supposed to be here for another several months. So he's like, yeah, I'll let him know that. So anyway, apparently when he calls this detective back to tell him, yeah, he's on orders, the detective had what was told to me is basically being as a connipion fit.

He is ranting and raving. How's he on military orders? You know, just like, that's not supposed to happen. I guess he was under the feeling that because this was still going on, the military still had me in like a suspended status as well. Right. Well, the next day I'm sitting in class. One of my class leaders pulls me out

and pulls me into a conference room and says, hey, tell me about your arrest. I'm like, excuse me? Because I hadn't mentioned this to anybody at the schoolhouse that I was at. Right. I'm like, he's like, yeah, I got a phone call from somebody claiming that you've been arrested for a felony. I'm like, well, yeah, but that's all been handled. So apparently, this detective, I guess when he got the orders, his intent was to derail my military training somehow by calling this school.

And just, there was no point to that. It had nothing to do with his investigation, but he did it anyway. Right. Well, unfortunately, while I was out there, I was unable to finish the training. We had a death in the family. My grandfather passed away. I was sent home on Red Cross orders. After the funeral, I came back to Jackson, Valeria, and my lawyer and I set up a schedule.

We went in to hear what they had to say about this whole case. We go in, and this original detective didn't even show himself. He didn't even come in to talk to us. I don't know what happened to him. but two of his colleagues came in and they even after everything we had told them like yeah we've gone to the city manager this and that even after all that they still tried to sustain

administrative allegations against me and were recommending I be fired like okay so what happens now so they laid out the options and one of the options was we could have had a civil service hearing which would have taken it beyond the sheriff's office right and I'm like you know what let's do that I'm sick and tired of this. This has been going on for too long. I want to get this, you know, put to bed once and for all.

So we opted to have the civil service hearing. We informed him of that. We leave. And the sheriff's office constantly delayed the civil service hearing like several months. Finally, my lawyer got it to a point where like we're going to have the civil service hearing. We are going before them and we are going to, they're going to hear us hear what we have to say. and they're going to make a decision as to whether or not

you actually did anything wrong. Right. I like the delay practice is just to try and wear you down, wear you down, wear you down. Yeah. And so about a, I think it was about a week

before the civil service hearing. My lawyer calls and says, hey, the undersheriff wants to meet with us to, as he put it, potentially resolve this issue. And I'm like, I don't think so.

I think I've had enough. I'd rather just do the civil service hearing. So he calls me back and says, let's go meet with him. And again, we can at least say we did everything we could to try and resolve this in a peaceful matter before it went to litigation. I was like, okay, so I go down to the sheriff's office. I go into his office and with my lawyers. His lawyers, one of the city lawyers, is sitting there taking notes in the corner. And it was pretty clear from the beginning of the meeting that the under sheriff had no interest in resolving this.

basically was trying to force me to take a, they were trying to get me to take a deal instead of firing me. They wanted me to take a deal where I would agree to a suspension in exchange for agreeing to say that I misuse my leave and I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that because I didn't misuse my leave.

So the sheriff just started making all these off, the undersheriff just started making all these off the wall you know, accusations. Oh, you could have still gone to work that day. I'm like, no, you can't. When you have orders you are obligated to those orders right and it got to the point where i just wouldn't agree with

him he ended up like all of this is over one fucking day it boiled down to one day in fact even when the criminal case was that that you were set up you were set up i was set up you were set up to hey do this do this put in for the put in for a vacation day we deny the vacation day and now he's now he's yeah like i i didn't even realize all these other days were in play until the arrested happened and we found out during this time also when my lawyer got a hold of the original case, this lieutenant who had done this to me had been setting this up for a while. She had included photos off my Facebook page of when I was on vacation with my friends and family when I wasn't even on military leave just to try and fluff up the complaint to make it seem more appealing. I wonder, you know, so in the,

like the correctional officers at like Coleman, right? Which is where I was. Like they'll get get bonuses if they catch inmates with you catch an inmate with a cell phone you'll get like a $400 bonus catch an inmate with you know this much you know whatever drugs you'll get this much like you know certain contraband gets them give have an incentive like I wonder if she had an incentive to you know what I'm saying does that make sense like to I honestly don't think so because she was already in the drop for retirement like she was scheduled to retire within the next couple years. Well, still, if it's an extra 800 bucks,

I don't think we had any kind of financial. And plus, even if there was, I don't think she would have gotten that bonus. It would have been the detectives who had secured a conviction on me or something like that. Okay. Well, I mean, so she's just an asshole. Pretty much.

Okay. And like I said, she's done this to other people I work with, not to this extreme level, but I don't know what her issue was, but she had a huge problem with a lot of people that worked there. I don't know why. I always came to work. I tried to be, you know, every job I've had, I've always tried to be professional, courteous.

I come to work. I do my job. I'm not there to make statements or anything. I'm there to do my job, make my money, go home and live my life. That's what I was there for. To me, it was a way of surviving, making money to live. Yeah. And hopefully have an early retirement.

Right. That's all I was there for. Nothing else. But, um... So he makes the offer. Yeah, he, and I tell him no. He ends up throwing me out of his office. he just basically looks at me and I'm just like shaking my head through this whole thing.

He says, get out of my office, Officer Murray. I'm like, I'm like gladly. So I get up. I walk out. My lawyer, you know, my lawyers are like, yeah, that didn't go the way we were hoping either. So, you know, time kept creeping closer to the civil service hearing. Within a couple days, they offered to give me my back pay, which was around $10,000, saying, we're prepared to offer this if he'll resolve the civil service.

And I said, okay, so they're going to drop the disciplinary allegations and let me have my money. They're like, no, no, you still have to plead guilty. I'm like, no. So then, like literally about two days before, I start getting phone calls on my phone from the JSO switchboard. And per my lawyer, I didn't answer them, didn't acknowledge them. And they said, yeah, we're not getting calls from anybody from JSO. I don't know why they're calling you.

Apparently they were trying to get me to come back to work. within the last day or two before the civil service hearing and then um but they didn't leave messages voicemails or email they did leave a couple but yeah one of them was saying yeah we're trying to coordinate this so i called my lawyer and he's like uh yeah they shouldn't be doing that because they even said prior to this happening like i wouldn't be eligible to return to work until after the hearing the hearing so i even got a certified mail letter the day after they were expecting me to return to work. Like, the day I got it was the day after they wanted me to come back into work.

And then my lawyer's trying to use the excuse me, their lawyer was using the excuse to my lawyer saying, well, if he doesn't show up for work, he's abandoning his job and he's not eligible to have the hearing. I'm like, they're like, no, he can still have the hearing, and we're still going to have the hearing. And then people started showing up at my house. I was not around one day. My wife was in the house and a gentleman pulled up in our driveway, driving a white unmarked

police car, as my neighbor described it, wearing a polo shirt with our sheriff's office logo on the breast pocket, came to our door and started kicking and banging on our door. My wife was scared enough to where she actually armed herself. Like she didn't know who this person was. She thought they were trying to break in the house. My neighbor was standing on the other side of the fence. apparently he looked over at my neighbor and when he saw my neighbor he left um but you know we were still determined to have this hearing like it was going to happen and then literally the night before

the hearing i think it was my lawyer says okay they're willing to give you the money and drop everything if you're just willing to walk away and resign which is probably what i was going to end up doing anyway so we got the end result we wanted so if you went to a hearing all the hearing would have done was just embarrassed them and come up with you would have gotten the same result exactly so yeah um but yeah and um all this was at the direction like one of the letters i got it said per under sheriff and had this guy's name so he was directing all this harassment all these phone calls knowing that i had lawyers just um to try and scare me into um i guess not showing up or something like that i don't know what his exact intent was but that's what i perceived it as

so have you filed a lawsuit against the yep we um we did end up it took a while file, but we did end up filing a lawsuit. They just settled it out of court when it came to time. They drug it out for a very long time. Since then, a lot's happened since then. I finally did finish the training. The following year, I was able to finish my Intel training. I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2017. Unfortunately, I had to go through a divorce. After all that was done, we filed the lawsuit. That was around 2018, and we just finally got it resolved in the last years later? Yeah.

Well, two years, well, yeah, no, it was three years later. Was it three? Yeah. Actually, no, it's more like four years. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, from what I understand, my lawyers just, like, they just drug it out. They just refused to, it finally got to the point where we were able to depose people.

And at that point, I guess they agreed to just settle it out of court. Yeah, once they start to see how bad they're going to look in front of a jury. Okay. Yeah, but you can't say how much the lawsuit was settled. Yeah, there's a gag order on the, on the actual amendment. out. Yep. Yeah, I know. I've signed one of those. Um, so, uh, so what are you doing now? Well, on July 18th, get excited. This is big for the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only

theaters July 18th. Now I'm, uh, I'm working as a, um, I'm working as a contractor for the government doing various intel works. Oh, that's right, that's right. We talked about that, too. Yeah, pertinent to my skills in the Army. Yeah, yeah, okay. So, yeah, it's, I mean, I am doing something productive, but, yeah, fortunately, like I said, the biggest ally I think I had in this whole thing was the Army.

The Army stood shoulder to shoulder with me. They, you know, I mean, the people in my unit were, you know, they're very old school. Like, no man left behind. They were not going to let me get trampled over this whole thing. So has the, has the, like as a like you still live in in that county right uh jacksonville and jacksville oh you moved no i've oh no i live in nassau county um florida okay and um i worked in jacksonville which is duval okay so what i'm saying is it's no they have nobody's contacted you driven by your house

no more intimidation nothing like that i don't think so no not that i'm aware of um my neighbors are after that whole thing too um i still have the same neighbors and they are constantly looking out I've been keeping them up to date, and yeah, my neighbors have been watching my house, especially when the lost seat part started getting a little more hot because we were worried that they were going to try to do it again. Right. But, yeah, and I mean, it's just real sad. I don't get this because, and this was not the first time they had messed with me for being in the military

prior to this whole thing starting either. I just really don't understand how a sheriff's department can go through so much trouble to make life miserable for a service member who works for them. Right. Well, you know, it's it's it's funny like it you know in the in the Bureau of Prisons you know they for some reason a lot of those jobs they they attract just like mentally disturbed people like I mean you're in a position where you're in charge of other people you know so and you're in a position where very seldomly you're questioned you know so I would get a lot we would get a lot of these guys some of the CEOs they just want to come I'm here to get I'm here to get a paycheck like don't do. anything in front of me don't get in any fights you know they go through the motions they just want to pick up their paycheck and leave and just you know you guys follow the rules don't or if you're going to break them but don't do it in front of me like don't do don't be stupid yeah

don't harm each other let me go um and then you have the COs that make it their their they make it their mission to make all the inmates miserable and the problem is what i've after talking to other COs, those same COs tend to make the other COs miserable. It's like it's their goal to try and make everybody as unhappy as possible. I can definitely relate to that. So everybody thinks, oh, well, it's just, you know, it's just us, no, no, the other COs hate this guy too. Yeah.

So I, you know, I think that maybe that, I don't know what's with that, that woman. I don't know what her deal was. But you would think that somewhere down the line, someone would have said, hey, wait a second. Well, it sounds like a few people did. Like, the state attorney is like, I'm not doing this. Multiple people did, but a few people in the direct line, like the detective should have, or the internal affairs guy should have kind of looked at it and said, listen, honestly, what are we doing here?

Well, now that you mentioned that, when I did this whole thing started and I called the union to tell them what's going on, they even said, did this lieutenant start this? And I said, yep. And they're like, oh, God, not again. So, I mean, they were already very familiar. And another thing is, too, it's my understanding. This facility I was working at, I started working at the county prison, the Montgomery Correction Center.

I was working downtown at the jail for a while because there was another incident where another supervisor who was working with her when this whole thing started, coincidentally, was trying to mess with my military leave. And then I came back to work at the farm. She had been transferred out there against her will. So she had been moved from the main jail out to the work farm. for whatever reason she's retired now though to my understanding yes when this whole thing started she was already in the we call it the drop in the plan to be retired so i like i said yeah

i don't know what her problem with me was um there were a couple times i had to go over her head on certain things using utilizing chain of command to get resolution to some other issues i don't know maybe she had she had it in for me for that but i mean yeah i don't know what her problem was but like I said it was not just me she had done this to other people and had um you know not to this extreme level but like just set other other officers up to be investigated and put in a position where they could be found guilty of something that they didn't do you know for just doing their job I mean and it is sad because um I've discussed this with other people there are a lot of very unhappy people in that line of work and you know i i don't know why they do it if

it makes you that unhappy well i mean well first of all in in the best of circumstances it's just kind of a shitty job you know like who do you the inmates are you know you're around a bunch of violent inmates you're around guys that are in the worst part of their life you're you're around a bunch of people you're trying to you're trying to kind of corral individuals that don't follow the rules You know, it's like, you know, trying to herd cats. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're just, they just don't listen. They don't.

And, you know, when I was locked up, like, the prison would try and give us privileges, and the inmates would immediately ruin those privileges. Like, they would immediately push the envelope, and then they get taken away. And then all the other inmates would hate the staff for taking this away. And it was like, yeah, but you understand it was pretty simple. Like, all you had to do is this and this and you got this. But these guys fucked it up. like everything that gets taken away tends to be the part or the problem with the uh problem with the inmates right so you get to a point where it's like

the staff even if they're even if they're trying to do something for you the inmates ruin it and the inmates hate the staff and then the staff ends up hating the inmates and then it's just it's just such a miserable fucking environment yeah it can be i i can relate to that very much so um yeah i uh i was gonna say uh it's it's yeah it's it's it's it's a horrible situation in general and I'm sure and it's even worse in the county jail because county jails are horrible yeah I've never worked at the prison level other than this county prison which is still a detachment of the county facility but um yeah I've heard worse things about the state because the inmates there are there a lot longer some of them are doing 20 years to life and they have nothing to lose they don't care um you know it's funny because in the state prison system you have a lot lot of interaction with the guards they're there they're there all the time right right in the federal

prison system it's set up in a way that i could go months without ever talking to a ceo like or or even you might see a few of them throughout the day but not even really you're just in a herd of guys going into the chow hall and maybe there's one or two ceos in there they're not paying attention to you it's more like a self-led type program absolutely you you then you come back if you just kind of follow the rules. You go in the unit. They close the doors. They lock the doors. 30 minutes later, they call, you know, wreck move or whatever. The door is open for 10 minutes. You go to the wreckyard. You hang out the recard for three hours. Then when they call, you know, recall, the door's open. You go back to the unit. Like the doors closed. You go to your cell. You wait to be

counted. The guard walks around. And that's it. 20 minutes later, they call chow. You go to chow. Like all of this is happening. And there's a CEO maybe over there. Maybe he's in the office. maybe oh yeah there he is you know but he's 45 feet away he's there's 180 guys and he's he's playing on his phone or on the computer or not even paying attention to you so but the state it's like the COs are there all the time they're always around they're always because the state inmates are you know they're much more violent much more um that you they have to have more interaction with them because they have to constantly keep them they're constant fights they're constant like you get a worse inmate in state prisons so yeah it's it's uh but in the county county's

horrible well another aspect of county we have to deal with this too there are a lot of people in the county jail that are not guilty they're they've been arrested right and they're most of them are pre-trial or they're arrested for something minor so you've got a guy with the DUI who was arrested who's in the same unit as a guy who's on trial for killing three people yeah and it's like you this guy's this guy becomes a victim yeah he's not prepared for that well that's the thing you know it like once they've been there a while they do both the both the departments i've worked for they do try to separate kind of separate inmates by the severity of their crimes and whatnot um but yeah when they first come in um there's like this general like you i guess you

would maybe call it a triage area where they all it's like a general holding area where they all go in there they're in this and it's usually an open like a bullpen type situation they're like and like you said you got a guy in there for DUI or maybe CDV or possession of a small amount of cannabis or something and he's in there with a guy who just um you know is like a ted bundy 2.0 or something like that you don't know um you know you don't know who's in there and none of these people have been really vetted as far as their mental health their um their physical health or anything like that so it's there's a lot a lot of varying factors there i was just going to say I have a buddy who's uh who was uh locked up for fraud and so he's there for a fraud for

depositing a government stimulus check into his bank out. And it was a fake check. Oh, dear. And they grab him and he ends up getting, goes into jail. Well, he's in there with a guy that's on trial right now for murdering his girlfriend. And the guy tried, had already gone to prison for like five or six years for murdering his girlfriend 10 years ago. So he went to jail for five or six years, got out, started dating another girl, murdered her.

And my buddy's in there with him. He's there for fraud. like he's totally nonviolent he's like this guy's killing people you know or trying to kill people and did kill this one woman he's like and he's on my work detail like we pass out sandwiches you know yeah i mean he's like he's like i'm not prepared to be around this guy he's a maniac well the whole thing is too it's like you know with the whole equal rights thing you're supposed to treat each person the same but at the same time it's you just can't always do that because like you said this guy's already been to prison for trying to kill this he killed he stabbed his up

his last girlfriend, he stabbed her like 30 times and tried to kill her. Like, this is clearly you're guilty. And then you just stabbed another girlfriend. Like you can't say, well, it needs to be equal. What are you talking about? He's already been to prison. Like I love, I get the whole in the justice system. It does bother me that someone will go to jail and they'll do five years and they get out.

And to me, it's like, okay, I get the whole. You paid your debt to society and that people should give you a second chance. also understand that, you know, like the truth is you, they just, a lot of guys go into prison and they get out way worse, way worse than when they went in. It's like a gladiator camp type thing, you know, and where they, yeah, it just gets some more beefed up and they get into a gang or something. Like, I want to give you a chance, but you were a bad apple before you went into prison and now you went to a state prison with really bad apples.

you didn't get out more well-rounded. Like you're probably a menace now. Yeah, it's so funny because when I worked for Charleston County back in the, oh gosh, that was like 18 years ago when I started working for them, I still have some friends that work there. And they tell me like, yeah, these kids that came through as juveniles are still coming in and out of the jail. They're going to prison for a couple years at the time for doing the same stuff.

Prisons only making them harder and harder. And like they're just learning more ways on how to beat the system. not be in prison as long. And listen, the fraud, like I used to say, I feel like I went into prison with like a GED in fraud. And I got out with like a master's degree. Because now you're actually connecting with other people and learning way more.

Like the issue I may have had like in my fraud, this guy has a way around that. He had an issue which was easy for me to overcome. So you end up comparing notes and going, wow, I never thought about that. Like, yeah, you're right. that would be a, God, I can't believe. And next thing you know, like, you get out and you've got way more information.

You're way more dangerous. Like, if I wanted to commit fraud now, like, I'm way more lethal than I ever was before. You can only imagine these guys that are selling drugs or doing, God knows what. Yeah. It just blows my mind, though. Like, you know, when I go, you know, and, you know, that's another thing. Like, I, when I went to work in corrections, both departments, I knew that, like, you're going to be dealing with criminals. Yeah, yeah.

Not all of them are guilty, but you know, you're going to be dealing with a large amount of criminals. You're going to be dealing with people who may not be considered the, I guess you might want to say, the top echelon of society, if that's a fair statement. I mean, you're going to be dealing with basically scumbags. Most of them are just scumbags. I mean, that would be like me sitting here saying, you know, I'm really a nice guy. No, I was a scumbag. I was doing scumbag things. Like, I'm like, you know, like, I mean, there are great aspects of people.

You know, I've met some of the best people I've ever, I've ever met in prison. But it's like, you know, like, I love this guy, but I wouldn't let him invest my pension, you know? Like, this guy's a, he's running a Ponzi scheme. He's a nice guy for this. Yeah, and that's the thing. Like, while I was working in corrections, I did meet some inmates who, like, I could honestly say if we, he wasn't in jail and I didn't work there. If we'd met at a bar, we could sit down, have a beer, have a nice conversation and talk about motorcycles, cars, trucks, some other hobby. But yeah, I wouldn't trust him to.

like you said, I wouldn't trust him with my value assess or anything like that. Right. But, you know, the sad thing is, though, is it's like you go working in a jail or a prison, you expect to deal with certain behavior from the inmates. I never thought in my wildest dreams I would ever have to deal with something like this from the very sheriff's department I worked for

and the very immediate chain of command who was supposed to be watching my back. Yeah, but see, I agree, I understand. But at Coleman, the guards, the COs were fight, were getting to fist fight with each other in the parking lot. Like they'd get into an argument and they would suddenly be like, you know, hey, bro, I get off at five. I'll meet you in the fucking parking lot. And they'd go out and they'd actually get into a fist fight in the parking lot. Yeah, I've heard of that.

They'd actually have arguments. Like you have somebody who runs the compound, right? He's a compound officer. Everything that deals with the compound, the moves, everything he's in charge of. and you would have the gar the COs would argue over the PA system like one CEO would say compound closed compound closed and then another one would come out and say compound's open five uh you know five at four o'clock of compound will be closed compound's open and then the other guy would come back and he'd say no compound's closed compound is closed this is sergeant so it compounds and then they start and then they would say you know they start arguing like you know recus over open rec is a come to the wreck move and it's like what are you guys doing like you guys inmates like yeah it's um it's like what do you i mean can you guys make a phone call and say hey bro what are you yeah that's that's the thing and like anytime i ever you know like um my big thing is you know that

that that that is one nice thing about being in the reserves is you know i've been a nCO or not commissioned officer in the army since um golly when did i get it about 2011 it was while i was working for jSO um one thing is i've always learned is with that is it's your first duty is to be professional. Yeah. So I've always taken that to every job I've had, no matter what it is. You know, I try to be professional. I try to treat people how I'd expect to be treated at work. We're all adults here. You know, we're here to get the job done. Let's find a way to make it work. Right. And, you know, go home at the end of the day, you know, without hating each other.

Unfortunately, there's just a lot of people not only in that line of work, but in general that just don't have that mentality. It's like they have to be right. They have to be in control. You know, You get a lot of, you know, being in the military, too. That was something I learned in basic training. You know, you got people coming from all over the different parts of the country from all walks of life. You're dealing with very different personalities. And, you know, you just have to learn to get along with people. And that's part of basic training.

And that is one of the things where I guess a lot of law enforcement agencies do like to hire vets because they've been through that. They know how. But then the problem is you get the people who have never been. in the military don't know how it works right and then they create problems um like i went through so it's and what's funny too is look at the amount of resources that was that was expended the amount of time resources you know all everything that happened as a result of one woman setting you up to end up looking like you were taking a day off on your vacation day yeah you took a vacation day where that had been denied i did what i did what i was told to do um i'd been doing

what I was told to do, I did the right thing to do from the whole situation. I did everything I was supposed to do. The Army's confirmed, you know, that's the beautiful thing. Every person I talked to said, you did the right thing. And then it cost them a lawsuit. You know, then you end up having a lot, like I guarantee that lawsuit was more than the one day. Oh, yeah. More than the $245 that it cost them for that one day of you being missing. Well, not to mention the legal fees they had to spend for four years. From what I understand, they've had to make massive policy revisions over this whole thing. So I was actually told that by someone, too, one of the union representatives. Again, one of the union reps who actually, this is another person who

originally told me I did nothing wrong. And then when the IA thing was going on, he's the one that called me to try to get me to take a deal. And I'm like, yeah, you told me a year and a half ago, I did nothing wrong. And then once I called him out on it, he started back paddling. And at the end of the conversation, you know, he says, I've been working for the sheriff's office for something like 20, 30 years. I have never seen somebody fight back against him this hard. And he actually said, I appreciate what you're doing because you're going to make life easier for the next person I think about doing this too. So it sucks for me. But, you know, that's one thing. That is probably the biggest takeaway from a positive aspect is I made them think twice before they do this to somebody

else like maybe they'll actually get up off their desk chairs do their jobs right and go do an investigation what they're getting paid to do before they go out and try to ruin somebody's life right you know because i mean that's how i feel they tried to ruin my life they didn't just want my job with jSO they were trying to strip my clearance my military career the whole nine yards they were trying to make it to where i would have ended up probably um you know been mopping toilets for the rest of my life you know if they'd had their way you know it's sad but i mean and these are people i worked with. These are people who I went to work where I expected to watch my back and, you know, look out for me. Because, you know, because I always tried to look out for, you know, if I saw one of

my officers was having a problem, one of my colleagues, I'd always try to do whatever I could to help them. And I thought, you know, it's sad, you know, you think that way, but you, you do for one, they don't do for you type thing. Right. It's really sad. You have to work in that kind of environment, but yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, coming out of it, though, I mean, after this going on for eight years it's just it's just like unbelievable i'm here yeah the whole thing was over eight years the um well if you count the time of investigation it was probably longer than that because the like i said the investigation went on for four months prior to this actually my false arrest happening and then we just literally resolved it within the last month the lawsuit part so i mean it went on for a long

time um you know like i said i'm just thank i'm this i'm thankful to god that um i had a good support system through the military, my family, my friends, people that, you know, people, I really found out who my friends were through that whole thing. You know, when I was, you know, that got old country song, you find out. Chips are down. Yeah, that's absolutely. Yeah, when you, you find out who your friends really are when that happens. And I did. I had a lot of people that were coming to my aid, you know, offering to help me, you know, helping me get odd jobs and stuff, just stuff to do in the meantime. So I could keep, like I said, keep the money coming in. but yeah it was an unbelievable stressful environment you know for not only for me but for my ex-wife

who I was married to at the time we just both were like we had no idea what's going to happen next it's just not something you ever expect to have to go into you know like I said when you go to work for a sheriff's office and agree to work for them and like I said they knew I was in the reserves and unfortunately like I said earlier this was not the first time they had tried I don't know what it is with that sheriff's office but this was not the first time they had mess with me from my military leave. I had a sergeant who was involved with his case, who was involved in the whole setup. He actually was trying to keep me on probation for taking military leave, which is strictly against federal law. That's why I ended up actually having to be moved

down to the jail from the farm for a while because, you know, they were trying to get me to sign papers to basically relinquish the rights to my military leave so they could keep me on probation longer. And I'm like, you can't do this. Yeah, but yeah, I don't get it. I don't understand what the problem is there. Because like I said, when I work for Charleston County, I never had problems in my military leave. Never. You know, and I had similar situations where I was in the guard.

We get called up. We weren't actually at the armory, but we had orders. And they're like, yeah, you're fine. You have orders. You're good. Take your time. We'll see you when you get back. But I do not know what the problem with this particular sheriff's department was.

I don't know why they did this to people and why. and why they went through so much trouble to try and screw someone over for just trying to serve their country. Right. Well, I mean, it sounds like, like, hopefully it's fixed and sounds like that woman retired and... I hope so. You know? But, listen, I, unless you have something else, I appreciate you coming by. No, I appreciate you letting me being, you know, giving me the opportunity because, like I said, this is, this whole thing has been one-sided, as far as the story that's been put out. Right. And this is, you know, it's just such a relief. You have no idea.

I'm like actually just very excited that I'm finally getting able to tell my side of the story, which is the truth of the matter on a public forum. It's finally nice to actually get it out. And people, when they look up my name now, they're not just going to see those nasty headlines. Right. That I did this or did that and they're going to know the truth. And, you know, there's verifiable proof of that now. So hopefully, like I said, hopefully I made life better for the next person.

It's been a real experience. and you know um but it's made me um it's made me wiser in a lot of ways um it's made me really um i you know i made me question judgment a lot more with from people sometimes but i mean i try to take something positive away from every negative experience so um hopefully more good came out of it than bad in the end hey i appreciate you guys watching the video if you like the video do me a favor and subscribe to the channel hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this comment in the comment section tell me if you like the topic and if you like me see me do other videos like this also um i have a patreon i'm sure you saw the patreon commercial during the

podcast my patreon is in the description and uh what else i got an etzy account for cox pop art so if you're interested in buying a painting or anything else check out etzy and i appreciate it and thank you very much and i will see you Thank you.