Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - I Evaded The Cops... (My First Arrest)

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

I Evaded The Cops... (My First Arrest)

And you have to understand this, this is the worst part. Colby, this is going to lose us some subscribers. This is funny because, like, I wrote my, like, I wrote my book, right? Right. And this is a whole thing that happened during that whole process that I never talk about. Like, I had an arrest. I never mentioned in the book because the book's already like 90, it's like 100 and, it's like over 100,000. words it's over three it's a 330 page book and it's like it's just out it's it's long because

there's so much fraud and there's it's you know and there's other things that are happening there's relationships and dating different girls and doing whatever so you know you have to kind of say what frauds do you want to focus on so i there's a little section that i like removed well i was like you know that's just more of the same don't even mention it so i'm going to mention this frog and i'm this fraud and i've never actually talked about this fraud i mean this arrest i've never really talked about it. You've heard it. Okay.

I'm sure you've heard about it when we were locked up. Like I've told you this story. But nobody else says I've never talked about it on concrete or anything. So like value tainment, none of those shows I talk about it. Matter of fact, like American Greeter, all those shows never covered this. So what happened was one time and it's funny because I was, so anyway, I had, there was this guy who was, I want to say his name was Walter Bean. that sounds familiar

I mean that does sound familiar like that bro like I've that's how long ago and how much fraud there is that was the identity

you were yes well I have heard the story okay I stole the guy he was a drug dealer right so I had a friend

by the name of Johnny Moon whose father used to live with this guy and buy drugs from this guy right so you know he was a drug addict so one of his customers

stayed on his couch a few times so Johnny Moon was a friend of mine he knew where this guy lived and he we drilled by the house one day and he goes hey he said

You see that house right there? I said, yeah. He said, the name of that guy, that guy's Walter Bean. He actually, it's funny. He goes, he owns that house right there. He was a drug dealer. And he goes, in his nice house, it was worth, whatever. Like, I'm going to say 200,000.

I forget exactly what the amount of the house was. But it's worth a couple hundred thousand. I was like, it wasn't a great area. Right. But I was like, oh, nice. And so we were driving it. And I thought, huh. So he's a drug dealer.

He's a drug dealer that owns that house. I said, does he own it free and clear? And he goes, I don't know. he might, I think so. I think his parents bought it for him. He was, to be honest, he was like, he, parents have money or something. My dad told me, I forget. And I remember thinking, he goes, but he's been arrested a bunch of times.

Like, that's all he does is sell drugs. And I thought, what a great victim. Like, if you have to rob somebody, you know, if you have to cause somebody some problems and do something, like, do it to a criminal. Do it to somebody that they're not going to look at it. We're not going to run around and try and solve your crime, Mr. Drug Dealer. Somebody, somebody encumbrance the, the title to your home and caused you a bunch of problems and borrowed some mortgages, like, we're not going out of our way for you. So what I thought, ironic, you got arrested on that. But go ahead. So that property, it's so funny because I, I went downtown, I searched the title. And there was no, there was no, no, there was no, there was no mortgage on it. It had been bought free and clear.

Wow. And so I go, I look up the house. house. In public records, there is no mortgage. So I go and I then, I ran his, I ran, oh, I know what it was. I created another identity. Or did I find his social security number? I don't know. Oh, I know what it was. I looked up his arrests. Yes. And I found his social security. He'd been arrested so many times over such a long period of time that if you actually went and you actually got their arrest record it actually had his social security number like written on it or something i forget you know what a lot of times the freedom of information act listen to this a lot of times they would actually take white out

you know the white out sticks and they would white out the so you white out not just you can scratch it off they would actually go oh here's here's this police report report from uh 1995 and they take like a white out stick and they go right over your social security number and then they mail it to you And then I just, there you go, two seven, seven, no, you know. So somehow or another, I think, I want to say I got his social security number. I still long ago, I can't remember. Regardless, I came up with a credit profile for him. Didn't, I think it wasn't great credit, whatever.

But he did own a house worth 200,000. So then I applied for several mortgages in his name. I had a buddy of mine, this is how I get caught, by the way. I have a buddy of mine who was an appraiser. His name was Robert Toma. Robert Toma then did an appraisal on the house, never went in the house, used pictures from other houses, put it together,

and then I actually, instead of using Robert Toma's appraiser, he doesn't want, obviously he doesn't want to be listed as the appraiser. I used the appraisal of another person, another appraiser. I'm going to fast forward because this is, whatever. The point is, is that I borrowed like three mortgages on this house, probably $150,000 on each mortgage, where it was like $400,000.

I went and opened up bank accounts in his name. And then I borrowed the money, went to closings, got the money, put the money in the bank, and was removing money from the bank. While I was removing money from the bank, what ended up happening was one of those one of those mortgage companies saw the appraisal and one thing was off on the appraisal. It said, instead of it saying it was in an urban area, it said it was in a rule area. So they contacted the original appraiser to tell ask him if he could change that and he said I didn't do that appraisal and guess what he happened to be a retired sheriff's deputy well retired sheriff's detective or investigator whatever they call them he contacted them contacted their fraud department they looked into the whole thing they came back they set up a sting they follow me from one of the banks they faked out there. the like the UPS store that I at that time it was called they were called mailboxes etc had

a mailboxes etc I went to in the middle used to go to it like 11 o'clock at night I drive there when it was closed you had to have a key to get in you open your box you get your box they were there staking it out they follow me for a couple of days they arrest me here's how they arrest me by the way they staked out my office too so they were staking out my office and I and I we I was getting a divorce and I was thinking that car has been over there a while. So I actually had one of my mortgage brokers actually said, I'm going to go find out who it is.

He walked over to the car that was parked in the parking lot, he's watching, like, been there for days. Right. You know, different cars, but it was always like, you could tell it was like, that's a cop, just sitting in the car. Right. He walked over one day, walks up to the window, and the guy's just staring at him.

He rolls the window down, and he goes, excuse me, he said, you've been sitting here for days. What's going on? The guy goes, why are you approaching me? He was, I'm approaching you because you're in the parking lot. He was actually across the street from him. our parking lot. Because you've been sitting in the parking lot, we think you might be watching our place. What's going on? The guy goes, don't approach me again. Walk away. Go back

to your office. Do you understand what I'm saying? He goes, hey, bro, what's going on? The guy flashes a badge and he says, hey, he says, none of your business, what's going on. Go, go. And so the guy walks back. That guy was Dominic Ferreira. That was one of my brokers. So he walked over there. So we goes back, whatever. So I remember that, so a day, a day, or two later. When Dominic brought that news to you, what did you do? You know what I thought? What? I thought that they were staking out another one of the businesses or I thought maybe it's like when Dominic said he, Dominic said he flashed a badge. He's like an investigator. Dominic said he might be a private investigator. Like maybe he's not a cop. Right. He didn't say he said, I didn't really see what the badge said. He said, I just left. He seemed like serious. So we started thinking maybe my. ex-wife, or my soon-to-be ex-wife, was having me followed. Because it was that kind of a divorce.

It wasn't an amicable divorce. Right. So I was like, man. So I was like, okay, so I'm still not thinking I'm in trouble. I didn't feel like I was in trouble until one day I went to go check my box and I was driving back in my car at an Audi TT-Quatro when they had first come out. Love that car. So I'm driving this little Audi and I noticed.

it was a buddy of mine with me and he said he noticed somebody was following me i actually got into a high speed chase with the cops but here's here's a funny thing you know how i knew the cops were following me we got on i 75 because i was checking the box was in brandon which is like a 20-minute drive from tampa it's another city outside Tampa and so my office was in tampa so i got on i 75 and as i'm driving down i 75 he's like i think that cop that car back there is following us but they've been here that such you know for this long i saw him over here i think that I was like, really? So I pulled over and just stopped.

The car pulled over and stopped. Get out of here. So now we've got this. Is that obvious? Is that obvious? Like, but they're just like, oh, my God. So I was like, oh, my God, the other day, one of my brokers, there was somebody parked across the street.

And I saw I tell him, I'm like, the guy they went out and then they checked and he said he was an investigator and he showed a badge. And of course, this guy's, this guy sitting next to me is like, what am I hanging out with you for? What's going on? You're an arch criminal. What are you doing? And I'm like, he's like, well, what happened?

I'm like, oh, man. Okay, so there's this guy. I borrowed like three mortgages on his house. I've been taking the money out. He already knows I'm all corrupt. And he's like, fuck. I remember he goes, how do you think of these things? He's like, I mean, I was like, bro, I got bigger problems than breaking this.

Well, how exactly did you? I got an issue. We're sitting on the side of the road yelling at each other. So I drive off. The car comes up behind. He keeps going. Follows us. No problem.

Now we realize like there's two cards. So then I try and lose them, right? At one point I think I lose them and then he sees, we see another car. And we're like, okay, then I race around in the back. So I'm really racing around at this point. Then at one point I think I've lost both of them. But then when I go back to the office, I pull up in the office. One of them's like already at the office and another one pulls up.

And it's like, okay, they're doing some kind of chase you down thing that I don't know how to do and it doesn't matter anyway because they already know where I'm at and one of those cars was a car that was across the show like I'm done so at the end of the day I go to pick up my son I jump in my car I take off I'm driving down these little back roads driving around a little lake like there are back roads you know in Florida like there's lots of little you can have a major city and then in between intersections there's just these little tiny back roads that go around little ponds and they're in the middle and so I'm kind of driving fast and everything and then I realize they're behind me and then as I'm going I'm like oh shit that's that they're

This guy's behind me. I'm going to pick up my son. I don't want to this guy. Like, I don't want to be in this guy chasing me around with my son in the car. And I'm like, oh, man, I remember looking at him and looking up and this car pulls up in front of me. And then there's a next thing I know, cop car.

No, sorry, sheriff, sheriff. Like, boom, boom. I'm like, oh, I lock up. I'm like, holy man, bro. There's like three or four cop cars. There's a couple undercover cars. They jump out. They pull their guns.

They do the whole thing. All on a mortgage. All because of a couple of a mortgage. Mortgage is in an identity theft. So here's what I found out had happened. What had happened was this. When they found out the whole thing, they actually went to Walter. Walter Bean.

I really want to say it is Bean. Yeah, it was Bean. So Walter, they went to Walter Bean. They actually, because he's a drug dealer, they brought him downtown. They questioned him. They insisted it was him. They were ready to throw him in jail. He's screaming.

It's not him. He doesn't know anything about it. They search his house. They really put like this guy through hell. And they come back and but they let him go because they were like we couldn't find anything. And you have to understand that this is the worst part. Colby, this is going to lose us some subscribers. So here's the worst part.

Keep in mind, this guy's a scumbag. Okay. Oh, okay. So he's a scumbag. So don't judge me on this. I don't want to hear any crap. Fuck you. Okay.

Was it a bad time? It was a bad time. He was selling drugs to kids. He's selling drugs to kids And pregnant women Hard drugs Like Marijuana and Ecstasy

No, I'm just joking I don't know what he was selling Anyway So my goal You know what I was gonna do? What? Oh God, this is so bad bro He's laughing

The appraisals in his name Everything's in his name So they think it's him all the way They just took his idea Yeah but you know Luckily like the luckily for him The people that I'd gone to the closing with are all basically, when they're being shown a picture of him, they're like, ah, that they can't

ID him. That might be him, might not. I don't think so. I don't know. He was significantly older than me. At that point, I was in my early 30s. He was in his late, in his, in his white guy? Yeah, mid to late 50s, though.

And so they're thinking that you are the guy that came to the closing. They're thinking he is the guy that came to him initially, but nobody could ID him. But they're trying to ID him off of, you saw this guy a month ago. And a little black and white picture that's been copied. multiple times now. So it's like it's not him. It could be him. He could be working with him. Like they don't know. Right. He probably knows him. So he's involved in it. He's been in he's been in state prison three or four times. He's been arrested 15 times. I mean, you know, he's he's involved. It's a scam. So I was literally my whole plan when I had gotten all the money

out and I'd gotten out a couple hundred thousand dollars. When I'd gotten out the whole thing, my plan had been to take the appraisal and mail it to him. Think about it. If you own a house and you get an appraisal in the mail that you ordered right on your house everything was his name his name his name and is it a full appraisal you wouldn't throw it out like if it just got it from some random appraisal appraisal they didn't even have to have a return address right just stick it in your mailbox you're not going to throw it out so you're going to keep he would have kept he would have kept that and that would have raised the value of his property raise the value what are you talking about when the cops had had searched his house they found the appraisal think about it

That's the appraisal. So you're putting a nail in his coffin. Oh, it was worse than that. I had bought dummy cell phones. I was going to take the dummy cell phones, wipe them down, and I was going to leave them at his front door, like in a box. If you walked out your front door and you saw a cell phone, a brand new cell phone in a box, are you not going to pick it up and throw it in the garbage?

You're going to take it inside. You're going to think somebody delivered this by accident. I need to keep this. What if they come by? And he's a scumbag. He's most likely got to pull it out and fucking open it and try and use it or maybe sell it, whatever. he's going to keep it like i was basically going to take all of these a lot of this stuff and

drop it off at his house most people are going to pick it up and bring it inside so that i knew if he ever got his house got searched which i assumed it would be they're going to find a lot of the stuff that he says he doesn't know anything about you had the appraisal you had like the laptop all these doc i had a laptop i had a laptop i had bought specifically and i'd written up all the documents on the laptop. So you've got a laptop in your house that has all the documents on it. Everything's in your name.

You've got the cell phones that were all used. Could you imagine him sitting there with the cell phone on him? And the cops are like, so you don't know anything about this? No, I don't. And they called the number and he goes, oh, hold on a second.

I got to call me. Yes. What? Why are you calling me? This is the number that was used. Oh, no, no. See what happened? Will someone drop this off in my front door?

I've been using the phone. Sure you have. I mean, he would have been, look, the fake pay stubs that I had made were on the laptop that he had. So, I mean, he's going to have some, he's going to have some splaining to do. You know what I'm saying? It's going to be an issue for old Walter. And don't judge me, okay? I know you guys out there, you're judging me.

You're saying, what a scumbat. Stop it, okay? This isn't a school teacher. Anyway, point is, what happened was I did get arrested prior to being able to. So they arrested you to have. that day that they followed you and threw the back. Yeah, it's actually still, yeah, it was like the day they tracked me. Oh, they arrested me. They grabbed me. They handcuffed me. I remember when they searched my car, at the time I had a concealed weapons permit. So they find a gun. But I have a concealed

weapons permit. They find bullets. Like when they're like grabbing all this stuff and they're like, this is what cracked me up. When they're grabbing all this stuff, they're like, oh, weapon, boom, that's an extra this much. Oh, you got a bullet. You got bullets. Oh, that's an extra this much. And I want to conceal weapons permit. Bro, what are you talking about? Like it's a my wallet you know i mean they're like like how did they i was wondered about this how did you do all this research into me arrest me and not know i didn't have a concealed weapons permit like you would think that would come up but anyway that's the whole thing about the government the left hand doesn't always know what the right hand's doing well true but they didn't know really who you

were well they at that point they they had my car they knew my they had my tag they're going to my office they're going to a mortgage office yeah like they know mortgages are involved and they just know you from going to the box they knew me from following me in my car and I thought and I would look had the appraisal not had the appraisal had that one box had urban instead of rule on it and they not had to call that appraiser you would have got away with that sky well I would have gotten away because think about it by the time I got the money out I never go back to the box so by the time two months later when these properties these these loans start to foreclose these lenders start to foreclose on this guy and he goes to the police and says look these

guys are this is what happened i don't know what's going on by that point um you know by that point i'm never you know it were the only things they had was they had a uPS box right mailboxes etc you know they've got a couple i've got like an abandoned address where i was also getting mail but it was a house i had no association with but it was a clean house it was it was up for sale or it's for rent that i would get cards to uh-huh i said i'd even had stuff mailed to his house and drove by and opened the thing and grabbed it out of his box like knew when it was coming

went and got it so I've even got stuff being mailed to your house I mean and even if he had gone to them and said hey I'm being foreclosed on I don't have anything to do with it and they go and they do you mind if we look around through your house sure no problem he's not smart enough to realize the appraisal that I got in the mail

a month ago or two weeks ago or two months he's not smart enough to know that he's not smart enough to realize hey that laptop that I've been that I got somebody left he's not going to be thinking any of that. Right, right. My point is, he's going to basically, oh, yeah, you can look around, sure. They're going to be like, oh, nice laptop. Yeah, yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. Like, he's not going to say, oh, I found it and I've been using it. You know, he's going to,

he's a scumbag. Yeah, he wouldn't even associate that. Right. He doesn't, nobody, people don't know how the process works and they don't understand it. He does, he thinks he feels like I haven't done anything, so of course I'm going to be an open book. Right. Not realizing that the, the law enforcement will take the path of least resistance we have enough to convict you does it look like it's possibly not you yeah we think you could be set up but no way a jury believes that arrest them like they don't care right we got you know it's like grab of somebody grab round up the usual suspects right anyway they took me down when they arrest me they put me in the back of the car they take me downtown they processed me that was the first time i'd ever been arrested that was rough because i was

First of all, I was cocky. I was kind of cocky at first. Right. But then you spend that first night in jail. You had to spend the night? Oh, I spent like two or three. Come on, there's like two, three hundred thousand dollars missing. So they're not saying, oh, there's $20,000.

There's like $400,000. There's like $400,000 in mortgages, right? There's like $150, $450,000. Wow. And I was still draining the accounts, but I still had a couple hundred thousand. So there's a couple hundred. seize that. Well, I had to tell them where it was. They did seize it, but I also had to tell them like where it was because a lot of the money was like in cash, like I had some money

in cash. Listen, they actually had brought me to, I had opened up a bank account and a safety deposit box. They brought me. Yes, they know that stuff. They brought me there to open it. Yeah, so the bank, when the bank opens, I'm there with two cops walking in with two cops. Do you imagine how does that feel? In somebody else's name. Like, this isn't even in my name. So they did that. Yes, they walked me in there. We go in, we sign it, we open the box, they open the box, they look, they're like, boom, there's all this cash in there. There's all kinds of stuff in there. They're like, oh, they took everything, took everything. So you bonded out, the rest is you bonded out. Paid them, paid the money. Whatever happened to that case.

Well, I mean, I got, I was placed on probation. I gave them all the money back. So I'm good. But the thing is, keep on, I was at that point, like I needed to, Stop that case. For a very specific reason, I was running additional scams. So at that point, I borrowed money in the name. At that point, I was already borrowing the money in the name of Lee Black, of green. Yeah, blue, green, yellow, silver. Like, I'm already running another scam.

You just happened to catch me on this scam. Like, I've got to put, I got to, what do you need me to do? Like, I got to shut this down as quick as possible. And the whole time I'm lying to them. They're like, any other, nope, nothing. This is it. You got me. You got me, coppers.

What do I need to do to get probation? So I get probate. And this is the thing, too. Like, I can't eat. There's not like I can cooperate. It was just me running the scam. Like, the only involvement of anybody else was Johnny Moon, who didn't even know what's going on. I'm driving by, Don, hey, look at that.

And I thought, Rolodex, put that in my mental RoletX. Look that guy up. Like, so Johnny Moon knew about a lot of the scams, but he didn't really, wasn't involved in that scam, you know. So it's, I'm the only person involved. So I paid them back immediately and pled guilty. You didn't include that in the story, but I do remember that. Yeah, I didn't include it because it's, it's, it in and of itself, that could be, that could be, well, it's irrelevant in the context.

Like, there's lots of little scams I was running. Like, do I talk about the one scam where I did this and I made $80,000? No, it's silly. Like, that's five pages. That story I just told you just now, that's an extra 30 pages in a book. I'm already at 330 pages It's not like I don't already have enough good stuff Right, right

Like that's just stupid That's a whole That right there's a whole crime That's a whole story in and of itself Instead I So I already had tons of those stories So Plus I got arrested by the local cops

It was embarrassing The local cops It wasn't feds It wasn't anything spectacular Yeah it's the locals And it was embarrassing I got arrested by the locals I mean come on

Seriously It's a little shame I felt like I'm I you know I don't commit state crimes it's embarrassing and I thought that's all I committed was state crimes now