Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Sheriff Grady Judd Arrest Amazon Scammers (The Real Story)

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Sheriff Grady Judd Arrest Amazon Scammers (The Real Story)

Every time you sell a fire stick, that's jail broke. It's a felony. Jailbroken illegal that doesn't match those two different things. Investigations not over. It's just beginning. Officers came secret microphones, secret cameras. Louis Vazquez, he also jail breaks his own fire sticks. If somebody has so much power that they can shut down the media from asking questions, I have no shot.

So in 2020, three years after living in Lakeland, I opened up a booth at a flea market. People would have come up to the booth where I was at and say, hey, you know how to fix fire sticks? You know, the lady that was here before, she taught me how to do it or I bought it from her. Fire sticks, fire sticks, right? So I've always known about fire sticks. What is a fire stick? So fire stick specifically is an Amazon fire TV device. It's probably six inches long.

you plug it into your TV and then you're able to stream. Versus using a smart TV, which doesn't have as much computing power in the smart TV, a fire stick gives you that power. It's got more RAM, more speed. So people have been using them since 2016. That's when the first fire stick came out. Along with that, around 2016, when the first one came out, people began what's called jail breaking the fire stick. And really, all that means is turning on a setting in the settings of the fire stick.

Sting and allowing for unknown sources, allowing you to download things that are not available on the Amazon store. So I can download it for free. I don't have to pay for it. Yeah. So you can stream it for free because that's another thing with the fire sticks is that you're not downloading anything. So if you are-

But you're able to tie into the streaming network. Correct. Yeah, you're able to tie into the streaming network. If you are downloading movies and things like this, now you're crossing the line into copyright infringement and the whole FBI warning that you see at the beginning of the movies. Right. Punishable by five years.

That's downloading. Okay. But for me, as far as I was concerned, I didn't have to do that. There was apps that gave you free stuff, free movies, free local TV that were not illegal. Most of them were on the Amazon store. I didn't even have to side load them. Where do you get a fire stick and like what are you paying for them? So I would pay, I'd get them directly on Amazon or Best Buy or Target.

Same thing anybody else could do. Same thing anybody else can do. So with Amazon in these places, you can only get three a day. You can only get three fire sticks a day, and I'm guessing they have that limited. So people who are side loading and reselling them can't sell 10 a day or something, you know, which is stupid. You just go to Best Buy. They get another three, Target, get another three. Right.

Well, they have to look like they're trying to limit it. Yeah. Right. So I switch over to selling the fire sticks. People start coming immediately. And I would ask people, like, what do you want to put on there, like local news, which is a majority of people want it? This is, by the way, this flea market is international market world in Arbondale, Florida. So this is a, it's the biggest flea market in Polk County.

But it's, you know, it's mainly older people, not a jam-packed place, right? So most people that would come up and want a fire stick, what they wanted to do was reduce their cable bill or cut the cord completely and then be able to still see their local channels, see what's going on in the news and that may be sports. So they come to me and they say, hey, can I, I want to be. to see this. I want to see that. I want to see this. Okay, there's an app for that. There's an app for that. So, just bring it, bring me your fire stick or I have these that are ready to go. I'd sell fire sticks for maybe $25 or $30 more than the listed price. So when I buy them on Amazon and these other places, I'd buy Amazon 4K sticks. So they were the best ones out, the fastest ones out. I think they were $50 at the time. And I charge $80 for it. So it was like a $30 markup for doing the service. So I would remove a lot of the stuff that's in the fire stick already that slows it down, just stuff that Amazon puts in there, and then add whatever it is that they would customize it. You tell me what you want, you can hang out and watch me do it. There's no hiding. This is not a secret. Yeah, yeah, it's just a service. It's just a service. You know, I'm providing. So you can sit here and watch

people who hang out with me as I'm doing it. And by the way, that later that my charge was not just doing this and reselling it, but showing other people how to do it so they can do it themselves and I have to come to me and pay me 20 bucks or whatever it is. So that was part of that later. It only took two weeks, Matt. So two weeks from October 1st, 2020 was when the first undercover officers came to the flea market in full undercover, secret microphones, secret cameras, and the whole thing. So I don't know if it had anything to do with me. I was brand new at the flea market. Other people had been there for years. So two weeks. weeks after I begin doing this, this when everything starts. I wasn't aware of it. It

didn't come to light until December, late December 2020. So it was three months that they were investigating us. When the bus happened, the sheriff of Polk County, his name is Grady Judd. Right. He's also known as America's Sheriff. Right. Very popular dude. Yeah. Likeed in the community. Does good stuff. And I love them. Right. Before this. With this. This is the exception. I loved him before this. So when the when the whole bus went down, the sheriff of Polk County put out a story that he went on the news. There's a whole press conference, 15 minutes long, our pictures. How this guy does his press conferences is he'll do a raid or they'll do a bus. His team will do a bus. And let's say they get three guys. They got three

pictures ready to go. Right. So they get their press card. Hey, here's Louis Vasquez. This guy, right here was selling fire sticks. And by the way, he was arrested 15 years ago for stealing candy from a store, you know, he just starts going in on you. Right. So during that press conference, when his reasoning as to how this whole thing happened is a concerned, a concerned citizen went to the sheriff's office in October of 2020 and said, his words, they come in there and say, hey, sheriff, something's got to be wrong at the flea market. So they answer him, well, like what? Well, they're selling free TV boxes over there, and that just doesn't seem right. And that's all it took for the investigation to start. So going back to these conversations

I had at the flea market, I remember a couple of strange, two particularly very strange conversations. One of them, a guy comes up to my booth, and he's, hey, you got those jailbroken fire sticks? And I'm like, yeah, sure. I mean, they're jailbroken, but that's just a term. I would always tell people this. Like, it's just a term jailbroken. It's just something that's really misused because the Amazon Firestick is not locked. You can't jailbreak something that's not broken. Yeah, you're not hacking into it or breaking into it or, yeah, you're just reprograming it, which anybody can do. With anybody can do. Yeah, you're not hacking into anything. You're not changing code. You're not going through the back door. You're turning on a setting to allow, you know, apps to side load apps.

So this guy comes up to the booth and he's like, yeah, you got those jailbroken that. I was like, yeah, well, I mean, they're not jailbroken, but sure. The reason they're called jailbroken is, could I do this with it? I do that. Like, what do you, what would you like on yours if you want one? He's like, oh, no, I'm just, I just wanted to see if they were jail broken. So I'm like, okay, cool. Okay, that's weird.

Right. That's it, right? And then he's like, before he, that's it. Before he leaves, he goes, but are they illegal? And then I go, what do you mean illegal? But jailbroken, illegal, that doesn't match. There's two different things. He goes, well, yeah, I'm just asking, and he leaves.

So he wasn't a customer. He was there just to talk or whatever. And then another conversation I had shortly after that was a lady that came by. And she kind of asked the same, it was almost the same conversation, hey, I like the term jailbroken and this. And they were really pushing that term, jailbroken. And, oh, are they legal? Ooh, that sounds, you know, interesting. So later on, it was my opinion was that I think those were possibly tactics.

to get me to say certain things, even though jail broken, it's not illegal. The word is, it's just a word. That was the whole investigation, two people? No, no, there was more. People had to buy, right? They had to buy stuff. They had to buy. So the first buy in this whole buy and bus operation was in early October, two weeks after I began selling the fire sticks. So they come by, buy a fire stick, whatever, take off. In order to get probable cause for search and arrest warrant, they would have to take it somewhere to see if it's an actual illegal item. So in my discovery, which I have, you know, I fought the case to a certain extent. It's 50 pages.

My discovery is 50 pages. So in there, you see where they took the fire stick back the first time to a lab. And they check to see if it's illegal. They see that turn it on, Fox News. Yep, it's illegal. Like in my discovery, it says Fox News was on there. so you can access the world because that's on there. So maybe they checked other things,

but that's just what they put in my paperwork. So they confirmed that, okay, yep, you can see a cable channel on here. And the investigation continued. There was a second buy the next month and a third buy after that. So they did three buys of this hot product. And so on December of 2020, I came into my booth for December 19, 2020,

As a flea market vendor, you have to set up pretty early in the morning. So you're there at eight in the morning, I'm sorry, seven in the morning, setting up, getting ready because the first customers are going to be showing up at eight. People are old people come by and they walk around and whatever. So I'm setting up my booth that morning, December 19th, 2020. Some, a guy comes by first person there, that's the first customer. He comes up to my booth. He goes, hey, do you still have those jailbroken fire sticks?

And I was like, no, I don't. And actually didn't. I had what's called me sticks, the different device. But I was like, but these are the same thing. You can still see your movies, your TVs, this kind of thing. So he goes, can you give me a second? I just kind of make a phone call. So he goes by.

Grady? Listen. Not bad. Just saying, yeah, that was weird. So he goes, he makes his phone call. As he leaves to go make this phone call, a regular lady comes by, hey, can you fix my device, I plug in her device and begin removing all the crap that's in there that was slowing it down. As I'm doing this, here come six or seven dudes, you know, full undercover.

Hey, Lewis FastQuest, we got a search warrant for your booth. And I'm just shocked. I'm just, I went deaf. I couldn't hear what was being said. You know, it's just shocked like these cops are coming in here and screaming my name, particularly, then saying that they have a search warrant. So I respond after my hearing comes back after a couple of seconds and say, okay, what is this about? They're like, well, you need to step behind, you need to step away from the booth. Are you going to be cool? You're going to be cool, man? That whole thing.

I'm like, yeah, I'm cool. I get, okay, I step away from the booth. Here comes a photographer with a professional cannon, whatever, and he's taking pictures of the signs. He's taking pictures of all the, my crappy table and my. my rotten wood that we get as vendors of a flea market. And so right there, when I saw that guy with a cannon camera, I'm like, okay, this is something different. Right.

This is a little, this is beyond the pale. So the head guy asked me, he goes, hey, you need to talk to me. I'm like, okay, he's like, let's go to, let's go to the parking lot. So I go to the parking lot with him. I talk. Well, I go to the parking lot with him. We sit down to his pickup truck. He opens the glove compartment.

And, boom. Hey, grab that. I grab it, stack of paper. He's like, read that. And it says Florida State statutes, robbery, theft, and related crimes. So I go, what says is robbery? You're charging me with fire sticks. So robbery has nothing to do with this. And he goes, no, what you're doing does have to do with it, blah, blah, blah. And he begins asking me, like, how did you learn how to do this? How did you learn how to jail break a fire stick? You know? I'm just shocked still. So I'm like, I don't understand the question. You're talking about going in the settings?

It's like, yeah, well, how did you do this? Like, how did you learn how to do this? I told him, well, YouTube, YouTube it, Google it, read about it. He goes, well, how did you learn how to put cable channel on there or a movie on there or Netflix or YouTube? And I go, that's, it's not illegal. I mean, I just go on YouTube and learn how to do it. Nothing about this is illegal. jail, and I start the process of

explaining jail broken fire sticks are not illegal. This is not an illegal item. Right. This is a side-loaded item. The Amazon fire stick is made unlocked. You can't, you know, you can't go any further than that. So he goes, oh, well, what you're doing

was blah, blah, blah, this, and, you know, this is what you're getting charged with. So I ask him, what sort of charges that? He's like, felony three. Five years in prison if you get convicted. So, I end the conversation there. They come and take me to jail.

But how you know... They cuff you, the whole thing? They cuff me the whole thing. It took me to Polk County Jail. So how I knew something was strange, there was a lot of weird things going on. But when I go, the transport cop comes to get me, right? And take me from the flea market, take me to jail. I go, I see him.

I turn around. I've been, unfortunately, cuffed a couple times in my 20s. I do the thing. And he's like, no, man, it's cool. I do it from the front. And I'm okay. he puts on the cups from the front. I've never seen this before.

Cool. I get put in the car. And this whole situation, it wasn't just me. There was three other people who got raided and swept up and were being investigated and were recorded the whole thing. These were elderly people. In the same flea market? In the same flea market. Okay.

Same flea market. The oldest guy was 88. The lady, the person after that was a lady in her 70s, I think late 70s, and then there was another lady in her late 60s. A couple of gangsters. A bunch of gangsters walking up in Polk County Jail. So they roped up all these people. So I'm going to put in a police car next to me, the 88-year-old guy. They bring him into him next to me.

And I'm just, that's when I first realized that, wait a minute, this was a coordinated parade where you hit multiple spots at once. Like, it's how they're doing drugs. Right. They know you got two stash spots. They're going to hit them both at the same time, so you can't react. So that's when I realized, okay, this is not. just about me. You know, it's just multiple people. They take us to jail. We get to jail.

They couldn't get it. They couldn't get us booked in the jail because the charges were not even available. So it's a lot of weird things that were going on. As I'm in the car and they're waiting for the charges to come available, my cop that was driving tells the other cop that had two other people in the car. He goes, man, it's a sad day to be a cop. And they were talking about this whole thing. We got elderly people back here from the flea market, vendors. so another strange thing I've never heard from law enforcement

I never thought they'd say that in front of people who are in handcuffs behind them Right So they get us booked into the jail

I'm with the old folks I unfortunately have been to jail before back in the day in my 20s So I knew the process It's not It wasn't going to be a surprise

But I'm telling these older folks Hey listen It's gonna be okay You're gonna get bonded out Your family will pay You know I'm sure it's gonna be

You'll be able to pay and get out of jail. So we get booked in. I tell the booking people, just like you said earlier, I'm like, hey, you guys got the worst of the worst on here tonight. And then they didn't find that funny, which was cool. But I was pissed.

I was really mad when we're getting booked in with these older folks, you know. So anyways, I end up getting my wife post my bond, and the next morning I'm released. He wants Khan Bank of America out of $250,000 using nothing but a fake ID and his charm He is the most interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crime But when I do, it's bank fraud

Stay greedy, my friends Support the channel Join Matthew Cox's Patreon I'm released on a Sunday, Sunday morning I had to call out of work for that Monday because I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on. So I call out of work. I'm at home on Monday morning. The police took my cell phone as part of the raid.

They weren't supposed to take it, but they took it, you know, an accident. They take the cell phone. So I have no cell phone. I'm using my wife's cell phone in the backyard looking for lawyers in Polk County. Hey, tech crime. Who does the internet crime, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm looking for some answers. The call, a text comes in to the phone, and it's somebody with my name saying, Louis, in all caps.

Is that you? What's going on? And I'm looking, it's like, it's my wife's phone. Who the hell could be texting for me? Right. And it turns out it was one of my coworkers. And they're like, hey, they sent me a link after that text. They're like, you're on TV.

Right. And that's the Grady Judd. That's the first thing that happened, the first press conference. There was only one, but then it also went to news. And then the news began covering it. It went to radio, went to TikTok, it went to Facebook. Do you have it? The Polk County Sheriff's Office launching an investigation into vendors here at the

international market world flea market. After getting a tip, people were selling illegal fire sticks. But if you're just here shopping on the weekend, how do you know what you're buying is legit? Well, the sheriff says, if the higher price tag doesn't tip you off, the word jail broken should. TV, three sports, free anything. Secret camera recordings. True, it probably is, and in this case, it's also a crime.

Detectives of the Polk County. Oh my God, look at me and my old folks. Broken fire sticks to undercover deputies at the international market world flea market over the weekend. Loretta Marlene home, Bongwu Roe, Lewis Gabriel Vasquez, and Grace Yarbrough use signs like this to lure people who may have thought they were paying too much for cable. Even if you buy a legal fire stick and go online and figure out how to jail break it, the first time you download content, you're committing a crime. This video taken by detectives shows their encounter with vendors trying to make a sale.

It's got all the premium channels, all the HBO, Showtime, ESPN, NFL ticket, anything you pick up. Detectives seizing as many as 36 jailbroken fire sticks. in one day. You saw a lot of these things? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they're very popular. But there's a reason it's illegal, and it affects all of us.

The businesses have got to make the profit margins. So they're going to charge enough to cover this shrinkage or this loss. So at the end of the day, we all pay for the few people that steal. So get your torches and go to our houses because we're the reason that spectrum and Dish Network is charging $350,000 a mile.

Even if you're not selling jailbroken fire sticks, you could be charged with a misdemeanor for you. For you someone. So whoever's got a fire stick at home, throw it. So, okay, so they text you and said, this is it, this is you, you're on. You're on the news, right? Or you're on the press conference. And people around here, no, right?

In Florida, you're not too far from Polk County. Yeah. That the press conferences are a thing. Right. They happen. And if you're on it, you're fucked because you're going to. get dragged right and it's going to be long so i get the text message hey you're on but they sent me the thumbnail i see i know exactly what it looks you know great adjust things looks like i'm like

it's over right like this my whole life is going to change after this so the ground i swear the ground started spinning the whole thing you know the dizzy thing like you're about to have a panic attack or whatever so i go back inside the house and make sure all the TVs were off all the internet And my wife wasn't on the computer. I was just expecting to walk in and see her on the computer with the press conference plane just frozen. Right. And thank God he wasn't watching it. It hadn't been out.

It hadn't got to our house yet. And from there, it was like, okay. So what am I going to do now? Because it doesn't matter if you get a lawyer. This is the problem with the press conference thing. It doesn't matter what you do after that. You're screwed, right? So the next morning, I wake up.

I go to work as normal. I still don't have a cell phone because they took my cell phone. Good thing. They actually did take my cell phone because, of course, a lot of texts came in and calls, hey, this, this is happening now. This is happening. I get to work. I don't even get out of the door.

I pull up to my job, park. I don't even get out of the door before one of my guys, truck drivers. I used to work with truck drivers. They came up. One guy comes up to my door, he's ready to open my door for me. And I'm like, damn, this one dude here. It's like known as the guy that spreads the rumors. Right.

So as soon as I saw that he knows, it was over, I get out of the door. He's like, hey, look, man, it's going to be okay. I saw what happened and this kind of thing. Here's that 20 bucks a year just in case I don't see you on Friday. Yeah, it's like, oh, man, I feel so bad, but damn, this is good news. It's this juicy. You know, he didn't say the juicy part, but this is what I'm thinking. So as soon as he knew, I knew it was over then.

And I pass, hey, Sam, hey, Sam, it's cool. It was a mistake. I'm going to take care of it. Don't worry about it. I don't even want to talk about it. We're good. So I pass him getting into the door where my job is, just like three or four other guys right there.

And they're like, hey, man, you're all right? You know, they knew. And I go in, oh, yeah, I'm good. Clock in as normal. Like nothing's changed or whatever. I clock in. I go to sit down at the desk where I work. And then I hear my manager, like this manager.

manager that you never see he's remote so he shows up he always tells me before he shows up this time he showed up he was there he said hey lewis you got a second we can we talk so i'm like i'm i'm i tell him i'm nervous to talk to you because i didn't know you were coming but okay we went in the office and talk right away he takes his cell phone he's like bro what the hell is this right he's like i got a call from corporate. And mind you, I had just got arrested, like, less than 48 hours before that. Corporate was in, is in New Hampshire. I just got a call from corporate that you need to go right down. You need to talk to your guy. So he's like, well, that's this. I explained to him, listen, man, this was a mistake. On their end, they, this raid was, I don't even know what to say.

I don't have my discovery yet. But I'm like, this just doesn't make sense. Nobody's ever been arrested for this, man. Clay, his name. I was like, Clay, nobody's ever been arrested. arrested for this. This doesn't make sense. He's like, yeah, man, but it got to corporate. Out of my hands, I got to suspend you. So he tells me that, and I say, okay, well, I mean, I know I'm not coming back from the suspension. It's not, I'm going to suspend you. It's you're terminated. I'm just going to tell you now you're suspended because,

and it's not his fault. It was corporate's call. So as we're talking, he gets a phone call. He steps out of the room. Hey, I'll be right back. He comes in maybe 30 seconds after he stepped out. He's like, man, I don't know who you were praying or what you were doing but it worked corporate has held off on the suspension you must have a fan up there whatever he tells me so somebody some up there in new hampshire said whoa whoa like this is something's not right don't you know so but he does tell me hey but you're going to be under investigation here at work you know we're going to check your laptops

you're going to check you right et cetera you're not doing anything wrong you're not doing anything so what do you right so i was like well and he also a really great thing he tells me and i really appreciate it to this day. He's like, hey, I'm not telling you this as your manager. I'm telling you this, like, as a father would tell his son, fight the case. If you're truly, if you're truly innocent, fight it. Doesn't matter if it takes all the money you have or if you have to get loans or you go into debt, fight the case. So, by the way, if Clay ever watches this, thank you, Clay. I appreciate that because that's what I did. So I left work and continued trying to live life. However, the next day's press conference. Nothing to do with Amazon Fire

nothing to do with streaming. It was a sex thing, right? And that's what they're known for. Polk County. We busted 100 prostitutes and 10 Johns and whatever. And these are just people on the street doing drugs, but they get a press conference out of it. So this press conference, nothing to do with me.

I'm at home. I get another text. And it's, hey, you're on the press conference again. So I begin watching it. And at the end of the press conference, they have a question and answer thing every time. question and answers start the first media person stands up it's a lady from a local news station and she goes hey we've been getting calls all day to our station and emails saying that jail broken

fire sticks are not illegal and then the sheriff responds right and he's like well of course they're illegal just here's a clue jail broken get it you know that's how he breaks it down that's polkaid vernacular right is jail broken arrest jail yes so That's how it goes. So that's part of the reason they were pushing the whole jail broken, jailbroken, from the very beginning. They pushed jailbroken more than anybody, more than any hackers ever pushed jailbroken since jailbroken began, you know, in 1981 or whatever. So if you give it, it's, if you get it.

But they don't look like a prostitution, or they don't call it prostitution anymore. Now it's like human traffic. Human trafficking, right. Everything is, you know, is they throw terrorists in front of anything they can throw it in front of. So it sounds twice as bad. You can get twice as much time. Exactly. You're exactly right. Just like human trafficking.

It's a domestic terrorist. Right. What did I do? I said I have a sign that says fuck the government. I don't understand. Well, you have to go to jail. No, you're absolutely right. That's what that was.

It's that same human trafficking, slavery. You know, this thing like get you like, hey, this guy is the worst that there is. Jail broken. He's the reason you're paying $350 a month to Spectrum and this network. Right, because if all fraud was eliminated, they would, the Spectrum would immediately drop it down to $12. exactly because they're in it to help us yeah right so and they you know all the corporations are looking out for the people yes they are and they're also corporations are also people too so it's a whole thing people helping people facts so i get i get this text i watch the thing so i've

never had a panic attack before all right before this day and i i watched this thing and i'm thinking i don't know what the thing because he shut down the media like the lady that got up and asked this question it was a legit question she was not lying they were calling her station and he shuts her down you know he he goes on jail broken saying this whole thing and then he embarrasses her the media person there to all the other media people and you can tell she was embarrassed because her answer was like oh okay and she sat down and then the other people started laughing around her so after i saw that right away my teeth start shattering i start like doing this thing that i've never experimented like the hell and have

hypothermia like this is weird and i actually end up having a panic attack first time ever, and I go outside and breathing, doing Navy SEAL techniques, breathe in, breathe out, five second hold, the whole thing. And it worked. But I realized the reason I had that panic attack is because if somebody has so much power that they can shut down the media from asking questions, I have no shot. I have no chance of getting a fair trial, no chance of having a jury of my peers or whatever. The jury's already poisoned. Right. So that right there told me, you know, there's no, I got problems. So we go from there. The news coverage started. It went to local news and the news were parroting. I mean, almost word for word. You know, you saw it on that

thing. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. Judd told them to say what the, it's like the U.S. attorney will come out with, U.S. attorneys will come out with a press release and they put it out. And the newspapers essentially barely even rewrite what the U.S. attorney said. And then they put it in the newspaper. And then they goes from this newspaper to this noon, then it's the Associated Press. Next thing, you know, it's in the, you know, Tampa Tribune and this and that. It's like, he wrote a press release. You guys just rewrote it so it makes it look like you did the reporting, but you didn't do the reporting at all.

You know, you might have made one phone call, but that's it. You're just basically, they're just putting out whatever they want and everybody just follows suit. Right. It's cheaper that way. It is cheaper. It's cheaper that way. And I'll tell you what, Grady Judd, I respect Grady Judd, to this day.

I live in Polk County to this day. Right? And before this, I love Grady Judd. I mean, because a guy, he does things, going after child predators, going after, you know, he does a lot of stuff looking out for kids. And we have two little kids at home. Right. My wife and I have two boys at home. So we appreciate that. And especially when he said, I don't know if you remember this, but it was during the hurricanes. No, I'm sorry, it was during recent riots that were going on. And he does a press conference for that. He's like, hey, if you come to Pope County, rioting and breaking windows and all that, my residents have guns. I encourage them to hold. guns, load your guns, and they're going to use the guns. Right. So they'll come over here messing around and breaking shit, right? We appreciate that. Yeah, yeah. Right? We live there. We love that kind

of stuff. My issue was with this particular case. Right. And what came out later, because there's more that came out. Anyway, the news coverage starts, I just continue trying to live, go to work, and look for a lawyer. Did you get a lawyer?

I was going to say, okay. Yeah, I end up getting a lawyer. Found a lawyer that has that deals with somewhat tech stuff. Even then, it was, I mean, it was so hard to find, especially in Polk County. Because I was looking at lawyers in Orlando, Tampa, nearby large towns. There's a little issue with that, though, is that Polk County sometimes beefs with these cities.

Right. So when they'll have a press conference, they'll say, well, in Orlando, they let all this stuff go in Tampa, you know, so there's an ongoing thing that the office, the sheriff's office has with these outside cities. So I kept it in Polk County, found the best person I could find. This person was a former prosecutor and this whole thing, and they've been in Polk County a while. So I call the lawyer.

I get not the person I'm looking for who is the picture or the name. I get somebody that just, you know, kind of started there. But the way I saw it, I was like, okay, they just left the prosecutor's office in Polk County. They should have, you know, friends there. They can talk and find out what the hell is going on. So I get this lawyer At the first conversation She's like

I say man I don't know if you've ever seen this before Like what kind of history What do you what have you had that similar to this And how did it work out And she's like well I've never seen this before For fire sticks But I've had this

I had a guy who was selling fake contacts Etcetera blah blah blah Nothing to do with streaming or tech So she goes But what you need to know is that You're facing five years in prison you're, have you ever been arrested? Yes, I've been arrested back in a day.

Yes, I had a couple of misdemeanor convictions. Well, that's going to play a factor. Mistimeter convictions is going to play a factor? Yeah, that's what she told. That's, it's going to play a factor. And so, and she's giving me the scare thing, right? Right. I'm already scared.

So she, okay, so I said, so how would we approach this? Like, how would you speak to, whatever, your friends over there? And she goes, well, I mean, we humanize you to the judge. I'm just thinking like That sounds like throwing me on the mercy of the court for something I haven't really done. Right, right. And explaining a law that the law they charge me with is,

and let me get into that, the law they charge me with is a Florida law. Okay. This is only ever federal. This is first time a state has used a law that they have to make it fit whatever. The law is called intercepting communications from a provider, right?

So essentially they're saying that the fire stick device can hack into spectrum or dish or these other cable providers and get the full list of you know things all the channels you get the you know what's the thing that goes up and down the scrolling thing oh you get everything right yeah the listings or whatever the listings and it says what time things are coming on like exactly the same thing you get if you pay these providers that's what you get from this device that you're selling so that charge is a misdemeanor it's a misdemeanor however If you are selling these devices, like he says in the conference, if you're selling these devices for a commercial game, and you're also doing it with the knowledge of that you're defrauding a cable company.

So let's say it's Dish Network. Let's say I'm at my booth. Hey, somebody comes up. Yeah, I want some Dish Network channels. Okay, cool. Here, just do this. You're going to hack directly in the dish, and we're going to get a dish. Like, we're doing it to defraud Dish network.

You have to be in those parameters to break this law. And then it becomes a felony, from misdemeanor to felony. So they're saying that the fire stick devices acted in this way, which is impossible. They do have devices that people use that they're sold sometimes at flea markets or maybe other places that do log into DISH and they're called like pass keys. They get you these pass keys. You put it on your box that you buy and it directly hacks into the thing. Now you're, you know, committing a misdemeanor or whatever. Anyways, this law hadn't been used.

I don't know how long. I don't think it's ever been used. Could I've wrote a book about this whole ordeal? I've been researching and... For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown

and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Everything there is about this law and it had not found one. One person that's ever been arrested for it. So I get hit with this charge. Get the lawyer, the lawyers, starting the case or whatever and just not continued going from there okay i mean what she does

i mean does she understand that you're you're going to trial or is she trying to get you to just like hey just take a plea if i can get this down to a misdemeanor take a plea or can i can get your probation take a take a plea you know because it doesn't sound like she's got a great strategy so far of let's just humanize you. It doesn't seem like a strategy to me. Right. Hope is not a strategy. I hope it's not a strategy.

So it seemed right away it was like, okay, we're going to try to plead deal or whatever. I told her not on the very first call. I wanted to just get somebody on the case, but on the second call we had maybe two weeks later, we had the same kind of, hey, give me all the charges you've been arrested with before,

everything you've been convicted with before so I can see how it would play a factor, blah, blah, blah. And then I tell her at the, end to say, I want to take this to trial. Like, I don't have the money to take it to trial because it's another, I paid $25,000, maybe $3,000 for the lawyer. And then it costs another $3,000 or $4,000 to start trial. I had to borrow the first money. I was already in debt borrowing that money to get the lawyer. But I told her, I'll find a way, but I want to go to trial because I'm researching myself. I cannot find anywhere where this has happened before. This is not

correct. I didn't have my discovery evidence yet had I had it. It would have been more information for me. So she goes, all right, yeah, if you're, if you're sure, then I'll keep doing the thing, whatever. Another maybe month passed after that, that we decided, hey, we're going to go to trial. And it didn't seem like she was going to get all the information because it's just hard to find. It's hard to find anywhere where this has happened. It's, it's really federal law. So if you're, if you're making copies of something, right? If you're slinging DVDs on US 27 in Davenport, Florida, to people at 7-Eleven. It's pretty obvious.

Yeah. It's obvious. It's obvious that this is a, this is the movie such and such, and you've downloaded and copied it onto a CD. And so it's obvious I've stole it. You're just giving people access to something. Well, yeah, it's obviously you stole it and you have a downloaded copy and that's federal copyright law.

So the feds have to come after you, these people on the street selling CDs or whatever, to sue you, to get you sued civilly by the companies or whatever, or to hit you with some sort of a charge, some sort of felony charge. being that this is streaming and you're not holding any physical copies and also we're not hacking into any systems it's very treated completely different you know so during this time on that same note two days after I get out of jail a I don't know if you remember this but the COVID bill from 2020 it was late 2020 around Christmas they passed the emergency COVID relief bill and it was called the COVID-19.

care package. They gave us some sort of like a $1,400 or $1,200 or $1,200, something like that. Yeah, something like that. They go it's a little thing. Within that pack, that was the biggest bill ever passed in history. It's 5,000 plus pages. And I write about this in the book. It's over 5,000 pages, biggest bill ever passed. In that COVID legislation, there was a bunch of other stuff thrown in there, too. They had nothing to do with COVID. One of them was like horse racing, Integrity Act. Another one was like, you know, tax breaks for corporations, just random stuff, right? One thing that was in the middle of that package was called the Protect for Protecting Lawful Streaming Act, where it's the feds now, and this is currently the law now, before 2020, if you, if you were running entire servers,

I'm talking about like the size of your house, servers, computers, apps, like giving you access to the world, pay-per-view fights, UFC, like, you know, NFL ticket, MBA, everything. If you're running those things and you get busted, the misdemeanor, that's what it was before 2020. This COVID bill made that a felony now if you're like the criminal the top criminal doing this or whatever So this thing gets passed that you were arrested prior I was arrested two days prior to it being passed So they'll I don't think I had anything what are we talking about? Yeah, I mean I don't think I it was just weird that that whole thing happened because Had I been arrested under that it would have been a misdemeanor and even if I got arrested on the next one it would have been the same the same felony So time goes on.

The lawyer, things are not going good with the lawyer. I mean, she seems busy. She's got stuff going on. She got other clients. I'm calling. I'm getting the paralegal. And, you know, so it's not going that good. I'm doing my own research.

The news, this coverage is kind of slowing down. But then it gets put on Facebook. And then it gets put on TikTok. And then it gets, so it just keeps going. Like, it never really ends and gives you a break to figure out what you're going to do. Did you ever get in touch with these? other arch criminals, the old guy, the old people. Do you ever talk to them and say, let's pool our resources and get a real lawyer?

That's a really good question. Of course, they're all selling stuff at the flea market. Were they doing the same thing? Were they selling something similar? Yeah, they were essentially the same thing. Amazon Fire Sticks. I mean, they were selling some of the older sticks, maybe Fire Stick lights while I was doing Fire Stick 4Ks, but essentially the same.

So the 88-year-old guy, it went on. He went on YouTube and figured out how to reprogramming. He must have been a genius. I mean, I don't, at 88, like, you know, that's pretty, like, he must have. He's like, he's the original hacker. He's the original hacker. He is. He remembers when computers were abacus.

You know, the slide, you know what an abacus is? Oh, my God. Do any of you know what in abacus is? A bacchus? No. For God's sakes. It's a wooden device where you can count numbers with. It's like, it's like the.

Chinese used it. They used it. That was like they was joke. Like, it was the original computer. All right. Yeah, no. My wit is, is wasted on you guys. Anyway.

But your point is right, spot on. Because they're in a press conference, the 88-year-old man, though. So he's like the OG, like you're saying of the game. He's like George Hots. George Hots. I'd blame it on him. He's running the whole thing. Yeah, no, he's like the OG of this thing, right?

George Hots, I don't know if you heard of him, but he's the first guy to jailbreak anything, right? This was in early 2000, Joe broke an iPhone. And a device that's actually locked that you actually do have to jailbreak an iPhone. He's the first guy. So during the press conference, Judd was like, the 80-year-old guy. He's like, oh, this gentleman, he must have been really good with whatever he was doing because he was jailbreaking him and he was buying them from other places. He was moving.

Judd's favorite character in this whole saga that I wrote about. and lived through it, is the elderly lady. She was like 77. She would sell candles. So her thing was, she had a candle store. And then she also had fire sticks. As people are coming in to buy candles, they might buy a fire stick. She had her TV on and stuff like that.

So he goes, and this lady, she's the most tech savvy of the group. Her name is blah, blah, blah, and she'll not get you just candles and more, but you'll leave with a fire stick. And it's jail broke. So she got it bad. She was a tech savvy of the group, blah, blah, blah, blah. Me, when it came to my part, it was just like, ah, this guy, yeah, he's got arrest for driving on a suspended license.

He's got open warrants, or he's, okay, I think he said warrants, but made it seem like it's open, like physical warrants now. Right. This is from 10 years ago. He told, he lied to a law enforcement officer back in a day, blah, blah, blah. He sold his fire sticks for that much in this. And then the third, the fourth lady, she sold custom cups. So you go get your, your coffee mug right there, get your name Matt Cuck.

boo boo boom you're good but then you might leave with a fire stick inside the cup right and now you got access to she's they call them pushers the pushers the pushers first one's free first one's free first one's free so he had a field day with the he's pretty good at it's not going to lie so we're talking about the press conferences right we get our names out there our stories and our background here's the thing we're press conferences right so police are allowed to do press conferences i I researched that too. They can talk about it. They can talk about what they found,

with the investigation, discovered, et cetera. But what they can't do is give prejudicial statements, which is basically just saying, yeah, this guy and, you know, just talking shit about you, essentially, which is what they do. He's guilty of this. He's guilty. Like, you don't know that I'm guilty of anything. You just know you came to my house and I had a nab, you know.

Right, right. We're American, right? We have the presumption of innocence. You have to prove in court that we're guilty. It turns out I could have had that house rented to somebody. I haven't been in the house of six months, so I don't have a blab. He's got a slap. Right.

Go ahead. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And with that whole thing, you can't go on a press conference and say, well, this guy's background was this, and he got in trouble for that because now you're tainting the jury pool. Right, right, right, right. So I just wanted to mention that part where I feel, and I talk about it in the book, too, it's a violation, not just mine, this press conference has been going on for a while for different things. But for sure, for minds and those other three people. Right. Because this is not a

sex thing. This is not a child thing. This is not an assault. It's not a crime. Even if you somebody, right, and anywhere, let's say, Polk County, somebody gets, or something. They don't usually get press conferences. It's just one guy, another guy. So you're going to court as a accused killer. You're going to fight your case as a private person. You can't do that once you get on the press conference. So I feel it's a violation of the Sixth Amendment, which is a is the right to a fair trial and the right to an impartial jury. Once you put that information out there, that's over. Also, I feel that our Fourth Amendment rights were violated because they got search and seizure warrants over the word of a concerned citizen that came to the police

and said, yeah, they're doing something legal. I don't know. You go check it out. So they get search and seizure warrants. I think it was based on false information. Who was the concerned citizen? So the concerned citizen was never, never discovered. It doesn't seem right either because I'm based on the Constitution. I'm allowed to confront my accusers. So who is it? I'm allowed to confront my accusers. So when I got my discovery evidence, that's where I saw like it was, by the time I got

my discovery, it was too late. I had already did a deal with them to get the charge dismissed. And it wasn't a deal that I came up with. It was like, okay, listen, you know, if you want to get it dismissed, you got to do this. You got to pay us. I'll get to that part. But once I got, I did talk to them about that. They gave me the discovery.

30 days later, whenever it was, I'm looking through it. I don't see any concerned citizens. I'm looking for the concerned citizens. Like, who, okay, did somebody? How'd this start? Yeah. How'd this start? Somebody go and say that they charge too much for a fire stick or what was it?

Because when I was selling, reselling the fire sticks, I had great people. Like, most of them were older. There were some young people there. There's a mix of everybody. And they love me there. Right. They would bring me cake. They'd bring me just stuff, you know, because I help them cut their bill of hundreds of dollars.

And these people have to, they have medicine. They have bills to pay. Like, they're getting killed just to watch one or two channels, but they got to pay for 500 of them. Right. So I was very popular there. They loved me for that. So I'm like, who, what, what happened here? I checked the discovery.

There's no concern citizen, like was put on TV. The only thing that I found was that somebody, there was a person that went, to law enforcement and said, this is, instead of what was said on TV that was, oh, they're doing something wrong and say, go check it out. It's a little more detail than that. This person went to the sheriff's office or whatever and said, hey, vendors at this international market world are selling access to TV without written express authorization of the cable communications provider, blah, blah, I mean, perfect to the law.

Just look what the law says. It's amazing. It's amazing. We need to talk to that guy. I think he was a lawyer. You know, the guy knows the law. Or maybe just somebody that doesn't exist at all. That's right.

That's very, very likely. So in the book, I talk about that part, but specifically, they did mention his name. And it turns out he actually worked for a cable company. Oh, okay. So somebody. I don't know if they don't say that he's a concerned citizen, but they say that citizen said this. And in my discovery, says, this guy said, you know, it kind of ties together. this guy said something similar.

So that's what turned out in the whole case is it wasn't just, hey, these guys are selling free TV. It's the cable company is the cable company is creating writing statements

going on record, making recorded statements, yeah, sure enough. That's what got them the arrest and search warrants. The fact that somebody from the cable company came down and said, yep, hey, what they're doing is illegal, this is, you know, et cetera. And with that, they took us to jail from there.

So they didn't look up the specific laws or anything? They didn't. Right. Nobody, no, the judge, I guess didn't, because you have to go to a judge, right? Like, to get a search warrant and an arrest warrant, you have to have probable cause. And nobody looked at it. Nobody looked at it. They just took this guy's word. Well, then they sent down people to buy from you.

Correct. To prove that you were selling them, which I was. Correct. But what I'm selling is an illegal. Right. Okay. Right. So that's what, I think that's who the concern citizen may have been. With that information,

I was already, you know, sort of wrapping up with the law. So I wasn't able to use, I wasn't able to really use it. What are you saying wrapping up? Like, was your lawyer talking to them? Like, what's? So my lawyer was talking to them. My lawyer went to K2 court for me so I could continue working every day. I stopped going to the flea market. I was just going on the weekends and I work my regular nine to five, you know, 50, 60 hours at work Monday through Friday. So she was going to court for me. She would, I call her when she gets back from court and see what happened. Oh, no, we're just talking. You know, it's, she goes to my arraignment, et cetera, and it keeps going from there. I got in contact with people from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is

internet group that watches these kind of situations and helps you out pro bono and the whole thing. and they were willing to help but they needed my lawyer to say it's okay like for them to come in and work together my lawyer wasn't really with that so she comes to me one day the lawyer with a deal

and she goes hey so got great news for you Lewis remember that whole felony thing forget about it we'll get you a misdemeanor or whatever however she said it she's like okay so if you're willing to take this misdemeanor of attempted

fraud of cable provider thing, Florida law, then they will, you're good. You'll take that. You'll do some, you won't do jail, essentially. You won't do jail. But you're going to shitload of community service, probation, whatever. Okay. If you take that, then at least you don't have to lose everything.

So I tell her, yeah, but I'm going to lose my job. Like, I have to beat this case because if I go with a misdemeanor, they told me specifically, like, you're under investigation. You're not just like back to normal. you have to beat this or you have to get it dismissed or you're going to lose your job. So I told her, no, it's that and it's also the principle. Like, I don't know. I want to take it to trial.

I'm still working on getting the money for trial. Don't have it, but I want to. I don't want to take a deal. She's like, you sure? Are you sure? You know, because I got to give an answer to the DA by today, blah, blah, blah. I tell her no. And she goes and tells them that I'm not going to take that deal.

What about the guy at work that told you to, no matter what, if you're innocent, to fight it? Why don't you just go to him and say, you know what? That's a great, that's a great idea. And I'm so glad you said, I'm sticking with it. I need to borrow $10,000. No doubt. No doubt. I want to stand on my principles.

I want you to stand on yours. Do you have a credit card available? You know? I mean, that seems only fair following your advice, Rick, or whatever his name was. Definitely. I mean, that would have been good. That would have been good. Man, that would have been on your side.

That's what you should have called me. I said it called Rick. It's his idea is not to take the felony or not to take the felony. or not the misdemeanor. Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, but that's, that would have been great. That would have helped.

But during that time, you know, I was just going back and forth for the lawyer. The whole term jailbroken, right, doesn't apply to any Android devices. They're completely unlocked. It applies to an iPhone if you want to jailbreak to add stuff. And that's legal. Even if you jail break an iPhone, that's still legal. You're not doing anything illegal. If you jail break a, where it becomes illegal, if you jail break a gaming device, Xbox,

PlayStation 5, and you're down, you're playing down. the games that are pirated, that's been illegal forever, right? My thing is that the whole term of jailbreaking being in a great area for streaming is fake. It's fake news. This is what they've been telling us for years, so we continue paying the hundreds of dollars a month for a cable when they, in 2010, Sony and Apple tried to sue people for jailbreaking their phones, right? And they said, you're not going to, you're going to get sued, essentially.

They're threatening to sue people. okay well that's not criminal that's civil that's still civil yeah it's still civil but people took that to i want to say if it was the supreme court at some point the library of congress got involved maybe went to the supreme court and said that jailbreaking an actual apple device is completely legal and since then it's been legal that's 20 2010 so even before that the android devices were you know were completely legit so it's my estimation that that that that's It's just a scare tactic use to get us to continue, you know, not using new devices and continuously paying bills for this thing.

Right. There's nothing on the books that says this is illegal, but there's nothing on the books that say it's necessarily legal. Correct. You can find similar devices that that, that has, it has already been determined that it's legal to, to whatever, alter or to allow them to be doubt. have things downloaded. For Android, it's open.

For Apple, it's still open, although you do have to actually alter the programming to allow for downloads. Right. And for certain things that are completely locked off, like certain games, because you can make money on games, you can gain things like, you can do things like that. And certain games, they're absolutely, you're not allowed to alter anything within the game or allow downloads or change it in any way. Right.

And all of those have been determined, but there's no real determination at this point for fire sticks. But the government, but they're saying, but they keep using the term jailbreak, jail break, jail break. Right. And as a result of that, they're saying, well, if we call it something that sounds nefarious, then we can make it appear that it's illegal. And that's essentially where you were at. And you said, I want to go to trial on this. And your lawyer, of course, is saying, you gave me three grand.

Yeah. Like, I'm not going to trial for three grand. So she's wanting some money. And even then it doesn't sound like her heart's in it anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I probably had a better attorney for you. Yeah, for sure. But, yeah, where his heart's into everything.

He's probably got to go under eventually. The ones that are really passionate and will fight for you, they claim bankruptcy. Yeah. Because, yeah, passion doesn't pay. But, yeah, so you're trying to put it together. You're trying to go to her and explain the whole thing. She's trying to get you to take a misdemeanor. Right.

She's trying to get you to go away. I need you to go away at this point. So, I'm sure she's a wonderful person. Me too. But, you know, nothing against her. Yeah, but, you know, she's, yeah, she's not passionate about the law or this case, at least. So what, so you can't figure it. You're, you're having a hard time just finding, and there's nothing rock solid out there.

There's nothing rock solid out there. There is the electronic frontier foundation, which helps people pro bono or that kind of thing. And what are they saying? Are they saying, this is perfectly legal? Yes. But they don't have, but they don't actually have case law to prove it, right? So they don't have a case that went through that where a judge said, this is legal. Right.

Right. So they don't have that. They're saying it's legal, but they don't have case law. Right. They don't have case law. No one's ever been arrested in the United States of America, as far as I'm aware, for this. So there's nothing to reference.

There's people that have been sued. Right. Like if you go back to Napster, do you remember the Napster days in early 2010 or earlier than that, 2000s, 99? Right. So during that time, they were same thing, except it was for music and suing people for downloading on Napster and Kazah and these kind of places. And similar to the time,

The reason I bring up Naster, it's because it ties to this. Similar to the Napster days, they were going after what they call major violators, right? People that were downloading a bunch of music or whatever. But you were downloading stuff. You were downloading stuff. So, yeah, that's harder to- You're just giving them access to something that's already available. Correct.

Okay. Yeah, you're downloading stuff there, so that's harder to fight. But even then, they can only sue them. There was no criminal case law. There's nothing they could reference. Right. So they were suing people. back then for being my major violators. But as an aside, a lot of them were kids, seniors.

Like I talk about it in the book, there's a 12-year-old girl that was called a major, the first person to get sued. Her mom opens the door. There's a guy suing, or sorry, giving her paperwork, hey, your daughter's being sued by the record industry of America for this many thousands because her computer was up and it was being uploaded, music was being uploaded. And there's other people like seniors who were called, you know, by news reporters back then. hey, how's it feel to be a major violator? So this kind of thing, the way I see it is, the music industry did it then. The movie industry has done that to every five years or so, they'll push some kind of big campaign.

Hey, we're going to get the worst or the worst. And every time it's 10 years, it's, you know, people that are normal Americans. These aren't, what about all the other groups that are actually doing this as, you know, a business selling it, these other, you know, actual criminal groups. They don't ever go after them. But there was no criminal thing to tie to it. So my lawyer, you know, I don't know if she, there was nothing. It was hard for her too.

So I get it. Anyways, I contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation, quickly told them, hey, here's some links. Here's the news. Here's this. Here's this. This is what's happening. I'm looking for anybody that knows, like, what to do here.

They did eventually respond. It was the holiday season. So it took a while. They responded, hey, we're so sorry for what's happening. Yeah, this is completely wrong. we're willing to help but your lawyer has to accept it because you know you've already got representation

so that didn't really help but at least it gave me a little bit of hope that hey yeah this is this is wrong this is not just me thinking that you know I read case law before new fire sticks were completely legal this was other people saying the same thing that do this for a living

so eventually the case the case did get dismissed so how so she can to me with that deal about the misdemeanor. I said, no. A couple weeks later, she calls, and I'm at work with one of my truck drivers. She calls, I pick up, and I hear that's her. I leave work. I'm like, hey, I got to go take a lunch break now. So I talk to her on the phone,

and she goes, hey, all right, Lewis, that was a good call. So I got a better, just a better thing going on now. So if you're willing to pay them for the money they spent investigating you, for those three months if you're willing to pay that back and do some community service, then they'd be willing to dismiss the charges. And I'm like,

so no... Do you have to pay the money up front? Up front. I was going to say dismiss the charges and I'll send you a check. I got you. Yeah, they were like, hey, what I got to mow the Grannie Judd's yard? You got to come to the police station.

You have to mow... Mo, pulp, yeah, exactly. You have to mow the sheriff's station yard. Yeah, I mean, it was random. I don't know if this has ever happened either. It's like, yeah, just pay us back. How much was it? What are they saying?

It wasn't nothing crazy, but it was up to, I think I paid $600 for, you know, to me that was a huge amount, especially back in 2020. So it was maybe $600 or something like that. And it was for each time they came out for the cameras and the hours, because this didn't just involve one guy or two guys. These were detectives from multiple divisions within the sheriff's apartment. So there was homeland, like a guy from homeland, a guy from vice, a guy from narcotics, you know, a guy from these random, you know, whatever divisions.

You called the other people and say, let's all pitch in, let's all pitch in 150 bucks. We got this done. We're done. I know right now. Is the 88-year-old guy still alive? I think so. Because we've got to get the money out of him immediately. Yeah.

He's going to get lucky. and get out of this. Yeah, yeah. I think he's still around. I haven't, the thing is, I don't know what happened to them to a big extent because I left the market. I did go back one more time and talk to whoever was there. The 88-year-old guy was one.

And I'm like, hey, man, listen, what's happening is bullshit. Like, you know, don't just take a deal. Don't, you know, he didn't want to talk. No. He didn't want to talk. He's like, oh, man, that's okay, you know, whatever. And I end up believing, okay, that's cool. It's fair.

He thinks I'm wearing a wire. Right. Because we're, we've been spun around. We don't know who's wearing a wire. Who's got video cameras? So, and then I went to see the older lady, too, and she was still there. Her story, I think, was the worst out of this whole thing. They're gangsters, bro.

Like, they stuck with it. You bowed out immediately. They stuck with it. They were, like, I'm selling some candles. Fuck, Grady Judd. They went at it. Back fucking Saturday. They stuck with it.

They ain't scared. They ain't back and down. They were there the next thing, flipping antennas or whatever else they got. So they were doing their thing. What happened with her? so the lady she was there what I found out was that she didn't just get bailed out of jail

nobody could bail her out or she didn't have family to bail her out and this happened during Christmas so she was in there from December 20th through Christmas and I want to say it was like another week so it was like two weeks total for an elderly lady

oh great judge is a dick in the Polk County Jail which is not Polkney Jail is not no cake wall I mean it's no I have a hard time believing that Grady Judd runs a nice clean establishment that he's kind and polite to everybody everything made them. I'm pretty sure he's hard

on these motherfuckers. It's a little hardcore. You only get water. There's only water for everybody. There's no juice. There's no nothing. It's only water. The food is really nasty. And I know this from before the fire stick thing when I had to go in there for a little bit back in my 20s. And it was just nothing but nasty food and water. But anyway, she was in there for all. And there's dangerous people in Joe. You know, this is a count. It's not prisons. County jails. You've got people like coming down from meth, people withdrawing, people just, you know, acting crazy or whatever. So I found out she was in there during that time that that made me even more mad about this whole thing. The other lady, I'm not sure what happened to her if she's still there, but I'm pretty sure she is. I didn't go back to the flea market after that that first initial visit after getting out of jail. So I was done. I had a regular nine to five. Like so I had something to fall back on. They didn't. This is their. They're bread and butter.

You shut them down. You're shutting down their opportunity to eat, to buy medicine, to the whole thing. So I'm not sure what end up how they're doing today. But I would assume they're going to see this eventually somewhere. And hopefully, you know, it makes them feel good that somebody's speaking up for them. Because I could have said nothing. Like I, this happened in 2020. I'm not, this is the first, this is the second time I'm speaking about it in public.

I wanted it to go away. I just try to continue living life. But it keeps. coming up. So after this whole thing went down and it sort of went away legally, my reputation was ruined at work for sure. So I ended up leaving that job after a couple months. Like there was a promotion that came up that it was, it was mine. I'd been there six years before this happened. Right. Work coming in every day. I was like working my way up. After that, I couldn't get an interview for like any position moving up. So I knew that was over. I left that

job. Start a new job as a manager somewhere at another logistics company. And it took maybe 30 days before somebody's like, oh, shit, man, yeah. Damn, Lewis, that's you, that you're the guy from the fire stick thing. And that was, you know, that. So I kept coming up. Right. So I let that go, all right, whatever. And I stayed at that second job for like another year and almost two years.

But right there, I knew that, okay, I can't stay here forever because this is going to get out. And it did get out. They didn't fire me or nothing. People support it. Yeah. Most of everybody's, hey, man, yeah. this, whatever, they support because they know, you know, the whole story, but it just kept bringing, coming up. So I went left to a third job that I'm at now. And it's only a matter

of time before it comes up again, because it's still everywhere. It's still on YouTube, so on Google. So that's the reason I'm telling this story now, because I didn't have to. I could just continue my life and, you know, not talk about it. But I wrote this book, particularly to tell this story, not just mine, but also the... Where's the book? Babe, can you... I was going to say, do you have a copy of the book? Yes. So that's the version before it got published.

So you see, not for a read. So I have a bunch of these. Oh, you do? Yeah, with your books? No, I'm saying with my books with a, you know, not released for sale or whatever. So you were saying so I wrote the, you know, go ahead. So I wrote this book after years of trying to get away from this story and being owned by it. Like I'm now trying to own my own story.

Right. And talk about this. So... That one? Yeah. Okay. So I wrote this book to, you know, give our side. I didn't get any input from the other vendors because they, you know, I didn't go back to the flea market, but they were affected worse than I was.

We do have kids at home, so we have bills still to pay. So we were also affected. But yeah, so that's why I wrote the book. I could have been quiet and gone away, but I wanted to definitely get it out there for several reasons. One of the reasons is the press conference thing. I would love to see that go away, if at all possible, because people... Oh, is it have them take it down? To have them take down minds and no longer do press conferences.

Well, still do press conference. Don't give prejudicial statements. Don't trash people on the press conference. Give them their chance to have a fair trial. Right. And on that, on that, going back to the constitutional thing, if you, if you can't get a fair trial, then there's no, your constitution doesn't apply to you. It just doesn't It's a violation of the year

It's a violation And they've been sued You know Just a year Not even a year It's the same year Of minds Guy sued the sheriff's department

And they had to pay him $100,000 for pain and suffering For being on a press conference And then later being found Not guilty Or later they dismissed it Or whatever And he sued

And it's happened a lot It's not just one lawsuit During my research for this book I found several People that had Done lawsuits I found lawyers out of Tampa who publicly put statements out, you know, whether they're defending somebody that got arrested in Polk County or they're just saying in general, hey, your use of press

conferences is violating this, right, that right, you know, it's got to stop. You don't, you can't just give any statement that you want to, you know, for, for clout or whatever. Right. As entertaining as they are. They're very entertaining. Right. Did you do an audible version? So I'm working on that now. I have my paperback version and then I have it on ebook, too, which is available now. It's available at Apple, Google, Kindle, Amazon, everywhere you can get books. And then the audio version should be available by the time this interview drops. Yeah, the audible, like, I probably, you know, I probably 30% of my book sales are on audible. Really? Yeah, because people just don't, like, you know, a lot of people don't breed. Yeah. So they don't want to buy, you know, they don't

buy the book, but boy, they'll buy audible. For sure. Yeah. You can just listen to it on that work or on the way to work. Are you doing it? I'm doing it. Okay, cool. Yeah, I said a a little studio in the closet and I'm well yeah I'm doing it okay yeah well cool did you feel like you feel like we so what happened wait a minute so what happened basically you took the deal so you did take the deal so yeah so she gives me this breakdown of this deal pay us it'll go away so yeah at that point I have a decision to make either I find three or four thousand dollars or whatever it is going to be to start trial from somewhere right which it was impossible we we didn't have those options or or I push I take this deal right that's like there's no other option you got the money ready or you're going to take this deal right right so I said okay I agree let's go ahead and do that I found some money to pay them and then they had some community service hours that you can buy it out also bought that out for another 200 or whatever it was and it just gets dismissed goes away and then they hope nobody else talks about it right right because they knew they were wrong this is why they offered me

this deal, which they usually maybe would offer to somebody with no criminal history. I don't have a big criminal history, but I did have some stuff back in the day. And usually they would say, ah, you know what? No, you had your chance. Right. You know, like Grady says during the press conference, he's, when he's talking about us, he's like, well, that guy, he's had a couple bites of the apple. So he might not have it so easy. Right. So, but then when it comes down to it, I have it very easy and they just, you know, dismiss it. To me, it's almost like they wanted this thing to go away because one of the press conferences, the second one where somebody says, hey, the news says, these aren't illegal.

Illegal. If we're getting calls and, you know, emails, that got taken down by the media team. That's the one they took down. Yeah, but they don't take down the original one. It's just weird. That one you can't find on YouTube anywhere now. So it's convenient. Yeah, it's convenient.

And the media is questioning something, right? So like, oh, can I ask one question about that thing? You know, and then all of a sudden that you can't find that video anymore. Right. So that's strange. I've loved people to go to my website. It's tech slash or tech dash pirate.com. So tech, T-E-C-H, then the dash pirate.com.

There you could find a book. I have my own, you know, line of shirts, all type of merch on there, you know, and basically just trying to recruit what I lost during this time. for no reason. I mean, it's still going on now. I'm still losing, you know, jobs here and there. And I'm trying to recoup from this. So that's why I have that on my website. Well, thanks for come by. Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it. I didn't get a chance to say that. Thank you so much for having me. You've been excellent. You know, I was a fan before. Now I'm a bigger fan, but I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity because this is new.

I haven't talked about this, you know, besides the first time recently in public. So it feels good to start getting this shit off my chest and, you know, moving forward and trying to take control of this story and no longer having it run my life. So I want to be able to run it. So I appreciate that. No problem. All right. I appreciate it.

So hold on. Let me. All right. Stop. God, bro. Don't marry. I don't know if you married a mean woman. I mean, my wife's Dominican.

I mean, bro. Just angry. Just always poking, making fun of me. It's just, you know, just me. Spirited. Just a mean-spirited person. All right. All right. Hey, thank you guys for watching. Do be a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Also, please share the video. That really helps with the algorithm. Please consider joining our Patreon. It's like $10 a month. There's Patreon exclusive content on the channel. Also, I answer all comments on Patreon. So it's only $10 a month. It really does help Colby and I make these videos. We really appreciate it. Also, we're going to leave in the description box, we're leaving the Amazon link. We're going to leave the link to the website, to the Tech Pirate website. Also, there will be a, hopefully there will be an audible book on the book. By the time this comes out, really do appreciate you guys watching.

Thank you very much. See you.