Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - How I Made Millions as a Celebrity Dealer

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

How I Made Millions as a Celebrity Dealer

I got to live a pretty good life, smoke with Woody Harrison. Charlie Sheen, we got a whole bunch of people to come out. We found a doctor willing to sign and licenses to grow before it became legal. That's how I got Woody's attention because the I was getting. People hadn't seen since high school. It was probably a million and a half in business every year. Born in New Jersey, raised in upstate New York. I was one of those kids, like I was a skinny little kid.

I got bullied a lot. My dad taught me how to box and how to fight. So I got into school and I got in a lot of trouble because I wasn't afraid to stand up to people. He was one of those type if, you know, he'd try to go talk to the parent. And if the parent wasn't reasonable, then he'd say, your son and my son are going to fight one-on-one and mutual combat right there, you know. So I started to get in a little bit of trouble. my dad went to jail. He was prison in and out. What ended up happening was for me, I just started running the streets. And so I ended up going to like a reform school. And I was 13 until I was 14 and a half. And it was like a camp. It was out in the middle of the mountains in New York. Most of the kids that were there were from like big cities, like New York City, like from all the boroughs. These were, you know, Pretty bad kids.

And me, I was just a kid, you know, getting in little troubles, you know. I was a lookout for a lot of guys and started to see, like, how other people lived. I had this first time I had to live with all these other different cultures, you know, a lot of black, a lot of Puerto Rican, things like that. You know, it was another kid who was Italian in there, and that was about it. Their big thing was corporal punishment. They could put their hands on you, you know, grab you, throw you up against the wall. Right. Make you do like a thousand push-ups, things like that.

We ran calisthenics. It was just like being in the military. I remember we had these old wooden bunk beds like military style. They're really heavy type of wood. It's some sort of hardwood. And I had to reach back behind my back and grab it. And my bunkmate had to grab the other one. And we'd have to walk three feet, set it down, go back two feet, set it down, and repeatedly.

So it got us in really good shade. weren't allowed to fight or anything like that, but they let us box here and there and stuff. And then when I was in there, you know, these guys showed me a lot of their hustles and kind of the things that got them in there. But for some reason, the staff there had me doing little side things and they'd give me a break from the exercise and stuff like that. Let me go read books and things like that. But I noticed they were kind of corrupt too. Like they'd send me in to do snacks and do the cooking and they keep me in the kitchen and doing laundry and this went on for like a few weeks and then one day the guy comes back with another guy and he says here this is the

keys to my car I need five boxes of these burgers and I need these buns and they're basically just stealing from the place to go to take to a tailgate kind of game and stuff like that it was just say they they busted the guy one of the guys that ran the kitchen and one of the federal prisons he'd opened up like a restaurant and he was ordering stuff for his restaurant you know and he'd get it like you've ordered so much of this so much this and those five boxes are going to the restaurant and those two of both boxes are going to the restaurant and this went on for like 10 years or something jolly's visually caught oh yeah well you know they people don't realize how much latitude they have. You know, they're ordering, they're given a budget and they work off the budget

if they can, you know, if they can, you know, slide some to the side. But typically the problem is they do that by not providing enough for, you know, the inmates. Oh, yeah. How old were you at this point? So I was like 13 and a half. And so yeah, I was cooking breakfast. I was cooking lunch, things like that, and I got pretty good at it. I remember a couple of the guys they come in, and I guess they got a bill for their meals if they ate there. So I made a bunch of food, and it went out the side door for the staff and things like that. And then when I got back to New York and I was going to middle school,

I was in eighth grade, and we were in gym class, and he said he wanted us to do like four or five push-ups. And I kind of laughed. And he goes, hey, Sondon, he goes, you think you could do that? And I laughed. I go, yeah, I could do a lot more than that. And I wasn't trying to be facetious or anything. I just was like, I didn't think 100 push-ups was a lot, really, at that point.

That was in pretty good shape. So I busted him on. He said, you're making me feel old and tired. And so I was always an energetic kid. And then a lot of kids moved to our city from New York. and from Rochester and some of the big cities and I had made connections

when I was at this place so when these guys moved to town I started to hang out with more big city kids kids with different things going on and that's when I got into just selling pod

and I was hosting a lot of parties this is after you got out so yeah after I got out yeah so I was hosting parties I was going on road trips with my friends we just go take cars for jewelry rides and stuff like that you know how old were you at this point 14 14 yeah yeah i actually ran into a friend at uh at saint augustine i grew up uh with his older brother and he's reminded me here i am at work you know because yeah i remember your

you and my brother took that card you went on that joy ride yeah we kind of got caught but the cops thought it was more punitive, I guess, to let our parents deal with us than them to deal with us. So they had a meeting at my house and most of my friend's parents are divorced and they're with their partner and the other parent is there with their partners. They didn't want to be there and then they just really reamed us out and stuff. So I started to straighten myself out, you know, but just got myself together, you know. I got, I had to go to one of those skills. straight programs right when I got back and that was at elmire correctional institute that's the prison in my town that's what that's

why everybody would move there from New York and Rochester and all that and we started to have a rising crime and things like that because they would their family would be so far away from them at the prison doing such a long term that it was just easier to move people to our town industry left we used to have a lot of really big industry there we had built fire engines and fire apparatus and then all that went away and our town kind of got like depressed and property values went down yeah i was going to say at coleman there are our inmates that you know they get moved to coleman and their family will move to the the city or to uh you know one of the

nearby towns because they know this guy's going to be here for like you know your wife moved there she's he's going to be here for five years so i'm going to be visiting every week or two might as well just move you know but that's usually the guys that have money but yeah when you go these distressed towns or these other places where do these people find jobs or opportunities when they get there you know i was going to say sometimes you're sometimes they already have money because of whatever the crime is the person is in there for or they you know they they live in you know they're you're thinking you're thinking more state level well yeah i federal level i guess they're more well no no i'm saying state level too because think about it if you're a state like how hard is it if how hard is it

to go find a job making 20 bucks an hour it's not that hard right basically go anywhere in the u.s and find a job making 20 dollars an hour or at least close 18 right one even if it's 18 it's got in a depressed area you're rents not that that much you know if your boyfriend or husband or son is used to dealing drugs and you live in a lower you know lower middle class area you area, then you can easily get up and move to Alabama next to the prison and get a job at one of those places and get the same kind of, live in the same kind of, you know, situation you just move from. And then he moves again two years later. You move to that little town because it's another one. They don't put these prisons in really upper class nice areas. They're pretty low, you know.

Yeah, that's true, I guess. So, you know, you can do that. And then the guys in the, in the federal system that do it typically are guys that they own five businesses they cheated on their taxes and i don't mean cheated like i made a mistake like blatantly just right you know there's two hundred thousand dollars it's eight hundred thousand dollars i law i i sent off to this account that cayman islands and said it didn't exist like you're done bro you're going to do some you you're going to do some time so but they can afford they've also got they're also multi-millionaire so they can they can afford to up their their family have a move across the country and buy a little house in this area.

Their wife doesn't work anyway. Oh, yeah. So that happens. There are those circumstances. Yeah, that's fantastic. So sometimes it happens. Sometimes people are just traveling. Yeah.

You've got to come see me every month or every other month. And, you know. Right. So I've definitely seen some guys, people's families, you know, up and move and buy houses and sell their houses and everything. Oh, okay. But in the state level, I could see how suddenly you get this criminal element that moves into your town to visit their.

relatives and the next thing, you know, you know, they're pulling over trucks, they're robbing trucks, they're breaking into houses, they're selling drugs, they're making, you know, they're setting up labs, grow houses. All that stuff going on back where I grew up. Yeah, I went back and it was unrecognizable. I, you know, I remember I was walking across the bridge and this other girl was walking across the bridge. So I was like, how you doing? And I said, I haven't been in this town in like 20 years i moved away i said where's there to go like is there any places any museums anything going on she's like no just a lot of drugs and then proceeded to tell me about her addiction and all her friends and everything like that and i'm like i got to get the hell out of here

spent like a day there and that was it you know used to be a nice place you know mountains you know the mountains aren't there anymore no yeah i mean yeah but now they're being stripped and everything like that for pasture land and stuff like that. It just, I mean, even nature doesn't look as beautiful anymore there, you know. So that was unfortunate, but. So what happened? Did you end up graduating high school? So I graduated. Yeah, I graduated. And then I went, I went out to Indiana. I'm going to, uh, why just to go to college there, just to get away. And so I, I wanted to get far away from New York as I could. You know, I just wanted to maybe live in a small town and just, you know, just to have a normal life, you know. I was looking for a degree in like education,

political science, you know, so I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. And then I started doing home health care and I started taking care of older people. And there were some people connected out of Chicago, the Italian family that hired me to come take care of the mother. And, yeah, when the guy called, he was a bookmaker, I thought I was just going there, you know, to meet him.

Maybe, wow, there's some business opportunity how to hear about me, but actually they got my name off a list. So I started working there, and then a couple family members and I became close, and I started to get, you know, better deals on a pot. I started to smoke it. It was helping me

relax, you know, and that. And then when I'm doing the home health care, I noticed I was taking care of some patients that used it. So they were telling everybody in the rehab hospital, hey, there's this guy Eddie, he works for this agency, and he's cool. He'll get you weed. He'll make sure you get your medical dose. These guys are paralyzed from like the neckdown. So I wasn't really that worried that, you know, I was going to get prosecuted, you know, on a big level or something. I bring these guys in as my witness, you know, and I get a sympathetic jury if I needed to.

So I started to do that, and it started to spread. Like I started to go to the other pop marches, like the hash bash up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. So wait a second. So you're selling weed to people in the nursing homes? No, these are people that lived in their own homes. oh okay so what happened was people that just needed home health care workers to come in just to make sure everything's okay make sure they're taking the medication absolutely okay make sure they have their breakfast sorry i was gonna say they're not in the nursing home not at all so these guys are like

40 45 you know at that time these guys had graduated in 75 76 so um so they're like old hippies and stuff yeah basically and they they had um um they're like wow okay you know, I'm going to be in this situation they're paralyzed. One guy was a diving accident. It was actually like his graduation night from high school. He's like six foot five and he dove into a pool. Another guy diving

off a boat, you know, when he was all high on whatever, and that's how he got injured. So there's spinal cord injury guys mostly, but what happens, they were at the rehab hospital telling people, well, this agency I worked for was struggling. They were, so by

getting me to come in and take care this guy and get him as a client they were able to like stay afloat right but now all of a sudden people that don't even need the service but qualified they just want to have weed so they can wean themselves off of this other medicine and they could you know kind of have happier lives so um they start to call my agency and book me i don't really have to do anything but just show up okay you know and it was kind of crazy like the cable guy comes in to see this one guy i'm in his room smoke him up I leave this guy can't use his arms he has to you have to put like a pencil with an eraser right here right in his mouth and then he can kind of write with his head

so the cable guy comes in and he's like smells the place it smells totally like weed but this guy can't use his hands he's trying to figure out how the hell the place smells like weed you know and uh so i end up coming back and uh yeah then that guy ended up being a customer and it just started to build up to where I was getting calls from all over the Midwest. And for example, I got in Ohio. I started to buy a lot and sell it there. I went to a Thanksgiving dinner. I'm with my girlfriend.

We're on our way there. I run out of pot. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I forgot. We're five minutes from her house. Let's just go back and get my car and I'll drive. And I'll let you choose the music the whole way there. That was why she wanted to drive. So she says, no, finish what you got.

We're going about four hours away, out in the middle of nowhere. My family are all clean cut. You're not going to find any weed. So I'm going to see what a day of sobriety is like for you. I go use this medicinally, really? And she says, yeah. So, you know, she's not school graduates. It's a really cool chick, but, you know, we wasn't really her thing at that time.

So we get to the aunt and uncle's house, and it's everything she describes. So we're there. We're talking about California. And I said, yeah, I lived there for a little while at Southern California. And another guy says, yeah, I lived in Northern California. I go, oh, Humboldt. And he goes, ooh, Humboldt. That's where they grow some of the best pot. So he looks at me and I look at him. So I go to him. I go, hey, do you got a little bit? Man, I'll buy it from you. I just, you know, I didn't get it. He goes, actually, I bought an ounce. And my girlfriend is telling me that, you know, I shouldn't have spent. so much the holidays are coming up she wanted me to get rid of it so i go we can get rid of it to me so my girlfriend comes out of the house and here i am in her car with her brother in the backseat it's mexican guy in the passenger seat and me smoking up right and you and you showed up with nothing i showed up with nothing and so um i told her i said there's a power there you know you just got to manifest it and then i started working in radio too and then that really kind of boosted my sales too because i was me and a lot of people the djays were buying weed from me you know and

i'd come up and sit and sit on the air in the radio station and just hang out give shoutouts to my friends we'd order pizzas you know have the guys come up i had one guy he got we got him so high he left three pizza bags up there um at different occasions so i called the pizza place and said hey you know it's wesley working and they're like oh wesley doesn't work here anymore And I said, well, I got three of his pizza bags over at my house, and he left at the studio. And he goes, yeah, that's kind of why we had to fire Wesley. But they were, I guess, a few hundred bucks a piece, so then we ended up getting some things. But I got to go down to Jamaica with a radio station, and then, of course, that boosted business, too.

You know, I'm down there smoking, we're talking on the air, you know, and I'm meeting all these people from all over the place. Then I went to Milwaukee through a marijuana march there, and I met a bunch of people. I'd met some girl in Detroit. That's probably I should back up. How I kind of went from spreading across the Midwest. I met a girl from Detroit. She came down to pick some up from me, and we went up there. And I didn't realize the big three automakers.

They have all kinds of pull up there. Even the Kennedy Customs guy I talked to, he said that they don't police them when stuff comes across the border, they leave them alone because it's such a big business for both countries, stuff like that. So she worked for one of the big three automakers, and she got transferred to Milwaukee. So her mother wanted me to come out there and stay with her at her apartment for the first week, so people see a guy coming and going from the place. So now I'm up there and I'm dealing to all her friends and they're picking up a few pounds. I'm going to the hash bash in Ann Arbor, Michigan and meeting the guys some high times and that. So they're buying a bunch from me too because they can't travel with it. Where are you getting all this from?

Still the Italian guys? Some of the Italian guys, but a lot of them are getting it from like Kentucky and the Appalachians. There's guys that are down there growing fantastic by. outdoor that rivals the indoor stuff from like California in that so I was getting at a really cheap price like it was going for 350 for the high end from California from British Columbia and I was paying or I was I was selling it retail at 2 to 210 I was paying like $80 an ounce for it so I was getting it pretty cheap what was this so this would have been 96 okay yeah So then that starts happening.

And then, I guess, well, 96 is about when I first got into it. About 99, 2000 is when I made the jump and went into Milwaukee. And then as I would go to Milwaukee, I was doing the marijuana marches. I was meeting other people that did the marijuana marches and some of the activists from other cities. So those people were coming and buying from me. I joined like marijuana legalization groups like normal and that too. So I'd show up at those and then I'd end up selling to them. And I just basically wanted to make sure that sick people got it in the beginning.

And then the other people, friends and all that was sort of the supplement, you know, the reduced price I could give. to the medical patients. Right. So you're not really working at this point though, at this point you're? I'm just working like part-time restaurants, just like I was 10-year, like my uncle had told me one time, always let people see you working,

no matter what you got going on, let people see you work it. But is it also a good way to just meet people and get more customers? Yeah, yeah, that way too. And it was really nice, like say, for example, we had to saw, I had some close friends I had a Greek restaurant.

When the place was closed, I had a key. I could bring people in, turn on the lights, put out dinner for everybody, have a little private party, clean up and leave. You know what I mean? Drop the owner a few bucks for doing it, a bag of weed, you know, like that kind of thing. And then, but the thing with the weed is I started trading pounds

with one guy and he was giving me code. And then that's when everything sort of really took off for me, you know. Right. And I didn't know what I was in for, you know, when I got into that game. Because it's a vastly different clientele. Oh, yeah. Calling me all the time. Yeah, yeah, totally different clientele.

Totally different clientele. And when I got to Canada, it got crazier. I mean, I had circus people that would come and buy it from me. And I'm sitting in my... In Canada? Yeah, in Toronto. And I want to give anybody where I don't want to tell anybody. But I'm in my house.

There's about to be a big performance. It's like a cabaret show. You know, you got vaudeville, burlesque, all kinds of crazy stuff going on. Okay. And imagine all the freaks of art school, you know, and in the circus. and everything all combine music. And so we're in there, and I have these guys from these French guys. They're working for an Italian company, and I was told,

make sure if they need anything, and I mean anything, you take good care of them, and we'll take good care of you. So they wanted some high-quality cope. So I get it for them. I'm breaking it up on the table, and a couple guys walk in, and one of them was a clown. takes off his nose does a line of coke does another one puts his nose back on says all right see you later walks out the door and these guys are just like baffled you know like did we just

see what we fucking we saw and that i wasn't even trying to get back into the business but i sort of through that network got back into the coke when i thought i wasn't going to sell it anymore what happened was they were throwing some after after party and I'm there and some guy offered me some and I was like no I got a little bit at home I could get and he goes oh yeah and I go yeah it's not bad I'll go grab it I had this rushing girl that I used to see once in a while so I was kept some at the house in case she came by it really wasn't my thing I'm more of a piet and so I went over and I broke some up and the guy says holy shit and I said yeah I said do you I say you like it and he goes He goes, look, I got a music producer, and he's looking for some.

It's like, he wants to get a few ounces. You think you could make that happen? I said, I probably could make a phone call. I don't know. I've never asked for that much, but let's see. So the party goes on until about 7, 7.30 in the morning. So I call my buddy then, or I text him, and I say, hey, I need to talk to. He calls me like five minutes later.

And I ask him if he can get the three for me. He says, sure, no problem. So he brings it to my house. So around noon, I call these guys and say, hey, I got that. And they're like, whoa, you got it already. And I'm like, yeah, you told me you wanted it. I got it. He says, look, man, we didn't need it for a few weeks.

We were just kind of giving you a heads up. I go, well, this is a lot of money. I got to have my money roll and then making more money with my other projects. And so he goes, hold on. I'm going to call you back at 10 minutes. I got a solution. Guy ended up giving me like 20 customers. They took from the old guy because I guess this stuff wasn't that good.

And next thing, I'm back in the business again. And I'm dating a stripper, which didn't make it any better, you know, because then she's taking it to the club. I had the girls buying lots of weed and coming over to the house, you know. And since I was buying weed and some of I was getting from some biker guys in that, I would have, she had a stripper pole in the studio, which was awesome. So I get to watch her, you know, do her thing and swirl on up there and, you know, twirl. So this is a tough life.

Yeah, you know, I'm cooking dinner for everybody. They like the vegan food because it's giving them, you know, back, you know, some shape and that kind of thing, you know, some tone and that. My girlfriend went from like a size 9 to a size 3, you know, not drugs, just from that type of eating, you know. And I was told her I kind of own her image and likeness because of me, you know, I got her, you know, a little more hip and whatever. She wasn't a stripper when I met her, but I think she was on her way to doing it. She was studying sex work and legalization of prostitution and that working on a court case. So she's in school for a Ph.D. She's finishing her all that, her school.

This is her dissertation. She's working on her dissertation. So she's got all these books like cop to call girl, wisdom of horror. paying for it, you know, a John's perspective. Well, all these books, you know, I'm like, what the fuck? So we discovered that the lawyer who's representing all the legalization for marijuana cases, the one we're all calling, is the same lawyer that's handled in those cases. So when I would go to the, most of those girls were my customers.

They bought stuff from me. So when I would go to these things, the speeches and she'd have or the university, or get-togethers gatherings that the court case. I'd know a lot of who the girls were. I'd know them personally, that kind of thing. So what I would do is the guys I was get my weed from or my coke from, I'd have them come over to my house. And the girls were kind of a way to get them to hang around.

And she says, you got the money. Why do you keep paying them little by little and having them come on over three times a day? But see, what she didn't realize was that was my way and not paying for security. You know, I had these guys coming over to my house, collecting the money. I didn't have to pay for guys to protect me or anything like that. I always had guys around.

So if I had to have stuff at my house, because I did get home invaded one time. And a guy came in with a gun to rob me. And I had to fight the guy off. And actually, the guy was a lot bigger than me. And we found out who sent him. I don't know who the guy was who did it. But I got into his voicemail. I had a girl that I know act like she was interested in.

I'm a working girl. Go spend time with this guy and make him feel, you know, boost his ego a lot. So she figured out what his password was when he entered it. So I went in and I changed it. Since it was a burner phone, he couldn't call the phone company and get it reset. So we called pretty much everybody that left him messages that we could get a phone number. four and basically told him what he did and then ran him out of business yeah um okay so so where where does this go don't you you eventually go to canada so no so i'm in canada so i get to canada yeah

did i miss that did i miss that part oh i guess i guess i i was just i mean you said the circus people were i was drawn yeah i was drawing a parallel oh i guess and so i kind of got sidetracked So I moved there. I actually stayed there for almost 15 years. Yeah. Did you ever get arrested in Canada? So I did. I got one time, they got me, it was mistaken identity.

They were looking for some guy, I guess a guy from Italy, and they thought I looked like them, and they stopped me at a train station. And because I had some pot on me, and I was American. They seemed to not like Americans up there. They ran my name. and ended up having a DEA guy come in and interrogate me. And all he wanted to know was, am I bringing anything back and forth across the border?

Which I totally wasn't. I had nothing to do with any part of that, not seeds, not weed, not anything like that. And so I did run a little tour company where I took people to the pot cafes, to the pot church, you know, that kind of thing. What is it? It wasn't legal totally, but it was a grand. area of legality at that time. It's totally

legal now. It's been legal for I don't know five years or something like that. Federally legal. In Canada. In Canada. Okay. So yeah. Because what we were doing was well when I got arrested. So the DEA guys

come in, they're screaming and yelling at me. And I didn't even know they could legally operate outside of the, I mean U.S. like they, you know, I didn't know anything about that. I'm like, what the hell are they doing in Toronto? So The guy's yelling at me about an overturned drug charge. Well, I had gotten caught once in Indiana, and my lawyer got everything, like, what would you call it?

Like, I pled guilty, and then the charge got dismissed if I don't get in trouble within a couple years. So you go, if you complete probation, then... It wasn't probation even. Oh, okay. It was just two years, don't get in any trouble. Okay. And if you don't get in any trouble. And he wanted to know how I did that, how I could afford a lawyer, all that kind of stuff.

He's like, well, who are you working with, really just grilling me, you know? And then, so that ends. They take me to the jail, and this place, they tore it down. It's not even there anymore, called the Don Jail, and the place was really, really dangerous. But luckily, there was some guys in there that were customers of mine that recognized me, and I treated them really well. So they made sure nobody bothered me while I was in there and took care of me. But I had to spend 30 days in there. How much pot were you caught with?

And I wasn't caught with much. It was like a quarter ounce. But because I was American, they wanted to try to really, like, you know, nail me with it, you know? And I mean, here, I'm doing all this big business. They catch me with, like, peanuts. You know what I mean? But it, so I get out of there, or while I was in there, I guess, I just played cards and read books, you know, and just dealt with it, you know.

Do they extradite you or they just drop the charges or? Well, that ends up happening later. So life goes on for, well, I signed a promise, a paper promising to leave the country within like 90 days. Right. But I never left. I just kept doing what I was doing and just kind of put it behind me. Well, then I got caught the second time and the jail that they took me to was like a detention center before you go to the prison is right next door and people are begging to be sentenced. They, the conditions in this place, you're locked down two hours, you're out for two hours, you're locked in for two hours, you're locked out for two hours.

There were a bunch of guys there that were facing extradition to the U.S. because they're victims. Like we were talking about earlier, we're Americans. So they're coming to America. They've ever even been to the U.S. before and they're facing extradition. So there's a bunch of us in there.

For me, I guess I got lucky because my meal was vegan. It came in a brown, a light brown tray. It stood apart from all the others. and that's how the guys in the kitchen were smuggling and stuff onto our range. So in exchange, and then I had a vegan diet, so I got the protein powder. It was like almond milk or soy milk. And then I got peanut butter, the seal on them, which they only got like once a week. I got two every meal.

So the bodybuilders wanted those. So they, you know, they gave me other extra like veggie and stuff like that and made sure I was taking care of. I had a ton of fruit. I gave away a bunch of fruit when I left. So their basic thing was they made me go to immigration court, a tribunal, I guess, while I was there at the jail. So I'd have to go upstairs to like another floor. And they'd state their case.

Let me state my case. And then the other one decides my fate. And they kept just turning me down, turning me down, turning me down. So I'm like, look, I just want to go back. home to the US. So what they did is they took me to the border. Well, they, I had to finish out. The lawyer said to me, he said, do you want to plea and try to stay? And then maybe you might do a little time, but it'll be like a misdemeanor kind of thing. And then maybe we could find some way for you to be able to stay in Canada. And I said, well, I've already been in here for

30 days. I said, doesn't that count is time served? And he says, no, because you got bail and the immigration put a hold on you. So the whole time you've been in here, it's been an immigration hold. Okay. So it's not counting towards your sentence. Not at all. So what they did is they went in and basically said, look, he's already done his time. You know, why don't we just let this go and let him get on with his life? And they came and picked me up, two armed guards. They were armed, guys, some immigration. They just took me to the border, said this was our prisoner, blah, blah, blah.

And they unhandcuffed me. And then the Americans were like, okay, welcome to America. I'm like, well, where do I go from here? Good luck. So, you know, I had to come back sort of under those conditions. But up there, you know, I got to live a pretty good life. You know, it's smoke weed with Woody Harrison, like that picture I sent you, you know. Meet all kinds of crazy people.

Charlie Sheen, we got a whole bunch of people to come out and have rally for him. And like they did a press release. It was 90% like paparazzi. I'd never seen that before in my life. It was wild. This was in Toronto. In Toronto. Yeah.

See, I was going between Toronto and Montreal picking up weed. So I was in both those cities. I'd pick up hash. and that's how I got Woody's attention because the hash I was getting, people hadn't seen since high school unless they go over to Afghanistan. And he lives there, or he was just visiting?

No, he was doing a play at the time. Okay. Yeah, it was runtime True Detective came out. Yeah, if you remember that series that he did. It might have been HBO. I don't know what it was. I mean, what year was it? With Matthew McConaughey.

So, ooh. 20 maybe 2012 2013 something like that locked up so yeah okay so yeah you're uh i mean i've heard the series but i don't i don't oh okay yeah i watch it for that sake you know yeah a lot of the guys i um i sold the the coke two and the we too they were a lot of them worked behind the scenes sound guys tech guys audio guys and then that's how i got ultimately you know plugged in with that and uh doing all that business before i got out and it's funny because i got out i wasn't i was i got out of the business it took me a while to phase out because life was good you know i was really enjoying it you know just the weed alone i i did the math it was probably a million and

a half in business every year and i was taking a good cut on that right you know i was I was paying very little for it. What I did is because I guess one way I got in and got my prices so low is we found a doctor willing to sign licenses to possess and licenses to grow before it became legal. So he fills out the fore. Most doctors won't do it. This guy will do it for 250, just kind of, you know, hush, hush.

So what my buddy decided to do, he's running the dispensary. is just get a van load of them, and then up the rate. And I would find the people. Kind of like doctor shop. Well, exactly like doctor shopping, right? Like, are you going to, or are you really just going to one doctor? So it's not really. Yeah, but we go to this doctor, but nobody knew how to get this doctor.

All we say is, we can get you signed, you're going to see our doctor. And they would drive up to his clinic. And his clinic was like rural Ontario. So they were charging five, six hundred bucks a person. instead of the $250 that they pay the doctor charges. And then my job was to find those people, get them to sign their grow licenses over to us. So he signs a grow license.

Say they can grow 100 plants, 50 plants, 200 plants. They signed the grow license over to us. We grow for them. And we give them a couple grand a month, a few grand a month. And so we're happy with that. And then we make all the extra money. So I was getting kickbacks from that. So it got so bad with this doctor that they were running hotels, like the big room where you'd have your reception or whatever, you know, these banquet rooms or whatever, and set it up.

And there'd be people coming and there'd be maybe 10 people schedule per hour. And they're just coming in. The nurse makes sure all your paperwork is right. Everything's correct and in its place. And then you go see him behind a curtain, give him the money. Some people give him more if they want to hire them out. But then you're able to carry it and possess large amounts. So for dealers, it was a gold mine and for everybody else.

So they did a news special and exposed him because I guess some people didn't want to pay the $250. He was the only Canadian doctor ever. actually was American, but the only doctor in Canada to ever get arrested while on the emergency room floor, he was the primary care guy. They didn't know what to do. Do we take the guy? Do we take the primary doctor away from emergency room to arrest him? Because he had signed so many people and he was going like out of province to do it. And I guess that's a no-no. You're supposed to sign within your province. So what happened to him? He'd go to jail in Canada? Yeah, I think so, and a bunch of fines, but there it's not much.

You know, I mean, you're not going to do a lot of time, you know. But it was like you got that hustler mentality, you know, you're just moving and you got people coming and all you just have to do is sign and here's the money and you're just, you know, I guess it's hard to say no. You renew it every year, you know. It's like, you know, you know the guy's going to come back. So when you left Canada, where'd you go? When you came back to the U.S.? So I went and I stayed with some family for a little while in New York and I was just like, this, I can't take this.

So I went out to Washington State and I worked out in Seattle. And I got a job doing, like as an ambassador downtown going and giving people directions. in the morning I had to wake people up that were sleeping in the doorways, then call a clean-up crew to come in and clean up all the crap. The city of Seattle was so bad with drugs and stuff. A person would be sleeping there, and then they'd get up, and there'd be needles everywhere and things like that. So you have to learn how to kind of work with those people

and make people comfortable, you know, because they're living pretty rough lives there. I mean, there's tents in the middle of, you know, the street you know in those little laneways there that we know the tree row used to be you know there's tents in between and what year was this so this was 2017 yeah how long did you do that so i did that for like a year and then i went out to one of the islands out there in the san juan islands and i worked out there and i worked at a restaurant and uh on a resort and uh i did that for a while And I came to Florida.

I was just traveling. You get laid off for the winter months because it's seasonal out there. And then I was planning on going to Mexico. And then COVID came. And I got sick 2019. Well, just 2020. Like a couple days before New Year's is when it hit me, I got really sick. Like everybody in my restaurant, we all got sick.

So we believe it was COVID, but we didn't know at the time. So then they started to talk about it. the news and everything and I was in Southern California and I was like well crap I better not go to Mexico I might not be able to get it back I would be able to get back across the border so I went and I traveled around and I came to Florida and went all over Florida like to the Keys I went down to Miami South Beach every place I wanted to see clear water you know and I decided you know because I had to figure out what am I going to do what's what's my plan now you know

What do I want to do? And what I realized is in my old life, everybody had respect. Everybody was pleasant. You know, you didn't have to worry about people lying. You know, you didn't have to worry about, you know, people being underhanded, you know, and that kind of thing. You know, you're dealing with kind of dangerous people, you know. You just don't do that anyway, you know. There's just, there's something like a code, you know.

And my goal was, I like to go. garden. I like to cook. I like healthy food. A lot of the guys that I work with, they're getting older. They got young girlfriends or now they have grandkids or whatever. All of a sudden, the reckless lives, you know, are catching up with them, you know, we're talking about earlier. You know, you feel things when you get a certain age. So they, I was helping them to shop and to cook and garden and things like that. Try to take my garden expertise and turn it into, you know, healthy living. So what I want, what my, goal is now I guess what my plan is what I've been trying to work on I guess for the last little while is to put together like that little sanctuary where I have the flotation place where I have the sauna where I have a nice garden but you could have skills training and things like that because if if you got that mindset to go out there and hustle and make money you know selling whatever and you know knowing your clientele and how to make money and you know that kind of thing you can train people to do that honest businesses you know or make really good money at it you know so where are you living now

though so i'm in saint augustine okay but i'm looking some central florida maybe to do something like this okay you know put together like a spiritual center or something you know i'm a christian but i don't always want to impose that on anybody you know i'd rather talk like jesus than about jesus you know so you want to buy a few acres and yeah just a few acres Put some nice fruit trees out there, you know, grow vegetables. It's like printing your own money anyway, you know. I mean, I go to Whole Foods or I go to the grocery source. St. Augustine, wow.

It's like a food desert there. You really can't find a whole lot of stuff. You know, it's like exotic fruits and things like that are really hard to come by. Vegan food, healthy food, really pricey, you know. Restaurants are geared toward tourists. So it's like going to Disney, you know, and trying to like, you know, it's the same type of food, you know. People, you're on vacation. Who cares, you know?

You're going to eat fatty food and you're going to eat junk food and all that kind of stuff, you know. But what are you doing for work, though, right now? So for work, yeah, just I work at a hotel, do maintenance and work at a store at night, you know, just basically I do personal chef work. a lot of personal chef work too so i just you know i just wanted to sort of readapt you know just like slowly you know i i got used to that life out there but it got you know got you know got me in a lot of trouble i'm ready to make my second fortune and be responsible with it you know all right yeah me too um all right if possible yeah you have anything else you can think of or you feel like feel good about this or oh yeah i'm merely having a good time this is fantastic yeah and

in your art man it's just blows my mind wow wow i appreciate it yeah yeah yeah i remember art was away in toronto that a lot of people um hid money because you know there's no there's no money in my right i promise you know worth a thousand to you five thousand to the next guy you know it's good for taxes I got people people it's funny though people do they still you know even though like we took the paintings off the walls like we're not really running any commercials or anything but I still have like an Etsy account and a few times a month people order stuff wow that's fantastic which is great because we don't advertise I don't do anything I don't know if these are people just seeing older stuff but people do keep subscribe or following me on Instagram I have like Cox Pop Art

I have a bunch of stuff on Instagram, and, you know, people are constantly, I don't know why I haven't posted anything on there in, in a while, you know, I kind of have these modified screen prints that I, I produce now. And so, like, the custom artwork I haven't really been doing. I need to, actually need to, there's, you see the nuns above the, I need to sell those. Okay. Because, because my wife doesn't like them, you know. She's like, you know, you've got, well, I guess, you know, two women and, you know, whatever, they're like bondage gear, you know, with, you know, holding crosses. They're none. There are nuns in bondage gear. And then one's like a woman in ecstasy. But they're all, they're all kind of like a set. And she's like, she's like, you can't, we can't have this. You got to get rid of them. And I would get rid of them. Like, I feel like I've discounted them dramatically. You know, the problem. The problem is young guys who probably would like, like them. Right. Don't want to spend a thousand. thousand dollars on it oh okay so and then somebody who's older and established typically have a little wife and kids and they're like right that in here so i'm i have a feeling that they're

going to be dramatically reduced or maybe just end up in the garage oh i'm at the paint so i was oh man yeah original matt cox at work no man not in the garage just put something up there that's more benign that's too bad yeah Art is subjective. Yeah. It would seem like a good idea when it was just going to be, when this place, this house was going to be me. It was just going to be me and a bunch of, I'm going to go with, I'll say YouTubers, content creators, a bunch of content creators.

And like all down here, there was going to be no living room or anything. Everything down here was just going to be studios. Right. And then all the bedrooms would be like we, you know, it would be like four guys upstairs. and then all down here was all going to be just studio space. It didn't work out. It was a great idea, and I had it going well, really, really was headed toward that. And then, you know, then my current wife decided that she's really, it does love me,

and she's in love with me, and she wants to move in. Oh, okay. Who are these guys? They have to go. No, actually, they didn't even move in. Only one guy moved in. And then the other two guys, stuff happened in their lives. One guy moved to Miami.

He had fallen in love and didn't want to tell me. He paid the rent. He paid his part of the rent for like three months and wouldn't tell me. He just kept paying it. I was like, bro, you're not moving in. Why aren't you moving in? You keep sending me money. What's going on?

You got to move in. Finally, I said, bro, what's going on? Don't, don't. Just tell me what's happening. Yeah. Like, you paying the rent wasn't the point. The point was that you'd have four guys in the house and we could all kind of work together. Right.

And you're just not here. So let me rent the room out to somebody else. and he said, yeah, man, I'm sorry, man. I'm this chick that I used to date came back a few months ago, and I'm in love, and I think I want to move to Miami. I didn't know how to tell you. I was like, oh, my God. So he moved to Miami.

The other guy was in the middle of getting a divorce, and he was supposed to move in. Wow. And he ended up, like, kind of getting hooked on drugs again and just became a complete lunatic, which I don't know why. And it may have been a misunderstanding on my part when I met the guy. I thought he'd been sober for like five or six years. But then when he kind of went off the deep end, I found out, no, no, he'd only been sober for six months to a year.

Wow. And he had never been sober for more than, let's say, a year. I was like, oh, no, like, I didn't know that. Like, I can't have you, you can't move in here. Yeah. You're a lunatic. Yeah, wow. And he's not the kind of sober that like, or not the kind of addict that stays to himself.

he's a kind of addict that goes out and wrecks his car or, you know, gets into a fight or passes out in public or gets arrested. Like he's constantly getting arrested for stupid stuff, but it doesn't matter. You can't get, you can't come here and get arrested. You can't be doing that year. Yeah, bring all kinds of heat and attention. Right. I can't take on your risk. I can't take on the tragedy of your life when I'm trying to put the tragedy of my life back together. Right.

So that didn't work out. anyway she moved back in then her daughter moved in now we're kind of like a little family oh beautiful yeah yeah you know they both have attitudes two two chicks together it's no fair yeah that's true ganging up on you yeah it's no good it's no good yeah it's a team you can never be yeah wed you can never never create yeah absolutely i'm always the bad guy i'm always the guy in target and they're like oh my god wouldn't this be great it would be great and when we get a house someday we're gonna get one of those but for now put it back oh my god it's it's only forty nine dollars would you have forty nine dollars no put it back you know i mean it's just so i'm just i'm just i'm always

i'm the consummate asshole you know which is fine that's fine yeah like for me um the way i always dealt with that with my with my ex when i was in canada was i you um don't tell me what something costs if we need it just go get it i don't want to know for me yeah Yeah, I couldn't do it. We're going to get tickets. You're going to get me a shirt, a bag, whatever. Don't tell me. Yeah, well, I'm in the position where, well, I'm just in the position where I, I, I just need to save money at some point.

I need to get, I can't be renting. I'm just too old to be renting a house. I need to buy something. I do, like we were talking about earlier. You know, I need to find, I need to go get half an acre or an acre. I need to be able to buy a house. I need to be able to get some rental units or something, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely.

Trying to plan for your retirement in your 50s is stupid. You know what I'm saying? You should be planning that in your 30s. So you get, I get, you know, I leave prison and it's like, okay, put your life back together and prepare to be able to retire within the next 10 to 15 years. It's like, oh my God, like everything has to go right. You can't make any mistakes. Yeah.

And that means, you don't buy the. the $49 plastic Santa because we don't need the plastic Santa. Right. That's why we get a house and things are more structured and things are come, money's coming in and everything's good. We can get a plastic Santa, but not right now. Exactly. Yeah.

I, I, I want a plastic Santa. I do. Right. I'm not a bad person. You're not the great. Right. I just, yeah. So I hear you.

Yeah, I was a long time, it was a long time ago when I was like, but buy it. Sure. Yeah, I don't care what it costs. Yeah, I'm sure it was that way for you when you were doing your thing. Of course, especially when I was using somebody else's credit card. I was like, yeah, we'll put it on, we'll put on Lee Black's credit card. Yeah, $1,500. Of course.

I'm shocked that I didn't buy you one of those earlier. I'm embarrassed that you had to ask me. Right. Yeah. That's over. That's over, bro. To say she looked like a million bucks was an understatement, you know. Now it's like $1,500 for a purse?

No. No. oh I know I know same here that's why I'm single I'm like I can't afford to date like this I don't even drink I can't afford the scotch I got used to in that life you know yeah good times yeah absolutely but yeah oh yeah listen there were guys I was locked up with that were Canadian that had you know they run a run some kind of like a I want to say a Ponzi team really they were just like stealing from people you know and and they were running some kind of a scam and then they would end up, they would end up getting arrested in the United States and be sentenced in the United States.

And they're sitting there like, I'm a Canadian citizen. And it was, okay, I understand you were running your little scam out of Canada, but you were stealing from Americans. Yeah. So they would get like 12 years or something. They'd be like, this is insane. And they would go to trial. And they'd go, which, because in Canada, these guys will go to trial. Well, of course, even if you lose, you're looking at three years.

Like, they went to trial. they would lose they get 10 or 12 years and the whole time they would be screaming for five or six years about how they wanted to be uh they wanted to go back they want to be transfer a treaty transfer back to candidate because they finish their sentence there right well because as soon as they get there they they put them they put them on probation to let him go so this one guy remember he did um he did he did like whatever it was five or six years complained the whole time and they did actually transfer him after you so sorry you have to serve 50% of your u.s. sentence before you could be transferred oh okay so he got he immediately got transferred and then

this is the worst thing what people don't realize is they don't send a couple of canadian mounties to pick you up and drive you back there you're now you have to go through immigration immigration prisons are the worst like these guys like he was he was mailing letters back to his old celly saying like you have no idea how horrible it is here these guys are stabbing each other left and right they're they're locked down like it's like you're begging to be locked down yeah because it's it's just extremely violent they're all crammed in there they have no rights oh no you know so if at least you have some semblance of rights in a u.s prison but now you're in now you're kind of in this limbo so he was there for another three to

six months before he got transferred. And Susie got there within 10 days, he's at home on an ankle monitor. Wow. Okay. So it really, it did save him several years by transferring, probably three or four years by transferring. But yeah, there were tons of guys that were begging to be transferred. Like, get me back to Mexico. Why? Because in Mexico, I can get myself sprung. Yeah, absolutely. Family bring your food. Girlfriend, come stay with you for a week. Not just that. You know what would happen? Some of these cartel guys would get locked up. So the cartel guy gets locked up in the U.S. And he gets a sentence for 10 years.

And I only know this because of my buddy Pete would do their legal work. Okay. And his specialty was, you know, they would, first of all, they're cartel guys or they're working with the cartel. So they already know, I'm going to go, I'm going to go to prison. Right. This is just a part of it. I'm going to do some prison time.

Maybe it'll be in the U.S., maybe it'll be in Canada. Maybe it will be in Colombia. Maybe it'll be Mexico. where somewhere I'm going to end up doing some time so they expect it so he said that was a great thing about working with them was they had a good attitude they knew they didn't complain they knew right was coming so they never got there and had and you had to listen to them bitch and moan for for an hour and a half every day about how they shouldn't be locked up no no I should be locked up I just need to limit it so here's what would happen is the cartel guys if they had money

they get locked up they get whatever let's say they get 15 years right around, around five or six years, they would put in, and they would get themselves charged in Mexico. So they bribe a politician or a, their equivalent of an attorney, a U.S. attorney, to file charges in Mexico and ask for them to be extradited to face those charges. Okay. My buddy Pete would put in the paperwork to try and get them extradited. So he would satisfy any outstanding warrants or detainers they had in the United States. So they could get extradited back to Mexico. And once they were back in Mexico, that, like I said, their equivalent of a U.S. attorney drops the charges.

Wow. So you got 15 years and like in five years, six years, he said they would never do it right away. They'd wait. They'll do five or six years. Because they knew they knew the U.S. government would put up a fight if it was right away. You have to wait. So they wait five, six years. Boom, they put it in.

At some point, I'll have my buddy Pete on. He has countless examples of this. Wow. Just a long-term plan. Yeah, they just know it going in. They know what's, you know, or someone like me, like, I just never, I never thought I was going to see the inside of a prison. So I was totally unprepared. Right.

And what happened to me, I was like, oh, my God, but these guys go in, their families know they're going to go in. They send them, they send them, they send them, little bit of money. They, they, they answer their phone calls. They come and see them. Like, it's just a part of their culture. Right. You know, that kind of, that life, that cartel culture, not Mexican cartels. Right. You know. So, I'm just trying to be clear. I don't want to insult anybody. You know what I'm saying? You're living a decent life of Mexico. You don't expect to go to jail. But, right. But these guys. So it's just like royalty. They just live on a different lane, you know, it's it.

Oh, listen, and then they would go to, they have certain prisons for the cartel, or they have wings of the prison for the cartel where, like, they live like kings. Yeah, like the mob guys here. Yeah, but I'm not sure. Well, no, they still, they live different. They live way better, but they live differently. Like, the mob guys here will come and they'll go to jail. And what they do is, it's funny because I'm supposed to interview this guy. Okay.

who's kind of like a connected guy. But, I mean, I was locked up with guys that were like, you know, made men. Sure. And what happens is they get in there and they get a regular cell, but they'll very quickly get themselves moved to a nicer cell. So they'll go from like a three-man room to a two-man room. Then they'll get whoever they want to move in with them. And sometimes they don't get another equivalent mob guy. They get a low-level guy that takes care of them.

Okay. They put money on their books. They put money on on other people's books. So those people go to commissary for them. They cook their food. They clean their cell. They make their bed. They do their laundry.

These guys basically walk the track. They make phone calls. They write letters. They watch movies. Like they, it's not like it's an amazing life, but it's the best possible life you could have in in a prison. Those circumstances. Yeah.

Right. You've got people. If you're in, if you're in a penitentiary, you've got a life sentence, then you've got people protecting you. Nobody bothers you. Nobody, you know, so if it's a low security that you basically, you just have people catering to you all the time, making you dinner, stealing stuff out of the, out of the chow hall to feed you, preparing food, doing your, you know, doing the stuff that that the average inmate would do for himself, right? They don't have to do that. They don't have to sweep the, they don't have to sweep their room. They don't have to wipe everything down. They don't have to, you know, clean their toilets or doing it. Somebody's doing all that. Somebody's making their bed. Somebody's doing their laundage and everything. Wow. Somebody will even keep stuff in their locker because your lockers, it's packed.

So these guys, they'll open their locker and it's like opening up a, like a dresser drawers or something where it's like everything's nice and neat and pressed and lined up. And it's like, this guy has nothing but clothes in his locker. Like, where's all of his other stuff? Where's all of his coffee, his creamer, his chips, his food, whereas, you know, whatever, snack. So where's his legal work? Where are his books? Where's his photos? Where's his photo album?

Like all these things that people have to keep in their locker, he didn't have any of that. He does. Right. But his cellie keeps some, like someone's in this guy's locker, he has just dispersed. Wow. So he gets to live this very nice, clean cut, pressed, no stress life from within the prison. So he's doing different time than everybody else. Yeah, wow.

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