Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Dark Side of Prison Consulting

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

RDap Dan Talks About Prison Consulting and exposes some shady practices. Check Out Dans Site https://bit.ly/3iezJ3g Follow me on all socials! Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/matthewcoxitc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxcrime Follow my 2nd channel - Inside The Darkness! https://www.youtube.com/c/InsidetheDarknessAutobiographies Want to be a guest? Send me an email here! [e-mail] Want a custom Con man painting shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Get a custom painting done by me! Check out my link! https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to True Crime Podcasts anywhere! https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my prison story books here! https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Cox/e/B08372LKZG Support me here! Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

So this is a screenshot that I sent to my client. And she goes, he seemed very scammy when we spoke with him. Yikes. Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me. It's put me in a situation to not just help people, but it keeps me honest. And I see every day the mistakes that people are making, PPP loans, all this stuff. And if I didn't have this kind of accountability over my head, I don't know that I would have stayed on a straight and narrow path. Making a living, being able to work from home.

Sure, there's stresses that come with that, but I wouldn't trade this for the world. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm here with Dan Wise, and we're going to be talking about prison consulting and, you know, Dan and Dan and some of the people that he's, he's represented and the whole process in general of prison consulting, which is one of those jobs that you don't really. think of it's not like a traditional job but it's super interesting and so yeah it's going to be it's going to be interesting so check this out dan let me tell you how this whole thing came about i was talking to jess and who's you know i'm engaged to now and we were talking about eventually getting married like hey what do you want to do small wedding this and that have a few people you just want like to me i'm okay with just going up and getting the license right let's just sign the license that's we're good and going on like a vacation of some kind.

So anyway, we ended up talking like who would we invite and we were talking about just like the normal, you know, we don't really know any normal people. Like everybody I know has some insane story, you know, and like they do. They've like, you know, this guy did that and, you know, this guy, she's, this guy was locked up for 10 years. This guy was locked up for five years. This guy, you know, she's like, well, we have, do you do. want to wait for, you know, Pete to get out? So we're going back and forth. And one of the first people she said, I said, well, who would you want to invite? She's like, well, you know, Dan, of course. And I was like, my God. Try it. So anyway, we started talking and we were talking about not only do

we know we know a bunch of interesting people, but we also know a bunch of people that still do interesting things. Like when I tell people what I do, they're always like, like, how does that work? Like, what do you mean you do YouTube? Like, does that pay you? And I'm like, yeah, it kind of pays. Like, it pays a certain, pays some money.

And I also sell books and I also sell paintings. And I kind of, you know, you start explaining the whole thing and how it kind of, the ancillary benefits are what are also paying bills right now. And then, you know, like one of those, you have one of those jobs. we started talking about how you have one of those jobs and I used to love talking about my job to like random strangers now I'm almost like I don't want to I don't want to go through the whole thing

because you have to explain the whole thing but I mean think about it if somebody says I'm a I'm an insurance salesman like oh okay like that stops right yeah I know I pretty much know your job you say I'm a car salesman oh okay for who for okay we're good so my question is like how did the whole prison consulting thing come about like i know i've heard the story but you know tell the story again like how did how did you end up getting into that you know that field let's say that field how i became a prison consultant my uh my field of education um so prior to going to prison and i know you've spoken about this in some of your old videos and we could post a link to it for the first video i did but prior to

going to prison in 2014. I self-surrendered September 23rd, 2014. And on September 20th, 2014, I posted a video on YouTube and I titled it, I think, something like I'm going to federal prison for 42 months or something along the lines of that. Getting ready to go to prison was terrifying as anybody that's, you know, ever been that doesn't have a criminal history that's kind of going for the very first time. You imagine federal prison being exactly like what you see on TV, which it can be. If you go to a high enough security, it can be dangerous. You can have all kinds of prison politics. But I'd watched every horrible movie, Shawshank Redemption, locked up abroad, TV show Oz, just terrified. So skip forward. I self-surrender to prison.

I'd get there and realize almost immediately it's nothing like what I imagined it being like. It was overwhelmingly a positive experience. When you go to a federal camp or a federal low security, if you're going somewhere like that versus a medium or a penitentiary, there's not really a lot to worry about. So prison was pretty doable. I went in, did my time. It did RDAP.

I got a year off. Got 11 months halfway house and a bunch of home confinement. So on my 42-month sentence, I only did 13 months. But when I got to the Federal Halfway House, after about a week there, I was finally able to check my email. And in my email, I saw all of these YouTube comments, YouTube comment, YouTube comment. And I forgot I even posted that video. There is no intent behind creating that video other than just getting some anxiety off my chest, I think. So I started reading all these comments.

And their comments were mostly people getting ready to go to prison for the first time. Some, a lot of white collar and a lot of blue collar. and all their questions and concerns and the fears they had were very similar to my own, like riddle with anxiety, thoughts of suicide, thoughts of going on the run, just a bunch of irrational fear that really could have caused a bunch of problems. So I thought it would be interesting. Instead of just typing a response, I thought it would be interesting to make response videos on YouTube.

So I started posting response videos when I came home. And before I know it, sorry. Before I knew it, I started getting a lot of calls and a lot of emails from criminal defense attorneys asking if they could hire me to work with their clients that are getting ready to go to prison. And I wasn't really sure what to make of that because I wasn't offering a service at this point. I was just talking about, you know, how I wish I had better prepared for my pre-sentence report, how I wish I had known more about what should go into a narrative and reference letters. what my first day in prison was actually like, just a lot of, a lot of answers that you probably wouldn't get from somebody unless they've been through the system. And when these attorneys wanted to hire me, I wasn't really sure what to do. And then a couple of prison consultants that

I had seen out in the industry, who I had followed on YouTube and they were following me now that I was YouTubeing, I reached out to some of them and they were very interested in working together as long as I stopped posting content on YouTube because they felt they felt it was too I was giving away too much that people wouldn't need to hire or pay anybody for a service if I was giving giving it away for free right and and that's just not my train of thought you know my train of thought is you know there's a million cooking videos out there you know how to do everything there's a million videos how to change your oil and just because you can get the schematic of how to do it from A to Z doesn't mean you're in a mental headspace to

go through the process. So I just started developing a process and procedures. I started looking at what other people were doing. And I didn't want to recreate the wheel. I just wanted to make it roll a little bit better. And I started fine-tuning all of the systems. And I found who I felt to be probably the leader in the industry at that time in consulting. And I looked at all of the services that they were offering. And I was looking at their price point. You know, their price point was at that time, it might have been like $7,500 to $10,000. Now that same company for the same price point or the same opportunities. It's $15, $20,000. So I thought, how can I offer every single one of these services without dumbing them down or offering less or watering them down, but

offering them for a much a much smaller fee that wouldn't prevent people from from getting help because most people that were able to get the help with the other consultants, if you didn't have 10, 15 grand laying around, you might as well, you know, it might as well been 10 or 15 million dollars for some of these people. So we developed a system that allowed these people to get the help that they needed at a reasonable cost. And I think when we first started, we were doing it for like thousand dollars and but we were we were using that as a learning curve but uh i just took a huge interest in it man and i'm one of those people that once something captivates me and i'm interested in it i kind of i go all in and i'm like seeing the matrix i stopped doing anything else i consume it

consumes me 24-7 and it was an issue in the relationship for a while because shelley's like man you're either making videos you're either talking to clients or you're prepping for other videos it's like a 24-7 job, but it took about 18 months to really take off before we saw any actual promise with it. Yeah, I was just going to say, I'm, I'm the same way. I just completely, like, the thing, I get on something and it just consumes my life, you know, and I, I want to know everything about it. I want to, I think about it all the time. I drop everything else. Suddenly, it takes priority over everything else, even though it's not really probably a lot of, for me, a lot of time, probably not a price shouldn't be a priority at all really but i get consumed with things and and and yeah it's

always an issue i always get the look um so you know and that but that's i think that's the same thing with like work you know like i'll get onto a story or something and then i'll just i i start ordering documents and i want to know about this and i read this and i watch this video i do this and you know i'll kind of gobble it up until i'm completely you know or completely absorbed in it and i feel good about it. I feel like I've got a good firm grasp of it and then I can drop it at that point. But it does. It takes over. Yeah, it's consuming, man, for sure. Anything. Anything you're going to do is consuming. But you and I are fortunate to get consumed by things that aren't, aren't taking us away from, at least we're doing it for ourselves, creating our own future. Right. I think,

you know like it's funny having gone through the process and you know it it's funny to do actually this is something else that I don't know if you've ever you know is that like I was of course when I was locked up and I was in prison you know I was cooperating and I had like FBI agents coming to see me or I would have the Secret Service come to see me and I had multiple agents come coming and seeing me for various things you know various fraud cases and stuff and I remember They would all, every one of them would say. So, you know, after we, the introduction and a talk for a little bit or whatever it was, they were always kind of like, so, um, what's it like in here?

And it's like to me, it was like, I just, for some reason I felt like they had a firm grasp. Yeah, you would think. You would think like I'm, but you know, let's face it. They're really just like lawyers or like an FBI agent's kind of like an active lawyer. He's like, there's a business suit. He goes to work. He fills out a lot of paperwork. And every once in a while, there's a little bit of action, but that's it.

Right. So they don't really know what happens with these guys. And they don't really, all they do really know is the, you know, the TV shows too. And I just remember thinking, well, he's probably talked to hundreds of guys like me. But I, you know, they never seem to. They're like, well, I mean, like, are you worried at all? Like, are you, you know, like, what happens? Like, what's it like that?

I'm like, what do you want to know about the showers? Like, what are you concerned with? Do I have a boyfriend? Just say it, bro. What's up? So, but yeah, I think, you know, going, I think people think, well, if they get in trouble, their lawyer will tell them, will help them every step of the way. And the truth is, is that I feel like my lawyers did some paperwork, wanted me to sign the paperwork, but the stuff that really helped mitigate my sentence, they didn't really have that much experience with. And they didn't want to go the extra mile in order to, you know, to do those things because they felt like they didn't work. And I'll give you an example. I know you have hundreds of examples like this.

But I remember Doug Dodd told who got his sentence, his judge knocked off like two extra levels of his sentence for, for, it was. was called um it was product of environment so he reduced his sentence by like one or two levels for product of environment his lawyer is that basically like is that basically like saying he he didn't have a shot in hell just because of the way he grew up his surroundings exactly it was like of course he's going to end up in a wife of crime um right like my mom's drug dealer she's dating a drug dealer my brother's a drug dealer my two uncles of drug dealers they've been out of like and his lawyer didn't want to bring it up to the to the judge he said honestly he's

Doug he said like you're a white kid he's like and he said you're a white kid he said and he said if they ever gave that out it would be to every black kid who grew up in the projects would get it he's like and they never get it nobody gets this he said I'm not going to put it in front of them it's a waste of time to write an argument for it and Doug goes would you mind if I write a letter to the judge if you want and he did he wrote like a four page letter the judge read the letter and the judge after he when he read off all of his charges he said I'm going to knock off and I'm knocking off like two levels for product of environment after reading your four page letter and reading the letters from your family or I don't know if it's two or one level but he knocked it up like but his lawyer wouldn't ask for that right my lawyer I was charged with a gun that I've never had my girlfriend had a gun that had been stolen And when they raided my house, they found a receipt for her gun that she used to have that I'd never had, never seen, never touched.

They charged me with a gun charge. My lawyer didn't want to argue it. She said, Matt, what does it matter? It's three years. They're going to run everything concurrent. It doesn't matter. Think about it. If I had taken a gun charge, I wouldn't have been eligible to get the year off of Ardap.

I may have gone to a fucking to I may have gone to a pen right yeah it makes a big difference for sure it was only because another inmate told me you need to go talk to your lawyer you need to tell them you're not you tell her you will not accept that charge and so I threw a little hissy fit and she made one phone call and they dropped it she didn't want to do that you know that's and that's the thing you know, getting your attorney sometimes to even ask the question or approaching the conversation of doing something that's outside of the wheelhouse. Most attorneys, and it's nothing against attorneys, I get it. They're trained a certain way. It becomes routine just like anybody in life. You start to create a routine for yourself. And when you're talking about these types of things,

it's so often, even today, that's what I had to do right before this call. One of my clients who were working on their narrative and reference letters and we'd like to do the things a little bit different like the narrative that that's the for people who don't know the narrative is the letter that you're going to write as the defendant that's eventually going to go to the sentencing judge um most attorneys don't really give you much insight on what should go into these letters they might give you a little template towards the end and say hey get some friends or family write some letters i don't think they really think it has much push or pull in some cases it may not but most letters there's a very they look very general. They look like the same letter that that judge is seen over and over and over

again. And with us, one of the things that we like to do that's a little bit different is during the pre-sentence interview. So after you either take your plea deal, you go to trial and lose, you're going to have a pre-sentence interview with U.S. probation. And during that interview, they're going to ask you a bunch of yes and no questions, you know, where were you raised, you know, things about your bank account, not really much about your crime. they already have all of the relevant conduct on your crime, but they're going to ask you like mental health questions, substance abuse questions, all of these things. And the interview is anywhere from 30 minutes to maybe an hour. Sometimes you'll get a really good probation

officer that might like do a deep dive with you and sit there for two hours. But usually it's 30 minutes to an hour where they ask you these yes and no questions. And based on how you answer these questions, they now go in and create your entire life. And this is what they're going to used to show who you are a court. So it's really not painting a very accurate picture at all. It's painting a very one-sided, narrow 30-minute conversation picture. So one of the things that we do, working with the personal narrative, A, instead of just having the client go in and write this narrative out of scratch and say, hey, Matt, write me a letter about your life, you know, because you're going to go off on a tangent. You don't know what's important, what's not important. You might think

you know. And really what it comes down to is you're back to a corner. So you start, pleading please your honor i've got kids i've got a sick mother i've got cat stuck in the tree i the world needs me um and we take a different approach instead instead of just having you write your letter we have a whole interview process where once somebody becomes a client we send them a personal narrative link and when they click on that link there's an audio explainer that tells them this is how you should start and instead of having them write their letter there's just a series of questions and they answer those questions with a form of a paragraph and And then once we get that information back, our team then takes that information.

And we go in and craft the narrative for you on your behalf. But instead of just having you give it to the judge, if you hire us in time, we also want to provide that to the probation officer that's going to conduct the pre-sentence interview because they're asking you all of these very basic yes to no questions about your entire fucking life history. We want to make sure that that probation officer has everything that they could possibly need to create a value and effort. when it comes to the narrative, and most of the time we'll have the same thing happen.

Almost every time when our client walks in there with their narrative, with their education, with their medical records, they go in with a nice portfolio. The probation officer says, I wish every defendant came this prepared. And it can really result in a better recommendation from U.S. probation as to what type of sentence the court should hand down. So that's probably like a pivotal starting point where we plant our feet is right in that area. you know i know it's i know it's brilliant you don't have to you don't have to stroke may you go too much man well i was just thinking listen the more work you can do for any government body or any

any government you know employee the better yep correct because you know they don't like they if you can hand everything to them plus i can imagine if you i can imagine you answering yes or no questions and not really understand what those questions are designed for somebody he says, oh, did you, were you raised with your father? Yeah, yeah. And then, so they put, you know, that Mr. Cox was raised with his father. But the truth is your father, you know, you're thinking, yeah, no, I was raised with my father. But he actually left when you were five and went to prison. So you don't say that. Do you see what I'm saying? So at least you know where they put down, you, oh, he was raised with his father. And then you see him saying?

like they don't know the importance of that question so no here's what they're trying to ask they're trying to figure out this so you weren't raised with your father you were raised with your father up till like they don't if they don't clarify that then they don't know to put that in the pre-sentence report and it doesn't help and it's really such a like awe-shocking moment when you're see look look at it this way you've ever watched like a traffic cam where you'll see like two people get into a car accident And you'll be like, oh, man, if that was me driving the car, I would have downshifted in the second, I would have swerved, I would have hit the brake, I would have pulled the e-break, and I would have wiggled out of it.

You know, in hindsight, it's easy to look at in slow motion how you would handle things differently. But when you're in the heat of the moment, and it's no different. You know, somebody slams into a car, probably they're bracing, closing their eyes, and slamming on the brakes. That's probably the extent of their attempt to evade. So you've got a similar situation. you've got somebody sitting in there in front of a probation officer in an environment that you're not comfortable in it's a very bleak environment and your mind's not really ready to answer these questions so you just start kind of rambling off and you don't want to say the wrong thing so you're you're trying to think about you're trying to give answers that you think they want without knowing what they want or don't want so you're playing this complete game of russian roulette they ask you have any substance abuse issues you ever drank alcohol oh no no never thinking that that's going to be

make me look better or I'm not going to get in more trouble. Now you've kind of shot yourself in the foot and you're no longer R-Dep eligible. Now, if you didn't drink and you didn't use any drugs and you didn't have any kind of addictions, and yeah, of course, you want to be honest, but if you smoke a little bit of pot on the weekends, if you're going out on the weekends and having cocktails, if you're having a glass of wine with your significant other on a regular basis, maybe you're on prescription narcotics that you're supposed to take. You're being prescribed. You're not necessarily abusing it. You're using its recommended dose. but you talk to anybody that's been on like oxycodone oxycodone percocet's once you're on that

type of a drug for a long enough period of time if you take that away from somebody there is an addictive property that you might be addicted just because you're not sitting under a bridge banging heroin into your vein doesn't mean that you don't necessarily have a drug problem um so helping somebody better educate themselves and how to go into this interview better prepared And that's really the whole, the whole key to success is preparation of every step of the way. But to be honest, this is not even an industry I enjoy anymore. It's become so bastardized with all. I've seen more consultants pop out of the woodwork in, uh, in the last like 24 months.

Um, and when I talk to people and like, oh, well, I don't know, Dan, I spoke to this guy and I spoke to that guy. And they said they can do this and they're only going to charge me this. At a certain point, you look at somebody. and you say, hey, if somebody's going to do all this work for $1,000 and you think they're going to be there for you, because we're with our clients from the point they hire us until they get out of prison. And, you know, some people, sure, they've only got, you know, 12 to 18 months sentences, but other clients got seven to 10-year sentences and we're committing to be attached to them for this

period of time. If somebody else is telling you that they're going to do that for, you know, $1,000 or $2,000, to chances are, you know, you're believing the high. because it sounds good at the moment and you're so desperate for help that you end up putting yourself into an undesirable situation that creates undesirable outcomes. Yeah. Yeah, I have a friend that wanted to have a website built and I remember he's telling me all about the website and I said, bro, that's that's at least, at least three or four grand. That's a really complicated website. No, no, I got this chick that can do it for 500 bucks. I said, no, I don't think so.

And so she did. She worked on it and worked on it and then had to work on other stuff and then worked on it and then realized she was over her head and basically just stopped answering his call. So then he hired another guy that worked at the club. He was, this guy's good. He's going to do it for a grand, but I know he's good. He works at the club. He's not going to screw me over. So then my buddy gets a guy that works at his job.

Jim, one of the, shoot, what do you call it, one of the clients to build the website. And I was like, and he said the guy's going to do it for like, it was like a thousand dollars or so, thousand or $1,500. And I went, well, how do you know, he's not going to screw you. I'm telling this, this website's three or four grand. And he's not, he can do it. He is plus he's a member here. He's been coming here for like a year or so. And so what ends up happening is that guy spins him and spends him and spends him and then probably it takes about a month he's telling me he's working on this he's doing that he's getting this he's getting that and then all of a sudden he stops coming to the gym just took his money so then he gets another person that he pays another

thousand dollars listen this goes on for over a year he ended up spending about $2,500, and he then, when it all fell apart, and he realized it's been over a year, I've spent $2,500 trying to get this website done inexpensively. He went out and he paid $4,000 to a professional. And that's the same thing, like what you're saying, you know what I'm saying? Like, you want to pay $1,000 for $4,000. Well, then you've got, you're looking at, there's a good chance that you're going to get screwed over. He's been known to cure insecurity, just with a,

laugh. His organ donation card lists his charisma. His smile is so contagious. Vaccines have been created for it. 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. Yeah, it also creates a lot of other issues. you know um we also had a it wasn't a client it was a viewer we had that had a family member that died in federal prison very very wealthy family member who found my channel and just wish to god that their family had found honestly reading his his family member's story there's nothing we could have done but i think he just wished that they had that kind of a resource when

they were going through it so they started sending donations and these were they were started sending, there was a couple of months where they'd sent like over 10 grand in donations, uh, wow, through on camera, um, sending over donations. And the, the guy asked me, he said, I only asked that you use these donations to help people that can't afford your services. You know, and I was like, all right, that's fair. You know, instead of charging somebody like three grand, we can if somebody, you know, if this guy sends us some money, we can supplement that. We're still charging you something, but we're going to use that to knock the price down for you. So we were charging people like nine, nine, five instead of, instead of three, four,

or $5,000. The problem was, is these people that, that were willing to pay the, you know, $1,000 or less, they became the big, the biggest headaches. They were the ones that wouldn't, they wouldn't do the assignments. They wouldn't fill out the forms. Like when it comes to the character reference letters, just like I told you how we do the personal narrative, we send you a link, you fill out the survey, send the survey back. We take your answers. We go in and create your narrative. But we do the same thing with your friends and family for your references. So like if you're in trouble and your mom's going to write you a reference letter instead of your mom just saying oh my little matt is such a good boy he didn't mean to do this your honor please give him a second chance we would

have your mom fill out the survey you know how she knows you relationship how this has had an impact on go through the whole fucking thing and then we create the same thing well the problem was is these people had no no skin in the game and it didn't really become an issue for them until all of a sudden now it's the last minute they've got sentencing coming it's the final hour and they come like Dan, we need all this stuff done like tomorrow. And they want you to drop everything. Yeah, they want us to drop everything. And even though their agreement will say, you know, we, we typically like a minimum of two-week turnaround time to do your letters.

So we can, we like to do the letters once you have a copy of your plea agreement. That way we can review the plea agreement. We can see what you're pleading guilty to. We can see what you're talking about in the crime section of your narrative. We want to make sure that everything lines up. But when you give us minimal time to create this masterpiece, it's like telling Picasso, hey, hurry up on your fucking painting. I got to get somewhere.

You know, you do paintings. And if you had to rush one, and I'm sure there's been times where you've had a client that needed a painting and maybe you didn't get to it as soon as you should have. And there's a little bit of a price that's paid there because you're now, you're rushing something and you're not giving yourself time to take a step back, look at what can be corrected, get some second eyes on it. So that was the problem we had with giving people. really low prices is they became the headaches, they became the ones that want to leave bad

reviews, that want to argue with you, that want to call up and threaten your life. So it's not worth it taking shortcuts or looking for the cheap deal. You know, this isn't a Kmart product. This isn't a Walmart product. This is something that if you utilize the tools and the service that we have, not only can it ultimately give you a sentence reduction or maybe no prison at all, it gives you you're sleeping at night your family knows how to deal with this you're you're completely changing who you were to who you are and that can't be done on a on a on a on a on a on a on a on a McDonald's type of price yeah just can't sure sure sure yeah hey so you know what's funny um i was going to say we we've talked about this before like the the unknown that

not knowing what you're facing is is horrible and yeah Yeah. And that's, you know, so that like that to me, I would have loved to have known to have had somebody, you know, really tell me what I was facing and what it's going to be like and what to say and what not to say. And I was just thinking about a guy in prison when you were talking. Gosh, you know what's so funny too. He was such a knucklehead. But he like he got a lawyer. The lawyer, you know, it was one of those. Oh, my lawyer's handling it. My lawyer's handling it. My lawyer's handle like no big deal. And. And. And. And. And. his mom wrote a letter like everybody wrote letters they did the pre-sentence report and when he got in front of the judge he hadn't been prepped by his lawyer like his lawyer's like oh have some people write some letters like he's very nonchalant about it right because he's thinking the kid's getting he's going to get like 36 months or something and when he gets in front of the judge even though his family's written letters saying he's always had a drug problem you know he didn't mean to do this like they've essentially they've admitted what he's done he he signed his

plea agreement he signed his um his factual the factual stipulations to his first case like I did this I did this he gets in front of the judge and immediately and then you know he he pled timely for pleading timely what do you get two levels off yeah acceptance of responsibility uh it can be it can be it can be at the three so what's two it's typically two for pleading and one one for, is it one for acceptance? Acceptance responsibility and timely, it comes out to about three total. So, well, anyway, I remember he got, he said he got in front of the judge. So he ends up, by the way, with like 51 months.

Because when he got in front of the judge, he doesn't say, your honor, I, you know, I made a mistake. I started doing, he didn't tell his story. Instead, what he did was blamed everything on the. guys that cooperated blamed everything on I mean he blamed everybody but him started talking about how you know that they didn't have a search warrant when they came in it's like what are you doing what are you doing yeah so the prosecutor says your honor we're we're removing two levels for just like that we want to remove his two levels for acceptance of responsibility you know and and starts arguing immediately judge gave him like instead of giving them 36 months which

they'd agree to he ended up with like 51 months he didn't know what he didn't he wasn't told he wasn't told that could happen he didn't know what to say he wasn't prepped we we see it a lot um and it's we've been fortunate enough to to go to a lot of our clients sentencings um but i also go sit in because it's all public information you can go to your your local federal courthouse and you can look at the docket of who's getting sentenced what type of of crimes. So I always tell my clients, you know, like I've got a client right now. She's a co-defendant. She's got, I don't know, seven or eight co-defendants in her case that are all getting sentenced before her. And I told her, I was like, you should go sit in on, on, I wish I could

read my phone, but I'm using it as a camera right now. I told her, I said, you should go sit in on these sentencing. And her exact words were like, are you fucking crazy? I don't want to go anywhere near that courthouse. I was like, I get it. I get that as uncomfortable. But I was like, you're going to go to the courthouse. You have to go there. You're going for your sentencing. And, you know, it's uncomfortable to go sit there and watch somebody else get sentenced, but it gives you an idea. It does a couple things. One, it breaks down this, this awe shocking of you walk in and you're in this massive building. And again, we talk about how you're driving and getting a car accident. You close your eyes, slam on the brakes and hit everything. Well, it's the same

thing, sitting in a courtroom. This is for the most part, first, second, third time you've been sitting in a courtroom and you're getting ready to get sentenced to potentially years. Everything is kind of a haze that you don't remember. It all becomes like a lost memory. So going in and sitting on prior sentences to other co-defendants or other individuals that have similar types of cases, especially if it's the same judge, you can learn so much by taking notes. You can see somebody get up and not take responsibility and negate everything they did in their plea agreement, just like you said, start kind of spinning out of control and they didn't have a search warrant, Your Honor, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Next thing you know, it's like, you signed a plea

agreement. You came in front of this court. You put in a change of plea, pleading guilty, saying you understood what you're signing and you did it on your own free accord. And now here you are backpedaling. And yeah, you're going to lose acceptance. You're going to lose responsibility. You could lose a 5K1. All kinds of horrible things could happen to somebody. And the attorneys at this point, all they can do is kind of cover their face and look down because the damage is done and you're going to pay for it. What are they going to say? There's nothing you can say on there other than, you know,

I imagine most judges would look directly at the attorney and say, did you advise your client of what they were to do here today in court? Because it doesn't sound like you've ever had a conversation with them. Most of the time, the attorney will backpedal and say, oh, your honor, yeah, I told him he knew. I don't know where this is coming from. We see it. Makes the client look.

even worse. Oh, it makes them look far worse, bro. Makes them look far worse. I had to call. I had to do an attorney call today with the client. She sent me, yes. So we just did her narrative. We finished it last week, sent it to her. Her pre-sentence report was supposed to be today, actually. Wait, what's today? Today's today's supposed to be tomorrow. And she was having a sit down with her attorney today to go. Today was the first time her attorney says, all right, let's get together and go over what you're going to do with the pre-sentence interview. And like the pre-sentence interviews tomorrow. So she submitted her narrative that we did to the attorney and said, I want to turn this in at the time of my pre-sentence interview. And the attorney said, no, no, we submit this with your sentencing memorandum when we do your sentencing packet, which that's what almost 99% of all attorneys do.

Two weeks before you get sentenced, there's a sentencing memorandum that your attorney is going to prepare on your behalf. There's also going to be a government's sentencing memo that's going to be submitted, which is probably going to be that thick. and the sentencing memo that most criminal defense attorneys submit are like that thick, and it's double space, double pages, not much information in there. So when she told me this, I said, why don't you get your attorney to agree to do a call with me so I can explain to them the method of why we want to submit it during the pre-sentence interview? And I've come to the belief that the reason why most attorneys don't want to do that isn't necessarily because they don't believe in it.

It's because they probably haven't really read your letter. and they're afraid that you're going to fuck up and lose your acceptance responsibility by saying something wrong in that letter. So the attorney didn't want to get on a call with us. And we have a video that we did or that we got from somebody else that did an interview with the judge asking the judge what they thought about submitting the narrative at the time of the pre-sentence report. And the judge gave an amazing raving review on that. The judge said, you know, I've never seen that done before, but I would be highly impressed if the defendant took the time to do their narrative. that far in advance and submit it to a pre-sentence report.

And the judge said, you know, we like to read everything that's put in front of us. But I can tell you the one thing I'm going to read diligently over and over and over again is the pre-sentence report. So if you have your narrative submitted in that pre-sentence report, I think that's a great idea as long as the narrative is reflecting the true matters of the situation. So the attorney agreed to get on a call. We had a call with the attorney today at 1.30 just before you and I got on here. And after I finished speaking with him, he was, he was, he was all for it.

Attorneys don't like to give up any, they like to stay in control. They don't like to admit that something that there's an idea. I'm not going to say all attorneys, but they don't like to admit that they're an idea that has been entered into the realm of thinking here. They like to be the ones that come up with everything. And I have no problem with letting the attorneys quarterback the entire thing. But ultimately, if all of our interests are joined together, and if my interest and your interest as the attorney, Matt, if we sit down at a round table and we do what's in the best interest for the client and we all work on what our experts, our levels of expertise are, it usually is going to generate a outcome that is going to be favorable for the

defendant. Because as you know, guidelines are only advisable unless there's a minimum mandatory in effect. So just because you have guidelines that say the low end of your guidelines are 30 months, the judge could still give you probation. So why not do everything that you could do to put yourself in that position. And that brings us back to why this is getting to be a tougher and tougher industry because now we're dealing with with prison consultants who are truly just in this for the money. And they found that they can use fear to push people into areas, which I got an email from a client yesterday that I'm going to share this with you.

When you have Colby Edit just, I don't think there's anything. thing in there that's private so i'm not even worried about it here let's pull it up um this was an email yesterday sent to me from one of my clients that hired me last year early last year that's okay the guy this this this the phone that's the email from the prison consultant that's the number he uses uh so if anybody i guess i'm advertising for another prison consultant but that's fine um so sam mangol or mangle or mangel however you say his name he's a consultant that for as long as I know him being a consultant, he's worked for another consulting company called White Collar Advice.

And I guess he's parted ways from White Collar Advice or White Collar Advice fired him. I don't know the real story yet. But it basically says, good morning. As you know, I've terminated my relationship with both white collar advice and prison professors last week. My philosophy of helping people became much different from theirs. I decided it was time to move on. I want you to know, regard, blah, blah, blah. He want you basically trying to get, trying to get business.

So he sent an email, I think, to every lead he's ever spoken to. So he must have either taken the leads from white collar advice and prison professors, or he had his own database. I'm not really sure how he got a hold of all of these. But this client had already hired me, and they spoke to Sam prior to hiring me. So when she sent me this, I was like, oh, wow, he's no longer there. I was curious. So I jumped over and I Googled his name, and this is what comes up when you Google his name.

So on White Collar Advice's website, which White Collar Advice is owned by Justin Perney and Prison Professors, that segment is run more by Michael Santos. This is what they said about him. We terminated our relationship with Sam December 22 for cause after we discovered his pattern of deceiving and misrepresentation to customers that trusted in our team. We caution anyone to do diligence before working with Sam. The information below is what Sam Mangal provided to us, but it is an example of the deceptive ways that he represents himself. So it's got his education, a little family history, work experience, personal. It doesn't say anything about like that it's not true?

No, that's what I don't know what the deceptive practices are here. I haven't spoken with Justin Perperney or Michael Santos and full transparency. The three of us probably don't get along all that well. I've had some run-ins with other consultants in the past. And I will tell you this, I will say this, out of all the consultants that are out there, there's a lot of them now. I will say that as much as I don't necessarily agree with everything that white-collar advice and prison professors do as far as the way they charge,

what not i will say that i've i've never known them to to lie cheat or steal i've never known them to to be shady towards customers they may charge more than customers want to pay but you know if you don't want to pay what they're charging fucking go somewhere else but sam so i took a screenshot of this and i sent it to my client and my client responded with with with uh so this is a screenshot that I sent to my client. And she goes, he seemed very scammy when we spoke with him. Yikes. And then talk to you at 4 p.m.

because I had a call with her 4 p.m. So clearly my client even got a bad feel when she spoke to Sam. And that's not the first time that I've had these run-ins with Sam. I did. I should have a screenshot of that. I'll send you the screenshot, Matt, and you can add it to the stream or add it to the video when you guys do your editing. But I sent, I sent some messages to Sam right after this, asking him if he would like to

comment. And he really didn't have much to say. I do know, Justice Perpurnia has no problem with suing people. So I have a feeling if, if Sam stole their date, their database of clients and is now reaching out to all of them to further his own agenda, um, it's kind of fucked up, bro, it's not, it's not, it's not entirely, I'm going to, if I had to take a side on this, I'm going to go with Sam is probably in the wrong here because I've had several clients. I've had clients record calls. I've had clients send me emails where Sam has said things that just can't be done. And I was always so baffled.

I'm like, how the fuck are they letting this guy work there running around saying these kind of things? and you were asking me, you know, why is it just me on my team that does all of the sales and deals with all of the initial engagement with customers? It's because ultimately at the end of the day, this is my business, this is my baby. Everything that goes great, I reap the benefits. Everything that goes sideways, if I hired you, Matt Cox, to be my sales marketing team And you went out there and promised everybody a free Mercedes-Benz with a prison consulting package.

And then you disappear, you know, it's going to reflect poorly on me. So you're a reflection of your team. And I don't know if they didn't do their due diligence or what, but there's a bad blood in the water. But this is typical. And this is what I have to deal with with the prison consulting world of people are just getting burned left and right. They don't know who to trust. what are your thoughts on that um yeah i mean it's i don't i mean you know what what i think i think it's kind of messed up that he put like he he that he that um the the the white

collar advice what's it called uh what where he worked yeah white collar yeah white collar yeah he worked for white collar advice and prison professors. Yeah, well, that white collar advice put also, I mean, that they put that on their website. Yeah. That's what that's like, what are you doing? I don't know. Like, shouldn't you be semi professional maybe trying like that's not. Oh, you're talking about white collar advice.

Shouldn't have put that on that? Yeah, I'm saying white collar advice. Like why, like even if you said, hey, we fired them, okay, well, we're no longer work together. Like, yeah, what are you doing? I agree. I probably wouldn't have done that. I would have just, you know, if anybody reached out to me, obviously, I would have, you know, or maybe sent to my clients, to my client database that Sam had any hands on.

I may have sent them in email and said, hey, just so you know, Sam is no longer part of the team and left it at that. We parted ways. But now you're going into a shit throwing battle at each other. And something tells me they'll end up with something getting served somewhere, somebody's going to get sued. But this is the problem you'll have when you try to bring on when you, look, we've got people that work with us for sure, but it's back end.

They get paid to do a job. They're not getting paid based on, you know, what you collect. And I don't want to have to charge a client, you know, I don't want, and Matt comes in and goes, oh, so typically what would you charge this guy, Dan, five grand? Well, I'm going to charge them $6,000 so I can make extra commission. to me that's just it's kind of taken away from the need because you're dealing with people that are very very very vulnerable and unstable to an extent so that's why uh that's why it's been great doing this stuff with you because um oh and anybody anybody interested in reaching

out to us uh matt i think you got a link right so if anybody reaches out but i'll put a link like I think I did and I think I did in one of the other videos we did I also put a link to your like when we we interviewed when you came here and we did the interview I think there was a link in that one also I'll put the link in the description box here you know for um for is it art app Dan no okay at a prison time yeah so yeah there's going to be a specific link that Matt has that when you when you go to the link it's going to bring you to the basically the page you're seeing right here. And when you click on a start here, it will ask you some real basic information that you're going to fill out about your case. It will prompt you

to book a consultation. Consultation is free. All of our consultations are free. We even sometimes do a second and third consultation for free depending on what the reason is. But yeah, if anybody wants to get a hold of us through this video, we've got a link with Matt that, and there's also a QR code that Matt will probably have, I don't know, if maybe your editor, we'll just put that QR code up on the screen so people can just take a picture of it with their phone. You know, so helping people has been, you know, look, I want to make money as much as the next guy. I just, there's nothing worse than going, well, I spoke to this guy and he said he could do this and this and this. And it's like, does that sound rational to you? Does it sound like

that that can be done? Just all kinds of false statements. And so, yeah, so they parted ways. The prison consulting, though, in itself is just, it's a tough business, man. It's not easy because somebody hires you today and you're with that person until they finish their prison sentence, you know, up and down. Well, you know, so, you know, here's the funny thing about like the federal, like the sentencing guidelines and just going going in front of the judge and having everything laid out. Like it, you know, if you're going to, if you're getting five years, six years for, you know, like those little kids. tiny things, those little one level off here or saying the right thing and explaining it in such a way that they don't give you the high end of the guidelines or maybe they give you a downward departure. Like those little things add up very, very quickly. And let me tell you something. So

you know, to me like it I wish when I was going in, I wish I had somebody to talk to that wasn't my lawyer. You know, my lawyer was a nice person. She was a federal defender and she was overworked. You know, she was, she's a, she's a good person. I liked her a lot. But the truth is, she just couldn't spend a lot of time with me. She couldn't let me know what was going on. She didn't.

Like, I wished I had somebody. And if I'd had the money, I would have paid because the difference is that if I could have gotten one or two levels off, that would have made such a massive difference. Like those are years. Yeah. Those are years. Like people are like, oh, well, you know, this. This is too expensive that really because you're going to sit in prison for an extra,

you may sit in prison for an extra six months or an extra two years because you didn't have, listen, I had a guy. I've known a couple of guys this has happened to. Their lawyer actually told them, oh, the pre-sentence report. I wouldn't even go to that, man. I wouldn't even go to that. That's what the attorney said? Yeah.

Matter of fact, I was talking about him the other day. His name's Andrew Levinson. He went to trial. he lost. His lawyer, he said, the truth is, I think my lawyer just didn't want to go with me. He'd lost. I was going to prison. He'd already gotten his fee. He just wanted to get rid of me at this point, didn't want to go to the meeting with the probation officer and said, yeah, man, I wouldn't even go to that. Like, you've already, you've already been sentenced. Like, I wouldn't even, or not sentenced, sorry, you've been found guilty. I wouldn't even go to that. So he didn't go. But the truth is,

he could have it was an opportunity for him to at least say like he had a and he had he did have an alcohol problem right every story i've ever heard about this guy he was drinking he was drunk he this he had DUIs he'd been arrested like you didn't go and do your pre-sentence report and tell them you had an alcohol problem and that would have been a year off your sentence where you could have taken ARDAP and gotten a year off your sentence you didn't go because your lawyer you know, didn't tell you because nobody was there to help you guide you through the whole thing and help you prepare that document. And the lawyer apparently didn't know how big of a deal.

Look, just like my lawyer telling me plead guilty to a gun that you didn't have. Well, then how was I going to get Ardap? Like, you know, that was just a horribly stupid thing to say. It's just they're trying to rush. you rush you through the process all that comes down to and we get people all the time that are like oh man uh i had a gun charge but they decided to drop the gun whenever there's a gun that's like let's say they they storm matt cox's house and they find a bunch of drugs and there's a gun also there um even if they drop the gun charge there's still going to be a gun enhancement

you're still going to get what's called a two level enhancement added to your which isn't it's not going to give you the charge but it's going to enhance your guidelines. And when you get the two-level gun enhancement, even if they didn't charge you for the gun, you still can't do ARDAP. So I get people all the time that are telling me, oh, my God, they dropped the gun charge. I'm going to get ARAP. My attorney told me this. They told me I'm going to go to. And look, the judge can't order you to R-Dap. The judge can't tell you what prison you're going to go to. They can only make recommendations. If you don't have enough solidified, documented proof and the right date frames and everything articulated into the pre-sentence report, everything the judge does is purely a recommendation. When you get to the BOP and you sit with your case manager, you sit with the RDAP coordinator, you sit with the prison psychologist. I'm like, oh, you don't qualify for RDAP.

But my judge said, well, all your judge said was we recommend that you take a drug program. Well, we have a class you can go to. It's an hour a week for 30 hours, but you get no time off. And all of something like, oh, I don't want to go to that. I just want the time off. And you'll find people just getting really bent sideways, and it's because they did not properly prepare. Most of our clients, I would say after they hire us,

you know, they all hire us for the same reason. They want a shorter sentence. They want to get an R-DAP. That's the majority of the reasons why they hire us. But usually with a few weeks, a couple of months into it, I'll ask them, you know, the same questions we asked them early on. And they more so and more so as we go further, they become less and less concerned with how much time they're going to get.

because they've now, they understand the system, they're coming to terms with it, they're sleeping better at night, they're changing patterns in their life, they're doing things that they weren't doing before, they're treating their family better. It's really creating like a whole different mindset. We offer the life coaching, the family coaching, the substance abuse help. You know, we've created such an artillery of tools and assets to help these individuals, not just serve a shorter sentence but get their lives straightened out because most people that go to prison unless you're going for something serious most people aren't bad people they're just people that there are people like me and you that made some well maybe not like you no i mean i'm not a good person but it's they're

like regular people make make mistakes every day and unfortunately there's consequences so helping these people rebound from that showing them that this is not something you should be thinking about suicide this is not something you should be thinking about going on the run the hardest thing about what you're dealing with right now is actually right now they're all pre-trial shit you're going through the prison sentence is going to be the easy part and that's hard for people to to wrap their mind around because that sounds crazy oh listen listen my the first few years of my sentence was it was hard because you know you're separated you're incarcerated you're separated from your family but once i basically got my head on right

it really was it was just a breeze you know it really the time just started flying by it got so listen towards the end i was writing a story and i remember thinking man i don't know if i'm going to have enough time like i'm actually telling people i don't know that they're like when are you leaving you excited i'm like yeah i know it's just i'm writing this story and i'm trying to get all this stuff i don't know if i haven't have enough time and they're like you're like what can i do just to lose like two or three weeks a good time i need i need i think four weeks here Smoke a cigarette or something, I don't know. You know, guys that I've met, like, when I say like you, guys that have had a decent

amount of time, like you were sent, how many years were you sentenced to? Initially, 26 years and four months. Okay, so 26 years and four months. Obviously, you didn't serve that, but that's what you were sentenced to, guys that I met that were, that have a long sentence like that versus guys like me that were sentenced to relatively, you know, 42 months. Then you add in all the benefits. It's really next to nothing.

the main difference I've heard like I went into prison thinking about going home like I knew even if I served 85% of my sentence and didn't get anything else I was only going to do you know three and a half years my focus was still on going home my life still I have a life waiting for me after this somebody like you with a 26 year sentence other guys have told me they kind of turn away from a lot of their family they don't want to they they they want to embrace that this is their life now This is where they're going to spend the majority of their life. So they don't want to have one foot in prison and one foot in the free world where somebody with a short sentence is just thinking about being home. So was that like that for you? Were you like really like, this is my home now? And it took a couple of years for me to get that and that like I said, get your head on straight. And then it's like, hey, you better to start learning, figure out a way to build a life in here.

you're probably going to do 26 years and when I did that my time got it got so it it it became so much easier to deal with it when I realized this is my life it's not the life that I wanted but this is my life now and I have to make the best of it and it became making the best of this life keeping myself entertained writing trying to accomplish something and I think that's what's funny about a lot of people like I've even seen guys that get have gotten like three or four years and they come in and they're upbeat the guys that are upbeat where you're like wow he's really upbeat like this is it's weird you know and then you realize he's learning to play the guitar he's taking a horticulture class he's in multiple programs you know taking multiple ace courses he's like like he's doing all these all those little things that you never could do before, he didn't sit there and go, I'm going to cry about how horrible it is and how helpful everything is and how lonely and how sad I am. And he's not going to, he's decided he's not going to do that. What he decided was, I'm going to take this opportunity and I'm going to

do some of the things that I could never do. I'm going to learn to paint. I'm going to learn to play an instrument. I joined a band. You know, like all those things, those are the guys that are super, super upbeat. And it's insane. Law enforcement often questions him, not because He's suspected of a crime, but because they find him fascinating. 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 feel like I got a ghost in my house. My dog will just all of a sudden stop and stare at like an empty space, and it's fucking creepy. I'm not going to lie, it's a little creepy. But yeah, so yeah, that was the way that definitely helped. And that was, that was me, what you just described was me. Like when I got, when I got to prison and I saw after like, we'll give it a week after I like kind of settled in within a week, my co-defendant was there, Sean, so I knew

somebody on the yard. It was like, oh man, I'm in all these amazing fitness classes. I'm taking classes. I'm getting time off in R-Dap. But then I'd meet guys like this kid Julio, his friends with him there. you had a 27-year sentence, you'd already serve some time and he dropped from medium to a low because I think you have to have less than 20 years to less than 20 years, even if you get sentenced like 21 or 22 years, if you calculate your good time, as long as that number comes below 20,

you can go to a low. And this guy, you know, he was all jacked up on all kinds of antidepressant medication because for him, he's so young. And his life, he's looking at it as it was like over. And here I am, bitching and moaning about, oh, my God, I've got this sentence. That's how I felt going in, but that I met guys that they've served more time that I'm ever going to serve already and still have years left. So it's relative and trying to embark this onto somebody that's getting ready to go in because almost all of my clients are going to serve somewhere between like 24 months and 70 months. That's usually like the range of time. And it sounds, anybody watching this, it's never been in trouble, 24 months, six months in prison, a year of prison, 18 months, whatever it is, sounds like a long time because it's relative to your situation. And the only thing that we can do is help people take day by day work on measurable activities that can help you minimize your anxiety and the worrisome feelings you have.

Because there's nothing that I can do or anybody else can do that's going to take away all. all of your anxiety and fear. But if people keep letting that build and grow out of control, it's going to consume you. So by giving people measurable goals to get them from today to tomorrow and the next day and the next day, before you know it, their long-term goals now come into sight because they're hitting something that's measurable. And that's what's made us, I would say, I feel like we're probably the best consulting company that exists. And of course, everybody's going to say that. That's a consultant. But I know that, we're not doing it for the money because I know my competitors like white collar advice I know

the fees that they're charging and I just don't see a justification of why somebody would pay that much what's that noise what noise still doing it are you touching something yeah I was touching something I was where's your microphone at it's in my computer oh you're using that one okay I got you. I thought you were using your... I got a MacBook Pro, bro. I got like a, you know, high tech. All right, baby.

Yeah, so, you know, that's... We're like, you know, I get a lot of people that talk about the forearms. They're like, I've got forearm envy. Like, what's going on, Dan? What's happening here? If I were Jess, I would be worried that you're going to try to marry somebody else, to be honest. Like yourself. I think just thinks you're going to try to just is worried that Matt's going to find the cloning

machine and clone himself and just change one genetic. So Matt pops out with the vagina and now Matt's going to go marry Matina. Does Shelley ever have, do you have those patches with Shelley where like for two or three days she just thinks you're wonderful? She loves you to death and just thinks you're. That's how she feels right now. I don't know why. But that's, I'm on the upswing right now.

I'm going to take it. I'm in that. I've got a couple of, I got a window of a two or three days and I'm in the middle of that window where Jess thinks I'm, I'm amazing. I'm so going to send her a picture of a dog when we hang up. She just thinks I'm the most wonderful person. She's like, do you know how in love with you I am? I wake up.

She's staring at me. She's looking at me up. She's sending me pictures all day. She's telling all day. Like, it's like, what's going on? And I know, listen, the thing is three days from now, she'll be like, she'll just be like, I'm over you. I'm done.

Did you do something nice for her for Christmas or New Year's? Listen, there's nothing. There's no rhyme or reason I've been trying to track it. You can't track it. It's just a matter of how she feels. What did you guys do? What did you guys do for the holidays? Anything?

No, nothing. We, listen, we, we didn't even hear the fireworks go off. We were in bed by 8.30, probably asleep by 8.30 or 9. yeah we were we we were thinking about going out for new years but oh you guys didn't go Orlando no no we didn't go um Ted our our our little chihuahua that probably people saw on the beginning of the video he's when I say he's the scaredest little dog I've ever met I love him to death he's the sweetest little thing but he was terrified of the fireworks he literally would run into the spare bathroom and sit next to the toilet and just shake and it was

just like we're like we're not going nowhere so shelly had some stuff to do she went out so i went out and bought uh i put it on i'll send you a video you can actually post it on here you can use it for this but i i tied like yarn or i don't know if there's yarn some kind of a twine from one of our big oak trees in the backyard all the way to the fence so it created like a string and then i strung whites from it um i put out a big blanket out in the yard i put a i brought a table out there I cooked like an awesome meal, got champagne ready. So when she came home, it was just like the whole backyard was like. So yeah, so we had a great night.

I think we had TV dinners. Shelly's favorite food is right now she's on a kick for a, oh, what is it? It's an Irish, the meat and the potatoes. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. What's a shepherd's pie? Shepherd's Pie Shepherd's pie

That's like her That's like her go to Right now We go to this little Irish Restaurant We get it a lot So I went and found Like a fun

Shepherd's pie Recipe and Chef Boyer deed it up man And you know But I like doing stuff like that So that's That's what Yeah don't

I can't listen There's no cooking I'm not cooking Well if you guys If you guys ever come here We'll make you guys Dinner and have a I know you don't drink

So I'll get you A sparkling water And get Jessa some champagne or some wine or something but um get you a juice box is jess over there you want to say hi hi jess she said she said she heard tv dinner tv dinner yeah i heard i heard i heard matt hi i heard matt went all out we got you guys uh got you the the tv dinners for for new years oh do we have tv dinners i think so yeah we like them that's the weird thing about it i like i like salisbury steak tv dinners that's one of my favorite yeah you know this is a

Oh, no. He just got out of the shower. That's Matt's little construction worker. Colby, cut that out. Colby'll leave it in. Yeah, okay. Well, what are we doing? Are we wrapping this up?

Yeah, man. That's, that's. If you want to hire, Dan, if you've found yourself indicted, as I feel like a lot of my, I feel like a lot of my viewers have been indicted, or have indictments pending. Dan didn't even laugh. He immediately just put up his website.

I'm a go mode, baby. 2023, we got to hit this thing out of the ground running. Hey, listen, I get a lot. I get a lot of emails from people saying, listen, I'm about to be, I'm about to go to jail. Like, it's always too late. Like, they're like a week away from sentencing, like, how bad is it? What am I looking at? The electric chair.

Call Dan, or you're going to get the electric chair. First of all, for most of those guys, it's too late. Or I talk to a lot of, I get a lot of guys that contact me that say, they'll say, like, they're in the middle of like a scam that's gone bad. And the FBI is talking to people and this is happening. This is happening. And I'm, you know, I'm always like, go in now. Don't wait for your, don't wait to get indicted and have your coach.

defense like telling you know that's that's that's a huge thing too is where you'll have like let's say you're the ring leader of whatever crime took place and I just happen to work there everybody gets indicted you get indicted I get indicted and I'm just in denial I don't want to cooperate I don't want to do anything because I want to stick my hand in the sand and you go and cooperate and do all you end up getting a lighter sentence than I would have gotten and you're the one that fucking mastermind the whole crime. So yeah, he who talks first usually gets the best, the best gift from the government. Yeah, he's the guy helping him put it all together. Here's where all the shit talkers come Matt. This is all, oh, you're telling people to snitch. It's like it's easy to say that from your

comfort of your couch. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't even listen, I had a guy left me a comment in the comment section a couple days ago. And he goes, you are a selfish piece of garbage scumbag. You don't care about anybody but yourself you rat snitch you're nothing you're garbage uh you should be ashamed of yourself you piece of crap and i'm i i responded and my response was and yet i sleep like a baby at night that's like yeah yeah i know you just went on my website and read my bio prick i was gonna say mom what are you doing in the comment section Yeah, that's, look, I, I get it. If you're not out there committing crimes and you don't want to tell on anybody or if you think you would never tell on anybody, I'll tell you what, unless you're like an actual true hardened criminal that is truly thought about all of the consequences and what you're willing to do and not willing to do, most people are going to talk, almost all of them, unless your life is in danger or your family is in danger, you're probably going to talk.

anybody that says they won't until you're tested to that i i don't believe it right yeah no oh no listen listen mobsters talk cartel members caught talk gang members talk like come on everybody you know if you're smart it's you know it's funny too because i talked to a guy or i got up it wasn't i didn't talk this guy was it and same thing comment section it was on my big hirk video oh boy that was a fun he oh yeah he came and this guy came this guy said look man he said listen man he said i did 20 years in state he said i did 20 years in the fed no 20 years in the feds and he said i didn't cooperate and i can tell you right now he said every he said everybody in the feds right now that didn't cooperate wishes they had yeah he said that's just a fact he said you got to look

out for you like it was like this is a guy who didn't cooperate did 20 years got out and you know for a fact he's thinking i wish i'd cooperated i could have been home in five years yeah and that's the truth that's why i'm yeah sorry go ahead that that's why i'm so uh outspoken now like getting into a car with people i don't necessary not that i get into cars with people i don't know but if you're going somewhere and you know there's a group of people just hey no one's got a gun on them right no one's got any drugs on them right you know there's nothing going on here that shouldn't be going on. I don't really have a lot of people in my life that I have to be concerned about that.

But it's everybody knows Dan isn't going to go down on a sinking ship. You know, I want nothing to do with any criminal lifestyle. And if you put me into that mix, I'll be the first one to tell on you. You know, don't get. Don't put me in that situation. I'll put you in that situation. You better hope they talk to you before they talk to me. You don't see this tattoo right here, 5K1 in old English.

Hey, you know, it's funny as like Jess had a, was it a new, was it, no, no, Christmas party at her work. And the Christmas party, well, part of it was like earlier in the day, they brought everybody to the gun range. We didn't go. You know, and we didn't go because they're like, they're bad people that that was a legitimate thing that normal, decent citizens who don't have felonies get to enjoy right i used to have a concealed weapons permit like jess loves she used to she used to be a hunting tour guide she was in the military she loves guns but guess what we can't do that anymore and so and and and even people were like oh well you could still go you just don't know i cannot go to a gun range and yes i mean technically

could I sure I probably could go I could walk could you get away with it probably are you allowed right but I'm saying no but I'm saying even if I never touched the gun like you could go and stand there and not touch the gun that's fine it doesn't matter I don't want to put myself in a situation where it can be raised where I have to answer questions where I could get arrested or indictment the answer is no I'm not going and the truth is I would have loved to have gone I would have loved to have gone the gun range. I used to go all the time. Yeah. You know, I had a concealed weapons permit. We know, this was what I back when I was in my, um, in my 20s and early 30s, but, you know, like, but yeah. So, you know, you have to, you have to look out for things the rest of your life. Yeah. You know, I actually

made that mistake. Exactly what you just said I did after I got indicted and pled guilty. My buddy Paul, he's an avid, avid shooter and him and his friend Dennis took me to a gun range. And I didn't know I wasn't allowed to go at this point. You know, I didn't, I was just naive. I went, had a blast. I was shooting fucking all kinds of, you name it. I was shooting it. And then I was talking to somebody and they're like, are you allowed to do that now that you're a convicted felon?

I'm like, I haven't gone to prison yet. And they're like, well, you played guilty. You're a convicted felon now. And I was like, that's a good question. Because I almost, you know, you got to, I was on pretrial probation. So I had to fill out a monthly thing of like places I'm going and stuff. I almost put down that I went to a shooting range. So I asked my probation officer in passing.

I didn't tell him that I went. I asked him, hey, if my friends wanted to go to a shooting range, am I allowed to go? He's like, if you want to get a felon of possession of a firearm weapon, go ahead. And holy fuck, dude. I'm like, I'm deleting everything off my phone. I've got picture of me holding looks like zombie assault rifles. And I'm not a gun guy to begin with. But yeah, you're absolutely right.

You know, these could you've gone and got away with it? Probably. But, man, imagine the feeling you would have if you got in trouble and be like, I can't believe I fucking did that there's right like if you're going to get in trouble it's got to be worth it yeah like I don't want to get in trouble for something stupid it's embarrassing you know yeah yep you don't want to you don't want to you don't want to you know I don't know ripping uh ripping uh the tag off a mattress you know it's embarrassing like there's some things that guys would be like really like complacency it's it's like getting into the car if you know

if if you're somebody of sketchy like we'll take a Josh right um whatever his last name is Josh if Josh said hey man you want to go take a ride with me I would not I couldn't trust that he wouldn't have something on him I wouldn't trust that there's not a bag of meth under his seat yeah I like yeah I like you Josh but but until you're until you're ready to like like handle this the right way I can't really associate with you because I'm not convinced that you wouldn't put me in a situation. And then when it comes down to it, you're going to throw your drugs on the fucking ground and not own up to it.

I don't believe Josh would would fall on the sword and do what he's supposed to. Yeah. And there's, you know, I can count on one hand how many people I would trust with that. And it's probably Shelley. She's the only one that I could probably give a secret and it would die with her. Aside from that, you put yourself into a to an undesirable situation.

that you're not willing to suffer the consequences, don't fucking do it. You know, you got to really think it through. And being a convicted felon, it's like you said, that microscope is on us where it's not on the regular person. Yeah.

So yeah, man, that's, that's all I got. I just, you know, the world of consulting, it's, it's getting,

it's getting crazier and crazier, uh, just because more and more people are popping out of the woodwork, but not everybody can be art up Dan. Listen, I, I remember it was in, I was in the TV room in the prison and we were watching, we were watching some TV show

and these guys are shooting into each other with like machine guns. It was like heat, like the movie Heat. Right. Great movie. The cops are shooting in them. They're shooting them. And I'm sitting between like a bank robber and a guy who's there for like torturing someone who is part of like, you know, like, you know, they're just two really rough guys.

eyes and that bank robber kind of glanced over at me and I looked at him and I go just like that in the mortgage industry and he's just I mean he's just looking at me like you're an idiot but yeah I was just going to say yeah yes prison consulting it's a rough business it's just like that it's just the shootouts the kidnappings the watch my back man I got to watch my back everywhere I go you know yeah yeah breaking in each other's houses the espionage, the corporate stealing corporate secrets. We're not espionage.

What's it? What do they call it? Corporate espionage. Is that it? Corporate espionage? That's a thing. I've got a fun. I've got a good guy you should interview.

If you look him up, John Carriacou. He was the, uh, didn't he write rich dad, poor dad? No. That's a,

Robert Kiyosaki, whatever his name is. Whatever. John Kariaku was a CIA agent that was, he was partly responsible for bringing down the bin Laden, like all of his like first and second and third in command. And when they started torturing these guys, when they brought them over to a, where was the island at where I think they shut it down now? I can't think of it. Cuba? Yes, yes.

Guantamino Bay. Yeah. when they were when they were they were torturing the people and of course we say we don't we don't do any type of torturing so he whistle blew and got hit by the feds for basically saying that he was you know a spy turning turning secrets over that he wasn't allowed to talk about he went to prison for it and now he's he's a commentator he's spoken he's written books about it he's been all over the place uh he i could put him in touch with you he would love to come on your show and talk he's out of California so it'd have to be Zoom but he's got a fucking wild story bro he talks about when the guy

fell off the roof and he was on the ground dying and he's he's like tell me where this is and he's he's getting like intel from him before the guy passes out they're in the hospital trying to like protect them and the cartel they know the other cartel knows that they got bin laden's guys like in custody so all of a sudden they come they shoot up the entire hospital so they're trying to rush everybody out of the back and it sounds like a fucking movie dude it's all one and it's all completely true like there's nothing fabricated about it it's all documented um yeah really good guy really good interview yeah i would love that i would love to talk to him we definitely i got to get his his information he sounds great yeah i'll pass

it on you interviewed him on your channel i did i did years ago years ago oh dude let me tell you how bad the interview was i was an hour and a half interview we just got finished and i look down and i'm like i didn't hit fucking record no nothing got recorded and i almost i'm telling you i came this close this close to going all right great thanks and i was and i was like i was like i was like john um i got i got a favor he's like he's like what's up i was like i didn't hit record and he went listen if i could you have would you please her this is like i would you please he's like I would, I would, I want to proven for, for torture. This is completely, yeah, I, so I was like,

is there any way you can do this again with the same enthusiasm? And let me tell you, the motherfucker hit it like a script. He nailed it. But yeah, super cool dude. And, you know, and even with you, like, I'm like, I hope the audio is recording, you know, it'd be, I'm going to get Matt just a fucking moving mouth. But yeah, you know, it's, uh, sometimes, look, I have rough days, good days, days were like I wish things were different. I complain about shit. But then I take a step back

and I look at like what my alternatives would have been if this wasn't what I'm doing for for my life. I'm at home. I've got I've got a dog that's ready to like die any moment. And it's it kills me because I've had him for 15 years and he's doing so bad. And if I had to work a nine to five job right now, I couldn't be home and something happened. You know, that's why I'm not in the office right now. I'm sitting here at my kitchen table with with, all kinds of makeshift things so I can be here with my crew. Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me. It's put me in a situation to not just help people,

but helping people that are going through what they're going through. As much as I'm so happy to get to help them, it's every day. It's also so productive for my own for me because it's therapy for me. It keeps me honest. And I see every day the mistakes that people are making, PPP loans, all this stuff. And I'm that close to making a mistake, you know, because I've got the mind of a criminal.

That's why I went to prison. And if I didn't have this kind of accountability over my head, I don't know that I would have stayed on a straight and narrow path. So in between making a living, being able to work from home, sure, there's stresses that come with that. But I wouldn't trade this for the world. Dan's crying. He's a big softie. He's a big softie. He's just like me.

Oh, I know. I, bro, I cry at the drop. I got about five things if you ask me about. I'll immediately start drying. Yeah, I'm the same way, man. It's a combination of the dog. He loves his dog. Are you fine?

Me? No, I'm not. No? Why? Because they watered up a little? That's fine. That's just sympathy. That's nothing.

I'm a tough guy. Oh, look, now Jess is all tearing up. Listen. Huh? She goes, let's make this about Dancy. She's got to keep me. She knows the narcissist in me. Okay.

You know, it's, you're a very emotional guy too. Having having the emotional, the ability to be able to express emotions. Honestly, what stands me apart from every other consultant, I think it's the fact that I'm able to be so transparent about my emotions and not, you know, I'm not coming on here the shirt and tie and trying to sound like an attorney. I'm not concerned with people not hiring me. You know, we get enough business. We do good enough that even if I have a bad month, it's still better than what other people, there's people out there that would kill to have the income that I have. So I can't complain about that at all. And the income only came because I did these

things for the right reasons and figured if I do things for the right reason, things will kind of work themselves out. And when I lived by that principle, when I was doing my PPP loan to get my for the SBA, and I was like, man, I could, I could add an extra employee. They would never know. How are they going to know? This is, how are they going to know? It just seems so, so easy to do. And then that little voice was like, Dan, what if they do find out? Right. And now my 99% of my, my client base are PPP fraud. So I'm like, man, I'm so happy that I didn't do anything like that because it would been so easy to do it in a moment for immediate gratification. So yeah, you got to take the elevator or you got to take the stairs, not the elevator in life. You know, you got to put in the work.

Shortcuts just usually lead you to a shaky foundation that crumbles very, very shortly after. Yeah. You know, but, you know, if you did do the extra employee, then, you know, and you did go to somebody does go to prison, like it's still the thing is like it's not the of the world. It seems like the end of the world. But then you walk out the other side and it's like, wow, like if you do it right and you have the right mindset, it can it can be, it can be a like a rebirth. Yeah. This disaster, this disaster that you're going through right now could turn into a miracle in disguise that saved your, saved your life in all kinds of benefiting ways like I was going to say, Jess and I, you hear Jess in the background,

Jess just said it saved my life. Like, Jess and I both say that all the time. Like, it was, like, I deserve to go to prison. You know, I always say that I don't think I deserve 26 years, but I needed to go to prison. Listen, man, I got to get off this thing. I can't be sitting here crying. Hey, if you sat through this,

I feel for you. I appreciate you watching. Sorry, it went side. at the end. I appreciate you watching. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell. Leave me a comment. I really do appreciate you watching and see you.