Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Hunting the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives (ACTIVE BOUNTY)

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

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This story is a little sensitive to me because this is a story where I failed miserably. The FBI has launched a manhunt here for a fugitive marriage. John and Julianne Demetri, and we're very much into the material trappings of the ultra-rorored. Most wanted white-collar crime? It's extremely to find a routine financial fraud, spin into a domestic extremist investigation. She asked me to come out and tell you a story from my time in Honolulu. Yes. Okay.

I didn't know you were in Honolulu, but yes. Right. This was the American Green. Yeah, they did an episode of American Greed about. this. And I'd love coming on your show because I get to tell stories that make me look great, right? I get to make me look like this fantastic agent who solves every crime and always gets the bad guy. This story is a little sensitive to me because this is a story where I failed miserably. There's no happy ending for me, but I'm happy to share it with you in the spirit of transparency.

Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I mean, as long as I can get some clicks out of it, I'm willing to put you. I know where your priorities are. My priorities are to make me look cool, but I'm happy as a friend to come out here and to talk to you because I love doing your show and I like you and I always get good feedback for my appearances. No, you don't. Mostly I do. I also get like, why are you consorting with that guy? Right.

Why are you, oh, this, why are you giving that guy a platform? How dare you? Yeah, I know. I get those. Exactly. So, um, so let me give a little bit of background. Yes. So there's a fella named John Demetrian, uh, ethnically, not that it matters, have Greek,

half Filipino, grew up extremely wealthy in. the Hawaii in Hawaii, in Honolulu, the island of Oahu. He went to, his dad was a medical doctor, probably still is. His, I don't know, his mom did, it doesn't matter. He went to Puneho High School. Do you know what Punaho is? Puneho is a school that Barack Obama went to. Oh, okay.

So it is the place for rich kids in Hawaii to go to school. And it's a very great school and the people that are wildly successful. Somewhere along the line, he meets a woman named Julianne Baldueza, who's 100% Filipino. Kind of not super rich, but kind of one of these, I call her a Filipino princess, likes the best of everything, okay? And they get married in an expensive wedding ceremony in Waikiki, and they're together, okay? This is the early 2000s, let's say. John was a mortgage loan officer. That's all that's enough said.

That's all you know. Ethically depraved. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, he's out there, you know, doing mortgages for people, both regular mortgages and kind of cash out mortgages. Because the thing with the people of Hawaii are a lot of them own houses that don't look like much, but they're worth a fortune because the land underneath their feet is worth a fortune because it's an Iowan. They're not making any more. And people tend to inherit homes from their families. And sometimes those homes are completely paid off and people go get mortgages to get cash to either fix up the house or kind of deal with their day-to-day life. That's what John was doing, giving people both originating mortgages, second mortgages, cash out mortgages, all that. You get it. He also, though, had a real pension he and Julie for get rich quick schemes. So any get rich quick scheme that came down the pipeline where he thought he could make money

he latched on to. One of the most famous ones was featured on American Greed, and there's video on it if you wanted to use it for B-roll of a, remember those curly light bulbs? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the pigtails. Yeah. So he had these curly light bulbs that he said that if you, plug it into your, you know, at your house, the very expensive curly light bulbs would he have.

It would purify the air. It would make you less sick. It would have all these incredible health benefits. He did infomercials on local television in Hawaii trying to sell curly light bulbs to dumbs. Right. And so again, we're talking about a guy here who who has a very expensive wife and who is trying to make money to keep her kind of fed. Right. And so he formed. he ended up forming his own mortgage company in 2001 called Mortgage Alliance. And they used to have like the corneous TV ads on TV, again, trying to sell regular mortgages and cash out mortgages. But their business near as I could tell was mostly legitimate.

I'm sure they were involved in the shenanigans that everyone was involved in the mortgage industry at that time. You know, we're increasing people's income falsely, maybe creating a W-2 here or there, but nothing systemic. Right. I hate to interrupt the program, but if you didn't know, my name's Matthew, Cox and I spent 13 years in prison for title theft. And this is how easy title theft is. I can be sitting in a Starbucks with my computer. I can go online, go to public records,

get your address, name of the homeowner. I can create a deed, a satisfaction of mortgage. I can file that satisfaction of mortgage. I can then transfer the name of your home into someone else's name, or I can simply create a driver's license in the true homeowner's name. I can then sell the home or borrow against the home, and I can do all of that online sitting in Starbucks. I can apply for the mortgages online. I can open up the bank accounts online.

I can go to the closing online. I can have all the documents notarized online, and I can have all of the money wired into my bank accounts online. I can then transfer that money out of those accounts to other accounts, or maybe I could buy precious metals, I could buy diamonds, and I can have all of that delivered anywhere I want by sitting in Starbucks. That's how easy it is to commit this crime now, and it's happening more and more every single day. If you think that you're not vulnerable, you're dead wrong. Do you know who's a potential victim of this crime? anybody that owns a house

anybody that thinks I can't be a victim is just absolutely dead wrong I'm telling you right now if you own a piece of property you are a potential victim the only way to stop the crime is to be notified

by a monitoring service like Home Title Lock Home Title Lock monitors your property records alerts you of any changes and if you are a victim they jump in with their team of restoration experts to resolve the issue

You can get a 30-day free trial of their triple lock protection and a complimentary title history report by going to home tidal lock.com and using promo code Matt 30 or click on the link in the description box. Don't let someone like me catch you off guard. Let's jump forward to 2008. He had an idea. There was a lot of people who were risking foreclosure in Hawaii. What happened with the curly light bulbs? Kind of went nowhere. I mean, it was consumer fraud for sure, but I think it was just sort of an embarrassing chapter in his life, made some money at it probably, but not a ton. But that was a recurring theme with him. Any pyramid scheme he could get involved in he would. He's not a smart guy. He never, again, right. He like, you know, went to college for a couple years, failed out when in the mortgage industry. You've met people like that. I've met people like that. College isn't for everyone. It doesn't make you a dumb, dumb, but he's kind of a dumb dumb.

And, you know, a rich kid, a spoiled rich kid. So he, so eventually in 2008, they kind of switched the gears on mortgage alliance and make it a foreclosure abatement. And what was this? 2008. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. That's the perfect, obviously.

Right. Right. So houses are getting, houses in Hawaii were getting foreclosed upon left and right because homeowners in Hawaii had gotten themselves over their skis with their mortgages. They didn't have the income to support the mortgages. They were taking money out and then gambling it. Las Vegas and just doing all sorts of things, which I think we could look back on as being highly irresponsible with your mortgage. And the banks love to foreclosed properties in Hawaii

because you could actually like sell them. Like the bank, they're not just sitting there like for years, you know, emptied the way they were in some other states. Right. So the foreclosure abatement program, John's idea when people would come to him looking for help and he had flyers all over advertising. It's your house. Are you facing foreclosure? We're going to get you out of foreclosure. The idea is that you would basically sell your house to John or to a straw buyer that John finds because he was super Christian, right? He had all these people from straw buyers at his church who were happy to step in. So you sell your house to a straw buyer for nothing and maybe it was a quick claim deed or whatever.

And then they would somehow through that process of that sale, I guess it wouldn't be a quick claim deed, it would be a real sale. They would extract whatever equity you had in that house because some of these houses, even if you're in foreclosure, some value. So there'd be some sack of money that comes out of this home sale, even though the home sale was to a straw buyer. The original homeowner gets to stay in their home. They're not going anywhere. And the idea, John's pitch to them was that we're going to take the money out, whatever equity you have in your house, and I'm going to invest it in a high yield investment program. Okay. And then from that, I'm going to make your money grow so much. We're going to pay off the mortgage that we got we're getting on your home uh you'll be living there and we'll pay off

the straw buyer's mortgage and then then you're going to own your home outright wow okay right what problems do you see with this plan i mean that that's it's i don't see that that's possible and i don't see that in a crumbling economy there's a lot of things you're going to invest in they're going to give you a high yield yeah and if there was enough equity there you could couldn't you just sell the property and take the equity yourself i mean there's there's there's And, of course, you have to make all those payments in the meantime. Yeah. There's some issues.

Right. So the whole thing's a very bad idea. But you have to also understand that the people he was dealing with were not sophisticated financial minds like you. And they're desperate. They're desperate. They want to stay in their house. Again, most of these homes had been in their families for generations. And they're being told by a successful guy who's on television regularly wearing a fancy suit that they could remain in their homes and have their house paid off if they just do these three steps.

you know, sell your house to somebody. And so he gets straw buyers from his church to kind of step in to be the, you know, not a single mortgage payment was made, though. So are they, he's not paying off the mortgages. He's just transferring the title to the straw buyers. No, no. I think he's paying off the original mortgage. Oh, okay.

Oh, so he is selling it to a straw buyer who's getting a new mortgage. Right, right. The new mortgage, all sorts of shenanigans going on there, right? Because you're signing off saying you're going to live in the house, false income. you're providing fake W-2s, that second mortgage that they're getting to buy this house is crooked as a barrel of snakes. There's nothing good happening there or nothing legal happening there.

Okay. And the straw buyers, it was never really entirely clear to me what was in it for them. I think some were getting paid. Others were doing it out of Christian goodness to help these people stay in their homes. Oh, those Christians, they're, they're, they're, they're so trusting. Their hearts are in the right place, but they're often easy marks for stuff like very trusting yeah so um so you know a couple dozen houses they're able to do this with they don't make a single mortgage payment with the new mortgage so they just take it out and

don't make up one payment and you'll be shocked to learn that they also don't invest this money in anything that's value in shocking yeah i know are you sitting down and uh john and julian used this money to live an extravagant lifestyle they had matching mazirates uh fancy suits uh they had a Hummer, a Mercedes. Julie became addicted to expensive lingerie. She actually at one point went to her certified public accountant asking him if she could claim the lingerie as a tax deduction because she wore it under her clothing while she worked.

CPA explained, no, you can't do that. But they are spending money like is going out of style. But it's not their money. It's the equity that they've extracted from these houses. Meanwhile, not a single mortgage is being paid. The straw buyers are getting letters in the mail saying you're behind in the mortgage. They would go to John and Julian and they would say, don't worry about it. We got this.

The money's under, you know, we're all good. They're not going to. And the straw buyers, the only thing at risk is their credit, right? They don't really foreclose on the house. They're not living there. They had no. Well, I mean, if they signed all the legal documents and there was, you know, there was fraud involved, they are looking at fraud charges.

True. When interviewing them, and again, I wasn't the only investigator on this case. I wasn't even the original investigator. I was on a team of three people who were the entire financial crime apparatus of the FBI in Honolulu. I did the investment fraud stuff and my two partners were dealing with this case.

So I also don't want to oversell it that I was the genius behind building the case here. But I'm kind of watching it all unfold and we're bouncing ideas off of each other while smarter agents were actually investigating this case. The other thing to understand is that the agents are also dealing with

50 other mortgage fraud cases at the time. So while this case was important and interesting to them, it was not their only preoccupation. It soon became their only preoccupation as well as mine because of what happened later. We'll get to that. So I have a question. Yeah. So I'm buying your half a million dollar house. You owe $350,000 on it. You're behind. Way behind. Payments are payments, fees, everything, it's another $50,000. So you owe the bank $400,000. I come in and I buy it from you for $500,000. At closing, you should get the $100,000.

So my question is, the straw buyer, is he one bringing the $100,000? No, is he bringing a down payment, no, is somebody else is bringing it? Or is he bringing it, but he's getting it back? Are they somehow getting the seller to give them that $100,000 back? Or are they working with a title company to get the money? sent back to them, or are they extracting it through some kind of an invoice? You're asking how the... How did the borrowers not get the $100,000 equity?

How do the borrowers? The previous owners of the house? Yes. Okay. Well, they're right. I'm sorry, the sellers. The sellers, thank you. The sellers walk into this knowing that this whole, that this is just a plan for John

and Julian and Demetri. They may very well have gotten a check for $100,000 that was handed right off to John and and Julian. Okay. They were not being, well, I guess in a sense, they're being deferred. frauded. But their whole thing was, I'm going to smart mortgage professionals so I could stay in my house. Right. Stay in fact, not only can I just stay in my house, but they're going to pay off all mortgages on my house because they are able to invest this money so wisely. Right. Yeah, I'm just

curious. So I'm a little on, so perhaps during the, the title company, they did whatever paperwork to have the check cut to mortgage alliance, John Julianne's company. Maybe they just did it as a handshake agreement. But the borrowers, the home sellers were more than happy to give that money to John and Julianne, or else why bother? Yeah, I used to say that there had been renovations done on the property, and then I would provide an invoice from a construction company. And then so for roughly $100,000, they would cut a check to that. So the person I bought the house from never gets $100,000.

Because my fear is I give him $100,000, and then he's got to go get it transferred over, put it in his bank. At some point, he may say, hey, wait a second, I want to keep the $100,000. I want some of this, or, you know, so it's better to just make sure he never gets it. So I was wondering how they were going about doing it. Also, have you ever heard of the term the prosperity gospel? Isn't that when you, is that, is that, is that, would they call it tithing? Is that, is that like, my understanding would be like, like if I tithed or if I'm a good Christian,

like God is going to reward me and make me wealthy. Bingo. And that's what he's pitching. Right. So the one guy, the tithing one, it was when remember, like if you're giving, you give 100,000 of charity, you're going to get it back three-fold or whatever or something, seven-fold fold. Yeah, and that's kind of like the main reason to be, the Christian's like, God is going to make me rich, God is going to make me wealthy.

This will come back to me. This charity will come back to me, which to me means it's not charity. You're expecting something back. Right. So John and Julianne were absolutely adherence to the idea of the prosperity gospel, the idea that because they were such good Christians, God was going to reign money upon them. Because they don't sound like good Christians. I feel like they're spending money on lingerie and vacation.

Now, to be fair, John was the sound man at his church, at his megachurch. He worked the soundboard, and Julianne starred in many Christian plays at that church. These were movers and shakers at their church. And again, they're also on TV. And you know how intoxicating that is and how people think that's a very big deal. They think you're an expert. I was at the gym the other day, lifting weights at 5 in the morning, and Fox Business News was on. And I look up, who do I see Matt Cox trying to sell something?

some mortgage product or whatever. And my point, though, is that in the world of Hawaii, these were local celebrities. And people trusted them. And they were also movers and shakers in their church. And they also drove matching Maserati. So why wouldn't you trust them? And these people were just basically put on a pedestal. Finally, this thing starts to collapse.

And the banks begin filing suspicious activity reports with the FBI, showing that the borrower, the homeowners whose houses were, the second homeowners, the buyers in the original bad transaction, their houses were starting to go into foreclosure. The banks are shock, shock, shock that this had occurred. And they begin contacting the FBI. The bankers talk to some of their, their borrowers who explain what happened. And so they're telling my partners at the FBI that there's a real problem here, mortgage alliance has gone crazy and is involved in this really complicated scheme. And so there's one woman named Laura Cristo, who was one of the straw borrowers. And a very nice lady ran a Mexican restaurant with delicious

food in Onahu. And she had met John Julianne, I believe at church. She was a very devout Christian herself and kind of agreed to help out. And like her credits ruined. She's getting like, you know, notices of foreclosure. She got really screwed. And so we wire her up to go talk to John. And and so she wires up with John. She's like, I'm going to go to the FBI. And John's like, the FBI is already on me. I don't care. Go to the FBI. And so it's very good. recording. And so finally, cutting to the chase, John and Julianne are indicted on wire fraud conspiracy and bank fraud charges. And so they, like all good people who were indicted for mortgage fraud, they decided to plead guilty. And did they or did they take all what happened?

They just said, hey, pled guilty. Oh, really? Yeah. Did you guys arrest them? Or did you just notify when they came in? We're a kinder, gentler FBI in Honolulu. They're not flight risks. They're not dangers to the community. You know, they, uh, they could just, they lawyer up. They got two lawyer. He got one lawyer. She got another. Very good attorneys. Uh, friends of mine, both of those attorneys, because it's a very tight-knit community in Hawaii. Yeah. I don't like that they both got their own attorney. If my wife was like, I need my own attorney, like, blah, blah, blah, whoa, whoa, why would you need your own attorney? I think it's actually a conflict of interest for a attorney to represent both the husband and wife. Yeah, but I feel like we're married and we're, we're,

where a unit worked in this together and because my the problem is is that you get another attorney the attorney first thing they say is cooperate cooperate against your husband doesn't matter because neither one was going neither one needed to cooperate against the other because they both chose to plead guilty okay again april 2009 well how much money was this by the way it's an interesting question okay so as always i think they ended up getting you know there's three numbers that are pertinent right the amount of the loss to the bank is kind of slightly different because the bank is now foreclosing upon these houses for finally and going to recover some of that money through the foreclosure sale. Then there's the loss, which is how much did John and Julianne get, which I think was, you know,

well into the high hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't think it was quite a million. And then there's the how much, how much are they pleading to? Because again, with all these plea agreements, the U.S. Attorney's Office is picking the strongest, you know, four or five transactions and using that as the charging mechanism, which wasn't all that high. So they were looking at only like two or three years in prison according to the federal sentencing guidelines when they played guilty according to the plea agreement they entered into with the Department of Justice. Oh, wow. So that's like, the problem, like for me, that's like two or three years.

That's nothing. Like, yeah, that's not a big deal. But to a free per, to somebody who's never been in the system, they think, oh, my God, my life is over. Exactly. And so, and I think that's what happened. So what happens is then, and I'll say this, you know this, but some of your viewers may not, that the federal system of criminal justice is not like TV where the SWAT team

kicks it down your door and you're kind of sitting there in prison chain to a wall waiting your sentencing unless you're a flight risk or a danger to the community or a violent criminal or something like that for the most part it's very humane you know hey come on in on July 10 or in April 9 for your guilty plea okay bring your passports they surrender their passports to US probation go on home 90 days will do you're sentencing, and then 90 days after that, you'll report to prison. All right. Right.

So, and the whole time, they would just be chilling out at home. That, the vast majority of financial crime cases, that's how it works. Right. Okay, so the fact that they were allowed to surrender their passports and go home was not unusual. But as it turned out, it was a huge mistake. Right. So they gave the passports. So where do you go without a passport?

Do you have a double the second passport? Well, let's get ahead of, we're not getting ahead of ourselves here. So, so again, passport, surrender. asset seizures take place, taking their cars, taking their money. John and Julianne have nothing, nothing. They're at this point of the story sleeping on air mattresses on one of their parents' floors. So things have gone horribly wrong. My impression is that Julie was very much at peace with the idea of going to prison for a couple years and putting this behind her and then moving on with her life. My impression is that John was not. Okay. Right? Both because of the

fall from grace that he had had, the fact that he really liked being a pillar in the community, he's a rich kid who went to Puneho, which is a very big deal that has a lot of social capital in Honolulu. Is that a university? No, that's the high school that Barack Obama went to that he went to. I mean, it's an excellent school. And so sentencing, July 6, 2010, everyone's in court. You know, the Laura Christos are in court, the prosecutor's in court, the attorney's in court. John and Julian are a no-show. No, they're just not there at all.

So what happens then? What happens then? They, are they saying that they're a, they're, that they're fugitives? Or are they saying that they absconded? Well, they're gone. You know, they don't show up. And so what the judge does, the judge finally issues a bench warrant. So now there's a warrant for their arrest.

At that moment, they become fugitives. Yeah. Fugitives for us to catch at the FBI. Right. And, you don't hand those over to kind of just hand it off to the U.S. Marshals and then forget about it. Or you, I mean, I know you, I already know we've had other stories where you've gone way out of your way to track these people down. But is that normal or is that, or do you give it to the U.S. Marshals, but you also look into it yourself?

The U.S. Marshals will defer to the investigating agency. Okay. For catching their own fugitives. Oh, okay. Again, if we chose to do nothing, we could have contacted the U.S. Marshals and said, hey, this is your problem, not ours, but that's no way to run a law enforcement agency, right? Okay. The FBI had been investigating these guys now for a couple years and had a decent understanding as to who they were and what they were about. And also the FBI felt it was just kind of an affront that these guys didn't show up. So the marshals are certainly available to help in these situations, but it's really the FBI's problem. As well it should be, right? The FBI has, you know, there's no magic skill to catching fugitives. The FBI is perfectly capable of doing it. The marshals are also very good at it. But again, having the base of knowledge about who these people are gave the FBI a legacy. up and it made sense for this case to remain at the FBI. How do you know that they went? I mean, them not showing up, does that mean they're just

hanging out in their old neighborhood or? Well, that's the first place you check, right? You head out to, you head out to their house, talk to their parents. You know, where's John? Where's Julian? I don't know. They're gone. They're just not around. Can you tell when someone leak? Because it's not like you're, if I fled when I fled Florida, you flee the, the lower 48 states. You just drive. Who knows where you go. But in it, that's an island. Like you have to, Aren't there records? They're asking the right questions, Matt Cox. We check the flight manifest.

We check the ship manifest. There's no proof whatsoever that John and Julianne left the island. Thank I, Danny's. There's all sorts of possibilities we can consider. We figured out what happened. And we'll get to that. But they're just gone. So 2011, we begin getting intel.

When did they leave by? They, okay, well, they did, they did not show up for their own sentencing on July 6, 2010. Okay. Right. And so we're, you know, I'm the publicity guy. So I'm on TV, ranting and raving, you know, like right along with the FBI while we look for the Demetriens type stuff. Right.

And nothing is hitting. Like, there's no indication whatsoever. And so we're kind of puzzled. How do you get off this island? And so, so 2011, we begin getting interesting intel. You're familiar with the sovereign citizen movement? Yes, I am. You probably just tell, explain the sovereign citizen movement as you understand it and I'll supplement your under your.

Okay, my understanding is, and there's actually different variations. Okay, there are. But overall, they believe that they, they can, they can make themselves sovereign citizens that are not members of, typically United States, of the United States. So they're saying, hey, I'm not a U.S. citizen. I'm a sovereign citizen. I'm a citizen that is in charge of himself. And like I am my own country.

I just happen to be in this country. And because of that, they think they're exempt from paying taxes, obeying the law, having a driver's license, all of this absolute insanity. Right. Right. And so the laws don't, your laws don't apply to me. I'm a sovereign citizen.

I'm not a citizen in the United States. I, what do they call that when they gave up my citizenship? Or I relinquished it, my citizen. I'm no longer a citizen. I wrote a letter. Yeah, whatever. Right. So you've ever heard of the, right.

So John and Julianne, somewhere along the line, appear to have embraced the sovereign citizen ideology. Listen, I don't know anybody that's, I mean, I know some brilliant guys. That's too much. I know some smart guys that actually buy into this, but they have mental problems. Yeah. But a lot of people buy into this because there's just not that, like, they're just not that sharp.

Right. It's like the fact that you convince yourself that this is a problem. thing is insane. Right. But understand where they're coming from, right? Their world is collapsing upon them. They're grasping at straws. I think that's exactly right. There was, you familiar with the straw man theory that the sovereign citizens believe in? I've heard it many times. I probably couldn't articulate it. Basically, it's the belief that the that the actual government of the United States establishes a secret account in your name filled with money that if you do the right kind of, it's almost like an incantation to a God, but if you write this,

you write these documents and you write things on checks and do that, then you can begin drawing upon the secret bank account filled with money in your name that's associated with your social security number. There's all sorts of wacky stuff like, okay, we kept dashes between your social security number and all that. They have a cute, there's a, you have to get your Q-ZIC number. Have you heard of Q-S-C-C-C-C-C-S-I-P? C-U-S-I-P, yes, C-U-S-I-P, yes, C-U-S-I-P number.

Right, exactly. I used to have that one of the guys told me, if you can get your Q-SIP number, you can get your black card issued to you. You can't, you just use your account and then just buy whatever you want. It's like, stop it. Right. So a lot of sovereign citizens who've kind of bought into the straw man theory and the two go really hand in hand, get themselves in trouble for trying to pay debts using counterfeit checks,

thinking that that money is going to then draw upon their secret account. They'll even create, I did two cases and people in Jacksonville who were creating U.S. treasury checks and their computer with the right verbiage on it to draw from their straw man account, both of which went to prison. Right. The worst thing is, is that when they actually go through, because sometimes, you know, you'll put something through the bank and you'll actually get a check for like, they'll, they'll put $20,000 in your account or if you have the correct account and routing number, the check can bounce way late. Right. And then they'll pull the money out and then they're like, this is working. And then, okay, you have it three weeks later, there's a warrant for your arrest and you owe the bank $20,000. Right. It's like, it didn't work. Well, no, what happened was, it's always, see, what happened was I accidentally did, I didn't do it right. See what, they always have some reason. why it didn't quite work as opposed to it just yeah is bullshit exactly in fact investigating um sovereign citizen check frauds is how I met and partnered up with the

agent who put you in prison what Andrea oh Andrea I was gonna say Candice I know Andrea was a secret service she was she left and became a Treasury agent and so I partnered with her on that because when you're drawing checks up on the US Treasury she has some expertise there and she was great to work with always very professional a very, you know, a very nice professional person. All right. So the Demetrians have bought into this idea as part of the story. So at this point, there was also a guy in Ozark, Alabama, named James Timothy Turner.

And he had an organization, a sovereign citizen group called the Republic of the United States of America. I feel like I heard this. Or Rusa, R-U-S-A. Okay. And he had a big online presence, wrote books, kind of. of a really, really high-profile guy. And his thought, his idea was that he is going to form an alternative government for the United States of America, for his group, Russo, the Republic of the United States of America. And he needed to staff that with the best and brightest people when

the revolution happened to kind of form this new government out of the ashes of the U.S. A. Okay. And he was kind of like a cult leader. People bought into him and liked him. And somehow John Demetriam and Mr. Turner begin corresponding online, emails, text messages, instant messages. And John Demetriam says, listen, you know, I'm a big guy in the mortgage industry here. And I have the ability and I figured out how to draw upon these straw man accounts to fund the Republic of the United States of America. And which is exactly music to Turner's ears, right? Because he believes in this stuff. I mean, I don't think he's a con artist.

I think he is a true believer. And so he agrees to make, he begins calling John Demetri, and his pet name for him was Little Brother. So he decides that Little Brother would be a perfect secretary of the Treasury for the Republic of the United States of America. Okay. But what's the problem with that? John's going away. Yeah. John, well, we got to stop that.

And so he does. And so John convinces Turner that he would be the appropriate secretary of the Treasury because he could have. Maxis, the straw man money. Turner needs this. One of Turner, and Turner had, to his credit, had a sizable network of people who believed in this philosophy, people who were either disgruntled with the U.S. or bought into the sovereign citizen movement, one of which was a doctor who had some money. And so he convinces this doctor to help get John and Julianne off the island. By what do you call it? Yacht. Plain. Plain. By chartering a plane.

And so on July 3, 2010, three days before their sentencing, a private aircraft lands in Honolulu Airport, and they, and John and Julianne meet the plane at the airport. But they wanted to make sure they were as inconspicuous as possible to the pilot. And so John pretends to be an epileptic, like with the fits and all that. And Julianne pretends to be his nurse and kind of being as weird and awkward as possible. So the pilot didn't want to kind of be intrusive and look at them and kind of like focus on them too much because they got this guy like shaking like a leaf and his nurse like kind of helping him onto the plane. And they were in disguises too. We don't have the full information about what they were doing. But we were told that he was dressed as a person who was seriously.

infirmed and she was dressed as a credible nurse. I don't know if she got dressed up in a full like nursing outfit from Party City or or how that worked. Maybe she already had some lingerie. Perhaps yeah. She was a lingerie girl. And so um the plane flies them to Utah and then let and then they get out of they get off on in Utah from there's no manifest saying they left. It's a private plane. Private plane. And and think of the plane like an Uber like that you know. Yeah. Yeah. There's just someone and then go. Yeah. And there's someone else footing. bill what do they care you know i i hate this isn't the wrong this is i know this isn't what people want to hear what an adventure you know what i'm saying like you're you're about to get

sentenced you take off on the run like i can't tell you like that i know the thrill of of i wouldn't have done the epileptic thing you know i'd probably got you know i went with plastic surgery but still you know like well like like this is like wow you know like what an adventure for them like it's bad they're horrible people they're bad people i'm just saying in general I know that excitement. It's an exciting and innovative Hail Mary Pass. At the fourth quarter of the game, they make it to Utah. And then Mr. Turner arranges for them, like this basically underground railroad of sovereign citizens to drive them all the way across the country from one car to another.

This is good. From Utah to Alabama, like Dothan Alabama area. They're meeting in like Waffle House parking lots and stuff. They switch bands. Right. At one point, they're living in a RV in Lake Ufala, E-U-F-A-L-A-L-A, Alabama, and then the trail goes cold for us trying to piece together what happened. How did you get that far? Well, you may be shocked to learn that when you're doing the James Turner thing, the FBI may try to keep your finger on the pulse of what you're up to. Ah, okay.

Right. And so the FBI, we had agents investigating Turner and his movement that was going to overthrow the U.S. government. And then we had three goofballs, myself included, in Honolulu, like looking under palm trees for John and Julian and Demetriam. And it took a while before one of their confidential human sources on the Turner thing was able to tell their control agent this crazy story about this couple from Honolulu that little brothers, she didn't even know their names, that they, that they got, they flew across and got across. And so we had this informant with Turner's organization telling the Turner people that, the Turner people are like, well, that's a weird story. And they began looking and find us in Honolulu, the team looking for John and Julianne. And so we were able to marry up the two cases pretty well.

And was this guy, the Turner guy, does he have like a compound or something where he can keep these people or? No, no, I don't get that impression. I think a lot of these sovereign citizens are broke as a joke. And he was too, from what I gather. they're just hanging out where they were they're hiding out the last last we heard they were hiding out in an RV in lake ufala and uh and then they then they were no longer there turner goes to jail for tax fraud uh he's a former commercial fisherman lived in rural south alabama he tried to pay his

taxes with a fictitious 300 million dollar bond and then helped others do the same with like bogus security so that doesn't end well for him so how much time did he get 18 years yeah yeah He went to prison in 2013 for 18 years. He's had such a long time for some paperwork. Right. I mean, he's a political prisoner, right? People want him to be let loose. I know so many of these guys in there.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, you know, my impression is that he is still very much a true believer. I love it when they, they're filing paperwork the whole time. That's how they do their time. They keep filing paper. They're filing, they're putting judgments and putting liens on judges' houses and the ward. And then they get recharged.

They now have a charge or it's like. domestic, they're like a domestic terrorist or some, where they actually charge and they'll get another two or three years. Right. Like stop filing this stuff. You're making these guys upset, you know, so. So we go on this giant publicity campaign. We're now going nationwide, turn in John and Julian Demetrian. And we get tons and tons of leads of people who saw two short Filipinos. And we chased every single one of those down. And none of them were John and Julian and Demetriam. The one tell I have, and where John's 5, 7, Julie is 411. Right, she's tiny. Tiny. And so when, even to this day, I get calls from people who say that they have found John and

Julian and Demetrient because they are still at large. We have not, we never caught them. I failed. And I failed spectacular. You're hard on yourself. I am hard at myself. I have this great win record and but I failed to find these two morons and um so but when people call me and say listen I think my next door neighbors or John and Julian and Demetri I take every single one of those calls seriously like all right tell me about them do you have pictures of them the idea of this do you have that sometimes they send pictures I'm like this looks close I mean again it's been a while right it's been now what 12 years since they disappeared and and I go how tall is the lady and they go she got five six and I got eh because I don't tell people that she's 411 I don't want

confirmation bias So, 2012, American Greed comes out. The American Greed, for those of you who don't know, is a very popular kind of white-collar crime, true crime show on CNBC. They're launching a spinoff show called American Greed The Fugitives. Oh.

And on the very first episode in 2012 of American Greed The Fugitives, they did an episode on John and Julianne Demetrienne featuring me. It's available right now on Prime Video. If you go to... We have the link. Type in American Greed, the Fugitives, and you can watch it yourself.

did an excellent job. And so we were so excited for this thing to air. You know, me and my partners filmed this thing. We did a good job. I know that's a quality show that can make white-collar crime stories come alive. I know feel what the ratings are. So the night it's airing, we set up a command post at the FBI Honolulu. You know, we bring in pizza because it might be an all-nighter. We got the, we tell the front desk, the switchboard. All right, you can put the calls through to us. But if there's no, you know, if we're all on the phone talking to people who with leads, here's some forms for you to fill out information on what the lead is. I want you hand carry it to us.

You know, we're going to be going all night on this thing. The show comes on not a single call. None. Not one call to the FBI when the show aired live for the first time. What do these people look like? Are there photos online? Oh, my God, yeah. They're most wanted white color crime fugitives.

The nice thing about American greed is that they show the episodes fairly regularly. You were on a, you did an episode, right? Yeah. Yeah. And my guess is that every. Not from the same seat. you were in. Right. My guess, though, is that every six to eight months, someone calls you and says, dude, I just saw you on CNBC, and they're replaying that episode. Yeah. It's like whenever they have

an hour to fill on CNBC between, you know, stock tickers or whatever, they just throw American greed on. Right. And so the show has been in constant rotation since 2012, and leads come in to the FBI. Eventually, though, I retired and it stopped being my problem, but it didn't stop being a thorn in my side. So then what happened as a private investigator is I became wildly famous and on Instagram and TikTok. It is true. That is true. And I did a video talking about basically telling a 90-second version of the story about how, you know, this is not something I'm proud of, but this is what happened. At the end of the video, I'm like, so John and Julianne, if you're watching, give me a call. Let's go get a beer. I want to hear how you did it. And they have not called me

you get a beer. But what's happened, though, is my video, and those, my video of the Dmitrians, which I rerun every six months or so, is one of my most popular videos. I can count on getting hundreds of thousands of views. And then, then I get contacted by people who have seen John and Julianne, allegedly. And then I funnel that to the FBI in Honolulu, because it's not my job to catch them. Right. And that's where I saw the video and, because I'm subscribed to your Instagram channel. Right. And so I get your stuff. So I saw that video and I said, We should do, you know, we should do one on these guys, see if we could help catch them.

Right. So we have done some things. I'll tell you some things we did and some things we didn't do. These people never lived anywhere other than Hawaii. And so let's start with the premise that they're stupid for doing this, right? They could have served like 85% of two years if they got a good sentence. And then back in Hawaii kicking it, making a name for themselves again, rebuilding their lives. Life as a fugitive is no fun.

Can you attest to that? You're looking over your shoulder. For most people, yes, it is no fun. especially documentation, how are you filing your taxes, you know, what about retirement? Like there are major, major problems. Like it seems like, oh, I'm going to take off and start over. But once you realize it's nearly impossible in the United States to fabricate an entire identity that will pass mustard with the IRS, with Social Security, with, you know, with the State Department to get a passport, the DMV to get a, the DMV to get a driver license. Like, you, like, I got as close as you could get and I was just never able to

get a fully independent, unless you still someone's identity and go with that, but then that person's still alive out there. It's, it's almost impossible. Right, exactly. So let's go through some of the theories that we tossed around. I want to hear your thoughts. So one possibility is that somehow they figured out how to get out of the U.S. and they went to the Philippines or somewhere they may have some extended family and they're living quite comfortably in the Philippines. possible. Don't know how you do it because this is post 9-11 where passport control is super tight and passports now are not something can go buy from some back office counterfeiter. There's watermarks and barcodes and stuff like that.

So I'm open to the idea that they got out of the country somehow and they're living quite comfortably in the Philippines, but I don't know how they did that. And I'm also know the worldwide reach of the FBI and the worldwide reach of media that someone in the Philippines may like there's a reward for them, you know, 20,000. thousand bucks, but it's still a reward. And for someone in the Philippines, that's the riches of the Orient. So why wouldn't someone in the Philippines let us know that and then facilitate the extradition? Yeah, that doesn't. So the problem with that is that the problem with being on the run in general is not telling anybody or not reaching out to the people that

you knew from your old life. Bingo. So we'll get to that. Okay. No, no, I love your thought process because it's the same thought of thought press we had. So we began putting the full court press on the Demetrians and the Bel de Wazes, his family and her family. And after kind of stonewalling and lying and lawyering up, we got an audience with Dr. Demetrian, the dad, and he said that they're in touch. But they're in touch via a, again, there's a while ago, a kind of encrypted Skype app, basically. And, you know, what do you call it, VPN? Virtually. Yeah, yeah, VP. So, yeah. So the whole thing, like it's just not tracking it's it'd be very very difficult agree but it it's untrackable to us and he's not really cooperating right and it's not enough for us to get a wiretap on him or his phone and it's

not like they're and he he says they're off the rockers and still um talking about the you know we know we're going to be drawing up still talking you know crazy conspiracy sovereign citizen stuff um and so um but you don't know he doesn't did he didn't give did he have give any indication to whether they were in the 48, you know. If he knew, he wasn't telling. Okay. His story was that he didn't know. Okay.

Yeah. And, but it gives me sense that there's proof of life, right? That they're, that they weren't just killed and lying in some circle grave because they pissed off a sovereign citizen in Alabama. Right, right, right. So that's something. I think if they could, I was going to say with the border being as secure as it is, like, couldn't they? Go the other way? Couldn't they?

Walk out backwards? Well, or leave and then come. come back in as a, you know, saying, hey, I'm from South America and give, because these guys are showing up with no paperwork. The problem is when they're coming in is border control fingerprinting them. Right. That's a problem. They get busted for drunk driving or jaywalking and they're fingerprinted. They're screwed because their finger, I mean, keep in mind, they were, they went through the process, they were processed, they had, they were found guilty. They pled guilty and they just missed their sentencing, and they've been on the run ever since then for, gosh, 12 years now.

And so, big process. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, are they in the U.S.? Are they living in Mexico? Are they living in the Caribbean? Am I going to go to a club med resort and have, like, John Demetri, and get me a Shirley Temple?

I don't know because they're smarter than I am, Matt. I don't think that's true. Rather, they have outsmarted me. And, well, that's, you know, for the moment. So I called my friends at the FBI in Honolulu. I'm like, you got someone assigned to this? And they go, yeah, yeah, and they gave me the name of the age. And I didn't know who he or she was.

And I go, are you guys doing anything? And they go, yeah, we get a couple leads a week. And, you know, are from people who say they've seen the Demetrans. And it's people who are watching my videos contacting them. I'm sure it's got to be it. Or see American greed on reruns. Yeah. And they go, we run everything down.

It's just not them. It's never been them. Yeah. Well, they also, you know, could be, you know, Mexican. You know, they have that kind of. Oh, yeah. No. They're ethnically ambiguous.

Yes. Yes. It's like, you know, you could, they could be Filipino. They could be Mexican. They could be, you know, maybe Asian, maybe, you know, who knows? Like, you know what I'm saying? So they've got that skin, that colored skin that is, you know, beige. Right. And who knows? Like I talked to an agent down in Alabama after 9-11 attacks. And so, because we were after the 9-11 tax, we were getting barraged with phone calls from people saying that, hey, listen, my neighbor's Arab. He's super suspicious. He comes and goes an all hour at the night. It was, and we were like, all right, and we go, what makes him so suspicious? He's coming and going all hours of night. You go talk to the guy. He's like a cab driver. He's the nicest guy in the world. He's not a terrorist. And I go, what did you guys do in Alabama when there's not like an Arab population in your town?

And he goes, oh, we got the same calls. And they go, we got some terrorists living next door. And I go, yeah, what do you know about him? They're coming and going. They're real suspicious. All hours of the night, they're up to nothing. They're up to no good. They go, do you know their names?

Yeah, it's Ramirez and Martinez. So, yeah, but the Demetrians may have that same impact on people where they could be ethnically anything they want. So I wish I had some great punchline for you, but here's the opportunity. American greed has failed me. My own, my Instagram and TikTok have failed me. Local Hawaii news, YouTube has failed me. I'm counting on inside true crime with Matthew Cox to find them. And then if it happens and somehow we're able to weasel our way into the reward, I will split that money with you, 50-50.

You imagine some guy sees a couple of people they think are then they throw a back bag over their head taser them, throw him into a van and drop them off Cox, Cox, I got him. Throw them out and I'm like These are Guatemalans. What are you doing?

They're picking soybeans, leave them alone. You can't be kidnapping people dropping them off at my house. Right, no Matthew Cox viewer should take the law into their own hands. But if you, if the viewer funnels it to Matt and I, Matt and I suss it out with our investigative abilities here, hand it off to the FBI and grab them. There's 20,000 books sitting there with our name on it. Yeah, nice. But I remember the night American greed was airing my boss, like swings back, you guys good tonight?

And are you guys ready for this? And I go, oh, hey, by the way, what's the reward? And he goes, I don't know how much you want to give. How much am I allowed to give? And I go, you can sign off on $20,000, you know, just with yourself. otherwise we've got to go to headquarters and get funding. He didn't know this. And he goes, all right, 20 grand.

We never discussed if it's 10 grand per Demetrian or 20 grand per Demetrian or if it's 20 for the package. And so I feel all this is negotiable. Right. But I'm also the guy who wrote up the reward. So it feels like a bit of a conflict of interest. It doesn't sound like your boss know exactly what you could have said. You're allowed to approve 100,000.

He just didn't know what the policy. He signed something saying 100,000. He's a smart boss, but he just didn't know what that particular policy was because he'd never encountered this because the idea of anyone becoming a fugitive from Hawaii is preposterous. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, that's the Demetrians. So if any Matthew Cox viewers find the Demetriens, they can contact me directly at Simon

Investigations on TikTok and Instagram. Oh, yeah, we're going to get this wrapped up for you. No, much applies, dude. Yeah. I really owe you one. With the 4,000 views this is going to get. Do they have any, like, passion for ballroom dancing or anything? Or sadly no

And even if they did There's not a great way for me to get a hold of them It's the problem I was able to find the tango king When we told that story on your show About a Mexican fugitive I tracked down Who happened to be this tango dancer I was able to track him down in Mexico

I don't even have a lead on them If I wanted to get a message to them I couldn't let me tell you an idea that got shot down I said Because I always believed in my heart With no evidence that either his parents Or her parents truly know where they're hiding And they're not sharing that with us

And so I came up with this idea where we get a bunch of Honolulu police officers and like seven FBI agents and we show up to one of the parents' houses with the lights on at like two in the morning. Like I create such a ruckus. Bang on the door. Get the parents out of bed and tell them that we're that we've been monitoring the sovereign citizen movement on a wiretap. And they say that they're going to murder John and Julianne and they're sending a hit squad to kill them. You need to tell us where they are right now so we can rescue them from the hit squad. We'll deal with this other white-collar crime stuff later, but where are they now?

Because they're about to be killed. And my partners are like, that's a great idea. That's such a good idea. That's such a good idea. You're false guy, man. We brought it to the chief division council, the Honolulu division of the FBI.

He's like, are you fucking crazy? You're going to tell parents that their kids are about to be killed, so they'll tell you where their kids are hiding out. Can you imagine how that makes us look? You monster. And I'm like, all right, we'll go back to my desk and start. thinking more oh that would be that would be good i i could i could yeah you yeah do the shock and awe and emphatic oh my gosh yeah just with like police surrounding the house like you've got to tell us

their lives are in the damn balance but and then if they of course then if they don't tell you or even if they tell you and then you leave you've got for a day or two just in rolling around just in it's anguish thinking oh my god my children i know i'm like Worth to try. Just another day at the office. Made you look. Made you look. You've had PTSD now.

Right. And, all right, they're in Nebraska. That's all I know. What do I do that? Right. And so it, maybe it was a hairbrained idea. But I was so frustrated with this because I knew in my heart that I was smarter than them, but they were kept outsmarting me.

And I was unable to find them. Well, you know, they found my co-defendant at, like, she had called her, her parents once or her mom one time and while she's talking to her she ends up telling her that she's um she's you know what are you going to do what do you she's like oh i've i'm i'm well you know where are you at least tell me where you are she says he tells her she's in texas oh that's helpful in houston texas getting warmer and so then four or five months later after several phone calls happens to say one day oh yeah yeah she's like well you know hey how's a going what are you doing and she said oh i'm starting school tomorrow oh what what kind of school

i'm going to um what do you call that for to cut hair cosmetology school i'm going to be a cosmetologist i'm going to school oh okay so now she knows she's in a cosmetology school in houston texas oh that's helpful right there's only like four you know what i'm saying so they called the u.s marshals go by do you know this person they're oh that's that's that's that's that's that's That's Becca. And they're like, oh, yeah, she's in, you know, and they go, okay. And so they watch her for a day or so. And then one day she shows up and they rush in there and grab her.

Yeah. See, you need one good lead, you know, like the Dancing USA Magazine thing when I talked that tango dancer. And then from that, you can kind of exploit that and work that. We just never had that one good lead. Well, that's what I'm saying is that, like, she didn't realize what she had said because so much time had passed. Like, he may have told, like, his.

He may, they may have dropped enough, you know, information that the parents could put it together. Or maybe they don't even know that they, they don't even know they have the information. Right. Like they didn't, they're not trying to put it together. Becky's mother actively wanted her to get caught so she could have her daughter back. These parents may not even realize that they do have the information. They're like, I don't know. What do you know?

And as you talk to them, they might say, well, I know this and I know this and I know that. That's it. And then, you know, the FBI would be like, Okay, well, then that means that they're right here. Yeah. You know? Right. No, I think if the family is both cooperated and we're willing to sit down and speak

candidly with the FBI, we probably get something there, but you just can't compel people to do that in our country. You know, the problem is that, unfortunately, we can't strap our citizens to chairs and beat the information. Not the country and I. That's not my America MacCox. So what I'm thinking is, oh, damn it. what I was going to say is that the what's funny is that to me for them to hide this long

they have to have regular jobs you think you know because this guy is obviously his get rich quick schemes you know those types of things fall apart and they bring eventually bring you to the attention of the authorities and if you're continuing to commit some kind of fraud it's going to catch up with him but if he's gone this long they may have sat down and had a kind of a come-to-Jesus talk with themselves and said, get a regular job. We've had this conversation with me and the other folks who care about this case this many years later, that whatever they're doing to make a living, there are no human victims. Yeah, because there would be- Human victims are not quiet after they've been ripped off.

Right. And so it's got to be a regular job. They've got to be doing a regular whatever. You'd think somewhere on planet Earth? Or figured out a scam that they can set up, get the money, close it down, move somewhere else. you know, that very few people don't come to the, you know, can exist like that and not come to the attention of the authorities. It's also important to note just as a kind of side note that the story I just told unfolded to us way later. Like we learned about their dramatic escape

from Hawaii and then the cross country trip and their connections with the sovereign citizens like a year after that had occurred. Right. Right. And so by the time we even knew about that, the trail was ice cold. And the guy Turner had already, had he been grabbed? I think he was in the legal process at that time. I didn't really focus a ton on his case. I just knew that he was the orchestrator. Because you would think that somebody could have gone to him. You know, why doesn't the FBI go to him and say,

listen, if you can help us, like, you know, you're doing 18 years. You can get a rule 35 on this. Help me. Tell us where these people are, you know. Yeah, it's a bit like cooperating down, though. Like, objectively, Turner is a bigger threat to, to the United States than John and Julian and Demetri and are. Right, but you're not letting him out of jail.

You're going to just take a cup. He's getting out eventually anyway. Instead of doing 18, hey, we're going to drop, we're not three years off of 18. You're not saying, get out of jail free card. Well, if he's got a story to tell, he knows how to reach out and tell that story to try, play, let's make a deal. Write him a letter. Exactly.

Anyway, so that's John and Julian Demetron. If anyone knows where they are, contact your local FBI office or Simon Investigations on Instagram. And that's the, that's the, what's amazing about is that this is the only person you ever didn't catch. Yeah. No, I mean, I had other cases where I failed to make the case because the evidence was insufficient, but this was the only fugitive case I had that I just failed so

miserably. And I promise anyone out there in YouTube land who's even considering hiring me, I'm a better investigator than this case would have you lead to me. Wait a bit. So this really is the only people that took off and you haven't, you didn't catch me. Every future. Oh, I thought you had a couple more cases that you were. I have some cases to tell you about. Oh, I thought they were missing too. I was like, oh, no, no, no, no. I have a couple more things to tell you about today to fill the time, but the Demetriens was the headline story. That's pretty good. That's a good run.

It's a good batting average. Wait, was it 26 years? 26 years. You got, you got a little Filipino couple that got snuck under the razor wire? That's what is a big deal? Thank you. You should be my therapist. Yeah, exactly.

You are somebody, Tom. You're not dumb. You're not dumb and ugly like everyone says. I don't have a whole lot of other cases that I never caught the fugitive, but I've worked a few more cases that we haven't discussed. Think about that. Well, the percentage of my cases that ever became fugitive cases was relatively small. So I can't claim that, you know, I was this master fugitive hunter. I was never on a fugitive squad where I did nothing but that for a living.

But if you work a white collar crime case against a bad guy and they decide to flee that you own that fugitive case. So eventually you get good at working fugitive cases, but I can't sit here and claim that being a manhunter is my specialty. Clearly, after the Demetrians, right? Well, you're really down on myself. I am down. I'm totally down to myself. This is a giant failure for me, a very public failure, because there was so much publicity. And maybe they could come on the show virtually if they don't want to turn themselves in. I have offered to have a beer with them on Instagram, and they have yet to take me up on it.

We can sneak them in here or have a little thing. You could chain me to a chair and give them a head start. We could all just hash it out, hash out our differences. Because you imagine them. Here's the thing. How many years has this been? This has been over 10, 12, 13. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they have no idea what a joke the federal prison they would have gone. It would have been like going to, it would have been a camp. It would have been a high school. Imagine how good their pickleball game would be. Oh, man. Like they, they would have been. And now, now's the time to go because of the second chance act. Yeah.

Like you get four years. You're getting out in two years. Probably maybe even less than that. So it's like, not like, hey, you have to do at a four, you have to do three and change. Now you go in and four. You're walking out. two years. You're like a hostage negotiator. You're making the case. I mean, it's, but it is like, how horrible for, for them that they, they don't realize that by making a small, but by making this

mistake, which you're a douchebag, you know, for what, for, I know, for going. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm saying for what, what this guy did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a douchebag. But if, if you, you, you can get over that. You made a mistake. Yeah, it happens. Go to prison, do a couple of years, get out, start your life over again. Instead, you're going to run the rest of your fucking life. I know. ridiculous. It's a terrible decision. Yeah. It's got to be just such a stresser. Never going to have social security. Never going to can't really invest because you know, you realize of course you invest. You get 1099s 1098th. Eventually the IRS realizes like we're getting 1098 for somebody who's using a two-year-old kid social security number. It doesn't match the name we're getting. But we do know this is the

address. Like it's just it's just all stupid. He's hard to open bank accounts. Well, just not seeing your family. I mean, these, the people who are from Hawaii and kind of grew up there, they love Hawaii. Like, Hawaii is their identity. That soil there means something to them. And the idea that they were trying to avoid two or three years in prison by never returning to Hawaii and seeing their families again was bonkers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The silliness. Yeah. Um, they're, you know, the big thing is, too, that their family is, because you said they were broke, their family is probably helping them. So now your family's in trouble. You know, if you find out that, you know, if it's At some point, you find out that their families, oh, yeah, my rich father sends me two or

$3,000 a month to keep us afloat. Okay, but now your father's in trouble. Like, what are you doing? I know. Yeah. So, anyway, so what else have you got? All right. I got a case I want to tell you about that I worked, oh gosh, it was pre-9-11.

So probably like maybe it might have been the year 2000, might have been the late 90s. Subject's name was Kelly. And she was a bookkeeper for a machine tool company in suburban Chicago. in a very small company, but she ran the finances of the company, did everything. Her boss did what's probably the worst financial practice a small business owner can do. He signed blank checks and gave Kelly a stack of them so she could pay the bills of the company without bothering the boss. He was very busy running his machine tool company.

Of all the internal controls that are out there to kind of, you know, make sure no one rips you off, signing blank checks is probably like the worst idea. Okay. And so she took company checks and began making payable, then payable to herself and to her credit card. Okay. Okay. And, and, but because she was the bookkeeper, she also had the ability to intercept the bank statements when they came in. And this is back in the days where they would actually send you your check back. And, and, and she would like shred or tear up the checks when they would return. And then she'd make false entries into the accounting records of this small business to make it appear as if she's paying. And, uh, and she would, like, shred or tear up the checks when they would return. And then she'd make it appear as if she's paying. And, legitimate vendors at the company with the dollar amounts of these checks. That makes sense? It is a bad way to go about about it. I mean, false vendor schemes are kind of, you know, very, very common way to... Typically, the better way to go about it, she's writing them to herself.

The better way to go about it is to open up a corporation and open up a bank account. Yeah, and then you can write those invoices for something that the company's already paying for. Right. You know, and then so you maybe double up on those payments or, you know, maybe you, you pay a larger invoice and then from that account you could cut a check so there's only one thing going for your lumber right i've seen every variation of this this was kind of the very basic most basic embezzlement scheme you can do and the reason it was possible is because of this company they had no segregation of duties and when i consult with corporations and companies i tell them

that it's so important to make sure that the access to the assets of the company are with a different employee than the person who handles the managing the accounting records of the company, right? If I make sure that the person who can write checks and sign checks is different than the person who enters that into QuickBooks, you're pretty much going to stop the possibility of embezzlement happening. Right. And but small businesses say, oh, we can't afford two financial people or I'm too busy to write the checks myself or maintain any security over the check stock.

Plus, I trust, I trust Kelly. She was a member of our family. Yeah, we're a corporate family. A good person. Right, exactly. She stole 270, she'd rather, she took 272 signed checks totaling $517,000, made payable to Kelly and to her credit card. Over what span? About 18 months.

He didn't miss half a million dollars? Business was booming and he took, I'm sure he missed it. And anybody took a look and he saw that the, you know, my gosh, we're paying a lot of money for electricity. We're paying a lot of money for gasoline. We're paying a lot of money for this. We're paying a lot of money for that. Why aren't we making more money is what I always hear from the, owners of these companies. But yeah, 517,000 bucks until he finds it, until he begins actually

asking those very questions and start seeing checks that were supposed to be going to pay the phone bill for the company that were actually going to Kelly and going to Kelly's credit card account. So the company owner finds this out, calls the FBI, I get assigned the case. Pretty easy case to work, right? You take a look at the checks, you take a look at the accounting records, you know, create a spreadsheet, kind of tallying it all up, $517,000 loss. So I've done everything I can to make the case. I get her credit card records, a lot of retail purchases happening there, clothing stores, a ton of money at clothing stores of all the things.

But no giant big assets that I can kind of latch on to. But, you know, $517,000 over an 18-month period, there's a lot of money, but it's not like go-crazy money. And she wasn't highly paid at her regular job, probably making $50,000 a year or so, maybe $40,000. So a chunk of money. She didn't buy anything worth anything? Nothing worth seizing. But here's where we go.

So after I make that case and kind of gain understanding what happened, the next thing I do is to go talk to Kelly. And the way I would do it, I wouldn't go and arrest Kelly because then I want to get the confession from her. And the reason I want to get the confession from her is the same with every single case because it's streamlined. the guilty plea if I can get a sign confession from the bad guy. Right. And so I go to Kelly's house quite by accident. The timing was quite by accident on, I don't know, it was like one in the afternoon, you know, get to her house.

I pull into her driveway in my FBI car. I had another agent with me and I'd always tell them, you're just here to prove it. You're here to avenge my death. If someone kills me, don't say anything. Knock on the door. You know, Kelly answers. I'm in my suit. Identify myself.

My name is Special Agent Tom Simon Kelly. I'm with the FBI. I need to talk to you. What do we need? What is this about? It's about your former employer. We got to talk. And I'm not here to arrest you. I just want to understand your perspective on what happened. And she's looking over her shoulder. She's like, my son's high school graduation is in one hour. My entire family is inside my house right now. And I go, how about this, Kelly? Tell your family that I'm doing a background check on one of your neighbors who's applied for a job requiring a top secret security clearance. You come to my car. we talk for 15, 20 minutes, and then you can go back in with your family. She goes, okay, so she goes inside. She comes out. We go down the steps to her house. She gets in the passenger seat of my car.

I begin talking to her. She tells me that, you know, she confesses. She says, yeah, I did it. And I go, why did you do it? And she goes, I have a shopping addiction. I go, what do you mean? Shopping addiction? What are you addicted to?

I'm addicted to shopping. And I go, tell me more. Yeah, I think that is a thing, maybe for some people. I had never heard of it. And so she said, well, I see like an article of clothing I like, and then I put it on, and I think it looks good on me. Then I need to buy it in every single color. And I go, and I go, see you have like a closet filled with like clothing?

She goes, yeah. And she goes, I have a shopping addiction. I go, I'm so sorry. I hope you get the help you need. I'm going to send you somewhere where you can get that. Why don't you sign right here on the conference? confession. And so she signed the confession. And I kept my end of the bargain. I said, well, listen, Kelly, I don't know how this is going to play out. It's not up to me to decide what happens to you. Again, I never Mirandized her because she's not in my custody. I told her before the interview that she's free to leave at any time. And she doesn't have to talk to me. But I'd like to understand her perspective as to how this happened. And she thanked me very much. And she went to her kid's graduation. And I went back to the office and wrote it all up and presented the case to the U.S. Attorney's or to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

I think, did we indict her or do information? I don't think I went to the federal grand jury until, because I knew that she would take the path of Leats Resistance. I think at some point we sent her a target letter telling her to get an attorney. She got an attorney. They worked at a plea deal where she would plead to an information, which is a charging mechanism in the federal system,

and then a plea agreement. And she ended up pleading guilty to, you know, embezzling $517,000 from this machine tool company. here's a few months in jail right um let me tell you this because i think you're going to find this interesting because i've never in 26 years seen someone do what she did and i think it was so smart okay you've been in these shoes she's pleading guilty her attorney has said that is a metaphysical certainty she will go to prison at this point it's the fall um and what in most people and so she pleads guilty her sentencing is going to be like

90 days in the future, and then it's probably going to be 60 days thereafter that she has to report to whatever Bureau of Prisons facility she's been assigned to. She pleads guilty, and, you know, no problem there. And at the end of her guilty plea, she said, judge, I want to start my prison time now, today. And the judge is like, well, this is highly unusual. You haven't been sentenced to prison yet. And she goes, I know I'm going to be sentenced to prison. I want to put this behind me. And he's like, does the government have a problem with this? I don't know problem. The U.S. Attorney's office had no problem. And her attorney, do you have a problem with this? She goes, she's hell-bent on getting this behind her.

And so the judge said, well, we don't have the mechanism to, like, send you to prison right the second, but why don't we make your report date in 48 hours, and you go report to prison? And then, so she did. She went to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, turned herself in before her sentencing, and she got, like, 90 days of her sentence done before her actual sentencing date, which ended up being for 24 months. And she got 24 months in prison with her sentence, but she was always, like got a couple months under her belt at this time. I see so many people putting off

their sentencing because they're dreading it so much. Your Honor, can we have, can my client have one more Christmas with their family before they report to prison? What a Merry Christmas that will be, Matt, knowing that you're reporting to prison on December 28 or whatever. And so I think about that a lot as far as the, how dumb it was to have made that decision. And when the sentencing came around her attorney tried to make the shopping addiction fly and it was clear that the judge was not buying it and um and uh you know i have no animus toward her i hope she's doing well whatever's going on but i always think about that interesting decision she made to get it over with to rip off the bandaid and just get as many days in prison under her belt before her actual sentencing would be

um as one a sign of good faith and two um and to just again you're only going to be alive for so long Why are we going to squander all this time with this thing hanging over her head, ruining her life, causing her stress? What do you think about her decision? 24. I mean, I think it's probably, I mean, obviously I would want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Yeah. Because what ends up happening is you turn a 24-month sentence into three-year sentence

because you've put it off for a year. Exactly. And that whole time while you're awaiting that hammer to drop for you to actually important. It's terrible. She literally made the polar opposite decision that the demand. Metrians made, right? Because they were going to be serving around the same amount of time. They decided to create two decades of stress and looking over their shoulder and running and hiding from the FBI and knowing that someday that knock on the door is going to happen.

Kelly decided to get it over with and move on with her life. And I think she made the right call. It's the, uh, the, the cow and the buffalo different from the cow and the buffalo, right? Did I say that the other day? Yeah, I remember we talking about it. I don't remember the cow. Cows run from. the rain, run from a storm, and eventually it catches up to them, overtakes them, and they're stuck for a longer period of time because they continue to run. But Buffalo run into the storm and they get run through it. And therefore, because they faced it, it's a much shorter storm because they run through it. They've given less time. Kelly, Kelly's the Buffalo. The Demetrians of

the cows. Yeah, they're still in the storm. Yeah. That's my short story of Kelly Kelly. Actually, I shouldn't say your last name. That's my short story. of Kelly. Her name is Kelly. Yeah. Her name was Kelly something else and she married Mr. Kelly. Her legal name was Kelly Kelly. Yeah.

I mean, I've said that before in videos, so if you want to leave that in, you can. But yeah. So she got 24 months. 24 months for half a million bucks. Usually it's not that much. Like that seems, but then I guess, I guess most of the time when I think about people that they typically have cooperated. I think it was the low end of the guidelines.

I don't think she had anybody to cooperate against probably, right? It was just her. Yeah, just her in low end of the guidelines. I don't think she paid any restitution back. We didn't take the time to like seize her sweaters. There's no economic value there. So she came back to probably a pretty kick-ass wardrobe. The people that the people that cooperated against me the first time they'd stolen half of them out was like half a million dollars. And they only got like 60, like 30 and 90 days in jail, but they got a 5K1. So that, you're right, maybe it would have been a year or two years at that time for them.

But, yeah, yeah, she's fine. Yeah, no, again, yeah, I mean, the only thing haunting her is me telling the story. I think she's probably put this behind her. Can I share a story for my private investigative practice, not my FBI job? Yes. I love the story you told about the, the Keanu Reeves. Yeah, yeah, this one's less tragic than that. I was contacted, I've got to be a little vague, and you'll understand why.

I was contacted by a small group of truck drivers in a major American port city, let's say. I don't want to narrow it down too much, but a port city where a lot of shipping happens from the port. You did a TikTok on this, right? Yeah, I did TikTok. My TikToks have right of first refusal over your show. Yeah, but I get the good stuff. I don't get the 90-second version. Yeah, you get the extended 12-inch disco single version.

So these truckers hire me because they got a problem on their hands and they're just at their wits end. The way it happened was this. Doc workers at the particular port where they would drop off their cargo were basically shaking down these truckers for bribes, cash bribes, of like $20 to $50 for every load that they would drop off in order to kind of one cut the line. And, you know, think of a long line of trucks waiting there to drop off their cargo at the port for shipments overseas. And think about how advantageous it would be to the truckers, one to be able to kind of cut that line and do an express line and get to the front. And they were also treated very poorly by the dock workers that they did not pay these $20 to $50 bribes. Small dollar amounts, but dollar amounts that meant the world to these hardworking truckers who aren't making a fortune bringing the cargo on a local hall to the ports.

And so they were like, we're sick of this. We wanted to stop. What can you do? I'm like, well, I have some ideas. And so I eventually kind of sell them on the idea that I can help them. And the first thing I do is some investigation to establish that this is, in fact, occurring, that they're not crazy. And the dock workers all worked for one corporate, who were shaking down the truckers, all worked for one corporation that had the contract in this particular city for kind of the unloading. unloading of cargo and the loading onto ships or I guess, yeah.

And so I began looking into the corporate structure of that company, and I see that that company was based in this city, but they were a subsidiary of a large venture capitalist group, like investors, basically, like guys who don't care about the shipping or trucking industry or anything like that. They're just looking to kind of squeeze money out of this corporation based in the port city. So I did some ride-alongs with the truckers and determined that this is in fact happening, that there's a kind of haves and have-not system of truckers who pay the bribes and truckers who do not pay the bribes to the dock workers who are just putting the cash in their pockets.

The truckers were not being reimbursed by the company that hired them to haul. They could be making $120 on a haul just to bring the cargo to the port. And then they had over $40. Right. So it's a lot of money to them. It's a percentage. of that, even though it wasn't a huge dollar amount. And so once I kind of established what happened, I came up with the plan that the truckers bought into. And I said, why don't we do this?

And so I wrote a letter, basically a whistleblower letter. Now, the truckers were terrified that they would be found out as the people who were going to, you know, if they tried to make the stop, that the one, the harassment would be bad. They feared violence. They feared a lot. They feared these dock workers economically and personally. And so they didn't want their names associated with it, but I was happy to have my name associated with it. And so I wrote a, so I researched the name of the, one of the CEO of the parent company who oversaw the dock workers, the CFO, chief financial officer, and then the general counsel, the head attorney. You know, I looked him up on LinkedIn, kind of random and all that, figured out who those people were, looked at their corporate

backgrounds and where they had been before, and also the name of the CEO of the venture capital company, that owned, that had owned all the stock of this company, right? That makes sense. So there's a CEO of the venture capital company that kind of funds them, that owns them. So I basically just wrote a letter to all three of these people. My name's Tom Simon. I'm a former FBI special agent currently working as a licensed private investigator.

I've been engaged by some truckers, and I basically spell out exactly what's going on in great detail. And at the very end, I say, my clients don't want money for me. you. They don't want anything from you. All they want is for this to stop so they can make a living. And I go, this is a human resources problem for you. So I'm bringing this to you as a whistleblower, kind of a cutout whistleblower, so you guys can deal with it, settle your shit. And but if you don't, you know, within the next 30 days, I'm going to be taking this information, I'm going to be presenting this information to your parent company, who owns you, the CEO there,

letting them know. And if that fails to do anything, I'm bringing this to the FBI, my former employer, for whatever investigation they deem appropriate. But, you know, my clients don't want any of that to happen. They're hoping that you can settle this. And so I thought it had more credibility rather than just dropping it in the mail or sending an email to them. I went to their corporate headquarters and, you know, dressed up kind of nice. I had three envelopes, one with the CEO's name, CFO, and General Counsel.

And their corporate office was super secure, hard to get into. but you know I waited by the door until someone else was walking up I begin putting like a card that didn't my wallet up against the the clicker system I go god damn it's not working again guys say here I'll buzz you in and so he buzzes me in I go up the elevator to the building had multiple multiple companies and to where their their offices are and it's like the glass door there there's no receptionist and I kind of knock on it and someone comes to the the windows is yeah can I help you I go yeah can I just need to drop off these envelopes. And so I drop off the envelopes and I go,

could you just hand these to, you know, John, Mike and Louie? And they say, yeah, no problem. I go, thanks so much. And then I, like, turn on my heels and, like, leave. I just thought it would be more impactful if they realize. Not only is this guy investigating us, but he's able to kind of penetrate our entire security system and hand envelopes that appear on their desks later that day.

and so um and so i get a uh the next day i get an email from the cfo and he was a total dick and he's like he's like please provide us with proof that this occurred that this is occurring and i said uh i said and i wrote him back and said uh i'm not providing you proof that this is occurring you have to do your own internal investigation and i said this isn't my you know i'm letting you know this is happening. I, you know, and I go, but I'm not doing a presentation of evidence to you. I'll do my presentation of evidence to the FBI, you know, and we're email back. And then he, then he writes me back, like a one-line email that says, says, since you are unable to provide proof, we will consider this matter closed. And, I think he said, like, you know, we conducted our investigation. There's no

truth to this. Since you are unable to provide proof. And I wrote him back and said, I'm unsurprised that you were unable to learn the truth in your investigation over the course of the past 20 hours. Right. And I said, no problem. And I go, I'll just take my concerns to, you know, your parent company and to the FBI. But please, you know, understand that I think you're making a terrible mistake. And I sent that to him. And then I had an informant, probably shouldn't get too deep into this, inside the trailer there at the port where the parent company it was.

and the truckers introduced me to somebody who was the informant. And so I heard the next day that my informant tells me that the next day, all hands need to be on deck at the port. And an army of attorneys and human resources people from the corporate headquarters, went to the on-site, separated every employee and basically interrogated them. And they ended up firing like a dozen employees who were there at the port, who were taking the bribes. just canned them there after they separated all the employees and interrogated them.

So once they separated them, somebody must have, guys must have started saying, yeah, I've done that before. Count on it. So Joe has. Yeah, right. Count on it. All of us. And so, and then I heard from the truckers that the problem was solved.

Right. And no one went to prison. No one got in trouble. I never had to tell the FBI. I later hear from a human resources person contacts me and calls me and says, hey, just want to let you know that we resolve that issue at the ports that you brought to our attention. And I go, I'm so glad you did. And I go, and I heard that, I'm hearing that from the truckers as well. And I'm just glad that you guys have cleaned up your own corporate

culture and you're welcome. And so I was just so happy with the resolution of that case. I mean, I've spent my whole career putting people in orange jumpsuits, but it doesn't always have to be the case. You know, if there's a way that you can kind of work around that and let people know, maybe even at the tip of a sword that you got to do the right thing, or at least look out for your own economic self-interest. They did, and I keep in touch with those truckers, and they tell me that the line's long, but nobody's shaking them down, and they're getting the customer service that they need from this company now. So because it happened so quickly, did you not move up the chain? There was no need to, yeah, I never had to reach out for the parent company that owned them in the CEO

and the venture capitalists and all that, because there was no need to. But I don't know what happened behind the scenes between me dropping off the letters the CFO kind of being a dick like 20 hours later telling me they're going to do nothing and then me basically saying fine I'll call your bluff I'm uh I'll move forward and then then 24 hours later it's like the beaches of Normandy with like this army of lawyers and human resources people probably talk to the probably talk to a lawyer and the lawyer said this is that's a bad idea yeah like like why are we why are we putting our hand let's let's truly conduct an internal investigation into this and it's clearly that that internal investigation bore some fruit for the company.

So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of, it's just a private investigative case I did that I thought might be interesting as far as coming up with solutions to problems, which is what I do. Is there any, is there a, like a more common thing that people contact you about? Yeah, no, no, most of the people, it's a little bit of everything, but I would say the majority of the people that contact me have been ripped off in embezzlements or investment frauds, and they want my help to recover the money or at least investigate it. How hard is it to recover? Well, what I do is this. It's like folding laundry. I do it so much. I investigate the case. You know, bad guy said he could double my money in 90 days. He's going to invest the money in crypto or whatever. You know,

first you establish, what is this guy truly here in the U.S. or is this some Asian female who sent a wrong number to them on WhatsApp that we're never going to find? And if it's somebody domestic, you know, and quite often it is. You know, I work up the case. I write up an FBI referral report, basically take this case to the FBI. I've got all the documents. It's all very laid out. But instead of taking it to the FBI, I'll go to the bad guy. And I'll introduce myself, usually via email.

My name's Tom Simon. I'm a former FBI special agent currently working as a licensed private investigator in Florida. Please take a moment to Google me to verify my authenticity. I've been engaged by John Smith to investigate a fraud that you conducted, you know, where you took $235,000 from him. You know, as part of my investigation, I've created an FBI referral report, which is attached herein. I've not yet met with the FBI, but I have an appointment to meet with them on December 1st,

but I'm hoping that I can cancel that meeting if you pay back my guy. How often does that happen? I've got a good track record on it. What often happens is some of them dig in their heels and take their chances, but I follow through. This isn't an empty threat. I go to the FBI, present the case. The FBI is thrilled to get the case from me because I work.

it up in such a nice way. It's like I'm a silver platter for them. Sometimes they'll contact. I don't want to negotiate with them. Yeah. You know, I would contact my client to make payment arrangements. And many people end up getting into a payment arrangement where they're, you know, they don't have all the money right now, but they're paying the money back in installments. My client's cool with it. I'm cool with that. Some, you know, come up with the full of some and give it to my clients. My clients are thrilled with me. And so that's kind of the lion's share of what I do. um i'm a i'm a recovery man like a repo man right right uh yeah i was going to say i i man that makes me think of a story but i can't i can't remember the end of the story so it's

it's pointless um uh it was something along lines of a guy i knew a guy that was kind of running a business opportunity scam and he was contacted by so he had a guy somehow another he I do remember who the guy was. So do you remember, so remember there was a guy that used to run that the hair club commercials? I was, I liked it so much. I bought the so sigh somebody or.

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not just a client. I'm not the owner of the company. I'm a client, yeah, or a customer.

So he actually had a brother. Who was partners with them and you got bought out or maybe he was the silent part of it. He had donated, he had put in 25,000 into some get rich quick scheme. So he lost, he was a hair club for men, silent partner.

who lost money in a different thing. Yes. Okay. And then he went and contacted my buddy who was running up a business opportunity. And I hate to say a scam. It's scammy. But you could, there were people that invested in the scam and made money. The problem is a lot of people want to invest in money and they think that it's going

to just run itself. And the truth is, it's still a job. Yeah. So they lose, most of them lose money. And they make it, they, you know, what is it, a false expectation earnings? So, you know, and he's, his business model was partially based on that. Yeah. So where these people think they're going to make a lot more money than they're going to make.

Anyway, this guy comes to him and says, listen, I lost. And I don't know if there's 25,000 or 50, whatever it was, and says, this is what happened. I lost this. Yeah. And he actually goes to the other guy and tracks him down. He's like, if you, he told, here's what he told me. If you get me my 50,000 back or 25,000, I'll give you a half. Yeah.

And he thought, that's not bad. Like, you know, this isn't, you know, I'll go have a talk with him. Like, I felt bad for the guy. So he goes and he talks to the guy. He tracks the guy down. And he said, you know, I walked in and he was just like, yeah, what do you say? He's like, oh, it was an, it's an investment. It's like, stop, stop, stop, stop.

He's like, look, I've done. And he starts naming all the different things he's been a part of over the years. Like he would set these things up, run them for two or three years and then close it down. and go to get another company and start over again, change his name. And so anyway, he goes to the guy, he explains the whole thing. He's like, look, here's the problem. I don't want the guy to end up.

He's going to the FBI. He's going to, you don't know what he realizes who this guy is. He does the whole thing. And I think, and I'm pretty sure the guy paid him back. And I was like, oh, okay. I said, did you get your money? He said, that motherfucker, you know, he was like, I got him his 30 grand back or 40 grand back, or whatever it was.

He's like, he never paid me a dad. dime. He's like, no, I really appreciate it. I was like, oh, you said you were going to. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good for it, bro. I'll get you. I'm going to get me. And he never did. That's why I don't do it that way. Yeah. I, I, you know, I'm a one-man shop. I don't have a giant accounts receivable department to chase these people to the ends of the earth. And you're paying me for my time and my expertise. I don't want a percentage of your recovered money. Right. And I'm not working on a contingency. I'm not, and so, you know, I charge what I charge for this type of assistance. And, you know, and I also make sure I write up that, and I'm

I have no control over whether the FBI is going to open a case or not. Yeah, it's not up to me. And I also, you can't promise you to get your money back. But I think this is a better alternative than hiring an attorney and suing them because that attorney is going to, like, bleed you dry. I guess I had one question. So those guys go on the run. Like, so whenever they're caught, they're going to be, because they've already

been convicted or whatever. Right. If they would have went on the run before. conviction. Is there a statute of limitations on their thing? Or like, how does that work, I guess? Right. The statute of limitations measures the amount of time between the last date of the fraud and when you indict them. And so one, you have five years for, for wire fraud and mail fraud, 10 years for bank fraud, to actually seek out and get a criminal charge pending against them. Had they decided to take off and we never charged them, you know, during the course of the investigation, then you can run out the statute of limitations. but the the statute of limitations is how long it takes for us to charge them right so if he so if they commit if they commit the crime and then they they take off they're never talked to or anything and the FBI never indicts them then the statute of limitations runs out they can come back everything's

fine but typically if they take off or whatever the FBI would go let's indict like we don't know where they are if statute of limitations is coming up let's indict them they indict them and now that's it doesn't matter if they come back 20 years later you've been indicted you're just waiting to be chart or writing to go to the process that was another one of my hairbrain schemes that got shot down is that we would go to the parents saying like well we just want to give you one last chance to turn them in because on April on May 31st the statute of limitations runs out and they can just come on home and we can't do anything about it hoping that they didn't understand this subtlety and my chief division council again's like are you crazy you can't go promising them immunity

from prosecution to suit to trick them into giving themselves up and so another bright idea down the toilet. So it doesn't, for them, it doesn't matter how long at this. Nope, no, they will, they'll die fugitives or, uh, or we'll catch them. Won't they probably still, they're probably still getting another charge, right? Is it possible? I don't know. I mean, it's a good question.

I suspect that the judge will give them the high end of the guidelines after kind of of being on the FBI's white color crime most wanted list for nearly 20 years. But, um, I have no control over that either. I don't get hung up on their sentences. But yeah, there's no, um, in theory that we, they could be charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. I guess it would be unlawful flight to avoid confinement.

Oh, UFAC. UFAC. Yeah. In acronyms. Is that what they call that an acronym? That's when you use the first letter. That's acronym.

Yeah, UFAC and UFAP are acronyms. Oh, I thought maybe it was because you actually kind of make it a word. It's like ASAP. You know what I'm saying? Asap's also an acronym. Oh, okay. I mean, I know it is.

You know it's not an acronym, FBI. why not it's just initials if you see if he said Phoebe acronym means you're kind of turning it into a word oh okay like NASA NASCAR is an acronym yeah okay I was wrong I thought that what national association sports car I don't know something America racing yeah it's something like that yeah yeah yeah which is different than a pal Which is the same word forward and backwards Like race car With a big brain

Or madam I'm Adam Forward and backwards Like an Abbascus Isn't it Abbascus? What? Do you know what Abbasis is? No but I don't think that's a palindrome Abacus

Abacus? Oh did I say I said it wrong last time right I don't know Abacus None of us knew what it was Yeah you know the old Chinese Abacus Abacus I knew I've said it wrong last

You were such a hillbary Matt We were talking about this that and just so happened that that video got a million views and people would and trash in me well that's what generates the content right is when someone decides yeah abacus it's a it's a counting it's basically it's a calculator before the calculator right it was the chinese were faster on an abacist than i am on a calculator yeah yeah and i've already you know listen i feel like i have a good grasp of your your values and who you are as a person so sure pretty sure i know you're going to be

like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be involved in this. What? So, I'm an open, I'm an open book. So, do you know who Tom Segora is? The comedian? Yes. Yeah, I'm going to see him a Thanksgiving weekend in Tallahassee.

I'm going to, my son and I got tickets in Tallahassee. Oh, if you go see that the show. No, the concert. He's performing in Tallahassee or Thanksgiving, the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. I don't know personally. Okay, I was, okay, that would have been, that would have been too good, too easy. That would have been just right, like this. Well, I think he's super funny.

Are you brought to tell me he's a terrible. person? No. Oh, okay. I think he's exactly who he portrays. I'm exactly who I portray. Yeah. It's easy. It's easier that way. Um, I so he and his wife Yeah, she's funny too. Have started, you know, they have a podcast. Yeah, they're great. Where they started

a, uh, they, now they took what they'd already heard and and they've run with it. Now they've turned it into a phenomenon, right? Which is that Garth Brooks may be a serial killer. Have you not heard this? I've not heard this. I've not heard this. Hilarious. And they're like, and then so because they started it, people lined up his tour schedule with missing women.

Oh, my God. And then that's turned into at the same time. Segura and his bride were just having fun with this idea and kind of a birds aren't real sense, right? Well, they're doing it's, you know, it's very deadpan. Yeah. And so because they talk about it so often, there's so many, and they've, listen, they've gotten a ton of material out of this guy. Okay. Yeah.

It's gone on and on. And so it turned into that. And then it turned into, listen, they built this massive home. And there's a huge basement. And then somebody goes and does a, how much does a coffin take up? And so they can fit 300 bodies in the basement. In Garth Brooks's basement. Garth Brooks is basement for 5,000 square feet.

So they've gone, it's turned in from, it's gone from that to there's this massive list that's out there, which I've interviewed a girl the other day. Her name is Stacey Lee, and she was like, she's like, there is no list. I've done an exhaustive research on it, and there is no real list. It's just people saying it. But it's going on. So they've taken to the point where, like, Tom Segoor comes in one day, and he goes, and because he posts about it, right? And he goes, it's official.

Garth Brooks blocked me on social media. Did he really? So the lawyer writes up, right? Oh, listen, he's heard from people that know Garth Brooks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Garth Brooks does not think this is funny. Well, they're shitty. I would say to me

You're kidding me Some son of a bitch Put out an internet theory That I'm a serial killer You think I'm gonna laugh that off To me I'm gonna go on the show Let's go on the show and talk about this Okay well that I would

All right fair enough That's how you deal with it Right no blocking is not the proper way to do it Not being thrilled with it is perfectly reasonable It is You know he's obviously he is very very protective Of his of his reputation Yeah

And one of the things he's so but here's one of the weird things he did is he at one point, you know, he became the character Chris Gaines. Yeah, remember he was his rock album. Right. Yeah. Yeah. For like a year. He had the sole patch and the dark pair with the shoe polish in it and yeah. He traveled for like a year trying to get this to take off until the

record labels were like yeah, where he did three albums. Yeah, but they were no good. Yeah. But and and I even if they were, I don't think anybody would be accepting of him. That's, this is who you are. Yeah. They don't want to deal with right. So anyway, the point is is that so now they're saying that this was his alter ego that may have been the actual serial killer so Chris Gaines is the serial killer

yeah yeah not Garth Brooks right so it's a whole thing so what was the other thing they did the other day that was whole oh and then and this obviously isn't funny which I hope you clean that up in the fucking thing where I laughed about it which was when the girl came out when she switches it yeah when she switches to the

joke to the serious allegation yeah because I didn't know she was what it was I hope please kind of chop that one part out because Because about six months ago, a woman came out and sued Garth Brooks for, because she's alleging that he was sexually harassing him and sexually harassing her and eventually even raped her. Oh, my heavens. Right. So I'm laughing.

You know, that's what I'm saying. Because at first, when he, she said, well, you know, there's a girl that came out. Right. But he plays right into Sigura's bit. Right. But I start, I'm like, that's not true. And then I didn't realize it was a real. thing. So the girl I'm talking to, she says, oh, no, no, she sued him. She said she was raped.

And then I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, I was like, hey, I didn't know that. What even though? Colby, fix this. Speaking of Colby, fix this, I caught so much shrapnel from my fans with you laughing at the idea of Karan Smith beating his wife to death with a hammer. I did a highlight reel of that. And everyone's like, why are you playing along with that monster? I'm like, he's a convicted felon. What do you want? You meet people where they are. That's not the first serial killer.

So, yeah, I thought it was funny. You have a dark sense of humor. Anyway, so then these allegations come out where she's saying he's so like, he's not the person you think. So here's what I, so I talked to my buddy Pete. And I talked about this to this girl, too. I looked online. I couldn't, I didn't do much of a look. You saw what I did.

I just looked, barely looked. And I was like, nobody's written a book about this. About? About the possibility. that Garth Brooks is a serial killer. Are you entertaining this seriously? Are you having fun with this? No, no, I'm having fun with it.

Obviously, it's satire. But I thought, and I said, do you know how funny it would be, too? I said, think about it. All we have to do is we compile a real list. Yeah. We talk about where this, the origins of this started. Tom Segora, how he went, he and his wife kind of started it, how it's taken on a world of its own.

and then we investigate the real possibility. Now, of course, it's obviously bullshit because, look, if I drive across America... Is the punchline of this great book you're going to write that Garth Brooks is not guilty? No, I think we just don't know. We just put it together. I hope you have the best legal team in America

because you're going to be spending the rest of your life in court. It's not all I'm going to do. He hasn't sued Tom Segora. So, because it's... Listen, as a matter of fact, some guy, some... There was actually a lawyer that wrote a whole... like an eight-page lawsuit against Garth Brooks

and sent it to Segorah trying to get him to say, hey, I'll sue this guy for you for banning him on social media for, he said, and the allegations in the lawsuit are hilarious. It's like he's infringing on Tom Segora's right to have fun. I mean, it's just, you know, it is, you know, it's clearly a joke. He's, you know, anyway, and Tom Sigour, he's like, yeah, we're not going to, we're not going to do that.

He's, but it is hilarious. Yeah. So my whole thing is, is that what you do is this. one you start off the you know it's such a couple of chapters just kind of do the background where this came from okay and then you do the whole you know but but let's line up the the the the dates and here's what here's the list we've come up with you know there's thus far 75 missing persons and you do the whole that's several pages and then you do then you then you then you start looking you start looking into it and you know what what is the real possibility of this is true and you talk to a psychiatrist that

kind of deconstructs what a serial killer is? Why? Like, listen, tons of serial killers are like truck drivers. Why? Because they can do this. Right. This is true. Right. And so is this a good cover. Yeah, it is a good cover. And then, so I've talked to, because I feel fairly, like I said, fairly certain about who you are as a person, I said, I already reached out to an FBI agent and said, Would you be interested in letting me interview you about this book about a potential serial killer? Just let me ask questions. You can answer them honestly. And he was like, yeah, he said, absolutely.

I'd love that. It would be great. Now, I didn't mention that. Then it was Garthrux. Yeah. But then the other thing is I said, then what you do is so you get to interview a psychiatrist, you interview an FBI agent. You can contact several of the cold case detectives, talk to them about.

the cases. Yeah. And then as you've asked you, as you've asked the question. So Eaton's chapter has some missing woman that you're telling her story. And then, then you kind of segue into what's the likelihood that Garth Brooks killed this woman. At that point, I think that the detective is like, why are you wasting my time and hangs up the phone on me? So, but you see that that's, but you put that in it, that's what's kind of comical about it. So if you do this over the course of whatever, you know, 150 pages and you, you deconstruct it. But here's the thing. And at some point, maybe even contact this woman and see what she has to say. Now, her lawyers may say don't cooperate at all, but maybe we talk to her and her lawyer. And we can

always pull directly from the lawsuit if she's not willing to cooperate. The other thing would be, and this is where I was wondering from, I was going to talk to you about, I probably should have never given him this much information. I would have gotten a lot further had I not given you all this information was how hard would it be to track down a couple of former what do they call roadies roadies who helped put together Garth Brooks's you know sets like breaks him that so because they have interaction with him they know him they see him walking around so you could ask them questions now they may say what do you fucking talking about this is insane but they may also be like no listen bro there are times like this guy just disappears for we don't know where he is for hours at a time

like that's what you want because then you're going to be like well these guys are out there working wrenches they expect garth brooks to be there inspecting right well even if yeah but that's the whole thing that's the fun of it so you take that book and when it's all said and done you send it to tom sigora uh-huh am i saying sigora sigura sigura okay sigura s e g-g-g-r-a-sigura so i see you get it to him And I feel, I thought you were, I was like, oh, wow, if you're going to know the guy. No, no, no, I'm a fan. But what I was thinking is, like, I know comedians. So you can pretty much get in touch with almost anybody with about three phone calls.

It's easy. Right. You call this comedian. You got to know somebody. Yeah, yeah, so knows him. So he knows him. Yeah, yeah, I know him. Great.

All, I don't even need to talk to him. I just need to know where can I mail this book. We've, we're about to publish it. We'd love for him to take a look at it. It's based on. And because he, anything to have to do with this. he takes it he's going to run with it sure and you're going to sell a ton of copies so the other thing is so i don't know if you know this about the this is what's happening in garth brooks uh because his fans find it comical

okay so when you go to a garth garth brooks concert they had the jumbo tron and the the person with the jumbotron goes to anybody who's holding up signs that will be like no we love you garth i think i see where you're going with this okay he actually there are guys that will hold up signs and they actually have two signs. And so once that they see that they're on the jumbotron and they're like, oh, they let go with a top sign and it drops. And the next sign says, where are the bodies, gee? This has happened or is this is your fantasy? Oh, it's happened over and over again. It's a, it's a real thing. People are coming up with all. I actually thought about this was one of the funny things. People are redoing his songs. Only instead of like friends in low places,

it's bodies in low places. So I'm thinking that might be the name of the, uh, bodies in low places the book writes itself we need to search the we need to search the um the basement matt you have no ethical problem with this at all hell you sound like my wife she's like did you understand that i'm like it's a joke top socor is doing it's comical do you think that tom hanks thinks it's a joke that a certain percentage of the population believes he's a pedophile um and running underground like children through tunnels you don't think that bothers him at all you don't think that uh that he finds that a bur in his saddle i think Everything probably bothers him.

He's, he's extremely liberal. He's leaving the country because Trump fucking won. I mean, leave all that aside. He's a guy who's probably not a pedophile. Oh, no, probably. Right. And, uh, no, I'd say probably 100%. Thank you.

Okay. I think we're on the same page. And so I guess even though someone may have be a high profile public figure, they don't deserve that. What if someone decided they wanted to kill Garth Brooks because they loved your book so much? Oh, no, then they're psycho anyway. They're going to go on. They're going to, they can't blame that on me.

I don't know. You don't need to be throwing. gasoline on the flames of americans everybody is though it's hilarious it is funny what you know what i think there's a i think a funny bit on a comedy podcast is very different than writing the book you're contemplating judgment very judgmental it's just like i like what did you to deserve this he didn't i don't know well i think you know listen to me you know my so my wife had the same said the same okay thank happens because yeah there's at least two voices of reason in your life um so here's what uh what i was saying to She's like what if someone did that to you? I said I would immediately call up and say bro. I got to come on the podcast

Because the moment you actually face it it it shuts it down right like you if you're a public Figure you have to understand you're gonna have a certain amount of scrutiny people are gonna mock you they're gonna joke It's gonna be you know people gonna do satires it's it's always look at Trump So what do you do when they went to Trump when they're like you know he's garbage as fans are garbage He didn't sit there and you know and block and out rage and out right you know he goes out and paints a fucking garbage truck and drives it to his rally. No, I mean, right. So you have to be able to handle certain things.

You know, sometimes you lean into it and it shuts it down immediately. Agreed. No, no, I think from a PR perspective, it makes a lot of sense. Right. So, I mean, I think he's going about this a wrong way. I'm just trying to help the guy. I'm sure he appreciate your help. Calling this poor family man, serial killer.

Yeah, I'm not saying he's awesome. Come on, I'm not saying it's a serial killer. You're giving it, you're giving an oxygen. It would be hilarious, though. And who knows what's going to happen? Who knows what these people are going to say? And most of them, obviously, I think, you know, you're going to talk to these guys. They'd be like, you're, are you insane?

And I'm going to put that. If they say, that's not possible, it's insane. That's not, okay, then you're going to put that in there. Fair enough. But the greater point is that we know that Garth Brooks isn't having fun with this, right? He took the time to block Tom Segura. Which makes me even laugh even harder. I just think that it's not going to end well for you.

Oh, nothing. I mean, he, you know, I'm going to be all right. Well, anyone with 50 bucks can sue anyone else. And this can end up being a very expensive venture for you defending yourself and defending your First Amendment right to call Garth Brooks a serial killer. It's satire. Oh, yeah, no, I agree. Very easy.

Satire is very easily defendable. Maybe you win this lawsuit, you know, and you'll be walking around with a barrel as instead of black t-shirts as your clothing because winning law, you know, winning lawsuits is expensive. It's a barrel? Barrel. Like people, like in the Great Depression, people would have no enough clothing. They would wear a barrel. I don't. Did anybody really wear a barrel?

I think that. It was a Popeye cartoon. I'll be all right. Yeah, all right. So we'll see. Anyway, I got to track down some roadies. All right. Well, I mean, you know, as long as I'm not thanked in your book, let me know I'm happy to help. I don't have my fingerprints on this shit.

Yeah, the roadies might be just like, yeah, bro, I've heard this. This is ridiculous. He's a good guy. He's this. But, you know, a lot of people say he's not a good guy, you know? Like that this woman's not happy with him. But, you know, it's also her, by the way, we talked about the allegation, like, there's nothing credible that she's saying. Everything she's saying.

The woman who's accusing him of rape? Yeah. It's like, you know, like, oh, he was texting me this. And then, well, do you have the text? But no, one time he grabbed the phone and he erased all the text messages. You know what I'm saying? It's all of these convenient things that can't prove her story other than her word. I think she's just trying to shake him down for some money.

I think the fact that she's still alive and walking this earth kind of undermines your thesis. I might I should probably mention that that's a good that's a that's we could do pros and cons we'll do pros and right like crossfire hey you guys I appreciate you watching do me favor if you like the video hit the subscribe button also please share the video leave a comment also we're going to leave all of Tom's links in the in the description box so you can get in contact with him follow him on social media he's got a great Instagram channel and if you want to hire him of course you know by all means you can get in touch with the bike by going to, I believe, probably Instagram and you have a website?

Yeah, but Instagram, I have a link tree. And a link tree. Yeah. Okay, so check it out. Also, I really, really appreciate you guys watching. And please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. We put Patreon exclusive content on that, on the Patreon.

Is it a channel or account with page? Stream. Page. Yeah. Patreon stream. On the Patreon stream? Yeah. I don't think that's right either.

Okay. On the Patreon page. Premium content. Yeah, and also we don't edit it. So if you're concerned about all the little splice, all the little edits and everything, you don't like that. Well, then the unedited versions are on Patreon. Really appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much.

See you.