Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Downfall of BandGang’s Multi-Million Dollar Credit Card Scheme

Episode Date: October 21, 2023

The Downfall of BandGang’s Multi-Million Dollar Credit Card Scheme

I was riding through the drive-thru. He just looked like somebody. I could see it in his eyes. You look like you hate it here. You get tired of working at this job if you want to make some real money called me. And lo and behold, he called me and we started getting money like that.

So this is what you got to do. When people come through the back cash and you're taking their car, swiping through this box. Every time you swipe a car through this box, I'm going to give you $10. They walk in the store with the stolen credit cards and swipe them at the self-checkout lane.

Now, what they be swiping is gift cards. So they go to the little gift card rack. They swipe at the checkout. Boom, they get a receipt. Now, they can keep going, do another card. Boom, another one, another one. It's going on one last big trip. This was going to be my last trip.

So I had a thousand cards or all the $1,000 a piece cards. Now that we're saying this, it feels like I need to say, for the record the only things I can say the things that are on legal proceedings other than that everything is for entertainment purposes and this is probably I have this is all is based on the true story

Hey this is Matt Cox and I am here with Javar and Javar's got a super interesting story about credit card fraud and counterfeiting and I've already heard it once really interesting can't wait for you to hear it check out the interview I grew up on six miles of martin the street we grew up all right two parent household mother in what city what city in Detroit yeah that's okay because there's probably lots of six miles I was saying you There's got to be other streets called six mile. You know, I know you're like, no, it's the iconic one that everybody knows to hear you still.

The real name is McNichols, so if anybody want to- Is that the real name in the street? Yeah. We call it Six Miles, but it's really McNichols. I always assumed they called it, like there was a street called like Six Mile. It is a five-mile, six-mile, seven-mile, eight-mile, but it's just, it's also McNichols. Oh, okay. All right, I got it.

You know, you go a little bit further down. I might say this, but on this part, it's say this. Got it. Okay. Troy, six mile. All right. Yeah, grew up there, went to school there, went to school, elementary, and middle school, I went there. And then when my dad died, I ended up going to Canton and went to school there.

But how did you back up a little bit? Well, he died, you know, with the whole story. he is right i was at home you know i'm upstairs playing the game i heard my mama calling me she yelling my name i come downstairs i see her pinned up against the wall you know her and my dad fight you know that's kind of something that's common occurrence in my circumstances so it's not like something i would wouldn't be used to seeing right so how old were you i was probably yeah i was 11 So I was 11 at the time. And, you know, looking back, I used to always wonder, like, why didn't she just lead that type of situation, you know?

Like, my dad didn't stay with us. We had our own place, and he just came around when he came wrong. Not to say he was a bad person and you think, but I just used to wonder, you know, like, why put up with it if you didn't have to? And, I mean, it caught me in a weird situation. Like, now, I got to be the one to come help you and you put me in this type of situation. That's how I kind of saw it. Well, you know, it's, you know, people get themselves, you know, first of all, love, you know, how many times have you said, I wouldn't do that? Oh, your girl did what? I would never put up with that. And then, honestly, you put up with it. You know, like there's people go back to love and they stay in relationships out of love and convenience and what they know. A lot of times, you know, for ridiculous reasons. But, you know, in the moment, it seems right. So I can see how some women just don't leave. You know, even though there's, and it's a common thing.

So it's not like it's, oh, that's, you know, in some way, your fault. Lots of women don't leave. Lots of people just put up with abuse. So there's got to be a reason, a legitimate reason. That's definitely true. I should ask her. It wasn't what was her reason, but it's probably got to boil down to like, you know, I love them. With looking back on it, I know she wouldn't have did the same thing twice.

It was just, you know, back then, everybody. was making bad decisions you know when you yog and dumb you just make that bad decisions I've made my own yeah so you were 11 sorry yeah so I was 11 you know I'm seeing him so she ended up telling me I'm leaving with him so I get my book bag put my stuff in there I go outside I'm walking to the car where I buy the car so I turn around because the car door locked so I turn around I see her at him they argue and she he said something slick i guess so she threw a pan at him but in her other hand she got a knife so he running up you know i guess you could guess he was about to smacker you know you can't really

say what he would have did but so in her defense she she's not meaning to stab him but she like kind of trying to shield herself and the knife went into his heart so then he run into the car stabbed at first you could see it in her face she didn't even know she stabbed him but as he getting more to the car and yelling it, then it's like a panic on her face, and she running down to the car. He sat in the driver's seat. The eyes rolled back in his head.

She came, sat on his lap, and told me to go back in the house and drove him all the way to the hospital while sitting on his lap. So it was like, I can't really see how, well, I can see how somebody might find it as murder or like a worse thing, but I just see it as like kind of more so an accident

and it's like it's nobody fault because of the circumstances manslaughter it's like yeah and that's what she ended up getting like at first it was a murder they was trying to hit her with but then they ended up reducing it to manslaughter she got I think like eight years of probation and how many jail time she sat in the county for a year but she didn't stay she didn't go to prison so in the county for a year while she was fighting the case and then she well while she was fighting the case I was staying at my auntie house

I was staying in the basement and I think that experience is really what made me the person who I am today so it's it's really a hard thing because it's like I wouldn't be who I am the day without all of that. But if I could go back in time, I would change it all. Right. Well, it's just a bad situation. But sitting in the basement, and then she, when she did get out, she ended up standing in the basement with me too. So we stand in the basement. And we stayed there for about a year. And that's just so she could get herself on her feet. But I'm still in middle school at the time. So it just, and then everything went from me having all the nice stuff, because, you know, he sold drugs, so we're living kind of good at the time.

So the one from that, to me not having the newest stuff, not having the newest clothes, the best clothes. So I'm, we're from, say, polo to USPA type of situation. So then, you know, you go to school and you get teased for wearing the feelaprises instead of the real ones, then it just put a hunger in you to never go back to that type of situation. Right. I don't really blame her for that but I think

really it was it's kind of a good thing too because even if I didn't use it for a negative thing I can always use that for a positive thing too and a lot of people like for example you might come from people that come from more affluent

background they might not have that hunger and it might not be as important for them to make sure they got it but right People that do come from it, it just make us get up every day and go get it. You know, one generation makes, you know, makes money and then the next generation spends it. It's pretty common because the, you know, because the ones that make it were hungry.

And then their next, their kids grow up, you know, in, in comfort. And they don't have that. They don't have that drive. If they have enough money, they can maybe maintain it. but by the next generation it's gone you know like very seldom do families have enough money that they can maintain it for generations i mean there are there are those out there but like the rocker fillers right but very few you could probably name all of them you know on both your head but but for that reason it's just i don't see myself as the victim in those type of

situations right so i know it might come off to people like you know i tell the story and it's kind of cold. Like, hey, he died. That's it. But it's just like, you know, I see the bigger purpose in everything. You got to try to look at life like that everything got a bigger purpose. If I could change it, I would, but, you know, you can't change everything. Yeah.

Most like when people say, you know, oh, you know, would you, do you regret going to jail? Do you know, of course I record. Like, what are you talking about? Would I change things? Of course I would. You know, which did you benefit from it. Right, right. But I definitely learned about it.

I did the best in the situation once I realize you're, dude, you're going to be down a little bit. I did the best I could, you know. You died for quite a bit. Yeah, like almost 13 years. I always say 13 just, but it's, I just shy at 13. Yeah, that's crazy. And then even looking at my sense, it's like at the top, you know, you're feeling like you, you really, forever. Yeah.

Looking at it in comparison to everybody else, you'd be like, yeah, that wouldn't nothing. Right. And I do it again if I had to instead of that, you know. Yeah, when you're sitting, I'm, I would sitting at a table guys at the media and I'm like, man, I got 26 years, bro. Like I got, like I'll be 60 when I get when I get out with good time. And they'd look at me and they'd say, I ain't never getting out. Like I've been down 20 and I'm never leaving. And you're like, oh, wow, maybe I should shut my mouth. Maybe I should stop complaining. Nobody wants to hear. You got to be grateful for what you got. Yeah. My cousin told me that. Probably the first week I was there, he said, don't complain. Nobody wants to hear about you complaining, guys with life sentences and guys that got 40 years and some guy that brought a, you know, brought a gun to a $10, you know, crack sale who ended up with 30 years. He don't want to hear about your complaints. And I was like, all right, you know, you're right. And he's right. He was right. Fairly.

You know, are avoiding you. But so, so your mom's living with you, you know, you're in the basement. You're struggling. You know, my cousin stayed there, too. I stayed with two of my cousins and my auntie. So I feel like that brought me closer to my cousins. And, you know, at the time, they were in the stuff that I wasn't into yet. So that had come into play later.

But for the time being, all we really did was make music in the basement. So, you know, that kind of like brought us all together. And from there, though, even from music, I feel like that brought me into more crime too. just because, you know, for example, you know, I was shooting a music video one day. It's one of our bigger music videos, but everybody in the video had thousands of dollars. You know, they come and racked up the stacks of money. Put it at the time, you know, I got a video company, but I'm not having stacks of money. So I'm seeing that, and I just had to pull one of my cousins to the side.

Like, you know, you're going to have to tell me what this is. I'm trying to do it. You feel me? so he ended up telling me what we doing is it's called jugging so he'd break it down to me what we do we make an instagram page we'd take somebody somebody's likeness like for example your likeness say we wanted to make the mac cox instagram page okay we had changed the name maybe it's money making cox right so we upload some of your pictures follow a whole bunch of people get more followers build the page up and then start posting stuff like hey hey

you want to flip your money, turn a hundred into a thousand dollars, five hundred and five thousand dollars. So people will see that and they'd be like, yeah, I want to slip my hundreds. Sounds good. Sounds too good to be true and it is, but not seeing it like that. So when they get in contact with the page, then we hit them with the, okay, so this is what you've got to do. You got to go to Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS, any of these stores, and you got to go pick up a vanilla reload card. So when they went and picked up the vanilla reload At the car at the store

They had to load a certain amount Whichever amount they wanted to flip So say they wanted to flip 100 to a thousand We'd tell them you do that You send us back 20% of whatever we flip it to So say we tie it into a thousand You send us 200 for the job

You keep 800 Right Whole time When they load the money onto the card And send us the information from the card You're John Yeah we just loading it on the art card hit the ATM and we go it's over with that what do you do you spend them when they're like a week

later when they're like where's my money where's my money you start they they they get you that day is they think it's going to happen right man when you when you're telling people like something that's too good to be true they already speak like it don't seem real for them so they on you already every second of the process they want to stay on the fall the whole time but you would do that and just walk to the ATM the whole time like yeah I'm doing it right right now. Put the car to the ATM, withdraw, and it's over with. You gag up on and block them and never talk to them again. So that gave me my first taste of scamming, my first taste of I say even, like having a couple of dollars, and I'm still in school. So I'm going to

school, you know, now I got a couple thousand dollars on me. So, no, it's, you see the popularity shift from really being really kind of like land. in school to being the guy at school, you know? Right. The type of people I was with. Honestly, I kind of look at that. It's a good thing, too, because I was around some people that just really wasn't for me at the time, too, in like a different way.

But the people I ended up being with, you know, I'm still cool with them to this day. Like, we'd have made thousands of dollars together, and then people see you with the money now they want to make money with you. So people reaching out to me, hey, how can we do what you doing? So what I do with them, I have them. hey, all you got to do is I give them to play, then give them a card. So I put a card in

maybe somebody else's name or pay somebody else to put the card in their name, like maybe another friend at school, okay, I need you to do this. I give you $200 just for putting the card to you a serve card that we can load the vanillas off. And then another person, you might want to be the jigger. Like, you might have talking

skills and be able to talk to people. So I give you the card. And then every say $1,000 that get on the card, now I get 500 you get 500 and not I still got my pages I'm doing what I do and is it right made it a bigger thing than what it was so I have a I'm sorry go let me take your time go ahead did you ever see the movie um empire empire I'm not sure what happened it's got it's got um I'm gonna I'm gonna butcher this dude's name bro okay Like John Ligavacho or something, he's a thin Puerto Rican guy.

Anyway, what he did, he was a drug dealer in the name of his area and his drug was called Empire. And that they had the city kind of broken up, or this one area broken up between him and a few other guys. And his girlfriend was going to college. And she ended up befriending another girl at school. Well, that girlfriend's boyfriend was a. he was like a stockbroker and so she sees the other girl the drug dealer's girlfriend's got like a nice rock

she's got a nice diamond pendant you know she's got she could tell she's got money but she's Puerto Rican and you talk to her and she felt like you know what I'm saying like this is new money or even if it's not new money I don't think it mattered but the point is that she befriends her she tells her that her boyfriend's throwing you know she basically says well where'd you get this and she's like oh my boyfriend where'd you get this oh my boyfriend oh he must do really well yeah he's he does pretty well she kind of figures out he's a drug dealer so he um there she invites her to a party and the boyfriend to a party they go to a party in like manhattan or something right like they're they're not even used to come in in this area they go there they're at the party they're like wow they're mixing with

you know, like, you know, upper, upper middle class, you know, rich people or whatever. And he befriends, the rich guy, the stockbroker befriends him and ends up saying, you know, he kind of lets him in on, hey, well, here's what I do. He's got kind of like an inside track on different stocks and different portfolios and he does this and he does that. And he's like, how do I get in on this? How do I get in on this? And so he gives him like a little taste, like, hey, you give me, You know, give me like 300,000. Give them 300,000 in cash.

Right. And then whatever it is, a month and a half later, keep in mind, they're going on vacation together. They're hanging out. They're friends. Of course, it's his money. He doesn't realize he's taking me on vacation with my money. So they, you know, they're hanging out.

They're going to parties. They're going to dinner. And then a few months later, he's like, oh, by the way, I got that check for you. And he's like, what? He's like, yeah, yeah, come by my office. So he goes by his office. Office is in downtown, like, walks in. And it's just massive.

Like it's like, wow, this dude's rolling. And he says, hey, I got that thing. You know, out of your 300,000 turned it into 700,000 in two months. He's like, you did this in two months. He's like, yeah, he goes to give him the check. And he's like, man, can we do this again? He goes, well, I got another deal that I'm working on. You know, I could let you in on it.

But honestly, it's really, it's a lot more money. Like, I can roll the 700,000. Keep mind they're sitting there with a check. I've got a check. You must. already. He's like, all you got is a check. No, it's what he says is I can take the check

and I could, I could redeposit it into the next, the next thing that I'm doing, the next, you know, whatever, the next raise, maybe it's a raise. Maybe he's just insider trading. I don't really, you never really know what it is. It has something to do with Wall Street. So the guy goes,

well, he said, I can, but the minimum you have to put in is like $3 million. And he's still, and he's like wow man he's like yeah I know he's like so you get to 700,000 so I only have to come up with 2.3 million he's like right yeah and he goes he said I can do it give me give me a couple weeks and he's like bro I mean honestly we're on a timetable you got to have it in by the end of the month two weeks bro two weeks okay I got you he goes and borrows from everybody he knows

including the plug which he's like well man I've been selling to for you for 20 years. I need $2 million. And they give him like 2 million plus he gets another 300,000 goes, pulls all his money, or maybe it's a million he pulls. I don't know what the breakdown is. The point is, he goes in with $2.3 million. It gives him that. And then, you know, a week goes by. They're supposed to go to dinner or something they call. He's not answering. Call again, not answering. Finally, he goes by his, he goes by his office. And she's like, hey, is, you know, Jimmy here. And the receptionist is like, who? Jimmy she's like I'm not sure does he rent here and yeah this is his office and she's like

no this is a this is a temp office you know it's like a virtual office you can rent rooms you can rent places and he had thought he owned the whole thing right this is where he works but really he just rented a rented a conference room and they have these everywhere I used to rent them all the time they're called the ones I used to rent were called HQ you'd go up there you say hey is math there and the receptionist knows you're coming and sure hold on let me get Mr. Cox and she'll call you you're just sitting in an empty room now you come out like it's a great scam oh yeah yeah hold on let's go in the conference room Jennifer can you get us some coffee sure what would you like Mr. Cox like she's like she knows you

but she doesn't you rented it for the day so anyway so she's like I don't know who that guy is I don't know who he was so then he goes to his condo condos cleaned out there's a real estate person there saying oh are you here for the open house he's like well we know where's jimmy she's like who oh the old owner yeah he moved out like a week ago are you interested in renting it he can't find so he eventually finds the guy like it it doesn't end well but for anybody involved anybody but it is a great movie bro great it's the same it's it's it's that kind of a thing on a you'd love that but i'm gonna send you i'm gonna send you the trailer you're gonna you'll what you'll go, I think I own that.

That's like a burning made-off type of thing. Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, Burning Made, nobody did like Bernie Madoff. He did it forever. That's a different level. Like, that's $40 billion. That's the way. This guy still got a couple million.

And who knows how many people he was doing this with? Yeah. But it's the same thing. He just stopped at the one person. Yeah. But imagine him telling 10 of his friends, and then it's the same thing. You know, that's the five of the things. You don't know.

You never really find out. how many people this guy and his girlfriend were working. Because that's all she's doing. She's going out. She's the roper. She's roping people in. And think about it. If you got half a million dollars sitting in the bank and you're a full-time scammer,

and this is what you do, you can stay in an area for six months. You can get four or five million dollars for sure. And then you just disappear. It just so happens at the end of the whole thing. You know, the guy, the drug dealer tracks him down. It's not a good situation. And, of course, he lost the plug's money. So the plug is now looking for him.

You know, bro, it's so good. I could have said this to you. You're going to be like, oh, my God. Yeah, that's my type of movie right there. So I'm sorry, right? I'm sorry. Tell me. So you're doing, you guys are, you're still jigging.

How old are you at this point? I don't know the number, but I know like I'm just starting high school. or maybe yeah probably like around night of grade probably or maybe middle school going into high school okay

there's a little school high school walking around with a couple thousand dollars in your pocket right yeah you're you're basically at high school you're basically the man you're it was going to be sure

like I wouldn't got my first card no it wasn't much but it's a little sadder I'm feeling good ain't nobody else got no car so you know I'm right in that I'm riding around really ain't even got no license yet I'm I'm with the just doing it what is your mom think you're doing because I already shot videos too

oh she's thinking you know the videos just going better than it was before okay with the videos was still going but it was like you know but not like that yeah that's like you put a 10 on it videos I'll shoot maybe I started off shoot 50 dollars of videos It didn't take me a hundred videos to make $5,000. Right. It's crazy. But, moral of the story, you know, we was doing good.

But we took that and then we kind of increased it too because, you know, my other cousins, the ones I was growing up with staying with at the time when I was in the basement, they had their own thing going on. So they wasn't jugging, but they had a better rock. they was swiping so I had to learn about no okay so what's this so I could go to them like you know I need to figure this out now it's like the same type of situation I came in with my stack of money and they coming in with their stack of money that stack bigger I'm trying to figure out what's in that stack how do I get there so I ask it that's that's the only thing good about being in the team were like a generalized group people that put you hip to what going on it's not necessarily we even got to do it together but even just sharing the knowledge

it's worth everything you know right so he he was at a point where he was kind of getting out of it or just taking a break because he had like some legal what was going on or whatever so he put me in a position to learn everything so i could kind of take over putting the numbers together for him so he telling me like okay this is the site we get everything from this is how we put it together you slide the cards through the box to write the cards and all that type of information. You show how does, how, I mean, explain that. You said, right, or what, you just went straight. You said swiping.

Okay. So what did it is he? Everybody knows what swiping? The guy that works at Tyre Kingdom may not know what swiping means. Yeah, so, you know, whenever I do that, just let me know. All right. So he, uh, so he telling me, you know, first of all, I'm, I had to go see what it was first. anyway. So I learned how to be the driver, which is how I learned how they were swiping.

So, you know, I'd go take them to a Myers. And what they'd do is they'd walk in a store with the stolen credit cards and swiping them at the self-checkout lane. Now, what they'd be swiping is gift cards. So they'd go to the little gift card rack. You know, it's hundreds of gift cards up there. They get to meet fees of MasterCard gift cards. They're low between 100 and 500 on the gift card and swipe or pay for it was the same thing is swiping basically so they swipe at the checkout boom they get a receipt

now they can keep going do another card boom another one another one because there's only so many of Myers in the state right so they can know where they're getting the information to buy the card from yep he showed me the site that was getting the information to buy the card from too at the time it was arrest cator dot cc

so they go on there you know all the site is it's like you you go on the page it's a login you log in make one and then you see dups you see which is the credit card information you see right CVV which is the different type of credit card information that you'll use online and they got like a wholesale option and in all of that type stuff like checkouts and it's like an amazon for credit card information right right so and this isn't like on the dark web or anything this is just normal you're just yeah this the clear width okay like they got dark web sites too but this we didn't even get into that yet we're still in the clear

width okay so they get that information write it on the card now writing on the card that process is you get a reader writer which he showed me where to get it from and i ordered that in right so we sat down at the table and he did the first one in front of them okay this is what you do you take the card the piece of plastic you load the numbers up on the screen like it come with a software and all the software is it's three boxes track one track two and track three on every card it's at least a track one and two right so all you need for the transaction is track two you don't even need track one track one one is really the name so if you take that off the name don't even print out on the receipt so on we just load the track two up copy it paste it in the track two box

swipe the card through the reader, writer. That's it. The process is over just like that. Now you've got a credit card that might have a, it might have an open balance of $3,000. It might have an open balance of $20,000. Right. And then you're going to, you just go in the store and you go get gift cards and you use that, that credit card, stolen information on that credit card to buy, you know, put $500 on this gift card, $500 in this gift card, $500 until it just stops working. but now you got the gift cards with 500 bucks

right and then they take them gift cards you know it's a plug that cash out the gift cards so you can take them 10,000 50,000 worth of gift cards so you cash you out the same day so all they did was they they had a little business so right they had legal purchases people coming in and buying items from them and then they had people coming in with gift cards

so what they'd do they'd mix the purchases together so they'd sell like they sell a fake item like a fake code for an item that never existed so to the bank it looks like they selling this item right but to for the real is not no item so it's basically money laundering where they purchase the stuff from their self that was never went anywhere yeah that was never in existence so hey i sold i sold four pair of blue jeans and two t-shirts and a pair of tennis shoes for for 500 you know four hundred ninety five dollars including tax you're run that through, but you never bought anything. So now you can legally tell the IRS, I got this money and here's a little bit of taxes. And then you could tell the IRS how much the blue jeans cost and everything. And I didn't make much money. But the truth is, you just made, what, four or 500 bucks? So. And even though they was paying out 85% of the money and the credit card fees was probably 5%. And they kept seeing, they doing hundreds of thousands a week. So it's like they're making the money back. Not even just all.

off us. You know, it's other people that scamming the city too. And they, you know, we all see each other pulling up at the spot together. Like, it's like a non-thing around the city. Just where you go to turn in. Right. So I'm pretty sure they was doing good. And like, you know, they, they're in the better cars than everybody else that's up there. But I mean, the nice thing about that is that eventually and somebody, a whole team gets busted and they tell the FBI and the FBI shows up and says, this is what's involved. They can go, what? Are you? You mean, these people are you? You mean, these people are you? using stolen credit cards and that happened like they got raided multiple times but they steal to this day run what they run that's crazy like you're telling me people are coming in here with stolen credit oh my gosh thank god you guys are here yeah and you could cut them out really and do it yourself but you really need a business to do it because when you try to do it yourself and you don't have real purchases coming in like with real credit and debit cards, they just go close the account out and lock your money up and you off-seeded money. Right.

I imagine you're... Sorry, I've known people who did stuff like they set up like an eBay account and they just went out and bought certain types of items like they stuck with buying, you know, let's say just like, you know, purses, nice, decent, you know, $500 purses or something. And they put it, then they would put them on eBay and they'd sell them at a 30% discount or whatever it was. and they sell them and it's just it's more work definitely more work you know so if you're like it won for the item to seal then you're taking a bigger chunk of the money out eBay got their fees eBay can lock your money up and you don't know who knows how long it's going to take to sell the purse right right on like every single right so they're like everything moves right away it could be sitting there for two months you know now that we're dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars

worth of material and you still got to go on the next run And it's like, you know, you can't really sit on it. Yeah. And if you do, you're really putting yourself at risk the lower you sit on it. Because then you get ready, you got $100,000 worth of merchandise at your house. It's just, it looked even worse. But where was we in the making of it? Yeah, he was explained.

He kind of explains to you how it's going. First, you were driving and then he kind of incrementally gave you like a little more piece. And then a little of the information a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more. So he easing me into the process It basically taking over for him But in that process I kind of I wanted to do my own thing too

So I had noticed on the site Where we bought the The reader writer from And nowadays you can get all this stuff From Amazon but back then it was like a real site We went to and it was a weird guy You called on the phone and he was kind of like Didn't want to sell it to you but he did still

But So I see on the site it's a different item like a little card reader like you the size of like a your thumb so i ask him like hey what's this like why don't we be getting these instead of the the big reader riders he like because that one just read the car information that don't write it like that's good if you got somebody that work at mcdonald or something that swipe the car so he's telling me this i registered like yeah this is all like what i need to be doing like that's why would i go to the website and get some

cars that might work might not work when I can go here and get it and it definitely worked definitely work they just bought they just bought a big Mac right and I can get it for a lower price you know the site might sell a card to you you might get one for ten dollars but you might get one for 50 you might get one for a hundred then know what the card is and the hundred dollars don't be working like they got the most security on it you buy a black card it's like you really got to put a lot of effort into cracking that card right you got to go behind it by the profile, the metric, the social security number, birthday, and all that. And then you got to do like social engineering.

It's a lot of work on the crack of black card or something that caliber. Yeah, because if suddenly, if this person uses that card all the time at six different locations and then suddenly you're 15 miles away using it somewhere where he's never used it. And they have 10 years worth of history, then that software is going to say, wait a second, he what's he doing shopping here like he never buys at this this area doesn't go into that area it doesn't never bought here before and yeah that's yeah so kidding they'll die everything so they know definitely like he all goes into the fraud risk or if it's something he ain't never bought and then if it's over a certain amount they're going to call him anyway right you can get

around that if you take over the phone account first but at the time we're not knowing none of that so we just stayed away from all of those type of cars and I saw that It's a better route. So I end up getting some of them. But before I even get to that, I get to start trying to do my own rocks. So, you know, I buy my first couple 10 cards off the site, you know, and he bought hundreds of cards at the top. I'm probably like a 10 batch, you know, I need to test out.

Baby still, I'm going out of tile making nothing. I'm taking people out, still got to pay them, didn't make nothing. Now I'm spending the money from jugging on rentals and drivers and swiping people and not making nothing, still having to pay you out. So I'm losing money now But I see it working So it's like I can never really give up on it Right

So eventually I find this girl I went to school with So I kind of break it down to her like Hey you know She see us getting money already from what we was doing So she already into whatever You know, just the same way we had people jugging for us Now I'm just breaking down something new to you Okay, so all you got to do

You work at Wendy's or McDonald's Okay, so this is what you got to do When people come through the back cash and you taking their car, swipe it through this box. Every time you swipe a card through this box, I'm going to give you $10. If you do 100 cards a week, you're going to make $1,000 a week. And coming from somebody that's making, you're making really more with me than you're making at your job. Oh, yeah. Especially as a kid, and then she felt like she's making a lot of money.

But I'm taking them same hundred cards. And now I'm going out of time making $10,000 a trip. because now every one of these or most of them at least are going to work right especially we going around that same areas to McDonald's i can go to that mire of the street and almost everything going to work unless a person just out of money in their bank account it something right but but before we even got there again i messed up so i had my first box i gave it to her she'd go get a hundred cards you know around that amount i see one card that didn't look right. And everybody that didn't have a little reader of this type, then probably did the same mistake. I tried to delete the one card. It deleted all 100 cards. So she's looking for her money. I didn't spend all the money on these bad trips. This was about to be to the bouts back real quick. And I got nothing. So I try to explain it to her. You know, she's not having done it at. So then it's just like I had to really bounce back into juggling for a minute. I had to wait like a

month before i could really get back into it and so that's kind of like the ups and dollars were scamming like you might be rich one day you might broke the next day it just will come with it so i take that little time find somebody new and this through my other people he knew a girl that also worked that i think it was like cold storm it was like it's somewhere random so he had her and she got i think maybe 20 cars it wasn't a lot you know McDonald's you're going to see a lot of people a day through back at right people keep coming Coldstone? Not as many. Not as many. But, uh, so what happened? So we took that batch. So he get 10 cards. I get 10 cards. Now I got to split it like that with him. And we still pay the

girl. But those 10 cards brought us all the way back to life. Right. They were solid. And the girl, she got 200. So 100 from both of us. And that put us all the way back in the gang. So now I can take that and now we can start finding different workers. Now I got a proof of concept. So now when I'm explaining it to people, it's coming from a place that I know what I'm talking about. Like, listen, this is what it is. So I find people at McDonald's and Ken McDonald's in Detroit, the Sterling Heights, all type of places, like all around the state. Right. So not everybody got a box. So how do you have, what do you mean you? Like, Some people, I went to school with other people, other people like I might, for the person in Detroit, for example, I was riding through the drive-thew, he just looked like somebody.

I could see it in his eyes. You look like you hate it here. So I just, I cut into him like, hey, you get tired of working at this job. You want to make some real money called me. And lo and behold, he called me and we started getting money like that. Right. Granted, he ended up being like a terrible worker in the end. but started out he was good too he was breaking back a hundred cars he was really like in poverty

like i thought i grew up bad he grew up terrible i'm pulling up to where his his place is it's nothing on the street like every everybody over there is poor it's like two houses it's a tree fell on one of the houses it's terrible over there but he started getting his first bit of money he started going crazy he he spending more money than me now you know i'm thinking how you know but he ended up later down the line

trying to steal the box from me and he just didn't have a password it's like how it didn't make sense and every box come with a password but he couldn't get in it

he just went out in the box some people you just can't help yeah it's like why you even do this to yourself right he ended up getting indicted for trying to rob a bank he could not a master of him out and making money

Not a master criminal. Yeah, he was terrible. He was too greedy. That was his problem. But in the meantime, you know, I did start spending more money to. I upgraded my car. You know, I went from Saturn.

And then what happened to the Saturn, I was at a video shooting. This is why I stopped shooting videos. After the video shoot, you know, I'm sitting there counting the money and somebody just shot the car up while I'm sitting in the car. You know, it's me and my people. And they shoot the car up.

So, you know, we spin around or whatever and leave, but it's like, you know, I really got to get away from that because now I'm getting a bigger face in the city, a lot going on between us, between the, because of the music and everything that's going on with it. So the music, the problem with the music is that it's what, it's also intertwined with gang rivalry or, like, why mortgage brokers aren't shooting each other up. Definitely. Well, because, you know, it's not even necessarily something I might have did, but it might be something one of my people did, but we all tied together. Right. Somebody might not be able to catch them, but he saw me and just said it. It's a lot of occurrences of that.

Like, I didn't got shot at in movies. I didn't have people try to book me for a shoot and set me up and line me up like that. So, I was always with me. Did you get shot? I ended up getting shot after I got out of prison, but for a prison, I got shot at many a time. I've never got shot. God was always with me. And for whatever reason,

I was just blessed. Like, I didn't have somebody booked me for a shoot. It was raining, dark out at night. I pull up. It didn't seem right to me. But I had my gun on me at the time, too. So, you know, this is after maybe two other shootouts.

So, you know, I get my first gun. So I'm walking up. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm just paranoid. I'm just paranoid. So they take me to the back, like, okay, we want to shoot the video on the back. But it's not making sense to me. It's raining and it's cold outside. It's Detroit.

It's freezing. You're all standing outside waiting for me in the cold. So then you want to go shoot in the back where it's no lightset. That makes no sense. So we going back there. I'm clutching just because it don't seem right to me. So they just take off running into the back, into like the field. So I up

But they start shooting too It's like somebody else As we're walking through the Drive-through Not to drive-through the driveway They cut behind the house Right I'm still in the driveway

But somebody else Behind the fence in the backyard And they start shooting through the driveway At you Now me and them shooting at each other And I'm ducking behind the garbage gang And it's just, you know It's that type of situation

Yeah but you have no idea Why they're shooting at you no idea why is this to this day i still don't know why would it is that type of stuff happened like on a regular basis for whatever reason what you know it's money going into that it's money going into you know i'm buying new cars i'm buying jury now like like i got these glasses right here for example these seven thousand dollars with the diamonds in them but i had three other parodies. Every time, like for the fair I had around there, that time it was $5,000 because the diamonds

and the, like, it was all cheaper back then, pre-pandemic and like we young. It's a long time. Right. It's the same same exact thing. But even with those, just to show you how much money was coming in but leaving out, it ended up being a raid on one of the houses we was at in my car had, has stayed there. while we went out of town they took my car and you know i'm losing that and the glasses somebody ended up breaking in the car still in that and they took everything out of the house that we

had too so any money in there was gone any pills in there was gone any drugs in there was gone everything there was gone and on top of that i got to pay for a lawyer so it was just like money leaving from all different sides as much as this company you didn't try and get your car car back? I did. I hired the lawyer. Okay. And I ended up getting the car back, but it was a treacherous journey to get the car back. Like, they really

didn't want to give it to them. They're trying to figure out who shot, who outside, but I really wasn't there. You can't say I was there, you know? My car was there in the driveway, but I wasn't. And they took, like, three different cars. They took mine. I had an audio at the time. They took my people car. He had

a Corvette. And somebody else's car. He had something. I don't remember what he had, but, you know, it's all, like, good cars, you know, they took them all. But when, that's a good little side story. When I went up there to get my car, I see my ex-girlfriend that, you know, he was a police officer. He was a detective. So I'm not knowing at the time he got a problem with me, but I'm trying to get my car back. I'm looking at him, like, hey, you know, kind of look out, you know.

We ain't leave off on bad terms, like, why not? But he just, he heard everything. Like, he came in to her. hear the story from the other cops and then just left out. I'm like, you know, that was kind of weird. So I asked, I ended up talking to his daughter again. And she told me he hate me because I guess he fought out we was in his house sleeping together or whatever.

But you know, we yugs or where else we got to sleep together at? Right. But it's just a little crazy stuff like that going on. So that, and my other people, they end up getting their cars back way before me. I think it's because of that. He just blocked my car because he had a little grudge against me, but you know. So how many do you have anybody working for you?

Is there still just you? Or you got a whole? I got a lot of people working for me at the top, but it kind of ended up switching around to. We ended up leaving the boxes alone because it kind of got hot. The more cars we got, the more it kind of triangulated on those places.

It's like, okay, a thousand cars from this McDonald's and got used, admires for this type of fraud. We need to go see what that is. So I guess the feds look into it. They get the video surveillance from the places and they press all the workers. So the workers, some of them cracking, some of them not. But even the ones that did crack,

they're not really giving my real name for me to have anything like negative consequences. Right. They making up a little stories to each other about who telling and some of the workers said I was telling the other one said the other workers was telling and it's like a big thing like you know so one somebody I called them because you know it's time for me to get the box but nobody answer so I ended up having to get in contact with somebody else who was like a mutual associate to getting tight tag with them and then they let me know like

hey it's high right now like I'm and then the person I got in contact He's like, I thought she was telling. That's why I ain't been answer your phone calls. Because old girl has said you was telling. So I talked to old girl and she telling me that he's telling and they all just blaming it and look like a little circle of blame gun. But why are they think it's hot? Because the authority showed up and started questioning them.

They took them to jail. But they ended up only getting probation for it in the end. But they came, arrested them with the evidence was the camera. they had them on camera swiping the cars through the box okay well yeah they're done yeah but they didn't it's like and we all kids so nobody really getting no real time you know at most we like 17 at the top so they they go do their little probation and i just got to find a different route this this is not working you know this is hot the money slowing down you know this is like one of them cycles a scammer you know be up and dial.

There's a dial period. So it's like everything happening at the same time. You know, we got the raids going on where we losing money because of this and the more so like negative aspects of rapping. And we lose the money because of the scam stuff going through one of its cycles. But another good thing about being in the group, information, it passed through. So somebody else found a being on the site that just worked. And the being, you know, that's a bank identification number.

so that's the first six numbers on a credit card that's what's going to determine the security on the card so he filed one which is super low security so and it's a new site too it was j-stash dot bazaar so that's some site we're on so we on there and everybody is buying these cars from this bank

everybody is making thousands off this like every car hitting 4,000 now So we go from making cars that was hitting for $100 of a piece to $1,000. So now we're making 10 times on the 10 times from jugging. So it went from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. Right. So it's like every time something bad happens, something good just kept us going. Like we could have been stopped if I guess if we didn't have so many people around us.

Like you can say the negative aspects of having so many people around. like with all the shootouts and stuff but it kept money coming in because somebody always knew something and then we go try and it worked you know and everybody benefited from right so we go now we're making money off deck now I say this is around the time I start investing more into it like I'm getting deeper in the scam because I got more money to play with now are spending maybe $5,000 setting up a trip now. Like, I might be sending cars to different states with workers in every car, and we're getting money now.

Like, the game has changed. We investing in the music. All the money, it's like, and people see us getting money, it all work out. So what would I say was the next thing, chronologically. I think the chip,

that's what happened. The next downturn in the cycle was the chip got introduced and now you've got to stick again three times to make a transaction work. So a lot of our people at the time stopped getting money

but we just changed the game again. So now we're using the same site but a different being. And this being worked much different. to be. And this would made us have to change the way everything worked and

it was good for the group but bad for the people at the head. Like I started making less money but the people under me was making more money because they had to work more. So now I got to send people to Kroger instead of Meyer for example.

So the thing about Kroger they let you swipe and to self-check out the same as the other ones but you can only buy in the gift card it has to be a purchase of $99 and under so $100 gift card is out the window you got to either do a $50 in a $25 or a $50

and just the process of taking off the back of the car and doing the $25 was just too top and so we just doing $50 at a time from $1,000 all the way back down. But we made up for that in value so we're going from state to state to state so I got people and I do three states at a time most likely in the mid-west, just because that's where I'm at. So we do either Michigan, Ohio, Illinois,

maybe down to Kentucky or Pennsylvania, and we just rotate. So if I'm in Michigan, one person in Ohio, another person in Illinois, or Indiana, we would switch up next time I'm in Indiana, and he in Michigan, and just do that three times. or over the course of a week. And then over the course of that week, we've been hit every store in these states at least three times.

But that burnt out so quick because not they own you as soon as you walk in the door and they remember you from the last hour. Hey, this guy came in. Boy, $1,000 in gift cards and $50 transactions. He must be stopped. So we have to run out the stores. They call them police on us.

People go out of jail. It's like, it got a lot harder to be a scammer at this type of time. Yeah, well, they probably pull your photos off the surveillance camera. They probably got a list of like, hey, there's these six people that are involved. Some stores have facial recognition, too. Like, I have people that went to jail because of that. I had a lot of people went to jail around this time. It's just, it's more of the expense because you just got to bind the people out.

Like, you've got to be a good person to work for it, too. It's like, if you work at Chrysler, they're going to get you insurance. I'm going to give you the insurance of you go to jail. I'm going to make sure you get out and you're good, right? So it's just, you know, part of the gang, then another cycle of it. So we're getting to the kind of the end of it. We're going on one last big trip. This was going to be my last trip.

So I had a thousand cards or all the $1,000 a piece cards. But, you know, if you're going to do that type of card, then you've got to do more than just. because at the time when I was doing the 50s I took it so low tick I was using a blank card not even the $100 gift cards because you know some people

they'd take the gift cards and just swipe the mag strip and put the card information on that but with the amount of cards we was having to do like every car needed 100 cards right we had just started using

ordering the blanks off of eBay like blank pieces of plastic with nothing on the face and just a bag strip and we used and knows in the store. So it's terribly hot. You get called with this, you can't really explain it. It's

not real. So, that's my employer ID. Yeah. My employer card officer. And I'd have people really explain it to people and get away with it too. Like, this is a special security card. It has no information

on it, so credit card thieves can't get me. And people be behind stuff like that. Like, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. but doesn't but okay so but doing the $1,000 transactions or transactions higher than that

you got to put the name on the card like they want to see all the information they're going to check the receipt they're going to do all of it right so I wouldn't bought the printer to match the cards you know it's a I think at the time it was like $5,000 for the printer the HDP $5,000

I bought the embosser to just punched the numbers up on every car. I bought the tipper to make the numbers that you punched up, make those silver. And with the same printer, I can make the IDs too. So we did 100 cars all the way printed up. Like, out of the 1,000, I had 100 ready, and then every stake was just going to punch up another 100. But my problem was I made all 1,000 cards. Like, I wrote them up already.

I had them pre-wrote. That ended up being a big problem for me. But it's going good though. Like the transactions are going through. And we still buy gift cards too. So we on kind of like a rap tour and a scam tour. We go out from state to state for the rapping. But on like stop two, we didn't really make it far with the rest of the group.

Me, one of my co-defendants, you know, we got busted. We go in the Meyer Walk all the way to the back You know Pick up a gift card We stay for it You know I was showing them the Canada ID They're like okay

Good Clarence Burton Okay yeah We everybody get out You know we had a good little run But we go back inside Because one person wanted to book back So we go back in to get this book back I say okay if we're going back in

We might as well hit it again so and the rest of us we all get out and go back in there too and we get some more gift cards we load up it twice so as i'm walking out i see a cop car coming i look behind me i see the secret shopper looking at me like she she playing it off like she's looking down at the phone but it's it's one of those phones nobody will have it's a giant brick phone right that's how you know when you your secret shopper following you

When she got on the hat, she looking down, acting like she just inconspicuous, but not in conspicuous. It's my fault for not seeing it sooner, but she pointing at me, the cop pulled down on me. Like, hey, you know, stop. Hey, so what you're doing here? I'm getting reports that you're doing such a such scamming or whatever. So I'm like, me, I would never. So we go through the motions, him checking my ID. I give him to Canada ID because, you know, what I got to.

lose. Oh, man. I hope he just can't check the numbers on it. So he called Leonardo radio. Hey, there's such a such this name. Claire has burden. Who is this? It comes back to nothing. Okay, now I'm in cuffs. So I see my other people coming out the other door. I'm just hoping he don't get caught, but another cop wouldn't got him the same way. And this is one more person in there with us. No, it's two more people in there with us, but I guess they didn't come out yet. They end up getting them later. So he checked my pockets. I got a hundred cards in my pocket.

So it was like, oh, yeah, you exactly who we're looking for. Yeah, he put me in the car. I'm trying to warn everybody that didn't already get arrested. So I'm with the cuss behind my back. I didn't move my phone out my pocket or, like, jipped it out, and I get to texting. Like, hey, I'm going. the jail, I takes my people to come buy me out.

Like, hey, I'm going to jail, had the money ready to come buy me out. I take the other people that's in the store, cops here, run, you know. But by this time, they was all blocked up already. Like, everybody got caught. So, none of that worked out. They checked the car. We got everything in the Trump. It's a thousand cards, the plastic cards in the Trump.

We got receipts from transactions. we got items we didn't swipe we got gift cards we got the printer we got the embosser the tipperous order like the whole it is nothing we can say we get this before we even got it died it was state

it looked like when they listed the charges statewide it looked crazy because every card they gave was a new charge for it so it's like I got a thousand different charges so I'm thinking like hey yeah I'm going to jail for a long time. Yeah.

So I feel the rest of my people, okay, look, y'all can just put it all on me because if we all going to jail forever, it's no need for everybody just to go to jail forever. I had y'all do it in this, so y'all might as well put it on me. But they ended up not wanting to take that. At first, everybody's like, you know, all right, so be it. But then they came back to the conclusion. They didn't want to do it, which I'm grateful for it because it didn't end up being all day. It probably would have been if they ended up taking that.

but in the holding seal I call home to my people I'm like you know even though they say when you first pick up the phone every call is being recorded and monitor I call my people and tell them have another printer for me when I get out everything hitting I'm going right back out

soon as I took the street so that's not good that's a bad move we go to the bond here first two people get by so I'm like okay it's my turn

I'm about to go home yeah it sounded good no buy it's over with they bring up the phone calls the judge like you're crazy like what what

so and one of my co-defendants he didn't get by because he had a warrant for a parking ticket or something it was something stupid but they ended up telling him he couldn't get by he was distraught about it

I was just like you know I couldn't even be mad I did this to myself So I feel you, but I'm stupid. I should be in jail right now. So, uh, we went through about a year in the county together, me and hell. And it's, the case just started to look better over time, you know? Like, once the feds got it, they dropped off the thousand charges and just hit us with three.

So now it's just conspiracy, access device fraud, and device making equipment. So, you know, we do what everybody do while you locked in jail for it and facing something. You got busted by the feds and you look at your guy a lot of reins, or you're trying to see exactly what you're about to get. So I'm at like a level, I think 20-something. He a little bit lower to me. But they hit it. The problem is with fraud, the base score is like six.

Yeah. But they gave us so many enhancements. Yeah, advancement for the money. Hell yeah. Yeah, the money alone was 14 points. Then the device making equipment, I think, was like four points. the the uh the names was another two sophisticated means another two and they just kept tagging on points how many people were you in charge of but i didn't had it like a viz and

detroit had that and it's in my reason of sentence but it's not in my like my PSI like it's not in my points so they didn't cut cut like okay because you know typically you'll get like if you're in charge of five people that's enough that's a one level enhancement if you're in charge of more than 10, and it just keeps going up and up. But nobody said, like, it was no leader, you know? Oh, okay. So for them, it was just nobody went and spoke to the police

at all. Right, they're just taking it on the chin. Yeah, and Glad, one of my people end up getting re-indicted for something else. Two of them did, but they still took it on the chin. One of them got out, and they raided the house, and it was an embosser there, so they

hit him with another, like, you know, he got enhancement on next case and the new case. So he ended up doing, he got more fire. And then another one, he ended up going to jail for murder. They gave him life. So the fed still ain't even charged. Like, he never went to court for our case, just because, you know, they figured you got a

life, you're not going nowhere. Right. And the other two of us, I feel like staying in jail was really a blessing because it led me down the path for getting less time. because while I was in jail, I set everybody down like I was in jail with and I was cool with, you know, I've been there for so long, so I just came up to everybody. Like, hey, that's what I need y'all to do. I've been reading up on it. I need y'all to write a letter to the judge and say, I've been had this class where I'm teaching you all to be better people and such and such and such such. So, judge, see all these letters everybody sending in, you know, our family sending in letters and everything. And she decided, like, okay, you learn your lesson. I'm like, you would, Like, it was different for her. She ain't never seen nobody do something like that. But at the same time, the prosecutor was like, don't forget, he made that phone call and chill.

Right. I did get a downward departure. It was only two points, though. But my people, he ended up getting a bigger downward departure because he didn't have none of the problems I had with talking on the phone. So the downward departure was for taking the plea, right? No. No. So the family mitigating circumstances was to.

official reason she used okay but i guess that's another way they're saying when my daddy came in to help me in the end right like you were saying the other day you know some things happen to you in life you get it do whatever you won't get away with the card that was my i can't get the card again but it definitely came handy that time right uh yeah you know i feel like chill it was kind of like a thing though like it's not the place you want to go but it's not as bad as everybody make it sound especially if you only got a little bit of tile right so it's like by the tile we really got settled in it was time to go like i got in shape in there so i always say guys that would get like two or three years i'd be like that's something it's not even worth

unpacking yeah definitely you're gonna be they're putting you for halfway house in a couple but i couldn't get halfway they said because the amount of time i had they just wouldn't give them you that way I was just too short. Yeah. And for them, it was like I only had a year because I did a year in the county. So I came in with a year, so I would have been going straight to halfway. Anyway, you know, might as well just do this year out.

But they did take away my communication while I was there. I ain't had no phone. So I'm just, I'm bidding for real. Like, I got to be it with the people I'm locked up with. But while I'm there, other people from, you know, the group or whatever, you start getting sent in the prison with me. So it's like, you know, I asked somebody to talk to it all. Yeah, that's always funny when you're sitting in there

and you've been there for a while. You ain't learned for me. One of your buddies comes in, you're like, our slides for you. I go to comedy. I got everything for you. Here's some soup. Ten soups.

The money in there. You can get some soups and some stamps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like. For the most part, that's it, you know, came home and started doing stuff different, did the only scams thing. Now, instead of scamming, I can just tell people how a scam committed and make the same amount of money. Right.

So how's it all one else with me? So you got out. When did you get out? I got out in, oh, it is, I don't know the specific year. It was so long ago. I think it was like 2019, though, or... I was 19. No, I was 19 when I went in.

I did two years. I went to jail and so it had to be like 2019. So, but I got out and then by 2020, you know, I started doing all these scams. At first I was just selling people books. Like I do the little scam fraud thing selling a book where I sell them a sit down either way. I need $1,000 from me. Right. So people come give me that.

But I started thinking about. like, you know, I could get a lot more people if I wouldn't charge them such a high amount. Right. They'll make up with it on volume. You know, how did, how to that go? How did, like, where did you start doing that? So I started with the only fans, you know,

and it kind of looked at weird to a lot of people because they're like, you being freaky, you're only friends. No, there's lots of, there's legitimate people on a league fan. It's not all. When you hear the name, that's what you think of. Yeah. So when people see that link, they just like, oh, no. What's going on here?

You know, it's funny. It's always people that think that haven't really, like, been on it. You know what I'm saying? Or, because then they'll see, like, oh, there's lots of, lots of people that are on here that, you know, it's not just, it just ended up. That's the, those are the more famous. That's what it's known for, though. But, yeah. You're on your cooking shows and all, but.

Yeah. So you started doing that and then what, then you moved to your own site. Yep. And then I had to move to the all site because, you know, You know, one of the drawbacks that being a fraud-related topic, a lot of people want to punch you off your site. So people punching their memberships

or what punching is basically paying with a stolen credit card. Okay. So they do a net, and I'm getting the chargebacks for it. I still got enough good ones to be good with the, like, so they're not trying to take all the money back, but they held it for like six months. Right.

So it's like I got, at a time, I think I had like $17,000 just on hold. And I'm like, yeah, this is, this is, acceptable so i went made my own site and and then i think that the fraud rate was only like 10 10% of transactions but it's like it's still a lot he'll everything though jr like we just need to see what's what so we're going to wait until everything clear to give you any money but for them i guess it was just you know too risky and if i was the business owner i'd be doing the same thing like hey yeah You know, too risky.

So I went to my own site, and it's probably better for people not being like that, too. And it's probably better for me, too, because now, instead of just having one price for the membership, I can have three different tiers. So now you can get 25, you can get the basics, but just watching videos about scammer, or you can do 30. You can ask me questions or not, or you can get the hundred and get a sit down at the end of your little course and view the whole site. So it kind of worked out for the best. And now I say with more members at a higher rate It's like you can make a lot more money

The tears definitely allow you to make more money Everybody not That you would have got is going to come All right So are you doing So is that that all you're doing Are you doing anything? I still do the music

But music It's always been something I did But never nothing I took as serious To feel like Okay I'm about to get a record deal right it's always just been like a hobby for me you know like it's something i like doing so i do and people really don't understand like you put a lot of money into music but not a lot of money really come out of it like even the people all the way at the top like you don't really start getting

money until you start doing the shows packed out and that's where a lot of the famous people get their money from just doing the shows right so you know it's just like a little hobby Um, okay. Okay. So, then, bro, that's like, that's pretty good. That's all you're doing. You know what I'm saying?

To make a living. Like, that's a good life. Yeah. Keep it legal. Keep all the money still coming in just like it was back then, you know? Aren't you doing, are you thinking about doing a YouTube channel or? See, if I did do a YouTube channel, I feel like I just put shorts on there.

I wouldn't go with the whole long concept because the long videos, like, that's what people pay to see on the site. So if I'm trying to use $30 to see something that's free, now you're feeling like you kind of got ripped off, you know. But you could do the bandman Kevo thing where you give them like, you know, it's really all hype. You never really tell them, you know, you can do the whole, you know, you want the sauce. You got to go to my, you know, give them this. You can't generalization. Yeah, yeah, the. You know, you do the hype.

A lot of money. Hey, you want this amount of money? You got to do this. Or you know what this is. Follow me. Or you could do, you could do like the, you know, kind of the Graham Steffen thing where it's like, here's the best credit cards to get. Here's how you build your credit. Here's how you build your credit.

Here's how you know, you could do lots of those types of financial instruction videos. but I feel like Graham he puts a lot of effort in his videos his video listen like I've I was telling Colt my kind of the guy that runs my channel like I'm we're just never going to be there

never going to be in my quality they're so good you know he's it's like this is every second of every video is super high quality it's always hard hitting he must plan out every

single video. At the point, were you getting about a million a year off? I would too. Oh, no, he's, listen. Like, you understand not? Like, I, he's, he's making more than that. He's making so much more than that. And here's what's funny about him.

You know, like, when I got in the halfway house, this is in 2019, he didn't even, he had like a few hundred thousand subscribers. He wasn't even in a million. And I was watching his videos, because guys were telling me, like, you should do this, and I was like, like, I just got out of prison for fraud, for real estate related fraud. Like, I'm not going to do real estate videos. Like, there's no way my probation officer is going to be okay with that. They're like, yeah, but you could, you could do this. You could do the whole, hey, guys, you know, you could do that whole thing. Like, people would buy that from you. And so I'm,

I'm watching those videos. And the more I watched him, the more I was like, wait a second. How much is this guy making doing this? And what is his real? qualifications like you were a real estate agent you own like three rental properties that's it you own three rental you own like a duplex and then you ended up selling that or you renting that out and got another house and then you like you don't you and you weren't an amazing real estate agent it's not like you were a kick-ass real estate agent selling 20 million dollars houses in LA you're selling average houses in LA and granted that's the yeah it's still a million a half dollar yeah but it's like you aren't an exceptional real estate agent and look and i love graham like

i'm not saying anything bad about him if he was sitting here right here i'd tell him the same thing which i might as well be um but i mean it's like you weren't exceptional but he managed to take his personality and turn it into a phenomenon right like it's amazing real estate channel like guys you know there were before him like there weren't any of these real estate It's kind of slash entertainment. It's informative slash entertainment. So he's really done like something amazing with, it's not like he can say, hey, I used to build complexes that have, you know, 400 units, you know,

and commercial properties. And I did this and I'm worth, you know, $200 million. Like, no, I'm an average real estate agent. And here's how, you know, I had a lower middle class upbringing. singing. Wasn't great in school. Here's what I did. I did like money. I like working. And so I kind of just buckled down, lived within my means, and here's, and now I'm doing super well, and here's how I did it. Like, what a lot. They want to feel like they can relate to it because not everybody has been Molly, you know? Right. That's what I was going to say. It's reasonable. And he's not bigger than life. He's saying, hey, keep your head down, live within your means. and and and the who nobody's doing that nobody's saying that don't spend money on stupid shit like no like that is such that is the opposite of the Instagram you know uh fake it till you make it he's the opposite he's no even if i even when i made it i'm not spending five dollars on a on a fucking coffee

i'm not doing it like you know like who says that but but he does and he's made he turned it into this this massive massive movement this massive thing and yeah and and also super likable like i think that's a big part of it like he just can't be a jerk then although look ben malla it's shown you'd like an exact opposite exactly exactly um yeah yeah i should go on graham show that would be good I was going to do it once and then it fell through and I needed to try and do that at some point make some calls.

Talk to a guy. I'm sure you'll love that you on there. You got a great security. See, the thing about you, you tell the story so vividly. Like, when I was watching yours, you know, I'll probably watch it back like five, six times.

Nice. Especially knowing what you're talking about. Like, I know it in the deeper, like since than most. people would know it right when you say okay I wouldn't got 10 houses and then I got 10 other names and then I basically bought the houses with the other names right it's making a lot more sense to me than it would to the average person yeah it's it's so whenever I do like keynote speeches at um for like mortgage brokers the reaction I get to them from the mortgage

brokers is vastly different you know because I I don't have to kind of explain things like I I break it down a little bit better if it's not a financial, a group of financial people. If it's like they're, if they're finance or mortgage brokers, it's vastly different than me talking to some entrepreneurs. Like, these are guys that own companies that paint houses or, you know, maybe they, who knows, if they're not in real estate or finance, then they, you have to kind of slow it down a little bit. But with the real estate agents, and then they understand the, the significance of when I say.

So, you know, now I've got a. the 750 credit score on an individual and a driver's license in that individual's name and I've got three bank accounts and you know so now they're sitting there like I'm like I've got I've got five years rental history I have five years employment history and they're sitting there going like the hell is going on like so here's what I do you know you tell that they're going this the impossibility of getting to that point is so difficult but Now that you're there, the sky's the limit.

You're right. Exactly. The sky is the limit. Like you're in such, you're in a position now where you can do some serious damage. For sure. And so I, when I,

you know, I explain it, the look on their faces is, it takes everything in me not to just start laughing. Because half of them are extremely offended. And the other half are like, I like you. I like,

I, I, you made a lot of things. But people don't understand. It's fraud. It's like, it's, it sounds like a hard.

thing but it's crazy easy you know it's that's the problem with it it it's so easy to do it listen though here's the problem what you're saying it's the idea of reading of reading a book on how to ride a bicycle it sounds extremely difficult like this doesn't even make sense i'm gonna stand on two wheels and i'm gonna run or you know like the the concept is outrageous and then then you get on the bicycle and you're terrified and someone runs beside you and then as soon as you start balancing and moving and you're riding it and you go oh my god a week later two days later you're doing wheelies you're jumping on the ramps you're riding on the handlebar you're you know a week later you're doing insane stuff so you're right it the concept is difficult the initial act of it

is difficult but once you do it you're right it's not hard it's just a building block just what you did You just built and built, it's baby steps and built and built. And before you know it, you're fucking lethal. Yeah. You know, you start here, you have no clue. You're bumbling your way through it. And next thing you know, you're an assassin. Definitely.

That's why I think starting with Juga was really the best thing that could have happened to me. You know, I started with something that you really can't feel it. It's just funny as I could see that. I could see that working because so many people reach out to me. listen on YouTube people do it like in your comments I'm sure

it's being under there they say hey this is Matt write me about this new Bitcoin special I'm giving it's the same thing

it is I mean of course I go through and I delete those like sometimes people will use my logo they'll put my logo off and they'll call it

like instead of you know inside true crime that you know Matthew Cox inside your crime they'll do just like Matt Cox

and then they'll have the logo as possible right pretty close yeah um He had to make a whole video about it because they were going to take his page down. Right.

Yeah, they were going to take his page down at one point. That's crazy. I was going to say, but no, I have people on Instagram. Listen, I'm telling you right now, three people a week hit me up on, hey, put me on the game. I will do whatever you want. I will send you money. I will walk in the bank. I will do this.

and I'm always like, bro, I've been to prison. I'm good. No, no, I won't say nothing if I get caught. Stop it, Ben. Stop. I'm already indicted. The fact, if you go out right now and get in trouble, I'll probably be questioned at a minimum. You know, that's if you don't ever bring my name, but they got your phone.

Like if we've been, and then of course, if we actually have communication, let's say we texted 30 times. And eventually you got around to saying, listen, bro. here's what I need from you oh no no no like now I'm really in trouble because when they run your phone numbers my number comes up and they're going to be like oh you're involved for sure and I'm just going to be like no no so you know if I wanted I could easily shake down every single what person that contacts me I could shift them to a site I could say great give me a give me a grant give me two grand I'll tell you how to do this how to do that like but you know like I don't have any second chances my judge never sees me again if it's a fucking parking ticket he's like he's going to be like I'm going to decapitate you do you understand what happened right now I want to give you 20 years and maybe I can't legally do it but I bet you I can drag out the proceedings for five to 10 years of you just trying to fix it now I'll be like god man I see that's terrible yeah I'm getting you know on the on the on the jacket cover on

jacket cover of my book, I put a quote from my judge. That is one of my favorite quotes. He said the, um, the complexity and nefareric, no, yeah, the complexity and nefariousness of Cox's fraud are breathtaking. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's what you put on the front page. I, I was like, yeah, yeah, you know, Timothy C. Baton. at George

you know it's like oh my god now that we're saying this it feels like I need to say for the record the only things I can say the things that are on legal proceedings

other than that everything is for entertainment purposes and this is all it's based on the true story well you know what here's the what's funny is

like YouTube, like they'll only let you say so much. Like YouTube is going to be more stringent because, you know, the fact is, is you just race through anything that's, everything you just said is already readily available. And there's only one or two things that could maybe, it's like, is that instructional? Like, you don't give enough.

I never really let anybody give it out. On the life story, like they might come supersede me with something from 10 years ago. And you see it. No, you didn't know the leader, babe. You can sit here. No, you have frauds, what? Five, six, five, ten years.

You're good. And plus, here's the other thing what a lot of people don't realize is that when they've grabbed you and sentenced you on a specific set of crimes, they can't come back and re-indite you on an enhancement

because you had me. You had your due diligence. You had your chance to investigate. You chose this was all you wanted to indict me for I played guilty like it stops at that boy they can't turn around

after you've served your sentence and say hey wait a second we want to re-indictment why because we found out he was a legal leader organizer and he should have done four more months come on and stop like that's it would have to be a completely

new set of crimes like you would have had to said oh and during this point me and my buddies went in we got some AK 47s and we went into this Bank of America we walked we got you know $100,000 in cash

Yeah, it's right there on the corner of Prince Shaw and now you have a problem. If it hasn't been 10 years, now you have an issue. I'm just scared of them people all together. I don't want to have to be the one to prove it. You know, a lot of times they just snatch you up and let you have to fight it. Even if they're wrong just because it might be the agent on your case

just ain't filling what you stand for, you know? Oh, listen, I just interviewed this guy who was 16 years old got indicted for rape and murder and when the DNA came back and showed it wasn't him the prosecutor said just means that she had sex with someone else earlier that day really like a 15 year old girl

had sex earlier that day and the seaman is spread out all over the crime scene you were saying it was me So that he goes to trial, he loses. He fought it. The trial would be. It's crazy. 16 years.

The only reason he got out after 16 years, by the way? Like, he got like life. I think he got life. The old life or, you get natural life or 30 years? Anyway, he's in jail. The only reason is that when initially, um, that when initially he got indicted,

the DNA database did not exist. So all he was saying was, I'm begging you to just run the DNA against the new database. You guys only ran the DNA against me, you know, 15, 16 years ago. Please just run it against everybody. And so finally, the Innocence Project tested the DNA, and it came back to a guy who'd been arrested 10 years earlier for the murder of a schoolteacher with two children. and he was in prison

and it was his DNA So then of course So here's the thing Think about this So the prosecutor And the detectives And the judge And everybody else

That sent that man to prison And insisted they knew he did it And knew the whole thing Nothing While you focused on this guy Who said I did not do this And you Overlooked the evidence

and you quashed this and fought this motion and you said, oh, it's not his DNA. We said it was, but it's not, well, you know what, then that's somebody else's DNA, and you continue with the prosecution. You allowed the real murderer to go out and murder someone else, a schoolteacher with two children, while you held an innocent man in prison.

Nothing happens to them. He raping up a scar. So, yeah, Anne fought to have the, didn't want the DNA tested. Why? Why wouldn't you want the DNA tested? A tested. Why? If you're so sure of your, you're so sure that you know it was just some other high school student that had sex with her earlier that day, why wouldn't you have it tested? Nope, fought to have it not tested. Like this, every, every step of the process, scumbag,

scumbag, scumbag, scumbag. They're moved. And then when it all come out in the end and you realize you were wrong, and it's no apology, it's just like, you steal out. I did this, you know? Well, you know, at the time, we felt we had it off. We had. had everything pointed to him. No, actually, now that the evidence has come out, nothing ever pointed to him, ever. You just decided it was him. Well, uh, yeah, can't sue him, can't do nothing.

They go on, they get a better post, they move on. I always see you had a better lawyer because I feel like you should have beat it at trial at that time period. Like, that should have been the focus. You mind he's poor. He's got a public defender. He didn't have anybody. Nobody's looking at it.

Oh, that's good. You know. So, hey, I appreciate you guys watching. And if you like the video, do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell so you get notified videos like this. Also, leave me a comment in the comment section. We're going to leave all of Javar's contact information in the description box.

And I really appreciate you guys watching. I'll see you. I was born in, actually, a town that doesn't actually exist anymore, at least not by that name. I was born in North Terry Town, which, of course, later became known as Sleepy Allo. I grew up in Pickskill, New York, which is in West Jersey County, New York. So it was the suburbs population of approximately 25,000 people. I would say, I kind of lived a double life, both in grade school and high school. I didn't quite think of it that way as a double life, but I realized,

now it kind of was. There was my life in school, my life outside of school. So in school, I was kind of quiet, kind of to myself, I was kind of on the fringes of the society in the school, whereas there was my life after school. So I grew up in an apartment complex. There were a lot of kids that lived there in the surrounding areas, and they used to come over to the complex where I lived at. And I was one of the main two kids in the sense that what we suggested would generally be what we would do. We're going to go to the movies where I play Monopoly, ride bikes, swimming, basketball, stickball, kickball. We even made up a few games. Yeah, so that's my, I was kind of like an all-American kid after school, but in school I was, you know, had the quiet, I'm a fringes

of society. And I, and I fucking thought about why that really is, is, and then, firstly, I mean, the kids were a little bit older than I was, like I skipped a grade, I skipped first grade, and I think that that kind of caught up with me. But another thing also is that I was familiar with the kids in the neighborhood, and I was not really familiar with the kids that were in school. Okay. Did you ever get in high school? Did you ever get in trouble or anything? No, not prior to what we're going to talk about. Oh, okay. For me to start talking about it. No, it's fine. Okay. So just kind of a regular, I'm not, if there is a regular, you know, upbringing, everybody's either on the

fringes or maybe they're popular or maybe they're not popular or, you know, nobody really, I don't know that there's really a traditional, you know, growing up, everybody's got something going on. Um, so what, so you were in high school. So when did this, did you go to college? You start college or? Oh, well, no, I was, so I was in the year is, 1989. I'm, I'm, I'm a freshman. in high school, and one of my classmates, I'm Angela Correa, who had been, or I said, I'm a sophomore high school. So I was, I was in, she was in two of my classes as a freshman, one as a sophomore. I knew her name, she knew my, that was really the extent of it.

We weren't even really on a high by basis. She had been an immigrant in the country for about a year and a half from Columbia, let her shout to life, never really wanted to wear unless she was a couple of, accompanied by her older sister, or her parents. And so she went missing. She had been in a water of classes was a photography class, and the professor had assigned the class to take pictures of foliage. And he had assigned a buddy system, you know,

whereby male students, a female system for students were paired up. And so she went home with an older sister after school. or just went to the restroom, and when she came out, Angela was gone. She went off to the park to do the assignment connected to her photography class. The male student who had been assigned to her, played hookie, never showed up. And so there was an area between Hillcrest, New York, which there's condominiums, and then there's Hillcrest School. And there's, like, a really thick woods with, like, a McCadden path there that

links to two, which is kind of like a shortcut way of getting from 1, from 0.8 to point fee rather than going in a big circle on the street. Now, Woods area is pretty thick there, and she had the misfortune of coming across a 29-year-old drug addict who was high, and he attacked, murdered, and raped her, and so her body was missing for her diabetes. Okay. I didn't realize this was in high, that this, this all took place in high school. I just kind of, I don't know why. I assumed it was college or something, but okay. So. Yeah, so, I mean, so she's missing for three days and, you know, and there's an announcement over the high school PA system and, and, and the local daily newspaper. And three days later, her body was found in the, it's found in the park area, naked from the way staff. Uh, basically it was a, uh, You know, again, it was a city of population, about 25,000 people, or murders were fairly rare. So when this murder happened, it created this atmosphere of fear, rumor, paranoia.

I mean, parents were bringing their kids to school, picking them up after school, bringing them straight home. There were, you know, town hall meetings held where safety tips and progress of investigation were given. So I got on the police radar because some of the police interviewed a lot of students from the high school. Some people told the police they might want to speak with because I didn't quite fit in. I guess their underlying thinking was people who are quiet to themselves commit in his crimes. I guess that was their ludicatory thought process. But that answers the question of how I got on the police radar. But an additional factor after that is I was in emotion.

I was a sensitive teenager, and this was my first real brush with death, and so I had an emotional reaction. And so the police thought that my emotional reaction was somehow some outward sign of my feeling guilty for what I did because it felt that that reaction was disproportionate to my actual relationship with the victim was, which is, you know, no relationship at all. I mean, I mentioned choosing a couple of classes, and that was really it. wasn't even really on a high by basis. A reinforcing factor is that the police got a psychological profile from the NYPD, which purported to have the psychological characteristics of the actual perpetrator.

And I had the misfortune of matching those characteristics. So the profile said that he was, you know, somebody who was like the loner, probably somebody from high school, somebody that knew her. that really narrows it down quite quite a bit right but also it also excludes her running across a random person it's now now they're focusing on on a pier yeah exactly so um so my interaction with the police uh which went on for about six weeks they played like a cat and mouse game in which half the time they would speak to me as if i was a suspect and other half the time they would pretend and like they needed my help to solve the crime. They would say things like the kids won't talk freely around us, but they will around you. Let us know if you're hearing. Stop in time to time.

They always ask me opinion questions and congratulate me like my opinion was correct. They made me feel important. I came from a single parent household. My father was never involved in my life in any aspect, and that intersected with the good cop, bad cop, technique. where one officer pretended to be a friend and the other and the other officer took on a more aggressive approach and in time I began to look at the officer pretending to be my friend

as like a father figure. Also, prior to being a teenager, the career that I fantasized about having when I grew up was to be a cop. So that's unexpected early opportunity to do this quasi-police work was how the police were able to pull the wool over my eyes, you know, that 16-year-old would be able to assist them in an active homicide investigation.

So eventually they got me to agree to take a polygraph test. They said we have some no information, which just came in the file that will allow you to be even more helpful to us. But first you're going to have to take and pass a polygraph. So the next day, rather than report to the high school, I went to the police station for the test. But instead of giving me the test there, they drove me by car to the town of Brewster, which was in Putton County. So it was about 40 minutes away by car, which meant that I wasn't able to leave anymore on my own. I was totally dependent upon the police.

So there were three cops that came with me from Peakskill Brewster. But then there was also the polygrapers, who was a partner in Kenneth Schererson, Daniel Seavis was his name, and he was dressed like a civilian. And, you know, he never identified himself as law enforcement. He never read me my rights. I didn't have an attorney present. They didn't give me anything to eat. He gave me a four-page brochure, which explained how the polygraph worked. But I had a lot of big words in it that I didn't understand, but. But then I figured, well, I'm there to help the police, so what does it matter? Right.

Let's just get on with it. And from there, he put me in a small rum and gave me countless cups of coffee. That's got me nervous. And then he wired me up to the polygraph. And then he launched the new third to be tactics. He raised his voice at me. He got in my personal space. He kept repeating the same questions over and over.

and as each hour passed by my fear increased in proportion to the time and he kept that up for six and a half to seven hours towards the end yes where was your where was your mother my mother and grandmother they were at home they because it was a school day they had no idea that anything was lost they didn't call around looking for me okay and so towards the end he said you know what do you mean you didn't do it. You just told me through the test that you did. We just want you to verbally confirm it. And that really shot my fear through the roof. And then the officer had been pretending to be my friend. He came in the room and told me that the other officers were going to arm me, that he had been holding them off, that he couldn't do so any longer. You have to

help yourself here. Then he added, look, just tell them what they want to hear. And you can go home afterwards that you're not going to be arrested. So being young, naive, frightened. 16 years old. I wasn't thinking about the long term. I would just concern up my safety in the moment. So I made up a story based on the information that giving me in the course of the interrogation room and in the six weeks run up to that. By the time everything was set and done, I had collapsed on the floor in a fetal position, crying uncontrollably. Obviously, I was arrested. The interrogation was not videotaped. It was not audio tick. There was no sign confession. the cops work for it.

What year was this? Yeah, this was 1990. So she went missing in 89, and by the time they extracted this false confession, I mean, it was not in 1990. So before I went to trial, the results of a DNA test came in from the FBI lab, which showed that seminal fluid found in and around the victim, did it match me? But instead of acknowledging them made a mistake, they continued to prosecute full speed ahead. In order to explain the way the DNA, the prosecutor got the medical examiner to commit fraud

to commit perjury. When there's an autopsy done, there's written in audio notes, which are taken as the findings are made when they're doing the autopsy. So it was only six months after doing that autopsy, only after the DNA didn't match me, that he suddenly claimed that, try to follow now, this is going to be tricky.

He remembered that he forgot. got to document medical findings, which he claimed showed that the victim had been promiscuous, which is what opened the door for the prosecutor to argue that that was how the DNA did it match me, and yet I was guilty, that she was sleeping around, that she must have slept with someone prior to my murdering and raping. I thought they were going to go with the old. That just means there were two perpetrators, you and someone else. Right.

Yeah, they go with that sometimes. on this particular instance. They took it a step further and they named another youth by name that they claimed that she had slept with, but they never set the proper evidentiary foundation for that. So they didn't try to get a DNA test, a DNA sample from him to run the test, for example. They didn't call him as a witness. They just made the unsupported argument to the jury. They got away with that because of two factors.

First of all, the victim's family was not coming to court. So they had no idea what was being said about in the courtroom if they were trashing her reputation in the furthums of trying to convict me. And secondly, my public, if the public defendant that I had essentially didn't defend me, he'd ever interviewed a call as a witness, my alibi. I was actually playing with the ball and the crime happened. He really met with me. When I tried, when he did meet with me and I tried to explain to him that I was innocent and what happened in the interrogation room, he was always shutting me up. One time he told me he didn't care if I was guilty or innocent. My lawyer never explained to the jury the significance of the DNA not matching me.

He never used that to prove that that proved that the confession was coerced and false. He literally never cross-examined the medical examiner. And my lawyer should never represent him in the first place because of the conflict of interest. So this other view that the prosecutor was falsely claiming had slept with the victim was represented by another attorney at the same public defender's office. And so that conflict prevented the defense from asking him to give a DNA sample. It prevented the defense from calling him as a witness to explode the whole uninsual sex theory. He wouldn't allow me to testify. I mean, I wanted to testify because because the interrogation had not.

then video audio tape when the cops came to court they left the threat and false promise out of their story and so i wanted to add those facts to the record but he wouldn't allow me to testify he said that his one lost record was better when his clients did not testify compared to what they did well probably his clients have had a pre-existing record and if they were they took the stand and they could be asked questions about that but that really didn't apply to me because i had never being convicted of anything. Then he said it wasn't up to him to prove that I was innocent, it was up to the prosecutor to prove that I was guilty. And, you know, that really is a legal principle that's very naive. You have to really try to prove your client's innocent,

although they want a risk of possibly being wrongfully convicted, especially in a confession case. You know, you have to answer that confession. You have to explain the confession. You have to disprove the confession, you know, bringing it all together. closing argument, but he didn't do any of that. Sometimes he told the jury that the confession never happened. Sometimes he told the jury that it did happen, but it was coerced. And then other times he said that it was false. So by taking this throw mud against the wall type of approach, he had to have been standing there with, you know, no credibility at all in front of the jury. There were, there were a few other irregularities. I mean, despite there being a general rule that

Polygraph test results are not admissible in court. The judge created a backdoor rule. He allowed the polygraphist to repeatedly tell the jury that I failed. He said, well, the confession is alleged to have happened when you were attached to the while during the polygraph. So he allowed the polygraphist to repeatedly tell the jury that I failed the polygraph while blocking my attorneys from asking any questions on the methods he used to arrive at his opinion. The victim's clothes, including the bra, had been entered into evidence, and the

jury asked to see the bra, which was important because that intersected with one of the statements in the false confession where I had said that I ripped her bra off. And it was at that moment that the judge said that the clothes had been left, including the bra, had been left in the courtroom over the weekend. And that the janitors apparently thought it was garbage, so it had been thrown out and so it wasn't available anymore and lastly the jury sent out a note on the third day of deliberation they asked the judge well we don't come up with an anonymous verdict you know if you don't come up with the verdict are we going to be kept sequestered over the over the christmas holiday and the judge told them yes and i learned very here stater that it was

11-01 for a conviction at that point there was an old out juror was innocent but they were all pressuring him and when the answer to that person being back that ratcheted up the pressure and that was why he no one wanted to be there over the Christmas holiday so that was why he switched to vote and so ultimately I was convicted of a murder and rape which I did not commit and I was given the 15 to life sentence because I had been charged as adult and I was set to amends maximum security.

Wow. You know what? The interesting thing I mean other than just what an egregious act is that I'll bet you the prosecutor and those detectives just broke their arms

patting themselves on the back telling themselves that they did the right thing, went home, slept like babies, didn't think a thing about it. Yeah, I would, I would agree with you on that. Yeah. Um, so, okay, so, what? Well, so you, you, you, you get shipped off to prison. Right. Right. You're processed. You get shipped off to prison. Right. You're how old again? I'm 17 by this point. 17 and they sent you to a maximum security prison. Yes.

You had to have been put in, like, protective custody or something, right? I mean... No, they put me in general population. When I arrived in El Mirok, they asked me, well, do you want to go to protective custody? And, you know, very naive, I said, well, you know, what's that? And they said, well, I mean, we would... You know, if you told us that you felt that your life was in danger because of the charges, then, you know, we would put you in a cell and you would be there for...

like 23 hours a day. You just come out for an hour. You come out by yourself and watch the television or take a shower or use the phone. And, you know, that would be it. And, you know, I mean, I really was kind of beside myself. I couldn't believe I had been, you know, found, been arrested and wrongfully convicted and, you know, given a 15-a-life sentence and I'm in prison. And now, you know, I couldn't believe all that had happened in the first place. And, you know, I really wasn't used to being in the self at that point. So, you know, I couldn't see myself, you know, agreeing to protect the custody, which would, you know, make the situation worse. You know, so I may, I embarked on this line of reasoning. So I'm already doing a life sentence. So I'm not going to agree

to make this worse. I'm going to go to general population and take my chances. And if, and if somebody kills me, well, then I guess I don't need to worry about doing the rest of this life sentence. Could you imagine thinking that at that each? That's a horrible situation. Yeah, it was Elmira. There was three or four stabbings or cuttings every day. There was gang, other violence that didn't involve weapons. There was gang activity. Cumerably, there was a general environment of violence and adrenaline that permeated the air. You know, the guards were, some of a professional did their job, but a lot were not. A lot of of them were dangerous and, you know, some of them were lazy and they'd look the other way

and walked in the opposite direction, and violence was occurring so that they didn't have to break anything up physically or file any paperwork. The food was sometimes burned. Other times it wasn't fully cooked. They had a system of maintaining order in a prison. They were called keep-off, which, you know, involved, as some of us found guilty of breaking a prison rule, they would be kept in the cell at 23 hours a day out of the 24. It would send you less food. Sometimes it would be three or four days old. You could take two showers one week and three the next rather than daily as the rest of the population.

You could not go to the commissary, which is a way of going to the store in the prison, so you couldn't purchase hygienic items or food items while you were on that status. It would give you one hour a day of recreation by yourself in a small-caged area with maybe a pull-up bar on it. If you were lucky, you could use the phone. while you were on that status. So there were a bunch of times in the course of my incarceration where I was assaulted one time

in which I nearly lost my life but beyond dealing with the physicality of that, that was subjected to those sections because in prison if you're defending yourself and that obviously meant that you were fighting. Right.

I tried to minimize the loss I experienced while I was in prison. I got the GAD. I got completed a bunch of vocational trades. I got an associate's degree, completed another year towards the bachelor, but then the silver lining was taken from me. The funding for college education for prisoners was removed. Then I just, again, did more of the trades, and I started reading nonfiction books, and

of course I was going through a law library to learn the law to try to proactively work towards my exoneration because I didn't trust attorneys to defend me anymore on my... Yeah, I was going to say, gee, I don't know why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My mother used to, I had, my mother used to come see me, but not in the last five years. The last five six years, she would come back once every six months. My mother passed away while I was in prison. I had several sets of aunts and uncles would come and then would disappear for three years. I mean, in many respects, though not literally. I mean, I, from most intense, and purposes, I did the time by myself as what it amounted to. Towards the end of the sentence, in a moment, the correctional officials told me if I wanted to have any chance at all of making parole, I would have to take it past the sex offender training program, but the problem was there was a guilt admission requirement tied to that

everybody in the class would be expected to admit guilt to the other prisoners in the class. structure, simply saying that one was guilty was not enough. They were the complete blow-by-blow account, and they wanted it all in writing and failure to complete any aspect of that would result in automatic removal from the program and being deemed to have refused to complete the program, kind of similar to a he type of philosophy. Right. If you have a problem before, you can make any actual progress on it. So in the end, I decided not to take the program.

Did you want to ask something about that? I, well, what I wanted to ask is, you know, you're, you're going in as a rapist, murderer, essentially a sex offender, right? That's right. Yeah, exactly, right. And to a maximum security prison. Yeah. How, I mean, I understand you said you had, you know, there was several, you know, there was, you know, altercations. But, I mean, how are the other inmates, are you being told, like, hey, you can't, you can't watch TV, you can't do this, you can't walk on the rec yard, you can't, like, is that, you know, is that happening at that prison?

Or are they saying, or are you saying, hey, I went to trial, I'm not guilty of this, and the other inmates. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, I mean, I did say that to some people. I did say that to some people. I mean, I did get transferred. I didn't stay in Elmira the whole time. I did get transferred to other facilities. I would say I had more problems in the other facilities than in Elmira.

But, you know, people, you know, sometimes people found out what I was frustrated for. And, you know, that motivated them to attack me. I mean, I did have some conversations with people a couple of times. And I, you know, I showed them my paperwork where it shows that, you know, the DNA did it match me. And, you know, that restrained a few people, you know, so it works sometimes, but not, not all the time. No, well, inmates aren't known for, you know, well thought out responses. So, I mean, I can see them, you know, they hear guilty. And even though, you know, most of them want to say that, you know, they were, they were bamboozled by the, you know, by the, you know, by the government, you know, whatever, the U.S. Attorney's Office. or the state attorney's office, you know, in their case,

and they didn't desire this much time. They didn't, but the moment they hear somebody has a charge of, oh, he's a rapist. They're, oh, that scumbag piece of garbage. What are you talking about, bro? Like, you said you shouldn't even be here. He said he shouldn't be here. Like, they're always quick to jump on somebody.

Even though. Yeah, I was going to say, even though, you know, when you get up there for sentencing, the prosecutor makes you sound like the biggest, piece of garbage and you already you know like hey that's not true that's an exaggeration he's you know that that's not that never happened at all you know in your own case so but then guys jump on each other you know they're always i don't know whatever people are assholes i i agree with you when i went to the parole board i knew they were in the habit of rubber

stamps nine applications anybody that i had been guilty of a violent crime so i kept raising the issue of my innocence to try to protect myself whenever reference the DNA, but they didn't want to hear that. So, though, so at the end, they asked me in a question about regression replacement training program. I gave him the answer, and that's when a different commissioner piped up and said, well, that's good, Mr. Descovick, because you're going to need those skills once you return back to society. Good luck.

And, you know, they don't give me the decision right there at the spot. It's mailed via institutional mail three days later. and I actually walked around the prison for the next three days thinking that I had somehow defied the odds and that I would be going home. And when I got the decision in the mail, it said I had a good disciplinary record, I had an excellent educational record,

that I had some letters to support, including from a prison chaplain, but that nonetheless I had been found guilty of a brutal senseless crime, and therefore they wrote to release me would be to lessen it seriously, So they ordered me to appear in front of them two years later. And it seemed kind of certain at that point I was going to die in prison on a wrongful conviction.

You know, the other aspect of the incarceration and one I mentioned to you that it didn't recount, you know, is that I had to keep fighting off feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, thoughts at giving up suicidal ideation. You know, all those things were for us that I had to, that I had to, that I had. had to deal with. So I'd like to change gears a little bit and share how I was exonerated and proving this. At what point, how long had you been locked up at this point? 16 years. 16 years. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, while I was in prison, I was appealing my case. When I went to the Elk Division, my lawyer argued that my, you know, the manner which I had been questioned, you know, violated my rights, that the evidence throwing out that blocked my

lawyer from questioning the polygraphs DNA was made use of, you know, the legal insufficiency and that they hadn't proven guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The verdict was against the weight of the evidence. A whole slew of issues about 10 and all had been argued, and I thought all the arguments were really super solid. And the court ruled that I was not, that I was free to come and go. And so, you know, I had my rights had not been violated by the matter of which I question. They wrote that there was overwhelming evidence and guilt, which kind of is a head scratcher since the N.A. didn't match me. Then they knocked out all the rest of my issues in one sentence. They wrote that they looked at my remaining attentions and found them either to be

without merit or else not reserved for a review. And they ruled against me five, nothing. And it was all downhill from there. The argument motion was denied in one word. Denied. The New York Court of Appeals, the New York State's highest court is it's a two-step process. You have to get permission to appeal to them before they'll agree to here. You actually hear your case, and they declined to give me permission to appeal to them. Is that a certificate of eligibility? That's right. Certificate, close.

Certificate of appealability, yeah, did not issue, was not issued. I filed the habeas corpus petition, which is why a state prisoner is arguing that they're being held in violation of the Constitution. rights. So I lost the habeas petition because my lawyer was given the wrong information pertaining to the filing procedure by the court clerk. So as a result of that misinformation, the petition arrived four days too late, which the court ruled at the urging of the then Westchester District Attorney, Janine Piro, her office urged the court to simply rule that I was late without getting to my issues. And so the court did that, and now I was time barred.

So I, yeah, I mean, I can't win for lose it, okay? I can't, I can't for lose it. So I appeal that ruling to the federal court of appeals. The two judges there were Rosemary Pooler, more importantly, future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the, yeah, the so-called athletic Latina. And my lawyer argued that, Number one, this was not a delayed by me and my attorney, but by the misinformation by the court clerk, which I think is reasonable enough.

She argued that upholding that ruling would cause a miscarriage of justice to continue, which kind of links back to the DNA and innocence, at least as a contextual matter. And last day that overturing the procedure of ruling against me would open the door to a more sophisticated DNA testing. So again, the district attorney opposed, and the two judges ruled with the district attorney. They upheld that ruling. Then those same two judges rejected my re-argument motion. We requested all the judges in the circuit to hear the court make an elected decision. And then the U.S. Supreme Court declined to give me permission to appeal. and that marked the end of my appeal.

So that seven appeals lost. I've got 11 years in now. Well, wait a second. This is starting to feel unfair. And I know specifically that I've been told over and over again that the U.S. justice system is extremely fair. They couldn't possibly have made a mistake. That is the thought that people think.

But I don't think it's, I think I feel confident with the justice system. That hasn't been your experience? Has not been my experience, nor the experience of many other people. So the only way back into court once your appeals are over is if there's a retroactive ruling in the law. A new law has been passed, you know, or has been made by the courts. And then it's been, you know, retroactive. So it's either that or find some previously unknown evidence. which probably would have led to a different outcome.

So because I didn't have any money to hire an attorney or investigator, I began this letter writing campaign for four years, writing anywhere ever I could possibly think of that could help me. So that really was my legal work for many years. And then as I mentioned, I went to the parole board and I got the door slam there as well. But ultimately, I was exonerated because one of those letters found its way to investigate what are you witness in. She wrote me, and I showed her the DNA test results. I mailed a copy of that, and she was convinced of my innocence at that point.

And then she tried to get people to take my case, and one of her ideas was the winning one. She suggested I write the Innocence Project again. I wrote them back in 90, now part of the letter to writing campaign back in 1993, but she said, look, the prior denial is irrelevant because the DNA data bank has been created. So I wrote them, I filled out their application, and then I forgot about it. I looked for other ways of getting representation, none of which worked out. But I learned many years later during that six-month time period of waiting that one of the intake workers who was not an attorney with the Innocent Project attorneys didn't want to take

the case she represented. it my case to them. And when they said no again, she represented it a third time. And this time she got it across using an idea that I had given her about the DNA database. So getting a representation was the first key. The second key was that Piro left office at her successor. It didn't have her heel. So she allowed me to get the testing. And the third things, we got lucky that the actual perpetrator's DNA was in the database, and so it matched him. So his DNA was only there because left free while I was doing time for his crime, he killed a second victim three and a half years later after killing the victim of my case.

She was a schoolteacher and had two children. So September 22nd, 2006, the conviction was overturned. I was released. I went back to court November 2nd, 2006, at which point all the charges were dismissed. I guess beyond actual innocence grounds and the actual perpetrator was subsequently arrested and convicted and sentenced for the crime. What's going on YouTube? Ardap Dan here, Federal Prison Time Consulting.

Hope you guys are all having a great day. If you're seeing and hearing this right now, that means you're watching Matt Cox on Inside True Crime. At the end of Matt's video, there will be a link in the description where you can book a free consultation with yours truly, Ardap Dan, where we can discuss things that could potentially mitigate your circumstances to receive the best possible. at sentencing or even after you started your prison sentence. Prior to sentencing, we can focus on things like your personal narrative, your character reference letters, pre-sentence interview, which is going to determine a lot of what type of sentence you receive. You've already

been sentenced. We can also focus on the residential drug abuse program, how you can knock off one year off of your sentence. Also, we have the First Step Act where you can earn FSA credits while serving your sentence. For every 30 days that you program through the FSA, you can actually knock an additional 15 days off per month. These are huge benefits. And the only way you're going to find out more is by clicking on the link, booking your free consultation today. All right, guys, see you soon at the end of the video. Peace. I'm out of here. Back to you, Matt. If that happened today and they said, hey, they're semen and they ran it against everyone, would it stay in the system? If it was uploaded, yeah. So they have what's called the keyboard

search, but they don't update. They don't upload it. It goes up and it compares to everything and that's it. right but they don't score it right but then there's another thing when they do actually upload it then it stays there and periodically another test is run and see it to see if it matches anybody anybody else okay so the the innocence project had to get them had to get the DNA upload it it matched yeah because that what i was what i was wondering was well okay well you're saying that he'd killed someone else and they they retested his DNA and i was thinking to myself well why wasn't it already in the system but you but you just yeah right yeah yeah i just asked okay so my second question is when you got that when you got that news you were incarcerated did they did the lawyer come see you did they just say call the office yeah the lawyer the lawyer came to see me and uh so i'll tell you the story okay we're here for right so the prison guard opens my cell door you know when that happens you're supposed to walk down and you know see why they open your door for and you know and he told me i had a visit and i said

well can you double check that because i'm really not expecting anybody so they double checked it and you know sure enough i had a visit so i remember running back to my cell and i you know it was kind of a tradition to keep like a visiting room sure because this is the one opportunity you kind of to sort of make a public appearance, you know, so you have your best shirt. So I'm hurrying up to the visiting realm of buttoning up to button down shirt. And then I'm thinking, yeah, thinking who the hell came to see me. Right. So when I get into the visiting room, this woman is like waving at me like this. And I wait back, but I'm thinking, well, maybe she's infusing me with someone else or maybe she knows me from a different facility. So I asked the guard,

where's my visitor and, you know, she told me, well, the lady right there, but wait, don't, don't you know who it is that came to see you? So not wanting the visit to be canceled, I just quickly lied to her and said, yeah, of course I do. And I walked over there and she told me, you know, that she was, the name was Nita Morris since she was my, you know, my attorney. And, you know, by this point, having lost a lot of appeals, sometimes on technicalities, you know, like my antennas are up, I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary that, that might spell bad news so she says well you know the items have been tested and i'm like well what are you talking about the items are not supposed to have been tested for another month

and she says no no the the items were were tested and results match the actual perpetrator you're going home tomorrow and i said no i'm not and we went back and forth like two more times. I remember just my head kind of spinning and all these thoughts running through my head one after the other. One thought having nothing to do with the other. None of them having anything to do with, you know, what she was there to talk to me about. And she was sitting there. I had this like three-hour mental paralysis. She's all in my hand. And every now and then she cuts in and says, are you ready to talk about tomorrow? I know. Get that away from me. I'm not not entertaining that

play with me like that not going home no and what made it real at the end was that what made it real was that she looked up at the clock and said look for the visiting how is there almost over there's a ton of work to do between now

and then I got to get your suit size and you know and your clothing sizes and everything and that made it real and I felt better for five minutes and then a different thought came in raghead and I thought well something's going to happen between today and tomorrow they're going to change their mind and they're going to do what

they always do which is fight and win so that was how I that was how I got the news what so she they they the next day they come they pick you up they drive you to court Yeah, they're press there? Yeah, there was a ton of press. There was a ton of press in the courtroom and outside of the court. You know, they had my extended family. My mother came and my extended family came. I remember when I went outside at the press conferences, my trying to speak,

I remember saying, is this really happening? You know, because I thought I finally did it. I thought I finally managed to lose my mind. and that was break up and, you know, still be in the prison cell and see the cell wall and sell bars and, you know, hear all the all the other cues and clues to remind you you're here at prison. Yeah. So, I mean, I just, yeah, what happened in the courtroom? Yeah, so, I mean, when I, so when I, so when I came in the courtroom, I saw Barry Shack and my, and my other lawyer at the NSS project,

And he shak leans over and says, well, I spoke to the judge and the chambers and you're definitely going home today. And then he said, do you want to say something to the judge? And, you know, but then the judge came. So the case is supposed to come back in front of the same judge that presided over the trial. He was still out of a bench, but he ducked the assignment. He didn't want to. He didn't want to be a part of this. Yeah, exactly.

So I had the impression from the rush in and the rush out that this judge got stopped doing this. you know he really that the joke you know that he really didn't want to have any part of it either but he was just stuck he was the low man on the on the throne pole um so by him running out i didn't get the chance to say anything what about the u.s prosecutor or sorry the state prosecutor yeah so my lawyer mentioned you know the DNA never matched me that it that it you know then they went to the data bank and it matched the actual perpetrator and that person had made they committed the crime and then the state prosecutor you know said the same thing my lawyer did and you know they both agreed and asking for the conviction to

be overturned and me to to be released it was just the same u.s. prosecutor no no same state prosecutor oh it was not no none of the people none of the people were the original people that were involved in the case so for the next you know i mean it was very difficult transitioning back to to society one more question did the state prosecutor give you a you know my bad or you know hey yeah but well not here but well wait yes the short answer is yes it's for me it was a bifurcated process so they overturned the conviction and then we went back to court like six weeks later then the charge would dismiss and that's when the prosecutor um you know gave me a symbolic apology but she was not the prosecutor that was right you know had prosecuted me said I got a symbolic apology from the district attorney, but she wasn't the eighth time this happened. I got a symbolic apology from the judge, but that was not the one who presided over the trial. Right. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. You were saying... Yeah, I was just going to just discuss what it was like, you know, trying to put my life back together again. You know, I mean,

I used to go to a mental health professional at four times a week, like six years with dealing with psychological after effects. It was a stigma involved. You know, I was in prison for the 16 years wrongfully, yeah, but I was still there for 16 years. So, you know, how much of that rubbed off on you? Is it safe to be alone someplace with you? So definitely that's been a challenge in terms of personal relationships. It was awkward when I'd meet up with my extended family because most of them had never come to see me in the few that did. It was few and far between. So they had in effect become strangers. So who I knew was intellectually, but I was a different person. So were they? Technology was different. Self-lossed GPS internet hadn't been

created. Culture was different. Cities look, cities looked different. I was released with nothing. I was never, I was always passed over for gainful employment. I did get a job as a weekly columnist, but they only wanted one article a week. I was making money doing speaking engagements, but it's really not a consistent form of income. So things were very difficult financially. lack stability at housing. I bounced around from place to place. At one point, I was a couple of weeks away from the homeless shelter. Mercy College, which gave me a scholarship to finish the bachelor's degree,

they allowed me to stay on campus that gave me the meal plan. So that was how I avoided that. But I want to say that I had some particular challenges, though, just because my incarceration spanned from age 17 to 32. I mean, I had never before lived alone. I hadn't had a driver's license. I had never went shopping. I had never wrote a check or balanced the budget.

So all those things were new and difficult. I understand. Did you go through a period of time when you felt like like the doorbell would ring or you kept feeling like they were going to come and say we made a mistake yeah i did i did have that feeling and and then i also you know had had a feeling like like for a while it took me well like i still felt like i was a prisoner that just somehow or another managed to somehow get loose and get free yeah there definitely was that

saying and you know for a while i i you know i would like feel something in the back of my my head i mean not not literally but almost like a metaphorical tapping on my shoulder and well well what are you doing like everybody else belongs here but you don't but you realize that you you you realize that you don't but but but nobody else does you know what are you you you know what are you doing out out here again so in state in in in the state prison system Do they have like a four o'clock count where you have to be standing up in your cell? Yeah, they do.

Yeah, about 420. But yeah, they do. They do have to say, yeah. I was going to say, so around 3.30, 345 for probably the first, I'm telling you, over a year, I would feel extremely anxious in my chest. Like this, I would get this anxiety like I need to be somewhere. You know, and I knew, you know, I'm supposed to be standing up in my cell at 4 o'clock. They're going to come around to count. You have to stand there and you stand there. You'd be

quiet in the whole. The only time the dorm or the unit was quiet. Because every time, you know, most people, they think of prison, they think, oh, you're isolated and it's quiet. I prayed for isolation. It was constant noise and banging and screaming and hollering. But yeah, there was the only time the unit was quiet. And I, you know, just 10, 15 minutes beforehand, you always feel like, you know, Okay, we got to hurry up. I got to hurry up. I got to get my cell. I got to get my cell. You didn't want to be caught outside your cell. Now, I was in the medium at one point. They had a door. So obviously, you know, there's lockdown. But I was also in a open bay and you just basically just had to be in your cell. You just run there and you go there. But I felt like that for over a year. And I did. I kept thinking they're going to, they're going to realize they made a mistake. Like, they're going to come get me. I mean, a lot of the same things you're talking about, like even, you know, dating someone, it's, yeah, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an issue, you know, sure. And then on my end of it, you know, um, really not knowing how to read body language or signs and, you know, sometimes being, being, being, being, being dense and then being concerned, I'm going to miss a sign and it's going to be a miscommunication, but then also thinking, my, I didn't have some fear, like I thought that somebody was going to say that, you know, I tried to rape them or something like that. It wasn't that. But I did have the fear. I did have the concern that somebody was going to say, well, he made, he made me feel uncomfortable. So that, that I, that I did happen. So, you know, there were many times where I kind of, kind of kicked myself in the pants. Well, you know, I was attracted to this person or that person, but I never said anything. And I never asked them, you know, didn't. Ask them out. I didn't try to get a phone number. And, you know, approach dynamics, you know, in different settings was all, you know, a challenge. And, you know, it's really just like a short three questions, right? Well, what do you do? And, you know, how'd you get into that? And then the whole damn thing is out on the table. But on the other hand, a couple of times I did go the opposite route. And, you know, I just didn't say anything. But.

And as we're going to unfold in the story, I mean, you know, I was an advocate and, you know, ultimately I'd become an attorney and civil rights advocate, you know, on behalf of the lawful convicted with a nonprofit. We're going to get into all that and a few. But for now, my point I want to make is when I did go the other route and I didn't say anything about anything, you know, I mean, I can't really talk about what I do because of those three questions. But then when I don't at all, nothing, it almost felt. like I was living like a double life, though, because that was such, that's, my advocacy work now is such an integral part of who I am or what my life is. So I experienced it that way. Yeah. No, I, I, I understand that. Yeah. Yeah, you really, you really have to address it. You just have to address it pretty much up front, even though you're going to lose a few. Right.

You know, right. So, but I'm sorry. So, so, so now you, so now you, You were, you had said you had gotten a, um, a scholarship. Yeah, I got a scholarship from Mercy College so that allowed me to finish the bachelor's degree. They allowed me to live on campus. So I waited the homeless shelter that way. They gave me the meal plan. So, so actually, yeah. And, you know, I, um, so all those difficulties, but I'm on, I'm on the campus.

I'm finishing the bachelor's degree. I began an advocacy career, uh, which had the elements of speaking. you know up and down new york across the country i was making some money doing that i was the weekly columnist as i mentioned so i'm writing uh i figured out how to keep the media coverage going as long as there's some new angle or something new i can keep that going rather than the normal five minutes of fame that then disappears you know so i'm doing i'm doing regular television radio print media interviews uh ultimately new media when that becomes a thing so i'm trading privacy for awareness. And I got introduced to meeting with elected officials. So I'm regularly

meeting with them urging them to pass wrongful conviction prevention policy. The law is the laws, basically. Right. So I did that for five years. I didn't get into law school. And then I decided to get a master's degree. I thought having the additional credential would make me a more effective advocate. So I wound up getting a master's degree from the John Jay College Criminal Justice. My thesis was written on wrongful conviction, causes, and reform. My thesis was written on wrongful conviction, cause, and reform. I figured that the extra credential would make me a more effective advocate. And then I got some financial compensation.

The year of state, you can get compensation from the state, and then also file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the entities that were responsible. So I got financially compensated and I decided that I wanted to go to the next level. I wanted to continue the advocacy work I was doing as an individual, but I wanted to do it from a nonprofit perspective and be able to be involved in helping to free people. So I used some of the money. I used a lot of money, not all of it, but a nice portion of it to start the Jeffrey Descovic Foundation for Justice. and we've been able to help free now from when we opened our doors in 2011 until now

we've been able to free 13 people and we've been able to help pass three laws and then another six was part of a national coalition national coalition group and at some point I became not satisfied with sitting in the front row of the courtroom I wanted to be able to sit at the defense table and represent some of the clients, make some of the arguments. So I recently had my first success as a lawyer helps overturn Andre Brown's conviction as co-counsel if he was in for 23 years. Overall, the organization, we currently have 13 active cases and there's another five that are

approved, but waiting. And so now I continue the same work, but, you know, I am. I do have a case load. I do have people that I'm working on, and the case I'm working on, and we're doing policy work in New York, in Pennsylvania, California. Pennsylvania is one of 12 states that does not compensate roughly convicted people. So that's a border state to New York. So the foundation through our coalition, it could happen to you,

which I'm an advisory board member of, and the foundation is part of. We're working not trying to pass inside a recompensation in New York. we did pass the country's first oversight commission for prosecutors for the commission of prosecutor conduct and uh you know we're working on some other bills in in new york we helped to improve our discovery laws that pertain to sharing information between the defense and the prosecution so it went from being one of the worst dates in terms of discovery to one of the better ones i worked on a number of bills that would uh prevent awful conviction by coer's false confessions so firstly i want to mention that coerced false confessions have caused wrongful convictions and 29% of the DNA

proven wrongful convictions with with particularly vulnerable populations that people have mental health issues and and youth so there's a bill called the Youth Interrogation Act which the foundation is active with you know coalition partners on the past which would give a mandatory right to counsel for 16 17 year olds and kids younger than that saying that they would have to consult with the lawyer to explain their rights before um they would be be in position to them make an intelligent decision about whether they were going to waive them or not. There is a general law in New York that says that custodial interrogations are supposed

to be videotaped, but when that law was asked, it made exceptions for homicide, sex offenses and drug cases, so we're trying to get rid of those exceptions. Like you suggest, what's the point in that? That's the cases we need it the most, right? Right. And then it's what's called a police deception bill, which recognizes would have passed I mean, they would recognize that the police lying to suspects in the course of interrogation, that that's inherently coercive, so it would ban the cops from lying in it in interrogations.

So those are the primary bills that were working on trying to pass the, we just passed, and we're waiting for the, trying to get the governor to sign the challenging wrongful convictions. So in my story, I mentioned that I wrote letters for four years, you know, trying to get something to take the case. So that's because the courts, defendants don't have a right to counsel and post-conviction proceeding. So this would give people an indigent defendant's a right to counsel. And a weird quirk in New York law is if someone leads guilty, but then after that, you get a good attorney and investigator and you find some evidence of innocence. The courts will not allow you to argue that you're innocent. that they would be limited to just arguing that that evidence proves that the attorney was ineffective for not investigating.

So we're saying that we want the court to consider the evidence. Right. Also, that's legislation in New York. I mentioned a compensation effort of Pennsylvania. In California, we are working on passing the Commission on Prosecutor Conduct, which would, you know, the same bill that we passed, like in New York, just, you know, tailored a little bit of order to the California State Constitution. So those are the campaigns we're involved in.

There is a documentary short called Conviction, which is available on Amazon Prime, which is about my life post-exoneration and my advocacy work with a larger feature supposed to, you know, do it to be released later this year without it be a documentary. but I'm still hoping to find the literary agent to get, like, you know, get a book published by a major publishing company and, you know, ultimately have, like, a movie and have my story released in other art forms. I mean, it would be, I mean, far, far lesser stories have been told, say, in musicals or one-man show, or I'd like to have my story in as many different iterations, you know, just as a cautionary tale. and, you know, just to raise awareness about wrongful conviction and, you know, the efficiencies in the justice system

that lead to wonderful convictions with the hope that that dialogue would spur on some legislative changes that, you know, and, of course, to increase the profile of my organization, I mean, we're always trying to, debating the nonprofit world, just trying to raise money, you know, and while we have gotten the 13 people held,

and we're working on 13 other cases, there's also five cases that we have that are approved, just waiting. We don't have the bandwidth to move as currently constructed. We really need to raise more money so we can bring in other lawyers and investigators, all their essential personnel. I mean, my ultimate goal would be to have a chapter of the foundation, like in each state, and ultimately in each country, because I really see this as a worldwide issue. And I think that in countries where we don't hear about eviction, it's not that the

wrongful convictions aren't happening. It's that nobody is, the injustices are not being undone. Nobody is working on the, you know, the courts are not overturing the cases. So, yeah, that's what, you know, this is what my life's about. I mean, I make sense of my, what happened to me. In this kaleidoscopic way, look, I found my purpose, in other words, and this is what it is. Yeah, you've turned it. You've definitely turned a life-altering massive injustice into a crusade, you know?

Right. You know, which, you know, maybe that's why it happened. I believe that it is. No, I believe that it is. And with that, you know, I have an acceptance. since I have an inner piece, a higher sense of purpose, you know,

and, you know, I'm not, I'm not an angry person, you know, I want to enjoy my life as much as I can. And, you know,

I can't do that, you know, if I'm an angry or bitter person. And, you know, if I was to be angry or bitter, you know, I felt like I would be impacting any of the people that were involved.

I'd be the only loser. That's an area. I were going to say, it's, it's not going to get you anywhere. It's, you know, it's the whole concept,

of, you know, drinking the poison, hoping it kills the other guy. You know, it's just, you know, silly. So, yeah, you're absolutely going about the right way. I was going to say the book, have you written a manuscript? Have you written? Yes. I have. Well, so I've written a book. It's 95% done. It has another 5% to go. But what would be added, you know, would just be some strategic context. So it really would be about adding to my adventure. or things I've done and accomplished since I've been released. You know, a significant amount of things have happened since the last time I, you know, was working on it.

But I'm all the way out with certain things that happen. But I have to add other things like graduating law school, graduating law school, my first client, some of the bills we passed, other other cases that have been won. That's what would have to be added. But, you know, there's a lot of anxiety books out there. And I try to, like, reflect on myself, the world around me and other people and try to draw themes and, you know, benefit from experience. You know, they always say hindsight's 20-20, but at the same time, whoever can look at what has you already happened and then draw lessons to, you know, to get around those things going forward. I mean, you're that much better off.

So there's a lot of genre books out here that really haven't made a ripple. They really haven't been read. They don't make a bestseller list. And that's because the people ran to a smaller publishing company or at least one instance, you know, self-published. So I, you know, I want to, I have a lot of things on my plate. You know, I mean, I work maybe like 50 or 60 hours a week. I don't get me, you know, I have the compensation invested in some conservative investment. So that pays me, that serves in lieu of a salary that allows me to focus my time on this.

It's all between working on cases, working on legislation, meeting with potential. owner strategizing over things and some of the other stuff associated with running a nonprofit and then I speak and then sometimes his training sessions whether I'm in front of judges or prosecutors or defense lawyers or sometimes even law enforcement. I don't want to add why don't I figure out how to set up book doors and and do the press around that and get get you know book signing and shelf space okay I want to import that and let somebody else do that you know and I want it to be from a major publishing copy. Otherwise, it's just going to go, I have one story to sell, right? And I don't want to waste it. I really want it to make an impact. And the general order,

not always, but the general order is that the book does well, then there's a movie possibility. But if the book bombs, you're probably not going to get a movie done out of it. So I would rather sit and wait until the right agent and ultimately the right offer comes out and that it's marketed it properly and it can be the big splash that I'm that I'm looking for. I'd rather wait for the right offer than to just, you know, run, run to the first thing that comes along and nobody ever reads it and, you know, none of those other dreams come true. As far as a bestseller's concern, you're right, you probably have more of a chance, but doesn't mean you don't have a chance if it's not a bestseller. But, and I was going to say,

you definitely, you need a literary agent, obviously. Sure. I'm waiting for that. I went through two of them already. So I went through one person, and I thought that that was the guy. And it's the old story if you want to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish, you know, in a huge pond, right? And unfortunately, I was a small fish in a huge pond, and there's only so many hours in a day.

And so although he wanted to push me, he spent his time on clients, that would yield much more money, and so that didn't work out. And then I had a different literary agent after that. And I think the climate was different than I wasn't a lawyer than either. And I think the winds of justice reform and wrongful conviction that are like, well, and I'm willing rather strong now weren't as much than, I mean, at that time, I feel like the mass incarceration movement kind of like sucked all the oxygen. out of the room and that was what the craze was not wrongful conviction and so the publishing

companies you know weren't were interested at that at that point but i think it could be different now i just have to find i have to find the right person i did meet with somebody i'll tell you quick big net laughed a little bit at life to not go crazy so it started out this guy was supposed to represent me as my literary agent and it went from that to he connected me with a former client of his who had written a best seller and then

and then it turned out he wanted that guy and him to get the money and I wouldn't have gotten anything and it would have just been for the

exposure and then try to recoup something on the back end through the movie you know and that just simply didn't make any you're working for him

or you're working for me it's my story you've got this thing backwards but here's the story you have it written You weren't asking them to write the story. Like, I can understand them getting a chunk of it if they wrote the story.

But you've written your, you're saying 95% done. Like, right, exactly. It's not like you can't write. You were writing a column, you know, once a week. Yeah, for five years. Yeah, for five years. And I've had more than charted articles in print and I've been published in nine different publications.

So, yes, I do, I do know how to write. Yeah, so that was, you know, so that's where that went. But look, I'm waiting to find the right person. And I think also when the book comes out, other opportunities open up. So I'd love to have a Speakers Bureau represent me. But if you don't have a book, they don't want to touch you. I had one entity that agreed to take me on anyway. But, you know, what they promised me, they didn't deliver.

They promised that they were going to proactively seek out speaking engagements and be into a higher, you know, honorarian level. And instead, all they did was manage offers that came in. I really didn't. Right. I have the same problem. I have the vaccine problem. So I got a lot away from them, but I think I could go back to, if I had a book that was doing well,

I think that that's a game changer. And somehow or another, I really would like to get into motivational speaking because, you know, I could never give up where the back end of the story would not be about systemic deficiencies that lead to wonderful convictions, but it would be maybe life lessons and inspirational, never give up and I could share the formula I came up with for you know making making a difference and it would be that but again I I feel like I need more infrastructure like I haven't met the right person or or or people yet to open those you know doors for me because you know I can't be a master of everything but the idea would be in speaking whether it was motivational or otherwise the idea

would be that it would be a sideline that it would be a minor income stream for the foundation towards, you know, expanding our capacity, how many, you know, how many more additional innocent people could we work on trying to bring all, how many other places can be, you know, pursue policy initiatives in preventing this. And that kind of ties into my biggest challenge, you know, which is, you know, I didn't, I didn't arrive at the social economic position that I'm in now. I mean, I kind of arrived there artificially somewhat. just by means of the lawsuit, rather than coming up in business 10, 20, 30, 40 years, or I came upon that one life-changing idea that then, you know, both, you know.

So I don't have this cachet of people that I know that I have credibility with that I can go back to and, you know, they fund the organization. So I really need third parties who can function as connectors just so I can get in conversations with people and entities of capacity. And it's a soft self. Look, here's where I am. Here's my credentials. Here's that your organization's mission is.

Here's our track record. Here's what we could accomplish, you know, if we did get to finding the metrics that we could hit. And is this something that speaks to you or is it not? And if you're not thanking for your time. But I need help to get into those type of conversations. And it's really not about me. It's really about other people.

Like I'm free. I'm a lawyer. I know the system and, you know, I have finances. So I doubt very seriously I would ever be, you know, roughly convicted again. So it's not, it's not really about me. It's about the other people, the men and women that I metaphorically left behind, not just in New York, but everywhere.

You know, so the more we can raise, the more that we could work on freeing people. So that's really the biggest challenge, you know, is for that. So maybe some of the people that are listening, you know, they can reach me. There's a web form on the website, www.descovic.org. They have the Patreon campaign. So that's, you know, politicians of both parties can raise tens of millions, hundreds of millions of what they refer to as small dollar donors. You know, why not money to free innocent people?

I imagine dream for a second with me here. What if 25,000 people were willing to sacrifice three to five dollars on a, recurring monthly basis. I mean, that would give us close to a million dollars. As you imagine what we could, you know, how many people we could work on trying to bring home, you know, with that or people that work at corporations that do corporate philanthropy. I mean, just to, you know, put a B in someone's bonnet, you know, hey, you can see them, you know, so that's really what I need that or people that can help in one way or another. But all of that being separate and distinct from people and entities that aren't looking to help the mission, but instead simply

want to do business or want to sell me a product or sell me, you know, a service. I'm really not interested in that. I don't like equations where, you know, one, a service provider, their money's guaranteed and everyone else is, is speculative. I let people sit at the same side of the table as me and we rise or fall together. Because look, you know, I've been burned a few times, you know, in trying to raise money. So, I mean, I've learned, I've learned, you know, from that. But, yeah, that's really what it's about, you know, trying to be able to not have this waiting list of people and, you know, expand that type of thing. But, you know, last point on that, I want to be the dead horse. But, you know, all the money would go definitely to the mission.

None of it would make its way into my pocket under any rationale, under any theory. You know, this doesn't gain money. I've actually put money into it. But I'm not because, I mean, I earn money all the ways, you know, whether investments or people are exonerated as a lawyer, I can help them on the back end part. I have my ways that I can earn personally. You know, it's not through this organization. Yeah.

It's definitely one of the things prison teaches you is that, you know, money is not going to make you happy. No, it's definitely, it's definitely not. And, you know, just the social side of it, you know, just putting my life together on the social level. You know, just have people, hey, you're free, I'm free. Not literally, are you free? But, yeah, listen, I'm going to come over, man, with disco ride bikes, man. You know, they think the carnival's in town, man. I want to hit up the bumper cards or let's play, you know, get the boys together.

Let's play some basketball or, you know, kickball or, you know, stuff to, you know, play a game with chess or, you know, let's go to a sporting event. I mean, but just trying to build the social part of my life, the friendship side of the equation, you know, and in the romantic side of the equation. I mean, that's the part that I found has been the most challenging and the most frustrating to be, to be. be frankly, because in some ways, I feel like I'm still paying for the wrongful conviction even now to this, you know, to this second, because I haven't been able to put the social side of the equation really together. I mean, my life was pretty well positioned socially before the social train got knocked off the tracks. I mean, I mentioned I was one of the main kids out of a lot of them and it would do all kind of kid-like things and you know like I I miss that you know but

where how do I when you're not starting with any human assets where do you start I mean if you're an immigrant and you come from another country you know Spanish people find Spanish enclaves and the Italians and you know the China town or you know you you know the Russians you name me right they go to a certain area they you know i call it theory of one person right pointing my own term okay you find one person and that person brings you around to that community you mean i now you met everybody now some of the people take it liking to you not everybody a few people do that's your and then they lead lead you to even more people and then you're right i listen i understand where's my where where's my version of that to find though i hear you listen i i i have

no friends that I didn't meet in prison. You know, I don't know if you, you know this. I was, I was, you know, I was, you know, I was, you know, I was, you know, guilty, absolutely guilty of every one of the charges. But all my current friends are guys that I knew from prison. Because you're right. You're right. Even if you meet somebody and they're nice and they're friendly and everything else, you're right. They don't invite you out. They don't, you make them feel uncomfortable. You know, I get it. You don't, you don't feel comfortable. That's fine. I don't want. I'm not begging you to come around me. You know, but yeah, but you're right. All my friends I met in prison, they eventually get out. I kept in touch with them. They get out. We hang out. We help each other. We support each other. But yeah, you're right. No, there's no new friends. There's no, I don't know any normal people. So I understand what you're saying. It's tough. And I made an effort. When I first got out, I made a genuine, genuine effort.

didn't happen you know yeah i have one friend i have one friend but he actually lives in a state so we're more text friends you know you you text each other once a day or you send it you send a tic-tok you know right like we don't hang out right right and then yeah i mean that's i i can i i can relate and then i the other thing the other challenge i i i've noticed because you know i do I do know a number of other people that were exonerated, a few of which I knew were when we were both wrongfully in prison, a much bigger population of exoneries that I did not know on the inside. And, you know, I do know quite a bit of people committed to all crime-free life, guilty before, but on parole, doing the right thing now. Some of them I knew on the inside. But I've made this observation that I feel like in some ways I'm a subset of a subset,

meaning that I was like 16, when I was arrested and in for 17 to 32. I mean, that's a lot different than someone's life is interrupted at 21 or 25 or 30, you know, in that we don't necessarily have the same hobbies. Like most people, they're not still looking to get out of basketball court or, you know, ride a bike or go to the bumper cars or, you know, explore this aspect of the world or another. I mean, we can get together. We can shoot the breeze. You know, maybe we could play a game with chess. But even if it becomes limited, I would like to find people that he share three, four, maybe five different things so we can change genres of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of.

of activities and, you know, see what the world is about, going here or going there. But, you know, a lot of people also are, frankly, struggling a lot, you know, on the income level, on the job level. You know, I was that way for about five years. But, you know, my reality is changed. But, you know, it's tiring sometimes where if Jeff doesn't pee for everything, then nobody to go anywhere, do anything. And that, you know, so I've found that sometimes becomes something.

somewhat of an obstacle. So really across the board, I'm really, I'm neither fished or foul. Well, you know, I was even going to say, even the things that you have in common, going to law school, going to college, when you went to college, you weren't 20 years old. You didn't have the same college experience that other people did at 20, 21, 19, 23, you know, maybe if they're dated 25 when they graduated. You didn't go to college until you were in your 30s. Right. Exactly. Everybody there was much younger and their idea of being friendly was just saying, Hi, Jeff. How was you week? All right. See you tomorrow, Jeff.

I mean, it wasn't like I was like hanging out with people and socializing with her. You know, so I mean, I feel there's still the dichotomy also. I feel I'm 49, right? But I feel like I'm 26. But not in this fountain of youth chastin. Now I've found type of joyous. joyous, joyish way, more of a dichotomy, you know, where I have all those energy, but the things that I want to do are not really things that, like, a 49-year-old is going

to do, want to do. But now you've got to go, you know, younger. But then the more you do, the less in common, because, you know, number one, it's not really peer-to-peer anymore. There's not the same maturity level. Like, I like things like right place. right time, right people in the right setting, we can let her hair down to a certain extent, right? But I understand how one thing can lead to another, it snowballs, and now there's a big consequence. But people like nunder much, you know, like in their, they don't necessarily think about that, how something can snowball. It's like going back to prison, right? There were a lot of people I avoided. I could see like a metaphorical storm cloud above their head, where it was

clear they were going to self-destruct. Right. The main thing was to make sure that they didn't manage to bring me down with them. So I kept my distance and careful and thinking for other people, but someone in their 20s or even their young 30s is not necessarily thinking in that, in that way either. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I definitely, I can definitely see, talk to people and start to play out. how things are going to go down for them when most people don't think that way because in prison you have to think that long term is this someone I need to be around because he's got a week to six months before he gets stabbed or gets in trouble or do I want to be around him? Do I want to be

associated with him? It's it's kind of like when two guys get into a fight in prison, you walk away. Everybody walks away. You all stand around and watch it because when the guards show up, they're going to grab both of them and five or ten of the guys that are standing around. around them. You walk away. In high school, you stand around and watch the fight. You know, it's, it's, it's people, there's all these little things that people don't understand how you behave, you know. I was going to say, as far as, you know, the, you know, the funding is concerned.

I was that we can put, you know, we'll put, make sure to put, um, all of your links. Yes. Uh, to the Patreon in the description box for you. Um, as far as, you know, share that too from their social media once they see it when you put it that would be really oh yeah that would okay so six because you broke up for a second there one what was it again you want yeah what i was yeah what i was yeah what i was saying is when people see the link from when you put it in people can share that on their social media and and word of mouth so they can help move things around that way uh also you know right you know let's yeah i have a pay

And I mean, look, like 10 bucks helps. People think, oh, well, you know, I don't really have anything. Well, you know, I'd like to. But listen, I'm not asking for $400 a month. $10. $9.99, you know, sign up for. Nice thing about Patreon. You can sign up for $3.

Like I, you know, if it's 50, that's great. If it's $10, it adds up. Right. I don't mean. And, you know, so I'm extremely appreciative of anybody that can, anybody that can contribute in any way. especially because they don't have to. You know, they don't owe me anything.

So, you know, and they don't owe you anything. But you're, if it's a good pause, then, you know, throw a little bit of money that way, if you can. Sure. You know, people, you know, last year, there were, they were maybe, I want to say, like, five to ten people that, you know, they did Facebook birthday party things. Well, for my birthday this year, I'm trying to raise this much for this entity. You know, a bunch of people did that. the foundation week, you know, about getting, getting some checks. That's another, that's another way of doing that. Or look, if you know somebody that, you know, does a podcast or does

block radio or does a blog or they do reporting of one kind or another, definitely, you know, ever mentioned because, you know, I, I don't gauge the show size and the size of I'm going to go on or not. I go on because they might just one person. I might just reach one person that's It's a key person that could help them one way or another. Or maybe it's just one person that, you know, it enlightens or one way. You never know who may go into, you know, a mission and doing something really positive. And they felt inspired by the one thing or another. Speaking of which, if there's any future lawyers listening, you know, I, like I always say in person,

I do encourage people to take on one wrongful conviction case pro bono on the course of your career. But going back to prison for just a second, you know, in the documentary short Amazon on Amazon Prime conviction is called about me, you know, I used some of the platform that the director and producer Chi Awards gave me to bring some of the non-innocence justice reform work, right? My rationale is, look, the fact that it's about me means that raffle conviction, false accusation is automatically going to get some play. just automatically, because it's about me. But I used some of that to bring attention to many things I either was personally affected by in prison or that I witnessed, which indirectly impacts me. I mean, I talked about things like, you know, mass incarceration. I mean, there were people in prison that were doing 20 and 30 years for, you know, just drug,

drug possession. I mean, they weren't some drug, big-time drug kingpin, but they had a quantity of drugs that made it a felony rather than a slightly lesser amount that was misdemeanor. And they had those type of sentences, which was

more time than, you know, people that had done burglaries, robberies, or arsons, or even, even murderate. You know, so over sentencing and, you know, nonviolent offenders, so mass incarceration and And, you know, I talked about the terrible medical care in prison.

So the prison where I, where I was at Elmira, you know, they had one of the highest inmate mortality rates in New York State and how the, you know, the medical staff, their answer to everything was to give over-the-counter medication and come back. And then it would take a month or two. Right. But it would take a month. And that's just to see the nurse, by the way. That's not the doctor.

The doctor, that's like a month or two. you know, but the medical care and, you know, how just the bureaucracy involved with compassionate release, which is when prison medical staff determine that a prisoner is terminally ill. And so the idea is you put in an application so that somebody can, you know, die with some dignity in a normal environment surrounded by friends or family rather than by yourself in a, you know, prison setting and that how by the time a lot of the decisions came down, I mean, people had like one or two days left or, you know, they already died before the decision actually came down, and, you know, and how there really wasn't any real effort

on the part of the prison administration to reduce the prisoner of violence or to try to professionalize the correctional officers, you know, the verbal abuse, the level of verbal abuse that and abuse of authority that then went on it there really wasn't any serious effort not even a pretense of staying at tried to reel that in and how if we really were serious about crime prevention you know I mean the curriculum and the vocational trades I mean I completed six certificates in plumbing but nearly all the training was on you know cast iron pipe and metal pipe so now it's PVC and copper so if I decided that I wanted that correct career, I was thought at virtually the same place out here as I would, you know, having never

received the training in there. And so, you know, just updating curriculum and making sure the professors actually, the disruptors actually teach rather than just being there for a, you know, for a paycheck. So all these issues I kind of raged about in a dignified way, but tried to bring attention. I mean, the punishment for crimes, and I feel strongly about this, the punishment for crimes is supposed to be the loss of your freedom. It's not supposed to be mistreated while you're there. And I feel that the U.S. prison system misses that mark.

And just proportionality, I mean, when you look in the south, in particular, I mean, the types of time they give out for various offenses. It's crazy the amount of time that's given out for different offenses. I mean, I think there's something to be said for proportionality and fairness. It's not about coddling criminals, but it is about fairness. Right. I think it's supposed to be about fairness. Yeah, no, I agree. I, you know, love

any of those issues or any of those different issues being in parole reform and, you know, and, you know, food just being not me? I not burned or not under, you know, being undercooked. I mean, yeah.

We used to joke, we used to always joke the leading cause of death at the prison I was at. It was Coleman. We used to say the leading cause of death here is medical. you know I can't tell you how many guys that went in for clearly there were clear problems and they were dead you know two weeks later it was clear the guy's got heart problem he's got heart pain heart pain he goes in three times they say come back on Monday come back on this thing oh you just got indigestion oh you'll be fine oh come back Monday boom he dies right then he went in three times you know I have a buddy who who had self diagnosed himself as having a you know, a hernia. They said, you've got, you've got an ulcer. Don't eat these foods. Stop eating these foods. He said, I didn't eat one food that was on that list. Sure enough, eventually he complained so

much. Eventually, they came back, sent him out for like a, whatever it is, the scan to see if he had what was wrong with him. He had two ulcers, but they wouldn't give him the report. They told them that they found nothing. He eventually got his mother to get a copy of the report, showed two ulcers. But they were telling him, nope, you have an ulcer. I'm sorry, it showed two hernias. They were telling him it's an ulcer. He finally got to report. When he got the reported, then his mother, of course, contacted the governor's office. They immediately called the prison. Now suddenly they were like, oh, we're going to give you the surgery. Of course we were. What are you talking about? We never said that. I mean, they're just, you know, they're scumbags. But I understand exactly what you're

saying. It's the whole giving some guy 15 years for selling, you know, a crack rock, I mean, a crack rock, you know, because he had a gun in his house. He sold it three miles away, but he had a gun in his house, sold a crack rock, got 15 years. Why? Because, oh, well, yeah, but he's been arrested for selling crack before. 15 years? So, you know, I, I mean, listen, we could go back and forth and back and forth. I'll, you know, bitch and complain the entire time, but I'm just not in a position to do anything, but bitching complain. You know, you're, luckily, you're in a better position.

So I was going to say, definitely, I mean, definitely anybody watching should, you know, go in the description and click the link and donate if it's $10 or $5 or $50 or whatever it may be, a one-time donation or even just sign up. To me, signing up is better because $10 a month isn't going to bother me at all. You know, giving, you know, $100 once, I'd rather have the $10 every month. for two years than the $100 once, you know, I know, and it hurts less. Do you have anything else you want to say? Or, you know, set a goal, have a realistic plan of getting there. In other words, you should be able to look at your plan three or four different ways and say to yourself, well, yeah, I could see how that might work. Be flexible. Remember that, you know, the plan is the plan. The plan is not the goal. So you got to be flexible.

don't be afraid of hard work you know i i don't i don't believe with the pie in the sky type thing where everything's going to be okay just because i instead believe rolling up your sleeves working really really hard to put yourself in a position for a miracle to happen or door to open and there are no excuses why something can't be done i mean maybe there's reasons why something it'll be harder but but no no excuses um why something can't be done And lastly, never, ever give up. And once you make it, you have to reach back and try to bring someone else across that. So that's not limited to wrongful conviction.

I mean, I've seen homicide, victim, family members, you know, be involved in advocacy and reach out to other people in that same position, whether it's someone who's a victim of domestic abuse that's gotten out, survived and rebuilt their life and reaching back to a, other people or, you know, whether it's someone that's been sexually trafficked or someone that's faced racism or discrimination or some other type of calamity of greater or lesser, you know, that I think is a formula for making the world a little bit better, making your suffering count for something and, you know, having some inner peace and it would be cathartic and healing and it would be me.