Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Lawyer Explains Why Trump’s $250 Million Fraud Case Scares Him

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Lawyer Explains Why Trump’s $250 Million Fraud Case Scares Him

The judge in the case has ruled that Trump submitted fraudulent records and documents to banks to get loans. Obviously, Trump could get hit with a judgment of pens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, but importantly, Trump can no longer do business in New York. The moment that those politicians that you donated millions of dollars to hear that you've been indicted, they're not writing letters for you. They're turning around and heading the other way and trying to say, listen, this is this guy donated, like, I don't know him. And everybody else is saying, oh, no, they will. they won't. I think Trump is going to do everything he can to try to delay these trials,

the prosecution in these cases, has really tried to hold the line, at least in the federal cases and in the Georgia case. So it'll be interesting to see who wins. But so far, the judges have sided with the prosecution. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I am here with Nima Rami, and he is an attorney out of Los Angeles. He covers everything from civil lawsuits to criminal law, and we're going to be talking to him about what's going on with the Trump indictments, or investigations, indictments, and trials. So check out the interview. I appreciate you coming on. Matt, next having me.

Sure. And I'm not even sure how we got here. I think I was interviewing someone else, and then I think maybe your publicist or someone said, hey, listen, we got another, we've got an attorney. That would be great to interview. And then, of course, I, and then I checked out, I went on YouTube and I checked out a bunch of interviews that you've done on the, well, actually, they were on the Trump case, but there were a few more cases. And then I saw that you have a, you also have a memoir out.

And it's like a one minute, just kind of a, I don't know if it's a, if I'd call it a sizzle, but more like a trailer. You talk about the memoir. But yeah. So let's talk about. the Trump did. Let's do it. Let's do it. So I'm one of the few former prosecutors that doesn't do any criminal defense work. So I get called upon a lot to take the prosecution perspective. Most of the folks, when they leave the government, they start representing criminal defendants. But I just do

civil plaintiffs work. So I'm always happy to get on TV or elsewhere and say that everyone's guilty and they should go to prison and kind of take that prosecution perspective because I'm never conflicted off or I don't really care about generating business from criminal fines. Right. Okay. So I was wrong about the criminal, you doing a criminal work. Yeah, I just do civil plaintiffs work. So it can be employment, personal injury, civil rights, just represent victims. All right. Well, cool. Let's, how long were you a prosecutor for? I was a prosecutor for about five years, both federal and city. So did drug trafficking, human trafficking, public corruption, loved it. Greatest job in the world, but I had a couple kids. My wife's a lawyer. She represents foster kids. So two government salaries

and kids living in L.A. just didn't work. So one of us had to go back to the private sector. And that was me. All right. Well, that's cool. Well, I've known a few assistant or assistant U.S. attorneys, right? Yeah. All right.

Well, yeah, let's talk about the Trump case. Yeah, which one do you want to cover first? The one in Georgia or didn't, the one in Georgia just got moved back, right? Yeah, so Georgia, Georgia. County, it's happening. It's interesting, Trump. A lot of people thought that he might try to get the case removed from state to federal court. Normally, criminal defendants don't like being in a federal court, right? You have more conservative judges, sometimes more conservative juries, and the sentences tend to be longer. But in this particular case, conservative is good for the

former president. That's what he wants. He doesn't want, you know, a liberal jury pool. So, you know, kind of a surprise, recent twist, he decided, you know what, I'm going to try to stay in state court. Maybe he saw the writing on the wall, wasn't going to get moved because Meadows and some others in his inner circle were unsuccessful. But we're going to have a case in Fulton County pretty soon because two of his co-defendants, Cindy Powell and Ken Cheeseboro didn't waive their right to a speedy trial. So they're going to trial actually this month in October. What is the crux of the indictment? So the crux of the indictment in Atlanta and in D.C., it's really election fraud.

The allegations are that Trump knew he lost the election and tried to overturn the results anyway through a variety of means. Some of it was litigation, but really the biggest allegation is the fake electorate school. We have an electoral college and, you know, Mike Pence was supposed to certify the electors. It's really a ceremonial role, but obviously on January 6th and those sort of a culmination of all that, the allegations are Trump and those with him conspired to prevent Mike Pence from doing his job, and that's certifying the election. Okay. And they do you know, well, I mean, the indictment, typically they're pretty bland, but I mean, are there, is there any type of evidence or anything that was in this indictment

that kind of proves that or helps further? Yeah, not you're right. Sometimes you have those bare bones indictments and you don't have a whole lot of information. But I'd say the indictments in these cases were actually the opposite, where we're speaking indictments, you know. Probably the most famous example is, you know, the phone call that Trump made directly to the Georgia Secretary of State where he said, you know, find the votes. And, you know, folks are telling him that folks are telling Trump, at least allegedly, that Mr. President, you lost the election. There are no additional votes to be found.

And, you know, notwithstanding all that, Trump continued to come out on traditional social media and claim that he won and sort of acted upon those lines. That's a big lie, right? So regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, there are some people that still believe that Trump won the 2020 election. But I think most jurors, doesn't matter whether you're in D.C. or Atlanta, Georgia, are going to believe that, you know, Joe Biden did win and, you know, Trump's conduct. Was it wrong or was it, you know, did it cross the line to become an illegal? Right. Okay.

And so, all right, so they were, so two, of his co-defendants want to go to trial right now? Yeah, so it's interesting. Yeah, so you have two different cases. Trump is under four different indictments, right? So one is in New York. That was actually the first case, right? The payments, former porn star Stormy Daniels.

You know, obviously we've got the classified documents case there in South Florida. But if you're looking at the two big two election fraud cases, which are the biggest one, one's in federal court in D.C. and one's in state court in Atlanta. Even though they have the same allegations, essentially, the cases are very different. The federal case in D.C., special counsel Jack Smith, who's the prosecutor there, he really, if you look at an indictment, it's very surgical. Trump is the only defendant. There are about five unindicted co-conspirators, but they're not charged, right? So there's one defendant, a few co-conspirators that, although they're discussed in the indictment, their name, they're not defendant.

right so they're not charged so the reason you do that was to push that case to trial as quickly as possible i mean all the prosecutors in this case they want to get to trial before the november 24 election because if trump wins all of his criminal problems may go away it's pretty well established that a sitting president can't be prosecuted so that's one sort of theory in one sort of legal strategy in dc and in atlanta it's the opposite you have this sort of kitchen sink approach where Fania Willis, the district attorney there, charged almost everyone. 19 co-defendants. And, you know, she did so hoping to get 18 guilty pleas and 18 cooperating defendants against Donald Trump.

Now, that hasn't happened yet. We've had one guilty plea, the guy put it to a no-time misdemeanor. But, you know, so far the defendants have held the line. And it's obviously their right to a speedy trial under the Constitution. And many of those defendants are lawyers, so they know they're right. So it's going to be interesting. We don't have a televised trial. as soon as this month, relating to the former president and election fraud.

Right, but it's not Trump's trial, right? No, it's not, but a lot of the evidence is going to come in, right? These are lawyers that work for Trump, and the allegations are that they perpetuated these lies, knowing there were lies, you know, both in the court system and in the public. And, you know, the allegations would be that people were harmed, right? There were threats made against election officials and so forth. We've seen some of these defamation lawsuits against Fox News and others. So it's on the civil side.

But these are individuals that weren't involved in all the, you know, election interference, as Trump would say. So I think a lot of evidence and witnesses that is ultimately going to come out against Trump months from now is going to come out in this first trial involving the co-defendants. So we'll get a little bit of a sneak preview. Right. So I have a question. So do you feel like it's damaging to. Trump's case that it comes out or does it give him a glimpse of, you know, of their their tactics or of the prosecution's tactics or what they have? Not that he doesn't already know what they have,

but you know, the stance that they're going to present the evidence. I think it gives Trump the advantage to have a preview of what the witnesses are going to say. He's going to be able to prepare his defense, his cross-examination. He's going to see where the holes are. So if you're the prosecutionist, if you're Jack Smith and you're in D.C. and you're thinking, yourself, well, why did the Atlanta DA charge all these folks? They're going to go to trial first. It may actually affect my case because you have witnesses. You don't want them to testify multiple times. They may testify inconsistently. And you're really giving the defense the advantage of seeing what the evidence is going to be before they actually have to put on their own case.

Okay. Is there any, so what are the chances that he gets this held off until the election? His trial, his trial, you know, in Georgia, sorry. Or his trials, right? I think Trump's best defense is going to be delay because, look, I mean, he's running for president. He's supposed to be campaigning, both in terms of his time and his money. He doesn't want to spend it on legal fees and traveling around the country dealing with these many cases, right? You know, five cases in four different states. I mean, he's in the middle trial right now and a bench trial in a civil case, but it's still a civil fraud case.

So, you know, if you're Trump, if you can kick all this out till after November 2024, that's going to be your best case scenario. You can deal with it later. If you lose the presidency, but if you regain control of the White House, Department of Justice, the precedent has said that you can't be prosecuted. So these cases have to be dismissed. So I think Trump is going to do everything he can to try to delay these trials. The prosecution in these cases has really tried to hold the line, at least in the federal

cases and in the Georgia case. So it'll be interesting to see who wins. But so far, the judges have sided with the prosecution. And we're going to see trials as early as, you know, March at 2024. Well, what do you think the strongest? Well, what are the other cases? Did you go over all of them? No? Well, there's two other cases. I'd say that the least serious involves payments to, you know, porn star, former porn star, Stormy Daniels right before the November 20, excuse me, the 2016 election. So this is way back when it seems like a lifetime ago when Trump was running against Hillary Clinton. And his lawyer, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid off Stormy Daniels so she wouldn't go public with their affair. Now, you know, why is this a crime? And, you know, a lot of,

yeah, a lot of folks are asking, right? And that's actually a defense in this case because, well, the reason it's a crime is technically, and this is getting into some of the new. nuances of campaign finance law because that payment helped the trump campaign because this information that come out was arguably a campaign contribution and a contribution that should have been disclosed so yeah i mean the jurors are going to have to sort through all this still yeah and then so there's not only that you know they wrote off uh this payment as um a business expense so you can't do that it's a campaign contribution. So, you know, let me just simplify it by saying that there's some allegedly false business records at issue in the New York case related to these

payments. Now, why doesn't it in this matter? Why am I talking about campaign finance? Under New York law, there's this little wrinkle. If the business records were just false, well, that's just a misdemeanor. Now, is it just a misdemeanor might be barred by the statute of limitations. We're talking about some old conda. But if the those false business records were in furtherance of or to cover up another crime, such as a campaign finance violation, it can be a felony. So actually, believe it or not, in the New York case, Trump's best defense is just going to be, listen, I made the payments to protect my family, my wife, Malanya from embarrassment.

I didn't do it to help my campaign. And if so, the felony gets reduced to a misdemeanor, and the whole case may go away. And if so, I was wrong because it didn't hurt his... his campaign. You know what I mean? It's not like he didn't get elected as a result of it. He still got elected. It still kind of came out. So I don't know that it seems like that one is grasped. They're grasping at straws. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely it's the weakest of the cases, both in terms of the allegations, a little bit stale. You know, I think the only sort of interesting thing is it was the first prosecutor in U.S. history, Alvin Bragg actually filed against a former president.

But if you're looking at the seriousness of the charges, these are by far in a way. the least serious when you're looking at the other cases. Do you feel like the Georgia one is the most serious? I think the DC one is the most serious and for a couple reasons. One, it's a federal case compared to Georgia, which has stayed. You have a judge that a lot of folks appointed, that's an Obama appointee, but she's had some pretty strong feelings about the capital rioters. And this is Judge Chutkin.

So in the capital rioters cases, you know, defense sort of has argued for their sentence. The government has argued for their sentence. Usually the judge will sort of side with one or the other, maybe split the difference, go in the middle. This particular judge in a lot of those cases has gone up above the government's recommendation. So she's had some pretty strong feelings about the capital riots. Obviously, we'll see what Trump's role was, if any, in those riots. But this is someone that is not a Trump-friendly president. And there's also another case that she was involved with. It was the January 6th committee before the House, and that was just a congressional committee.

But that committee subpoenaed documents related to Trump, and Trump didn't want to turn them over. So ended up before the same judge, it was litigated, and the judge said, no, Trump's records have to go to the committee. And she said something pretty telling that the presidents aren't kings and they have to comply with the law. So I think given the judge, given that's federal versus state, and let's not forget, D.C. is a very liberal jury pool voted for Joe Biden more than 80 percent so they're going to have a good jury at least Jack Smith will so I think of all the cases that's the most serious I think the most easily provable is a case that we haven't really talked about yet which is the classified documents case

there in south Florida okay um so back to the January 6th one like what what evidence is Is there that he was, you know, was, you know, that he supported the January 6th because everything I've heard basically says that, you know, he didn't. But then again, I haven't looked into it probably as much as you. You know, when it comes to January 6th, I think no prosecutor has been willing so far to kind of make that leap and say that, you know, Trump is responsible for the actual violence or insurrection or seditious conspiracy he hasn't been charged with any of that right i think it's more of you know this was the sort of the consequence of the big lie people were actually hurt lives

were lost people were injured um you know it's more to say that that the lies matter more than well you know what trump was responsible for assault or battering the capital police officer well i mean i don't understand you if he was indicted what was he indicted on or what was i mean what was the indictment and what what how can you know is there proof what are they alleging they have proof that he incited that riot or yeah so he so so he hasn't been charged with anything related to the actual riots he's been charged with conspiring to defraud the united states making false statements so things to that are basically related to his lies as opposed to you know the ensuing violence so if you look at the indictment it's essentially related to

different types of election fraud allegation okay and i'm sorry not not election fraud allegations not election fraud let me just clear that up okay and what's the what's the one that you the other one that you said was the the most serious case is the well no the most serious of the DC case the most readily provable case is document classified documents case so when Trump left office, they allegedly took classified documents with them. If we look at federal law and the Presidential Records Act, you know, when someone leaves office, those documents are to maintain, or to be maintained by the National Archives in D.C. That's the government agency that just maintains all these records, right? Classified or not. Well, Trump reportedly took

boxes and boxes of documents to his home in Mar-a-Lago. Some of them were classified. Some of them were not, but they were supposed to stay in D.C. So for more than the year, the archives asked Trump and his team to return the documents. Trump didn't do so. The archives said, well, if you don't comply, we're going to make a referral to the Department of Justice. And the way these federal agencies work is they can't enforce the law themselves. They need the DOJ to come in and sort of be that hammer. So the referral was made and the Department of Justice issues a grand jury subpoena. And so say, we're going to subpoena the documents we want back. That's when sort of allegations in the case really kind of come to light. The allegations

are that when Trump gets the subpoena, he doesn't comply with it. He has the documents moved from the storage to his personal residence. He asked for some of the camera footage to be deleted. He tells, you know, witnesses, kind of lie to the FBI or, you know, deny moving the boxes or deny their existence. So, you know, you have the allegations in that case. They relate to, you know, unlawfully maintaining classified documents, obstructing justice, a grand jury subpoena, federal investigation, and so forth. And the reason I say it's the most readily provable is Trump has said publicly that he knew the documents were classified and he was maintaining them anyway. Now, his defense is that, you know, this was his absolute right as president.

I think that will be rejected by a judge. I don't think he's going to be allowed to present that argument. So it's the most readily provable case. But the jury pool there in South Florida is pretty mixed. You're gonna have some conservative folks there. Florida juries going all the way back to Casey Anthony, you know, and Trayvon Martin. I mean, there's so many kids, they have notoriously unpredictable.

I cover trials, you know, almost every day for different networks. And I can tell you that predicting Florida juries, I don't think anyone can do it with any type of certainty. Okay. So how do you think this whole thing plays out? Like, have you laid out the numerous scenario? I mean.

Yeah, Matt, it's going to be hard because you're talking to the most politically charged prosecution in U.S. history, right? You know, if we're talking about cases, you think about, well, how are folks going to feel about the defendant? You know, is it a sympathetic person? It's a female. Is it a male, you know, older, younger? You kind of look at all that. You know, Donald Trump, I mean, he's so polarizing. There's people that absolutely despise him and they think it's a criminal and he belongs in jail.

And there's folks that think he's being treated unfairly and this is a witch hunt and he's being railroaded. So more than any other case that I've ever covered, I think jury selection is going to be everything in this case because, you know, this isn't even an O.J. or Johnny Depp, I mean, everyone in the country has some sort of view, preconceived view about Donald Trump that they're bringing into that courtroom. So you're not even going to, you just, you know. Look, I mean, if I take this, I'm a former prosecutor.

I usually like to think the prosecutors are going to win. I don't care if it's Donald Trump or Hunter Biden or anyone. I mean, I tend to like lean pro prosecution. I think that he's likely going to get convicted. And I think that the D.C. case will be the first one if I had to guess. Again, but if you ask me almost on any case, it's rare for me to say, you know, that someone's not going to be convicted. I think the recent case where I said it's a bad case for the prosecution, I ended up being a really bad case, was Alec Baldwin. That was just a terrible case.

And I ended up at least dismissing it without prejudice. But usually if you watch me and my podcast and my interviews, I'm going to hope that the prosecution wins most of the time. Right. I noticed that on your website or on, I mean, not website, the YouTube, you do, you'll review movies. Yeah. Like when they're doing Wadir and you're like, they wouldn't ask that question. Yeah. So, you know, obviously, look, I'm a lawyer.

I'm a nerd and I do real trial commentary. So just like people are watching, like your favorite. football game or basketball game or baseball or whatever i'm not like talking ahead doing the play by play this is why the attorney's objecting this is what the judges do and this what the jury's thinking so you know i spend hours i spend hours today covering trials uh in real time so obviously you know i'm in l. i'm in hollywood we're always either representing actors and actresses or suing them so whenever a new series comes out a legal one i usually watch and say well yeah this is accurate this is not and there's some actually really good ones

out there right now i'd say the quality of you know kind of you know before it was it was all kind of just drama but you know maybe there's some good ones i think uh you know uh on order historically has been very good but i think more and more you're seeing legal shows that are really surprisingly accurate you know close to 90 percent or more okay uh that seems like trump that seemed like we've we're done with Trump. Yeah, I mean, I think we got maybe one more cases to talk about because it's happening right now. And that's not a, it's not a criminal case.

I'm not going to go to jail, but now he's in the middle of a civil fraud trial in New York. And the reason why this case is important, the New York Attorney General brought a case. She brought a criminal case, but she brought a civil one. So she sued Trump. And, you know, we're in the first week of trial. And the reason this is important is, I mean,

you know, there's hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, but importantly, the judge ruled, This is a bench trial because, believe it or not, Trump's lawyers never asked for a jury trial, which they should have. It's questionable whether they could have gotten it, but at least they should have asked. But it's a bench trial. So the judge in the case has ruled that Trump submitted fraudulent records and documents to banks to get loans. And, you know, bigger loans and more favorable loans in terms of interest rate and payment terms. And the reason why this is so important is obviously Trump could get hit with a judgment of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars,

And importantly, the judge has said that Trump can no longer do business in New York. He's lost his business licenses. So judge has asked for a receiver to be appointed him. And Trump may have to wind up those businesses and sell off Trump Tower and some of those, you know, prize assets in New York City. I mean, he's appealing that, I'm sure, right? He's appealing. And I think he's got a pretty good argument on the statute of limitations grounds, a little bit complicated because, you know, we're talking about some older allegations here, not too dissimilar from the storm. Daniels case that we talked about and Ivanka actually got her case her claims dismissed on the

statute of limitations so it's gone back to the court of appeals a couple times now it's currently in trial so we'll see he's appealing he's appealing the dissolution order but you know so far things have not started well for the former president so I mean the the the crux of that case is that he would when he would go to borrow money from banks he would say that my the real estate that I own that's that is i'm using as collateral for this loan it's worth whatever you know 150 million dollars but then he would on his taxes he would claim it was worth more or less something along those lines so he was is that so no more or less yeah so you're applying for a mortgage right if you're a bank you're underwriting the loan you're trying to you know secure you know as much property as you can

So if Trump's saying that, you know, he's worth, you know, X billion dollars but the real estate's worth significantly less, you know, it matters at least under the law because it's, it's a fraudulent statement in support of a loan application. Now, Trump's defense says, look, one, the properties weren't overvalued, but even if they were, there's no victims here. The banks have been paid. No one's defaulted. You know, what's the big? This kind of goes along the, though. witch hunt argument. Obviously from the AG side and the state side, plaintiff side, they're arguing that, well, look, this is fraud, you know, the marketplace has been harmed, you've benefited. So they're kind of getting to those types of arguments. But if you're getting into the weeds, it's really that Trump is like significantly inflating the value. Sometimes like, you know, 10 or 20x of what these properties were worth. You know, he's inflating the square footage,

the value of the tenants that are there. So a little of a complicated fraud case, but it's essentially, you know, just saying that everything's inflated. And, you know, this isn't just within the realm of what's reasonable. I was going to say, the banks do appraisals. The banks would, it's not like you can just say, hey, my, my building is worth, you know, $800 million.

The bank has to send out an appraiser and agree with that. So. Yeah, no question. But, yeah, but some of it is, you know, for instance, like, You got Trump Tower, right? You got your tenants, right? They're going to rely on what was provided by Trump with respect to the tenant. You know, some of it's the square footage.

And again, you know, we're really kind of getting into the weeds a bit and the evidence is just coming in. Some of it was discussed in the judge's order. But we're going to see, hey, is this, you know, within the realm of what was an appropriate appraisal or is this something that's just way off? But you're right. If you and I applied for a mortgage, I mean, there's no way. we can just say, you know, make an X amount of money on my house is worth why. I mean, they're going to have appraiser come up.

I was going to say, you can, I mean, there's always ways, especially with the commercial property, you can always say that I have, because they're asking you for the lease. So you're the one saying, yeah, yeah, this guy's paying $100, you know, whatever it is, you know, $45,000 every month. Here's the lease. This tenant is paying $160,000 a month. Here's the lease. So that obviously is going to boost up the value of that property.

So I could see that. Um, okay. What else do you think? What else are you thinking? Yeah, lawyers, unfortunately, they like to talk a lot. You know, I don't know how many lawyers you have on the show, but man, they'll just ramble on sometimes. And then I'm just used to the producers in my ears saying, you know, we're going to go fast. You got two minutes, three minutes, you know, it's just, that's just on networking cable TV is right now.

Yeah, I, I have, you know, I want to say I've had four or five attorneys come on. And, but, you know, we've usually had, you know, we've up front just, you know, had like we were going to basically tell a little bit about their story and then what they were working on and then talk about a, a current case. And, you know, and I typically explain that there's no, there's no time limit. Like, you know, take as long as you want. But none of them are also lawyers that are being, that are, you know, on on the news channels. So they're not used to having to. some things up quickly. What was it? Oh, shoot. Yeah, there's a couple of attorneys, actually, that have YouTube channels, too. One guy I've interviewed is, it's my lawyer friend, Zach. That's the name of his channel.

And then another one is America's attorney. Okay, I'll check those out. Yeah, they're actually, they're actually. Well, what kind of cases of the true crime or? No, you know, we were talking about, I think one of them we did. Sam Bankman-Fried. We went over the indictment. And one of them, actually, I've, that's, I've been on,

or he's been on my, my podcast several times. And that's Josh with, with America's attorney. And then Zach, we've done, we've done probably, think, three or four. I think we did, Donnie, is it Donnie Masterson? What is it? Oh, Danny Masterson. Yeah. Yeah, Scientology.

that was huge out here so yeah obviously a trial and retrial he got the the 15 15 consecutive just a 30 years so yeah that was a big one out here yeah i did one on him um well we really just did the case and scientology and how it kind of played into it but we also i've also done stuff on him like you know what's it going to be like for him in prison uh that sort of thing yeah yeah it's gonna be tough. Yeah, I mean, it's on appeal, but, you know, the jury believe, always in the retrial, you got two of the victims. And under California law, there's separate victims, separate sex acts. The sentences have to run consecutively. You can't run them at the same time. And it's a 15-year minimum. So, yeah, he's going to be doing significant time in prison. We'll see. I know he's trying

to appeal, but Sean Hawley and his team, but it's going to be tough, it's going to be tough appeal because it's really a question of, you know, who do the jurors believe did this happen or did it not? um the sam bankman freed like listen when he was obviously you know one he was they were trying to of course get him back from you know and then then when he got back he immediately went on a little tour and started doing all these interviews and i was thinking his attorneys like the more he talked the more guilty he looked you know the worse and then when i when i heard that you know the girlfriend and a couple of his uh his associates were they they were caught on camera getting coffee at a Starbucks that was like two blocks away from the U.S. attorney's office, I was like, well, they're cooperating. I'm like, none of this is good for him. Oh, yeah, that's bad. Yeah, he was, yeah, I would, uh, it'd be tough to be his lawyer because he's someone

that probably, um, just doesn't listen to his lawyer's advice. Sometimes because of parents are, you know, pretty sophisticated, uh, folks at Stanford. But there was someone that was on social media, like live streaming when he was in the Bahamas and he was reportedly under indictment. He was going to testify before Congress a few days later. I mean, obviously any lawyer would tell him just kind of keep his mouth shut. He was out on bond. And, you know, obviously everyone knew that his girlfriend and his former colleagues were cooperating. And, you know, again, there's just allegations, but the judge found him the incredible.

He's like engaging in a witness tampering and telling people what to say. that just revoked his bond in back in custody so probably super frustrating to deal with him as a client and he had the largest bond in the u.s history ever and it got revoked so yeah he's going to be a character i think he's going to likely testify at trial so that's going to be he's going to think he he's going to think he can spin it you know he definitely i'm sorry go ahead no no no no you're right i'm sorry to interrupt you but yeah he he seems like he definitely seems like one of those guys that thinks he's a smartest guy in the room you know and and some of the the comments that you've said is you know well if you don't understand it you're just maybe you're just not that

smart you there are all these condescending things and you know prosecutors are really good at using your you know narcissism against you know they'll just set them up and so i mean to me if i was a lawyer i would he should be trying to get a plea right now he should be desperately trying to get a plea yeah but you call it it the narcissism right we saw it recently with Elizabeth Holmes, right? I mean, she took the stand immediately testified. Yeah, so this is something we're seeing a lot more recently. He talked about that narcissism, right, from these fraudsters. We saw it with Elizabeth Holmes, right? She took the stand immediately, tried to explain a way the fraud didn't work, was convicted. Alex Murdoch, right? I mean,

he came, took the stand. I mean, jurors convicted in a matter of hours. Now, of course, he's trying to get that reversed on appeal. But when you have these people who believe they can outsmart anyone they're much more likely to take the stand against their attorney's advice and once they do the entire case is going to come down to their testimony and that's something that we've seen i think a clear shift in i think not not to date myself but you know if you're asking 10 20 years ago would this defendant take the stand it's absolutely not the conventional wisdom is plead the fifth exercise your right to remain silent but i don't think sam bankman free is your typical defense. No. And I just think he, you know, here's the problem is, you know, when you,

when you've got that kind of money and everything's working and you're able to prolong, you know, these types of businesses and further these businesses as long as he was and convince high profile people to follow him and stand up for him and donate to him and, you know, invest in his business. And he's, I'm sure, especially, first of all, if you're already, narcissistic so you get a God complex you surround yourself by yes men when you know when you're paying your secretary 250,000 dollars and she should be making 60 at best then you know and they're of course they're just going to continue to say you know you're the you're wonderful you're amazing you're this and then suddenly you get into court and you know the prosecutor

doesn't feel that way and you don't realize that everybody's saying something completely different they're much more believable you've got you've got all of these documents proving that what you're now saying isn't true. You're not the smartest guy in the room because the prosecutor puts on four different experts that say, that's not the way this works. That's not what happened. That's not how this works. You know, he's, you know, no, that's absolutely not what happened.

And on top of that, we know that he knew because we have all these documents that show he was completely aware that this was a fraud. So, you know, he can, he can blame it on. I was just, I, I didn't. really know how the business worked. I was new. I was this. But the, the lies will catch up with him. And he should be desperately trying to get something like 15 or 20 years. But if he goes to, he goes to trial, although, you know, Elizabeth Holmes went to trial. What did she get? Like 11 years, 12 years? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought she wouldn't get more because the amount of the fraud was

so much. I mean, she got, you know, the jury acquitted on some counts, not guilty of others. But really the key counts, the conspiracy, I mean, the defrauding the investors. She got lucky. I mean, a co-defendant got a couple more years. Not only did she take the case of trial, she took the stand, she testified, she perjured herself. She never accepted really any responsibility at sentencing. So she's lucky she didn't get hammered even more. But, yeah, I mean, like you said, you know, Bankman Freed, I think he's going to have a similar argument to Elizabeth Holmes,

that, you know, listen, I, you know, I believed in this, and, you know, I was dup by others, and the business just failed. But the problem is when you're siphoning millions and millions of dollars, millions of dollars, you know, from, you know, folks who, you know, have money in FTX to Alameda. And it's just really bad in terms of that paper trail. But like you said, it's maybe that godlike complex. You know, Tom Brady and Larry David and everyone's doing commercials for you.

You know, you probably think you're king of the world. One of the biggest donors to elected officials and politicians to have access if no one else does. he was a kind of a cold T-ro. Yeah, you know, what's funny about that, too, is, you know, I get tons of guys in the comment section who were saying like, oh, he's donated heavily, he's protected. No, the moment, listen, my opinion or my experience, listen, the moment that those politicians that you donated millions of dollars to hear that you've been indicted, they're not writing letters for you. They're turning around and heading the other way and trying to say, listen, this is. This guy donated, like, I don't know him.

I mean, we got some pictures. I don't know what he was into. Like, I'm not standing up for him. I'm not going to make any phone calls. I'm not going to put my neck out for this guy. And everybody else is saying, oh, no, they will. No, they won't. No, of course not.

I mean, they're going to save themselves. Most of them have returned those contributions and donations. Look, I mean, he's on his own. And not only that, I think, like, obviously, he's on trial. And this isn't about crypto, but I think in some ways, you know, a lot of things, Folks think, you know, crypto is fraudulent or a scam. And I think the whole industry is on trial. This is not what you want if you are someone that wants to kind of push for deregulation of crypto like a lot of people do.

So it's going to be closely watched trial just because it's probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest fraud in U.S. history because of who Bankman freed is. Frankly, if Trump wasn't happening at the same time, this would be the biggest trial in the country right now. Right. Yeah, he definitely should be trying to get, you know, what is a max on wire fraud? It's like 20 years, right? It's a 20 year, yeah, 20 year max. So, you know, I mean, judges can run, you know, so many counts run them consecutive. I don't think he's going to get one in 20 years if he pleads.

But like, you never know. This is Judge Kaplan. It's the same judge who actually oversaw Trump's defamation trial. Again, Jean Carroll, she said that she was sexually assaulted by him and he said she was making it up. and the whole thing went to trial recently. So these are no nonsense there in New York. You never know which way this can go. But, yeah, if Bankman Free pushes this case,

he testifies, he obstructs justice, he perjures himself. I can see him potentially getting hammered. So real quick, if you were the prosecutor, what would you, what plea deal would you offer him? Because let's face it, going to trial is going to be a nightmare trial. It's going to be wrong. and it's complicated and

yeah look it's a complex fraud trial it's gonna take months probably before it's all set and done you know i'm also the accountants and experts and these aren't easy cases to prosecute leave or not a murder is a lot easier you know so what if if i were the prosecutor in new york and you know i'm the u.s am handling this case here's what i would say listen you plead you can argue for whatever sentence you want you can plead to you know conspiracy to commit wire you argue for whatever is appropriate it. I'll do the same. Let the chips fall where they may. You know, so you, you know, just

that's it, man. Leave it up to the judge, you know. So I'll say that you accept the responsibility. I'll give you credit for that. I'll talk about all, you know, the harm you caused to people who lost their life savings. When you talk about all the good you did, let's just put it all out there. Let's make it the case about sentencing. And look, you can argue mitigation all you want. But, you know, trying the case man i don't think anyone should get credit for acceptance and responsibility when i pushed the case to trial and they lie and do all sorts of things like that i was like what what he was raised rich he had every he had every he had every what's he going to say you know my my my uh you know my babysitter was mean to me when i grew up

and he's got no there's there's nothing that i can see him saying you know i'm yeah i'm too rich to go to prison yeah i don't know what he would say either i think and badly for them. And that's what I think, look, these are white-collar criminals. There's the reason they flip and they cooperate. I mean, these aren't people that do well in prison, even federal prison. That's why all his co-defendants pled and flipped on it. Right.

I was going to say, if he could get 20 years right now, 20 years in ARDAP. 20 years in ARDAP. I had a drug problem. I can get a year off, maybe get a year halfway hour plus 15% of my sentence off. He could be on 15 years. He could. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I imagine he'll be a model and make him get that 15% credit. Like you said, there's also federal programs now. People are taking advantage of. Isn't the first chance act? He gets credits like for programming and. Yeah, for working. He might have gotten 14 or 13 years. He could that. That's he still young. He's very young. He's the rest of his life ahead of him. So no question. I think that's probably the way to go. But, you know, For them, some of these, they won't even do, you know, 13-9s, much less 13 years. So, go out of these cases, go to trial.

Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a big, a big issue with his attorneys right now, just trying to convince him how much trouble he really is in. Yeah, that was a tough, tough case to defend. I agree. You know, I've met a lot of doctors who were running, like, pain management clinics. Okay. And the prosecutor in those cases, a lot of times has like, they're like at least with a, at least with a drug dealer, he knows he's breaking the law. Like when you talk to him, there's not a discussion about how you broke the law and why you broke the law.

It's how much, what are we going to offer you? What are you going to take? What did you actually do? What didn't you do? How much were you moving? But a lot of prosecutors will go in. And it's a 30 minute conversation to an hour of just trying to convince the defendant that you broke the law because they're like, yeah, I went through this. I did this. I did the examination. I did this. I followed the rule book. I gave him the script. This is what it says. How did I break the law? So the same thing with him. He's probably thinking the same thing. Like how can you prove that I broke the law? That's a huge probably discussion anyway with him and his attorneys. Oh, I agree with those pill mill doctors, same thing. Yeah, it's hard to kind of get them to.

I mean, those are the come-to-Jesus talks that the defense attorneys have to have and convince their clients, like, look, it's going to end badly for you. I mean, you're in the top 10 prescribers in the country, and the DEA tracks this, and, you know, you spent two minutes with these patients. If you even saw them at all, that's not something the 12 men and women in the community are going to think it's reasonable. So, you know, yeah, sometimes these white-collar folks. they really need to talk into by their lawyers. So I don't, you don't know much about my, about my case. No, I don't think about it. Okay.

So I, you keep saying these white collar criminals, like, I'm a white collar criminal. Oh, okay. But yeah, so I don't anything about it. No, yeah, I was in federal prison. I did 13 years in federal prison for bank fraud. Oh, for what? For bank fraud? Yeah, bank fraud, wire fraud, passport fraud, aggravated, I did any theft.

All you go, 1028A? Where were you prosecuted? So they consolidated four different cases in Atlanta. So I had cases in the middle district of Florida, Atlanta, South Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee. But was that in the northern district of Georgia? Yeah, the Secret Service was very proactive. And the prosecutor there was very proactive in trying to get a hold of me. I was on the run for three years.

Oh, wow. And so I was number one on the Secret Service's Most Wanted List. So the Secret Service was investigating the case out of Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee. So when they finally got in the kind of case was it? It was in general. You know, the quick version is that it was, I own a mortgage company. And eventually, I got in trouble. And then when I got in trouble, I was placed on probation.

and I started making synthetic identities. And so I made whatever about like, you know, maybe half a dozen. And I went into an area of Tampa and I bought up a bunch of houses for like, let's say, $50,000. And I recorded the value of the houses at like $200,000. So the area shot up and every one of these guys that had four, five, six houses, then refinanced the houses and pulled out, you know, got a loan for $190,000, whatever the case, you know, 190, 180,

180, pulled out, you know, a hundred and change, made a few payments, let the house is going to foreclosure. And that worked out. I borrowed like $11.5 million. But then the FBI eventually showed up because a friend of mine got arrested and he cooperated with the authorities. And they came to get me. I went on the run for three years, borrowed another $3.5 to $4.5 million, got arrested.

And then, of course, my mortgage company had done like $40 million, but they never prosecuted me for that. So I got 15. I was prosecuted for $15 million, you know, and of course, does it, over 50 stolen identities, which were actually manufactured. Like I convinced Social Security to issue me social security numbers for children that don't exist. I'd make a fake birth certificate, but I still managed to get charged for that. Yeah, because you usually got to be another person for the 1028.

Okay, so you're, so you know a lot about it. So your 2B1.1, your enhancement was. Oh, my enhancement were 20, it was almost, it was like 20 years of enhancements. I got 26 years. Wow. But I only did 13 because I got two rule 35s. One of the rule 35s were for, the prosecutor asked me to be interviewed by Dateline and American Greed.

And I, I then wrote an ethics and fraud course that, you know, mortgage brokers have to take like nine hours every year, three hours. is on ethics and fraud. I wrote a course that was taught by one of those providers. And, you know, of course, when it was all said and done, they kept saying, you know, we'll consider it substantial assistance. And every time I did something, they said, yeah, we've considered it. It's not enough.

And then they'd ask me to do something else and I'd do something else. And then they asked me to do something else and I'd do that. And they kept saying, so finally I ended up filing a 2255, even though I was time barred. Yeah. We argued equitable tolling, which, you know, is not really, you know, but still, and this was, I'm six years in at that point. And I actually, I'm surprised that they didn't give you like, you know, like, at least, once they give you like at least a point of the assistance, they can kind of say, hey, I think it's worth, you know, whatever. Yeah, what they ended up doing after I filed the 2255 was they said, look, we're going to, here's what we'll do. We'll recommend one level reduction.

Yeah, then you can argue for whatever you want. Yeah. And you could argue whatever you want and you get in front of the judge. So I did. He knocked three off. That was seven years off. And then once I went back, I literally had just gotten back. Imagine going right back to a low security.

I did three years in a medium, five or six at that point in the low. When I went, I had just come back from being resentenced. And everybody knows you were resentenced. They all know. Sure. Yeah. So you go back and it's not a good situation. I'm walking around the. compound with a guy who's who had stolen 57 million dollars from churches and pension funds on

a Ponzi scheme and he knows that I've cooperated and he ends up telling me because he was cooperating he's telling me that they're never going to give him his cooperation because he they think he hid Ponzi scheme money and I'm like ah you didn't and it and so they can't withhold it if you didn't if just because they think it and so we're going back and forth eventually he ends up saying, well, I actually did. You know, my soon-to-be ex-wife is holding this much. My brother's holding this much. And I was like, really?

And I remember thinking like, bro, I don't want to be here. Like, you know I don't want to be here. Like, you know, like, I mean, what are you even thinking? But I remember thinking they're not going to give me anything for that. We continue to walk around. I ended up talking to my lawyer like a month later. Just by coincidence, I was ordering my sentencing transcripts because I was writing memoir and she said anything going on in there and i explained well yeah listen to what happened

the other day and i tell her next thing you know a week later secret service calls me they say hey do you know where this guy hid money and i said yeah i do here's what he told me you know we end up talking back and forth on email they call in the brother and sister they give up half a million dollars which was way more than i thought once again uh and this time i actually had a letter from the prosecutor saying she would consider an indictment or a substantial amount of money recovered as a substantial assistance. And this time, they refused even acknowledged that it had happened. I followed another 2255.

Eventually, we went back and forth and we started arguing, and they gave me three more levels off. It was another five years. So it was 12 years total. So by the time that hit, I basically, within about a year, I walked out of prison. Oh, wow. That's fascinating. I'm surprised they were so difficult on, because, I mean, that's like a significant cooperation. Maybe it was when I was doing with cartels. That's a different cooperation in my book.

Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I appreciate you guys checking out the interview. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Also, leave me a comment in the comment section. Please look in the description box. We're going to leave all of NEMA's links in the description box, so you can check out his videos and his YouTube channel. I really do appreciate you guys checking out the interview.

Thank you. See you. If you've been watching the story, you understand how it's slowly progressing. And then I'm currently, while I was right, while I met Frank in prison, I also wrote his a synopsis or a story about Frank while incarcerated. And I know Frank while incarcerated because he had done legal work for me. So several videos ago, I think maybe two, maybe three videos. videos ago, Frank had represented me as my, you know, my prison lawyer on what's called the

2255 where he filed a reduction for me or on my behalf to the U.S. to the government. And the government, of course, they fought the reduction. I had done things I'd been interviewed by Dateline and American Greed, and I'd also written an ethics and fraud course and a red flags rules course. at the request of the government to reduce my sentence and the government, they wouldn't reduce it. Like they had asked me to do these things. They said they would consider it, what's called substantial assistance.

They said, we'll consider it substantial assistance. Substantial assistance, typically, if they consider something substantial assistance and they agree that it is substantial assistance, then they will reduce your sentence. for that substantial assistance. Now, the government had said, but here's the problem. The problem is that the, that the government said they would reduce my sentence and they didn't. Their reasoning behind it at that time was that there were no arrests made based on the assistance of Mr. Cox. And as a result of that, they didn't give me.

They said, oh, well, nobody was arrested. Now, they knew going in, nobody was going to be arrested. When you say, hey, we'll consider this substantial assistance if you're interviewed by Dateline. And then, like, there was no chance I was going to be interviewed by Dateline and they were going to go out and arrest people. Regardless, that's what they did to kind of trick me and my lawyer. Frank ended up filing a 2255 and eventually got seven years knocked off my sentence.

So we're going to start at that point for the sake of simplicity. I had gotten back to Coleman and I'd been there maybe a month or two. Now, there had been a guy on the compound. His name was Ron Wilson. He was an old con man.

He was probably, I don't know what he was. He was in his 60s, 61, 62, maybe 63. I don't know exactly how old he was. But Ron Wilson had run a, Ponzi scheme in South Carolina. Ron Wilson's Ponzi scheme was based on trading silver, right? So he would trade silver in the, is it, commodities market? Right?

Yeah, you show itself, sorry. So he would trade silver in the commodities market. And supposedly you really took possession of the silver when this happened. So there's possession of the silver. He then trades it based on the fluctuation of its value. What Ron Wilson was really doing was running a Ponzi scheme. Now, he would, he did these seminars around, really, I think around the around, around, basically throughout the South, you know, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, of course.

And he would go in and he'd do a seminar about how he trades and how he has a formula. And there were people that were, there were people that are financial advisors would come and he'd pitch financial advisors like, hey, get your clients to invest in this. And he'd pay them a certain amount of money. But what it really was was a Ponzi scheme. And what a Ponzi scheme is, is that let's say you give me $1,000. And I'm going to tell you, hey, you give me $1,000 and I'm going to invest it for you. So you give me $1,000. And let's say a year from now, I say, I've made you $100.

So 30%. So you now have $1,300 in the account. Well, let's say you turn around and you say, Hey, Matt, I want my $1,300 back, but I haven't really invested. I haven't really done anything. I've actually spent your $1,000. But as long as I keep getting additional people to invest, so somebody else gives me $1,000, and another guy gives me $1,000, and another guy gives me $1,000.

When the original investors start saying, hey, I want to take my profits out, like I want my $300. You can give him the $300 because you brought in $5,000 from other. people. Even if that person says, I want my $300 profit and my original $1,000 investment back, you can give that to them because you've collected $5,000 from five other people. Now, let's say three of those people want their money back. As long as you keep getting new investors to pay back the old investors, you can run a Ponzi scheme. The problem is at some point, most Ponzi schemes get to be so big

and so many people are asking for their profits or their original capital back that it eventually collapses. And that's what happened with Ron Wilson's. Wilson had brought in, I want to say he'd brought in a little over $100 million. He'd lost $57 million.

So, Sometimes I would get an article and the article would say it's a $57 million Ponsie scheme. Sometimes it'd say Ron Wilson was running a $100 million Ponzi scheme. Bottom line is I know he owed about $57 million. So a lot of that money he had bought things with or just blown. This went on for 10, 15 years because the money that he was promising people wasn't too outrageous.

Like I don't think he was promising, you know, 100% returns. It was a reasonable return. And really, it was still unreasonable. It's like 20, 30%, 40%, still unreasonable, by the way. But, and most people that were investing with him, the bulk of his investors were made up of people that were using it as a retirement fund, pension funds, pension funds, and churches. So there are churches that are investing their money with him. There are people that are paying into a pension fund for, let's say, a steel manufacturer or some company that makes some kind of Texas. And they've got 50 employees or 200 employees.

They're giving Ron Wilson's company the money from the pension fund to invest. And because he'd been around so long, more and more people trusted him. Like you've been around 15 years. If it was a Ponzi scheme, it would have collapsed by now. So nobody thought it was a Ponzi scheme. Well, eventually what happened was in 2008, 2009, when things started going bad. it caught up with him. People started asking for money back.

And he was paying out money, paying out money, paying out money. And he really felt like he could have weathered the storm. But some woman, he had taken some money from some woman, some woman's father, I think, who was a retire. He was like 70-something years old. He'd taken like 100,000, 200,000. She wanted her money back or the money back. She said he was too old to know what he was doing. There was a huge argument.

And then she ended up going to like the. the FBI or something. Well, the FBI looked into it a little bit, made a few phone calls, and realized, hey, this is potentially a Ponzi scheme. And so then they started filing subpoenas, and Wilson realized right away, this is about to fall apart.

This is going to fall apart. One of the things that they did was they called the depository where he was supposed to have been keeping his silver. So a lot of the silver is supposed to be dropped off at, let's say, you know, like a holding center. Well, when they called and asked for how much money of Ron Wilson's clients were there,

there's almost nothing there. There should have been millions. Should have been like $100 million in silver there that he's trading. Nope. Not there. So he's in trouble. He knows it. And Ron Wilson goes in to the secret or goes in.

He finds out the secret service is one investigating it. Ron Wilson goes into the Secret Service office and with his lawyer and says, look, I'm here. Here's what happened. I'm running a Ponzi scheme. It's been 15 years. Here's how much money it is. I've taken in.

Here's what I have. And here's what I have left. Wilson literally went and dug up silver, gold, and these large cans of, They were ammunition cans. Like I guess the ammunition comes in like a tin, like these old tins that he had that had money in them. Like just stacks of cash. Went and dug it up and gave it to the Secret Service and said,

this is what I did. Knew he was doomed. He got 19 and a half years. You know, and rightfully so. He was also one of the problems was that Wilson was also, he was like a city councilman or a county commissioner like he was held like really high up in the community like nobody saw this coming anyway and then of course

you've got people that basically have like they think that Wilson's got three million dollars of their money and it turns out there's no money you'll be lucky to get $5,000 back when this is over like there's nothing so can you imagine like you think like you're retiring like you're about to retire or you've retired and you're living off of Social Security, your house is paid back, and every once in a while you ask Wilson for $50,000 or $20,000. And he's giving it to you, of course, because you think you've got $3 million in the bank.

But the truth is, you got nothing. There's no money. So at that moment, you're not getting any more checks from him. Listen, there's something called a clawback clause or a clawing back money where typically what people don't realize is that when these government investigators come in and they start looking at all the money they start that one of the things they'll do is they'll say okay well you invested a hundred thousand dollars into this Ponzi scheme right right but you took out 400,000 dollars in the last five years right okay so you made 400,000 that

you should have made well what are you talking about I he said I had the money said he had been investing yeah but he didn't so the 400,000 dollars that you got out is money that other people people gave him. So we're going to need that $400,000 back. Yeah, I wish you guys could see the look on Colby's face when I just said that. People don't realize that. Like in Bernie Madoff's case, there were some investors that had invested maybe a million dollars, but over the course of 10 years, they'd taken out, you know, $10 million. The government went to them and said, you owe $9 million. And now, of course, and literally like they'll come in. And they'll come they'll say we're going to take your house we're going to this we're not now the problem is that

most of the time the government threatens you and you get scared and you like oh i'll give you this i'll give you that but the truth is is a lot of times they just people negotiate they go get an attorney the attorney like your primary residence they can't really take but let's say you've got four rental properties they'll tell you sell the rental properties and give us the money or we'll just take them like there's a whole but they'll start taking your stuff that so what happens is you get victimized twice really once by the by the scammer by the the uh pansy schemer and a second time by the u.s government when or by the you know the government agency that comes in and tells you by the way all that money that you not only all the money that you thought you

still had in there that's gone but now the money you've been you got out over the last three years we want all that back a lot of times they'll negotiate like the five million down to a million dollars like whatever they can give you back and you'll negotiate it and usually that works anyway so you have to understand that that Wilson had real victims uh anyway back to being in prison Wilson shows up in prison and I remember he showed up and one of the funny things was that white guys show up to prison and you know a lot of white guys Not a lot. Some of the white guys that show up to prison,

if you're an older white guy that has a certain look, and you know the look I'm talking about. They got the thick glasses. They're kind of, they're kind of, oh, they look like they've never left the house. They've been in the basement, pasty white. And so a lot of those guys come in,

and they were looking at like pictures of children or something, and they ended up getting five years. So they'll come in and they'll say, one of the things that they typically say, because they usually have no knowledge of drugs. Normally what they'll say when they get there is they'll say, oh, I'm here for fraud.

Because they figure nobody really understands fraud unless you're another fraudster. And there's so many varying cases of fraud or types of fraud, they figure they can get away with it. Well, the guy's in a unit when someone would show up and say fraud, and they were like, I don't know, maybe he's here for fraud.

Maybe he's here for looking at little kids pictures. They would go, hey Cox go talk to that guy see what he's here for and I'd be like oh man and usually I could you could practically just look across the room and say oh yeah that guy's he's he's here for the sex offense like he's he's a weirdo you can look at him and tell but I remember I looked across at Wilson and the way Wilson was standing and the look on his face the arrogance and confidence that he had being in his mid-60s glancing around the the room with just disdain for everybody there i remember i looked at him and i went oh yeah no no

he's he's here for fraud and they go what makes you think that and i go that's a con man right there bro that's a straight con man and they go talk to him and i went all right i walked up and i said hey man i heard you're here for fraud and he goes yeah i said uh what kind of fraud and he said He kind of looked at me He goes Looked at me up and down He goes I ran a Ponzi scheme

$57 million Because he didn't say The 100 million I think he might have said I took in 100 million He goes But I remember I'm saying The 57 million

He goes 57 million dollars He said Largest Ponzi scheme In South Carolina history And I thought He said it With pride Like he liked that he said

He loved that title And I remember thinking And I could, this guy's, I know, he's, he's a con man. And I was like, really? And he goes, yeah. I said, what was the conveyance? And he goes, silver. And I said, really?

So, and I said, so what were you doing with the silver? Like trading it? He said, yeah, I was trading it. People thought I was trading it on the, you know, as a commodity and whatever. So he went on and on about it. We started talking about it. I was like, wow. Anyway, Wilson did not like a lot of people in prison.

People did not like him in prison. He You know He was cooperating And he wasn't actively like telling people that he's cooperating But people knew he was cooperating Like it was kind of known So he and I started hanging out

And you know And I hate to say this But I like I liked Wilson You know he was super arrogant He reminded me of my father And so I started hanging out with him and uh you know look when i say arrogant like arrogant people like arrogant people but and he he was a storyteller he would tell stories and we would walk around every once in a while and hang out and no big deal

and i remember we're walking around and and i i just you know he i had met him and then i went to prison i went off came back and he knew i got my sentence cut like everybody knew my sentence had been cut they knew i had gone back to to to court and got my sentence cut so he so he so he he actively would tell me how he was he was working with the secret service in south carolina to help them indict several people that had been helping him so he was actively cooperating his fear was that they wouldn't reduce his sentence and he kept saying to me like yeah they're they're gonna they're gonna fuck me out of my my reduction sentence reduction and i was always like why do you say that and so he he was like oh they just are they hate me that that secret service

agent his name was uh i remember his last name was griffin he's oh that that uh um griffin hates my gut that agent griffin he hates my guts and i was like okay well that doesn't really matter like he can hate your guts but if if you give them information that leads to an arrest they have to reduce your sentence and if they don't reduce it i was like fuck we'll have frank file a 2255 like he'll get a red we'll get you the reduction because if you if you provide information that leads to an arrest like there's almost a guarantee well not guaranteed but there's probably a 90% chance they're going to reduce your sentence and and so he just kind would shrug it off right he was always like ah and I was like why do you think I remember one

time I said why do you think that they're not going to reduce your sentence and he said now they think I've hidden Ponzi scheme money like I told them I turned over all the money. He actually dug up like six or seven million dollars worth of silver and cash and brought it into the South Carolina and gave it to him. And I was like, are you serious? And he goes, yeah, I gave them the, but they think there's still money out there. And I was like, well, why would you give him, you know, so why would you provide, give him seven million dollars? Like, why wouldn't you just say, look, I'm coming in, turn myself in because the money's gone. Like if you've already laundered that much money, why would you then turn it in? Why would you

you say, bro, I'm only, I'm turning myself in because the money's gone. Like, I've literally got maybe $150,000 and I got some money in my checking account and my some savings. Like, I don't have anything. That's why I'm turning myself in. But he didn't. He came in and said, look, this whole thing's unraveling. I know you're about to figure it all out and you're going to arrest me. So I'm coming in. And by the way, here's what I have left. Like, that to me was just stupid. But it also made sense that maybe, you know, that maybe he had given them all the money. So anyway, he was insisting that they didn't believe him. And I was like, okay, well, you did give him all the money.

So don't worry about it. It's going to, it'll work out. Plus, of course, he was going to go back. He was going to go back to court and have to testify at trial. So you're going to go back to court and testify. Like, it's very difficult for them to not give you a reduction. If you provided them information, people were indicted, they then go to trial. and these good people were going to trial.

And then you go and testify. So you testify. And then the government's, then for the government to then turn around and say, we're not going to reduce your sentence. Like that's not, that's not even possible. Like there's no court that would uphold that. Like, what's your reason for not giving me a reduction? You have to have a reason, a good, valid reason.

Anyway, the point is he insisted about on this. so we're walking around and we're walking around and one day he brings it up again well you know they indicted those guys they're going to trial and uh you know i just know that they're going to have me come up there and you know whatever you know testify and they're not going to give me nothing though and i was like i said bro why do you keep saying that like i said i mean you know what do you and i said why do you keep saying that and he looked at me and he goes can i trust you and I said probably not and he and he kind of chuckled and he said I did hide some money and I think they're going to find out about it and I went really why do you what do you mean

I thought you gave all the money and he's like I I gave him a lot of the money but I did give a little bit of money to my brother and my his soon-to-be ex-wife he gave like $150,000, I think he told me. He said, I don't remember what it was, 130, 150, I forget. I don't know what she took or what I gave her. He said, and my brother's got a little bit of money, maybe $20,000, $30,000.

Like, not a lot. I was like, oh, okay. I said, well, look, they're not going to find out about that, so don't worry about it. And he goes, no, you don't understand. Like, his wife, who was divorced, they were getting a divorce, his wife had found out that he was having an affair.

with one of the financial examiners. I'm sorry, advisors. He was working with a woman who was a financial advisor and he was having an affair with her. His wife, during this whole process, when this whole thing fell apart and he gets indicted and he's thrown in jail and everything, she finds out that he's having this affair.

I think she found out during the course of this thing. But she was furious about it. I mean, she's not talking to him. He's not talking to her. He wants to get a divorce. She wants to get a divorce. And in the process, his fear was,

he's thinking he's going to get five or ten years knocked off of his sentence, but he knows that if his wife could screw him out of it, she would. So he's like, my fear is she's going to turn in the money and say he gave this to me and that's going to ruin

my chance to get a sentence reduction. And I was like, okay well she's not going to do that because they've already asked her if you have any money and she said no he never gave me anything she'd already told him this i said so she would be admitting to obstruction of justice she's not going to do that and he was like i don't know and so we're whatever we're walking around and i remember thinking when he told me this my one of my first thoughts probably my first thought was is that enough to get me a reduction like him telling me that if I were to tell the Secret Service of the government,

if I were to tell them, would they give me a reduction for saying, hey, you think that he's got Ponzi scheme money? He really does. And then if they find the money, would they give me a reduction? I remember thinking,

they're not going to reduce my sentence for that. Like, they didn't want to reduce my sentence the first time. And I got seven years. years off the first time. So they already think I got seven years that I don't deserve. So they're certainly not going to give me a sentence reduction for Ron Wilson. And I thought they're never going to reindite him for this. Let's say I were to, I mean, immediately I started thinking if I said something and they went to his wife, his wife's going to deny it. I don't have any

money. That's it. It's over. They go to his brother. His brother's going to be like, I don't have any money. That's it. Like there's not much they can do to prove this. What's going on YouTube? Ardap Dan here, federal prison time consulting. Hope you guys are all having a great day. If you're seeing and hearing this right now, that means you're watching Matt Cox on Inside True Crime. At the end of Matt's video, there will be a link in the description where you can book a free consultation with yours truly, Ardap Dan, where we can discuss things that could potentially mitigate your circumstances to receive the best possible outcome at sentencing or even after you started your prison sentence.

Prior to sentencing, we can focus on things like your personal narrative, your character reference letters, pre-sentence interview, which is going to determine a lot of what type of sentence you receive. You've already been sentenced. We can also focus on the residential drug abuse program, how you can knock off one year off of your sentence. Also, we have the First Step Act where you can earn FSA credits while serving your sentence. For every 30 days that you program through the FSA, you can actually knock an additional 15

days off per month. These are huge benefits. And the only way you're going to find out more is by clicking on the link, booking your free consultation today. All right, guys, see you soon at the end of the video. Peace. I'm out of here. Back to you, Matt. They would then have to show his wife and his brother, Wilson told us about this. And even then, even then, I think that they most likely would still say, I don't know what you're talking about. Because they'd been, be admitting to some type of a crime, like, you'd have to find the money. How are we going to find the money? Like, they don't even know, I mean, $30,000. Like, I just remember thinking, one, they're not going to indict these people. Two, they're not going to indict Wilson. Because he's already got

19 and a half years. He's going to die in prison. He's like 64, 63. I forget how old he was, but he just started his sentence. Like, he's not getting out. They're not going to give him more. What are they going to, how much more time are they going to give him? He's never going to make it. Anyway, so I remember when he said that, it kind of went through my mind, and I thought, eh, no reason to say something. Like, there's no reason for me to say anything. And so I went to bed that night, thought about it a little bit, and that, eh, it's nothing. A week went by, two weeks went by, three weeks went by, four weeks went.

So about a month later, afterwards, I had been waiting for my life. lawyer to send me my transcripts because I'd written a memoir but I hadn't published a memoir I had a manuscript and I wanted to add because I think my memoir leads with me getting 26 years and going to prison like that's it so I thought hey I want to add a chapter about me getting seven years knocked off my sentence so I want but I want to do include some of the transcripts you know some of the stuff that was said and I so I wanted to get the be able to use the transcript so I my lawyer said she'd send them to me well it'd been at this point it'd be been two three months right a month but it also only been a month since I talked to Wilson so I call my lawyer at the time

and I said hey listen did you ever get the transcription she goes oh Matt I'm so sorry I was going to get those I'll get them and I'm sorry and she I'll take care of it okay okay cool And I remember I was about to hang out the phone And she goes, so what's going on? I go, what do you mean? She said anything happening in there? And I remember thinking That's weird.

It's weird that she would say that. Like she never wanted to talk to me before. She's certainly, she's not even my lawyer anymore. Like, what do you want to talk to me now for? When the case was happening, you didn't want to talk to me. So I went, um, no, nothing's happening. She goes, are you sure? She's nothing going on.

I went, no. I said, you know what? something did happen the other day listen to this and i tell her about wilson and she was hold on a second and she looks him up on the computer and she comes back she goes oh wow this is a bad guy i just remember thinking because you know i knew what he'd done but i didn't think of him as a bad guy he was gruff you know uh he was abrasive my mom would have described him as abrasive she always described my dad as being a having an abrasive personality so he was abrasive but i didn't think was like a bad person. Of course, he didn't steal any money from me. So no big deal. I sat there. I was

like, okay. And she goes, oh, wow. She says, you know what? Let me make some phone calls. And I was kind of like, all right. I mean, yeah, but I don't think they're going to do anything for me. And she says, well, let me make some calls. I said, all right. I don't think anything else about it. A week later, one of the correctional officers comes up to me. And he says, hey, Cox. And I go, yeah, what's up? He goes, you got to go to SIS. S is like their internal security. For the prison, I went, okay, he said, next move. So they have controlled moves where they open the doors and let you go to someplace else, and then they lock them again.

They give you like 10 minutes to get somewhere. So I was like, okay. And he said, all right. And so 10 minutes later, 20 minutes later, the door is open. I go to SIS. I knock on the door, they open it. They go, come in here. And I said, okay, what's up?

And they go, sit down. The lieutenant asked me to sit down. This guy was such a prick. He goes, sit down. I walk in. I'm like, yeah, what's up? And I'm thinking, oh, fuck, I'm in trouble. What did I do?

And he goes, hold on a second. He picks up the phone and starts calling. And I remember just thinking he's making a phone call. And he's like, right? Yeah, I got him right here. Okay, here. Hold on. Boom.

He goes, you got to talk to this guy. I go, hello. And the guy says, it's the Secret Service agent. He goes, this is Secret Service Agent Griffin. Is Scott Griffin? I forget his name, first name. This is Secret Service Agent Griffin. And I was like, whoa.

I was like, hey, what's going on? He said, I understand you know. where Ron Wilson has hidden money Ponzi scheme money and I went I do I said it's not a lot of money

he's well how much he's well where is it and I went well wait a second bro I said the government's already tried to fuck me out of one reduction so I said I'm going to need something in writing so he goes

okay he said listen he goes take my email address down so I write down his email address and he says put me on your quarrelings and I'll get back with you I'll get you something in writing I go okay

so anyway this takes another week or two for him to get something in writing and basically what he gets in writing is it says it says that the the U.S. attorney agrees that if I provide them information

that leads to to the either the indict or to an indictment or the recovery of a substantial amount of money, they will consider it substantial assistance. Now, they're not going to promise you anything. They said they'll consider it substantial assistance and reduce my sentence.

It was the best I was going to get. So I, anyway, I end up emailing him back and I go, okay, that's cool. And I remember I printed that thing off like five times, stuck it in like four different places. So nobody, I would never lose it. So this is a letter from the Secret Service, which has copied me on a letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Like, that's as good as you're going to get. Anyway, what ends up happening is they say, look, we want to know what's going on.

I said, okay, here's what I know. And I told them what I know. What he told me. This is what he told me. I said, but it's not millions of dollars. it's like $150, it's under $200,000. Like, it's like $180,000 at most, maybe $150. And I said, most likely these people are going to just deny they have it.

So I don't know what to tell you. And they were like, well, we have some questions. And then they started asking me questions about Wilson. Like, can you find out this? Can you find out this? So now I'm walking around the compound with this guy, probing him for questions. question with questions now it's not hard because he's a talker he likes to talk tell stories and i would just ask him about this or ask him about that and then sit back and wait sometimes you sit back

and wait and you walk around the track for 45 minutes or an hour and he never broaches the subject he never gets to what i wanted to know sometimes i'd say hey whatever happened with you told me about this person so-and-so like what happened they get arrested they go no i told you they didn't get arrested Look, all that guy ever did was, and then he'd tell me everything he did. And then I'd go back and say, this is what he said he did. Like, that doesn't sound like, you know, you guys are asking this. And this is what he's telling me. And then they would come back and say, do you feel like he's lying to you?

And I'd say, no, I don't think he's lying to me. Like, he's already here. He's locked up. He knows that this government doesn't want to give me anything. So there's no benefit for me to cooperate. He doesn't believe so. I didn't even believe there was a benefit to cooperate. rate. Like, I don't think they're going to indict this guy. He's going to die in prison.

And I don't think that his wife has given up any money or his brother. Plus, they don't have any money. Like, you understand? The letter was written in a way that easily allowed the government to say, well, yeah, we collected $200,000, but we don't consider that substantial. We don't consider that a substantial amount of money. And we're not going to indict anyone. So those two things right there like either one i don't get a reduction anyway so i walk around with him this goes on for i swear three to six months back and forth back and forth well they eventually call in wilson's wife she goes in and they ask her do you have any money we have reason to believe that he gave you money she says no he never gave me any money i don't know what you're talking about

I would give you the money. Okay, she leaves. The next day, the wife shows up. Now, keep in mind, the brother, they called the brother and ask the brother to come in. He's supposed to show up at, let's say, 4 o'clock with his lawyer. Like at, let's say 10 o'clock in the morning, the wife shows up, walks in with a big ammunition can. Remember the ammunition tens that he had buried, walks in with one, puts it on the table, it's got a hundred and fifty, no, wait. It has like 300,000 in cash, plus a bunch of silver and gold bullions.

Is that wrong? Was it the combination? No, no. Yeah, it was like $350,000. $350,000 in cash and bullion. So I don't know if the cash was maybe $200,000 in cash plus a bunch of gold bullion. So she brings in about $350,000. Later that day, his brother comes in, he walks in with $150,000 in cash and boom, throws

it on the table. I want to let you know, this is what he gave me this money and the guilt's been eating me alive. And so he, before they even ask him, he just knows it's coming. So he just brings it with his lawyer. Well, um, they end up,

I remember what, so I remember, well, this, all this happened, right? And I'm emailing the Secret Service agent. I'm like,

hey, what happened? They're like, we don't, we can't tell you what happened. But they did come in. And I promise you, it's basically,

he says, it's going to be devastating to Wilson. And, I was like, oh, wow, they must have shown up with the $150,000, $200,000 in cash. I didn't know it was half a million dollars. So what happens is I'm walking around. So one day I'm out walking and I see Wilson, hey, Cox, Cox, and I remember thinking, oh shit, this old man's like, he might, I hope my name didn't come up.

So he had talked to his lawyer. I knew he was trying to call his lawyer He'd got an email from his lawyer saying call me tomorrow or something And he'd called him several times But he wasn't picking up So when he's a cock's cock and I look over I'm like Oh fuck what I hope this old man's not going to come up to me You motherfucker you know something

I don't know what's going to happen And so he comes walks up I go yeah what's up what's up And he said you're not going to believe this He said My wife is soon to be ex-wife He goes my wife walked in, she turned in $350,000, and she, and my brother came and gave him the $150.

And I go, $150? I thought you said he had $20,000 or $30,000. And he goes, I know. I didn't think I could trust you. I, so I didn't tell you how much it was. I was like, oh, okay. Your wife had how much? I go, man, that's half a million dollars, bro.

And he was like, I know, I know. He said, they're going to, they're going to indict me. they're going to indict me i said they're not going to indict you it's probably just they gave him the money back probably nothing will happen he said i don't know i don't know listen probably a few weeks go by and he calls his lawyer and his lawyer says boom they indicted you they indicted him and they indicted the wife and the brother and so maybe a week later he's on the packout list to me moved then I remember he came to me and he said they indicted me

I went no now keep in mind I'd already heard this from the Secret Service Secret Service had already told me hey we indicted him and his wife and his brother so he comes to me one day and it's funny too because it wasn't like the same day like if it was a few days later he comes to me so I know that I'm walking around for two days

like when's this motherfucker gonna come talk to me about this I'd see him I'd say hey man how's it going he's like oh it's fine how's it how's it going like yeah comes to me one day he goes cox and I go yeah what's up he goes you're not going to believe this I said what he said they indicted me I went oh my are you serious man I really didn't think they were going to indict you and he's like yeah and they indicted my wife and my brother and I was like fuck he's like I'm I'm done I'm done I was like fuck and so we're walking around he goes

what do you think I should do and I go to trial because I thought if he went to trial, they'd call me to testify at his trial. And then they'd have to give me a reduction. So I'm like, how horrible is that, right? Like, I'm like, because think about it, if you go to trial, there's no way they're not going to give you a reduction. So I'm like, yeah, you need to go to trial, bro. You need to go to trial.

Fuck these guys. Don't you take any shit. You make them spend some money on you. I mean, what do you care? And he's like, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think maybe I should just go in and just plead guilty and just take whatever they get, throw myself on the mercy on the court.

And I'm like, man, fuck those motherfuckers. They gave you 19 and a half years. He's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So yeah. Whatever. A couple days later, a week later, I forget maybe a few days later, he ends up on what's

called the pack out list, which is your, like, it's like pack out your stuff, you know, and show up at R&D, which basically means it's a transfer list. like you're going to be you're moving they're bringing you back to court so he packs his stuff up they grab him and they move him to south carolina i remember before he was leaving he was like i don't know how long i'll be there but i'll see when i when i get back and i remember thinking you're you're never coming back here like he can't like because i knew when he got back to court he would get his discovery which is all of the documents in your case like this is what we have against you and I knew he was going to see that I was a person that gave them the information

to indict him. So when he's leaving, he's like, well, hey, I'll, I'll be back in a few months, three, six months. I'll be back. I'll see when I get back. And I was like, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. But I'm thinking, yeah, I'm never seeing you again, bro. Like, you're, you're not coming back from South Carolina, not here because I'm here. They're going to put a, what's called a management variable on you. It's like a separation agreement. Like, these two guys cannot be at the same prison. So he gets moved. He gets, he's obviously been re-indicted. He gets sentenced. Once he's sentenced, he gets sentenced and I'm waiting. You know, I'm, I'm waiting. This funny thing is, by this point, there's actually a newspaper article that says that Wilson had confessed to hiding Ponzi

scheme money to a fellow inmate. Now, they didn't mention my name, but that article starts going around. The other thing around the compound, the people were like, can you believe that? I'm like, that's fucked up. Who would do that? That's just wrong. Anyway, the other thing Wilson did was he got the discovery and realized it was me, of course, you know and sent a letter back to his old sely who's a guy that we called i think they called

him uh randy savage because he had a big we had white hair he looked like randy savage anyway which is an old an old school wrestler so uh i forget i think that's the name they called him so i remember people started coming up to me some guy came up to me and said yo bro and i was like what's up they said what's up what will say And I was like, what do you mean? He got indicted. They're like, yeah, but, you know, he wrote a letter back to his old sely. He said that you fucking cooperated against him.

I was like, are you serious? I was like, boy, that's fucked up. And they're like, is it true? And I'm like, of course it's not true. And they would just look at me, but you know that I'm sitting there like, no, it's not true. Like, you know, go fuck yourself. Like, we're not having this conversation. Because you're just, these guys are all gossipers.

They just want to get some information and take off and go tell everybody. Like, you know, hey, bro, you can trust me. Stop with that shit. So, I'm, this, this happened, like maybe two people have said something to me. But keep in mind, too, there's only a small group of guys. Like, you click up, so you have a small click. Anyway, I remember being at commissary one day. And now a guy comes up to me and tells me, hey, Cox.

And I said, yeah, what's up? And he goes, his name was Marty. Marty comes up, he goes, Cox. He goes, listen. First of all, I'd like to let you know, I don't give a shit. I don't care what you did. I'm just curious. And he goes, Wilson, I know Wilson was cooperating against his co-defendants.

Wilson would have cut your throat. I don't care. Fuck him. He said, but he wrote a letter back to his old celly that says that you cooperated against him. I'm just curious if you did it. And I went, what are you talking about? that's crazy so I was like no I was like where is his old celly anyway so and you know and he's like oh he's over there whatever so I end up going to his old celly and I walk up to him and I go hey what's

going on uh you know Rick or whatever his name what they call him and he and he's like yeah what's up he's oh hey Matt what's going on like it was real oh hey hey man what's going on said oh how's it going good it's going good now keep in mind this guy's wife had moved like a across the country and bought a house, like next to the prison so she could keep visiting him. And he's like in his 60s. And he's getting out and like, he's still got like four or five years, something like that. So I walk up to him. I said, oh, how's it going?

How's it going? And he's, oh, it's going good. It's going good. I said, oh, okay. I said, listen, bro. I said, if one more person comes up and tells me that you've been showing this letter that Wilson mailed back, mailed to you, I said, I'm going to go in to the lieutenant's office and I'm going to explain that you're showing this fucking letter trying to get me fucked up. I guess you're trying to get me stabbed or beat up or something.

I don't know. And the look on his face was like, holy shit. And I said, here's what I do know is that they're not going to transfer me from this prison because I have a management variable on me. I can't be transferred. Now, that's not true. But I know he already thinks the worst of me. And I told him, I said, I'm actively working with the FBI on a case. I said, you know I worked on the case on Wilson.

So they're not transferring me from this facility. I said, so when I go and I tell them that you've got this letter and you're showing people. I said, they're going to fucking transfer you to FDIC Baghdad. I said, and I know you're never going to see your fucking wife again. I said, one more fucking person. And he looked at me. I said, are we good? he's like we're good nobody else is going to see that letter we're good we're good i said okay and i

turned around and walked off so with that said wilson was indicted he was resentenced and he was when he was resentenced he was sentenced to six more months of prison so his 19 and a half year sentence went to 20 six months his wife and brother ended up getting community service I think his wife, because she had lied to the FBI, they were both charged with, with obstruction of justice. I think his wife got like a year. I think his brother got like 50 hours of community service or 100 hours of community service and that was it, like nothing.

Like they're not even felons. And I remember thinking, fuck, like they're not even going to, like I'm not getting a reduction. because nobody got any more prison time really except for Wilson and I was like damn and I was right because what happened was three months went by nothing four months went by nothing my lawyer is calling the U.S. attorney they're not answering her calls so I go to Frank and I explain this whole thing to Frank I said Frank bro this is what happened and keep in mind Frank knew the whole time I was cooperating And Frank was like, document this, print the email out, print this out, document this, write down a log, tell them what you said, tell them this, tell them that, do this, do that. And I was like, okay, okay, okay. So I'm doing everything Frank says to document everything. Frank's like, do you have all the documents? And I go, yeah, I got everything. You said, okay, we're going to file a 2255. He said, we're going to, I'll get you, we'll get you the time off. I was like, okay, Frank files a 2255. It goes up to the, goes up to the court, says, hey, I did this, I did this, I did this. I did this. this. I've been working with the government. The government promised me this. They promised me

that. And the government comes back and says, that's absolutely untrue. We don't even know what Mr. Cox is talking about. We will look into it. But you're on at this point. Mr. Cox is time barred. And as I mentioned in the other video, you only have one year from being sentenced. From your original sentence, you have one year to file a 2255 or you're what's called time barred, which means you can't file anything else. Your sentence is. You're sentencing. is permanent. Now, there are ways to get around it, and Frank's way of getting around it was saying that the government asked me to do something that helped reduce my sentence, and as a result

of that, it reset the time bar. So, now that typically doesn't work, but it had also been a year since I had been resentenced. So he also used that. Hey, this guy was resentenced. So the time bar was reset. Second thing was he was approached by the government and asked to cooperate and told he would be getting a reduction. Anyway, the government came back and said, we don't know anything about this. And that doesn't matter anyway.

He's time barred. So they're now denying that they've had any kind of agreement with me. So what we do is we, of course, file the letter. We file a rebuttal to their motion. or to their reply, we file a rebuttal and we explain the whole thing and then I end up sending

we end up sending that I want to say we, and I could be wrong, I think we either included it in the motion or we sent it to the judge. The judge turned around and the judge came back and said I'm denying your motion but I'm, there's something called

that you have to get a certificate of eligibility meaning you're certified to appeal your the judge's decision judges hate that like if a judge says this is way it is and then you appeal it that your your appeal your judge is pissed like you should have just accepted my decision so that you have to get a a judge a um you have to get this um this certificate of appealability by another judge by like a magistrate judge has to say yeah, he can appeal this. Well, and by the way, there's like a $500 fee, which I don't have.

So my judge says, he says, I'm denying it because he said, I don't have the right to make this decision. Like, I don't have jurisdiction. He goes, but I'm going to waive the $500 fee. And I'm waiving the requirement of getting a certificate of eligibility. and I'm fast, basically fast-tracking this to the appellate court and asking them to make the decision. Now, here's the thing. There's subtleties in the law and the way judges do things.

That was all but saying to the prosecution, I believe this man that Mr. this inmate or defendant deserves to get a reduction. but I don't have the authority to do it. Now, you have to go to my judge anyway to be denied, to go to the appellate court. And I felt he did have jurisdiction. But if he agrees, you're right, I don't have jurisdiction, because that was part of the government's argument.

You don't have jurisdiction. This is, that, it's very clear in the district, the federal district that I'm in, it's very clear that a, that a judge, judge doesn't have the right to reduce your sentence that only the government can file a motion. The judge can't really force them to do it. Now, it's questionable, but the government said it's clear. And the judge obviously didn't want to make that decision and have to go through that whole thing. So what he did was he said, I'm going to let the appellate court make the decision.

But by waiving the $500, waiving the certificate of eligibility, he was saying, if I could make this decision, I would. Like, one, I think I would like to. I can't. And two, I think he deserves something. He's already saying, I think he deserves something because he's saying, let the appellate court say it. I can't say it, but let the appellate court say and he's fast-tracking me to get that answer. So that's all but saying to the government, I believe this guy's right. So the government comes in immediately and says, and files a sentence reduction. They file what's called a Rule 35. Immediately they file a Rule 35. And I remember we got on like a Wednesday or something.

So we get it on a Wednesday. They filed it on a Monday. We get it on Wednesday. So what they said to the judge is we're filing a one level reduction. And that one level of reduction would have reduced my sentence by something like, I don't know the exact amount, but I think it was like 15 months. So it would have been like a little over a year. Maybe it was 14 months.

Like it was barely a year. off my sentence and I brought it to Frank and I was like fuck they filed it because our whole argument was we're making you file it but we can't make them give us a reduction a certain reduction we can argue but not if it's already ruled on the judge already rules on it then it's too late for me to argue I need more so um what happens is is I go and I bring it to Frank and I go fuck they already they already filed it and frank goes all right hold on a second uh get get john get jimmy and tom and like he immediately starts barking orders like a little general and so these guys show up and he sits there on a piece of paper and starts and scribbles out a motion

it scribbles out like a a a one page motion asking the court to not rule on the sentence reduction, that I'm asking for my right. My right is to provide evidence of what the reduction should be, but after the fact, I can't do anything. So he asked for the court to immediately cease all activity, I forget what they call it, and ask the court to order an evidentiary hearing so that I can provide evidence in front of the court so that they can make an informed decision on how much of a reduction I should get. So we send that motion in.

They get it by Friday. So the judge hasn't ruled. I remember being terrified the judge had already ruled. I felt like the judge was going to get it and sign off on it. Like my judge typically, he's efficient, unfortunately. He doesn't wait. Things don't sit on his death for two years. Like this guy gets a motion, they read it and they make a decision within days.

Well, what happens is they get it on Friday. So they put the motion in on Monday. They get our response on Friday. And the judge immediately says, I'm ceasing all activity. And I'm asking for the, I'm appointing an attorney. So he gave me an attorney and ceases all activity, including my appeal. By the way, at this point, I've appealed. I'm filing an appeal.

So the government gives me a lawyer The lawyer which was in Atlanta I was in just outside of I was in Coleman Which is a mile north of Tampa She gets on a plane She flies down to To She flies down to Coleman

She comes and meets me Our name was Leanne Something anyway So I meet with Leanne and I remember I go into Leanne and I said, you know, I talked to her and it was almost a replay of the exact conversation I had had with Esther Panich,

which was my other lawyer. She came, she sat down in the attorney-client visitation room. We sit down. She says, listen, I read your motion. She said, it was very well written. She said, I don't think legally it's appealable. And I don't think that you're going to win it. So I think you should take the government's, the one point the government is offering.

And I said, well, I don't want the one point. I want to provide evidence that I deserve four points off. No, I said five points. I deserve levels. I go, I deserve five levels off. And she said, they're never going to give you five levels off. So I said, well, I want five. And she said, I said, I'll take, like, I remember said,

I go, Frank said to tell you that I will take four levels, but we need to argue for five. And she goes, who's Frank? And I go, Frank's the guy that wrote all my motions for me. She's, you didn't do this? I said, no, no, I didn't write any of this. I said, Frank wrote all these motions. And she goes, okay, who's Frank? And I go, well, Frank's a disbarred attorney who's mentally incompetent.

like the state of Florida has legally deemed him mentally incompetent and he's locked up here. I said he's a rapid cycling bipolar with features of schizophrenia that is here because he embezzled like $200 million from the federal government. And she sat there and she goes, he embezzled that much money. And I went, yeah, I said he said, but he had a reason. She goes, what's that? I said, well, he's planning on taking over the world. He was using the money to take over the world. And she goes, are you serious?

I said, I'm absolutely serious. She goes, that's, that's crazy. I said, he's absolutely insane. I said, but he got me this far. And she went, you don't have a chance. If you go forward, you don't have a chance of winning. And I went, really? And she goes, yeah, I said, then why are you here?

And she says, what do you mean? I said, well, why are you here? I said, if the government could so easily crush me, Why haven't they crushed me? You're here because the government is negotiating with me. They've already filed the reduction. We're now just arguing over how much of a reduction. So I've already won.

It's to the degree that I've won that is now up for discussion. They wouldn't have given me the one level if they could have won so easily. And she was like, okay, and you're taking the advice of a guy who is, she said, crazy. And I went, yeah, absolutely. I said, but all the lawyers on the street that I spoke with told me I couldn't get this far. I go, this is the second reduction that this guy's won. Let me tell you the odds. And I know I said it in the other video, but it's worth saying again.

for every 3,5-2-2255s that are filed by inmates, one receives a reduction. One receives, not like a sentence, but they call movement or, you know, that something happens. 3,500 of these are filed that are denied, denied. they get no they get nothing at all and that one doesn't necessarily get a sentence reduced that 1 3,500 they may get some kind of a reduction in their sentence they may simply maybe they get get get let out of prison or maybe they simply get their case heard and their sentence is simply reinstated. They get nothing. But they would say that that's movement. Like I got

something. I got movement in the court. There was a something happened. May not have been the result you wanted. That's 3,500. So my chances of getting a sentence reduction on my first one was 3,500. My sentence, my chances of getting a reduction on my second one is 3,500. This guy's now gotten me two reductions. Now we're just arguing over how much. So I tell her, look, Frank I will not accept less than four levels. But let's ask for five. She just shakes her head. She's like, that's insane.

She's like, but okay. She goes back to Atlanta. Goes back to Atlanta. Files a motion saying, no, I'm sorry, she just goes and she meets with the U.S. attorney. U.S. attorney says absolutely not. She says, we'll give him two levels off. That's it.

That's the most he's going to get is two levels off. I said she calls me so I she tells me call I got she said look the most you're going to do is two levels off she was Matt that's 23 it was like I forget what that was it was like 28 28 months off it's 28 months off like you that's 28 months off like you should be happy like I'm like happy at 20 no absolutely not listen I'm so scared at this point my harsh racing like I'm terrified I'm ready to take anything at this point I'm terrified and this is this has now been like a year and change that we've been going back and forth We argue, we go back forth, back forth, and I keep asking for the letter, the sent, so keep in mind, the Secret Service filed what's called a, that they requested, they requested the U.S. Attorney reduced my sentence. And I kept asking for a copy of the request for that letter. I even filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting that letter. The government kept saying that like, firstly, they basically were saying we don't have it. There was no request. But I know there was a request because I know the Secret Service told me they made the. request. So I know they're lying. And listen, so anybody, anybody that thinks, oh, the government wouldn't lie. You're fucking insane. These people lie all the time, especially to inmates. And also, they lie to the court. They lie to the court all the time, which is ridiculous, because you should have to go to prison. If a defense attorney lies to the court, they can get disbarred and go to the prison. If you work for the government and you lie to the courts, they don't do

nothing to you nothing those people regularly lie and so they lied and said we don't even have we don't have we don't know what you're talking about so i filed the freedom of information act so we're going back and forth back and forth finally finally when they realized that they were going to give me the freedom of information act people were going to give me the reduction the government comes forward and says fine here's what it is here's what they filed and they give it to us shows 500 000 listen the secret service agent, Agent Griffin, I was almost embarrassed

at the glowing recommendation that he gave me for a sentence introduction. Like, I provided a massive amount of information. I helped clean up this and clear up this and move the whole case forward and that they had nothing on this guy.

Prior to talking to me, I provided over 100 emails back and forth. I mean, he goes on and on and on they would have never recovered this money they I mean it just goes on I guess it and they're absolutely like three four pages so when they get

when we get that finally the government comes back and they said three levels or we're going to go we'll take them to court we can go to court and let him present his evidence so I call I call up I'm talking to Leanne my lawyer and she goes okay look here's what they said

they said three levels that's the most they'll give you is three levels off. That's it. And I said, she said, so I'm going to go ahead and put in the motion to have the evidentiary hearing. And I went, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'll take it. She's, what do you mean you'll take it? She's, you said, Frank said, not to accept less than four levels. And I went, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. I said, Frank told me to tell you that we wouldn't accept less than four levels I said we were always going to be okay with accepting three levels I only wanted three I said three's great

we'll take three and she was like I said no Frank just felt like if he needed you to fight for four and he knew we'd end up at three that's why we originally asked for five to give him something so they feel like they've got a win at three but the truth is we always wanted three she's like um okay all right well i'll file i'll call them right now she called them and i said oh and by the way

i don't want to go back to court like i don't want to go back to court we just have to agree on the language of the of the of the of the rule 35 motion like i don't want to have to go to court bro they put you in a fucking van i mean they they they move you in a bus they they have to drive you all the way up to atlanta you're in shackles the whole time you're trying to eat a sandwich with shackles on you're sitting next to some guy who's killed six people and he's being moved to a pin you know it's it's horribly depressing and it's uncomfortable it's an eight hour drive in that bus they have to stop here and stop here and stop here and it's ridiculous you know so i i was desperate not to be moved again then you could be up there for

two months you could be stuck in the hole in a hole up there in Atlanta in the um Atlanta prison you could be stuck in what they call the the holdover for months waiting to get go to court get sentenced and then go back like it's hell bro they got a little mice these you know everybody says oh they got rats they're actually a little mice they're kind of cute but you don't want them living in your cell with you like they're running around it's fucking horrible there's roaches it's it's disgusting and just boring as hell because you don't leave you leave your cell like it's you leave they let you out like i think it's three days a week for an hour so you get out and it's like i can take a shower or i can use the phone because you only have an hour

and you're standing in line for everything. So you're talking about letting out 150 guys and there's like six showers. How do you take a shower? Like half the guys are waiting to take a shower. That's 75 guys waiting to take a shower. So, I mean, this is a horrible situation. Anyway, I didn't want to do that.

So she argued with them and they were like, yeah, we don't care if he goes back. We don't want to see this guy. So we go back and forth. It still took another three months going back and forth, back and forth, until we finally agreed on the language. of the Rule 35.

So finally, we send it to the judge. The judge signs off on it. And that ended up being three. What did I say three? No, no, I'm sorry. It was three levels off, but it was five years. So remember I was saying the first level was like 14. Then it was like 14.

The next level was whatever, like 30 months off or something. The next level was like 50. something it was like five years off my sentence i forget the exactly how it but it ended up being like like five years off my sentence and i know i got some of the the level the math wrong on the months there but it's you know what i'm saying it ended up being five five years off my sentence so frank had already reduced my sentence by seven years and then he got me another five years off my sentence the government fought the whole way now the reason that the government didn't want to allow me to go to the appellate court is because had I won

that motion, it would have been precedence, which means that other people, when they went to the computer and they said, man, the government was supposed to reduce my sentence and they didn't do it. And they went on the legal computer and looked it up. And they looked up, you know, sentence reductions. And basically, can you make the government give you a sentence reduction? my case would have come up and it would have said that an inmate had been promised a reduction the government denied it and he then filed a rule 35 I'm sorry a 2255 and forced the government to reduce his sentence like the court agreed that he that they that the government had the right to to compel the government to file a reduction so far

in the district, which I'm in, I think it's the, I'm in the 11th district. So far, in like the 11th district, you cannot make them do it. So they don't want that to become precedent. Anyway, I end up getting my reduction, five years off my sentence. Of course, I go to Frank. He's thrilled. You know, he's doing his little chuckle. He's got a little chuckle he does.

I told you. And then I remember he said, how much time do you have left? I was like, bro, I'm going to be, I'll be in half a house in like a year. And he went, huh, not enough time to get any more time. We don't have, we don't have time to get anything else off. This was like, are you serious? Like, you know, he's just not enough time. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm good, Frank.

Like this guy. Anyway, so yeah, that's how. Frank Amadeo got 12 years knocked off my sentence. You know, and you can say, oh, well, you cooperated and that's how you got the time off. No. No, no. I may have given him, you know, the, you know, the argue. I may have given him the what to argue, like the conveyance or the vehicle to use.

But, you know, he, without him, I'd still be in prison right now. my sentence my release date with good time was 2030 without good time my release date would have been 2035 bro like i'm i'm i'm supposed to be in prison right now and had frank i not been lucky enough to be in the same prison as frank amadeo I would be in prison right now. Like, there's, there's not, I, you can't even, I can't even sit here and say, I'd have figured something. No, you wouldn't have figured anything out.

He was my last resort in that prison. He should have been my first choice. And he was my last resort. Now, listen, after the first reduction, he was the go-to person. Like for me, he was, you know, absolutely. Let's go see what Frank says. But that's, so that's my second reduction that Frank won. for me and I appreciate you guys checking out the video.