Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Real Life Gordon Gekko Framed for $140M Scam

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Protect Your Most Valuable Asset! Get FREE 30 Days of Triple Lock Protection & FREE Comprehensive Title Scan/History Report using our exclusive promo code MATT30 at http://www.hometitlelock.com/mattcox Ross Mandell is a former Wall Street leader who faced a $140 million scandal but turned his life around. Ross's Links https://rossmandell.com/ https://shop.rossmandell.com/pages/sign-up https://www.instagram.com/rossmandell/?igsh=MXFtYnNhdHU0b3gxdA%3D%3D Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7 Send me an email here: [e-mail] Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content? Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news   🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt 🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/re Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8 Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438 The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402 Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1 Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel! Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

I was like the real-life Gordon Gecko. And I had 10,000 millionaires as clients. Supposed that I stole $140 million. Everything was a scam. All the numbers, all the books were cooked. AIG, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, every one of these banks. And they died at me. The story was, Ross Mandel's back with a flare.

Buying politicians and selling stock. I say it like this on my children. I haven't told you guys a lie. I'm looking right in the camera. The things that I was accused of doing wrong never happened. happened. People say, so what are you known for? Who are you? I was the first American to bring a regulated American business public on the London Stock Exchange. And I did it twice before anybody ever did it once. And I created that footprint. And now 200 companies, and the biggest

companies in the world, guys like KKR or followed my footprint and used my approach, took themselves public in on foreign stock exchanges and then registered the shares in broadom public in the United States say boatloads of money boatloads of regulatory hassle and accounting hassle you got twice liquidity and I actually created that so that's something great but on the eve of my first IPO there sky capital holdings I took public a wall street stockbroking company what they called a broker dealer and they they wanted to see if any skeletons were would come out of the closet because I'll get to it. I've had a lot of complaints and problems

because of my drug addiction and my alcoholism. I was very abrasive and very aggressive and borderline abusive. On the front page of the biggest selling business newspaper in London, on a Sunday, the business section, they said, Gordon Gecko-style investment banking is coming to London, is coming to the UK in the form of Ross Mandel with his, you know, a very aggressive business model.

It's called Sky Capital Holdings. And then, of course, you know, in the second movie, what does Gordon Gecko do? If he gets his daughter's money that he's stationed in Switzerland, he goes to London. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was there before him.

So I was born March the 18th, 1957 in Brooklyn on a very stormy, snowy, blizzardy day. My dad was 30. My mom was just 21. And she had a tough labor. And then, of course, he was rushed to the high.

hospital, and my dad was in New York City at his office. So right away, I was a problem for my mother and for my parents. It took them half a day to get back to the hospital to see me. I was already born, which I believe that's the way it should be. I have two children, and I was in the room about times with my wife, and I was like, I wish I could unsee some of these images that I saw, but, you know, they're ingrained in my head. So, you know, I like the old movies where You know, they go down to the bar, they have a drink, they smoke a cigar, and then congratulations, you have a daughter, you have a son. Yeah. But I like to say that I had a pretty normal childhood.

I was a real jock and a real good student, a learner. And I wasn't the brightest pencil in the drawer, but I certainly wasn't the dullest. Yeah. And I was blessed because my dad liked to read. So he was always a member of all these reading clubs and he was going to get books all the time. and I was the oldest. I have a younger brother, three years younger, and we used to tag along with them all the time.

We were kids. And we all would pick out books. And I was blessed with this addiction to reading. And I feel badly for people that, you know, don't read. I mean, the Netflix generation and the prime video generation. I mean, when's the last time people read books? And all my life, I like, like reading books that I like to read. I read the popular novels mostly. And I literally look at

the bestseller list and I read the top 10. But then all my life, I said, one day I'm going to read the classics. One day I'm going to read Chaucer and Shakespeare and try and figure out what's so great about some of them. And God granted me that wish. He locked me up for 90s four months with absolutely nothing to do. And I basically read everything. So, you know, it's funny how, how God works, right? You'd be careful what you wish for, somebody once told me. And I didn't realize the wisdom in that. So I'm in high school. I'm on the football team, on the wrestling team. I'm a good kid. I like to say it was normal. You know, I'd go out with the guys and we'd have a couple of drinks. We'd grab a bottle of booze from the parents' house.

one day a guy brings a little bag of and we try and you know I didn't really care for any of that so much but I was just being one of the guys in the neighborhood you want to hang out you want to be a part of you're experimenting you're learning about all these different things

and I've been at a girlfriend I was 16 and then September the 27th 1973 my father drops dead he dies never sick a day in his life how old was he was 48 years old And my mother was only 38. And it was a big night, by the way.

It was the best day and the worst day in my life at that time. I was, we had a first full scrimmage for the football season, 1973. I was 16 years old. And I ran for like 190 yards. I blocked a punt. I scored a touchdown. I was just killing it on the field. And my dad was so proud.

there with one of his friends and I'll never forget after after the game he took me another one of the guys to just to Carvel we had a Carvel in the neighborhood soft you know vanilla ice green with sprinkles and all that kind of stuff and I was just so proud of myself because he was so proud of me I knew I had a good game but like a lot of times uh it throughout the course of my life I it's important to me what other people feel and um if I'm killing it, but nobody knows and nobody's happy for me. It's not as meaningful to me. Can you relate to that?

Ro, are you kidding? Relate to that, my narcissistic friend. Colby's heard this. Like, if people, if somebody recognizes me in public, it's so important. I'm like, it only matters if my wife is there. Right. If somebody else is there to be like, I can't believe it.

I can't believe it. My first thing you said is, I wish my wife is here. God damn. It only counts if it's somebody there that you can. I understand. It's like if a tree falls down in a forest, does it really make noise? There's no one to hear it. That's so horrible.

Right. So I was so excited because he was so excited. And my father's friend came to dinner. It was Jewish New Year called Rush Ashuna. And I just saw, it was just, unfortunately, 50, his 51st year anniversary of his death last week, September the 27th. And at dinner, never sick a day in his life, big hearty man, full of personality. When he walked in a room, everybody noticed. And he thought he had indigestion.

Went upstairs. Two hours later, they called an ambulance. He doesn't feel good. And he dies in the hospital. I never see him again. And I don't know what happened to that good normal kid. I just went crazy. It's the only explanation I can say.

I was just very angry. I learned the following week after he passed that, my family was living the American dream for real. What does that mean? Everything was mortgaged, borrowed, or leased. And we actually owned nothing. And all of a sudden, all my plans for the big college and this and that went out the window. And everybody was worried just about surviving.

And I just got very angry. I was very self-centered. You know, I mean, the world can't revolve around you because it revolves around me. So, you know, it can't happen like that. And I just went nuts. And right after the funeral, my cousin says, Rossi, come with me. We take a walk,

takes out a pack of Marlborough Reds. And I need the smoke. But he takes out a joint. And I'm like, ah, he goes, come on, you need it. And I took a hit. I held it in. I exhaled. And all of a sudden, everything felt better.

By no means was I okay. But it was better. Right. I have now found medication. for this pain that I was feeling, this depression. And for the next 17 straight years, I was stoned every day. Now, some people exaggerate, and I'm prone to some exaggeration. I'm a sales guy, but when I tell you, I was stoned every single day, I'm understating.

I smoked, I took pills, I snorted powders, I did everything. There's nothing I didn't do. I use women. I use money. I use cars. just did everything I could do not to feel what I was feeling inside. In fact, I can't even tell you what I'm feeling inside anymore because it was a period that, you know, the end of high school, college, it's like a blur to me.

Everybody says I had a great time and I was a really cool guy. And I believe that. I believe that, but I don't have, I have very vague memories. It's almost like a dream. And because I was like a kid that didn't give a fuck, I had been an athlete, a wrestler, football boy had a good body wasn't bad looking and um i had no inhibitions so guys regular guys would be inhibited they see a woman i don't give a shit and so i got a lot of women because women sort of like that bad boy i don't give a shit attitude especially the best looking women because

everybody else is uh you know it finds them unapproachable and me i don't give a shit yeah they're timid and shy and you walk up i'm a animal and i really don't give a shit right but i'm also a good sales guy and I love people so I was very good at that so therefore in college I was like a I was like a popular kid I was that a hot girlfriend I if me and five guys went out to the bar and there were a bunch of five girls sitting on the end of the bar I was always the guy that went over there broke the ice said hey what's happening ladies what's going on were you guys doing let me introduce you to my friends they were dying to meet you I was the guy that I always talked his way into the club I was the guy that always got it to the VIP

all these kind of different things that really mean nothing in the real world but they were very important to me and when I talk to certain guys they get it like and well it's hard like that's that's and I've actually said this before

is that till I was probably I was 17 years old like I couldn't even approach a woman and I eventually met this a buddy of mine who would literally like stop the car I'd stop the car he'd jump out walk right over to a group of girls and walk right up to a girl and be like hey my name's David Simpson. And I remember after seeing him do this, after seeing him do that. So many times, I was

like, bro, aren't you embarrassed? Like, aren't you? And he was like, I don't know her. I'll never see that chick again. If she laughs at me and says, get out of my face or I would never date you. He's like, what do I give a fuck? Like, I don't, I'll never see her again. Right. But you know what The funny thing is, when you have that sort of ballsy approach, almost nobody insults you. People are like, well, they don't know what to do. Right. What a guy. I mean, you know, holy shit.

It's that overwhelming. And so it took me a while, but I adopted his approach. And it worked so well, it carried throughout my entire life. Well, you got those blue eyes and those Michael Douglas looks. I mean, the teeth. I mean, listen, bro, who's going to say no to you? Who's going to say no to you? but maybe a federal judge.

It was so, yeah. And he was attorney. The Michael Douglas thing. Like, we were actually, Colby and I were looking up before you got here. I was like, this guy's Michael Douglas. Look, he's looks like, like in, you know, and we were showing pictures. But anyway, so. I was like a real life Michael Douglas.

Yeah. Oh, no, exactly. I know that. More than you know. So I know the story. I can tell just from the American greed thing that that's where the story's going. Okay. So now I'm, I'm just stoned.

Um, um, um, I was always. sort of hooked up with entrepreneurial guys let me just say like this it's it's it's very expensive to be stoned all the time it's very expensive to do designer drugs to smoke to do all these kind of things and i was in college where'd the money come from my mother had no money my family had no money luckily i got a scholarship to go to school but um so i was always very entrepreneurial not because i placed value on money but i needed what i needed i want to I wanted to go out. I wanted to party. I wanted to make the scene. I want to go to the best clubs. I just wanted to impress people. And that takes money. So I was always with a crowd. We sold drugs. We dealt with. We used to throw parties. We were the guys in school that would rent out a club on like a Tuesday night or a Monday night, which was dead, and create these invitations and run around and get everybody in the school to show up. And you'd have like 2,000 kids show up paying $10 or $20 to get in. and we would get, you know, half the door and some of the bar, we'd make a few grand that

night. But as fast as I got it, I spent it. And because of the guy that I was, a lot of guys, you know, were sort of wanted to be my friend. I was invited into these sort of cool groups with what I call fast guys, guys that were very ambitious, guys that were chasing money, chasing business, chasing success, and all these different things. And I sort of was just a long for the ride. I mean, intellectually, I knew these are cool guys. I'm going to hang with them, this and that.

And ultimately, we got out of college. What do guys like this do? We'll go to New York City because we'll grow up on Long Island or in the New York area. And we go into Manhattan and we sell something. There's a false idea out there that credit monitoring or identity theft protection will protect your home's title from title theft. And that's simply not true. I'll give you an example.

Your home's title can be transferred into a synthetic identity's name. That synthetic identity can then borrow against your house, and the new loan will go on the credit of the synthetic identity and not yours. Therefore, credit monitoring or identity theft protection will not detect that new loan. And trust me, I would know, I've committed title fraud on over 100 houses. according to the FBI. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going?

I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. And get a free Tilly Dog. Chilly Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. But with Home Title Lock, you'll be notified of the changes to your title.

They'll advocate on your behalf with law enforcement and the courts to restore your ownership status. You can sign up today at HomeTitallock.com. Matt Cox and use the promo code Matt 30 for 30 days of protection for free and a comprehensive title scan to make sure that you're not already a victim. And back in 1982, Wall Street came to Main Street for the first time in history. What does that mean? Well, we all have, we have all been the recipient of many a cold call, a telemarketing guy. Hey, how you're doing, Matt, Ross Mandel here. I know you're a busy guy.

I don't want to get too much of your time today. But from time to time, do you play the stock market? Do you interested in making money, have your money work for you? You know, this and that. And prior to the very early 80s, the late 70s, you wouldn't, investments were never sold over the phone. Financial products were never allowed to be sold over the phone. They just never were. It's not like there was a law against it, but there was no law that faith.

at it. And money companies, banks, brokers, dealers, that sort of thing. They're highly regulated. So a bunch of very ambitious guys that worked at a company called Lehman Brothers, which in the great crash that we talked about ended up going insolvent, bankrupt. And they called the Federal Trade Commission in Washington. Because prior to being able to solicit over the phone, you basically sat around the boardroom, waiting for rich people to come in and say, I, listen, I own a big ranch in Montana. I am an oil guy from Texas. I got big milk farms and 100,000 acres here and there.

And I got all this money. And I want you to help me make a portfolio and show me how I can, you know, do some financial planning and all that. And a bunch of very ambitious young men, guys like us, said, you know, I don't want to sit around and wait anymore. And we want to call people on the phone. Ha! You know, impossible. Like the four-minute mile. Was impossible to somebody did it?

right right and so and then immediately six more people do it in the next year right yeah yeah so they call up the federal trade commission in washington and they created a some documentation and they were now approved to cold call america so wall street which was simply the domain of the really wealthy and the generational families and a generational wealth etc all of a sudden young aggressive men were able to pick up the phone and said mr jones how are you my name's my name's Mike. I'm a senior vice president at Lehman Brothers. I got something for you today. You want to make some money? People are like, sure. Yeah, who says no to that? Nobody knew at the time that, you know, nobody was talking about the risk involved. And nobody had been burned yet. So everybody's

like, really? You really like that? Oh, yeah. Listen, I just got out of a meeting and we love the earnings and you have no idea the deals these people are doing. The CEO, he's got two winners before. I mean, we could buy this stock at 22, and I'm pretty sure this stock is going to be 80. And nobody's seen the movie Boiler Room yet. None of that came out yet. Right. Or Wall Street or Wolfel Wall Street

or none of that's out there. And all those movies are based on true stories. Right. This is just, people are completely babes in the wood. Right. So I'm a good sales guy. I'm working like crazy because now my partying has become more expensive. I was

at University of Maryland and college Park where, you know, you know, a drink was like a dollar. And now I'm in Manhattan and the disco era. And, uh, you know, a night out was a couple hundred bucks. And then if you want to do a little, there's some quailudes, I mean, things cost money. So, um, I'm a sales guy. I'm working my tail off. And I'm making like 150 grand a year. I've become a full partner in this firm, a ladies handbag firm. And I knew nothing about it, but I could sell. And I'm, I'm driven. And, you know, I never really took no for an answer with anything because I'm an addict

and addicts don't understand the word no. Right. And I'm traveling nine months a year doing things that other guys don't do. That's how I made my 150. I had an American Express card on the company to enable me to travel.

I was banging that out for $4,000 a month. Plus, they bought me a nice white Mustang and paid for it and paid for my insurance and paid for my garage in Manhattan. And I'm living a dream. I'm 22 years old. And my closest friend from college, we're going out one night.

And he's picking up the bill. I said, what's going on, man? His name was Howie. I said, you must be making some cash, right? Some coin. He says, yeah, I made 400 last year. I said, 400,000? He goes, oh, yeah.

I'm on track to do like 800. 800,000? And I'm thinking, I said, you're making like 60, 70,000 a month? He goes, yeah, it made like almost 80 grand last month. Not unlike the Wolf of Wall Street, where Leo DiCaprio meets Jonah Hill in the diner. He goes, if you show me a stub that says you made 70 grand last month, I'll quit my job. I quit my job right now and work for you. That's what happened to me.

I love that. When my friend said, he's doing this, I practically assaulted him. I said, stop it. And he explained to me everything. I said, what do you do? How do you get that money? He goes, you travel, you go to the office in the morning, and I basically drink coffee, and I talk on the phone all day.

I could do that. I can do that right now. And like, listen, there was nothing exceptional about this guy. Right. I mean, he's a smart guy. He's a good sales guy. He's a, you know, he knows a real schister type. His father sold aluminum siding in Brooklyn.

But, you know, I didn't think it was anything better than me. I'm a very big believer in monkey see monkey do. Right. If you could do it. Yeah, how hard can it be? Yeah. I can do it. I might not do it as good as you.

I might have a different style. If you fall short of a guy making $800,000, you make $600,000. Right, right. So I'm like lit up and I start doing a little research. But because I had a big drug problem and I was a party guy, my closest friend from college refused to help me. I said, bro, you're hooked up. Yeah, you're the firm. You're a star.

You're doing this and that. right and he wouldn't recommend me wow because I was up and I I got in my feelings about all that I didn't think maybe I'm up I should change yeah I was going to say yeah you got to understand like I'm not going to I'm not going to jeopardize he's not going to jeopardize right he's got he's got and I'm thinking I'm not thinking what's wrong with me that my closest friend in the world won't recommend me he's the problem he's got a problem this guy obviously and so I end up Just once something is in my head, and I want it, I'm going to get it.

It's just who Ross is. I've always been like that. And I reached out to every contact I could figure out, and I found out that he came out of the Merrill Lynch training program, got licensed, went to Lehman Brothers. I went to the E.F. Hutton training program, which was the top one or two training program in the country at the time. And I, everybody in my, high, 12 people in New York, 12, like 100,000 people were trying to get in. They everybody was, there were three lawyers, three CPAs, two MBAs, and more, a drug addict that just talked his way into everything and just, I bullied my way through an interview and I get in.

And I'm immediately outclassed by everybody. These guys were professional, CPA. These guys, you know, license. They do taxes. They know all about securities. Lawyers. They were. went to law school. They studied, study corporate law and all kinds of different things, case law and all these different things. MBAs, they study business. And me, I studied clueludes, hot women. And I was, I could, I could handle my own in the party scene. But when it came to securities, I didn't know shit. And they offered me $150 a week. Now, mind you, I'm making, you know, close to $15,000 a month all in. I walked out of that business for $150 a week. I'll never forget my mother came

because she was very proud that I was a young salesman doing really great in the handbag mark in Manhattan. And she's like, what are you doing? I said, Mom, I'm going to be a stockbroker. She goes, how much are they paying you? I said, well, they pay me $150 a week until I take my exam. and if I pass

then I go on straight commission It sounds even worse She goes what do you mean commission You're not getting a salary I said well no Because you know you eat what you You know it's a commission business She goes

Well how are you going to make money I said well we're going to We're going to call people on the phone She goes you don't have any money You didn't come from family money All right How are you going to make money What do you know about stocks and bonds

I said right now I don't really know anything But they're going to train me And she was let me understand something. You're going to call people that you don't know, that don't know you, and you're going to sell them something that you don't really know or understand about, and you don't have any background in it. And this is what you're going to get a commission. Sounds like a winning plan. She had a nervous breakdown. No, she did. She had a panic attack right there, and she went home and didn't get out of bed for like, you know, a month. Oh. And they just

waited for Ross to fail. Oh. But I was determined. Yeah. And I needed to. That might have been the energy you know what I'm saying that that might have been the truthfully it might my my my additions really drove me mostly but yes when people tell me you know Dana white I love what he says you tell me I'm going to fail you tell me you tell me go for yourself watch this you're right you know Tom Brady Tiger Woods all these amazing human beings in their in their particular you know sports their wheel has One thing they all had in common was they were able to use anything from the external world, any doubt, any negativity, and say, you, watch this. And I have that sort of rage in me where I, you know, when I'm faced with, you know, a doubt, you know, to me, a doubt is the enemy of success. Doubt, doubt success.

You got to go in and you got to know. I'm okay with failure. Right. I'm not okay with not trying. Correct. you know like if you try if i try over and over and over again i'm gonna win eventually that's just numbers you would have been a great stockbroker thank god we didn't find what you didn't find wall street we neither one of us would probably be still be in jail if we'd met would have both been

on the front page but um so so i uh but i was intimidated and as i started to learn about this stuff i realized i really what the did i get into here and um because i had easy money ladies handbags So like, you know, you go to the buyer, you tell her how good looking she is, you take her out for drinks, maybe you give her an envelope, and you get an order. It's very easy. But it's personal selling and all that kind of stuff. And you just find good bags to sell. You know, go to a manufacturer and say, listen, I don't who's selling your stuff,

but I love your stuff. I can do a real job, but, but, this is very different. You're sitting basically on the phone all day pitching people and smiling and dialing, they say. And, you know, there's a formula. and I shared it with the Wall Street Journal of March 14th, 1996. The biggest story in the history of Dow Jones published

a story on me. They used me and my story as a way to indict the regulatory system of the stock exchanges. They used me. They put my picture up, my high school yearbook quote.

They went around and knocked on doors in my old neighborhood, went to my high school. I mean, I learned things about myself that I forgot reading about this. and it was a very ugly story meant as a hit piece on me, but also on the whole to indict the industry because, you know, Wall Street,

it's a self-regulating organization. Right. You know what it's like the mob? No need for the police. We see somebody hijacking on our streets. We got you. We'll take care of it. Right.

They're self-regulatory. It's a joke. Right. And so they felt that I, by this point, I had racked up a lot of customer complaints, arbitrations, I was suspended by the New York Stock Exchange for six weeks, all for things that occurred prior to 1990 when I end up getting sober. Wait, wait, are we still on track with the...

I'm going back and forth a little bit, but I'm trying to give you some, you know, things pop into my head. Okay. I'm in this EF Hutton training program, and I'll never forget, I passed the test. One guy failed at a 12. In those days, you took it number two pencil. they said we're going to get you we're going to tell you if you passed to come in in two weeks if we don't call you you didn't pass bye don't ever come back right now you can take the test

nine times you know and I actually eventually I actually had a woman take it nine times eventually she passed so to make a long story short I'm learning how to sell I'm learning about stocks and bonds and all this kind of stuff and it's getting to the point where I get my license and they put like 130 of us they brought people from all over the country that were in the same training class as me. There was only 12 in New York, but 1.30 around the whole country. They put us in a big boardroom, and they set up a big bunch of tables in the front, and had 12 senior brokers from E.F. Hutton in the room.

And everybody had a number. I was like number 18. And you would just dial. They would give you a bunch of leads out of the phone book. And when somebody answered the phone, you raised your hand, and they had the ability to pick up the phone and tap it, and they would listen to you. And they were grading you. They were rating you out of 1.30. And so big balls to the wall broke a Ross Mandel. I'm dialing.

Finally, a guy answers. And I'm like, uh, and I hang up the phone. I had so much anxiety for maybe the first time in my life. I am stressed beyond belief. I am, I don't despondy much because when I was a wrestler, I was made weight, my body worked good, whatever. and all of a sudden I'm clammy and I'm practically shaking

but I'm looking at all these guys the lawyer next to me raised his hand oh he sounds amazing I'm listening to him and then you know you had to get 10 leads then this woman next to me she was an account I mean she sounds great I'm like oh fuck and I said I get your shit together and dial again you know you dial

sometimes 10 times before somebody picks it up yeah so I want to talk to you and the guy picks up again because we're calling him at home this was an evening and hang out the second time what is going on what happened all that confidence i've choked i'm choking bad and i'm a game day player but i choking and the guy next to me's on he raises his hand another guy meanwhile i'm not on the board at all i don't even have one attempt and all these other people are you know

raising their hand this and that and i realize i got i get moving because they're grading us i haven't even gotten to giving them a call to grade and eventually i get a guy in the phone and i do my little pitch and he's willing to be a lead. He wants to receive my business card and information on my firm and, you know, something to establish that I'm credible, right? And I promise to get back to him.

This is just to get a lead. I'm not selling anything yet. Yeah. And I raised my hand, the guy listens and, you know, a guy goes like that, whatever. So after like a week of that

or 10 days of that, they release a scoreboard. One thing about Wall Street, everything's transparent. Everybody knows what you make, how many accounts you open, how many leads you get, how many hours you work,

everything's rated and graded and public because they want you competing with the guy that's number one, number two number. They want you know where you're staying. So out of 1.30, I'm like number 80. I'm not top 10. I'm not top 20. I'm not top 30. I'm like between 30 and 40.

I'm like, are they firing half the class? No, this is just training. This is sales training. And, you know, they urged us that we're not in the top like 25 percent to, walk around and listen to your, your sort of classmates, how they sound. Maybe you can learn from listening. We do role playing and all that. And I walked up and down the aisles one day, and I'm listening to these people that I'm

competing with, like, and I'm like, oh, shit, these people are so good. They're slick. They have such a command of the language that they've done so much work and studied, all this and that. I don't know anything. And I had to really suck it up. And so, and then comes the day where we all go into production. Nobody had me ranked in the top 25% all through my training, except me.

And there was a couple of cute girls in the class. So I started to get my feet under me. I started to get a hold of those big balls I used to have. All right. And we go into production, meaning, Now it's for real. Now we're calling. We're getting our leads.

And then we get to open accounts and try and do business. We get no salary. If you don't eat, you don't pay the phone bill. So the past few weeks, you're making $150 a week right until we go into production. Okay. But I'm starting to understand a little bit about the psychology. And at first I try to be somebody that I'm not. I try to be a little slick like the lawyer and like the,

accountant and the business guys. And I realized that's not who I am. I'm never going to be like that. I'm never going to be good enough to compete like that. Right. But if it's one thing I've learned in my life, if I'm just me, just authentic Ross, people take to me. Yeah. People will always buy that guy.

Not everybody. I'm not for everybody. But I'll always have my guys, my following, et cetera, just like podcasting. if you try and be someone you're not people know it's not authentic people can feel it people know something in the human brain senses when something's true i can't explain it except other than that that when you speak truth it's intuition no yeah people have intuition people know it's like a chemical reaction in the brain and so i decided to dumb it down so many times on the phone people say you Italian? You're from the

bra? You're in the mob? Like, I speak in a very common way. Does you tell him there is no mob? Exactly. I speak to the common man. I don't try and put an air about it. In fact, I like to dumb it down a little bit. So I'd rather you think me, think less of me,

you never see me coming like that. And at the end of the first year, actually the first 10 months, I was number one out of 130 people nationwide in opening new accounts. Okay. And I was number two in gross commission.

I made several hundred thousand. And the only one that beat me out of that class of 130 was a guy named Stephen Schott whose mother happened to own the Cincinnati Reds and who just had a huge trust fund and all he would do was basically trade his own money. He had like three accounts himself, his mother, and his grandfather. So he'll lag up.

Well, he just traded his own money. It was nonsense. right he's just charging himself commission to look out on the board but i made real money i created real business with real customers so instead of trying to be eloquent you went with the blue collar hey man i know you're busy uh listen uh you know here's what we're doing bro i'm gritty yeah yeah i'm gritty i'm talking to you yeah i'm talking with you i'm not talking at you trying to spin there's nothing wrong with it if you're really good at that yeah but i realized i was never going to be great at that. But I'm great at being me. You know, I'm great. Even when we speak

right now, it must come across. And I'm just sort of like, I'm like a man for every man. You know, you Ivy League is, way to you hear my story. But I'm not trying to impress anybody. Right. I feel like that's the opposite of Joe Vitale. He's super slick on the phone, an answer for everything very slick very and all bullshit right like just just total spin spin spin and then he would he would try and jam and then he's high pressure you know oh well let me talk to my wife you got to talk to your wife you you you was your wife dress you but it was almost like he would almost bully people into but uh we did a podcast on him great podcast uh not the same story as yours but um anyway but he was he was great on the phone right away but it was very he's very very

slick. Right. A lot of people are slick. I've managed to produce results that were pretty much second to none by being myself. Right. I've been called a bully in business. I've been called greedy. I've been called pushy. The government says high pressure sales tactics. They said I'm a cult leader at my trial. I've people that just follow me, whatever I say, whatever I do, et cetera. And probably all that is true. There's truth and all that. It's just the way you frame it. You understand what I mean is how you frame it, what the context is, et cetera.

And the government's pretty good at owning the context, right? I feel like you're sitting at the defense table going, stop it. My lawyers wouldn't let me testify. It was a big mistake. It was a big mistake. I got 12 years anyway. You're doing nothing wrong.

Now, I've done plenty wrong in my life. I have done plenty wrong in my life. I'll get to that. But when it comes to the actual crime that I was accused of, allegedly committed and was convicted of. It didn't even happen. All right.

Well, we're going to get to that. We're getting that. Bro, it was fabrication. We're getting there. I mean, it was complete fabrication. I believe you? No, no, it's not important that you believe me because, right, when the government, when the government convicts you and you lose your appeal and it's in the book, it happened.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. The government told the story, that's it. It doesn't matter. It is now true. There is no other truth. No matter what I say, no matter how I address it, no matter how much fraud was involved on their end. How many, they admitted all these different things, but still, as long as that conviction stands, it's truth in our world. And I live in the world.

So I'm not trying to say to live in the world. I'm here because if you're talking about inside true crime, I'm a true criminal according to the government. According to American greed, the finale of season nine called The Sky's the Limit because I created Sky Capital, Sky Capital Enterprises, Sky Bank, all these different Sky Companies. and I was CEO of two public companies in London while I was residing in America. The problem was I resided in America. So we'll get to that. So now I'm at E. F. Hutton. I do like $300,000, $325,000 in my first year.

I'm not satisfied. I'm not satisfied because on Wall Street, there's a context. You graded, like, you know, on a golf course, you ever play golf? You know what shooting par means? Yeah. Shooting par means a golf course is designed by a professional. And that's what a professional, what they call scratch golfers, should be able to complete that 18 holes in.

Par is usually 71, 72, 73. And every other stroke over that is your handicap, right? Plus 1, plus 2, plus 3. And pros have to be able to shoot par, better than par, break par. on Wall Street, par is earning $100,000 a month. I make about $325,000 in my first year. So I'm making it like around $30,000 a month a little less. But I'm capped out and I'm frustrated.

And but what happens is I'm partying more than ever now because I went from getting zero salary. Yeah. Living tight. All of some money's coming in. But I'm working 15 hours a day. I'm literally dialing my phone, 300 times a day. In the formula in that business, you dial 300 times a day. Over time, a hundred people will pick up.

You'll actually hear someone's voice 100 times out of 300. Out of those 100 calls, 90 are going to say, go f*** yourself. Slam the phone down. What's your name? I'm calling the police. What's your name I'm calling the SEC? You. But, but, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But 10 people, on average, it's a statistical fact, 10 people will be receptive to receiving your track record, your introductory mailing package, your business card. And that's what you call a lead. And the idea of getting a lead is to qualify them. And I became a monster caller because I asked the top guys on the street. Remember, I'm out every night. I'm really rolling. I'm in the bars. I'm in the clubs.

This is Manhattan in the 80s. What a place. Studio 54 is seen on Magic. The underground, the roller discos. I mean, it was wild. Quailudes. I mean, everybody was partying. And I'm out and about.

And I can afford now to go because I'm not saving a penny. I've invested all my money into partying and having fun. But little that I know, it helped further. my business career at that time, because everybody's getting to know Ross, and people would come back and this guy, he's drinking, Don Perignon, he's got the hottest chicks, he's doing great. I mean, we're going to get this guy over here. On Wall Street, that's like a badge of honor, I hate to say it. So, I'm frustrated, but because my manager was a $300,000 producer.

And what I've learned over time is you'll never do more than the guy that's managing you for a variety of reasons. But I become like a hot commodity. I'm a young hot broker, and my strength was I was able to open accounts at will. I would open two, three, four accounts a day. Most brokers, if they make 10 a month, it's a decent month. I'm open three. I open, in the first 10 days of the month, I have 20, 25. I'm starting to master this whole thing. You know, I'm really like doing it in my sleep. and because I'm an addict, anything that requires a lot of mindless repetition I love because I could just keep going. When you get tired, you quit, I'm just an addict.

I'm addicted to the phone. I'm addicted to the pitch. I'm addicted to the pitch. And then I'm going out all night. Today I need to take naps and I need to be in bed early and, you know, this whole thing. Aging is something else. But so I get drafted by a whole bunch of firms. I go into view all these different famous firms.

and I go to Oppenheimer Company. Jordan Berlin is my manager. Jordan is a $600,000 a year producer. 600, sometimes $6.50, but really right around that. And to be a senior vice president on Wall Street, you've got to do about $600,000 a year. All right. It's $50,000 a month.

To most people, that sounds good. But I didn't understand this theory. Otherwise, I would have went immediately to work for guys to do millions. I didn't know. So I go to work for Jordan, and I'm at Oppenheimer Company, and I'm good. I'm okay, I'm good. I get up to $40,000, $50,000 a month.

I crap out. I can't get through it. $40,000, $42,000, $48,000, $52,000. I can't get through that number. I don't understand why. You're breaking my heart. Right, but I'm frustrated. But listen, just as fast as I'm making it, I'm spending it.

However, income is one thing. When you're on the inside of the market, you get start to make connections. You start to get to know who the traders are, the syndicate people. You get invited into deals. You get tips. You get information. And I started out at E.F. Hutton, and I had $1,500 in my own stock account. And just so you guys know, by my 30th birthday, I turned that into $30 million.

Off of $15? $1,500. $1,500 went to... From 1983 to 1987, I turned $1,500 into $30 million. Jesus. And then by 1990, I had $4,000 and I owed a million. You know, this is the game. But, of course, I was nuts because of my addictions.

My addictions cost me a lot. But in the meantime, I'm on the come-up in the Wall Street business. And I'm at Oppenheimer, and then I'm doing, you know, what you do over half a million year, it's pretty good. You're still not shooting par. And I'm not a million-dollar guy, but, you know, people could see the come up. People could see on a curve. They said, this guy's going to be a stud one day, right?

So I start getting, you're always getting recruited because he's the way it works on the street. Once you reach a certain level of production right around a half a million, anything that you're doing business, you get half and the firm gets half. So the firm is making $300,000 a year on me. Right. Okay? So a lot of firms want that kind of action,

especially because I was newer in the business. I'm sort of young. I'm not a career guy doing these numbers. You can see I'm on the come up, right? And so I get off at all these big time positions at Lehman Brothers, Bair Stearns, different big, big, big, substantial firms. I go to work at the least substantial of them. I went to work for a guy named Morty Davis at D.H.

Blair, 44 Wall Street. Street. Why? Morty is, his real name is Jay Morton Davidowitz, Orthodox Jew, and today he's like number 30 on the Forbes billionaire list. Why? Because Morty looked at my, everybody's offered me three, four, five hundred thousand up front. Morty said, I'm not going to give you anything up front. Zero. But I'm going to give you an IPO every week and I'm going to give you a hundred percent payout on your first million dollars. Okay. I go, well, It's going to take me two years to get a million dollars. I don't have to split 50-50 with the firm.

Whatever I do, I get 100%. He goes. But he's saying I'm going to give you the IPO. It's going to take you wait faster. Ross, in four months, you'll be doing over $100,000 a month. You'll never do less. And I'm like, you know, nobody spoke to me that way. Right.

And this guy had a reputation. He was representing the Teamsters. He's one of the, considered one of the great money managers of our time. and he was literally doing two or three IPOs a week his firm. But he was going to give me one as much as I want.

So I know what an IPO is. Correct. So you're bringing people public. We're taking businesses to the stock market for the first time. We're actually creating stock. Okay. Okay. We're taking companies public. And Morty has been a mentor to me and showed me

the inside of the stock market. Now also, just so you guys know, This is, this is, this is 1986, early 86. There's no NASDAQ at this time. There's a New York Stock Exchange, the Amex, which is really a poor sister, and everything else was over the counter. Eventually in 87, they formed NASDAQ, after the crash of 87, like 1988, which are electronic trading.

And the two people responsible of creating NASDAQ were Morty Davis, my mentor, and a guy named Bernie Madoff. I know Bernie. And I knew, no Bernie. I met Bernie a few times. And I was in jail with his brother Peter. And not a nice guy, but, you know, so I decide, forget the $300,000 up front, $400,000 up front. This guy convinced me, he looked at my money line, my business that I was going to bring over all my clients and the amount of monies they had and the stocks they own.

And he laughed, like, he goes, you know, bro, you're going to be doing, within four months, you do $100,000. Okay. the first month, I did 52,000, the second month they did 72,000, and then the third month, they did 102,000. I never earned under $100,000 a month, ever, ever, because something happens to you in that business, you learn, you achieve a certain level, and that's just where you go. And people used to say to me, how do you make $100,000 a month? I said, really?

Tell me, please. I said, well, we have 20 trading days a month. I do $5,000 a day. But the deal I had with him was I got 100% payout. So meaning, I did $100. How's he making any money? He making money on the IPOs, bringing these vice public? Every deal, he has warrants inside stock.

We're taking those deals. We're making him rich. Okay. So he could actually bet against the company. The second he goes public, he locks him. the profit. It's automatic. He was doing two, three a week. But I became a master of that deal, the IPO, and it would go on to provide a body of knowledge for me down the road that became invaluable. Because you find brokers that are in the business 20 years, they have no

idea to structure a deal, what an option is, a warrant is, the idea of creating stock versus just buying stock and selling stock. And when you became the manufacturer of stock, there's real money. Because it doesn't matter if you sell for a penny or $100, you're creating it through your own sweat equity, your own hard work. So I instantly became this very successful stock broker. But we were really living in the speculative end of the stock market. You know, new issues.

Some of them worked. most of them don't. Right. It's a shot. It's like a lot of ticket. You got a shot. You know, it's legit. It's, uh, there's actually a name for it.

There's speculative end of the stock market. You know, these are not blue chips. Funny thing is, Wall Street is a great marketing machine. A blue chip is still a high risk item. But they say it's blue chip. You don't have to worry about it. Nonsense. Enron, WorldCom, loosen.

These companies all went tits up. Right. Zero it out. These were the blue. Lewis of blue chips, AIG insurance company, beast insurance company in the world. On a Wednesday, they held a press conference and they announced a plus rated by Moody's and St. They announced to the world, if we don't get $108 billion, by Monday, we're out of business.

So all the numbers they've been publishing was a lie. You understand the point? That was the big, too big to fail, the big bailout, nonsense, right? But yeah, the shit happens. And then guys like us go to jail. The big boys are robbing hundreds of billions of dollars. They get fined, and then they round up the usual suspect, look for the guys that are unaffiliated independence,

and they arrest us, and they create big press releases and big public announcements, and they go on TV and say, we got Ross Mandel. That's why the economy, that's why they told my jury, that's why all of you were out of work. This is the guy that caused the crash in 0809. I swear to you.

That wasn't inflammatory at all. That wasn't. No, God forbid, you know. That's not prejudicial. I mean, yeah, and then when I get a letter from the London Stock Exchange saying that I behaved appropriately and there were no violations against me, they just said, this is too prejudicial. We can't let it in. I swear to you. So now I go to D.H. Blair, 44 Wall Street, maybe 150 guys, investment banking, IPOs every week, literally, two or three a week. So one group of guys, 10 brokers would do one IPO, another group of brokers, 15 guys would do another IPO. And it was like a party, okay? This is all before the crash of 87. So I come into the business, 1983.

I become licensed in 84, and the market's doing nothing but going from a thousand. The Doward Jones was a thousand. Just, you know, it just broke 42,000. It was 1,000, and it just went up to 2,000. That was my experience so far. Right. So because I am an animal and I'm an addict

and I'm working like a maniac, and I'm good on the phone and I'm pitching and I found my balls and my footing. I'm killing it. And everybody's making money. I'm not making, I'm making money, but everybody's making money. Right.

Nothing. Everything went straight up. Yeah, it's going up. Until March of 87. Yeah. And that's when reality set in to the market, to the world, et cetera.

It was the first major correction since 1929. Bad timing. Bad for us. It was good before that. You saved all that money. Well, I didn't. I didn't, actually. I let it ride.

And I didn't hedge myself. I didn't all the things I would do now. But allegedly. And it was brutal. I couldn't believe it. I sat there. And I watched my client's money. I had about 200 million under management.

Go down to like 30 million. Every single over-the-counter stock went to a dollar. Is this just? because the market crashed or because people are pulling out? This is just the stock. You couldn't even really pull out. Okay. Because they stopped answering the phones at the stock exchange because there were no

buyers and nothing but sellers. And it was a combination of inflationary pressures, sound familiar, high interest rates sound familiar, all the things that are happening today. The only reason this market is not crashed vehemently is because, there's two reasons. One, it's an election year. And the White House is controlled by the Democrats. And if they let the market go, they're going to be run out of Washington. So they figured out if we can keep everybody happy.

You know, the Democratic Party now is the party of the elite of the very rich. Just so you guys know, it's crazy. It's flip-flop from when I was growing up, when the Democrats were the liberals and they were the representatives, the common man, and the Republicans were the elite. It's all just somehow flipped. It's the craziest. I feel like the whole world went crazy when they locked me up. It did.

When I got out, it was just, it was insane. Just having a normal conversation. You can't have a normal conversation with people. They're all nuts. Yeah. I'm constantly warned by my closest people. Just shut your mouth because you are, there's politically correct, there's politically incorrect, and then there's you. There's you.

You could wake the living dead. That's what they tell me. Because I'm so authentic, crude. I'm old school. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden I became the old guy in the room. All my life in business, my lawyers, my accounts, my taxes, my advisors would say to me, Ross,

you got to get a gray hair, a couple of gray hairs on your board because for optics, you know what I mean? And all of a sudden, now I'm the gray hair, and everybody wants to be on their board. It's really funny. But that's what happens if you get lucky in life, right? Things flip-flop, right?

You were a spokesman now. It used to be like a thief in the shadows. Now you're freaking out there with spotlights on you on film and cameras, right? It's crazy. Yes, it is very beautiful. It's strange. Can you see the smile?

I just want you people to know he doesn't have a hair out of place. It's like unbelievable. I just want to touch it like a good looking boy. Let me just tell you something. And I tell a good looking boy, he's, I don't want to say how old you are. I'm right.

I'm 55. You know what that means, right? 55. At IHop, you get a senior discount. Oh, listen. You know, it's funny we were driving by. my wife and I were there's a like a community like a really nice community I said I said man I said we ought to move in there and she goes she said that's retirement community she's and I said oh okay

and she says we can move in there by the way and I went why she was 55 and I was 55 and over and I was like yeah but you can't she's no no I get she says I can because I'm married right she goes I'm grandfathered right she goes I'm grandfathered in the bad news is the next place is the old age home you know I have an a AARP I have the card when I got the card because I got it it for the free whatever towing or whatever. And this is when, and I've had it. So when my wife saw one day, I pulled it out. She went, oh, my God.

She was like, do you really happen? It's so crazy, right? Getting older. Because she's 18 years younger than me. I hope so. Yeah. Well, that's the way to do it. Mine is 16 years ago.

Exactly. That's, you know. I get it. I don't know what these guys are thinking. You know. Your wife's your same age? They're living in an old age home. What are you doing?

Yeah, exactly. You have to trade her in at some point? Does she take her teeth out at night? I'm just wondering. I'm curious. Oh, God. So let's get back to Wall Street. Now the crash happens.

All the illusions that I sort of, my addictions allowed me to live were being stripped for me. I no longer had all this money. I'll never forget. I still had like $3 million. And I thought I was broke. In this world, you know what? You know what flat broke means? You're down to your last.

million but I felt way under I felt like I was flat broke right after that crash I was it and in 1988 I discovered and I thought it was one of the greatest schemes in history and I spent the next year doing some clinical testing right and I smoked and I had to move neighborhoods because the all the street people would come up and wait outside my luxury apartment And I had to literally leave the neighborhood because I couldn't even go out without a bunch of, you know, fat girls called Wanda. Ross, Ross, hey, I got a dime. You know, like all these different things and crazy people in my life. And I just, I switched firms a few times.

Now, the funny thing is, I did get October 1st, 1987, I resigned from D.H. Blair. I had some sort of instinct or six cents that something was wrong. Things were getting a little crazy and people were still chasing me because now I'm a million dollar producer. I'm doing millions in business and I'm supporting deals on the market

and prudential-based securities made me an offer. They offered me $350,000 up front and the offer to take my whole business and protect me legally. And, And I just had a very uncomfortable feeling, that's all I could say. And I left D.H. Blair, and I went to work at Prudential, October 1st, 1987.

And October 19th, 1987, my customers haven't even been transferred over yet. We didn't have, like, the kind of computing we have now. Everything had to be done with mail, snail mail, and processing back office stuff and this and that. And October 19th, 1980s, all my customers' stuff, including my own sales, stuff because I had a big account was in transit you couldn't buy you couldn't sell and that Monday we came in and the stock market traded down and it just kept going down and it kept going down and you're waiting for the mail to arrive but literally and I had I watched 200 million

dollars turn it to like 20 million or less but you couldn't buy or sell because first of all I didn't have the positions there secondly the stock exchange all the traders the floor traders just said there's no buyer, so they just stopped answering the phone, literally. Literally. So you couldn't even sell. My customers are screaming. Can sell, you got to sell the market. I said, I don't want to talk to. I'm on hold. I'm on hold. Nobody answers the phone. And this went off for almost a week. So the Dow was at 2000 roughly. It went down 520 points in one day. Now, today they have all kinds measures, emergency measures, as a result of this event, the market can never just go down 25% again.

They would stop at it. They have circuit breakers that come in if it goes down 10%, and if it goes down 15%. They'll shut the market down. Right. Then the government will get involved. But this was, nobody ever seen anything like this. Nobody knows what was going to happen. I mean, a guy named Edgar, a lovely black guy who was my only friend at this prudential office,

he had a big office next to me. And between us, there was a plexiglass wall. And he was sitting like this over his desk. And I just thought he was, you know, he passed away. He had a heart attack during this. All his money, all his family's money was in the market. And he died at his desk and no one knew for hours. Oh, wow.

No one who's like really until the end of the day when we all went out and commiserated with each other. And he was sitting there. And he just, he literally lost everything. How old was he? He was only like 50, a young guy, young at the time. it was older to me. Yeah.

I was 30. Yeah. You know, it's more than a half a lifetime ago. So I sort of wandered aimlessly through the industry. I couldn't find my footing. How long was this? From 1987 through 88, I was giving up on the market. I lost my belief that the stock market was real.

And I was going to go, my brother lived in Israel. I was going to go to Tel Aviv and buy a disco for $100,000. grand. I actually entered into a contract. This was my big solution. I'm going to go and I'm going to just take it easy. Easy does it and go to Israel and I'm going to own a discotheque because I'm still getting high and there's a lot of beautiful Israeli women and they left the party there and you can buy a whole huge place at that time for a hundred grand. I had the money. And a guy named Stephen Sands calls me up. He was him and his brother Marty, Stephen Sands. the Sands Brothers, who are given the franchise to open up a New York office of a place

called Rodman Renshaw, which was an old line, a Chicago institutional firm, publicly trade on the stock exchange, very sort of quiet, classy type firm. That changed pretty quick when they came to New York. So the Sands Brothers had this office, the franchise, this office. They were managing it. And they went to all the headhunters and said, we need some real guys. We need some big guys. We'll spend some money with you.

Who can we get this? I think Ross Mendeau is available. And I had a big reputation, believe it or not. You still had a good reputation? It did. I'm going to tell you a funny story. In 1990, I got sober. I went to a 28-day program.

I went to rehab, and I came back into the industry completely clean, and nobody wanted to hire me. You weren't fun anymore. Correct. I was a freak. If you were in AA in 1990, you were considered a freak. I considered you a freak. I thought that I didn't go to rehab.

When they wanted me to go to a meeting and meanwhile, I'm tested positive for 11 different drugs, 11 different substances. I was called a the guy's called me a garbage head. And I was a poly substance abuser. I thought that was classy. When I got back from the doctor,

they said to me, you were garbage head. I was insulted. But it's all in marketing. It's all the way you express it, right? It's how you're first. things. You know, we know that today. But back in the day, who knew? But I get clean and nobody wanted to touch me. One firm took me in and gave me a $5,000 a month's draw. These firms were throwing a half a million dollars at me, $350,000. I was nothing. But they

love big balls. Ross Mandel, we're going drinking, we're going to go party, we're going to get some blow, we're going to hit the clubs, the limo. I was taking private jets in 1985 and 1986. There were no rappers doing that at that time. It was me and a bunch of billionaires. And I met a bunch of clients on private jets. I'd spend $100,000 flying down to the Boka Beach Club for the weekend with a bunch of guys, a couple of working girls, you know, rent out a bunch of cabanas.

On me, stupidity, right? And just drinking and snorting and hanging out. But so I go to work for the Sands Brothers. He talks, he's a great salesman, this guy, slicker than slick. It talks me out of buying this discotheque. And I go and I start learning the risk arbitrage game. So it's another, it's another a stop where I was able to gain a lot of knowledge. And this is when I come to the attention of Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and all that.

What is risk arbitrage? Risk arbitrage is so back in those days, you had a lot of people, you had Mike, Milken created these junk bonds, right? These, uh, these, uh, these, these, uh, these, uh, these, debentures, these debt instruments. So companies could raise all kinds of money. Okay. And some of these had very risky rate, low ratings. So they called them junk. Okay. But all this debt that these companies, he created this whole market for it. So you're a company, and you want to buy, or you're a guy, you want to buy U.S. Steel. U.S. Steel's trading at $30. You make an offer for $40 a share, but contingent on getting approval from the board or the shareholders, right?

There's going to be a vote. So the stock's at 32. It goes to like 37. There's a $40 offer, but it has, they might have even accepted it, but it has not been approved by all the shareholders and all that. Okay. There is a risk, a chance, it might not go through. But if you buy the stock at 37 and you've done your research and you hold it, you know you're going to get four. as long as it doesn't fall apart.

That's risk arbitrage. Arbitrage is from the French word, Arbor du jour, which you're taking advantage of an economic dislocation. And when I ask the same question as you, what the fuck was arbitrage? They said, well, they gave me an example. They said,

Europe was a very settled place. And when the explorers came to the New World and they were met at the river, at the East River by all the traders and the Indians and all that, America was unexplored really. And it was, there was an abundance of animals and furs and beaver and mink and fox.

And there were just, there were peltz everywhere. And in Europe, there was already fashion there. There were no animals left because they had already basically, it had evolved. You know what I'm saying? So it was hard to find. a mink coat, they would trade 12 mink skins for like a bottle of alcohol, you know, and a couple of beads, the Indians like, whatever.

And so they would take, buy the pelts here for nothing and bring them to Europe and sell them for real money. Right. So that's, you see, you're taking advantage of an economic dislocation caused by a lack of supply, increased demand, all these different things. So no one cared about the pelts in the new world because they were all over it. You just go to an animal, go to the woods, an animal. Skin it, you got yourself a pelt.

In Europe, in Paris, in London, these things were expensive commodities. And that's arbitrage, taking advantage of an economic dislocation. So is it almost like, so basically it makes me think of like an option. Like I'll buy your thing for, you know, I'll buy your stock for $40, but you've got to give me nine months to try and put this deal together. If not, well, then you walk away and I walk away. And if it works out, well, then here's your 40 bucks. It's something like that.

You know, it's, it's, it's, you know, there's a real generality, but it's taking advantage of the different markets. Okay. You know, in one market, you're a seller, okay? And I'm a buyer. That's what makes markets, right? You want to get out, and I think it's time to get in. So, you know, we both have different perceptions, and it's the same kind of thing in the stock market. So, you know, I made a bid.

I'm general dynamics. I made a bid for Lockheed Martin. The stock goes up 10 points, but it's still three or four. points below the deal because the deal hasn't happened yet. Right. So what's the risk? And then there's ways to measure the risk. And then you, you, you, you then represent it to investors. You want to make a quick 8 percent. You want to make a quick 12 percent. You want to make a quick 14 percent on your money. It's like, it's just every, all returns are attached to some sort of risk. Right. In the financial game. So you have real money. And remember during COVID,

interest rates were basically zero. Right. You know, mortgages were two, three percent at some point. So imagine if I can show you how you can make 12% on a deal with a little risk. You'll say, all right, I've got $10 million for you. So you start doing this? I'm learning this game. I'm building a business and I tried to sort of clean up my act. I knew at this point I had a problem with drugs and especially and I just can't stop. I would go like a week without it and then I'd wake up. Well, a sudden I'd come to when I'd be in my house with an eight ball and I'm sniffing and I missed two days of work and I just I just couldn't stop. And it got to the point where my addictions was so bad, I could no

longer go to work. I lost my ability, my edge to trade, to talk to customers and all these different things. I had a tremendous anxiety, a tremendous fear, all these things that all my life didn't bother me. And so I decided I'm going to go get help. Okay. And so I voluntarily, with the help of friends, check into the Silver Hill Foundation, which is an incredible hospital rehabilitation center in New Canaan, Connecticut. And that's very fancy. Yeah, I was going to say, is this kind of place that they bring you your own?

$1,000 a day. Truman Capote used to go there. In fact, I stayed in the Truman Capote suite. Joan, the famous, you know, the author, the literary guy, the literary guy, true. They did a show in a book about him. Yeah, yeah. And true of Capote is. Yeah, he won't pull a prize.

And Joan Kennedy used to go there and dry out a couple of months a year very quietly. And so if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for Kennedy. It's good enough for Ross Manda. So I make sure I get in the best room. I had an American Express car, had great insurance. And the Wall Street firm I was at said, we want you to go. Yeah. Like everybody was like, you got to go.

I mean, the bars that I hung out with after we got clean, the manager would run over to me. And they say, oh, I think we all prayed for you. Thank God you. I used to play in a mafia run a poker game. We used to play pinnuckle poker gin for big money. And I used to play with guys like Mickey Rourke. And, you know, it was all night stuff in Manhattan. They have little apartments they set up and you go.

And there's drugs, alcohol, women, people. And you play in these crazy games. Even the mafia said to me, we don't know whether they can you or offer you a help. Because I would rent bills of $100,000. But I had that kind of credit with them. because I always paid. And so even they said we don't know what to do to help you or to kill you because you're a problem.

And so finally I go, I get help. Now, I didn't go to get well. Right. I wasn't that far gone in my head. You know, I just knew that I needed to dry out for a little bit and figure out my next move because life was becoming very difficult. You know, in the program, they call it the 12 steps, right?

Everyone knows the Program of Recovery, A-A-N-A-C-A, the 12 steps of recovery and the first step says we knew that we had a problem with alcohol or drugs and then our lies had become unmanageable I don't know about the problem part

I knew I had trouble with some drugs but I knew my life was unmanageable right it was either pay my file my taxes we'll go to rehab that's what I come day to win and I said I can't do it I can't do my taxes I'm going to rehab

so I go in and I tell them I think I have a problem with drugs specifically I just can't stop but that's it I just want to dry out and they like had a good laugh you know they take my blood they take my urine they take my hair and they put the hair under an electron microscope apparently I came back I tested positive for 11 different substances and they were so panicked about the level in my the toxicity in my blood it took them 21 days to detox me and I had a couple of seizures like But when I went there, I just wanted to go to a place where there was no, no, no happy hour. Right.

No open bar, no hookers, no limo drivers, all that kind of stuff. And so after my first week, I'm already detoxing. I'm getting, I'm starting to heal. And they knock on my door and they say, Mr. Maynog, come on, everybody's going to a meeting. I said, really, I'm a little tired because I'm detoxing, you know. And I say, what kind of meeting? They said, oh, it's AA. All the people from the nation.

neighboring towns, Greenwich, Connecticut, New Cana, this was in New Canaan, Dariant, Connecticut, fancy, high-end, wealthy areas. All these recovering alcoholics come to the institution every Tuesday and Thursday night in there's different meetings. I said, well, AA's not for me. They said, Mr. Meena, we really want you to come. It's strongly urged. I said, sir, listen, I'm a New York stockbroker.

I live on East 603rd Street. I'm a big guy. I'm not going to go with these people. people yeah you go there and you realize that you probably know 20 people there and the some of the biggest probably recognize half the people there you're like holy shit there's a word they call it grandiosity i suffered from real grandiosity right lack of humility all the things we talked about earlier and um and they said you have to go and they said you have to go and i said i'm not going now it became pushed comes to show i said just not going what are you going to make me

they called security and I saw that it got very serious these two big guys show up mr. mandel come on we don't want all right all right so I go and by the time I go the room's packed with like 150 people 130 people a big number big room fancy and there's like only a few chairs left in the in the front row but when I walked into the room I noticed something everybody's eyes were open and clear and everybody looked you're right in the eye They had like this clarity thing going and everybody was hugging each other and everybody was really genuinely happy to see each other like there was joy on people's faces and I hadn't felt this way on the in the inside or the outside for many, many years at this point. I was just living in my little world when I was basically miserable and like what they say in the program is when you started using drinking and using drugs you're like this top end of a funnel and if you really suffer from this disease of addiction of alcohol. socialism, et cetera. The funnel starts getting smaller and small. And what started out glamorous and

fun ended up becoming, you didn't do drugs because you wanted to. You did them because he needed to. You didn't drink because you wanted to. You drank because you had to. It's a very bad position to be in. And so I'm sitting there and there's a speaker and it's a guy. That's the way look like you handsome clean you know uh elegant i mean a real guy and uh he's telling his story with such utter confidence and poise and it hits me in the middle of his qualification he's i feel he's telling my story and this whole thing has been engineered to try and get me to to to join this guy you do have granularity don't i am sick as i am so nosed i am so nuts sick. And I really believe this. And then, you know, it's all well and good. And then they

start passing a basket. I mean, you put a dollar in it, you put whatever you wanted, but most people put a dollar in, but it's not a requirement. So then I'm starting to calculate how many meetings that are in the area and how many dollars. This is really just a for-profit scam. You know, I'm thinking of all these things. Barely covers the coffee. Correct. The amount of money. I had, I, I've come to understand how sick I was. I was really well off the deep end. So you're doing everything to figure out what the scam is and not realizing these people all just have a common interest

of staying clean. What I have discovered in my life since then is that if you look for bad in this world, you look for drugs, you look for trouble, you're going to find it. Yeah. The universe is going to respond like this. Come on.

This is so much bad, so much darkness. On the other side, If you're looking for goodness, good people, humble people, well-meaning people, people that are willing to give of themselves for nothing, no return, you'll find like this. It's even greater than the negative. There's so much goodness in this world. But the thing was, so I get out of, I finish a 28-day program, I'm clean. I'm now missed the program. I am now addicted to the program

like I was addicted to drugs and drugs. I'm determined I'm going to stay clean. And when I go back to Manhattan, they tried to keep me there. I was released against medical advice. They said, Mr. Mandel, there's no chance you're going to stay clean. Right.

You're going right back to your apartment, to your life. Forget it. You're doomed. We want you to stay 90 days. Now, listen, I had great insurance and I had American Express card. I had no other money. I was in a million dollars in debt at this point.

But I said, no, I got to get back to life. I'm determined. We made a big plan. So when I go, when I get released, they drive me right into the city. And they take me to an AA meeting. I'll never forget. It's called Midtown, Park Avenue and 60th Street. It was like on a Saturday night that was released on a Saturday.

And I stood up at the beginning of me and I said, my name is Ross. No last names. In front of a room full of stranger, 50, 60 people in that. I just got released from drug rehab. I was at Silver Hill for 28 days. I live in Manhattan. I don't know anybody in this city that's sober. Everyone I know is a drug addict, a drug user,

is someone I drink with or a prostitute or a limo driver and or troublemaker. If any of you would be kind enough to give me your phone numbers, at least I'll have somebody to reach out and call if I have an issue or I have a problem. 15 people came running over to me. Call me, call me, call me, call me, call me, call me, call me. putting their arms around me, bro, it's going to be okay. Women being so nice, me, I'm like, what? I couldn't, I never seen anything like it.

That went from six to seven. At 10 o'clock, I was taken to the 79th Street workshop, first day I've been with 709th Street in the church basement there, big meeting, very famous. I watch that next to Elton, John there, Alec, Bold, I'm not supposed to name names because it's anonymous, but all kinds of famous, famous people, the most famous go there. And again, I stood up and I said, I don't really know it. I just went to a meeting at 6. It was released from rehab.

My name is Ross. I'm an alcohol addict. I need help. If anybody's want to maybe take me out for coffee or give me their phone numbers, it would mean a lot to me because I really have no life. I want to create a sober life for myself. And like, again, 15 people come running over to me, including a bunch of women. Three of those women I ended up in serious relationships with over the next two years.

I mean, you're not supposed to date anybody for the first year. I said over the next two years, but that's true. And the truth is, you're not supposed to get involved with them. You can have sex, but you're not supposed to become emotionally involved. Okay, I didn't. I like that. So I violated that rule anyway. Yeah, I was going to say.

But that's a legitimate rule. It was you're not emotionally on solid ground yet. And then the two of you end up using together a few. Oh, I know a bunch of guys that are, my dad was in A. It was the only time he ever got sober. Yeah. And this is after going to rehab, after rehab, after re-get-out, you know, because they don't all, the only ones that ever seem to work are the ones that are tied into AA.

Right. The ones that, no, no, we don't do AA. We do this and the stop, stop. You know, then he's drinking again within a month, you know, or it's fine, when they finally ended up going to this one program that was tied directly into AA, and that was their, your support group after. And he did like 60 days or 90 days. Right. He did a ton of time in this one, because they, State Farm, the company worked for,

had put them in through so many. They were like, this is the last one. That was a maniac, too. Two things hooked me on AA. Two things, and I want to say it for the crowd, so they know. First of all, people don't know. Alclaw's Anonymous is the name of a book that was published in 1935. They call it the big book.

And it was written by Bill Wilson, who was a New York stockbroker. And Dr. Bob, who is a physician, a medical doctor from McBron, Ohio, I'm reading about Bill's story. It's the first story in the book. And Bill is a New York stockbroker. I'm a New York stockbroker. Right. How could I not, you know, go for this? I felt God was talking to me.

God was talking to me. And right away, I connected through that. But more importantly, even before the first chapter, which is Bill's story, is a preface. And these guys was smart. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, the guys that wrote the book, was smart. They knew that it's just a book. They figured the only way they're going to get real recognition, it's going to be respected, is if they got a medical opinion. And so what they did is they created this program and they got over 100 people sober.

And then they went to the medical doctor. and they showed the medical doctor, their medical records and everything else. And this was one of the most famous medical doctors in the world at this time, renowned worldwide, out of Europe. And he said, I don't know what to say, basically. But with these people, when they put alcohol or drugs in their system, a mental obsession is triggered somewhere in their brain. They're like an allergy to it. And they just can't stop drinking. That's what they think about it and infiltrates it.

And that the change, it's a spiritual solution, is remarkable. And so the book is really about what Bill and Bob went through, what they did, this program, how they stayed sober. They were the first two guys in AA. They created it from nothing. And the story, it's a book of 150 pages of stories of the first 100 people that got sober. So I went to Silver Hill. The medical doctors wrote an opinion in this book in 1935.

And it's still, a lot of people still think, well, you know, you people have no self-control, you have no self-discipline, I can stop drinking. I don't need the meetings or the program. And, you know, we say, what part of your sick brain are you going to use to fix your sick brain? But let me tell you how I discovered alcoholism and drug addiction is really a disease. When I went away, it was $1,100 a day at the Silver Hill. I probably, is much or more now. My insurance company paid for it. Insurance companies don't pay you because you're weak. It's a weakness. You have no self-discipline, self-control. They pay because it's a disease.

You're sick, right? The insurance company's not going to pay a bill. If it's not a medical issue, right? It's got to be certified, et cetera. They pay. And so that made me realize I'm sick.

I'm not soft. I'm not weak. You know, because all my life I was told, you know, you have to be a man. You know, you don't talk about your feelings. You don't, you know, cry, you act hurt. You know, if your life's not going right, take responsibility. Don't ask for help. What kind of man asks for help?

My life changed instantly when I stood up in those rooms at first night and said, my name is Ross, I need help. My life changed. And, you know, since 1990, I've helped thousands, and I'm not exaggerating, of people. I've helped them get sober. I've sponsored them. I've run meetings. I've sponsored meetings.

All these good things. It's part of my story. And you see the light go on in some people's eyes. And the people are very close to me, by the way, that suffer from this disease. And, you know, you have to use what's called tough love. And I'm waiting for a couple of them. specifically one family member to say, can you help me? He won't. And I'm watching him spiral into the abyss. I went to prison for nine years and four months. I've been fighting the

government. The FBI rated my place in 06. It's 2014. I'm still on probation. I had to get permission to come here and sit with you. Right. To leave my district. He goes, let me, let me get this straight. You're asking the probation office. You're currently on special supervision for fraud. You want us to approve you leaving the district and going to see this guy, Matt

Cox, and they pull up your website. It says, I'm a liar, a thief, I'm a criminal, I'm a fraudster. I rock banks, institutions, and other people. You want us to give you permission to sit with this guy? I said, well, since you put it like that, I understand

the... Sounds a little crazy. Right, but you know what, because I'm transparent, and I said, listen, this is part of my healing, my recovery. I'm coming back into the community. I'm an educator now. I want people to hear me speak and to hear my story, I'm sure just like you do. Yeah. And you're helping people now. You know, I hate to say it, even though he looks like a kid, he's not a kid. You know, you get to special at I hop. Hmm. The senior discount. Oh, my God. You know what I'm saying? You're no longer a young man. You're now middle age. Me, I'm almost 70, so I'm an old. guy. Middle age makes you sound like I have at least half as much time left as I've had.

And I don't think that's true. Well, you know, you don't count the first 10 years because you were a child and you didn't really understand anything. And you can't count your last 10 years because by then you'll be in diapers, you don't really understand that either. And then there's 10 that I was missing. Yeah, hopefully it kept us a little younger. But so to me, the 12th steps would the answer for me. You take 12 steps. Can I ask you a question? Sure. You went from basically meeting to meeting to meeting because you just didn't want to basically go home and be alone. Is that what you're afraid that if I go home? That's part of it. But you know, I love what, you know, I'm in the program now 35 years and I see guys when I was early, I would see guys,

you know, they go to meetings every day. Yeah. And I would say, you have like 35 years sober, right? They said, 40. Right. I said, you mean to tell me you've been sober for 40 years, but you still come to this meeting every day? He goes, yep, can you explain to me why? Because I was new in the program. I figured I just do a couple of meetings and that's, I'm good.

Right. And he said, you know what, Ross, it's a funny thing. You know, over the years I've come to realize that I only need two meetings a year to stay clean, only two. I said, so why do you come every day? And he looks me in the eye and he says, because I never know which two they're going to be. And I, you know, there's so much wisdom in some of these things.

I mean, this guy's looking at me in the eye, he says, I don't know which two I need. You know, A.A. is, you know, alcoholism, addiction is a disease centered in the middle of your brain. And just when you think you got this thing beat or you got this thing, like, you're acting out. Even if it's not with alcohol, you're acting out in certain ways. And, you know, I've come to understand that it's become a big part of my wife. and I would say to you that aside for my children is the most precious thing in my life but I wouldn't have children if not for it

because when I went into a Silver Hill one of the reasons I got clean not I gave you a bunch of reasons that are like superficial in a way but the big thing was I'll never forget I was invited to a big party a friend of mine got married

and he was having a party at his house a wedding at his house and all these different things he just bought a house and he and this guy was a guy from my my high school he was just a nothing type of guy regular guy and uh by my standards yeah i've come to know he's a beautiful man but by my standards he had like a regular job he was making like 70,000 a year was no it worked for people it wasn't his own boss whatever and um he married a so-so girl she's not she wasn't great looking or anything and turns out she's a beautiful person But I was very superficial. Right.

I still am to a degree. That's a sick thing. And I'm invited, and this is an old high school guy and a lot of my old high school friends have done, I want to show off. It's very important that they thought that I was cool and I was the man and all the stuff. Right. So I went out and I went shopping. I bought like a $10,000 outfit.

It looked silly. And I didn't have any particular girlfriend. And all the women I knew were really cheap and everything else. But I found a girl from a strip club that I knew. and I basically paid her to come with me. Cleaned her up. Don't talk a lot. I gave her some money for a dress.

She connived me out of some money. And I got in my Mercedes, my little two-seat of Mercedes, right? And I drive out to Long Island. And, you know, I want to talk about all the things I have or the money I make and all these different things and how hot, you know, Tiffany is over here. And they were all like these lovely, real people. and their neighbors are there and other friends have come with their kids

and their wives and you know at best one of the couple of these guys that make like a hundred grand year I'm like a million plus a year and I'm miserable and I'm insecure and I'm anxious

and I see them like hugging and kissing each other like they really care about each other and they're laughing and I'm staring at Tiffany with her you know fake tits and all these different things and I'm like I felt like this big

and I wanted to make a big splash because nobody gives a shit everybody's got their own world and these people crafted a nice world you know today they have you know they have a you know four bedroom house in the middle of nowhere on Long Island which is now probably worth

$3 million or $2 million they paid for like you know they paid $200 for you know 35 years ago right and they have you know 2.2 kids and they have two cars they probably take two weeks vacation a year and they're happy and they have grandchildren and all these different things

And I knew that I needed help. I was jealous of their life. And I could have bought everything there, but I just wouldn't. And I knew I was up. And that started thinking, me, what's wrong with me? I couldn't understand what's wrong with me. I wasn't normal like. And I, you know, in my mind, it's like, you know, you have to be,

if you want to really be a big earner, you want to be a, a big Wall Street guy, you got to make sacrifices. That was bullshit. Right. I just made excuses. What's the word you used before? Justified. Yeah, justified.

Right. You know, you're not taking $100,000 off a guy. You know, mortgage company's going to take care of them. The banks are stealing anyway, so what the hell, right? That's what we do. So I ended up getting clean, coming back into Manhattan. And then the funniest thing happened. Ross Van der was now clean, clear.

I just want to go to work. I owe a million dollars. I got to pay back to someone. Everyone's saying, no, no, no, you declare bankruptcy. You write it off. That's what everybody does. But now I'm into the program. I'm going to be honest.

I'm not going to, I'm too frightful now to go into bankruptcy, even though it was a smart move. I went to work. Nobody would hire me. Yeah, I was going to say, nobody wants to hire you now. No, the companies that I took public wouldn't eye me. Are they not wanting to hire you because you're clean? or because you were in so much debt or because you... I had a lot of complaints pending.

So I got into a lot of trouble and I did an interview with Forbes and I was honest with that was a mistake. You never be honest with a journalist. You know, I said, you know, I was one of the bad boys of Wall Street in the 80s. So this is you did the Forbes article after you got out of rehab. I was already clean. I was public all these things. And you said, I'm going to do it.

Next thing you know, I'm the bad boy. No, no. What's happened to me, when you go to Wall Street, the first thing they tell you is make your money. lay low, stay humble, any press is bad press, and they were right. But I'm a big personality. I was whacked out, and still I managed to stay out of the press. But I got in a lot of trouble along the way. But I was a big earner. So just like athletes, they get in trouble or movie stars, the studios take care of them. They have connections and they get the best lawyers and this and that. So up until I got

clean, I had people taking care of me, all these Wall Street firms, right? But I was racking up a serious amount of issues, you know, customer complaints, arbitrations and all that. And when I went to get clean, Rodman Renshaw did some bad, the people that ran Rodman Renshaw did some bad things to me. And I got blamed for them. I was in lockdown rehab, but the customers just complained and they named me. And then the firm went against me. me. I ended up suing the firm, and several years later, I collected big money from them. But they basically put all these complaints on my record and said, he's a bad guy, he's a drug addict, he went through recovery. It's the same people that told me to go for help, then use that against

me. Okay. And so now I've got a bunch of complaints pending. And, um, and, um, no job or no job No job, but, you know, the people that knew me the best that would have hired me were like, I don't understand. What do you mean? You go to AA. What does that mean? Well, you know, I'm going to come in. I'm going to work.

You know, I'm a hard worker. Well, you know, the old boss was hard work. We don't know what you're going to do. And then you're going to go to AA from 12 to one at the Trinity Church. Then you're going to come back and you're going to work. But then after work, you're going to go to AA again. What about when we have a, you know, a function, a front function, you're not going to have a drink? No, I don't drink.

I don't understand. People don't understand. What do you mean, not going to drink? Today, it's almost cool not to drink because it's unhealthy and it's full sugar and all these different things. People looked at me funny, and I felt funny. Right.

I didn't know how to socialize without cocktails. I didn't. I didn't. I used to say it in that when I was in the hospital, I used to say, let me get this straight. I get married one day. I had no prospects, but I was just trying to be argumentative. You're telling me that I'm not going to have champagne

in my own wedding? And they would say, no. and it just so happens that I met the girl of my dreams and I ended up getting married to her and we had Martinelli's apple cider at a wedding and she doesn't have a problem but she doesn't like alcohol. She has one sip and she starts yawning,

I'm tired, I'm drunk. Right. One sip. She likes to be completely in charge of her faculties. So it's, but in my mind, everybody drinks. There's no such thing as life without alcohol. Right. And so I used to, for about two years,

I used to keep alcohol in my apartment. and drugs. Because that's how I connected to women and stuff. And I used to go out and I used to tell the waiter, if I told the girl, I meet her at 8 o'clock at this place, I'd go at 7.30. And I tell the waiter and I tell the bartender, listen. I want you to give me, like, ginger ale in a glass.

It looks like scotch or alcohol. And I'm going to ask for, you know, scotch and soda. You're just going to bring me ginger ale. So I actually put on a whole show. You know, I went through this whole thing. Right. I couldn't, I felt very strange. And I realized that when my father died, I was 16.

I had one girlfriend and two girlfriends prior to that. I had never done one single thing as an adult where I wasn't stoned or under the influence of something. All of a sudden, I'm 33 years old, and I have to call call again, and I have to go on dates with women. I've never been with a woman since I'm 15 years old. And when you're a kid, it's different. without alcohol or some sort of drug. So it's like, what? I mean, I was lost a little bit.

And I was reliving life, like feeling everything. And it was very scary. And I had nowhere to hide from my feeling. I didn't sleep for one year. When I tell you, I didn't sleep more than two hours in a year. I was taking 20, 10 milligram volume every day at the end, the last couple of years. just to take the edge off people said to me

the edge off what I said I was up I was taking I was on all these drugs for so long and it kept getting worse and worse and worse and they teach in the program

it's a progressive disease you know more is better so make a long story short I finally get a job a bunch of guys hired me that I work with the DH Blair okay the same guy that hired

Jody Belford originally right His name is Michael Fork. Today, he's a billionaire, has his own island in Palm Beach, helicopter in his backyard, you know, mansion in New York City, mansion in Chicago, on the cover of Palm Beach Magazine, you know, that kind of thing. Great guy, very successful. And he was making 500 grand a month back in 1986 and 1987.

So Michael, shout out, bro. Sorry, I'm giving you up like that. And he's the one that brought Jordy Belford in his. a cold caller back at 44 Wall Street at D.H. Boyle. And my boy, Stevie Frifer, was like his best friend and a partner. Stevie's one of my partners now and one of my closest friends. Throughout my whole bit, he was there for me. Nice. You know the value of that, right? Oh, yeah. So I never had to work. Before you got here, I was finishing up a letter to a guy that I just ordered a book for online because he'll write me and, hey, how's everything going? I sent him pictures. My wife and I just

went to Bay Vegas, print the pictures out, because I know that's important, sent those to him. He's in a few years? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he'll be out in a few years. You're a good man. I've done that with a bunch of people. I don't know anybody. Colby's the only person I know and hang out with that hasn't been to prison. Right. Even Wade. Well, Wade only did a couple days, right? Because they eventually dropped his chargers. But yeah, all my friends are guys that are in time. I understand. And that's a crazy world we live in. Right. that that's so many people right it used to be that around the time that i got clean right in 1990 you know if you were charged with a federal crime you don't want nothing to do with you

everybody today it's almost where it's trendy i mean you know it's like we're making we got a true crime podcast everyone wants me they'd tell me okay i just did this podcast that podcast you know ian bick this one now everybody wants to talk to me and this and that they want me to do tv and all these things and i'm like bro i'm still on probation relax i i need permission to do anything you can imagine i'm a probation are going to las Vegas they said mandel this is the one town with probation is really not allowed most of the time could you pick like another city i said radley is in Vegas what do you want me to do i you know five years i do the exact same thing i'm right i'm filling up my my travel request correct and

where you're going to go who's picking up what kind of car where you're staying ahead of time correct Who's paying for it. They want to know everything. I'm like, I got, mine was, they needed at least 10 days, I think, is what I got. Mine is 14, so I always give 21 days. Oh, okay. So, yeah. What a pain.

It's just crazy. I come to you. Yeah, I am frigging, you know. It's always got to be work related, you know. Yeah. And on my probation officer, I didn't explain why doing the podcast was work related. Correct. I have a book.

This is how I sell my book. This is how I pay my restitution. Now, if you don't want me to pay my restitution, I understand. No, no, no, no, no, no. I had a small conversation about coming here today. Yeah. So it's about, but it's also by getting our stories out, bro. Yeah. You see, we don't have to go out and commit new crime.

They were always, there's, we're law-abiding citizens right now. We're doing the right thing. And if you're listening to this or watching this, understand you don't have to make the same mistakes we made. Make new mistakes, you know, but be on the right side of the game. You know, the one thing I always said, you don't want to get indicted. because once you're indicted, you're pretty much toast in this country. Yeah.

The government never since we're sorry. Oops, we made a mistake. We spent a lot of money ever searching you, and we found out that you're really innocent. It doesn't work that way. You know, once they get your name, you're done. You're toast, okay,

unless you become a disgusting informant and they keep you out in the world. And you're just... Those bastards. Routing people out and carving them up, right? It's, you know, it's inscrust. scripture, to be that sort of guy, is a fate worse than death. Oh, it's the worst.

In the next life, you're finished, so you're rot in hell. So now I'm living a righteous life. Okay. I'm working. These people hire me. They're so unsure about me. They offer me $5,000 for two months. And I have no money.

Right. I owe a million dollars. I literally had $4,000 cash. I'd be evicted from my apartment. but you know uh i'm a crafty guy right and i've done a lot of good when i was wealthy and when i was rolling i took care of a lot of people i helped a lot of people most people that a take is disappear yeah they say when you're buying drinks everybody's with you as soon as you're not buying the bar's empty but there were some people that are good people that remember what you did and i

i mentored a lot of guys on wall street i'm credited in some books would be You know, there's one, one book that's out. They talk about the history of Wall Street. And they talk about all the different guys that came in from. They said, I'm credited with making more Wall Street millionaires than anybody else in history. Nice. I would never say that. But who would know such a thing?

It's crazy. But I can tell you, Facebook is lit it with many, many millionaires today that worked for me, that I mentored, that I tutored that I took in. And so, you know, I know that I did have a great influence on a lot of people. So when I needed help, and I learned how to ask for help, that was the big thing. Guys like us asking for help is a tough thing. I mean, he's really letting the world know you're not okay. And, you know, to us, image is very important, right?

I mean, you've got to see his hair. I mean, I love it, bro. Image is everything, right? And, you know, that's really crazy that I cared what people thought about me. And more than what I didn't even know what I thought about me. I never even thought about it. I just do, go, move. And so you got a job with the firm?

I get a job within two months. I've opened up 75 accounts. And my third month, because now I'm off-draw, and they want to get the money back. Yeah. I do $100,000 in business. Nice. Never go under.

And now I'm the biggest producer. Now I'm taking down IPOs like the old days and I'm doing them, but now I'm sober. Now I'm clean. And we're still weird at first because I never made a cold in my life. unless I was on something. Right.

And I was always going to something, on something, or recovering from something. And now I'm completely clear. And I find life easy. And I find the business easy. When you're living with this stoned all the time, life is much more difficult. I mean, everything's a hassle. Everything is, you know, you're losing your mind. But when you're, you know, when you're half in the bag and you're still getting shit done,

when you're clear and you feel good. So I would basically work six days a week. I would get up five in the morning. I was at the office no later than seven. I'm on the phone straight through to noon. At noon, I'm running to the meeting. The A.A. meeting down at Trinity Church, 12 to 1. On the way back, I grab a sandwich, a hot dog, something,

and take it back to the office. Now I also decide to manage my diet. After work, I work the office until six. I leave the office. I go ahead up to the gym. I work out until about 8 o'clock, and I go to the Greek diner on 1st Avenue, 179th Street, and I have this house special because I have no money, and I'm spending $10 a day for dinner.

And then I go to the meeting from 10 to 11, because I wasn't sleeping. And I would work out with weights five days a week and run five miles on the treadmill after the weightlifting workout. And I became like a house, and I became like a machine. And I was very, very, it was very important for. me to be the big guy again to get that back because I like that. And this guy that I just spoke to during the break, he was at the firm. It was a manager where they came back, you know, they hired me after my release from rehab. And he went to work at another firm and he offered me a deal. I'll

give you a half a hundred percent on your first half a million. Okay. Like Morty gave me on a million. Yeah. And I said, okay, because now I know within six weeks I had, I earned that half a million. Nice. And then I was doing a few hundred thousand a month. And I discovered something. When I came back into the business, I looked at the business. I looked at the industry.

I started to, you know, my mind's working now. I'm thinking about other things besides women and drugs. And you're looking at a macro instead of a micro. And all the guys that were at my level before I crashed and burned now had their own firms, their own hedge funds, ran banks. And I'm sitting here at Coke Corn starting over. again. And I was frustrated. I was frustrated. And I was really studying the industry and something, something appeared to me. Just like cold calling was approved in America, right?

I told you in 1980, in the late 70s, early 80s, Wall Street, Main Street, nobody was calling other parts of the world where they didn't have it. So, you know, I've learned over time the greatest wealth is created not by innovation, but by imitation. You take something that works and you bring it somewhere they don't have it. Think about Starbucks in Russia. Think about Kentucky fried chicken in China. Think about McDonald's in France. We knew they were successful models here and just taking them somewhere. They don't have them. It's almost a guaranteed success. So there were parts of the world that spoke English that didn't have telemarketing securities like the United Kingdom. Right. London, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, South Africa,

New Zealand, Australia. They all speak English. I can communicate with them. Right. But nobody was calling them. Why? I did some homework and I found out how to make that legal. Right. I was going to say, are they allowed to buy stocks in American companies in the U.S.? They are. Okay. They were just never approached in that fashion. And each country has very specific criteria if you're going to solicit over the phone. Okay. Like, it's illegal in the U.K. Unless certain things happen that we made happen. Okay. And we made it legit. Like it's a U.S. was like opening the company there is? No, no, you just had to have certain documentation order.

Oh, okay. And once the, the prospect signed that documentation and returned it to you, then he's basically saying legally, I solicited you. You didn't solicit me. Okay. So you just have to disclose certain things to the person. Yeah, there are, there's just the processes. Right.

And it's always ongoing. There's always new, like there's then, all of a sudden there was do not call us in America. I mean, so, you know, you've got to always stay ahead of it. But amazing, all these potential investors around the world. They speak my language. Right. Everybody's interested in making money. And nobody was calling them.

So I began solely when I got clean. In 91, I got clean. I started doing real business in America. And I said, this. Ninety-two, I started doing nothing but prospecting other parts of the world. Okay. Within a few short years, I was recognized as being, I was the number one. exporter of United States investment opportunities.

I had the most foreign customers of anybody in the country, recognized by Wall Street Journal, by Forbes, all these different things. And at one point, I had 10,000 millionaires as clients, 10,000 accounts. Nice. With me. And this was Sky Capital, which eventually they invited me for, which was a complete scam. They just wanted to steal my business. That's a whole other story.

So I hope we're going to get to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now I'm really killing it. And I opened up a brokerage firm. My first firm, I bought it for $2 million from a guy named Jerry Roth. And he was a horse breeder. He had a big house in Bedford, New York. He had like 30 stables, all these horses.

And his favorite horses were the Roan color. I never heard of this, Roan. It's a color of a horse. And so we called it Roan Capital. And my name is Ross, R.R. Everyone thought wrong was R.O., who's the A-N? You know, all these different things, people are funny. But it was just the name he picked because he was a horse breeder and he was a limited partner at Spearleads Kellogg.

And he tried opening a firm. He was no good. I had no personality for it. I opened up this firm. I brought in three young men that I knew and mentored, gave them each 9.9%. Gave my attorneys 9.9%. Bam. I had the hottest small new boutique brokerage firm in New York.

In less than 20 months, I make like $40 million, and I sell out. That's the first time I retired. I should have stayed retired. Because at that firm, a young woman walks in, and I said, I'm going to marry that girl. She was a dream come true. I never spoke to her yet. But she walks off the elevator. She's wearing a cat suit, one piece with a seven-down thing, built like nobody's business.

Five-foot-six, five-seven. She's wearing high-heel shoes. She looks like she's five, ten. 5-11, blue eyes that I saw from like 50 feet away, real blonde, built, curvy, the whole thing, and sweet as sugar. And so she worked for me. I hired her right away. She was, don't you want to know my name?

I said, you have one? She said, it's not important. She goes, who am I going to work for? I see, you're working for me. She goes, what am I going to do? I said, we'll figure it out. And so, you know, I like to say, you know, she worked for the boss. She slept with the boss, and now she's the boss.

All right. That's just the story of my life. Now I open a farm. You sold it. I meet my future wife. You sold it. I sold it to the partners. And then I parked my business.

I'm done. I got plenty of money. I'm cool. I'm clean. I met this young chick. I'm in love. I want to start a life with her. So a couple of my friends owned an investment.

I know everybody on the street. You understand? I was a real. I did Wall Street stone and drunk. And then I did Wall Street clean and married. So like I, you know, all the different pockets of, And so a couple of my friends bought an investment bank, had it in a big Manhattan co-op, a brownstone, right across the street from my co-op, where I lived, and I could actually

stare at the office from my window in the middle of Manhattan, beautiful area. And so I had a, when I sold the company, I had a 12-man team that just handled my business. And I was that bad, I had 12 guys just handling my business. And I wasn't selling my business. I just sold the firm. So I took my tall guys and parked them at this little brokerage firm called Thornwater. Okay, my friends owned it. And they basically did one IPO a year, made like $20 million, and then they just took off the rest of the year.

They would live to do one deal a year. Right. They would go out for lunch for three hours every day. They would drinkers and scar smokers and really like a type. So Stephanie and I travel to the country. We have all kinds of fun. We ended up getting engaged. and we get married in 1998.

My guys are at Thornwater, my 12 guys. I'm just really not working. And then one of my guys, my main guy who ran the group of 12, comes to me and says, listen, Ross, this is bullshit. We're working here. We're doing all the business, and we're giving half to these dopes that don't even come to work anymore.

Right. They do one deal a year, and they're living off our money. So let's just say my team does a million dollars a month. $500,000 goes to Stornwater. The problem is Stornwood only had like five people. And they didn't do anything. So he's like, why are we giving them all this money?

They don't do anything. And I said, well, you know, what do you want me to do? They said, we want you to do what you did at Rone Capital. We want you to buy a firm and we'll run your firm. I said, I don't want to do that anymore. I did it already. It's too much. This is a lot of work.

They said, well, we can't take this anymore. And they said, would you help me buy the firm, buy a firm? I thought about it good and hard because this guy's a little bit of a dope. He didn't have what it takes. He's an okay number two guy, number three guy, but he's not a, not a, you wouldn't want to be on a plane if he was the pilot, let me just say. And he, but I agreed. And I helped him. I got in the lawyers.

I structured the deal. I showed him how to raise the money. I helped him every step of the way. Of course, years later, the federal government says I secretly owned Thornwater. Right, right. Why would I secretly do it? I absolutely owned Rhone Capital. I'm transparent.

Why would I have to hide behind the scenes? At that point, all my issues were cleared up. I had no issues, none. Right. I was in perfect standing everywhere. Perfect credit. Rich, everything, did everything buy the book. Why would I secretly control Thornwood?

Right. Robert Grabowski owned Thornwood, a rant order, and cheated in customers and ended up doing all kinds of frauds. And then they blame me. So it was, what did I need to do this for? I'm a wealthy, retired type guy. The whole thing was disgusting and stupid. So, but I did the right thing to help the guy.

You helped the wrong guy and it comes back to bite you. That's the way it is. Because he did some very bad things, unbeknownst to me, I would never allow or approve it. And at trial, he even told, he said, I did this, Mandel didn't know anything about this. He cheated the widows and orphans fund from 9-11, stuff like that.

What kind of sleazy asshole? would do something like that. He's making tons of money and he's lying on forms and cheating and doing all kinds of bad stuff because he's petty-minded. He's stupid. He's small. I elevated him because he was attached to me. He did very well.

But the second he went on his own, he sunk to his own level. I can't explain it. So... That sounds like that does explain it. Yeah. I'm trying to be... But, you know, the government said not it was all Ross Mandel. Ross Mandel was retired and they made millions and was legit, but he was secretly doing these

stupid things. So you helped him, you said, okay, here's how you do it. He sets this thing up. Then these guys start running. They bring in extra people. They have you, but they're bringing in extra people. He raises, I showed him how to do it. I structured the deal for him. All I did was help, like a consultant. And I got paid a consulting fee. And he raised a million dollars initially, and he bought the firm that he was at from my guys, my friends, the guys He said, own the firm. Right. I paid them a million dollars.

Now he owned the firm. And then he raised another $2 million. I showed him how to do that. And he used that money to run the firm and to get into a bunch of deals. At that time, my interest was, this is the end of the 90s now. You remember the dot-com era. I don't know if he would. Yeah, I remember.

You remember, but he wouldn't remember it. You know, yeah. Basically, any company that had, they just started adding dot com to the end of their, this was in the internet, is just blowing up. And so everybody started coming up with these different schemes on how you're going to make tons of money on the internet or they were, you didn't even know what they're doing. They're just adding dot com to the name of their company and people are, well, there was a lot of fraud, but there was a lot of real companies.

Right, right? Like Amazon was a bookseller. Jeff Bezos raised a million dollars from 44 guys. Everyone said, no, it couldn't raise a million dollars and he started selling books online. So imagine the beginning of the internet, anything, and now all the frauds just came around. Because all these companies were going from zero. with no sales to, you know, worth a couple hundred million dollars. Right.

So the frauds has just said, you know, dot com, and they put that on the market. And that's the way the game is. I mean, when they invented the automobile, there was like 150 car companies. Right. How many survived? Yeah. Okay. It's the same thing with the die.

Any, any, any, this AI is now a big deal, right? AI is going to change the world, for real. As much as the Internet did, as much as the cell phone did, as much as the personal the computer did. I promise you, there's going to be four or five winners in AI. And there's going to be 50 people that go to zero. Right. That doesn't make it fraud or a scam.

It's just the natural order of things. Right. It's everybody, every hustling, you know, creator, inventor, ambitious guy is going to run in and is going to put a pony in that race. So there's tons of speculation. There's a huge bubble and boom, it bursts. Correct. And that's coming, by the way.

That's coming in this space. Everything is wool inflated right now. It's 1987 again, I'm just telling you. So remember I said that? Everybody, remember I said that? You heard it from Ross Mandel. Let's hope it's only 1987. It will be because there's no more free market.

The government is now running. Oh, you said they're just not going to let it be a complete collapse. No, in fact, you know, when the 0809 happened, and literally every bank went under, and it can give you people, if you want to get a great example, I'll give you staggering, staggering. You can understand. Citibank, at net worth of $50 billion. $1, Citibank's a major bank, right? One of the biggest banks in America,

and it's covered by every analyst, every brokerage firm itself. Even if they don't trade it and make a market in it, they cover it because it's a bank. It's a major bank. City Bank is worth big money. And on Friday,

a Friday, they were bailed out. They were given $50 billion was wired in by the United States Treasury. That was their bailout package. A lot of companies got $50 billion, by the way. They got $50 billion. This is Citibank.

The most widely scrutinized banks, everybody knows their name in the world. On Monday morning, Citibank was worth $20 billion. Whoa. Wait a minute. You said they just got $50 billion on Friday. They did. And the bank closed on Saturday and something. How could it be worth only $20 billion on Monday morning?

it was just a bad out that one flooded to go to pay back their bad assets you tell me it was worth minus 30 billion on Friday it was a bunch it was worth minus 30 billion everything was a scam all the numbers all the books were cooked AIG Citibank goldman sachs mortgage to every one of these banks and they indicted me right my company sky capital didn't need any cash from the government We had capital. Guess what? When I sold that company, it was capital aces. And the new buyers, after I left, put in 10 million fresh capital.

Okay. So why was I indicted? Listen. I got you. So we're going back. Okay. So now, Thornwater is now doing deals. We're doing quality deals.

So dot com, yeah. So I was the, I was banking a deal called TicketPlanet.com at Thornwater. I was a broker, and I was an investment banker. I was, that's what I really did. I didn't secretly own the firm. In fact, if I did, Dawnwater would still be around today, just so you know. And I was looking for deals to do because I had a lot of money.

I was stick. Now, with the love of my life, planning on a family and getting married and all these good things. And in fact, when Robert bought Thornwater in June of 98, that's the month I got married. That's the month I got married. And the month I bought a house for my wife. She wanted a house as a wedding present.

I bought her a house on the beach along that one. Nice present. Yeah. And so we start doing some deals. Real deals. We don't have to do shitty, scammy deals. But even real deals, not every deal works out. Right.

So back when the beginning of the end of the end of the end up began, there was a lot of, A lot of screaming and yelling in a good way, that you could now travel. You could go from the privacy of your home and book an entire trip, airfare, hotel, and never have to interact with the travel age or any human beings. It's called a booking engine.

And the first company that came out with a booking engine was called Travelocity. And the next one was, I can't think of the name, but it doesn't matter. I was the third company in the world with a booking engine. We took this company from $40,000 a month of business to $400,000 a month overnight. It was called Ticketplanet.com.

I bought an adventure travel company that did wholesale airfare prices because they were what they call it Consolidator. It's the whole thing. And I got to technology guys and we created a booking engine. It was only the third one on the internet. And we started to really grow this company. But I ran into a lot of problems. Why? Because the regulators were all over me. They were all over me because of this famous story that was written about me. March 14th, 1996, this is what changed my life. I was, I was, this is the, this is the, this is 1994. I come back now, sober. I'm killing it in business. Everybody wanted me. I'm at a firm. and I get a call from a guy named David Bleck.

David was the son of a rabbi. On his 30th birthday, Merck gave him a check for $300 million for a company that he found it at his mother's kitchen table in Brooklyn, New York. $300 million got him on the Forbes 400. Okay. He took that money. He also worked with Morty Davis. And David took what he learned from Morty, and he was a brilliant venture capital guy.

brilliant. He ceded 20 companies today that are on the New York Stock Exchange at a billion dollar companies. He created them. But then he handed him off to Wall Street. And he sat back and he watched how much everybody was making on Wall Street. And he was jealous and greedy and envious. He was probably worth three-quarters of a billion dollars at the time. And that's, that's when three-quarters of dollars was a lot of money back in the 90s. You know what I'm saying? I mean, today it's, you know, today they were in trillions. I mean, you know, it's crazy. And David wanted that Wall Street money, what they called the retail money.

And so he took a bunch of his money and just hired like a thousand brokers. And he picked me to basically run the whole thing. Okay. But he didn't have to listen to anybody. So what happened was I was with my 12 people. before I did a Roan Capital. This is part of my story I left out. Okay.

It's important that you hear this. And so I was running my group of 12 before Roan Capital, before I bought Roan Capital, running my business, doing like a million bucks a month. Okay. And I used to have to speak. I would sit with my 12 people and I would tell them what's happening in the market, what we're doing, what we're buying, what we're selling, and giving them updates on where our positions are, et cetera.

and I get everybody very motivated, that's who I am. I'm like a motivational coach in life and business and all that. And David comes to me. Now, we had Nobel Prize winners working at the firm, Lasker award winners, which is the Nobel Prize in chemistry, some of the biggest bankers, you know, ever, people that are in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times covered. And he comes to me, he says, listen, I need your help. I said, David, anything. He goes, I want you to speak at the morning meetings. We used to have two a week, like Monday and Thursday.

I said, what do you want me to say? He said, I want you to say, just like you speak to your 12 people, but I want you to speak to the whole firm. It's 1,500 people. Three different cities, everyone. We used to have these, these squawk, it's called the squawk box. Yeah. You know, like a speakerphone.

He goes, I want you to get everybody excited. I said, what do you mean? And he says, well, we're doing this deal. I want you to get everybody excited and hepped up. So we would have these meetings where the trading department would get on. David would speak. The Nobel Prize winners would speak our annulus. And at the end of the meeting, they wanted me to get on for five, 10, 50 minutes,

whatever the time was to speak. Like I speak to my 12 guys. And I said, all right, he goes, do me a favor. I said, okay. So we have this meeting. And then they said, well, Ross Bandel wants to say a few words. So I got up and I started doing my thing And I get all crazy

I was really excited about this deal And I went to everybody to get excited And apparently I got everybody very excited And the deal went up like 10 points And so after the meeting David, that was on a Thursday On Friday We had like a record date Thursday

And on Friday they called me in I'm like, well, what's going on? The whole board of that The company was run by a board With David David said We want you to we get every meeting.

I said, what do you want me to say? We want you just to say, we want you to do what you did. You got everybody very motivated, very excited. Everybody could feel your passion. Dave's like, I got excited. And I had a great day. He goes, and I'm already to say, come on, it's too much, you know. And he goes, we're going to give you $50,000 a month.

And I'm thinking, $50,000 a month to be a motivational speaker. At a place I'm already working at, I'm already making friggin, you know, Right. I'm taking home over half a million a month. And so he's 50,000. I'm thinking it's eight meetings I got to speak at. That's over $6,000. And I'm speaking for 10, 15 minutes. Yeah. I said you drive a hard bargain, David. But I'll do it. And so I did it. Eventually, he stopped, he lost his mind a little bit. The markets went against him. A lot of his deals. A lot of things happened with him person. It's a long story. But a couple of, he cheated a couple of brokers out of money. These brokers wanted to hurt David. So they, to tape all these meetings. They sent the tapes to the Wall Street Journal sort of like so they could expose David Black and what's

happening at D. Black. And the Wall Street Journal listened to all these tapes and after hearing them all, they was only interested in one person. Me. They wanted to have me

interviewed. And they wrote in the article. It's on the front page Wall Street Journal. The whole right column. And then when you open up the paper, two full pages, 5,250 words. I'll say it again, the biggest story in the history of the Wall Street Journal up to that time, which was the biggest selling paper in the world. I mean, what?

This is what really sort of launched my notoriety in all these things. It was just what an amazing person you were, right? Well, I was like the real life Gordon Gecko, according to the Wall Street Journal. according to Forbes, according to the newspapers in London. They said they got excited, listening to the tapes. I wanted it. They all got excited. I went out right then and bought them.

And they write this huge story. But then when they did some homework on me, they see that back in the 80s and early 90s. I've umpteen complaints, umpteen arbitrations. I've changed firms umpteen times. And it's because I was a drug addict and alcoholic. And I was very abrasive. And I was just, you know, doing what I. do. And I, you know, I was one of the biggest brokers at the time of retail brokers in the

country. And, you know, when you have thousands of customers, you're bound to have a bunch of disagreements. Right. And instead of curing them and saying, listen, Matthew, look, you told me to buy, my understanding was you gave me the order to buy 10,000 shares, and the stock didn't perform well. And now you're saying, I didn't give you full authorization. And we have this back and forth. I mean, there's a, this, let's just figure out how we can resolve this to everybody's interest. But you would tell me to buy it for real. I heard you, you know it. But I should have been more of a, I should have had tact, like what politicians have, like diplomats have. Instead, I said, bro, you gave me the order and you. Right. It's disgusting what you're doing. And then you would

say, well, fuck you. I'm going to sue you. And I say, sue me. I'll see you, I'll see an arbitration of five years. And guess what? At the arbitration, five years later, you said, remember you said, I'm going to see you five years. And I won mostly all the arbitrations. Right. And some I had to make settlements and all that kind of stuff. But it was pennies based on what I earned, but it was stupid. Right. Because it showed a pattern of abuse of abrasive behavior. But since I got clean, I never had one problem. Not one. Not one issue. My record was clean. Because I handled things like a gentleman. And sometimes I ate the bullet. You know, I made good. I said, let's work it out. You know, we could figure this out.

because, frankly, you were wrong anyway, and you know it. So you're willing to work it out rather than be saying, go, yourself. Doesn't go, like, so here's the thing. When Jordy Belfort, they likened me to Jordy Belford's case. When he, of course, he made a plea deal. He wore a wire. He gave them 50 cases. He went to 22.

He outright stole 100 million bucks plus and, et cetera. I did none of that. I didn't wear a wire. I fought like crazy. I maintain that I'm not guilty. When he got out of prison, he had 200 lawsuits against him. For less money, he was charged with less money. And he made a plea deal with his friends with the government.

I mean, you know, he did a lot of work for them. And they begged a lot of people because they were both innocent and guilty. With me, I get out of prison. Supposedly I stole $140 million, convicted of four. You know how many lawsuits I have? Zero. Zero. When you cheat people in America today, when you cheat people today, period, you get sued.

People see you even if they don't feel like they're not going to get money. They just sue you. I have zero. Zero. Because I didn't rob anybody. I didn't hurt anybody. And, you know, I speak into some people now that were formerly big clients. And they said, yeah, all the agents, one agent came and knocked on my door, called me six times.

I said, I know Ross Mandel. I'm a big boy. I'm a grown-up. We did business. It didn't work out. And none of them complained against me. Not one of my guys ever complained against me. Wouldn't come to the court.

He wouldn't come and testify against me. Okay. Yes, sir. You sold the company. You're now at the new company, right? The guy opened his own company. He's doing his whole thing, right? Right.

With thorn water. Yes. And so how's that moving forward? to Sky. Okay. So I'm watching Robert do things I don't like. And Robert starts throwing his weight around.

He goes, I own this company. Oh, yeah. Now he's a big shot. Yeah. And I don't like it. Yeah. It's not that I don't like my position because I'm wealthy and I don't give a fuck.

But I don't like what he's doing. And I see that he's going to blow up this whole thing and he's going to cause a lot of pain to people that worked for me. The only reason they stay with Robert is because they were my guys. Yeah. They came for me, and a lot of them left. But what happened was, I said, you know what, Robert, I asked him not to do certain things. I felt like he was committing fraud and being doing a few things, right?

I didn't know exactly what he was doing because it turns out he was doing it with a lawyer that worked for the firm who thought I was in charge. You know, that was his testimony. He was disbarred for 18 months, and the feds got him on wire saying that he did bad things with Robert, not with me. Right. And so I said, you know what, Robert? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to sell you my whole business. I'm out of here.

I'm out of here. He goes, what do you mean? I go, you know that book? He was paying me like, I don't know, $250,000 a month, whatever it was. I should keep it all. You give me $70,000 a month for one year. I'm out of your hair. I'm done.

He made that deal in two seconds. $70,000 a month. In court, they made it sound like it was an inside deal. And he benefited hugely. And as soon as I walked away from that, firm like this like a ski slope straight down right straight down and um so i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm at the beach collecting my money and the dot com crash happens march of 2000 so he goes under like the titanic well he's on his way down yeah it was a slow death because he was committing

fraud i wasn't even there and uh he was lying on all the capital sheets and all that um but i'm sitting there in my study at the beach house I bought for my wife when I get married and my little daughter I'm babysitting my little daughter uh the crash happened in March of 2000 she was born in February of 2000 she's like a month old and I'm I have CNBC on she's in a bassinet I'm just keeping an eye and I'm watching them parade person after person after person on CNBC talking about how this is just a quick downturn in the market and uh you should buy the dip and I'm like watching all he's guys being paraded, trying to get people to buy stocks at this point, thinking that this is just a little glitch.

And I'm like, does nobody understand what the fuck is happening? This is the end of the market as we know it right now. This is a correction, which is very healthy. I learned my lesson from 87. I'll never ever sit back during another downturn. Where there's violence, there's opportunity. I live on that. If I, I want to have someone pay me a mural one day.

Where there's violence, there's opportunity. All you have to do is look. And that segues into my story later. But I'm going to stay linear. I'm going to stay, you know, with the dates. He's very strict, everybody. I mean, I've been on many podcasts. Nobody knows how to run a podcast like this guy.

It's not Matt. That's very strict. Yeah. It's the comments. Yeah, the comments will be like, I can't follow this guy's story. He can't tell the story straight. Did you guys hear this?

Jumping all around. Do you guys see how considerate he is? I mean, I'm, you know. What? You have to read my own comments. I love it. I love it. All right.

So this is great. Throwing me off. So I sit there. I'm getting frustrated listening to these morons on TV. And I'm looking at my little baby and I'm playing with my finger and I say, you know what, I'm going to do something. And I take out a pad. This is how I operate. And I sketch something out.

It's an old habit. And I call up a lawyer, I know. And I said, Rick, I want you to do something for me. Anything, Ross. What can I do? I said, I'm going into business again. It was, what are you going to do? I said, take out of pad.

I said, I'm going to call this company Sky Capital after my little baby. Her name is Skyler. Okay. And I'm going to create an entity. I'm going to bring in the top guys I know on Wall Street. And we're going to form a broker-dealer. And I'm going to take a space on Wall Street. It'll be a Wall Street broker-dealer.

Okay. And then I'm going to buy a firm in London. I'm going to take it public on either the NASDAQ or stock exchange in London. He's like, first of all, first of all, you're never going to get the name Sky Capital. It's a waste of time. Okay. I said, what do you mean? You think there's no Sky Capital?

There's probably six of one. like Sky Capital. I said, Rick, I just got a feeling. Do me a favor. I want you to check. He goes, secondly, this is going to cost a lot of money. I said, Rick, I've been toying with the numbers right now. I feel like I need $9 million. That's a lot of money. I said, I did the firm. I did Rhone back in 95, cost me $2 million out of pocket. It's going to cost $9 million. And here's what we're going to do. I'm going to issue myself. Sky is going to issue me 7 million shares. It's going to issue another 7 million chairs of which I'm going to sell 6 million, and I'm going to give a million away. That's how I'm going to attract all my talent. And then we're going to sell 2 million

to the public and take that public. And I'm going to use this entity to buy a bank over there or to fund the bank over there. He goes, where is this coming from? I said, do me your favor check and see if we can get sky capital before we do anything so he calls me back like a half hour later he says you're not going to believe this i said why he goes we got sky capital he goes it's unbelievable i already served i saved the name dot com dot net that org all these different things and skycapital dot com i tried to get it forget it they want a million dollars for the name i said how could they not be a sky capital but there's skycapital dot com is taken he says well you ever go to the airport i said come on you know i travel all

the whole time. He goes, you ever hear of the skycaps, the guys that take your luggage, they have a union. Skycap.com, they have Skycapital, they have all of it. I said, okay, eventually I bought it for them. What did you pay for that? A lot of money. Okay. It was a lot of money. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. I'm not, it was a lot of money. Okay. So I remember, it took me a while to swallow that pill. But I really want to SkyCapital.com. So I have Sky Capital. I form Sky Capital Holdings, Sky Capital, LLC, Sky Capital, UK, every single was Sky Capital in the world. There's a great story involved with this.

Later on, I'm jumping. I go public in London. And right before the offering, I get a call for my attorney. He goes, are you sitting down? I said, I'm sitting down. He goes, you're about to get sued by Rupert Murdoch. I said, what?

Rupert Murdoch from Fox? He goes, he owns Fox. He also owns Sky Broadcasting. Sky Channel. It's the biggest broadcast. Next to the BBC. it's the biggest media company in London. Okay.

What's the wrong with that? All right. And he says, you're infringing on his, what's the word? Not as, on his goodwill. So goodwill is a word called goodwill, right? You guys would think it's just goodwill. But it's an accounting term. It's actually on a balance sheet.

Goodwill means it has value. Yeah, yeah. It's a percentage. It can be added into a percentage of whatever your company has a certain amount of goodwill just because it's been around so long. Right, because it's a brand. Good reputation. He has a tremendous,

and he says, you're going public using his name. And you did this on purpose. And you're deceiving a lot of people in the UK, they all think you're involved with me. And if he finally had like a 115-page lawsuit. I wouldn't want to be involved with. And I said, and he goes, why did you pick that name?

So I get on the phone with my English lawyers and my solicitors and my Washington lawyers, my New York lawyers. And I say, my daughter's name Skyler we call us Sky she was one month old when I started this process

they said can you prove that I got a birth certificate I literally had to produce the birth certificate right when I produced a verse certificate with the story Rupert Murdoch fired his entire law firm every one of the lawyers and he went against them for negligence

it's a famous thing he sued them all because of what they did to him and they embarrassed him worse. I now, everybody thought he was my partner. That Sky Capital was part of the Sky, Sky Broadcasting and all that stuff. Sky B2B. There's a million Sky companies under his name,

but I grabbed a ton of them. Right. And I grabbed a ton of them in the UK too. It wasn't lost on me. Right. You know what he said. I didn't read, but the truth is I did it because of my daughter. I didn't even think about him. Yeah, yeah. That probably entered the picture later once you start at some point you had to realize there are these

other companies, but that's got nothing to do with me. Right. Then I remembered when I was in, you know, spent a lot of time in England and I used to turn on TV on it sky everywhere sky everything and a lot of people did think I was connected to him Rupert Murdoch R.M. Ross Vandale R.M. It's their fault. R.M. R.M. R.M., is there a connection? I am trying to work with you, bro. I love it. Okay. I love it. So, uh, I, uh, I, I, I, I, I take an office. I take 12,000 square feet at 110 Wall Street. And, um, I start to raise some money. I put up some money.

and then I go to raise some money and I told the guys my plan guys that worked for me at Thornwater guys around the street and that people laughed at me they laughed at me they said bro good luck good luck we really we wish you the best of luck

and they said you know we'll think about it this and that but I was told that they were all laughing at me right they got making jokes on my he so desperate look this and that you know he made a mistake he walked away from Thornwater, I gave up all this production, all this money, and now he's up. And so I took this big office. I hired one lady, this girl, Mary Rivera, Mary, what's shaking, baby.

And, you know, Puerto Rican girl. And I started, I put up money, I started raising money, and I started bringing real talent. And the stock market is going like this every day. And I have this fresh story, this big, beautiful space. and I'm bringing real talent is coming in. And all the guys at Thornwater that laughed at me now start coming around and saying,

listen, bro, can I get in? How do I get in yet? Because they had a shitty little office at 44 Wall Street. Robert was destroying everything. And the market was just getting crushed. Remember, I started it because my proposition was you were in a real bare market,

a severe downturn. And it was even worse than I postulated. But I said, I'm going to go into this business. I'm going to raise a bunch of money. I'm going to get my Bredi license, and I'm going to buy assets from the bombed out stockbroking sector for $0.5.5 on the dollar. And I did all those. I bought nine firms. But I didn't buy the firms.

I bought the assets. I bought trading desks. I bought contracts from different traders, bankers, arbitrage, au revoir, ters, bond guys, stock guys, all this and that. And I put together a monster team. And at some point, every guy from Thornwater wanted to come work with me. and I found that some of the guys that really made the biggest jokes and I said sorry

all right and I said sorry I didn't get the joke then and so you know and I filled it up pretty quickly of course the government came up with this theory that I had planned the whole thing from the get-go

that I somehow destroyed thorn water which was doing like 25 million a year and I took a haircut from getting three four hundred $40,000 a month to getting $70,000 a month and went started this whole big thing with the idea that I was going to buy Thornwater, which I refused to buy because I knew Robert was committing some kind of fraud up there and doing some bad things. Right.

You don't want to take out for his liability. But I knew a lot of the customers over there. They were my former customers. I didn't want them to get hurt. So I made sure they all had a home. So it looked like he went under because the market was going like the market went, was getting crushed. This was when Amazon, the Amazon.

Amazon, you guys know, went from $330 to three in 45 days to three. The biggest company in the world, WorldCom, biggest company in the world, biggest company in the world, biggest company, went to zero fraud. The fourth biggest company in America, the biggest trading company in the world, energy trading company in the world, Enron, zero fraud. Lucent Technologies, a bell company, bell to A plus, rated. 82 to zero. Fraud. Do you know Walt Pavlo? I do know all very well. He's written 15 stories about me. And just so you know, his birthday was yesterday. Oh, was it? Yeah. Okay.

And just if you speak to Walt, he'll tell you he built his whole reputation and his whole column on me. He's written two stories on me. Yeah. Two or three, two or three on the Forbes. He called me up when I was going through my, uh, motion practice. I went to trial. We had motion practice for a long time. And Wall came to my trial every day. And he called me up one day. Everybody's calling me. Every newspaper, you know, I've been in all the newspapers. I've been on the front page of all the newspapers. And this guy calls me up. He goes, my name's Will Pavlo. I got your number from a guy I met in Starbucks who worked in your fight league. I owned a big fight company in Tampa. Tampa, by the way,

here. We used to throw fights at John Prisco. We owned, I forget the name of it now. I bought, and I rehabbed at least to throw fights where the Tampa Lightning play. We did 12 fights. I got them on TV, the TV contract, a Mark Cuban cable channel and all that. They gave us a million to. I mean, we, I was, I just remember this. I used to say it the hard rock because the the Seminoles owned at Hard Rock, and Kevin Winn, Kevin, what shaken baby, was the chief's personal attorney, and he came to work for me and all this, and worked for this fight league. So if you, if you Google me, you'll see a lot of stuff attached to fight. You should Google Ross Mandel facing life, and Ross Mandel, welcome to my world, and a lot of

the things we're talking about today are substantiated. So Sky Capital, you opened it, it's doing great, it's kicking ass, you got everybody in. I actually open it. I'm buying up everything. You stepped on the throats of a few guys that had bad balance. Just like I proposed in my private placement document, I'm going to buy a UK bank or stockbroker's firm. Which one did you buy? Well, I made some calls, and they wouldn't even get on the phone with me.

They wouldn't give me a meeting. I said, what do you mean? So one guy finally gets on the phone, nasty as a shitty little firm. And I heard rumors that he was for sale because I remember, everybody. who's getting murdered, the market's toast. I mean, it's gone down now straight for a year straight. And I'll tell you what happens. I want you to wire 10 million pounds into my lawyer's escrow account. Then I'll take the meeting. I need to know you for real. I said, go fuck yourself. It's going to come back now. So now I get approved finally by FINRA, by what used to be

is FINRA now used to be the NSA. They turned me down initially. I have to hide. the biggest lawyer in all of Washington, D.C. in the regulatory world, and I get approved after hearing and all these different things. And what happened was March of 2000 is when I start. The market's getting... And then it just starts to settle down for a minute. And there's some activity, and bam! Trops out completely. 9-11. Oh, right. 2001. Bam! Right. That's the, like, the middle of the, then close the skies over America for a week. They shut down the stock market for a week. In two world wars, that never happened.

Meanwhile, I own this TicketPlanet.com. We're doing a million a week, and I have all these airfares sold, and boom, they shut down the skies, and everybody wants a refund. There goes Ticket Planet. Now I have to put it into bankruptcy. Okay, but that's a side story. Then all the, all the, uh... There's no IPOs on either side of the Atlantic between New York and London.

And just as it's starting to hear, bam, the market's finished. They almost destroyed the whole stock market. The market survived. One cable was not destroyed. One cable. They never even had like a fallback spot. Now they have all kinds of contingency plans and all that if something happens. There's a, there's a center that clones everything on the big board in NASDAQ in New Jersey.

And every firm has to have. have these conditions. Then there was no, no one, who would ever have seen something like that. Right. And so now, the market's crushed again. But worse than ever, no one knows what's happening. Are we at war? They shut down. There's no power in Lower Manhattan. I had just received $2 million of network equipment from Dell, their latest stuff. Remember, I had this big space. I'm building my company. I had the money. And now nobody has anything in Lower Manhattan. They have big giant military trucks to provide power and stuff. And meanwhile, I have people offer me $50,000 a month just to they get tap into my backup generators and all these things because I had a big plan.

And you need a big network to achieve that. Today, everything's in the cloud. You don't need any of that stuff. But this is, you know, how things go change. So now I want to go public with my little company. But I want to buy a broker-dealer first in London. I can't get a meeting. Can't even get a meeting.

So I hire a, I have a couple of guys. Remember, I was doing nothing but representing foreign money at this point. So nobody understood my Rolodex was crazy. They don't use Rolodex anymore. My family laughs at me when I use that. My contacts. So I had a member of parliament. Half the House of Lords were investing with me over time.

I'm in everybody. And so I went over there and I convinced two very smart men to take me public. Well, how do you take you public? In London. Yeah, but you said you haven't bought. You were going to buy a bank or... Right, but I couldn't even get a meeting.

So you don't even... That doesn't happen. You just go public in London. So I say, I'm going to go public there first. Then I watch what happens. Watch how the sheep come to Papa. Okay. Because then they know you're serious.

You've got a ton of cash. And hey... Nobody's gone public in two years. Right. No one's gone public since March of 2000. Anywhere. So now with this... fat, loud-mouthed Jew is going to come over here

and he's going to do a deal. It's never been done. In fact, they kept saying it can't be done. Like the four-minute mile, I used that. I was in a meeting with the top law firm, and I said, is it never been done? Or it can't be done. It's two different things.

I said, what do you mean? I said, the four-minute mile, never heard of that? They said it couldn't be done for a thousand years. Guess what? As soon as somebody did it, everybody does it now. Oh, wow, a young man, we advise you to go back to the airport. And just forget this whole plan. Well, I didn't.

I gave that law firm zero business. Nicholson Graham and Jones, I was paying these guys a half a million dollars a month for five years. So, fuck you. So they were at the top of Tower 42. So I pull off a deal. I go public in London.

My stock's up 25%, 28% the first day. There's been no deal. Let alone the deal, that's so profitable. It was so oversold, we had to return money. So for every dollar you wanted to buy, we returned 40 cents to you. That made people want to buy more. And so they started buying it on the market, and the stock was going up, up, up. It was so successful, I get a call.

The stock exchange booked you for nine minutes on national television. I said, what? they said you had a great day you had a historical day we want you to go on the show and tell the country how you did what a public for one day right and uh it's a famous clip my guys post now on instagram stories and tick to all these different things and uh i was uh on bloomberg TV and the BBC on CEO on the hot seat national television for nine minutes and I didn't realize this I thought they were going to try and you know mess with me yeah they did the opposite they made me to be like a savior and they put up a big graph on the wall like this straight up but it was

so misleading I'm only public one day yeah yeah but they wanted the they wanted to use me to show the investing public in the UK, the markets are back open. Yeah, it's a feel-good story. Right. The dot-com crash, 9-11, it's over. This guy is here. He's making it happen, and the markets, it's safe, come back in, buy stock. They don't, they don't mention the old complaints, the drug addiction, the Forbes article. They did bring that. Oh, they did. They made it deal with the producers that they would stay away from that. Oh, okay. And the first question. So let me ask you, Mr. Mando. It's been reported in the Wall Street Journal, amongst other top papers that you're, uh, you're a

addict. So how could the British public put his trust in you? And I said, you know, I didn't know what to say because we had agreed

that that was off limits. Right. That's how trust worthy of the media is. And I came up, I just said, look, a lot of people have colorful pasts, myself, especially so.

But I think what people are more interested in, what's happening today, where are we going? What's the future? Who's leading in this industry? And it was a great answer, apparently, and they liked it, and everybody started buying my stock, and it was going higher and higher. But they used me to get, just like in 1996, how the Wall Street Journal and the government used me to indict the regulatory system by making that huge article on me, 5,250 words, citing every complaint I had, citing all these other bad brokers, none of which I knew

were involved with that all get kicked out of the industry showing how the industry is not policing itself, et cetera. How could I still be in business? And now they're using me in England to promote the capital markets. Like, it's an amazing thing that I accomplished. And I did. Okay. So needless to say, even though I'm sober, my boys are not sober. And we went out and we partied that night and I don't drink. I don't, I never had a drink in England. I used to go there all the time. Never did a drug. and one day I would like to do that but sorry guys but that's how I feel

and we had like an all night guys were out I eventually went home because I was tired and I was sober and it gets boring when you're not when I use it's in a box so but it's like weird okay but do not disturb on my phone

and I go to bed feeling pretty great pretty great phone starts ringing like crazy nine in the morning I'm like what I it's Mr. Mandel, it's the whole Porter, whole port is like the concierge in Europe

I have it do not disturb on my phone Mr. Mandel I know I know I know and I'm so sorry sir I know you had a big day yesterday and um but there's some gentlemen here to see you now right away I'm scared am I in trouble I just went from being like a hero what's what's happening here who's here to see me they said I said am I in trouble

they said no Mr. Mandel, in fact, frankly, it's the opposite. I wouldn't bother you, except I think you want to come down here and meet these people. I said, how many people are there? He goes, sir, there's quite a few. I'm like, what the fuck? I throw a suit on.

I never forget. I didn't even take a shower. I was debating. I was just so nervous. I put water on my hair. I just put a suit on. I go downstairs. Four of the brokerage firms slash banks that told me to fuck off. All show up at the Dorchester Hotel two days after I'm public the night, the morning after I'm on TV that night. And they said, Mr. Mandel, congratulations, son, a job well done.

We just wanted to, you know, sit down and talk, chat with you about your request. I said, what request? They said, well, you know, we all saw the news last night. You know, you mentioned that you're interested in buying a brokerage from our bank. And I'm like, hot damn, this is crazy. Right. This is crazy. And the guy shows up from this bank that I was the shittiest of them all.

The one of the 10 million pounds. Who told me he wants 10 million pounds or I should fuck off. Right. I said, you know, I should tell you to fuck off right at the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel. And he was like, he felt like this big. You sort of told him, put the 10, where's my 10 million? You want a meeting? Where's my 10 million?

Yeah, you know. He almost gave me his firm for free Just, you know He was so desperate to get out But meanwhile This is why he's a bad business guy I'm a legit buyer With plenty of money and pull

Over there in New York And you're disrespectful And he don't even want to take the A meeting You know, now you're on the balls of your ass And your ego's so big You don't even, what? I mean, I never understood

people like this guy But it was very interesting And then So I was going from thing to think to thing and then a couple of lords called me up and said, listen, we have a deal for you. You know, and I made all these guys money in the deal. These guys were all my comp.

I gave them stock for 50 cents to the most anyone ever paid was $1.50. And that first day, the stock closed at almost $5. And it was liquid like to see. Buy, sell, whatever you want to do. If you want to buy a lot, stock went out of, it was too high. There was too much demand.

Nobody really wanted to sell. But if you wanted to sell, there were buys everywhere and all that. And so I end up buying a company called Everett Financial, which was a, at a bank, full banking license, full member of the London Stock Exchange in a place called Wandsworth, which is right over the River Thames. And this little business had done 500 million pounds in revenue the year before I bought them. They had 100,000 active accounts. Okay.

And I think I paid about $102 million for them. I gave them 20 million shares on my stock. And I gave them all jobs. And they ended up selling all the stock, getting the $100 million, and they all worked for me for a couple of years. And now I had completed what I sketched out on a pad with my attorney, Rick Gruda, that I, sitting in the room that day. Right.

And it was hugely successful. and then I went ahead and introduced the first pipe transactions in the U.K. A pipe transaction is, pipe is an acronym for a private investment in public equity. Never been done in London. And it was a piece of financial engineering, which was very sophisticated even in America. But like I told you, the greatest money, the greatest wealth is accumulated not through innovation, but to imitation. You take something that works

and you bring it somewhere they don't have it. They didn't have any of this financial engineering in London. And it was very racy and the United States government eventually I found out much later. This is what they basically convicted me of

manipulating the London Stock Exchange while I was in London with UK investors. And it's the craziest thing out because the London Stock Exchange came to my trial and said there was no manipulation. They didn't commit any violations. But a couple of prosecutors in Lower Manhattan

decided that I committed these violations while I was in London. They knew nothing about the stock market. They proved nothing at trial and a bunch of out-of-work people that were on the panel that said, three of them couldn't even speak English, but the judge said they understood it,

even though they couldn't speak it. Because when they were able to tell him that they don't speak any English, but they understood him. him when he said, okay, but you still understand it, don't you? They're just nodding the head. They'd no idea. It was this scariest, craziest thing of you ever saw when you liked my trial.

And every newspaper was there. Walt Pablo was there every day. And they all reported that this is a, it's like a comedy. Every single guy they get up on the stand to testify on course examination had to admit that they lied. So how do we get to that point? Okay. How do you get to that point?

So now I have Sky. holdings, and I have a brokerage firm and a bank in London, in New York, and I'm expanding, open up a trading operation in New Jersey, an office in California. We have this huge office. I made a lot of friends on my way up, and the biggest market maker in the world gave me 30,000 square feet in the heart of the city of London, the most expensive real estate on earth, for nothing. He had sold this firm and he had this space

who didn't need it. I just paid the taxes on it what they called the rates. So I had 30,000 square feet prime space in London. I had a license to open up anywhere in the EU on notification basis, not application basis, meaning I don't have to apply. Yeah, just open up. I'm going to be here next week. Open up a bank in 30 countries. Right.

And that alone was worth more than everything I did. It doesn't exist anymore. Today you have to apply for it. And every application is one or two million. It takes months or a year. You got to pay off people depending on the country. It's a nightmare. I had this grandfathered in, the last, the last notification only that the EU ever granted. And so, life is good. The second you open up a bank or a brokerage firm, every deal guy in the world shows up on your doorstep. I got a deal for you. You got all these brokers, you got all these markets you make. I got a deal for you. I want you to look at my company. I got this. I got

That's why I started looking at everybody's deals. People were flying from all over the world and come to my waiting area. They wanted to work for me. Like what you saw in the Wolf of Wall Street when it was that one story in Forbes. Yeah. I have a hundred stories written about me. I'm in every newspaper magazine. I'm on TV.

I'm on CNBC, CNN, MSM, everywhere. Everybody, I did a tour eventually because people wanted to see what I had accomplished who I was on to come up, all these different things. and I started to look at all these deals because I did have all this muscle and it was time to do some deals and everything I saw was like shit and I said you know what I back when

Robert ran Thornwood and I was banking I came up with great deals great deals and so I said all right I'm going to start a fund because I could and I'm going to do my own deals What do I need somebody else for?

I have, at some point I had, at some point in 2005, I believe, I had 4,100 people on my payroll. I had fixed costs of $3.2 million a month, never missed a payroll. That's fixed. Some months, we were paying out $10, $12 million, because we're paying commissions too. That was variable. But my fixed costs were $3.2 million. And I had a big operation. and so I raise

I think 30 million and then I raised close to a billion dollars I bought eight companies I'm moving through the story a little quickly when it's the Homeland Security business I bought a publishing company in England I bought a medical device company

I bought five to six I forget how many Homeland Security companies here in America and put them under one umbrella and the idea was to provide because of what happened after 9-11. I had a congressman. I had a senator. I had two members of the United States cabinet and presidential appointees here in America.

If you watch American greed, it shows a list of a lot of these guys you're going to be blown away with who was working for me. Police Commission of New York. Number two guy at home hand security who's probably going to be head of home went security under Trump if he wins Tom Homan. And I was just killing it.

Forbes wrote a great story about me. In the magazine, in 05, a big pictorial, I agreed to do this interview only because they're going to put me on the cover of the magazine. That, to me, is like, that would have been the peak. And we did a photo shoot and everything, and it was good. And then a week before it was supposed to come out, they called me up and apologized to me. they said you probably know this but Bill Gates just stepped down as the head of Microsoft right and we now have what's his name yeah the new guy yeah the new guy and he's agreed to do

so we have to put him on the gift we put him on the cover yeah but we owe you on so they did a big pictorial in the magazine and um that's when i believe the target was placed on me when i did that a story because it says right oh i just made 45 million dollars in this deal which was true and, you know, all these different things about it was, the story was, Ross Mandel's back with a flare, buying politicians and selling stock. All true. Doesn't sound good. It doesn't sound good.

That was the point of the story. And then something really fascinating happened. After my fund went public, I want you to hear the highlights of my life. You read the low lights in, um, In October of 04, after my funding on public in March, I was a CEO of two public companies, which I didn't know at the time, got the ire of the SEC,

the Department of Justice, and the U.S., how could you be running two public companies in London and you live in Florida and you have a place in New York and you're out on the beach on Long Island, all these different things. You know, a lot of jealousy and stuff like that. And I was invited to speak in Parliament. And the House of Lords.

It's an American greed. Begrudgingly, they talk about it. The richest guys in the UK say, you know, I've been a multi-millionaire for years. He goes, I've never been invited to Parliament until Ross Vendell invited me. And I spoke in Parliament, and there's some rules. There's protocol. So the first protocol is it's going to be during the day, we're going to allow you to invite 125 of your closest friends, family and associates, clients.

How big is that, Rome? What do you hear the story? 125 people, but there will have to be vetted by security. Who knew? We put in a list and find out there was a couple of arms deals on there, you know, a couple of mafia. We didn't know. We're just, were they brokers, you know?

But I allowed each broker to invite a certain amount of people because it was good for business, obviously. And, of course, all the lords were there. So I was invited to speak in the House of Lords, much like America, their Congress is a House of Commons, which is like equivalent to a House of Representatives, their United States Senate is the House of Lords. They still have an aristocracy, you know, a king and a queen and princes and all that stuff. It's a different sort of government. And so October of 2004, I speak at the House of Lords. They say, you can invite 125 people. There'll be food,

a buffet, and of course, drinks, but there'll be no tables and no chairs. what are you talking about i said i don't understand there's going to be nowhere to sit and no tables but you're going to provide food and drink yep well how are they going to eat standing up uncomfortably the first time you appear in the house of parliament that's what you get take it a leave it like of course we accept it we go and i speak i spoke for about an hour

I get a standing ovation. People are screaming in the middle of my speech. I'm buying 10,000 shares of Sky Capital. I'm calling my broker right now. Now, a whole bunch of these lords, a whole bunch of these lords were clients of ours and we're friends over time, you know. Good guy, there's guys.

And I was making a lot of people out of money. Right. And so it's very popular. And they were buying the stock. They were calling it in America. That's freaking grossly illegal. But this is their country and they run the country. And so I get like a stay in the ovation.

But, you know, like you, I'm full of myself. And I thought I did great. But they're very polite over there. And they never tell you what they really feel. But they have like a receiving line, right? And everybody got to come by and shake my hand and all the different laws, this and that. But at the end, the very last person is this old woman. And she's been running the parliament, the House of Parliament.

She's responsible for the whole thing. and she's been doing it for like 50 years. She's like a 70-year-old lady, 75-year-old lady. Lovely, you know. And she comes to the, I come to the end. I can't wait. I just want to hang out with all these guys and say hi, but we all have to shake hands with everybody.

It's like, at a wedding. I'm like the groom. And she says to me, Mr. Mandel, that was, that was. Well, I have to say, I've been here 50 years. That was like, we've never had anybody like you. Because I'm like this authentic, really different type of cat, right? And so, but they're so polite, I figured, you know, okay, it doesn't matter what happened, they would feel that way.

So it's amazing. It's on TV there. I'm in all the newspaper. Two days later, they send a bunch of guys, you know, the famous guards that stand outside the castle there. Yeah. And people go like this and they don't move and they have the giant hats and the red coats. Yeah. I forget what they call them.

Yeah, yeah. Two of those guys come up. watching into the Dorchester hall lobby. Well, I'm holding court in my spot. And the Dorchester Hotel is a very famous spot. They say that more deals get done every day in the Dorchester Hotel. They get done anywhere else in the world. And I can confirm that.

Right. It's the truth. Wild. It's one acre under the most magnificent setting. Now it's owned by the Arabs. But I'll say this to you. So they come in and I'm sitting with one of my guys, his name is Tom McMillan, Charles Thomas McMillan, University of Maryland,

six foot 11 and a half, all-American, youngest man, youngest person in history, youngest athlete in his day on the cover of Sports Illustrator magazine, first round draft pick, played in the NBA 11 years. He's a Rhodes Scholar, so he's going to Oxford while he's playing in the NBA in the summers. His roommate is Bill Clinton. Okay.

William Jefferson Clinton, was his room. mate. So there's a swing on that. But Tommy six, so these two guards come in and they're asking for Ross Mandel. So Tommy stands up, 6.11 and a half, like 260, even though he's older and everything, but he's a big boy. So what's this about? He was, we're here on the business of the parliament, you know, the British parliament. They said, it's Mr. Mandel here. I said, all right, I'm here. and they hand me this like gold plate and this envelope and they asked me to open it while I'm there. So I open it up.

It's very fancy. And I was invited back to address both houses of Parliament now. On May Day of 05, I want you to remember this. May 5th of 05, I was speaking immediately following the queen. the Queen of England who recently passed away. I never knew any of these things. Every spring session, what they call May Day,

she comes down and she opens up both houses of Parliament for the spring session. And then after she opens up Parliament, they all go to the races with the great hats, you know, and the great outfits. I had to buy like two tables for like 50 grand each of hundred grand I spent that day. But, so I'm invited now back to Parliament for my second time.

But now it's both houses of Parliament, House of Commons, House of Lords, following the Queen of England. Do you get to invite guests? Now I get to invite 250 guests. Chairs and tables. Now we get chairs and tables and full waiter service. Nice. That's what I said.

And this is big time now, right? Now I have food people in from America. I hired a PR firm to handle things, all these different things. But I said, what happens if I get invited back a third time? They said, ah, Mr. Mandel, now you're talking. I said, tell me, now you get the Saturday night ballroom. You can have 500 guests, black tie, full dinner, the whole thing. Following that, you'll be knighted by the queen.

Oh, my God. They said, what? Nice. Yeah, and I tell you what, I'm looking into the camera right now. I'm coming back for that. It doesn't matter if you have a break of 15 years or 20 years. If I get invited back one more time, and it's my intention, I want you all to know that. I would like to be knighted by the queen, really the king now, because we have a king,

and I'm going to do everything in my power, and things are already in motion. You're working on it right now. That I can't talk about. Yes, they're already in play, just so you know. And it was the highlight of my life, and so I brought in a bunch of people, they opened up for me because now it was like a whole big day there we had many more hours and I got to meet the queen and I'm in what we like we called the green room it's like an ante room so she goes out and I'm figuring out right I got to get 20 minutes a half hour she goes

out and she comes back in less than a minute she was mr. madame I'm exhausted I trust that when you're capable hands and I'm like what I wish there was a witness to that you know I mean, it was an unbelievable thing, but they took pictures. You can't have cell phones or anything because it's security. There was a photographer, a house photographer that handled all that. And right before I spoke, and they built a dais for me, and I stood up on a platform with a microphone, all these different things. And that was on the River Thames, and I closed my eyes, and I thank God.

And it was a real moment for me of humility. and I had something come over me like this is going to be the biggest moment of my life, of my business life. And it happened just like that, because after that, things started to happen that I didn't understand. And that's because in the behind the machinations of the government, they started to very quietly come after me without me knowing.

And this went off for, you know, more than a year. Subpoenaing bank records, stuff like that. What sparked that? I can tell you exactly what they say. I have my own belief, but I can tell you what the actual record would show because, you know, I went to trial. Right. Unless you go to trial, you don't see the evidence. They have to, you know, under the rules of discovery, provide certain evidence to you because you go into trial.

And they, that's all sketchy too. But, you know, they were forced to turn over this evidence that they don't want to turn over because it shows mostly the good, bad. ugly. Of course, they withhold a lot of evidence that would make me, you know, there were words for it, but make me look better. And they've now admitted that they withheld evidence. But put that aside for a minute. I had a guy that worked for me, that not worked for Robert at Thornwater that left in the middle of night and stole all the custom clients, customer accounts. And we sued him and all that. But he just opened up a shop in New Jersey and just started calling and hiring brokers and acting like he was a broker.

But he was completely unregulated, completely unlicensed. It was just complete fraud. All right. His name was Mario Figueroa, Herveh, H-E-R-V-E, Mario Figueroa from New Jersey. Chris Christie, you know, Chris Christie who became the governor, he was the attorney general. Chris Christie said he was the most important witness in the history of New Jersey. Okay.

Mario was a fat, overweight, a glutton, for food, glutton for women, glutton for gambling. Every single, one of the seven deadly sins, Mario was like on steroids, yeah. And gambling and borrowing money and getting in trouble and all these different things. He was an effective broker, but he left, he stole all the documents, and it opened up his own shop. In a multi-jurisdictional investigation, they came in, raided his place, and took everybody, Locked everybody up, but him especially, he robs, they say, $52 million. Okay.

He claimed he was a broker, a broker dealer, completely unlicensed, Scotland Yard, Interpol, the United States government, the Royal Canadian Rocking, the Canadian Mountains, the Royal Canadian Mounties, whatever they call them, the Mounties. They all was like eight, eight different law enforcement agencies. They robbed everybody and just took the money, and they said, you're facing 30 years. You've got to give us some information. And he set up, you know, to show the Sopranos. Yeah.

They were real life Jersey family. He put them all the way for life. Okay. This guy, Mario. In case you guys want to know who did it, it was Mario Figueroa and Chris Christie. And basically, he started giving evidence that everybody and everybody. He was a gamble. I remember a loan sharking and extortion, and he was doing mafia deals, all these different things.

And drugs. How to, and your name? He worked for Thornwater. And so he had a guy who was a childhood friend. who he introduced to me and to the guys at Sky Capital. Mario never worked at Sky Capital, never knew anything about it. But he knew this guy, Philip Akell, who's on American Greed, admitting he wore a Y and he ratted everybody out

because he felt like he was going to do the right thing. It's because he sold to an FBI agent who was undercover. And the FBI agent was undercover because Mario said, I'm pretty sure my childhood friend is a bad dude and he's doing bad things which he was not at the time except he had a drug problem

and he cheated on his wife with escorts and things of that nature but he was a pretty honest guy he never had a complaint he had a clean record and this guy Mario hung out with him once a week or twice a week for nine months

and the whole time he kept saying Ross Mendell doesn't do anything wrong Sky Capital is completely religious We've, bro, we're legit as for nothing. If we found that one thing, this is all on tape, audio and video, and then Mario is crying in the blues saying, listen, we've been friends' childhood, the feds got me, they took everything. I lost my wife. I lost my house, lost all my money.

He was, but I withheld a few whales, a few big investors, and I know you guys do deals. Do me a favor. I'll give you my guys, put him in some of these deals and kick me back half the money. That's illegal. Okay. It's really not illegal. It's an industry offense. It's like a violation of industry practice.

You can lose your license. Kick her to jail for that. So at the end of nine months, finally Phil says, all right, I want to help you out. He gets on the phone with this guy. He thinks he's an investor. He's an undercover FBI agent. And he says to Phil, he wants to put money in.

He's got millions of dollars. And he puts $25,000 into a sky private placement, $25,000. And Phil oversold. He didn't lie. He didn't cheat, nothing to cause an arrest, but he did oversell. But he gave Mario, the commission, the total commission was $1,250, well within bounds. And he gave Mario half in cash.

$600? That's it. Now, so then the guy said, what about Mandel? And Phil says into the camera, the first Mandel knew what I was doing. He'd throw us in the street. They said, yeah, but we have a lot of money. We can do some business with Mandel. I wouldn't even meet with you.

I just had a bad feeling, so I'm not even interested. So they, Phil, they came to New York, and they were going out with Phil. They came to Sky Capital in the conference room, and I wasn't in town, and I didn't want to meet with them anyway. And they said to Phil, well, listen, we're here for the night. You know, where we can get some party materials. You said, we're going to take us out. We're going to have some fun. And this is, they're wired for audio and video.

Phil goes, I got a couple of grams on me now here. It goes into his pocket. This is a guy making like $2 million a year. Right. $20 million net worth. He goes to the FBI agent. Yeah, there's two beautiful little rocks here.

Just give me $100. And he goes, don't worry, I can get you as much as you need tonight. Anything you need. I get the best connections. I know everybody, whatever you need. Okay? And that's where the transcripts end and the tapes end. I guess they arrested.

him that night. Right. And that following Monday, he comes to Sky Capital is wearing a wire. So suddenly you became, suddenly he said you, he decided that you had done all kinds of things that all of a sudden, everything we're doing was illegal, even though he says on audio and video that we have most legit firm and we've done anything wrong. And that I'm, because I'm Ross Mandel and I've had issues, I'm, I'm being regulated by the FSA, all the regulators in London. Right. The security regulators and by the stock exchange because I'm running two public companies. But I'm also being regulated by the SEC, the NASD, because I also had an American broker deal, but I was supervising none of it anyway. I was the CEO. I'm running around basically

shaking hands, making speeches and all that. I had guys in place doing all these things. Somehow it was all my fault. Everything was focused on me. So they're wearing, he's wearing a wire for about three months coming to work every day. They get zero on me. I don't say one. one thing wrong. The one thing you'll see on American Green, they played it to try, was doctored. And when you hear the whole tape, everything was in context. But there was a few guys like Grabowski, like the lawyer, Stephen Altman, and a few others, that said stupid shit, and admitted that they did stupid shit on tape. Nothing to do with me. But so they arrested a bunch of us. And they came in and raided Sky Capital November of 06. Where? And...

My office in 110 Wall Street. Okay. And when the London Stock Exchange called up to Southern District in New York, they said, we can't comment. They said, are you going to arrest these guys? They're going to die. They said, listen, if the special fraud office of Scotland New York raids a public company, they're getting shut down. They're getting all getting arrested. You don't just raid a place, the guys running public companies.

There's hundreds of investors, thousands of investors involved. You're not going to make a comment. So my stocks are trading publicly. the stock exchange, that is a spent trading. They never reopened. Because the Southern Dishner wouldn't make a comment to give any comfort. In the meanwhile, they would judge, jury, and executioner. They made a decision, and they're not going to go back.

So that caused a lot of people to lose money. It wasn't my fault. What did I do? Right. Nothing. No one gets arrested. No one gets indicted. Nothing.

So I go to sell the firm now because, After a year of this, it's too much. So I make a deal in September of 2008, October of 2008, about a year later, to 07, right? It was November 06, they came in, October of 2007, 11 months later, I signed a letter of intent to sell the company to our biggest investors. They do all this due diligence. Then they go over to the Southern District to New York in March of 08. the beginning is sort of the world's falling apart right oh yeah fine oh worst possible time to sell i never forget i was away i was at a convention in uh ohio my phone rings that's my criminal lawyer he says

i have the u.s attorney on their line he says if you are you know you're the buyers of your company the potential buyers they're not going to buy if they can indict you and the brokerage firm and they So they went to the U.S. attorney. They're there now. And they're asking, hey, by the way, they said to these are all highly respectable people. They represent institutions, big money,

you know, I'm talking about lords and all that. They said, if Mr. Mandel can answer three questions to our satisfaction right now, we'll give you our word. We're not going to indict him. We're not going to indict the company. The sale can go through. So the first question they ask is,

we have on tape, Mr. Mandel claiming that he has been doing deals with Goldman Sachs, and he's been talking to them and he's got relationships there and he's done some deals with them. Is that true? Isn't it?

I mean, doesn't everybody? How do you? 100% true? Not only true, I said, I got proof. I had a whole email file. I mean, I have hundreds of emails with all partners there and everything else. I spoke in Coleman Sachs just so you know.

They paid me to speak there. How do I want public in London? I sent them an email. He goes, oh my God, this is amazing. Number two. It was repeated to them that you are in talks at times with different banks about a potential takeover. Is that true? I said, of course.

Of course, Barclays Bank offered me $300 million. I've been talking to an Icelandic bank that wants to do a deal with me. I mean, what are you kidding? Boom, send it over. And the third question was even stupid. It was so easy. I answer all three. I'm on hold.

He's holding. Half a minute. He comes, he goes, he goes, you know, I've always treated you like a big boy. I've always been brutally honest with you, my lawyer. I'm going to tell you right now, you could sleep tonight. Congratulations, it's over. Those are just two questions.

There was three. The third was even more stupid. I forgot. Something about, you know, the House of Lords or whatever was just, all three things I was able to send email files. It was like, the government said they're not going to charge me,

and they're not going to charge the firm. They March 31st of 08, the deal went through, the monies were wired to my account. April 1st, out of Sky completely. The new owners were white shoe, A plus rated people, institutions and all that stuff. They then wrote a check for $10 million and put it in the company. So Sky Capital now had funds, had new ownership and new guys running everything, and we had capital when I

sold it, but now we had an extra $10 million. I mean, that's real money to have. Because remember, everything was paid for. We had no debt. So, That $10 million was just for money to trade, to operate, et cetera. Plus all these multimillionaires and institutions to own it. I was done. April 1st of 08. I was already in the fight business. I brought a fight league and I was running that up with Don King,

Dan Lampert, and other people, and doing a reality show on that for HBO with Don King. And go to Ross Mandel Facing Life. You'll see the video. You'll see the, this is a reel. Every single network wanted it. And they also filmed ABC did Welcome to My World, Ross Mandel. Check it out.

And so this is March, April 1st, oh, wait, I'm done, right? This is the first week of March I had to call with my lawyer, and he's on with the United States, not even the AUSA, it was the Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney, I should say. And I don't hear a thing, it's over. as far as I'm concerned. He told me it's over. July 2nd, 2009.

That's my birthday, by the way. Happy birthday. I'll never forget this day. My youngest daughter, Sydney, is in a drama club. You know, she had a very high-flutant type of life in Boca, and she loved acting in theater. So she was a little girl, and she was in this show, like Aladdin. And I was at the show, and I'm sitting there.

We're getting ready to launch the following week was UFC 100 in Vegas. George St. Pierre was fighting Tiago Alvis, the number one contender, and the UFC fighter of the year. And they were fighting in Vegas. And at that event, we were having a press conference. Don King made an announcement in like 100 of the biggest. Press in the world responded. They were all coming. We were going to announce the launching of our fight league, the AFC. And July 2nd, my lawyer calls me, and he says, I haven't heard from this lawyer. I haven't seen it. Jeffrey Hoppin comes up on my phone. I'm in the show. My daughter's

show. And Stephanie goes, what's wrong? I said, I don't know. He goes, what's wrong? And I'm sitting there trying to be patient wait until like half time in the show. And she goes, what's wrong? I said, she's whispering to me. I said, Jeff Hoffman just called me. He says, Jeff Hoffman. You haven't heard from him? I said, in more than a year.

And he owed me a lot of money, but I didn't care. I was just happy to be rid of this. He owed me like $75,000 that he had never used. She goes, go take the call. So I get in the car, I go outside, and I call him, I'm in the car, I'm so nervous, have a very bad feeling. And he says, listen, I've always talked to you. I says, I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm just going to come out with it. I just got off the phone with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

He goes, you're going to be indicted. I said, what? Because you're going to be indicted. I said, are they waiting at my house? They said, no, no, no, no. they're allowing you because you've been so cooperative. Right. You're going to allow you to report to come.

You have to fly into New York next week on Tuesday. They need all the flight information. And I'm going to pick you up Wednesday morning at your apartment. And I'm going to take you to FBI headquarters. You're going to be arraigned. And I'll represent you at the arraignment. But after that, I won't be able to represent you. I said, what?

I already paid this guy almost a million bucks. Yeah. He says, my guess is that they're going to freeze all your money and everything, and you'll have no way to pay me. And you're going to have to figure out a way to get another lawyer unless you could figure out someone, if you have someone else that could send me like a half a million. And I'm like, what?

I don't get it. I said, what's indicted me? He goes, well, you're going to be arrested? I said, I thought you said, it's over. They said, that's what they told me. I said, are you fucking kidding me? I was in shock. I had no idea.

I had forgot this. It was out of my life, out of my mind. I had sold the company. I'd gotten the money. The buyers were running the company. But, of course, by this time, by July of 2009, the market once they closed

April 1st, 08 the market went straight down straight down from 14,000 to 6,600 I really sold at the top right and I only sold

because it was too tough to do business with the FBI rating me and calling every newspaper in New York everybody knew it who wants to do business with me so who would want to be on the other side of a trade with me thinking the FBI is going to come in and they're not going to get paid It was brutal.

I fought, I fought, I fought, but I said, it's too much. And the institutions we deal with, the biggest investors, they said, look, it's too much. Take the money, and they made a deal. They made a, I asked for a very generous amount, and they met it. They said, you picked the number,

we know you're reasonable, gave them the number, and they agreed. And I got paid, and I was in touch with them all throughout the process because I actually had a hedge fund, And I had an interest in all the companies that were in the fund. And they wanted to buy me out of everything. And so I get indicted.

In the following week, I fly into New York on a Tuesday night. And he picks me up at my apartment on Wednesday morning, 6.30 in the morning. And they take me to FBI headquarters. And they had two people come in in my case every hour. So over three hours, there were six of us that were indicted that day. We were all handcuffed and chained and read our rights. Then when I was sitting in the office, they had two beautiful female agents come in. And they said, would you like to see the indictment?

It's the same five-page shitty indictment. The complaint that I had against me when they turned me down at the NASD for Sky Capital, like I told you earlier in the interview, they tried to disallow me to be a broken deal. don't hide the most expensive lawyer in Washington and they got approved. It's the same claim of nonsense. And then they say I stole 140 million dollars and they list six trades that were like $2,500 in the complaint. It just not have it made any sense. Right. And the lawyer, I posted a $5 million bail, no bond, and they made me segregate money. So I couldn't touch any money that I had. Now, They said that was a condition of bail, but it was a lie.

If they would have froze my money, if they could have froze my money, they would have. Right. If they could have taken my money, they would have. But they couldn't do any of those things because they had nothing, really. And their case came against this guy, Phil, that wore the wire, they sold the Coke to the FBI agent and to another two guys that had pled guilty in the case where they found crimes, and their dockets were sealed. But I didn't know.

How would I know? I was told that nothing's going to happen, but they were looking to make cases. And the SEC blatantly had press releases saying that they're looking to make a case. They made the record number of cases in 2009 in response to the markets failing in 2008-09. The problem is they arrested a bunch of people that had nothing to do with that. Right. And all the people that failed just got bailed out and they paid a fine. So to make a long story short now, I'm on $5 million bail, go in front of the judge, plead not guilty.

And there was some talk that I might be remanded right there. But no, they didn't remand me because they couldn't really. But my lawyer obfuscated everything that he wanted to accomplish by saying this was a condition of bail. A, I had $250,000 in weapons, okay? And they were legal. And I was in business with a federal gun dealer. Well, he made it so the FBI had to take my own. my weapons. I could have left him at the gun dealer and sold them. Instead, I had to give them to the,

to the, uh, to the FBI for whatever the reason. That would have been money. I could have had liquid as gold and it would, they would have sat with the federal gun dealer, the guy bought him from. And they were all appreciated in value times five. And, um, uh, they took my passport. They took my wife's passport. They took my children's passports. And, uh, They put me in the house. I'm trying to think they made me wear a monitor that I had a transponder and an ankle monitor. Yeah, I had no curfew.

Okay. Okay. And when I went to the probation guy, after I flew back to Florida, I went to Palm Beach probation. The guy said, this is strange. There's no curfew in your order. So they're just tracking you. Yeah.

He says, I don't understand. He says, I have 94 people on my case list, and everybody has a curfew. Maybe the judge made a mistake. He calls the judge, calls the clerk, whatever. No, it turns out no curfew. Mr. Mandel is being tracked, but he can do whatever he, go wherever he pleases, as long as he's in the district, right? All right.

Okay. I find out years later that you know that in certain states, if you're on home confinement, if you have an ACOMADOR, pre-trial or post, but pre-trial especially, and you have a curfew for every two or three days that you're on that, it's a day of good time. Oh, okay. In the state of Florida included. This judge wanted to make sure I didn't get that good time.

Okay. That's the only reason to give me a curfew. Do you understand he did it on purpose? He knew these kind of things. even the probation guy didn't know because I end up being on probation from 09 to 14 Okay

That would have been I would have had like two years good time Right Instead of one day When I went in in 14 We would have two years down Right Think about how crazy

Or maybe more Maybe three years Two and a half years So Okay so now I'm fighting the case Do I want to run bad idea.

Right. I have an expert on the field right here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sitting with an expert. Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, how many guys? Well, you were in, you went to a camp, right? Well, no. I got a 12-year bid, so you have to be 10 years net or under. So you went, first you went to a lot.

He purposely gave me 12. So, and then they put a management variable on me because they, the, the, the, I had a consultant, the federal prison consultant, he says to me, listen, in two and a half months, you could apply to go to the camp. And, of course, they did. And they said, oh, no, you have a management variable. They tried to keep, they kept me there for another three years. Well, what I was going to say is that, you know, everybody with this whole take off on the run.

Well, first of all, go to a country where they won't extradite you. That doesn't mean they won't come get you. I know people that have gotten. Yeah, you meet them in prison where it's some guy who's been in his own country. They go over their heads. Yeah. And they wake up and they're thrown into a court and the judge says, oh, no, you're here now. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I don't know about all that. Right. But that's not what you're here right now, and you're indicted. So that's something the U.S. attorney needs to look into. And then they, this is just like a big ha-ha-ha-he. Many guys like that. Yeah.

So that whole idea of, especially with someone like people talk about the guy like P. Diddy, right? Right. They talk about, oh, he should have this. Stop it. He would have left, though. He would have left. Yeah, he would have left. But even if he went to a non-extradition country.

He would have to go to Russia. Yeah, exactly. We talked about that. He'd have to either go on another podcast. We were like either North Korea or Russia. Neither one do I want to live in. But Russia would have been a good place for him. If he had money, he has money.

I'm saying, what if he couldn't have moved the money? I'm saying you would have to show up with money. He has money offshore. I can tell you with certainty. But what I want to say is that, did you see the bail packages they turned down? Oh, yeah. Twice. $50 million.

Yeah. No, he's not getting out. That was his ticket to leave the country. But again, where's it going to go? Like you said, just people don't know what we know. that there's nowhere safe. Yeah. Unless you're with an enemy of America.

Yeah. Or maybe you just, I can't even imagine the amount of plastic surgery you would have to do. And you'd have to live in some little shithole country somewhere. And you'd have to, it'd be so much work. Right. And then what? You're going to be 70 years old and they do get you. You got to do, go do 20 years and that.

I agree. So I'm not going to run. And personally, I didn't do anything wrong. And then, you know, they said to me, listen, the government would love you to give up a senator or a congressman. You don't have to go through all this. And I talked to my wife, and she said, is this what you want to do? Do you want to ruin somebody else's life? Because, you know, you're being jammed up.

You're being blackmailed. I said, I was between a rock and a hard place because there was a couple of guys that they would have liked that were nasty to me in the press and all that. And they were lying to the government. And I had proof, documentary proof. And these were guys, the government, would have loved to have a dirty senator, a dirty congressman, a dirty member of parliament,

all these different things. But no, at the end of the day, I took the righteous path, and I'll say this to you. I paid a real price for that. I was going to say, bro, what do you? Which congressman do you want? Right.

Which house of that, I got, I got this guy. I got, I had about a dozen guys that we could have had. Yeah, no. And I just was like, you know what, I'm, you know, God's watching. I'm going to do the right thing. I disagree. I think you didn't do the right thing. But can I say?

I agree with you now, looking back. The other thing is you're also still under the misconception that you're innocent and that that means anything. Correct. If you're guilty and you go to prison, if you're guilty and you go to trial, 100% you're done. If you're innocent, you've got about an 80% chance to being found a guilty. I'd say like 98%. Yeah. I mean, it's that.

And I learned one thing from my attorney in this case. He said that there's also something that's innocent in the law. You're guilty or not guilty. There's no innocent. It's very interesting. And there's these illegal theories like, but I'm not guilty of the charges that were brought against me. I'm going to say it again.

I've been saying it nonstop. And I'll say it probably till I'm dead. and I didn't do what they said. Now, I've done a lot of things in my life. I've done some bad things in my life. And back in the 80s, like I said earlier, I was probably one of the bad boys of Wall Street. I was very arrogant.

I did things that I regret and that I had no business, but I was under the influence of a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol, and I'm not trying to cop an excuse. When I said I did some bad things, I did some bad things. However, the things that I was accused of doing wrong in the case of the United States government versus Ross Mandel, Sky Capital, et al, never happened. Never happened now.

It turns out, and I learned this at trial. I learned this at trial that some of the guys that worked for me were doing some shit, doing some bad things, and I get it. And rather than them go to jail for 25 or 30 years, because they were dead to rights, they were guilty, you know, on video,

on audio, et cetera. They'll have to live with all this. One thing that I, now that I'm out, and I'm free, and I paid my debt to society. I did my time, and I did it like a man. I did like a stand-up guy. I didn't sit and moan and cry and, you know, all these different things. I did positive things.

I became learned it. I read, and I became an educator in prison. Let's go back. Yes. Let's go back. We're going to fight the trial. You haven't got through the trial yet. Okay, so first before the trial, you get indicted.

And that was in July of 2009. And then all of a sudden, we're going back and forth arguing. some motions, which is really just my lawyer's way of churning me and getting legal fees out of me. Okay? And all of a sudden, a miracle happens, I thought. There's a case, a stock market case that comes out of Australia, but that was heard in the Southern District of New York, which was the Wall Street District, the Wall Street District, were my cases. That's the N.Y, Lower Manhattan. And a guy named Morrison is suing the Royal Bank of Australia for fraud. The Royal Bank of Australia bought a company, a mortgage business in Florida, probably one of yours.

And they were exaggerating their earnings, committing fraud. And so the Bank of Australia was incorporating their earnings into its. earnings because it was a legitimate subsidiary. Bank of Australia bought this mortgage company and this mortgage company has made tons of money, crazy money. And so it would affect the price of the bank's stock. And so the stock became a high flyer on the Australian stock exchange because the numbers were so great. And they looked like geniuses because they had the wisdom to buy this mortgage company in Florida. Turns out that the mortgage company in Florida was committing fraud. They were overstating numbers, lying about different things. And so when that fraud came

out, the Bank of Australia's had to get revised numbers instead of earning money or losing money. And this guy Morrison lost millions of dollars in the stock market because he was buying this conservative bank. And it turns out the numbers are bad. Morrison sues brings a case against the Bank of Australia and others in New York City, in the Southern District of New York. He's an Australian guy suing an Australian bank that treads on the Australian stock exchange in New York.

That seems strange. Okay. And he wins. He wins. Well, how do they even allow him to do that? That's what happened. I'll explain to you. Then they appeal. They appeal. The bank appeals. And the appellate court, which is my appellate court, second circuit,

they upheld the judge's decision. They upheld it. Okay. Because our government, thinks it's the policeman of the world, which they say in black and white, in my case, that's their position of my case. They're policemen of the world. They're responsible. Right.

Then it goes to the Supreme Court, and the guy named George Conway, who's married to Kellyanne Conway, was a divorce now. He was an anti-Trumper, and she's a pro-Trumper, Kelly Ann Conway. I don't know if you guys follow this story, but George Conway is a partner, a senior partner at the highest earning per partner law firm in the world in Lower Manhattan. he goes and argues the case in the Supreme Court and has to do with the extraterritorial rights, extraterritorial statutes of the United States securities laws.

And he argues in front of the Supreme Court that when Congress enacts securities laws, they apply to our markets and our securities, not to the securities on the Australian Stock Exchange. All right. Or for that matter, the London Stock. exchange or any other foreign stock exchange. Right.

It is assumed that now he brings up examples like the piracy laws that are maritime laws under maritime law and the terrorist laws, which apply worldwide acts of terrorism against, let's say, a German base in Europe, those are written specifically to govern those territories. but the securities laws have to do with American securities on American stock exchanges. And the Supreme Court rules against Morrison. It's not that he doesn't have standing here. That's what we would say, because what the hell is this? Australian guy doing suing an Australian man, because our courts have allowed that.

But the truth is, our laws don't apply to the Australian stock exchange. Right. And so what, what is it, how could, we're not, we're saying it would be wrong in America, but we don't know if it's right or wrong in Australia. There's nothing to do with our laws. Okay. So we can't even rule on that. So we have to overturn Morrison loses in America court, the American law,

because there is no extra territorial reach of our securities laws. I get sued in a two-count indictment that was unsealed July 2nd. Okay. Securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. We're going to get technical here. I have a very complicated case, and it's a case of first impression, and that's why I got bailpen the appeal, and I went up all the way up to the solicitor general,

because I'm accused of manipulating the London Stock Exchange with non-residents of the United States, no Americans, and the London Stock Exchange. However, in London, it's agreed that I've complied with every law properly, committed no violations. Okay. So if I did something in London, I complied with their law.

So my lawyer's argument was like this. Your Honor, how come the government didn't take away Mr. Mandel's driver's license? And the judge says, what does that mean, Mr. When Mr. Mandeau was in London, he drove on the wrong side of the street every day. How come they didn't take away his driver's license? It's the same thing. Right. What is my doing a pipe in London have to do with American securities?

Nothing to do with America at all. Right. What is the jurisdictional issue is that, okay, I have, there's a nexus. I had an office on Wall Street. I lived in Florida and New York, and I did business in foreign countries from my Wall Street office. But I'm not guilty of violating any law over there. So what are we doing giving me an indictment for breaking the law here and break the law here? I'm in perfect compliance here.

Right. So now we apply to have my case thrown out. Upon the release of the Morrison decision, the government, The United States government had about 140 foreign cases like this. They dropped 138 of them. They literally dropped these cases. They kept my case. Was yours one of the 138?

No. Otherwise, well would I be here, right? I would have been a billionaire. But no, they kept my case, and they kept another case about a guy, in his case, even worse than mine. he didn't lose anybody any money. Everybody made money. And they said that he violated some law from another country. And he donated $100 million to the Metropolitan Opera House.

And they took his name off. It's a famous case, but it's not to do with mine. The bottom line is why on earth did they continue to maintain the case? There's a theory that the government wanted to create some case law so that they could use it. It comes in handy down the road. Yeah. They have a, it's like a put.

It gives them, they get rid of all of this. There'll be a lot of people that might, you know, do business from here and do some bad things over there. And they're free to hide in America while they're robbing and breaking laws in the foreign places. The problem is I didn't break any laws over there. I didn't have any complaints. I was constantly being audited and I came never, not even a slap on the wrist. I complied with everything. So now the government.

rather than, and the judge should have ruled it on my favor and thrown it out. But he doesn't because this judge is a government guy. If you go to Judicial Watch, to this day, he's never ruled against the United States government, ever, to this day. Right. I still check on a judicial watch. So the Morrison case is a big bearing on my case. Right. So now, instead of them ruling in my favor and dropping the indictment...

They file a superseding indictment. I'm like, this is new to me now. What the fuck is this supposed to be getting better for me now? Right. The front page New York Times said, I'm about to have my case thrown out. Make this whole argument. And they supersede. I learned this from real life pain.

They hit me with wire fraud and mail fraud charges now. because that's their go-to. Yeah, yeah. It's a huge. It covers a tremendous amount of... All they have to do is show there was a wire and that there's an email. Mm-hmm. And they can convict you.

So they get the conspiracy law. Yeah. I have a wire for fraud. Right. But you know, that's a go-to charge when they have no other evidence. So the government figured that my securities fraud and my conspiracy of securities fraud, we're going to be thrown out. But my judge, he's not thrown out on anything.

He was never ruled against the government, ever, ever. I'm sure he's very proud of himself. There's only two judges in that district that have never ruled against. That's why they didn't make it to the circuit court. You know, that's why they're on the appellate courts. That's another story. So, you know, I go through, now I'm going to trial. So we lose motion practice, and now we have to prepare for trial.

And the trial gets delayed and this and that, and this fighting over the evidence. government doesn't want to present the evidence all the documents the tapes interviews of all because there's a lot of stuff in there that would say I'm an honest guy I'm a sober guy I didn't cheat anybody and steal from anybody they mislead anybody and I run an honest business and they don't really want that so the way they the way they hide that is they send over five million pieces of evidence right they bury you and they say okay figure it out No, we sent you everything.

Right. Five million pieces of, you're going to go through everything, every tape, they cloned all the computers. They said all that's evidence. I mean, it's really, they really have it figured out. It's the last bastion of real fraud, I think, in this country is a federal system. I really do. Because even in the states, you can bring cameras into the court. That forces them to be somewhat reasonable, somewhat fair.

And that's why you see some of these high-profile cases. defendant actually wins to the point. I mean, I think of OJ, the whole country watched, my feeling is he probably those people. Yeah. But I was going to say that it's funny too because just recently did the FBI start taping their interviews with people. But prior to that, they, they're, oh, no, no, we don't tape our interviews.

So there's two FBI agents interviewing one person and there's no tape recorder. No. So whatever you guys say, I said. is what happened. Right. And they fill out of form, and they only put down what they want. Right. The 302, the famous 302.

Now, I don't know they're now agreed to the tape. That's great. Yeah, now supposedly, they're now taping everything. I'm sure only because there's so many inconsistencies. Right. So, yeah. FBI fraud. They commit fraud.

The FBI now is under the auspice of everyone sees what's happening now with Trump, the investigations, all the different things that happen. The assassination attempts, the slow walking of everything. thing, people are starting to realize just how corrupt the agencies are. Terrible. I knew since my case, because everything in my case was a lie. I'll give you an example. So the head agent, Kurt Dangler, special agent Kurt Dangler, works at Goldman Sachs now. He gets on the interview stand, he gets on the witness stand, we're course examining him. He states that Philip McKell, the reason they got a search warrant to search my firm is because he, he stated an sworn affidavit, and he's a special agent,

he's a lawyer, and he's special agent FBI for like 12 years, okay? Top guy, that we were getting paid 50% commission. And the government said, what does that mean? Well, if you mean to tell me, if a guy put in $25,000, the broker's got $12,500, he said, yeah. That's not. true, right? How's that possible? He testified to this. That's what that's, this is how we got the affidavit for the search warrant, that we were paying 50% to our brokers. That's criminal. Yeah, I was just that it's not possible. He said that. He testified to this. It's in a sworn affidavit. Okay. Under cross-examination, it turns out, no. We're charging three percent. The brokers get 50 percent of three percent. Right.

So they get 1.5% of the investment. And he said 50% in a sworn affidavit. And my lawyer called him a liar. And the judge warned my lawyer. I get hit with a contempt charge because I blew up. I got $10,000 in fines for contempt. I was a bad boy in court because it was outright lies, outright fraud. He says, yeah, you know, I was mistaken.

Now I know different. That renders the whole search illegal. What's the basis of the search warrant? That was the crime, and he testified under sworn affidavit under oaths, under penalty of perjury. Did he get charged with, no. Did he see, I made a mistake. I didn't lie. He made a mistake.

And that's why Mr. Mandel's been indicted and charging of ruins his life because you made a mistake. So this is an example of shit that you don't know about my case. And they don't throw out the entire search warrant or all the evidence that they gather. No, but there was no evidence there anyway. They took, they left with 300 boxes. Right, but if that had all been thrown out, then there'd have no evidence, but they didn't do that. There's no evidence anyway, just so you understand. I understand what you're saying, but it's a scam.

The whole thing's a scam. I'm saying, in general, if you obtained a search warrant under, under, it's the false fruit of the poisonry. Right, it should be. But that's actually, in the federal system, that doesn't even exist. Right, I understand. So, but they would never throw out that search, even though it was a bad search. Right. It was a bad search because you have a David's bad.

Right. That was the basis for the whole indictment, basically, is that, you know, you know, they're getting 50% commission. Right. They're getting 50% payout. Right. The commission is always between 2% and 5%. So what?

So, all right. So that's an example of something that happened, you know, ongoing. How long was the trial? The trial was five weeks. Five weeks. They came back with guilty verdicts on all four counts. Okay. And when the jury was interviewed after they rendered the verdict, they said that it

It was a tough call because we believe that all of the witnesses were lying. And they were admitted, my lawyer was so good on Cross, he got them to admit that they were lying. Right. They had to admit they were lying. One guy, the United States government read him his rights in the middle of the hearing. Because he said he had a special deal with the government. Right. That he wouldn't get prosecuted if he told them the story.

And the government went crazy. And the judge called up the government. says, you know, a hostile witness. He goes, did I, you made you a deal? He goes, well, no, but, you know, he said it was like a deal. Right. It was unbelievable. Of course it was a deal.

And he didn't go to jail. But the thing is, he's, now he's on the stand telling the jury that the government made him a deal. If he says this, then, you know, he can't go to jail. He's a moron, and he's a liar. And he would say whatever he had to say, whatever he thought. So they read him his rights while he was on the stand, testifying against me. so this is crazy stuff i was going to say this is and this is happening so over and over again

they're having to admit that this isn't what happened i lied about this correct this isn't exactly true right then the best one was this guy michael cliborne a young black kid i hired i met him i helped him he was my the biggest source of complaints and fraud in our firm we had many problems with this guy when i eventually fired him and uh he uh he's very practiced doing his testimony. He keeps looking at the jury, his tone. My loyces, Mr. Clyburn, you're very, very good as a witness. Thank you.

Because my guess is you've practiced this, right? You've rehearsed this with the government, right? He looks over to the United States Attorney. She goes, goes, yes. He goes, let me ask you a question. Have you been in this room before? Yes. Really?

So you've rehearsed this testimony. And you've rehearsed in this room, apparently. Yes. I said, well, don't, don't look at the, don't even look over there again. Like, that's... How many times, Mr. Clyburn, have you been in this room rehearsing? You know, I can find out. More than three times?

Yes. More than five times? Yes. Mr. Clyburn, have you been in this room rehearsing this testimony more than 10 times? I think so, yeah. This kind of thing. Right. Just so sketchy, so scammie, you know, I mean, it's just like, it's theater.

I realized halfway through the trial, it's just theater. Oh, yeah. No matter what happens, I'm going. down for something that didn't happen that I didn't do, that didn't even happen, because they have created this story and they got these guys to stick with it. Now, the funny thing is, there was one at my operations guy, his name was Stephen Shea. Stephen Shea played guilty right away. And they brought him in and he said, I'm guilty. I'm admitting my guilt. It's because of me this happened. And the government said, what do you mean?

He goes, Mandel and Harrington had nothing to do with it. It was me. I made deals with the brokers, and I manipulated the operations, and they paid me. And it's my fault. The firm went down and everything. They said, are you telling us that Mr. Mandel and Mr. Aaron didn't know anything about it? It's the truth. I'm telling you the truth.

You're refusing to accept responsibility, Mr. Shea. How's it if you're freezing to accept responsibility? when he's admitting it's him to jail for 30 months to a camp. But all the guys that admitted guilt that pointed fingers at me in Harrington that actually got caught stealing, selling the FBI drugs, they spent one day in jail, just a day of the indictment. But because this guy didn't point at you. Correct.

He didn't go with their story, which was completely fabricated. Right. And it so happens, Shea was the one that controlled us. I was all around the world. I wasn't even in New York half the time. hardly ever all this shit happened between him and these brokers

but that not Mr. Mandel Mr. Mandel knew everything he ran everything Mr. Mandel really controlled Thorne order the guy gets on the stat I controlled Thornewater nothing to do with Thornewater

this is what happened in my trial believe it or not I say it like this on my children I haven't told you guys a lie I'm looking right in the camera I just want to say this and I've maintained that now I insisted on

on testifying and I had so many witnesses like guys flying in from Europe. I had guys that have never had a complaint in their life, the compliance office, the CFO, all these real guys. My lawyer calls one witness the judge says his testimony is unreliable. He's been licensed in the business for 27 years,

never had one complaint, still licensed, working for firms. All the guys he said this real testimony are liars, convicted liars, admitted liars, and all have complaints and issues. Negation fraud. But these guys that I brought in, And these two guys, and then my lawyer, he goes, I'm not letting you testify.

We're resting right now. And he spoke to my wife behind my back and to my co-defendant, his lawyer behind my back. They said, Mr. Mandel, you won. You cannot lose this case. Even if they find a guilty verdict, an appeal is overturned. But there's nothing. They have not one single thing. There's not one single instance where you can broke a law.

There's no law violated. Nothing. How could they see you manipulate the London Stock Exchange? Who are these people? They don't work for the London Stock Exchange. They're not with the London Stock Exchange. He said, you did nothing wrong. So he pressured me like crazy.

And I'll tell you why. All along, when this first happened, November 6th of 2006, after they came in a raid of my place, the very next day, I insisted on go and get to the government. I wanted to talk to the SD&Y. I find out what the fuck's going on. If there's something wrong, tell me. and I'll work with them and we'll cure it.

And that would have worked, I think, because they had evidence. People were doing bad things. And if I would have been brought to my attention, I would have taken action. And they know that because they said on tape, but this lawyer wouldn't let me go. He did everything he could.

And initially I thought he was maybe giving me right advice. Because anything you say is going to be in a record now, and this is going for five years. You might want to change your testimony down the road. and you can't because now they got you. I said, I didn't do anything wrong. Right. Okay.

Turns out the way I got him, I had a corporate lawyer who worked at his firm. The corporate lawyer has been charged with the SEC with wrongdoing, bordering on criminal wrongdoing. The corporate lawyer was my corporate guy who, remember I told you that Villalkeld came back and he was wearing a wire. for three months. Right. Phil O'Kill got this corporate lawyer in a bar doing coke and drinking, admitting he did all kinds of wrong things, criminal things, on tape. I didn't know this until we're going to trial.

And my lawyer kept it from me. So your lawyer doesn't want you to get on the stand and maybe mention that? Because all I'm going to say before the trial, I'm talking about the day after the raid in 06, My trial wasn't until 11. The things that I did, if there's any question, this is the lawyer that gave us this advice. I have bills going back years every month, $20,000 a month, $30,000, $15,000, every month. I would, you know, on advice of counsel, this is what we did. At this point, they raided us.

We didn't know what was going on. We just knew they came in actually the search warrant. What's the problem? This whole story that they wore over time that developed, okay? That whole story that developed was all centered around some testimony. I believe it was the lawyer. So to make a long story short, his name would have come up 15 times. Right.

And I didn't know they had him on anything at that point. My feeling is he had a conflict of interest, my attorney. Right. The government knew it the whole time, and my feeling is they threw me to the wolves. Right. And that's why my corporate lawyer, who the hat on tape, was never charged with anything. They charged five other guys. Two other guys on the tape were charged.

My lawyer is admitting all these criminal acts. And he was guilty, by the way. And he was very quietly disbarred, suspended for 18 months after I went to prison, disbarred for 18 months. And he was a real crook, and he still is. and he was they were working for the government for what that somehow the government got their hooks into Jeffrey Hoffman and they made a deal of some sort okay because if I go in I so I'm going to I'm an open book you see how I am right I'm talking I'm giving your names I can give you years and dates and events what am I hiding right I'm the real deal I don't have to steal I don't have to lie and I

have to cheat I know how to persuade I know how to spin I know how to sell properly I'm good at what I do. I'm sober, and I'm not going to friggin do some crazy nonsense. I was already wealthy when I started Sky Capital. I came out of retirement, if you remember. So, you know, that's, that's what happened. I was, pressed me, pressed my wife, because I wanted to get on the stand and answer the questions. My feeling is, if I'm a juror, I'm sitting there going, you know what? I know they're instructed, not told us against me, but that's bullshit. The government goes into this whole elaborate thing. They mentioned to the jury they spent $40 million in five years in this prosecution.

Their teams, three shifts of eight hours working on my stuff. Okay. The jury's got to be wondering, when we said we rest and I'm not going to testify, the whole jury was like, what? Because I was already, I was testifying in the courtroom. I was, I got found contempt of court for $10,000. $1,000 each charge. So I was very vocal about the lies that went on and the nonsense and the bullshit stories

and some of the crap that happened. And so there were five mistrial attempts, all five should have been mistrials. One of the witnesses gets off to stand, looks at me, and he goes like this in front of the jury in the whole courtroom. there's an uproar judges like silence what's going on just gave my lawyer jumps up this witness just gave me and my client the bird who does that mean because i didn't see anything he said clerk do you see anything i didn't see anything um i can't rule on this you know they they let him guys my lawyer demanded

that he'd be retained he was an english investor not even my guy one of the brokers it was one of his clients not one of my clients was called to testify they were all called. None of them would testify. None of them. They all said they've been contacted numerous times. They said, you never did anything wrong. You always treated us right. And we don't understand what the whole thing is. I spoke to a member just saying, you know, the London Stock Exchange

over the course of the last two months. They would like me to begin showing them deals again. They said, we looked at your case 100 times and we could find nothing wrong with it. I said, would you put this in writing to me? Because I don't trust anybody right now. They said, yes, we will. And they did.

So what did I do wrong? Right. But you're found guilty. Convicted? Right. Sentenced a year later. Here's the problem is that I remember, and I've mentioned this a couple times, whenever somebody makes a mistake or go in trial,

is I have a guy named Andrew Levinson. And Andrew Levinson was, he was doing business opportunities. Okay. Anyway, it's funny because when he went to trial, and they, during the voir dire, you know, they're going through picking jurors. And one juror stands up, and when they read the list, like, can you, can you, can you, you know, once you've seen the evidence, can you weigh the evidence, you know, blah, blah, blah. They go through the whole little thing. And he goes, no, I don't think so. And they went, well, why do you say that?

And he goes, well, I mean, I think he's probably guilty. And they go, well, you haven't heard any evidence yet. And they go, yeah, but they, a grand jury, you know, you charge him with 30 counts of wire fraud. He did something wrong. And that's it. That's what. And of course, you know, they say now you're excused. And he's being honest.

But, um, and I was like, what an idiot. And I remember when Andrew told me, I go, what an idiot. He goes, no, he was, I appreciated him. Right. Because he's being honest. He has the other people sitting in the jury already decided that I'm guilty. Right. He said because he said he only said what they had, they were thinking.

Correct. He said, but because when you saw the evidence, he's like, everybody got up there. He's like, I hadn't done anything wrong. They didn't have me on tape say anything. They didn't have, you know, he just went on and on. He's like, I was found guilty. He's actually found not guilty on a ton of charges and found guilty on like one or two. But that's the whole thing.

They feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you. That's how they feel. But if you end up getting. found guilty on one or two, guess what? When the sentencing, they bring all the other charges back in. Wrongfully, but they do. Right. Right.

They didn't say, well, your honor, don't forget. He did this and this. Yeah, but he was found not guilty of that. Yes, but you can consider it. Well, then you might as well. Right. You know what I'm saying? Not like that anymore.

Now they change the sentencing guidelines. Oh, okay. Just this is new though. Yeah, well, this was. And they still do it anyway, probably. 15 years ago. Right. But anyway.

I'm just saying this a brand new thing this year. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah, they call it a acquitted conduct. You can't be found guilty and have acquitted conduct. Oh, okay. They used to weigh it in like, you know, he's probably guilty. There's something there, you know.

Yeah, oh, I got found guilty of wire fraud. Oh, but your honor, don't forget, there was a death in his case. Right. So you can take that, oh, okay, no, he was acquitted of it. Right. We'll give you 30 years. Right. 30 years, I can only get five for the wire fraud.

Acquitted conduct. They can't do that anymore, but they've been doing it. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway. They call it relevant conduct. Relevant. That's what they were calling it.

So you, so you've been, you're found guilty. I'm found guilty. and um what was that like how did you feel when they said it was it was 50 50 that i was going to be allowed to go home and a bunch of people including a lawyer and other people say if they're going to remand you uh it's a problem you're getting right into jail you know but if they if they if he's going to let you come back for sentencing that means something too it means he probably going to want on appeal or this and that whatever and so they uh they said i was free to go the government made a strong case, Mr. Mandel was a man of means.

Flight risk. International banker. He's going to run. He's got money all over the place. It's not the other thing. And the judge said, no, no. We'll schedule sentencing. I wouldn't sentence to a full year later. But now they up my bail by $2 million. So it was not $7 million. And they made my my confinement. My confinement.

You could find it more stringent. Okay. Still no curfew. Yeah. Because I could have had used that as a good time. Can you imagine that they knew that? It was leaving a couple of inmates that, you know, you know, inside the lawyers inside that figure that out.

They knew every little angle. They do nothing but read these books, you know, the law books and all that. They knew such a thing. Because if I would have known, I would have demanded a curfew. Right. Where am I going? Where am I going? I'm fighting for my life.

I'm married. I'm in bed at 830 anyway. Correct. It's the craziest thing. So it was really a crazy time. And even when I was found guilty, my wife almost fainted. I heard her like, and Kobe's looked at some of these videos. My wife's a magnificent looking woman and very gentle and, you know, a good person and she knows I'm a good person. And it's just appalling what's been done to us. But she, like, I heard her, she was right behind me, you know, in the first, in the real, first world. behind me and I couldn't really worry about me I was worried about her you know and uh the judge let us let us leave and the theory was we're going to want on appeal right and so now now I go home and I'm trying to live my life as best I can and uh um a year later I go back and I'm sentenced and the the the you know you have the PSR the pre-sentence report the interview and then the report and the probation lady wrote a great first draft but she goes listen it's not the final

but the first draft they interviewed my wife they interviewed a couple of business people all the different things and then it was pretty good reasonable what to say what how much time no she doesn't make that recommendation she just writes about who I am as a person okay what she's learned from I really am Ross Mandel I really was born this day I really lived here and there I really was licensed I was educated at she interviewed a few people that were in my life you know like the wife the mother-in-law a few different people in my life found out I'm not abusive to my wife that I'm a lovely husband I'm a great provider I'm a good father all these wonderful things all right we get the final PSR the government says life is too much to ask for mr. Mandel but 30 years

is more than reasonable. Now I'm 57 years old, or 55 years old at the time. I was out for another two and a half years. 55 years old, with all the stellar things written about me, everything's sort of buried, everything's sort of cut off now, all the good stuff is, you know. It's just such a terrible, terrible business they're in. And so they're demanding 30 years.

And then eventually when I go to sentencing, the government gets up 30 years. Anything else is a travesty for justice. It's a disaster. It's crazy. And I spoke for 40 minutes of my own sentencing. And, you know, they read some victim impact letters. There were three letters by people I never heard of.

They bought 100 shares of stock that lost their money because the government's actions. Because they refuse to give the London Stock Exchange an honest report that no one's getting indicted so far. They're not shutting down the firm, all these different things. So the stock issue had no business, but to keep the stock suspended until they had some, you know, being public means you're transparent. Right. An investor, a stockholder, has the right to know within reason what's going on. Our government refused to do that. And they say, I broke the law.

They broke the law in England. They broke the law, forced, you know, a thousand stockholders to lose their money, unreasonably. I mean, really, it's just a terrible thing that happened. And so I go home and I'm out. I get this sentence of 144 months. $50 million in forfeiture. There's no restitution because the government can't figure out who I owe money to, how much you're where. Well, then what's the forfeiture?

Here's what the judge says. Mr. Mandel, this is. a complex securities case. The government can't figure out laws within reason. And we know it's at least 100 plus million. They've alleged 140. I know it's at least 100 plus. But because we can't give you an exact figure, I'm just going to put a $50 million forfeiture. Under the law, you have to specify every penny. Right. I've never seen one case in all my studies and anyone I spoke to where it's an exact number of 50 million. Right. Well, you can't arbitrarily just determine Well, he did.

Because it can't, because restitution and forfeiture, it can't be a windfall for the government. Correct. What are they going to do with that? Well, they've done that just so, you know, in my case. And the restitution, they admitted they couldn't figure it out. So they're supposed to hand the numbers within 90 days of the sentencing, and they didn't do that. And then the judge wrote the order wrong, so it's all null and void. Oh, nice.

Yeah. So you've got no forfeiture. Well, no, the forfeiture is $50 million, and that's satisfied. I've been told that's satisfied. Remember, I owned a bank, brokerage, earned all these different things. So they sold all that stuff? Whatever they did, they took a lot of money for me

and all the bail money is gone. Never got it back, even though I complied. But here's the interesting thing. So I've been told a little long I'm going to win on appeal because of the Morrison decision. Okay. The judge got it wrong, which he did. Yeah.

The government admits it eventually. And so... The judge, we're worried that they're going to remand me. The judge said, I'm going to give you 45 days to get your affairs in order, which you're going in. And my lawyer says, well, we're going to be applying for bail pending appeal. And he's like, you have my answer right now. Denied. But he didn't file the papers.

Okay. Well, thank God this guy's incompetent. He's not. He's very crafty. Oh, okay. He's sneaky. 45 days later was a Monday. like June 15th, okay, or July, July, I think it's June 15th, 45 days from the end of my sentence.

I was sentenced, I think, in May. And June 15th was the deadline. I had a report to Petersburg, Virginia, which is all my family was in New York and Florida, so they put me in West Virginia, Petersburg initially. And that's where I had a report on that Monday, June 15th. we prepared a real great appellate paper okay but they can't file it until the judge files that he's denied my request for bail okay because it's still in district court technically right i it shows that i'm appealing i'm requesting bail and he hasn't ruled even though he gave me the answer the day of my sentencing he files the paper on that three Thursday night. Literally Thursday night. We were watching the docket every minute because we know if you have to file it, I have to report. Thursday night, 10 o'clock at night, they file that my request of bail pending pill was denied. And then Friday morning, my lawyer files bail pending appeal at the second circuit. And it was the summer. So it was a holiday schedule. So it was a different panel than normal. morning. They get it Friday morning and Friday night. I'm already packing to go over the weekend

to go to Virginia to report that everyone says I have to go. Otherwise, the marshals will come get me, always different things. It'll hold it against me. Friday night at 10 o'clock at night, the Second Circuit stay gives me a one week stay. I don't have to report on Monday to jail, to prison, federal prison, which is the law. in Petersburg, Virginia. Very tough place, by the way. My defendant, co-defendant, was so sure that, you know,

we were going and he went right in. I get a one-week stay. His lawyer said there's no way we can win anything. So I call my lawyer. My lawyer's very happy because he don't have to report Monday. He goes, we got a one, I said, what does that mean in one week's day? He goes, well, essentially,

the appellate court is giving us they ordered a hearing in one week. I have to draft your entire appeal and present it at a hearing in one week. I said, is that possible? He says, no, but we're going to try. Right. And so we get to one week's stay.

He files the papers. I wasn't a hearing. They just asked for papers. At the, that following Friday, they get the papers, and then they order a hearing for a month later. So now I'm out again. I'm still out.

Right. Meanwhile, my co-defendants in prison when he, we reported. And a month later, it's like July 15th. He goes to a hearing at the appellate court, and the panel rules that I receive bail pending appeal throughout the dependence of all legal proceedings leading up to a final decision in my case. Okay. Nice. And that goes on for another two years and nine months. So now I'm out.

But again, more bail, more this, more restrictions, more that. And now my co-defendant's in prison, he has to get out of prison. He's filing the results. It took him two weeks to get out of prison, even after they ruled that we don't have to go to prison. And so we're on appeal. We're out. And we file an amazing appeal. And I went to the oral arguments now.

So he files this appeal. And then I get a call from George Conrad. way is the guy that represented the Morrison case on behalf of the bank of Australia in the Supreme Court of the United States and won. He says, and we become sort of friendly with talking, and he says, would you be open to, would you be open to the Bar Association, filing a, an amicus brief on your behalf, saying the judge got it wrong. Yeah.

And I says, what does that mean? All this is new. Yeah, yeah. Superceding indictment, indictment, an amicus brief. I don't know what any of this shit means. I'm constantly learning and reading and all these different things. It means friend of the court in Latin. It's a disinterested party that has become interested because of some aspect of the case.

Whether they know me, the case, the law, whatever. In this case, the New York City Bar Association, filed an amicus brief on my behalf. It is the biggest association of attorneys in the world. At the time, 23,000 practicing attorneys, all in New York. Essentially, if you're a lawyer in New York, you remember the bar there. Right. Including my judge, including the lead FBI agents, including my prosecutors,

all members of the New York City Bar. I said, what the fuck, George? what are they going to say? They're prosecuting me. You're saying they got it wrong. Right. Well, no, I'm not saying that. The Bar Association is agreeing that they got it wrong.

We have to ask them, the members of the bar, and they all had to be recused from this decision. So the association that they're members of, and another 23,780 lawyers, whatever number is, and they're like eight lawyers. They disagree, but all the other 23,000 agree with this decision. Right. That they got the law wrong, and I must be unconvicted.

And it was an amazing thing. And then the law journal came out and said that the judge mishandled the evidence in my case, and he delivered it in such a way that the jury had to convict me, that it was all wrong. Constitutional error. Constitutional error. And at the end of the day, he can't fight City Hall, I guess.

Right. They still rigged the appellate court, this remand panel, and they congratulated my attorney on writing the most amazing brief that lost. And at the end of the day, they, they,

he attacked the prosecutor and said, Ms. Goldstein, you've read the Morrison, case. You do understand there has to be Americans that are harmed here. Without an American being harmed, where's the nexus? Right. This was a crime that occurred allegedly in London with non-Americans under UK law. I don't understand what we're doing here. Surely the government must have made some provision. Oh, yes, Your Honor, yes, Your Honor, we're on it, Your Honor. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you three days. And you're going to produce a five-pins.

document explaining where this nexus is, which Americans got hurt. It goes to my attorney. I'm going to give you three pages. I want him in three days. And he goes to Michael Bachner, who's a famous attorney who represents my co-defendant. I'm going to give you three pages. So the two of you, the defense gets six pages. The government gets five. No more than five pages, Ms. Goldstein. Am I clear? Yes, Your Honor. I expect these on my desk in three days. the government submits a 355-page document. I am not exaggerating. Look at the record.

This stick doesn't say one thing about anybody that was harmed. All it does is basically have every one of my financial statements in there from the broker-dealer in New York. And it shows wires going to and fro from suppliers, people that we order stationary from, people that we order tickets from, people that all the different things, money coming in from private place. there was nothing specific showing how anybody was harmed by the actions that they tried to convict me of zero and in the end they deny my appeal solicitor general says we admit the government says the district court got it wrong but it's harmless error and then the government acknowledges that the second circuit got it wrong they just used the wrong provision wrong statute of harmless error but we're asking that the justices to please stay out of the fray and allow the circuits to police themselves and the Supreme Court denied my certiori and I was in prison at this point I reported September 10th 2014 my appeal was denied in in June of 14 we filed a motion to reconsider and uh something else. We'll ask for an en banc because it's a case of first impression. It was

the Morrissey beside all these great cases. They said, denied, denied. And I reported September 10, 2014. I mean, you know, we could make up this story. It's the craziest thing in the world. It's the craziest thing in the world. And, and, you know, it's now in the past. Right. I could never get the time back. I am fighting to clear my name. I maintained. I did nothing wrong. Right. But I'm, you know, while I was incarcerated, as I shared with you earlier, I became an educator. And a lot of men, I used to say, what am I doing here? I didn't do anything wrong. And a lot of guys used to come to me and say, you know why you're here? Because we needed you. We needed you. I helped guys get sober. I ran AA meetings at Miami Low, Miami

camp at the building, FDC, Miami, at Coleman Camp, etc. I helped guide some young men when I was a subject to diesel therapy after they let me out and they brought me back in eight months later. They put me to keep different county jails for a minute. And I've had a very big impact on a lot of men's lives. And they've thanked me for it. And they acknowledge me on social media all the time. And so I decided to go public a little bit, and that's why I agreed to do Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and do podcast and all that, because I see how my experience can be used to help other people. And specifically in business, I was approached by some very smart people that said, listen, you're a brilliant guy. You get business

the way other people don't. You understand the stock markets like very few people in the world. Why don't you just create some courses, build a legacy. And I spoke to Bradley at Lightspeed, a virtual training, who is the biggest in the online field. He did over $900 million last year. And he represents guys like Tony Robbins and Grant Cardone and Andy Elliott, Russell Brunson, Robert Kiyosaki, Damon John from Shark Tank,

and dozens of others. and big guys, little guys, you know, the dog whisperer, what's his name, the guy that had the TV show. He's on flight speed, and he's a huge reach, and I did his dropping bombs podcast, and the reaction was incredible, and I hope I get the same reaction with your podcast because you're a hell of a guy, and I told you, you know, my podcast, and so we're launching the wealth formula. Okay. It's currently available in individual modules on my Shopify store.

I go to rossmandel.com. My name is two S's, two L's, rossmandel.com. I wrote a basic business course that whether you're a young kid, a beginner, whether you're a novice business person, whether you're in business school, whether you're a multi-millionaire in whatever chosen field you're in,

I promise you, you will benefit greatly. My producer, some of my partners that are really successful in business are living the wealth formula right now. They said, oh my God, I didn't know that I shouldn't incorporate Delaware. It's not a safe state that I should go to Nevada or Texas or Wyoming, like Elon Musk.

Four months before Musk realized that he messed up incorporating in Delaware, I published already that you don't ever incorporate in Delaware unless you're a shareholder. But if you're a founder, a board member, an executive,

you want to be in a state where they've never pierced the corporate veil. So your jurisdiction, where you incorporate, what sort of legal entity you use, whether you want to be a trust in the Bahamas, an LLC, Nevada, an S-Corp, C-Corp, a master-limited partnership. There are all different variants, and we break it out in an entertaining and formative way.

It's a 114-page written digital text, downloadable, with dozens of downloadable worksheets and PDFs and a hundred plus hyperlinks to source materials. So you understand the brilliance of where all this came from. I mean, this really is about close to 45 years of my life and my business experience. And then I narrate in 13 modules which are now interactive, thanks to Bradley and Lightspeed. They allowed me to interact with the user online on his digital experience.

And we did teach you how to start a business, how to take an idea and turn it into a business, how to take it public, how to create a vision board, a vision plan, how to write a business plan, how to do a pitch deck, how to pitch, how to raise money, how to structure a company, depending on the business, depending on the legal entity you choose, how to raise money, how to raise money. An exit strategy, what exit strategy are going to use? and we walk you through real life examples, face it, learning business, it's a little bit of a dry subject it can be, but we make it very entertaining. We pepper it with stories that you just don't know, well, you might not be familiar with, but we're going to bring it to you, and we're going to

demonstrate you how in your normal course of your life, you come across all these things in your day-to-day life. You're not aware of them. We're going to point it out to you. That makes it very, very entertaining because we make it relevant to life and to my experience, your experience, and so forth. So the wealth formula, check it out, lost mandel.com. What about, you said you're also starting a YouTube channel. Well, you started one. Correct. I had a YouTube channel going back many years. It was sort of wiped out when I was inside. Did a YouTube channel when there weren't even a thing. There was no such thing, right? I did 250 videos. That's true. In 2010, there was a reality show on my life. There's a sizzle real Ross Mandel facing life. Ross Mandel, welcome to my world.

Unfortunately, I'm the season finale. The Sky's the Limit on American Greed. I did Wall Street conspiracy theory with former Governor Jesse Ventura. Jesse the Body Ventura. They did a deep dive on who they could do a Wall Street story for network television. And my name kept popping up. So they reached out to me. I flew out to L.A. I made a deal. I spent three weeks with Jesse filming all around the country and it's available. It was a true TV

Wall Street conspiracy theory. I mean, it's got like 10 million views. It's like a real thing. And stuff like that. You know, I've been very active in whatever sort of arena I choose to enter.

I become very active. And it's been a privilege to be here on your podcast. You're a hell of a guy. You got an amazing story. And I can, can't wait to get you on my podcast. Oh my gosh. You're killing me. I can't wait. Michael Douglas. He wishes he looked like you today. He's an old guy right now.

Oh, yeah. He is. He is. So why I'm getting there. Getting there. Yeah, definitely. Let me know. I'll do the. Oh, what was the the Jordan Belford thing? Or you were going to ask that? Yeah, we have questions. I got a, I love to answer questions. Make it easy for me. I've been freewheeling in. Yeah. So I guess the first one since we were just kind of on the subject. I mean, you seems like you're going through an emotional roller coaster. Like, you think you're getting off.

You know, you feel like you're wrongly accused. You think you're getting off. And then you get sentenced. Like, what is your emotional state during these years, right? It's years that you're kind of just in limbo. From 06 to 14, eight years.

So, you know, much like Jordie Belford, a name that we mentioned, I was approached by his people to do a sequel. to the Wolf of Wall Street. My story is just a little bit bigger. It's America and Europe. I go public on a stock exchange.

There's a lot of crazy shenanigan is like what you saw in that movie, maybe a little crazier even. And I went to New York, and this is before I went to prison. I was sentenced to 12 years, but I was out on appeal, as we discussed. And I wanted a half a million dollars for my story. Okay? And I met with the biggest publishers in the world set up by Joel Gottler, who was Representative Geordie and got that project done.

And they said, Mr. Mandel, you're facing 12 years. You've already been sentenced. We can't give you that money because you might not be around to write the book. But here's what we would do. You seem remarkably together. Your feet are on the ground. You look good. You sound good.

You appear calm and clear. and clean. You have a beautiful family. We've seen some of the video on YouTube and we've Googled you. How are you keeping it together? What is your process every day? How do you not lose your mind? I would probably drink myself to death or put a gun to my head. They said, we'll give you $150,000 if you write that book. So I thought about it. And I did. I took it. I wrote the book. And it's called Rock Solid. And it hasn't been released because I ended up going to prison. Right. But I wrote the book and we are now offering for the first time digital copies for sale on Ross Mandel.com. You can download. I think it's about 20 bucks. And I will show you how

Ross Mandel gets through every day, every week, every month, and every year without losing my mind, acting like a lunatic. And I want you to know, rock solid came in very handy when I was in prison. Right. Because I had the publisher send me like, I asked for 12 books. The guys took them out of my room in the first day. I had a sign each one of them. Then I asked for 12 dozen a gross. And they lasted one day. They're in a couple of the prison libraries, but mostly guys took them and made me sign, you know, autographed them and stuff like that. And they used to call me rock solid on the compound you rock rock solid i was either o g the godfather or rock solid and i used to feel big as i was the only didn't have like a prison name right and ross this is tennessee oh you're from

tennessee no alabama but there's already in tennessee you know there's already in alabama you know crazy stuff but i they used to call me rock solid and for the first time that we made it available for sale it's on uh it's downloadable in digital form only the book will hit their shelves probably the other three months. But there's a digital downloads available right now. And that's how I maintain my cool and my calm. It's, I have a, I have my own process dealing with the world.

And it's been okay. During that time period, they filmed that sizzle that you've mentioned a couple of times throughout the podcast. Correct. What was kind of the premise of that show and like how that all kind of come about? Okay, so I agreed.

I had bought a, I had bought a fight promotion called the AFC. from a guy named Dan Lampert, who owns the American top teams, very big down south of Miami. And he's been on television with the UFC shows and all that. He's one of the godfathers of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in America. He brought the Brazilian guys in and set up all these phenomenal fighting gyms. And they've had numerous world champions.

And still, many of the fighters, the top fighters trained in his facilities. He put in all the American top teams. Malki Kow will put in first round management. We managed 60 fighters at the time. world champions everybody we had was in the top five top ten etc and so we were building this this new promotion fight promotion and the idea was we had five guys that were all highly ranked including john jones who turned out to be a world champion now because they're the greatest pound for pound fighter and a few guys like that five guys and the idea was to film me um building

the promotion, but focusing on the five fighters, their lives going to Brazil, going to upstate New York, where the fighters were from, and detailing their lives, sort of like a 30 and 30 kind of thing like ESPN has, well, before any of these big fights. The idea was to create an emotional connection between the audience and the fighter. People are interested in people more than they were interested in fighting. And so that's how it's started. Then I get indicted. And so I decided to get small. I had bought this promotion. I'd raised $48 million sitting in escrow when the government indicted me. And I got, I got, I got, I panicked because I've never been criminally charged with anything. I never really did anything to

deserve it. And I got scared. So I just returned all the money and I unwound this whole, uh, fight business. But the, uh, the guys from ABC television and the local production crew that was handling a lot of their work in Boca Raton, five-star entertainment, Scott Woolley, who's my current podcast producer, said, look, you're an amazing character, you're bigger than life, and we think your story now is bigger, not smaller. You've got a big story now. People want to know how you're going to deal with this, fighting with the government, what that's like, open your life to the cameras, show them how you're fighting, you've been wronged, you have nothing to hide, so forth and so on. So after giving you a great deal of thought, I said, I'm going to do

do it. And I went on Fox television. You saw a clip, I think, in Ross Mandel, welcome to my world with Eric Bowling on Money Rocks, Fox Television, National Television. I talked about it. I was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in the garden section, which is the biggest section of the week. It's their entertainment section in the LA Times on Sunday. I was on the front page. My reality show, and everybody, every network we spoke to wanted it. And then somehow it died as it went up a ladder. We found out the government, the government has tremendous influence over the mass media. If they don't control it all, I don't know what to say.

I don't know enough about that. All I could say is. So I agreed to do this reality show. So they produced this reel, and that's what they used to sell the show, which was everybody wanted it, everybody. And I was represented by the biggest guy at William Morris at the time. And everybody wanted to deal and the office were crazy and then all of a sudden everything started to die in the vine. They didn't, the government didn't want it. It made them look bad.

I'm not sure of the exact reason. I know you've mentioned a couple times that you've known some characters and some, you know, you were kind of behind the scenes of some of some of these people within the Wolf of Wall Street movie. So my first question would be, how did you first meet Jordan Bellford? Okay, so I'm the first movie, the original Wall Street movie with Michael Douglas. Oliver Stone was considering me as a consultant, and Michael Douglas is on the phone at one point when Charlie Sheen's first coming in, and Michael Douglas is on the phone, and he says, you know, I lost a fortune of money with Janssen and that Cleopatra deal and that cosmetic deal. So that was a deal that I did with Janssen.

Okay. And we took that company public, Cleopatra Coalik. It was the first ethnic makeup company, if you could believe that. And it turned out to be huge, right? ethnic makeup is the whole Kardashian thing she made a billion dollars and all that but um so you know they knew me going back to 1987 I was like a wild type of cat Oliver stone and all that and then um so so back in um in I get sober in 1990 I go to drug rehab and I get out I'm sober now this is uh I get out November of 90 sometime in I believe early 91

um that's what i believe i get a call from an old girlfriend of mine her name is ginger i'm gonna leave that name just the first name ginger calls me up and you know we were sort of seeing each other on a little bit here a little bit there mostly before i got clean and but i went with her to her son's bar mitzvah you know like the world of estoria as a date she's a very attractive woman she was very good friends with Jordan Belfort. And so she was talking to me because she knew I was very successful. Then I got sober and I'm coming back

and I'm building myself back up. She wanted to introduce me to Jordan because she thought it would be a great fit. She saw a lot of his guys making all kinds of money. She'd understand the technical details of it all. But she thought it would be a great thing. So I don't want to meet this guy because I've seen the deals that he's doing,

and I didn't get sober to go ahead and rob people and do these kind of sort of fake deals. But she's insisting. And so then she says, I have a girlfriend in Brooklyn. She's a beautiful girl. She's a lingerie model. She just did these Diet Pepsi commercials.

She's a sexy girl on TV. She's walking in Central Park, and some guys playing Frisbee and the dog jumps, and you just see this sweat dripping, and she's wearing a little cut-off jeans. She's stunning. I mean, really, Margo. Robbie is beautiful girl and um she says to me uh I want to introduce her to Jordan I think

they would be great together he's already married my but so she goes I'm going to pick you up at your office and then we're going to Chaubella which is on 78th Street and second avenue Jordy in case you forgot where you met her and um uh we pull up and uh we pull up and uh Jordy's already sitting at the table. I'd never met him before. I've heard of him. I've heard of him. I've heard of stories. All my friends worked for him or with him.

And I met him for the first time. And that's when he met his future wife, the Duchess of Bay Ridge. My name is Nadine Grasso. So he didn't steal her from some guy. Oh, so let me tell you. So let me tell you what happens. So we sit down. Firstly, I'm enamored with Nadine.

She's a gorgeous, beautiful blonde, blue eyes. body, the whole thing, and dressed provocatively. And he can't take his eyes off. He's sitting there like it's Christmas morning and he's looking at the tree. And we're getting on, we're having dinner, this and that. I mean, we sent it for like three hours. And then he invites us all to his Hampton's house that weekend, the coming weekend. Was she with somebody?

Or is she alone? Because in the movie, right. At the dinner that we met, it was just the four of us. Me and Ginger, Nadine and Jordan. At the party, I didn't go with them. I said, I'll meet you guys there. I wasn't with them. I don't know who she went with.

All I know is I went to the party, and I got full of resentment. I felt really bad. That was a very big day for me because I was newly sober, and I was a million dollars in debt, and I see these idiots and guys that I go. grew up with. They made all this, you know, they're going crazies. They made some money. Meanwhile, I had $30 million before these guys were even licensed. And I pissed it all away. And I'm looking at his house on Dune Road in the Hamptons. That should have been my house. And I got so

aggravated, I left the party. I remember I left because I drove by myself and I left by myself. And I was driving up and down Dune Road. And I made a vow to myself that day that I'm going to have a beach house on that beach, my house that I deserve, that I earned that I work for, that I'm better than these guys. And that was in 1991, I believe. Seven years later, 1998, I got married to Stephanie Ann Sarno from the Bronx. And we moved into our beach house on the same beach in July of 98. And it took a month off and we there. So that's a true story. I was very, very angry that day. So, all right.

Does that answer the question? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there any? I got a story with everything. Yeah, I got, um, people will be curious. Is there anything that you know that, like, the movie misrepresented or any more characters from the movie that you have a good story about? We don't have enough time.

I'd mean that. I would say, I've seen, uh, Belford do a whole thing on, on that where he's, literally like, this character is made up of these three characters. Correct. This, like, he goes through the whole movie where it's just like, you know, you're trying to shove, first of all, you're trying to shove, you know, whatever, 15 years. It's lifetime in that brief period. There's a couple of things I want to say in regards that you should consider.

First of all, Jory did some nice things for certain people that he didn't involve them in the book or the movie, people that he really cared about, like this. woman I brought up. I never mentioned her name out in public before. But he, he, in a decent way, didn't name certain names. It wasn't important to the story anyway. Yeah. But he chose not to. Because remember, he wore a wire for a year. Right. And he sent 50 people to jail, to prison. Some who belong there, but some who didn't. And that's why he only did 22 months. And that's why when he got out, he owed these restitution of $104 million or $92 million to hundreds of victims.

And these people, unlike my alleged victims, formed associations and Facebook groups and TikTok groups, and they went after them. They still go after them. Because they were wrong. They were fias. And it was a pomp and dump skis. He's running pomp and dumps games. Listen, what he did essentially, he recruited and convinced hundreds of young Long Island

boys had a steal in the stock market. Didn't even understand they were stealing. Just like when I started in the business, I had no idea that I was doing the wrong thing. I didn't know. I was used. And the powers would be allowed that shit. And so that's what he did. I look at myself as different than him because I built a real legit business.

I was a real legit broker. I was really in the business in a legit way. And I took myself public on the stock exchange in front of the whole world after 9-11, after the dot-com crash, all these different things. story spans a lot, you know, much longer period of time. He had a brilliant run, but it was all it was all basically crime. Yeah. And the big deal that he did was to Steve Manchu, Steve Madden, class of 75, Lawrence High School. Steve is my brother. We were in home room together. He's Madden, Amanda, M-A-D, M-A-N. All right. Danny Porch in the same class,

Brian Frank, Jordan Shama. We were all schoolmates. They all were involved with Stratton. And Steve Madden built, he's worth four or five hundred million dollars now. He went to jail for Yeah. I wonder, I mean, I, I wonder what's happened with, with Belford. Well, I think there's two different things is that also, by the way, is that, you know, you got out and you kind of, you're leaning into this is what happened and you're kind of telling your story. You know, he wrote a book and he's, he's not, I don't know, I just, I'd be, I'd be interested to. sit down and talk with him because I've seen it's funny because look I'll give you an example I know people that know him and I've met with people so I've met with these people and I'm like oh every time I see him on camera he seems great you know I don't know if you ever saw the thing with Grant Cardone and him so Grant he does an interview with Grant Cardone of course and you know it's just Grant Hardone just and Belfort's not even trying to make him look like a complete

douchebag. Grant Cardone paints himself in a corner and then won't own up to the fact that, you know what, that was stupid. Like, let me just, let's walk away from that. You know what? You're right. And he's like, no, I don't understand. And Belfer's trying to help him. He's throwing him a line. He just keeps bearing him. It's horrible. I know what you mean. It's just, you know, and and so I'm always kind of like, every time I've seen him, he always comes off great. But then I know people that know him outside of that. And they're all like, he's problematic. He's, he's a jerk he's he's you know they go on they're like no you know he's not a nice guy he's not like they'll say horrible like not horrible things but they're like you know he he comes off great on

camera but in a business relationship or a friendship or whatever they're like hey he's kind of a jerk you know and and it's like so i was just wonder one i wonder what's happened with his podcast i wonder about him and then the other time i did i saw him one time on a it was like um inside edition or something he's walking through a their wolf wall street came out right and he's doing all these huge uh speaking engagements where actually he's doing like workshops speaking engagements workshops over the course of a weekend and they come up they see him he doesn't realize they're doing a whole expose on him and they follow him into wow they follow him through uh the airport and then they see him and it's almost like he comes up on them like they're doing

something else. And they're like, hey, that's Jordan Belford. And they go up to him. And so he thinks, oh, they're here for some other reason. They just recognize me. Correct. And they're shut up. Total set up. It's an ambush. He walks right into it. And they start, they go, my God, you're Jordan Belford. You're the Wolf of Russia. He's like, yeah, yeah. And they're like, oh, my gosh. Hey, do you have a couple minutes? He's like, sure. What's up? Starts answering questions. And he just walks right into it. Because they go, one of the things, she's like, oh, my gosh. So you're doing a lot of these speaking engagements and stuff now. Like, I heard your charge you're like, aren't you charging like 30, 40,000?

He was, well, since the movie came out, he's, I'm charging more like 80,000. And then they're like, oh, wow. They're like, they're like, and you're like, don't you live in a big house on the, on the ocean somewhere? He's like, yeah, it's a, I live in a, and this is 10 year, 15 years ago. He's like, yeah, it's like a $3.5 million house. They were like, that's right. We saw you were playing tennis the other day.

And he starts to realize, right, he picks it up. And they're like, they're like, it's amazing. you're doing all that. How much of the $102 million that you owe your victims? Have you paid back? You're bringing in that kind of money. And he immediately goes, I've never met any of my victims. And they go, would you like to? We got John Smith here. And John Smith stands up. He goes, yeah, he goes, you stole my life savings. It was $32,000. And I haven't seen a dime. And he's like, and Belford bolts. Like he just starts running. This is over. And him and his whole little team take off and they leave and later they get him to come back like a week later two weeks later

he sits down and i just remember thinking because i'm sitting in prison watching that show ah and i remember sitting there thinking i'm not going to do that like like you just had an opportunity these people were you you just had an opportunity to to face up to what you did correct apologize shake that dude's hand right like you could have said i f*** up i this like you went ahead, you started bragging, you started acting like a jackass, and then when it hits you in the face, you ran from it. Like, that told me, like, everything about, like, you went to prison. You didn't learn a thing.

Like, and I remember thinking, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to lean into it. I would have just turned around and been like, you know what? That was a stupid thing to say. I f*** up. I went to prison. You might have that opportunity soon. Oh, I mean, I feel like I've had that opportunity.

Right. Because that's my whole stance is to do that. When probation looked at your website, it says, right, oh, I have a liar or a thief from a criminal. Absolutely. And I respect that about you. And when I went to her and I said, I'm going to see this guy, she's like, like, if we could give a scheme.

And I'm like, listen, this is about our healing. This is the next chapter in our lives. This is about redemption. This is about getting it out and moving forward so people could learn from our mistakes. And you see my website at first, it says, hey, just went to prison, just got out, went to prison for a bunch of bank fraud-related charges. 13 years, always different things. And I always say, and I'm 100% guilty of every single one of them.

I appreciate that. I just tell you about Jordan. So I know people that know this whole life. Okay. Close people that I know from life from the industry. And he was never considered much of a likable guy, but he's a tremendous performer in business. Right. So even when he was a poor kid growing up in Queens, he sold meat door to door.

he sold ice cream on the beach. I mean, he was a worker, he was a hustler, and I give him that credit. I was just admire that. And what he did with Stratton, to me, was like, ballsy. But at some point, he's just stealing, and he had a choice to go left to go right.

And he could have went right, and like the Steve Madden deal, he could have brought a couple of really great deals, settled with the SEC, done some clever things, but he chose not to. And they referenced that in the movie that he makes a deal and that he renegs on that deal. And then he wore a wire, which I think is disgusting.

Like I told you, I was faced with that, and I wouldn't do that. It's just not who I am. At the end of the day, I have to live with myself. I wish that I had a better experience and didn't go to prison for nine years or four months, but it is what it is. Right now, I don't have to, I don't have a conscious, I don't wrestle with my own stuff. I suspect that he's got some stuff But again, he gets out

Joel Gottler told me He didn't sell six books For a year and a half He didn't sell six books Oh, from the Wolf of Wall Street book? The Wolf of Wall Street book? The Wolf Wall Street sat on the shelves He didn't sell six books

And then what happened was He was marking himself As like an industry expert Like I was the white-collar crime reporter For Fox television before I went in I don't know if you know that I was on Fox TV 15 times While I was wearing an Acomat and everything

well i had no curfew right i would fly in and roger a rales gave me a fox tv contract before he died and all these different things but uh i i admire jordy's sticotivness he went on tv i think it was the uh there was a scam oh fuck i i was just on my tip of my tongue uh there was a big stock market scam and uh and that judy was on cnbc to talk about it and and we're When you go on television for these shows, here's what they say to you. We can't pay you. We can't pay for your hotel, all your meals, and we can give you a car service all the time you're in town.

But we can't give you money because if we do, there's different contracts or more complicated. But here's what we'll do. Anything you're promoting, anything you're looking to sell, we'll advertise it for you. Rossmandel.com, the rock-sawad book, the wealth formula, whatever. So with Jordy, they got him to, he said, you know, The Wolf of Wall Street, the book.

Right. And they saw it on CNBC, and it was a particularly, I can't think of the scam. It was a big national stock market scam. The guy was deforting stuff. It was out in L.A. The famous name, it's alluding me right now. But make a long story short, right after that interview,

the book started selling. Yeah. And that's really what launched this different thing. Then he sold, he got paid a half a million dollars for the book, but he screwed up. He didn't know enough. He didn't know enough about it. He made a lot of money his second book.

And he sold the option for $2 million. On the last day of the fifth year, Leo DiCaprio, they exercised the option. So then they paid him. But he really made very little money from the movie itself. But Leo did a piece for him. He put it on Facebook. He advertised.

And then he managed to roll that up into something very big. He's been speaking all over the world. What he did is he repackaged The Lehman method, and calls it the straight line method, it's the sales package that we learned when we went to Wall Street. Right. Okay, we were taught how to be the best salesman in the world. We're ninjas. You can't compete. If you stay on the phone with us, you lose. The only way to get out is to hang out right away. Yeah, if you don't hang up, you're going to lose. If you engage,

you're going to, because we're just so, like playing tennis against Roger Federer. If you stay on the court, you can't win. We're just trained that way, and we practiced that at it rehearsed, even though might not seem like that. You can't outwin us that way. But he is a good salesman. He's probably become a great salesman. I don't know. I feel like he doesn't have that likeability factor.

But he's a good actor, so you can pretend. I was going to say, it's funny because everything I've ever seen on him, with the exception of the one thing where he took him, everything I've ever seen on him, I've been like, God, this guy, he seems great. He seems great. But then I talk to people that a couple of people that have known, they're like, it's not great. He's missing this warmth, like we have off camera.

So that night that I went out with him for the, that. time we were child bella and he met uh nadine right his wife we were at dinner for three hours and i walked away and and jidji just kept what do you think what do you think what do you think and you know i've told this to people i'm closer i didn't like them i didn't feel like a connection with him i didn't feel that that warmth like that guys can feel a sort of camaraderie like all right bro now we met you know we hung out spent some time you're cool dude i like you you know uh it doesn't we have to be best friends, but you get a feeling. When I leave here, you will call me going to talk and say, oh, this guy, with a dick, or that guy, you know, with a piece of shit, or, you know,

a guy still full of himself. I thought he'd never start talking. We're coming up on five hours. Once I get off my shyness problem, it's what's going to be. I was going to ask about meeting Bernie Madoff? Bernie Madoff. Did you ever meet up? Yeah, so it's, it's, um, 1988, 88, 89. Uh, you remember I told you, I started doing risk arbitrage. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I was a big balls broker and I had a partner named Neil Sullivan. what's up, baby. I don't know where the hell you are. You're not on social media. I mean, reach out to me, bro. I would love to just chat, man. Catch up. And Neil taught me a lot about the trading business. He was great. He's a year or too older than me. His dad was a founder

like Smith Barney. And we worked at this firm, Rodman Renshaw. We were partners when we were learning the risk-arbitrarch business. We had a huge business. We were raising, you know, tens of millions of dollars for trades. And the way it works is, you know, there's what you call a bid in and ask in the stock market. So let's say a stock is trading at 36 by 36 and a half, right? You following? So the bid is 36, the offer is 36 and a half. There's a 50 cent spread.

Today the spreads are 5 cents or a penny, but it used to be bigger spreads and less liquidity. So $36, we would buy our stock on the bid, so we'd be buying it at 36. And then when we had enough stock for all our accounts, we would then put it out to the clients at 36.5. Right. That's the way it's done. We buy it on one side and we make that half a point spread, plus then we get a commission. That's how, that's how business has done on WallShare. That's principal business, a market making business. For all of you want to know, your brokers buy on the bid and they sell it to you at the ask. We make the print on the

ass. So it's 36, let's say I buy a million shares for all my clients, right? It's $36 million. And I put it out to them at 36 and a half. That's $36.5 million. Right. Right. So that extra half a point is $500,000. So I get half of that goes to my firm and I keep half. So I make $250,000 that way. So it's $36 by half. All right. So we're doing this business. All of a sudden, it's $36. We're buying a $30,000. We're going to make the print the 36 and a half. All of a sudden, somebody cuts in the middle of the bid and ask. And it's $36.5. Or $36.08. So now we can't print over that number if the number is still on the screen. Nobody's going to buy it from you, right? No, no, no. We already own it, and we're selling it to our customers, but we own it at 36. We want to sell it to me at a half. There's a print.

The stock says 36 on the screen by 36.5. You don't know where we bought it. Right. So I'm telling you you bought it at 36 and a half. That's what price you're getting. We really own it at 36. Yeah. But when I go to make the print at 36.

And someone jumps in the middle electronically, and now it's 36 and a quarter. You just cost me, you know, $250,000. Right. And what is this? And all right, it happens once, it happens twice, big deal. All of a sudden, we're seeing this every day. Who is this guy? It's B-M-A-M-A-F.

Right. We look up B-M-A-D. Who the fuck is B-M-A-D is a training symbol? The fuck is this. So, you know, we're getting frustrated because it seems whenever we're doing a deal, we're acquiring stock throughout the course of a day or two days or three days, and then we're booking it out to our customers, and then he's killing us on the spread.

How does he know? How does he get in the middle of the spread? He comes up on the Pacific Exchange, the Chicago Exchange, in New York Exchange, we can't figure it out. And so my partner says, let's go talk to him. So we find out a guy named Bernie Madoff, and he has a guy in Manhattan, lower Manhattan. So we call up and, you know, it gets right on the phone.

And I said, I want to speak to Mr. Madoff. I said, this is Bernie. I said, this is you? You're Bernie Madoff? We didn't know as a guy. We didn't know as a guy, which is the name of a firm. Half the firm's not to have a name, but there's no guy's like the type. This guy's named after his name.

His own firm, usually you don't do that in the stock market because you don't want that detention or liability. Right. Now you know who to sue. Right. Bernie made of securities, right? I was sky capital, Rome capital, you know, no Ross. So we said, what's going on?

I mean, who are you? And, oh, that's all you had to ask him a question like that. He goes on and on about who he is. And, you know, he really admires us young men calling him and that he understands that he's middling the money. Marcus, how are you doing this? Usually if someone's going to cut into a spread, they have to be on one exchange. Remember, this is like 1988, 89.

There's no electronic trading. This is the only guy that is electronic trading. Right. He created it. Yeah. And so, and he's nimble. He, anytime he sees a spread, because we create the spread, by the way, it just doesn't always happen naturally.

Right. Now how to maneuver that. We're good at what we do. And, and, but he would figure it out. he would jump in the middle. And so we said, you know, you're killing us, bro. He says, you know, he sounds like very interesting young men. I said, you got time for a cup of coffee? He goes, why don't you just come out of my office? I'd like to meet you. So we go down there, and he's like a big guy. He puts on a big show. He's, we're very cocky. It's hard to believe that I was

cocky and arrogant. I know. I know you're stunned. But he's like really got an arrogance about him and cockiness, but he has a presence, right? He has a real presence. and he shows us his electronic trading. We never seen, it didn't exist. And I was, you know, really impressed with it. And, you know, so it was like a feel-out meeting, okay? But, you know, he said, you know, I could use a couple of guys like you. Uh-huh.

And I was like, you know, you know, yeah. And I thought about it. Right. And I thought about, you know, entertaining a relationship with this man. And, but I didn't. and, you know, he kept on, you know, cutting into our spreads as much as he never stopped you. As much as he could. He became a little, once he showed us the system and we saw what he was doing.

It was just, he was just, what, faster because it was electronic? Is that it? He's just trying to make money. He's not picking on us. He's doing it to everybody. Yeah. Anywhere we saw an opportunity. So he would watch us gathering the stock and creating the spread.

And so he jumped in. So he basically says, if you want. If you want me to go away, take me out. That means you have to buy me. Right. So he's buying at 36. And I'm not selling it. It's 36 and a quarter.

So we can sell it to you at 36 and a half. Right. It's like a whole thing. So it's just business. And it wasn't personal. But, you know, it was interesting. I forgot all about him. And then I get clean.

I get sober. I come back at one job. I almost thought of calling him just so, you know. But I didn't. But I go to this place, common oil securities, which are the guys from D.H. Boy, that form their own company,

all disciples of this, 40 Davis. And then I go to this vantage securities. I told you my friend, the guy I spoke to on the phone, gave me this big deal. And then he reaches out to me. And he's like, he's good things about you. And, you know, he's like a Jewy kind of. I can say Jewish. I'm a Jew. I'm a member of the tribe. And I believe in what I, in our scripture. So, you know, but he's a sort of a Jewy way. And, uh, um, um, and you know he's a pretty good salesman right and so you know against my will he convinces me to come down and see him and so does he remember you oh yeah he called me oh he reached out to me okay i thought maybe was just he heard things you didn't put the two together oh no no he he's listen okay he was a brilliant guy just like i look at you and i see your eyes are wide open and you're clear and you're you're invested in the conversation i mean you're you're sometimes you sit with a guy and you look at him and you think there's nobody home right you know you're home at present

accounted for present and accounted for i love that i'm being compared to burning man but bernie bernie had this eyeball thing and he had a way of like feel you felt like he was doing a million things he was very oCD like ADHD he's got the computer he's doing it but he's 1,000% present reading you like it would have been a great poker player okay the fact that you know I look back now I laugh because this is a guy that perpetrated the biggest fraud in the history of world right a 60 billion dollar fraud in the history of the world and here he's going one on one with me and he wants me to come work with him you know and uh he wants me to come work with him and I'm like you know I've been offered all kinds of crazy money and I'm doing this I'm doing it and I you know

I had a feeling and I met his kids and stuff I met the boys and I actually used to work with his son, it turns out at the beach club in the five towns where I grew up on Long Island. He was the Queens guy, and that was the Long Island guy. It was Mark Madoff. He killed himself he died of cancer. The whole thing is tragic. A horrible story. Just a horrible. He was the nicest kid in the world. He was a real guy. Well, both of them got one died of cancer. One killed himself. Mark Madoff was a wonderful guy. The X or the, the, I guess. Problems. His ex-wife lives in Boca.

Yeah, I was going to say, she's living in her car for a while. I mean, I'm shocked. Nobody reached out to her, and no friend of the family reached out and said, listen, man, we've got a spare room. You can't be living in her car. He robbed a lot of people. I mean, you really heard people. Did she know?

I don't think. I can imagine that he could have, he seemed to have kept it from so many people. So, Aik Sorkin, who's his attorney, was my attorney at one point. He was the former chief of the SEC enforcement. He was Morty's attorney. And when D.HPA, we got investigated, and we're all getting interviewed by the New York Stock Exchange, I represented all of us individually. So before I went in, I sat with him for like 45 minutes and what you say, what you don't say, if they ask about this, is what you say, this is what you don't, you know, all the different, we got great advice for him. He was the head of the SEC enforcement for New York.

It was a huge, huge thing. And he, I really saw, and he was Bernie's lawyer. And let me tell you what I know. Nobody knew what Bernie was doing. Yeah. I mean, nobody, okay. not even his brother. They said his brother was in honor.

He wasn't on. His brother was a dope. Yeah, they just wanted to try and get as many people. They just couldn't believe that he could have pulled the wall over that many people. He had one or two guys that worked there that were forging the things with him. And that he's what people don't know. He found out that he had cancer. And he found out he was going to die of cancer.

And he realized that if he died of cancer, that his children and his wife were going to jail forever. Right. And so then he called his family over on a Sunday and confessed to them everything. And they called Ike over and basically had his sons report him. The FBI never caught him. People don't understand that. Nobody caught Bernie. He turned himself in.

And the fort is so big that who could even believe it, which is the craziest thing. But he called, he had his children call in and report him. So they wouldn't be lamb-based. It insulates that. It takes the whole family down. It still didn't. And then Bernie gave all the details out. Yeah.

Okay? And that's why they let the wife leave with $2 million and get what she had and the kids were able to leave. But the family itself, they were never capable of even running a broker-dealer. He is just fraud to take care of his family. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, but I mean, he was so deep. And he was brilliant. And what happened with Bernie is, like most guys,

he was friggin brilliant and he was managing money not what he became known for but and then all of a sudden like everybody else he had a bad year narcissistic he couldn't face the customers like when i lost money for customers i told them i got sued back in the 80s what bernie did at one point he had a bad year like everybody else but instead of coming clean he figured i'm gonna i'm gonna fudge it i'll make it up next i know i'm brilliant i know how to make it up up. Yeah, no. He fudges it and said he made 11% when everybody else lost 20%. Okay. And then all the money found him. Yeah. And they kept coming to him. And he had devised a trading strategy with the first electronic trading system that guaranteed he could always make money. Guaranteed, he always knew

how to make money. I told you he controlled the spreads. He was nimble. Nobody could, but, you know, it's like, it's like trying to, what happens is it's easy to make money on a million bucks for somebody. It's easy to make money on $10 million. A hundred million? It's a little harder. A billion? A lot harder. How do you deploy that much money and how many good ideas without moving markets, affecting prices and other people, not letting other people figure it out? So there's just so much that goes into this. And the bigger you get, it's like a ship. I could turn my little car around, you know, try turning around an aircraft carrier. For the time the guy says, make you turn, it takes three quarters of the day by the time the boat actually starts turning.

well, actually, makes it completes a turn. And he had just too much. And he had, you know, too much, he just got caught up in it. And instead of making that one decision, we got honest, he lied. And then he had to perpetuate the lie, and perpetuate the lie.

And he got caught in his own web. That's how most, you know, that's whenever you, whenever I, real quick, just because I know we need to. Yeah, I got to get going. Yeah, I was going to say, everybody I, everybody I know that has run a Ponzi scheme, it always, it always, they're always like,

oh, there are scammers, is their con, man. They did this. It's always the same way. It's just they have a bad quarter. They lie to try and cover it. They think they're going to make it up. And before you know, they're so far behind the eight ball.

They've got no choice but to try and just keep those balls in the air as quickly for as long as possible because they know they're going under. If it was truly a scam from the beginning, they wouldn't have done in their own name. You see what I'm saying? Of course. That's never how they portray it. No, he was a legit guy that said, And I'm going to just...

I'm all in. I got no choice. And he thought he could cover it. And he had a way to do it, but not with that size money. Yeah. That's big money. And the other, so... Mastermind.

Mastermind. So what are you doing with mastermind? A lot of people came to me... What is mastermind, by the way? Okay, I'll explain it to you. So a lot of people came to me and said, listen, you know, you're like Yoda. You know how to take any business and make it better. Okay.

You're smart guy. You have... There were so many young men out there, like you are when you were in your 30s that were, were good at what they do, but with a little mentoring and a little help, you could, you would have, you know, you could change your life, just like Morty changed your life, just like David Black changed your life. You have so much knowledge in you, you have so much ability, you've seen so much, you should offer yourself and your course out. So the wealth formula, the pre-sale is about $2.97, but it goes on full sale in about three weeks through Bradley and

night speed and it'll be i think nine 97 but you can pay five grand and you get 10 hours with me private time on the phone zoom calls or google google play whatever it's called or recorded google meet or recorded so you get copies as well and we go over the wealth formula page by page or anything else you want in life anything else you're doing in life i become available to you for 10 hours, usually on a Monday or Friday or both. And, you know, the first guy that called me, he was a young man. He lives in Palm Beach, 31.

He has three kids. He's married to him and he loves. A very serious young man. You know, struggling to make $10,000 a month, struggling. He sells precious metals. After the first two or three calls, he's doing $10,000 a week. And after the second month, he's now, his numbers, have exploded. He went from $40,000 for two months now. He's in the $60,000 to $70,000 range

a month, just bought a house. He was living in a rental apartment with his wife and three kids. Nice. And he credits me and things that I was able to do to help him to address his business. Another guy, he's a contracting firm in Tennessee. He's also interesting enough, 31. He's got three kids, married to a woman he loves, struggling personally with some things. And, And struggling in business, had some legal issues, this and that. And, you know, I walked him through a bunch of different things. Now, when I first met this guy, had a big beard, like a country dude. He looked like a guy from Duck Dynasty.

And I tell him that, I make him laugh. He actually called me on my way here today, Nail McCall. And he was sitting back like in a big old rocking chair or whatever. Like, I was like a hick. I'm like, what can I do for this guy? And we got to talking and he's very closed-off guy, but he paid and he bought the formula. He wants to be involved. And so I sort of broke him down after the first, the second meeting, the third meeting

he comes on, he's completely clean-shaven, shaved his hair. Right. Looks like a serious young man. Took my advice in the business. He's now so busy. His business is booming. He's getting all these different jobs. We changed the bidding process and things that he was doing.

I just have a, the guys like to say, I have five pillars. of knowledge, five areas that I'm really have a tremendous amount of experience and I can help change people's lives, you know. And, you know, it's not lost on me that, you know, Wall Street decided many years ago, motivation is a thing for me. But, you know, anything to do with markets, buying and selling, presenting real estate, I understand markets, how to approach them, so forth and so on. And so the mastermind gives you an opportunity to get my time directly. And at five grant for 10 hours, a lot of people say, what are you crazy? This is not going to last. You're too cheap. Okay, $500 an hour. I pay my stupid lawyer $600 an hour. You seem to have a, but, you know,

we're getting this started. We have a few spots left at this rate, and then it's going to probably double. And once the wealth formula actually comes out and the selling effort begins, it's going to be even crazier. I got to take this. I got to, I was sorry. He's going crazy right now. My wife would tell me if I had, she's going crazy. If I got three phone calls and didn't answer, I'd be done. It'd be over. Right now, she's worried that something bad happened. Yeah.

Yeah, call. All we have to do. Yeah, I just got to say, I got to do an outro. That's it. Call her. Call her, we'll tell her it's our fault. Hi. It's totally our fault.

It's our fault. We apologize. We had him on the podcast. We wouldn't let him go. He tried. We tackled him. There's two of us here. We're younger than him.

It's not his fault. He struggled. Step, five and a half hours. Oh, my God. I just wanted to make sure that they didn't see you in last time. I just said that. No, we need the content. He's a talker.

I thought I was a talker. He is a talker. I can't really have to drive home. Me and like 12 other people were kind of worried that, you know, he was never going to come back. I'm never this out of touch. But we're having a real interesting day. This is some serious guys.

I love these guys. And I love this show. And I, you know, I trust Colby. I don't know what the hell this is going to end up coming out as. It's going to be amazing. I think there's going to be a lot of noise made about this podcast. I just got a feeling because we're really going to town. Yeah, everybody else wants 40 minutes to an hour.

They're giving me like these cut, cut. These guys want to hear more and more. No, you can't tell this story in 40. Those are slackers. Yeah. I love that. You can't tell his story is not for, like, a small piece. It sounds like, you know, it's huge.

It sounds like it's not over either. It's an epic. Oh, it's really not. It's really about to explode, really in a good way, thank God. Maybe we'll do part two when you have to go down there. I love that. Andy talked me into coming, he talked me into driving down there. That's nuts.

All right, well, good. That's good. Could you please call Nick? He's called me a few times and he's trying to reach me. When you did need, let them know that I'm leaving now. I'll be in the car. I'm leaving five minutes. I mean, I got a bad ride ahead of me now, rush hour and all that.

In the dark, I got to go. I'm old. Driving in the dock. Oathes me, yeah. All right. All right. All right, babe. She's relieved now.

Hey, you guys. If you like the episode, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell to get notified videos like this. Please share the video. and also, please go into the description, and we're going to have all the links in the description box. So you just click on the link, go straight there, join.

What? You're good? Ross Mandel.com. Sorry, Ross. Well, we're going to have a link. We're going to put all the links. We're going to put all the links. Ross Mandel, the whole, the link and the channel.

Channel's called Ross Mandel. The real Ross Mandel. The real Rossman? Is there, there's a couple of Ross Mandel's out there. There's some lie. There's some bad. And guess what? They didn't go to prison.

Shame on them. So we're going to put the links in the description, mastermind link. All the links will be in there. Click on the links, go there, subscribe, follow, do everything you got to do. Really appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. Oh, please consider joining our Patreon. There will be clips from this episode on Patreon.

That is Patreon exclusive stuff that didn't make the cut us talking before the podcast. It's $10 a month. It really does help Colby and I make. these videos. Thank you so much. See ya.