Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - How My Last Day in Prison Changed Me | Matt Finishes

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Matt Finishes telling his Prison Story and explains leaving prison. check out the full story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0WIvWuSG4&list=PLmobiuxZowWLZTUv2R5d2rBy7d-AWWkv5 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 $5.00 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. But I was sitting in the backseat with my mom, and we were driving, and it was just real quiet. I was kind of looking at the prison. I remember my brother, because he was looking at me in the rear of mirror and he said, or you're glad to be leaving that place, huh?

I just think I shook my head, but I remember thinking, it seems. weird to be saying this i knew i was going to miss all those guys and i felt horrible that i was leaving and i knew they were still there hey this is matt cox and this is a continuation of my i guess really it's just of my my story maybe this may be part 14 it may be part 25 much sure Colby's breaking it up and all kinds of different things. So at this point, I'm going to go back. I just, the last video, or the last two videos, I explained about my lawsuit with Ephraim Devoroli and Warner Brothers over the movie Wardogues.

So let me go back to me when I first got to the halfway house. because I kind of explain how part of that went through while I was in the halfway house or while that was happening during prison and the halfway house. But let me explain about the halfway house. I'm sure people have heard about halfway houses before. So what happens is just as you know you're coming up on your last whatever year of incarceration, you know, typically if you're lucky, your counselor will put you in for a halfway house. and the reason you need halfway house is

you know it's important I may have said this in the last video or two but it's important you need it so you need it because one obviously you know it helps you reacclimate to just society in general and there are little things that it seems silly

but like after like 12, 13 years in prison there are little tiny things that you stop or that I stopped doing just because it's frowned upon in prison you know like saying please and thank you like guys don't say please and thank you in prison it's it's a yo let me get some sugar

or you got some coffee yeah let me get some and that's just everybody talks like that if you don't talk like that then essentially you end up getting pegged to someone who's super soft so you have to walk around all the time acting like I don't want to say like a tough guy or like a you know but

you just lose all of the you know the social graces or your you know the grease that helps people not kill each other i guess in society which is you know pleasantries and things well initially it was i don't know did i tell the the sandwich story have you heard me talk about the chick at the gym with the sandwich listen it was so bad it was so bad that you know this is and this just really is kind of like it's very much a prison mentality which bothers me because i really didn't realize how bad it was for me and i'll go into the half my house in a second but i'll just give you an example of how just how

mentally disturbed you become or or you know altered as a result of being in prison for so long and honestly like i wasn't in a super tough prison i mean i'm not saying people weren't getting there weren't lots of fights and people weren't getting stabbed but you know i started a medium which was you know is a rough place but there are rougher mediums obviously and there are there are non rougher mediums right like i was in an average medium like it wasn't super soft but it wasn't hard like you didn't have to run with a gang but if you didn't run with a gang like you better not get yourself in trouble because ain't nobody backing you up now i'm lucky because I didn't get in trouble a lot or very much

or nothing I couldn't get myself out of you know like I didn't gamble so I didn't run up debts I didn't borrow from anybody and I didn't allow myself to be you know beholden to anyone so I'll give you an example like when I got out of prison I ended up getting a job I'll explain I got a job with my buddy

and I'm not like an aggressive person by nature. I consider myself maybe I'm assertive. Like I go after what I want, but I don't think I'm aggressive in any way. And my assertiveness had very much turned to aggression where people were constantly, like friends of mine would tell me like, bro, you're like super aggressive. Like you don't realize how aggressive you are.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, even that. like that what are you talking about like it's it's it's oh you're just overtly aggressive about everything so i don't really tone it back and and and i was like no man i'm just assertive and they were like yeah you're you're you're overboard it's not assertiveness it's it's aggression but in prison that's normal like in prison i'm soft as cotton and i'm and and i was acting like not i'm saying hey man can i get some of that you know uh What's going on with so-and-so?

Yeah? Well, how come? Why did you do that, bro? Like, I mean, it's just super, like, aggressive. And it was just, so I had really, it took, it takes you a while to kind of tone it down. It was, and I still had that mentality. Like, I went to, so I'll tell you one of the things that the halfway house, they give you a, when you go to work every day, you get, you get breakfast for free, right? Like, they give you breakfast.

You can pay for extra stuff, but they give you breakfast. And then when you leave for the day, they'll give you a bag lunch. So when you go to work, the reason they do this is they don't want you to leave work. They're like, we're giving you a bag lunch because you don't have permission to leave and go to, you know, you can't go to a restaurant and come back. You have to, here's your bag lunch, stay at work and eat. And they're going to call several times during the day. So you better be there. Or you may have an ankle monitor on.

So they give you a bag lunch. well i remember one time this this this uh woman was leaving the gym where i worked she was going to get um she was going to get lunch and i'd been there for like two months and she was going to get lunch and she said to me she was mad i'm i'm getting i'm going to get lunch she was she was you want something and i went um no i'm good i'm good i've got my bag i've got a i've got a uh you know like i had like a bologna sandwich i go i go i I got a sandwich. I got a bag of lunch.

I'm good. And she goes, no, come on. She said, you eat that every day. She was, where was she going? She was going to Jimmy Johns. She was, let me get you a sandwich from Jimmy Johns. And I went, no, I'm good. I, I've got a back lunch.

I'm good. And she said, come on. She said, you're always eating that. She was, you've got to be tired of baloney sandwiches. Well, sometimes we've got peanut butter. So, you know, you got to be tired of those sandwiches. and I went and she I said well I don't really have money to be buying to be going to lunch like you know it's like 10 bucks to go to lunch right so I said I don't really have money to do that

so I'm good with the bag lunch and she goes no it's okay she's I got it I've I've got it I'll pay for it and I and I went you know like I didn't understand I didn't you know for clarity's sake I said to her Listen Let me be very clear about this And I remember My buddy Trian was there And a couple

And like one of the other employees is there And they're looking at me go let me be very clear I said If you are saying That you want to buy me a sandwich At Jimmy Johns With your own money And that you do not expect

that at any time in the future I'm going to pay you back or that I'm going to reciprocate by buying you something in the future if you are simply buying me a sandwich out of the goodness of your heart and do not expect me to ever pay you back in any way yes I will take a sandwich from Jimmy Johns if you are thinking that at some point in the future this will come back to you or I will be beholden to you in any way please do not buy me anything i have a bag of lunch i'm fine and i remember my buddy trion

looked at me just like what the fuck is wrong with you and she looked at me and she just kind of smile and she goes let me buy you a sandwich at jimmy johns you don't ever have to pay me back and i went and okay i don't know i'll take whatever whatever you want to get me that's fine you know, like that's how clear you kind of have to be in prison because someone will give you something in prison. And you think maybe you've just been there maybe six months or a year, maybe someone's putting money on your books, you know, or I'm sorry, on your account so you can buy stuff. So you're not realizing how desperate people's situations are and the prison economy

and what taking something from someone means. So maybe one day you're in prison and you run out of coffee and you turn to your celly or the guy in the cube next to you, which you've talked to all of 10 times in the last two months or six months. And you go, hey man, you got any coffee? And they go, yeah, I got some. You go, oh, bro, can I get some coffee? They go, sure.

They give you some coffee. No big deal. You get a little bag of instant coffee, Keefi coffee. they give you a scoop of coffee and you go okay and you know you drink your coffee you know what does that cost 15 20 cents for a scoop of coffee the bags like three dollars and 50 cents right so you get maybe 20 30 bags that's what does that break down to 20 cents 25 cents so he gives you a scoop no big deal you know you don't care it's not a big deal um you don't think anything of it You certainly do the same for him.

And come commissary, a couple days later, he comes to you and he says, yo, bro, I need to give me a bag of coffee. And you go, oh, okay for, all right, why am I getting you a bag of coffee? Yo, man, you borrowed coffee from me the other day. You got some coffee from me the other day. So give me a bag of coffee. It's like, you gave me a scoop of coffee out of your bag. like that's 25 cents a bag of coffee is 350 so or maybe you just say you shrug it off and you go

yeah man sure oh yeah no problem and you get them the three dollars and fifty cents because maybe it doesn't matter to you the problem with that mentality is you're like oh it doesn't matter i got people put three i got i got my my wife or my kids or my buddy jimmy who's putting 300 bucks a month on my books or something so maybe you don't care the problem is that that guy ends up kind of joking about it or telling people about it and now people think they can ask you for stuff you kind of get that this guy's a sucker mentality you know or a sucker reputation so what ends up happening is if you borrow something from someone you got to be super clear hey bro let me borrow a thing of coffee and I'll give you one back, a cup of coffee back, or a scoop of coffee,

whatever you want, you know, when I get my commissary. So I'll get you a scoop back, but that's it. And they're like, yeah, yeah, that's cool, bro. Or they say, hey, man, you know what? Don't even worry about it. I don't even want anything. You sure? Yeah, I don't want to.

No, no, man. It's a scoop of coffee. It's nothing. Okay, cool. We got an agreement. We have an understanding. If you don't have that understanding very clearly, it can go bad for. you. And if you're not some super jacked up fucking guy, then you've got a real problem because

you've got to be super clear all the time. So, you know, because it could go bad and there's not much you can do about it. And if you're not running with some gang, then you've got a real problem because there's nobody backing you up. Well, you know, like I'm super, super clear on everything like the one great thing is i have great communication skills so anyway so but like i said that was my i was very clear about everything and very very semi i'd say aggressive so when i got to the halfway house listen when i got to the halfway house i weighed 150 pounds because the last six months of of prison so i was 185 the last six months of prison i wait 185 pounds in prison last six months i thought you know what

like i'm gonna gain some weight probably when i get out right you've heard of the freshman 15 right like you go to college you either lose 15 or you or you gain 15 pounds so same thing with prison you get out you either gain 15 or 20 pounds you to lose 15 or 20 pounds well i thought you know what i'm i know like i don't eat a lot so but i am probably going to be out there i probably will gain some weight. So I better go ahead and start losing some weight. So I went from 185 pounds, I was probably closer to 190, all the way down to 150 pounds. I weighed 148 or 149 pounds. I think like the morning I left, the morning I left prison. I remember. So when you leave prison, if nobody, so let me jump back. I'm all over the fucking place. Anyway, there's a lot of things to cover.

so what happens is the last whatever year a year before you're scheduled to get released your counselor will put you in for a halfway house now I'd been locked up so long I should have gotten a year but there were a lot of things happening with Trump and with a lot of there were a lot of laws Trump had signed it signed some stuff where he'd signed a I don't know if it was a, I don't know if it was a bill or I don't know if it was an, I think it was an executive order where the Bureau of Prisons used to, it says you're supposed to do 85% of your time, right? But the Bureau of Prisons for some reason had calculated it where it was, people were doing on average 87 and a half percent of their time. And so you were supposed to get 54 days a year

and you were actually getting like 46, 47, 45 days a year or something? good time so off of your sentence if you're good if you behave well they knock some some time off like it's supposed to be 15% it wasn't it was like 12 and a half so and they supposedly you know Obama was going to correct it he never did you know everybody was always going to correct it right well I'm going to fix that now well they never did Trump got in there and he signed it he said yeah that's ridiculous it says 85 why aren't they calculated so it's 85 from now on well what ended up happening was because of that there were people that had six months a year years of good time that had to come to them and so if you did 15 or 20 years

then suddenly bam you get a year off or X amount of time off so guys were being thrust into the halfway house and initially I was given I wanted 12 months but this was going on at that time and I knew it was probably going to get less than that I remember I got like nine I want to say nine and a half or 10 months halfway house and I was like that's not quite what I expected but that's fine so like a few months like probably you know it was really messed up about this i called my mother and told her i was coming home on a certain date so at that point i was writing talking to my brother on the phone and telling him like hey man i i need clothes sent in because if you if you leave you're going to leave half you're going to leave the halfway house i'm sorry you're going to leave prison

with just what you have like you're going to be able to walk out with like sweatpants if you might have some sweatpants and a t-shirt so i'm going to the halfway house and sweatpants and a t-shirt and probably like they're got like or tennis shoes i guess you could probably and tennis shoes like you can buy stuff like that on commissary so and i did have some of that stuff stuff that was okay to wear in prison but if you saw me walking around in the sweatpants that they're they give you they're like sweatpants from like the 1980s like they're like real sweatpants they're not like the cool sweatpants we have now and the sweatshirts are like sweatshirts like the t-shirts are like they're pretty much fruit of the loom or haines or something they're all right uh and then

the tennis shoes are just really you know kind of just basic tennis shoes which i had crappy basic tennis shoes so i would have been leaving in that and if you don't have anything like that which some people do some people have nothing so those people end up leaving with you know they'll actually bureau of prisons will give you a pair of blue jeans which are blue jeans that i swear to god they're like something that a poor peasant in some peasant in you know guatemala would be wearing like i mean like they're just straight leg you know like cut out like stitched through i mean they really they're that bad and they'll give you like you like a brown t-shirt that is probably 10 years old and 60 inmates have worn it because they recycle

the clothes so when you get there you don't get a brand new uniform you get a uniform that somebody else wore for four years and then when he left it went back in the pile and they wash it and they fold it and here's your uniform so you've got I always love it when you watch you ever see like orange is the new black or any prison TV show they come out and they're orange jumpsuits are bright color like they're like a bright orange I ain't ever seen a bright orange um suit in my life like I've never you know it's it's always you're like okay so they order that off the internet and they had this guy put it on like if they want to make it look right they got to wash it about 600 times lay it in the sun for about five or six weeks beat it up really

bad cut some stuff off because you'll get a jumpsuit and the legs will be too long so guys will cut off six or eight six or eight inches of of you know or you'll get the nice thing is when you get to prison you get you get regular like like a uniform um i tell you what though what you don't realize is the sizes are all fucked up so i remember when i got there i ordered like i i was at that point i was heavy when i first came into prison i had already lost some weight um and when i first got there and i ordered i got i ordered like a like a size like a waist like a 32 inch waist because i was you know maybe 33 and i said yeah 33 and the guy looked at me and he goes he goes man they like the sizes run small i went okay and he said you sure you want

at 33 and I went yeah man I wear 33 I'll be all right I've lost some weight that's what I was wearing 33 34s and he goes all right so he gave him to me listen those pants were like a size 30 I mean I was sporting a camel toe for about two weeks I got three pairs of these pants and I'm walking around with like a camel toe for three weeks the first three weeks I'm in prison not a good look for a soft looking for a soft white guy in a medium security prison like I was very popular you know everybody wanted to be my friend you know what i'm saying they all want to i'm getting guys offering me tennis shoes and stuff it's not a good thing it's not good it's like you need anything no no i don't need it i'm fine but look i got the pants are too tight it's not what

it looks like so it took me about two weeks to get new pants somewhere like a size 38 and they're okay they're like slightly loose you know it's um it's not funny it's bad it's a bad situation So what happened is I, so I remember when I left prison, I started, I called my brother and I said, hey, can you send me in some blue jeans and, you know, I got a t-shirt, like I'll wear a white shirt. I need some blue jeans or a t-shoe, something. And he goes, yeah, yeah, that's fine. He goes, what size do you wear? And I went, man, I don't know. I mean, I've lost so much weight. I went from 185 down to like 150. And I was like, I don't know. mark i don't know and he goes yeah you know what he is it's okay he said i know your measure i know how tall you are in what you weigh i'll ask tell uh my you know his daughter my niece he goes she'll grab you some he goes we'll go to walmart we'll grab you some pants i said okay no problem so he sent in a size 30 or 20 i want to say 28 or 20 maybe it's a size 30 probably size let's say size 30 and I remember when I got them and I saw that they were size 30 when I and this was

when I got them in the I went I was in the um I went to art was called R&D receiving and departure so when I went to R&D and I saw the pants and they were size 30 I thought fuck I'm gonna have to wear my sweatpants I put on the size 30 I shit you not I could all put on a size 28 waist I was that small. I had no. I put them on. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to need a belt. Like, this is ridiculous how fit. Like, it wasn't that bad, but they were, they were loose. And I remember thinking, ah, I'm going to give some ways. It's okay. It'll be fine. So, but what happens is you have to pack up all your stuff and go to R&D. You get a, you, so, anyway, let me, let me jump back. So I told my mother I was leaving on a certain date, which was going to be like sometime in, and

It was like in October. I was supposed to leave in October. So when I wrote, I got the form and I sent it off to my, you have to continually contact, talk to your counselor about doing stuff like, hey, I need to get money sent in, or hey, I need to arrange for a ride. Or hey, you know, so I ended up going to my counselor and the coordinator, that releases you and at some point I went there and I said hey listen I need to get my ride approved that they have to approve the people to come to see you because like I guess they just I don't know

why I don't know why it doesn't matter it's so stupid because like you could basically have anybody pick you up and then drive down the street and all your buddies could jump in the car and which people do but my my brother was coming to get me and my brother and my my brother my sister-in-law and my mom were coming and but I think my sister-in-law wasn't approved so I was trying to get her approved so I kept going to the counselor and going to the coordinator and saying hey look my sister-in-law I need to know because I don't want her to show up and me not be able to get in the car with her and she was like yeah yeah well there's plenty of time I was like no there's not like I'm leaving on you know on Tuesday and the the coordinator looked and she goes yeah leaving for a couple more

months. And I went, what? And she was, yeah. She said, I went, no, I'm leaving October, whatever it was, you know, October 12th or whatever. And she went, no, no, wait a second. She pulled it up. She was, no, you're not leaving until January 9th. And I was like, what? She said, yeah, you're leaving January 9th. And I went, no, I, and I explained it to her. And I said, I go, I can show you you the paper. And she goes, hold on. She goes, oh. oh yeah it got changed well nobody told me that my mother thinks she's coming to see me next week and and she's like no oh no no she's no she's not because trust me that's that's not yeah so yeah oh well sorry i mean listen you know not i didn't give a shit really i didn't care about staying

in a few more months like that that didn't mean anything to me but you know the fact that that you know I told my my 90 year old mother at that time I think she was 90 or 91 told my 90 year old mother that I was you know and every time I talked to her when are you coming when are we coming to pick you up when are you know it'd been like that for over a month so now I got to tell her hey look at them sorry this is what happened you know there's so many people at a halfway house they pushed a bunch of people's dates back and so a few more months go by at least by that point i did have some clothes sent in which was great um you know i i pack up all my stuff i go to r and d the you know you go early in the morning you know i go to r and d i had to drag all my stuff to r and d which

was i had so much legal work and just you know legal work books just tons of stuff that i wanted to bring and i had mailed a bunch of stuff home already so i'm dragging it there and i remember i got to R&D, and, you know, the COs and R&D can't work with inmates. Like, that's how you end up in R&D because you've had so many problems dealing with inmates or just people in general that you end up working in a place where all you do is paperwork. So I get there, and I say, hey, I'm here. What, you, Cox?

And I was like, yeah, I'm Cox. And they, all right, yeah, Cox, go over there. you're like all right so you go over there you stand here you wait you wait they strip search you because they don't want you to sneak anything out of the prison because apparently we've got great stuff in the prison we want to sneak out of the prison then they go through all of my stuff now i've got tons of stuff it took me two trips to get to r and d where i had to drag stuff across the compound so if you want to know how larger compound is imagine like a city block like I mean, it's like a large park in the middle of the compound.

So I have to drag all my stuff. Then I have to drag it back, another load. And so I finally get to R&D. And so they look through all my stuff. And I go, okay. And then I'm sitting there. And they're like, all right. And then they wait.

And they wait. Then they come back. And then they fingerprint you again. They give you another DNA. I remember the guy in front of me. They make you. they make you this is funny they make you tell your chart like what your charge is they're like a cox uh uh uh what's your reg number you know uh 40171-1-8 they're like all right uh what are your

charges i go it's you know fucking bank fraud wire fraud money laundering passport fraud identity identity theft i said i there's a bunch of other ones um financial institution fraud a government document fraud and I go social security fraud he goes all right Jesus Christ he goes all right so I remember you do all that and you're waiting and then I remember there was a guy

another guy with me and they go okay what's this and so they talk to him a little bit and he gives him their reg number and then he goes what's your charges he goes man you know my charges are man and he goes now what are your charges

the guy ends up saying and you know this is a guy who I'm sure the entire time he was in Coleman had been telling everybody he was there for something else and he was like and he goes speak up speak up and he had to tell him like child I'm not going to say it because I don't want the algorithm but child whatever and he tells him what it was you know he had some bad stuff on his computer and and I just remember thinking like I'd never really talk to the guy But I just remember thinking, wow, like I never, I wouldn't have guessed it. I thought you were here for, I thought he was there.

I thought he was there for like drugs or something. You know, he didn't look the type. So, and the guy was like, all right. And so he stands there. So then he goes, I remember he went, his family showed up first, so he left or whatever. He was going to a bus station or wherever, and they took him. Then, like, 30 minutes later, then I go. They were like, hey, Cox, your family's here.

And then they're all like, you know, who's coming to get you? What are their names? It's like, man, cut the shit. Like, let me go. So I tell them, and then they go, okay, well, R&D is a detached building from the front of the prison. Like, there's multiple layers of security. And so I have to go from R&D. I have to go, like, it's like 400 feet to the next building.

And I went, all right, and I grab some of my stuff. I said, I'll have to come back for that. And he goes, he goes, now you ain't coming back. I said, yeah, bro, that's my legal work. I have to come back for it. And I said, I can't carry it. You've got to carry it all at once, and I go, like, I mean, we're talking about, like, four, we have, like, four duffel bags. Like, I can't, I can't drag these.

Like, and the duffel bags, they're not even duffel bags. Like, there's, like, a duffel bag, and then I ended up having, I ended up having, like, a couple laundry bags. Like, you can't drag them. They'll tear. They're shitty laundry bags. And I went, no, I can't. I said, well, then I need to borrow one of these dollies, and they have those big bins, you know, where you can throw clothes. you know they're like a big square made a canvas with wheels i'm like well i'll have to borrow one

of these they got you you ain't taking that and i went what am i supposed to do with my legal work and he goes well we can chuck it we can throw it away and i went i'm not throwing it away it's my legal work i'm still fighting a lawsuit i'm not i'm not doing that and he goes well then you're not leaving i said well then i won't leave i said tell my family to leave i'll stay And he goes, well, you're going to stay in the shoe? I said, like, I ain't never fucking been to the shoe. I said, I've been in the shoe like three or four times. I said, I'll go do some shoe time.

I don't care. I'm not leaving away without my shit. And he sat there and was like, all right, well, grab that bin, loaded up. I ain't helping you load it in the bend. It's like, you know, there's such pricks. So you got, throw it in the fucking bend, and I throw it in the bin, and then we wheel it out, wheel it out to the car. You got to go through multiple layers Like there's a Sally port

They buzz you in one door They buzz you out the other You know they check you They look at your ID again They ask you who you are again What's your reg number? It's like oh my God Like I'm with two guys here

So Get all the way the front My brother's there Hey what's up And You know Obviously I hug at my brother We grab my stuff

they won't let me take the bin outside the front so my brother and I have to take my bags what the hell so um I end up going my mom's in the car and uh it's you know uh she's by this point she had had a stroke and so she couldn't walk in the last probably year she was probably the last year to two years she was coming to see me she was coming to see me in a wheelchair and so obviously I see her I hug her I get in the back of the car and pack all my stuff in and we're driving um and I remember this happened to me every fucking time I tell this fucking story I remember being in the back of the car and driving And the prison was, you know, it's getting small. And I can see it for the first time.

Well, not for the first time. Like, I think I'd seen it from a bus before. You know, I'd seen it. But, like, it's getting further and further away. And I can see it. And you're, you know, and there's, like, multiple layers of the prison. There's, you're, as you drive down a long street, and there's signs, and there's this. And there's this prison.

You can see the girls prison. And you can see the other prisons. You can see the pen. And so you're driving. You get all the way out of the complex. And you pass the thing. And you're driving. And you can kind of tell where you're passing.

where the prison is, where they're, where they're, the, whatever, the lands that they own. And I remember my brother saying, because I remember, it was so quiet in the car. Like, I don't think anybody knew what to say. But I was sitting in the back seat with my mom, and my brother was in the front seat, and my sister-in-law was in the other seat, and we were driving, and it was just real quiet. I was kind of looking at the prison, and, And I started tearing up.

And I remember my brother, because he was looking at me in the rear of your mirror and he said, well, I guess you're glad to see that place, or you're glad to be leaving that place, huh? And I was like, yeah, I just think I shook my head. But I remember thinking, it seems weird to be saying this. But it's not like I was like relieved to believe. as much as I was sad because there were so many people that I liked there. And it's like all the friends that I had were in that prison. You know, I have a friend named Pete.

You know, there's, you know, there's a guy named Donovan Davis. There's, you know, there's tons of guys. Jesus, there's a guy named Dennis Caroni, which I can't stand. But, you know, I saw him every day and we hung out and, God, he was irritating. And, but, you know, I, I knew I was going to miss all those guys. And I felt horrible that I was leaving and I knew they were still there. And, you know, it's survivor's guilt, I think, that, you know, you, I don't know. Anyway, I, uh, I just felt bad.

hold on so it's it's just survivor's guilt i think from you know you make it through something and you feel bad for the people that you have to leave behind um yeah so we drove and i remember my brother said you know are you hungry it was probably 10 or 11 o'clock and i think they give you like it's funny they give you like an hour and a half like Coleman's an hour and a half from Tampa and they give you an hour and a half to get to to the halfway house and I've known guys that have taken like two or three hours to get there when they had like an hour and a half and they showed up you know three hours later they stopped and ate and they're like oh what are they going to do you know I'm just going to show up I'll be there today they get there and they

violate them immediately and send them back to prison so well they don't send them back to prison And they actually put them in like a holding facility in the county. The county has a holding facility for people that violate for the feds. They'll hold them there for two or three months. Go in front of the judge and the judge will send them back to prison. And then they'll do some more time in prison and go back to the halfway house. They'll be back in six months because they were late. So I knew I had like an hour and a half.

I might have had two hours. Anyway, I remember driving and my brother drove me there. And we drove and we were going in. My brother said, what do you want, you know, what do you want to eat? You want to stop me to get something to eat? I was like, yeah, I want to. And I remember I've been thinking about this because people ask you a lot when you're leaving. Like, what do you want to eat?

What's your first meal going to be? And, you know, guys are always like, oh, I'm going to go and I'm going to get a steak. I'm going to get this. And I just wanted a cheeseburger from McDonald's. so like a cheeseburger and I don't mean a big cheese like a little little kids cheeseburger and french fries and a coke a fountain coke because I hadn't had fountain coke in like forever so anyway we went to McDonald's and they were still serving lunch I mean it's still serving breakfast they were still serving breakfast so I couldn't get that so then we pulled over and we went to like a CVS or something and I think something like that like a drug store maybe Walgreens or something or something like a drugstore maybe Walgreens or that And we pulled into at Walgreens, and I got a Ben & Jerry's pistachio ice cream. And so I ate the pistachio ice cream on my way to the halfway house. We got to the halfway house, went in the halfway house, dragged all my stuff in the halfway house,

left some of it in my car, in my brother's car, went in the halfway house. They then searched all my stuff. that i get because they want to make sure that you they want to make sure that you're not sneaking in drugs into the halfway house and the halfway house is just like a prison there's not as many layers of security but they still the people that they run it worse than a prison in a very real way because they're searching you constantly the great thing about prison is in federal prison you don't really have to have any interaction with any staff members or guards you know correctional officers or anything like you can go months and months with

without ever talking to them. You're basically on your own. You know, they announce it's time to eat and the door is open. You go to eat. You know, you go through the whole thing. You eat. You put your plate up. You leave.

You know, they might search you when you leave randomly. But if you walk out and you're in a t-shirt and a pair of, you're in your uniform slacks and a t-shirt and you don't even look like you could possibly. They're not going to search you. They search guys that are walking out with like two jackets on who are, you know, and looked like they got something. Like, I'm going to search this guy. So I almost never got searched.

You just have very, there's no real need for interaction. So anyway, I leave and I go to the halfway house. These people search my bags. They give me a piss test immediately. And I know tons of guys that have on the way to the halfway house got stoned, got to the halfway house, failed a piss test. They immediately violate them and send to the county. They sit there for three months, get in front of a job.

Judges back to jail for six months, then six months later they come back to the halfway house for a month or something. Inmates are idiots. Like, I mean, they really are stupid. He built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million because $50 million wasn't enough. And $60 million seemed excessive. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crimes, but when I do, It's bank fraud.

Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. So I'm in the halfway house. The halfway house is set up. There's probably maybe 100 people in the halfway house. It was, I went to the one on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, Florida. And it was, it's run by the goodwill.

So Goodwill runs, they have a contract with the federal government to run a halfway house. Maybe six months to a year prior to me getting there, they allowed you to have a cell phone. Wasn't allowed a computer. You're allowed a cell phone. So, and they have to check your cell phone on a regular basis. They'll check it randomly throughout the week. They have a list and suddenly they call you. You bring your cell phone here.

You bring your cell phone. They pop it open, they check it, and they check it every time you come in and leave the facility. It's outrageous. And they scroll through your stuff. Like, they'll go through all your pictures. Like, there will be people that will take pictures in the halfway house. They'll give them a shot. If they do it again, they'll violate them.

They don't want pictures inside the halfway house. There were guys that would take a selfie in like the bathroom of themselves. And they would find that. And that's it. Oh, that's it. It's like, bro, I'm in the bathroom. It's like me. And you can see the mirror.

like you can't see any doesn't matter so search my stuff give me a piss test i'm fine um they put me in a room with it's got eight beds in it most of the rooms have about eight beds and eight to i think some of the some have like 12 10 or 12 anyway so they're like 100 people so i go into one of the rooms and they have men and women there too that's another thing you'll get violated for a lot of guys will hook up with the girls you can't really hook up with them because you're you're just being watched all the time but they'll maybe they'll go on like they'll both leave to go to i'll explain it and they'll they'll hook up outside or something somebody they'll find out bam violated um so i go in i end up getting get into a room it's an eight-man room it's me

and seven black guys and i had actually been in prison with a couple of black guys right Because guys are coming from all over. Like, you might be in California, but your release date or your release area or district is in Florida. And you end up at a halfway house in Tampa, even though you did all your time in California or Oregon or wherever. You end up in there. But I happened to be, I was with a couple of the guys that were there.

So I walk in, they're like, what's up, Cox? How's it going on? What's up? So that was cool. I have my bunk which was

not a great bed but compared to like prison bed it was great you get one you get one locker you have to put all your stuff in the locker

what a pain that was to try and just literally half my locker was completely filled up with just like paperwork books um so i remember i got to the halfway house and as soon as i walked in the front door so like i was still waiting like to wait for them to bring me back to do the the urinalysis i was waiting and i remember i looked probably up maybe it's probably 75 feet maybe 100 feet away because it's a big room they call it

a day room it's this really just big open bay room and all the women The women's rooms are on one side. I want to say there's probably four women's rooms with eight beds apiece in those rooms. And then the rest are the guys' rooms on the other side. So maybe there's 35, maybe 30 women and 70 guys, something like that. Maybe less women. But I remember I looked across and I saw this chick sitting with another woman

and some somebody else some guy there's a bunch of tables there like there's a bunch of couches as soon as you walk in there's a bunch of couches and a tv just past that there's a bunch of little circular tables with maybe four chairs around them there's probably 10 of those maybe 12 and there's also a TV there and then to the left of that is a hallway that leads to where they dispense medication and the kitchen and then on the right side is an area where they have a class like it's like a it's like a very miniature version of the art app of like a drug treatment class so i get there to the halfway house i look over and i see jess which is the chick i'm i'm currently I'm currently because you know just currently um she'd love that so uh my girlfriend that I

live with I saw her in the halfway house so I saw her with this other woman and somebody else some other guy and I saw her and I remember looking at her and thinking just like like I got to get me one of them so but I remember sitting there in the halfway house and thinking while I was sitting there I was like there are three things I need to work on one is I've got to get a vehicle two I go well I got to get a job first then I got to get a vehicle and at some point in the future I got to get one I got to get a girlfriend um and I had no I have no phone like you have no idea you just have nothing you have all these things you need to do and you need to acquire and I had nothing I did have a few hundred dollars like I think I had like three hundred dollars I actually had

had prided myself that I was going to get out of prison with no money none like I expected to walk out with like 12 cents on my books like I was telling everybody they were like where are you going to work I go well I'm going to try and get a job but I mean if I if I don't get a job and I'll apply it some places but I'm not have a job within a few days or a week then I'll go work at McDonald's and everybody was like man you ain't going to work at McDonald's and I'm like yeah I am I said I want to work at my I wanted to work at McDonald's because I remember thinking I want to work at McDonald's so that for the rest of my life people could you know and I heard somebody complaining I could say listen bro I got out of prison

and worked at McDonald's for six months and then I did this and then I did this and then I did this so i don't want to hear how hard your life is or how you're not happy with your you know your current job or whatever you don't like it change it you know like i've i started at the bottom nothing a pair of blue jeans some sweatpants 300 bucks in my bank or my boy i wanted like no money in my bank account working at mcdonalds gives you a uniform right so like you can go there and get a uniform like i didn't need anything you don't need anything McDonald's is geared toward you starting with nothing. So I was excited about it.

I looked at the whole thing as like an adventure, right? Like it's like this is all an adventure. Like it's fun. Like the worst that happens is I go back to prison. And I remember thinking I was going to bust my, I have no problem busting my ass for a year straight. Like I'll do nothing at work and save my money and make a game out of it. Well, it ends up, what ends up happening is I pick up the phone.

I felt, but, you know, obviously I'm going to try and get a regular job first. I'm going to make that attempt, but who's going to hire me? So I go to, they have pay phones in the halfway. You don't even have cell phones. They got pay phones, right? I don't have a cell phone. So I go to the pay phone, pick up the phone, and I had the phone, I look up, or I get the phone number to Colta's Gym, which was funny because it was one major road away from where I was.

I was on Hillsborough Avenue and one major road over. is Waters Avenue. So I knew that the gym was about two miles from the halfway house, which just a fluke. And I had grown up with some guys, a guy named Trent Coulta, Trian Coulta, and Troy Coulta,

and their father owned a bunch of gyms. The gyms that I worked out as a teenager, and into my 20s when I was in college, I worked out there all the time, and I grew up with these guys, and we were friends. Like, I was best friends with Trent Calta. But Trent, I knew, wasn't really, he was like a personal trainer now.

Treon was running the gyms. So I called the gym and said, hey, my name's Matt Cox. And it's funny because the woman that answered the phone, she's like, oh, Matt, yeah, I know who you are. Yeah, you're a friend of Trian. What's going on? I said, well, look, can you tell him I'm in the halfway house? And, you know, obviously she knew. She must have known something.

I could hear it in her voice like, oh, wow. Oh, I'm okay. Are you mad? So I could tell. And I was like, hey, can you tell Trian? I'm in the halfway house. And she goes, you know what? She said, let me.

She said, yeah, I will. Do you have a phone number? I said, yeah, you can call the phones back, like the pay phones you could actually call back. So I gave him the number. And she said, I'll call him on his cell phone, let him know. And I'd say maybe 20 minutes later, the phone rang. I picked it up. or maybe somebody else got it somehow another i picked i ended up on the phone with him i was like

hey what's up and he said what's going on what are you doing where are you i said i'm at the halfway house on hillsborough avenue and he goes i said you know at the uh at goodwill and he goes whoa bro he said um what do you need anything and i went i actually you know i hate to say this member but i do i need a job i said you save up some money to get a car and he went um i said i don't have a vehicle i don't really have a way to get there i could probably take the bus he He said, no, bro. He said, I'll give you a job. Of course, I can't pay you much. Like, we don't pay anything. Like, they pay like minimum wage. And he said, but I can run interference for you with the halfway house. And I said, that sounds good.

And what he meant by that was, you know, I can help you move around. Like, I'll work with you in the halfway house. And so what ended up happening was I was scheduled to work 80 hours a week at the gym. so he picked me up every morning almost always late pick me up in the morning and drop me and then he would drop me off at night or someone would drop me off at night and somebody picked me up like sometimes his wife would pick me up trion would pick me up other people the gym would pick me up you know it's literally a mile or two away so so he picked me up a couple days later he well first i got ahead to get him approved right like you got to see your counselor and do all this stuff and I have to pay while I'm in the halfway house and you have to understand too that the

halfway house takes like 30% of every of your gross so if I make a thousand dollars they take 300 a week they take 300 plus your and then then of course you also have your taxes of 200 300 bucks so if you make a thousand dollars you're lucky if you're if it if you're making four hundred dollars a week if you make a thousand which I didn't make a thousand but what on did was he paid me minimum wage he gave them my schedule saying I worked 80 hours a week and he paid me minimum wage

but he only paid me for maybe 40 hours 40 maybe 50 hours and for some reason the halfway house never put it together that I was gone 80 hours plus they give you they gave me like an hour

well they gave me 30 minutes to get there and get back So I was scheduled for, I got another hour every day. So I'm getting, I'm out of the halfway house. I think it was like 86 hours because I didn't work every day. Sunday I got off. So 86 hours a week is roughly what I was working with the, obviously the X six hours is travel time when it doesn't take that long. But so I got 80, I was able to get out of halfway house 86 hours a week.

And they would call when I'd get. get there you pick up the phone you call and when you're leaving you call and then they call randomly throughout the day every once in a while they would call initially the first month or two they call like almost every day then it starts to trail off and so but he would pay me for like 40 hours maybe 50 hours a week but i was gone 80 and they never quite put it together that this guy is supposed to be working but he's not he's not getting the money there's just nobody to really make that you know they don't what they do is they you get your you get in your you know you you get in your your paycheck they say want to see your paycheck and then they want to

you okay we'll go cash it and give bring us a cashier's check for the difference for the 30% they okay you got to make a copy you fill out of form the whole thing anyway so a couple a few days later maybe a week later trium picks me up and he picked me up and I remember you know we went obviously the first day I remember was nothing but me just telling stories nothing but guys showing up like friends it's funny too how many friends I said had like guys are showing up like bro what's up man it's me mike man what's going on i'm like i've no idea who this guy is but apparently when you talk to him we were best buddies growing up in high school and we were friends in college and and i don't i don't have any clue really who

this person is like i as he talked i was like i kind of think i remember meeting this guy you know and and that happened quite a bit. Trent, well, Trian's dad was there. So I talked to him and his girlfriend. Eventually Troy shows up. Trian showed up. No, I'm Trian. I'm sorry.

Trent showed up. Troy showed up. Trent was there. Like everybody shows up. So the first day or two was nothing but stories. And I was trying to say, I remember saying I got to save up some money for a car or vehicle. And literally within maybe a week, my ex-wife called me and told me that one of the stories for these guys that I'd gotten into Rolling Stone magazine, it was a story, it was a book, it was called, the short story I wrote was called, I called it, uh, um, orange, was it, oxy, oxy rush, was the first one I wrote.

and then I expanded it into a book, and it was called Generation Oxy. And I had worked with a reporter that got it into Rolling Stone magazine, wrote an article on Rolling Stone magazine. And the truth is, I wrote the article, and then at the last minute, the guy basically put his name on the article and really fucked me over. But ended up optioning it, and so I got a piece of that option. you know which never really seemed fair to me but i was in prison and and i don't there wasn't much i could do it wasn't given like much of an option so uh i got i got would get a check right but i got a check and i got to get a check for like it was like a little over six thousand like maybe six thousand dollars sixty two hundred something like that and then so my ex-wife calls

or ends up calling me and saying hey listen by this point by the way the second day of I was at the halfway house. I was allowed to leave. So I left. I want to say I had $400 because I went to, I went to Walmart. My brother was allowed to pick me up, drive me to Walmart and drive me back. And I bought $300 worth of clothes at Walmart. And I got like two pair of blue jeans, which I still have today, size 30, waist.

and I got some black t-shirts and some white t-shirts and I got a pair of rubber boots and what else socks underwear some hair care products that's important I still have my brush I still have my brush from prison from the medium from the medium I still have my brush from prison from the medium right now in my thing i need a new brush though because some of the you know it's got the long bristles things the long ones and a couple of them have broken off it's it's time for a new but still have it i'm very frugal um anyway i got a bunch of stuff deodorant whatever went to walmart so came back and had i remember i had about a hundred bucks that's got i do remember that i do remember after i went to walmart i had about a hundred bucks left

So, anyway, probably a week or so later after going to the gym, my ex-wife calls me on my cell phone and said, you've got a check here. And I went, really? And she went, yeah, you got a check here because she had been getting the checks from the other options. And I go, how much is it? And she goes, hold on. And she looked at it. She's like, oh, it's $6,300 or $62, whatever it was. And I was like, are you fucking serious?

they optioned they optioned the movie again or the rights the life rights to this this kid's story again and I went I was just like

whoa I was able to take that money I was able to go open up a bank account at Wells Fargo Bank deposit the check put my $100 in there and applied for a secured credit card. So I got a secure credit card for like $300 from Wells Fargo

because I had to build up my... I wanted to build up my credit. And I did that. And I took the money and I went... And I want to say it was like $2,500, $2,600, $2,600. I bought a Jeep Liberty, a Jeep, right? It's like a chick Jeep. So I bought this chick Jeep.

and I was able to drive back and forth to work. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13. months. Terms and conditions apply. visit bemo.com slash

the iPorter to learn more. 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 dinner's July 18th.

Book club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers,

you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexsavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. Oh, and I got a year's worth of insurance. So I got a years worth of insurance. And when I was in prison, I had gotten my driver's license while I was in prison. Because they have something, they call it the flow bus, right? It's the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, you know, transportation, whatever,

where they go to prisons and you can get a driver's license. So I had to take a test, had to go, I took the test, not the driving test, obviously, you're in prison. They don't want to let me drive. So, but I took the test, got my picture taken, and I had a driver's license. And the picture on my driver's license that I have to this day is the picture that I took in prison. Still the same picture, same thing. So, yeah, so I had a driver's license. I got insurance, got a car, super thrilled, able to drive to working back, and started flirting

with Jess, you know, she was helping me with my phone. I start going and I start sitting down at the table with her. So in the morning, I wake up, you know, in the morning, wake up. I wake up, I go get my food, my free meal, my free, you get several free meals. You get free meals and then you got meals you can pay for. And I wasn't thrilled with the idea of paying for a meal. Because they take 30% of everything you make and that includes your meals. But if you want extra stuff like you're like, hey, here's your, we're giving sort of a meatloaf for dinner tonight.

But you can also, if you want, you can buy a hamburger or you can buy this or buy that. So guys start spending their money on that and that just seemed ridiculous. Like I'm already paying 30%. wish to be honest for three meals and a roof over your head 30% of your salary is not really a bad deal even though everybody complained about it it's not a bad deal the problem was they felt like hey i'm still in prison because what people don't understand about the halfway house is at least the one in tampa you'll talk to other guys who'll say let's not what a halfway house is like listen bro i don't know what your halfway house is like on your state crime with your state halfway house

in your nice, plush, liberal state. But this was a federal halfway house in a very conservative district. And I can tell you right now, you are allowed to go to work and back. You're not going to dinner with your family. My family wanted to visit me. They had to come to the facility.

If you have to go buy something, you're allowed, where are you going? What's the address? You have to fill out a form. They have to okay it, and they'll tell you who's picking you up. Okay, we're giving you 15 minutes to be there. you have one hour and 15 minutes you'll have to be back here at an hour and a half 15 minutes there

an hour to spend in the store so it better not be crowded and 15 minutes to get back or we violate you and they love to violate people love it like it and you're being counted three four times a day it's it's really ridiculous really bothered me when they would count us in the middle of the night they could just they would shine the light in your face and wake you up at two in the morning, you're like, are you serious? Like, this is a halfway house. And there's only one way in and one way out. Like, nobody snuck out.

Nobody's escaping from the house by house. Do you know why? Because if I got up and walked out the front door, they don't have permission to physically stop me. So I don't have to climb up in the rafters and saw my way through the roof and sneak out so that I have an extra two hours of time and jump the fence and get by the guard tower.

like i can walk out the front fucking door you're not gonna stop me you're not even allowed to stop me so why are you counting me us at one in the morning anyway okay so i end up buying the car i get the thing get the whole thing see jess start flirting with jess because i every once in while you know i'm sitting there and the first time i ate there was this this woman that was there Her name was Tina. Tina is, you know, like, she's insane. I mean, she really is insane. Like, not sure what to believe any, or not, that's not true.

I know not to believe pretty much anything she says. Like, she, when I asked her, so we sat down, we were sitting there. And Tina's massive. She's got to be over six foot tall. and so I see my girlfriend Jess Jess has got like one arms tatted out brown hair

weighed a buck I'm gonna say she weighed a buck 55 right and she's like five six she's my height I think I'm taller than her but whatever

that's you know it's also probably partially a mental condition that I have I feel I'm about half an inch to an inch taller than her but whatever so she's about we're both about five six she's 150 probably believe my weight at that point by that point i was starting to gain some weight like i've been eating um in the halfway house i got up to like

when i left the halfway house was probably 165 so jess is probably 150 155 and you know we're sitting there Tina sees me this is by the way this is like the white table so everybody else is either Hispanic or black and then you have like one table of the whites because even though it's a halfway house it's still much like I said it's really a prison and so guys are still clicking up so and there were there would be like a black guy would sit at our table or a Hispanic guy or something like that no big deal like nobody cares but for the most part I'm sitting at like the white table so I sit there with um with Tina and Jess and there were these two other guys one of the guys I called Snowden because he looked just like Snowden and he was super

good with computers too like he would help you with your phone and stuff. He didn't want to help me, by the way. He hated me. There were a couple other white guys that were there. They hated my guts. Because as soon as I got there, somebody obviously had said, this guy cooperated. Like, this guy got 26 years. He just got out of prison. He cooperated. Like, you know, and I knew that rumor was going around. And the other thing that happened was, as soon as I got there, the COs, or COs, whatever they call them, they knew me. And so they started watching it slowly went around where everybody was watching American greed I had been on a program called American Greed so they're watching

American Greed and so I remember walking by this one counselor he was a counselor and he walked by and he looked at me and I go what's up and he goes saw you last night and I went what he said yeah watch your show and I go what show and he goes American Greed and I said man I said who else Who else? Anybody else seen that? He goes, oh, everybody's seen it. Everybody's seen it. He said, we all, we all started.

We've all seen it by now. And I was like, okay. And so then one day, a couple days later, I remember walking where the couch area was, and I'm walking by. And there's a guy sitting there watching the American Greed on his phone. So, and keep in mind, I got a phone. I got like an $80, cheap, real cheap Android phone for like 80, 90 bucks. so I get the phone and I downloaded some app that let you get free you got to watch free movies but it must have gotten a virus or something on it like everybody's like oh you were watching

a porn so I wasn't going I wasn't watching a porn site it was I think it was this one app so I downloaded the app and it kept my phone kept freezing up and just doing weird stuff and it was a cheap phone too so I would I would ask just or I'd be like hey man my phone's messed up And I remember I would always ask this guy, Snowden. Now, the reason I asked Snowden was, one, he was good with phones, and two, I knew he hated my guts. But there were multiple guys that hated my guts, and I would sit at the table.

And Jess always laughs to this day. She's like, you knew that Carl and Snowden hated your guts. And you would walk out with your tray. She said, I would watch you look at them, grin, and sit down at the table. Boom. What's going on, guys? and I just start eating and you could just see it there

they would just disgust they would they didn't want to sit with me like oh this fucking guy and I go what's up how's it going and I'd stare at them they'd be like what's up man like they you didn't even like you didn't have the

courage to go to not say anything to not to say man fuck you or man don't talk to me or nothing like they talk around behind your back but they don't even have the courage to say something

to my face. So as a result, I constantly sat with him and tried to talk to him. I would talk to him. I talked to you. And Jess would sit there and grin because she knew. She's like, I was thinking to myself like, does he know? These guys don't like him? He's got to know.

Like you can feel the tension, right? And I always joke because I always say, yeah, like I'm a con man. I've got great intuition. So I can feel when something's not right. Very intuitive. and so I would ask Jess to help me like my phone kept freezing up like it would freeze up like every day or two and a Snowden one's there I had to ask somebody so I asked Jess and I remember Tina had invited had said you know hey oh team talks with a real a real thick accent my head my I do a great Tina too I hope she doesn't see that um it killer because she because in her mind she has me fooled like I remember with the story she told me why she was arrested Tina said she was arrested because she was arrested because she was arrested because she was arrested because she was man I was running a large construction a development company and we needed money and so we asked some of the employees if they wanted to invest and they invested some of their they would empty out their 401k and give it to me and because I didn't fill out the proper forms I ended up getting charged with with fraud with wire fraud and they gave me 10 years can you believe they gave me 10 years for that no No, I can't believe that a few guys gave you their retirement

and you simply didn't fill out the correct form and you got 10 years. Because the newspaper said you were running a fucking Ponzi scheme and that you were a pathological liar and that you continually lied and they couldn't believe anything that came out of your mouth and you spun them and spun them and you stole from your employees and your friends and family and lost a bunch of.

of money and then when the government came to introduce to talk to you you lied to them too and you lied and lied and lied as a result you ended up getting 10 years roughly 10 years it might have been 8 might have been 11 whatever i don't know i don't know this what the deal with this chick is but she did to do prison she definitely went to prison for like a a significant amount of time like it wasn't like two years which some people would say two years is significant but this was like it was like she ended up doing like like eight years seven and a half eight years so she had to have gotten like 10 years um and she got like a year's worth a halfway house or a year worth a halfway house so anyway um we're sitting there and i'm joking with jess and i remember joking with saying to jess one time like my phone's fucked up and then she goes okay she goes give me your phone we looked at it and she went and jess was by the way at this point jess was 32 years old yeah she was

31 or 32 and and she looked at the phone and she goes what's your password and I told her what my password was and my password ended with 69 it's like blah blah like whatever

you know dog 69 and she goes oh 69 huh she's you're one of those guys And I went, no, I said, I don't know what that means, but I said, no, but that's the year of my birth, 69. And she sat there, and she froze. And I could see the wheels moving, the calculations. And she looked at me and she went, well, she goes, you're 50?

I went, well, I'm 49. I'll be 50 in a few months. And she goes, you're a. I'm 49 and she goes I go why and I remember I had said like the guys in my room right like the guys in my room were always like bro that chick likes you I was like no she didn't like me she were just she they go you eat you eat all your meals with her she's always coming up to you you guys are always talking and laughing she thinks you're funny she she likes you bro and I'm like no she don't like me we're just we're just white so we're clicking up together because we're both we're there's very few whites here And, you know, these are a bunch of black guys. I go, nah, Cox, you don't understand. You've been locked up too long. You don't see the signs.

You don't understand. That girl likes you. And I went, no, no, she didn't like me. And so when Jess was looking at my phone, she goes, she looked at my phone and she went, so you're 50? I went on, I'm 49. She goes, and she went, I go, why?

Does it matter? And she went, well, no, it's just my, my dad's like 50, 50, 53, 54. And I went, and I remember thinking, I keep mind that I'm 18 years older than Jess. So I remember thinking to myself, I was like, like, to me, I was like, okay, well, what's the big deal? I thought, wow, like, that's, like, she does like me. Because if you were friends, what does it matter if I'm 18 years older than you? What does it matter if I'm 50? We're just friends.

But as somebody you're prospectively thinking, this is someone I may like or want to hook up with or I'm interested in, now your age makes a difference. And she was like, no, it's just my dad like 53, 54 something. And I was like, okay. And she goes, I go, you know, she was like, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's nothing. So we, she helps me and everything. But at that point, I remember thinking, this chick likes me. She likes me for sure.

So I remember went back to those guys in my room. I was like, listen to what just happened. And I told them they're like, Cox, I told you, man. Told you that girl likes you. He built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million because 50 million wasn't enough. and 60 million seemed excessive. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crimes, but when I do, it's bank fraud.

Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. So then, yeah, so then I start texting. Oh, now this is the other thing. Jess was texting me a couple times a day, three, four, five times a day. for the next day no texts the next day i texted like twice got one response and i didn't get the long five or six emails five or six sentences response i got the i'm like hey what's going

how's your day going how's everything going fine like an hour later i got the one the one word response fine listen no no you don't go from us going back and forth all day i was like oh wow Okay, the 50, the 49, the 50-year-old thing, that bothers her. So then over the next week or two, she slowly started, you know, and then I started realizing, like, she has been flirting with me. And then at one point, she, I remember, I was at the gym, and she texted me, and she said, hey, but I didn't text her back right away. Because I was doing something, and I didn't realize my phone had gone off.

So by the time I was like 20 minutes later, by the time I checked it. And she had said, hey, are you at the gym? Is it the one of the gym on Waters Avenue? And I could text her back and I said, why? And she said, she's like, well, I was going to come by. Because she was coming back from her job. She worked as a, she worked as a maid at a, at like a motel. And so she took the bus back and forth.

and so she was like well I got off work early and my bus stop isn't far from there and I thought I might come by and I was like well come by and she's like no I can't because it's too late now and I've got to catch the bus if I miss this this bus

and then whatever I have to walk here I have to do this or whatever it's a whole thing where she had like a 30 minute window that she could have come by and seen me and all I could think about was like why are you coming by to see me. Why are you risking coming by and seeing me? And when I was like what that night, like when I saw her, I was like, why, you know, why would you, why were you going to come by and see me?

She's like, no, no, I was just, I said, well, like what? And she goes, I was just, I go, you think about me a lot. And she was like, I think about you sometimes during the day. I think about, you know, I was just going to stop. I wanted to see the gym. I wanted to see the gym. And I just was like, no, no. Now there's something else is going on here. And she was like, no, nothing else. I go, yeah, yeah, you like me. You like me. And she's like, no, I don't like you.

I don't think of you like that. I'm like, nah, listen, I'm a con man. I have very good intuition. I'm telling you right now, you dig me. You dig me. And she's like, I don't know what you're thinking. I don't dig you. Not interested.

She says, I make fun of guys like you. Like, I don't date. Girls like me don't date guys like you. If you think, Jess was raised in, she was raised, her whole family has worked for like the dairy industry so they they work you know they work on these dairy farms and dairy farms are are listen it's backbreaking work most of the dairy workers are are mexicans are like illegal mexicans and so her family she's not Mexican but you know her family works like her sister like raises calves her father breeds breeds cows you know Jess works in the factory um you

know her brother works maintenance um her mother was a milker you know what i'm saying like they work they work these factories now they don't all work there now but they come and go her father still works there and they come and go um but basically they she grew up in the and on the on these large farms they have houses for the employees so you'll you can rent a house and so she grew up in these dairy houses so this is this is these are not soft nice well manicured um areas where these places are these are you know dirt roads it's a rough area like she grew up very poor and um so she was like you know listen we she's like girls like me make fun a guy like you she's like you don't hunt you don't fish you don't you don't own you don't own a truck you

don't like she's like a cow girl you know she's like a farm you know a farm girl um she's like a redneck and so anyway she she was like and i was like no no but i told her i said no i said you you you like you some city boy that's what it is you like you like me anyway um she ended up leaving oh this was This is funny. This is classic. You'll like this. This is so sad. I remember she said, we were sitting at the table one day and one of the guys was talking about hooking up with some girl. How they had met like some girl was, you know, whatever. He'd met her and they met in the parking lot or something. He's like, yeah, man, like we've been meeting like for lunch and this and that. She works near me. And so it was like, he was like, he'd met her. And they met her. And they met in the parking lot or something. He's like, like, we've been meeting like for lunch and this and that. And so it was like, like, like oh okay that's great that's great and i think was it bobby anyway so we were talking and i remember um Tina said to said well uh mad have you are you are you looking for anybody you think about dating anybody and of course you know I'm in the halfway house like who's going to date me in the halfway house like I'm like no not really I said and she's

what kind of girl do you like and she says I work in an office office, like I might know somebody and I went, I mean, what kind of girl do I like? I said, I'll be honest with you. I said, I like the kind of girls that I like and I said, honestly, it's not what you expect. She goes, what's that? I said, you know, like I like a chick with tattoos, you know, like maybe she's got some tattoos. She's a little rough around the edges. She's like a tomboy or, you know, maybe a stripper. Maybe she's a stripper. Maybe she's a rough around the edges kind of and so as i'm talking jess glances up at me and a couple of guys everybody starts to glance over at jess and Tina goes what about jess and i went jess she goes what about jess and jess looks at me and i went i'd be honest with you i said jess is about i said jess is about 20 pounds away from being datable and she went and and jess goes you think I think I need to lose 20 pounds? I said, no. I think you need to lose 30 pounds. But if you lost 20, you're datable and we'll talk about the other 10. And she goes, well, I think I'm fine the way

I am. I said, right. So that's fine. It's no big deal. I get it. You like me? It's not going to happen. She's, I don't like you. I go, whatever, whatever. So anyway, not long after that, and she was so irritated by that. She brings that up to this day. So what's so funny about that, Anyway, is that literally, you have to understand, she left. So she gets on an ankle monitor. She goes home. And she was like, hey, I'm leaving tomorrow. Like, you know, like, that's the kind of stuff she would do.

She'd go, you know, I'm supposed to be leaving tomorrow, right? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, that's good. It's good. You get to go home and stuff. She's like, yeah. And she's giving me the girly, glancy eyes, you know, the whole thing, the whole little flirtatious, like, you know, she's sad. and you know and what do you think about that i'm going to miss you she don't want to say it though

anyway she leaves we keep texting she gets home eventually i leave i end up leaving so just before i leave the halfway house i'm looking for a place to stay so what i realized very quickly is that as a result of having a felony, nobody wants to rent to me. And I'm being honest with people. When I call them, I'm like, hey, I'd like to rent a place, blah, blah, blah, yes. And then they say, well, okay, so are you a felon? I am a felon.

I'm in a halfway house. Yeah, okay, well, no, it's not going to happen. Click. That happened over and over again. So I'm having a real hard time. Tina ends up telling me. she has a friend of her no she just built she she she was working for like a company that does engineering and she said that they had just put on like a mother-in-law's quarters in these people's

house that lived on Bayshore Boulevard so Bayshore Avenue Bayshore whatever so it's a nice It's a really nice area. So in Tampa. So she tells me that, hey, these people travel like nine months out of the year. And they need someone to house sit. And they will let you stay for free in the back if you'll just make sure you watch their house. They'll have your cell number. You can call them, let them know what's going on.

Everything's okay. Make sure the sprinklers are running. Nothing breaks. Whatever. I'm like, that's a sweet deal. So I'm like super excited So I basically stop looking And I tell Tina

But I can feel something not right about Tina Like I know something's not normal With this woman Like her story doesn't make sense You got 10 years because you fell out a form You didn't fill out the right form Like stop it That's not what I've been to prison

I know what's going on You're a fucking con artist So you bilked a bunch of people You ran a little Ponzi scheme just like what you pled guilty to in federal court and you went to prison. So she's saying all this stuff and I keep telling her I want to go meet these people.

Like I'd like to come by and meet. Oh, of course, of course. So she scheduled a time where we're going to go meet. And at this point, I can leave work. Like I've got it set up where Trion, we've got it set up with a halfway house where I have to go pick up gym equipment and pick up things for the gym.

And I have to go to Sam's Club. and pick up stuff for the gym for coax or not coax but whatever you know energy drinks and towels and cleaning equipment so I'm allowed I can I can leave for a couple hours here a couple hours there and I started being able to go to see my mother like twice a week I would go see my mom twice a week like on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning I would go in sign into the gym leave for two or three hours and then come back so which was great I mean I appreciate trion for for arranging that for me of course they they have no idea that the halfway house had no idea where i was going they think i'm going to driving you know i'm driving to go drop off equipment or get

equipment welded like we had all kinds of excuses and then i'd come back and trion if they called they he'd say yeah yeah he's not here he had to go do this and you have to call in and tell him hey i'm leaving here's where i'm going and then you call hey i'm back now so i would see my mom anyway so i had at a range where I was like, hey, I can go see these people. Let's set up a thing. And she rescheduled several times. She was like, oh, man, they can't do it today. They extended their trip, but they're going to be back on Wednesday.

Can you do it Wednesday? Yeah, I can do it Thursday. Yeah, we'll do it Thursday. Yeah, Thursday, or Wednesday or Friday, right, whatever. It kept getting pushed back. And I was at the point where I was like, Tina, you don't seem to understand. Like, I'm leaving in a week. Like, I have to meet these people.

and so it comes down to it where at the last minute I go to Tina and I say the fuck is going on and she says oh mad I didn't want to tell you I just found this out this morning they don't want you to be they want you to they know me and we're friends and they want you to be there but they talk to their son about it and their son looked you up

and they said they don't want he doesn't want you at his parents house. I'm so sorry Matt and she tears up like she's gonna start crying and I'm like are you out of your fucking mind the other reason I knew

it was fucked up was because Tina would send me stuff that I was like hey Tina what are you working on and she would send me stuff like she would send me one time a little like a little one bedroom one bath

schematic. Oh, this is what I'm working on right now, and she sends it to me. Well, then a month later, when she was telling me she had these people's little, this little house thing in the back, mother-in-law's quarters in the back near the pool that I could stay in, she sent me the same schematic that she'd sent me a month or two before. Oh, well, yeah, we designed their whole, the mother-in-law's quarters, it just got finished, it's brand new. Here's a picture of it. Boom, and she sent it to me. And I thought, boy, that, looks familiar and i checked back a month or two sure enough it's the same one she sent me before where she wasn't working on that one this was another one she was working on in a development

so it was like i know she's like i already know she's lying because she also said that she was one of the girl one of the one of the models in in uh john palmer's the guy who sings um um addicted to love it was a big song and they had a bunch of models that were dressed in black with slick black hair playing guitars she said she was one of the models so i went and looked up who all the models were she's not one of the models anyway and when i asked her i say hey you know it's funny teen i said i looked up those models like you're not one of them she's oh well see i was like 15 years old so they couldn't use my name man they couldn't use my name i was underage so they just left me off listen i've seen those

models i stopped that video she ain't one of the models i don't care 15 or not she and one of them anyway the point is now at the very last minute in the halfway house i have nowhere to go just so happened that i had a friend or i had a girl that i dated i had a girl that i dated when when i was i was uh 19 was i 19 yeah i dated for about a year i dated from the age of 19 to 20 we lived together her name was stacey stacey and i had always always always remained friends. In fact, I went to Stacey's wedding and actually ended up meeting a girl at Stacey's wedding and then took her, like a week later, I took her to, I want to say, Acapoco in Mexico or was it, Kazama? I don't know. I took her to Mexico for like a week.

Her name was Christy. She was nice. She was nice girl. Anyway, so I took, she's too tall. She was like five seven five eight like it was never going to work but the point is is i took like i meet her at stacey's wedding i remember two stacey sat me at the she goes look i'm sitting you at a table with some of the bridesmaids there's this one girl there her name her name is christie and i'm like i said her last name her name is christie and christie is a very nice girl matt don't get any ideas do i was like of course i'm not going to get any ideas i wouldn't do that did i ever tell you this story listen to this so i remember I go, so I go and I meet Christy and I flirt with Christy all night.

We end up, I end up, we end up going for, like, after the wedding towards the end. I go, hey, I go, let's get out of here. Let's go get some coffee. So we go to Starbucks and we get some coffee. She's in my car, right? I had an Audi TT Quadra when they first came out, right? They were like 50, 60 grand. So it's like a $100,000 vehicle now.

Anyways, super cool car. So shoot, now it's probably even more because cars are fucking outrageous. $40,000 vehicles now. We're going for $70,000. It's fucking crazy. So it's probably $200,000 sports car now. Anyway, point is, we go to, I remember we went to Starbucks. This is what a, this is so, I love this.

We go to Starbucks. We eat at Starbucks. I mean, not we, you know, whatever. We have some coffee and whatever, a scone or something. We, I flirt, you know, really seriously with her. We end up going back. We get in my car. I drive her back to her car so she can get her car and go home.

We start making out. And I remember And so she goes to get out of her car And she goes, oh my God I can't find my keys I said oh my gosh I put them in the chair It's Starbucks

I go shit Jump in the car Turn around Drive back to Starbucks Walk up She's in the car I walk up to Starbucks Knock on the door

There just so happens They're just like leaving Everybody's just walking out the door And they're like Yeah what's going on And I was here There's a girl And she goes car keys

And I went yes And she goes And she gets me the car keys and hands them to me and I go thank you very much and I walk I put them in my pocket I get in the fucking car I started the car and she goes did they have them and I go listen here's what we can do you can come back to my place or I said if you feel uncomfortable with that I said I can I can rent you a hotel room or something and she says I'm not going to let you rent me a hotel room because she had like an hour drive or something I said and what we do is we'll come back here

tomorrow morning so I said or you can come to my place say at my place I'll sleep on the couch. And I said, and we'll come back here early in the morning, and when they open and get the keys. And she goes, oh, God. She sat there and she goes, I can't believe, I can't go home with you. She's, I can't. And I go, well, I'll sleep on the couch. She's, you're not going to sleep on the couch. And she goes, oh, my God. And she went, okay, look, she says, let's just go back to your place. And I go, I reached in my pocket, and I pulled out the keys. I said, now listen, If I was a real scoundrel, I said, I would have waited until we came back here tomorrow morning. I said, and I'd have said they gave me the keys.

I said, I want brownie points for giving you these keys right now. Because I said, you don't know how much I want to. I was hoping. Listen, I was this close to being like, damn, that was easy. Like, I'm just going to take this chick home. Like, it would be stupid to give her the keys now. But I thought, nah, you know what? you get some brownie port so i gave her the keys and she was like oh my god she's like stacey told me

you were i was just a scoundrel like you're a horrible person like i gave you the keys and then like a week later i took her to fucking mexico for like a week and then maybe two three weeks later we broke up um you know but she was it going to lie she's too tall she was a giant she was like five seven five eight she's that's she's that's huge to me so Anyway, so then back to Jess. So let me tell you how I end up with Jess. Listen to this. This is good.

So go back to Jess. I'm not, so, oh, it's a halfway house. I'm at the halfway house. So the last minute, I call Stacy. My ex-girlfriend, Stacy, I call her and I go, and Stacy had already told me if you need a place to stay, I have a spare room. And I went, oh, my God. So I call Stacy and I go, hey, um,

God, you're not going to believe that. She goes, I have the room all waiting for you. Not going to be a problem. I said, are you serious? And she goes, I said, Stacey, it's so weird. Like, I feel really weird. You're there with your husband and your kids. And it's just so uncomfortable.

And she says, it's not going to be uncomfortable. It's not a big deal. She said, she actually, she, listen, she was actually a nice place. And she said, I'm renting another room to a friend of mine who's going through a divorce, who's a police officer so there's a cop living in one spare room and i'm living in the other spare room and then her kids live in a couple and listen it's for for for i'm going to call it a rooming house for a rooming house it was a nice rooming house like this place is massive she lives on two acres on a lake house was probably worth seven eight hundred thousand dollars pool so um i go there

I meet her husband and kids a couple days later I move all my stuff I walk out of the halfway house move all my stuff out of the halfway house and yeah so then I end up in the halfway house

I end up in the halfway house I move into her I'm gonna say I always say rooming house you know because I did I run in a room so I'm you know I end up moving into the rooming house to Stacy's spare room and you know and so

So about, so at the same time period, I had been, I had called a guy named Danny Jones. Danny runs a YouTube channel called Concrete with a K. I think most people probably know this. Concrete with a K. So at the time, you know, it was doing pretty well. It had like three, I want to say it had 300,000 subscribers. He had about 300,000 subscribers. Might have been under 300.

Or maybe it was like a little, right at 300, let's say. So we had about 300,000 subscribers. And I had called him in the halfway house. I'd sent him an email and then we spoke on the phone. I told him who I was. But I also told him that I'd written a bunch of true crime stories. And I was wondering, thinking about starting a podcast. I was wondering if he could answer some questions.

So he, of course, being Danny, takes that and turns it into, he says look I can answer your questions I can I don't mind helping you out but he says you really want to know if you're any good speaking in front of a camera or if anybody's going to be interested in you or your story he said you should come on my show and tell your story I was like I don't know I said I know I have an amazing story so my fear is I tell my story and people start focusing on me and not really focusing on these amazing true crime stories that I've written and he's like bro I mean honestly man you know you really should come on and you can always come back and talk about your stories these other stories i was like all right right so i put him off because i was in the halfway house i'm like yeah bro i can't i can't i can't so finally what happens is i've been in stacy's probably a month or so and danny calls me up one day and he's like listen

you're not in the halfway house you're living in someone's spare room you have a vehicle i've answered all your questions regarding youtube and how to start a podcast and the whole thing I'm on the show. I haven't posted anything in almost two weeks. I need you to come and do a fucking interview with me. I mean, I was like, fuck, you. I mean, he's, like, he's right. Like, he did.

I did say I'd do it. He has been really cool with me. I was like, all right, bro, win. He's like, tonight. I was like, oh, shit. So I throw on a shirt. I drive to St. Petersburg. Or he always says Seminole, whatever, which is really, I think Seminole is in St. Pete.

But is it, what did you say? Next to St. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I drive there, go there. I remember I walked in and he was there and I think some other guy was there. It wasn't HatRack. No, no, Hat Rack was there.

Real name is Shane. So Shane was there. So he was there. And we sit down and he goes, how long is your story take? And I just said, shit, man, I can tell it in five minutes. I got a five minute version. I got a 15 minute version. I got a two-hour version.

He goes, give me the two-hour version. I said, all right. So I talked for like two hours and 15 minutes. And I think that video has like 1.8 million views right now. Within the first three months, I think it got like a million views. And he was, you know, ecstatic. So I did really well. That was doing really well.

Well, at some point, after it had been up for like a month or so, Jess saw the story. She saw the podcast. So people in the halfway house are passing it around, and then people are still friends from being in the halfway house together. So she ends up getting it. She watches it. She texts me one day and says, hey, listen, I'm supposed to be coming into Tampa. would you like to um she said i've been thinking about you lately um and i was wondering if you wanted to um you know get lunch or dinner or something and i went um yeah yeah i said yeah i said

yeah i said yeah i said yeah i said yeah so i'd like to um i said okay well you know and i said yeah when and she told me you know oh we came up with a time and i said yeah yeah i said okay well it's a date and she goes no it's not a date i'm just saying as friends because she actually was dating a chick that she had met in prison that girl lived in tennessee and i remember she used always say well you know i'm gonna we're gonna end up together and i was like you're not gonna end up together and i'm like i tell you right now you're not going to end up together because this girl's been on probation for over a year and a half and she's if you were going to end up together she would have come down here she can easily get her her um probation

transferred and she had nothing but excuses i was like look that's over you don't know it's over you're still holding out hope but i promise you she's dating somebody else like i'm doing everything i can to undermine that relationship you know what i'm saying and i'm saying it in such a way that wasn't that bratt brass about it i was very well you know there's probably what happened you know it's not a big like a relationship in prison's probably different and you know i'm trying to be understanding but i also want to get into her pants so um um i'm presuming to be understanding when my real goal is to get in her So anyway, we're on, so she's like, okay, so let's go to dinner. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it as friends.

And I was like, no, no, not as friends. It's a date. And she goes, no, no, I just, I have a girlfriend. I just want it to be friends. And I went, no, I don't want to go. I don't want to go on to dinner with you as friends. And she was like, well, I want it to be friends. I said, well, that's really irrelevant.

I'm not going as friends. And she goes, well, then we're not going to go. I said, well, then we're not going to go. And she was, why can't we go as friends? And I go, let me, let's just, let me just be honest with you. I said, there is nothing more useless in the world than having a female friend that you're attracted to. Like, that is the most useless friendship out there. Like the whole time she thinks she's building a friendship, all I'm doing is waiting for an opportunity to nail her.

Like, it's not that hard to maintain a relationship, right? Like, with a, you can text once or twice a day, say some flirty, cutie stuff. And then at some point, there's a weakening, there's a chink in the armor of the relationship that she's currently in. And boom, you're in there. So, you know, you're just, you know, so, and that's, I'm living in a half, I'm living in somebody's spare room. Like, I mean, you know, I saw like I got women falling out of this guy. And every woman that I dated, that I tried to date, like I got on some of these apps, catastrophes. I mean, every time they would look me up, it was over.

it was done so so yeah so she just says yeah she doesn't want to go on a date with me she's well forget it then we're not gonna then forget i said okay fine and she's like you're serious i go yeah serious so maybe a week later we were supposed to go again she schedules and we schedule and she calls but she's like you were serious i go yeah i'm serious she goes i said look we can go i said you can call it what you want i'll call it a date so we schedule another time she was supposed to call me and she stood me up then a couple days later you know she was like I'll text you when I get off work. Well, she worked late.

She didn't text me, you know, which was bullshit. But a couple days later, she texted me, I'm sorry. I was working late. I know that was a shitty thing. I still want to see you. Next week, next week, same type of thing happens. Next week, or maybe two weeks go by, enough. She texted me, look, I'm coming.

I'm going to be off work. At this time, I can meet you. Can we go out? And I went, yes, as a date. She goes, not as a date. And I said, let me explain to you something. this is a date in my mind. You don't want to call it a date.

That's fine. But it's a date in my mind. She says, okay, whatever. So then I head to the restaurant. And remember my ex-wife called me and she's like, why are you going to dinner with this girl that has a girlfriend that says she does not like you? She's not interested in you. And she's telling you it's not a date.

And why are you going? I said, let me explain something. I said, I'm going to go on the date. I'm going to be charming. I'm going to be funny. I'm going to buy her dinner. We're going to laugh. We're going to go to the movies.

We're going to hang out. I'm going to be just amazing. And I said, at the end of the date, I'm going to try and kiss her. Now, if she doesn't kiss me, we're good. I know. This was your chance. I know. I get it.

It didn't work. You're not interested. But if she does kiss me, then I know the whole fucking time it was bullshit. And my intuition was right, and she was interested. what happens is I go to the I end up going to meet her and she when she shows up up she's wearing a long sleeve I remember too it was a burgundy it was a burgundy long sleeve shirt she had makeup on hairs done blue jeans she looked amazing cowboy boots she always wears cowboy boots and I just was like and I was like hey what's up she walks up and she gives me

this huge hug and like I let go like I hugged her for a second and then let go and she just kept holding me and so kind of hugged her back rubbed her back a little bit and then she kind of let go and she smiled at me and listen I knew right then you didn't dress up like this for your friend so we go we eat she laughs at every single joke i tell everything grins smiles and i'm not that funny like it was overboard the flirtation was outrageous then we end up going we get my car we leave we get my car my little jeep get my jeep go to the movies when we go to the movies it's packed like we can't you know you can't even get into the movies because it was opening night of star wars the new star wars and so we couldn't get in so we get back in we get in my truck or my little

jeep but i get in and she goes well we're not going to know movie she's what do you what do you what do you want to do and i go well i want to make out in the car what do you want to do and she goes as she looks at me and she kind of rocks her head and kind of shrugs and i thought oh hell no boom listen i i i i there was like a gap like this like i'm in my see like and i mean i went i went i went I was right there in her fucking seat right next to her. I mean, to this day, she'll say, I was so nervous. Like, she's like, you jumped forward and nose to nose looking at it. Like, I'm waiting for her to be like, okay, no, forget it.

Like, I'm assuming it's not going anywhere. Like, even though I knew, I felt it. I thought this is our chance. Like, I'm no, I have very little, the, I very little embarrassment in me, right? Like, it's hard to shame me or make me feel embarrassed at this point in my life. So if I got right up to her, she's like, no, what are you doing? Forget it. It's not going to happen.

I told you. I would, I'd be like, all right. Now I know. And I'd have dropped her off. But that's not what happened. We start making out. We made out so much for like probably for hours. So much my lips were, were, um, what is it?

Chapped. My lips, her lips were chapped. We had to stop multiple times. We were like, look, we were. got to stop kissing we have to stop kissing like my lips are killing me they're chapped there and then boom we'd start making out again so anyway a couple days later so we nothing we end up i end up taking out in the back of the amc theaters we drove around back in the back of like all class right all class in the back of the amc theaters we end up making out by the way and by this time

i'm not 49 i'm 50 so i'm 18 years older than her like not a bad comeback right so fresh out of prison making out some chick it wasn't like I don't think it was right next to the dumpsters but we could have should have added right next to the should throw it next time I'll say right next to the dumpsters no but anyway we made out for hours and hours and then I ended up having to end up dropping her off and she leaves and then you know we went to

we got back together a couple days later and um you know I think we've rented a hotel it's nice right and we're not messing around like I'm straight for the same thing we went to the movies that time got out she said what do you you want to do i said i want to go rent a motel room what do you want to do she was like oh my god i can't believe this i was like yeah let yeah yeah like i'm not i'm not pussy footing around here i'm down to

we need to handle business here okay i got a lot of pent-up sexual tension here so anyway yeah so uh we've been dating since then we did break up a couple times crushing to me and uh yet that's a whole video she should be here for that We can drag that I can drag that fucker out for two hours right then and we'd argue too because it's one of the few things we argue about One how many times she broke up with me why we broke up getting back together So you know but that could be a whole thing that could be a whole thing Yeah um all right i think that's the end of my story because at this point you know it was i i mean there are some other things like i i i had a deal with Blumhouse Productions on a thing.

Oh, I didn't even talk about, I was interviewed by a couple of magazines. I was interviewed by Forbes magazine. I was interviewed by, what else were they interviewed by? The Atlantic did an interview about me getting out of prison. They were basically like he's a true crime writer. And I've optioned several, since I've been out of prison,

I've optioned several of my true crime books. Should I have focused on that? I don't know, whatever. I've optioned several of my stories. You know, it just takes a lot. Like, I could get to a whole hour on how many things have gone wrong. But the problem is, is that, and this is the thing that I know about this, just having talked to guys that are in the industry and other reporters,

is that, you know, there are guys that do nothing but write articles in magazines and option those articles. and those articles and those options never end up getting made into movies. And they'll, I remember my literary agent, he told me, this is the guy who got me the deal on Generation Oxy, he told me that he said he has authors that do nothing but write books that get optioned three or four times. And they've sold 30, 40 options. And they're constantly being re-options because you option in something.

thing for like 18 months and then it gets re-optioned. So you said they'll have like 30 of them. He is, they've never been made into a movie or a series. Nothing's ever happened. They just re-option them and re-option them and re-option them. And they make good livings, writing books that are optioned. And he's like, they make a decent living, you know. And so I was always, he told me this when I was in prison.

And so I always remember thinking, so if I could get it to the point where This is before I started doing the podcasting or painting, and I'm still in prison kind of thinking about what I was going to do. And I remember thinking, like, I could just option shit for the rest of my life. Like, how hard is it to just write stories? And I don't even try and get the stories into, I don't even try and get them into magazines, which is really something I should be doing. But if I just optioned these art or these stories that I'm writing on these guys and optioned them,

Like, you could live your whole life just on those options. So, so even though I've optioned a bunch of stuff, a bunch of stories that I have, like I've, my buddy Rusini's story I optioned, boziacs, I've optioned, Generation Oxy, that one. Anyway, the point is, is that, you know, I would love for those stories to be made into movies or some kind of like a series or, something and actually I'm getting a couple of them right now are being turned into documentaries and that gives you the ability to to say hey to be able to point it at a longer version of the story that you can then option into or parlay into a

series of some kind or maybe a full-length feature film or something but the point is is that you know if that never happens it never happens I mean obviously it's what I want to happen but we'll see so I don't know where else to go with this. I appreciate you guys checking out or listening or watching or whatever and if you like the story do me a favor, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell.

Also, there's a thank you button now YouTube has where you go it's on the same bar where the likes are where it's like like and share and all those. You can swivel it over and there's a little dollar sign and you hit that and it's a thank you button you can leave me like five bucks three two bucks five bucks ten or or fifty bucks something like that i don't know you can leave different amounts

so that would be great if you're interested if you're interested in kind of helping support the channel and let me you know make you know different content and do these interviews and continue to do them obviously i have a patreon you can join for like ten dollars a month you can join for 50 bucks a month you can join for 125 a month also all my books are available on Amazon, between Amazon and Borders books, I think all my books are available. So, yeah, and I'm going to try and continue this series. I'm probably going to talk about some of the other books. I might take the Frank Amadeo story and kind of tell the whole story of Frank Amadeo,

which is basically my book, maybe do a multi-part series on that, possibly. Let me know in the comment section that that's something you guys are interested in. Also, I could probably do bailout, which is another one I have. There's a bunch of books that I have. And they're all, almost all of them are available on Audible. So I appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. And I really do appreciate it.

So see you.