Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Downfall Of New York's Most Notorious FBI AGENT | Terrorist Double Cross Bribe Gone Wrong

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

The Downfall Of New York's Most Notorious FBI AGENT | Terrorist Double Cross Bribe Gone Wrong

And I was above the law, because I was the law. There were situations where we paid $1 million cash, screen cards for girlfriends, making guys disappear from their families. I got myself into a jam. I'm going to catch this terrorist. I'm going to ride off on a white horse. You know, I'm going to be the hero again.

And I ended up to go. My name is Bob Lustick. I grew up in a small town in New York, Tarrytown, New York. I come from a law enforcement family. My father actually, in the beginning of his career, was a CO. My uncle is the highest decorated New York State Trooper in the history of the New York State Police. And there's actually a bronze statue of them outside their academy. my other uncle was also a state trooper my younger brother is a retired police officer and so we've always been civil servants and we were raised to be civil servants my my father's model was always you measure a man's success in his life not by how many dollars he touches but by how many

lives he touches. So we weren't really focused on careers that were like huge money makers. We were always, you know, raised to be pushed towards careers that were huge impact makers. Okay. So you always, you always kind of felt like you were going to go into law enforcement. Yes. Actually, it's a funny story. I was watching a movie with my dad when I was about nine years old. And it was the FBI story starring Jimmy Stewart. It's like the old original. And my father said, you know, that's something I always wanted to do. But I took the CEO job because I had been born with a clep palate. And my dad kind of had to put all his aspirations on hold in order to get get a job that had immediate like health benefits and um because i had to go through 19 surgeries

to correct my cleft palate so you know they were young they were young and you know he he kind of put everything on hold in his career and and did what he had to do to take care of me and my older sister so that day when i heard my dad say that that's what he wanted to do I always went through life, wanting to make him proud of me. So I always pushed myself towards going into the FBI. Okay. How did that take, you know, how did that happen? Like, I mean, what, is there a specific course that you kind of think you, you follow that you know, like, I need to have, you know, I need to have some military background or I need to be a police officer for at least four years or, I mean, is there?

or i need to have a lot used to be you know like having a law degree really helped like what were what was the criteria that you thought you should follow okay so just just for your uh viewers if you if you want to go into the fbi they have different categories of how they they view their applicants there's like science and technology there's law there's accounting and then there's like diversified there might be uh some more categories now since you know i've been retired since 2012 so you're measured against the applicants in that specific category so i pushed myself towards a science background knowing that it would put me in a category where there weren't that many applicants and also i was uh pushed myself through athletics because i

figure if they are in the science category, they're probably not also going to be athletic. I know that's a stereotype, but it worked out. Sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes because it worked out. So, you know, I have been a small town high school football star. I went on to play college football at a smaller school. and I was fortunate up to be on a championship team and it's funny because during my FBI interview I had my championship ring on

and the agents just wanted to talk about that they were like oh what's that ring that's a bull ring it's huge you know can I can I try it on and literally that was the extent of my interview I had a science, environmental science, and a dual major in environmental science and theology. And when I got out of college, I worked for the Westchester County Department of Labs and Research for three years. And during that time period, I applied to the FBI. and I had made it in under the diversified program and then also under the science program.

So one day I was working in the lab and I was working on an experiment that was like a pretty big deal for the county in Westchester regarding pesticides and drinking water. And the phone rang and it was the FBI recruiter and he said, hey Bob, great news. you're going to be putting the next academy class. And I said, when is that? And he said, Monday. And it was Thursday. And I said, I'm in the middle of a grant program where I'm working on, you know, this big project for the county. I have to at least give them two-week notice.

And he said, well, I can't guarantee the sports. spot's going to be there in two weeks. So I walked into my boss and I said, hey, I'm going to go home for lunch and I'm not coming back. And he was like, wait, what? Now, he had known that I had applied. Right. Because the FBI, when you apply, your background check, I mean, they literally go all the way back to your kindergarten teacher if you're still alive. And, you know, he said, hey, good luck.

I went I went home Friday I bought a new car because I didn't think my clunker would make it down to Quantico, Virginia from New York packed up my stuff and Sunday

I was walking into the FBI Academy So How long was that? How long is the academy? Back then it was 14 weeks Which is kind of ironic because in my line of work

I was a counterintelligence officer. And my whole job was to go up against Intel officers from other countries, hostile intel services, that were trying to, you know, hurt the United States national security wise. And a lot of these people that I ended up recruiting to flip and work for the U.S. had been trained one-on-one for five, six, seven years. And here we are. are the leading law enforcement agency, allegedly, in the world even. And we only get 13 weeks.

I think now it's 16 weeks of training. So it's kind of my luck. Okay. So I mean, once you graduated, where'd you go from there? Like, where was your first assignment? Okay, so in the FBI, not, many people want to go to high cost of living areas. And New York was like the place nobody wanted to go. I mean, when I was at the academy, I realized how unpopular and frightening New York

was to other states, people from other states. Like the people that were in the academy class from Montana or out west or, you know, all these states, you know, I don't know where they are. um they were terrified to get stationed in new york so new yorkers had the option to ask to go back to new york and 99.9 percent in the time you would get that assignment so that's what i did and i ended up getting posted back to the new york FBI office down on um broadway and worth down downtown so i was home I was in New York City, and I literally stayed there almost my entire career with a couple. I had a undercover assignment where I went out to Monterey, California. But I did travel for work, but most of the time, my main base was the New York office.

So what, I mean, what was your assignment? Like, when you go into the, you go in, like, they don't immediately put you in. into undercover work right no no so when my first day in the office i walked to the squad i was assigned to and they were a counterintelligence squad working against a hostile intel service and there was nobody there but the secretary and i was you know i was gung-ho i was Special Agent Robert Lustick, uh, reporting for duty. Right. And the secretary was like an old school Queens girl who basically said,

I don't give a rat's ass who you are. Get out of my face and go find a desk. And I was kind of like taken aback by that and kind of wandered in the squad area. And there was a desk that had nothing on it. So I took it as my own. but I couldn't open it up it was locked and there were no keys so back then the new york office was not really a great place so i literally lifted the plastic parchment off the top of the desk and for like five years that's how i got in my desk i just would tear the top off it was hysterical

and um the reason that my squad wasn't around is back this then it was 1988 back then they were all working the robert hansson case so robert why does that sound familiar robert hanson was the fbi agent that oh yeah yeah oh i watched that he did he die recently i'm not sure um yeah he um god he's he's he's responsible for a ton of uh of people in like the Soviet Union getting murdered, right? Like, he was... A lot of our sources disappeared. Yeah, I watched a...

I've actually watched a couple documentaries on it. And I remember one of the things they were talking about was the, as far as espionage for the CIA, was just gutted by him for 20 years, right? He was just gutted, like, he just destroyed it. And, and, yeah, it's funny, too, because I guess they thought, they always felt like it was somebody in the CIA that was a mole. And it wasn't. It was a guy in the FBI.

Yeah, he was such, he was kind of a loser, too, you know? Like he and his wife and the whole thing. And he got caught at a drop, didn't he? Like a dead drop or something. He went to go pick up. What a, what a, just, that whole story is just a sleazy, scumbag story of him and just, you know, wanting the money. And Soviets were promising him everything, too, right?

Like, didn't he think he had a villa and a bunch of land waiting for him in the Soviet? union and but i mean that's how that game goes i i was fortunate enough to be involved in maybe altogether a dozen recruitments and you know you you offer them a lot and right give them what you can and you promise in the world and you hope you can come through right and you know you You manipulate them to cooperate with you because in the counterintelligence world, the priorities are backwards. So arrest is like the worst. You want to recruit, you want to neutralize, and then you want to arrest. If you have to arrest, you're basically saying, hey, I failed at my true job, and I just kind of clean up the mess with an arrest.

So when you see like spies being arrested, it usually means that there was either a supervisor who wanted to move up the ladder. So we had that arrest be made or the agents tried to recruit the individual and it didn't work out. Right. So, um, so what, when you typically, when they promised these guys everything, do you feel, does the FBI usually deliver? how it normally works or how it worked with cases that i worked or was involved in is we would do the initial recruitment the fbi and the ultimate goal is to recruit an individual then have them go back to their headquarters and you know still work for us and at that point we would hand them over to the CIA. So my squad worked hand in hand. I worked hand in hand with the CIA for

a decade, decades. And, you know, that's how our interagency would work. We would, we were, our mandate is we're not allowed to run sources overseas and they're not allowed to run them in the U.S. Now, both sides get skewed and we try to cooperate as much as we can. And there's always been that infighting. But I was fortunate enough to work with some really nice, talented CIA case officers. And, you know, we were able to get a lot accomplished. So we would send them, hand them off. And then the promises that I made, they would try.

try to come, come through with, there were situations where we paid, you know, million dollars cash, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, green cards, green cards for girlfriends, making guys disappear from their families and, you know, leaving with their new family, their new girl, all kinds of crazy stuff that you can't imagine. But, you know, we would get it done. we would get it right i mean how long like what were some of the cases that you you work that i mean to to the degree that you can talk about it i'm assuming you know what i'm saying like yeah no i mean generally generally uh how the case would go is in new york a lot of these

missions which is like a consulate when in new york they call it a mission to the u.n they let's say they have its mission a and they have a hundred diplomats that live in that mission or assigned to that mission that work in the UN 90 of them or 80 of them will be legitimate diplomats 20 of them will be intelligence affiliated and that'll be the intelligence station within that mission so you'll have it'll range from people that are just like support they call them code clerks you know like in the movies um they'll live like in a faraday cage i don't know if anybody ever saw the movie uh enemy of the state with yeah that's the first thing i think of when i think of that yeah so that fair day cage is like a legit deal like that movie was pretty accurate as far as like

how that cage was so a code clerk or someone who's a support person would like live in that that area and they would be in charge of sending communications back and forth coming from the intel officers whether it's their headquarters to the the officer on the ground in New York or vice versa so our job was to try to figure out out of the hundred what 20 were intel and then you would open investigations into them and as a someone who was you know a recruiter I guess you could say for lack of a better term we I would try to figure out everything about them and you know really really see if they have vulnerabilities that I could exploit and we would get pretty

creative. I mean, there were times where we would get Intel officers, wives, jobs in an office that didn't really exist. And we would, you know, push them into having illicit affairs. So the Intel officer would kind of like have a nervous breakdown. And then he would go to a therapist that wasn't a real therapist. And, and then one day he, he would, you know, he was a real therapist. And, And then one day he's in front of his new friend who goes to the group therapy session and all of a sudden the ID opens up and you say, hey, by the way, I'm not really who I said I was. You're kind of in a little bit of a pickle, wanted to work for us. And then he flips.

His wife goes into work on Monday. There's no office anymore. The whole place is shut down. All the 30 employees were all face. anyways and you know all the contracts she worked on weren't real they were all supported through you know undercover operations and all of a sudden we got ourselves a spy working for us but you know it's it's like in the movies it's actually even more involved you know there were some great agents that had some

great cases and you know I suppose I was considered one of them because I I won all kinds of accolades, awards, and was even a federal law enforcement officer of the year with my partner. And, you know, we worked some really great cases. But generally, it wasn't really like going to work. It was kind of like going to play because you come up with these creative ideas and then you try to figure out a way how to implement them. I mean, it honestly sounds like running a scam. It is a scam, you know, 100% a 100% of scam. It's literally seeing what you can find out about someone and using it against them so that you can profit.

Now, the profit isn't financial in this case. The profit's intellectual. It's information. It's, you know, intelligence information from another service so is it a scam oh yeah it's a legalized scam and it comes under the guise of national security so what do you when you talk to these guys and they they say okay i'll i'll you know like i'll work for you do they what information is it that comes that they can really provide you know like like how how it's saying i'm thinking how

you know how specific is that information and can you even act on it without putting them in jeopardy well that's that's part of the trick too and it's a great question that's part of the the whole difficulty of the job the first part of the question is answered by it depends what country the individual's from and what position they have take the example that i said hypothetically if it's a code clerk, and this is someone who is receiving and decoding every secret message from their headquarters and handing it to a spy and then getting reports from that spy and coding them and sending them out. If I have a code clerk or a secretary working for me, for the government that I flipped, I get, you know, I get the golden egg. I get a golden egg. I get a

everything coming in and out of that Intel station. So, you know, in the world of recruitment, you always want to have the guy who's handling the telephone because he hears everything, you know, example-wise. And then if it's a, you know, a country that's considered hostile and you get an Intel officer, they compartmentalize, meaning you'll have one guy who's like a science technology officer, another guy who's like economic, another guy who's political, and their goal is to collect in that area. So you'll just get the information from that individual who works in that specific area. But you can figure out ways to move them up the chain so that they become more valuable

to their own service. They get more access, and thus they give us more access. I always think about the Enigma machine. You know, once they cracked the Nazis code, it was like, okay, well, we know this ship's going to be attacked, but we can't act on it. We know this is about to happen, but we can't act on it. Like they had to cherry pick which ones were, you know, and they couldn't even really, in some cases, even divert. you can't really divert the you know the the the ocean liner or the whatever the ship or whatever because like nothing can change because they just didn't want to tip their hat so they'd cherry pick you know what was big enough to risk it and how and it's the exact same way today

you you can collect all the intel that you want but when the higher ups who have a bigger picture of everything going on, when they make their decision, that's a decision that you're going to go by. For example, hypothetically, again, because I don't want to lay anything up, it's going to get me sent back. If I collect information on, say, Uganda, and I have some great intel on Ugandan intelligence

activities, and they're targeting people in the US, And I recruit a Ugandan intelligence officer, and he's telling me everything. And he tells me one thing that, you know, we really should act on. You know, it's a, they call it actionable intelligence. I'll say, hey, can we pull the plug or pull the trigger on this and forward the operation into this new arena based on the information we were provided? And they'll sometimes come back and say, no, we're not going to do anything. And they don't tell you, but you'll find out later on that the reason is the reciprocity issue. Meaning like, if we yank a Ugandan intel officer out of New York and there's a CIA officer in Uganda,

they're going to have reciprocity and they're going to yank that guy out. So based on what's going on in our other service, services is how the higher-ups will determine whether or not they're going to act on the intel. And that is also comes down to protecting the source of the information. Sometimes there's Robert Hanson's and you want to be able to have it so compartmentalized that if it does get leaked, it'll look like the leak came from the faucet, not the toilet. Right. Right. So when the Robert Hansen thing, you know, culminated, like, were you there?

Meaning like. Were you in the department? You said that they were at that point when you first got there, they were all over that case. Like, were they still investigating that case or had it already collapsed or? I mean, they were working in that area. That's what I'll say. Okay. Okay. So I'm, okay. So I was just wondering if you were working in that department when they ultimately arrested him.

I was not involved in the arrest. That was at a Washington. But my squad was doing some stuff. What was the fallout after that for the FBI? Like it was, um, it was a tough road. It was a tough road because, you know, a lot of sources. is a lot of informants, a lot of confidential informants were putting a lot of danger and there had to be a lot of cleanup. You know, he, that was a great win for the Russians. I'll put it that way. They, they got themselves a great win and, and it was messy. It was really messy.

So, you know, how long, so what were you working on? What was the case that you were working on when, you know, Europe. whole thing kind of went bad. Just wondering, I mean, unless you can, unless you have anything else that you want to talk about before that. No, no, I'll go right into that. How long had you worked, sorry, for the FBI before you started that case? 23 years. Whoa. Okay. And you have to what, 25 years before you can retire. Or be 50. So I retired at 24 years. Oh, okay. This case made me retire okay so the background would be i had been around from my family much because when you're an fbi agent you're very busy and the job is time consuming so i had missed a lot of stuff with uh our son

And I had always done community service. I had coached Little League Baseball, youth football, things like that. But now that our son was getting to the age where he could participate, I wanted to get back into it and coach him specifically and the teams that he would, you know, be playing on. So my demise began. when I took a transfer to an RA, a resident agency, a small office in Westchester County, so that I had a 10-minute commute home rather than, you know, sometimes on a Friday night leaving downtown Manhattan would take three hours in the summer.

so I was on a small squad and it was as if I myself the big fish were lack of another way to describe it I threw myself in a small pond I threw myself in a bird bath and we were now only covering leads for big cases rather than having our own big cases so for me it was like like shock like investigative shock because i was no longer the guy i was just some guy who was like out there in the middle of nowhere And if they needed, you know, something done, they would cut me a lead and I would write it up and send it back to them. But I wasn't like the guy. I wasn't the case agent on big cases anymore. And sadly, my ego couldn't take it.

So I had been asked to go talk to a college fourth. football team up in Rhode Island at Bryant University. My friend, my boyhood friend was the head coach. And he asked me to come up and talk to the team, which I did. For what purpose? Just, you know, hey, stay out of trouble. You know, this is what you have to watch out for. If like motivational.

Okay. So while I was there, I was on the sideline and my friend said hey i want you to meet someone who's a football coach at a local private school lawrenceville academy and he's also a private investigator and i want you to check him out and tell me if like he's the real deal because he's looking to have a couple players here and his firm is also looking to donate to the program so that's where i met michael taylor Michael Taylor is a former Green Beret who at the time had his own private investigative agency. I vetted him.

He had actually worked with the FBI in the past, and he said, hey, you know, I actually have some amazing contacts in the Middle East if you're looking for some information. Well, for me, with what I was going through, all of a sudden I said, oh, man, I might have one last big hurrah before I go right off into the sunset. So, you know, I met with him a couple of times and wrote up some of the information that he had provided from some of his sources that were in foreign intelligence services. And it was given high ratings by our analysts and it was disseminated all throughout. you know the intel community and i basically recruited him to work with me he had information where we might be able to pin down one of the terrorists that was one of the cards and the deck of cards okay i was you know looking at that saying oh man this could be real this

could be a great way to end my career and one day he came to me and he said hey my lawyer doesn't want me to work with you anymore and i was like what's up and um and he said it looks like my company is going to be indicted for contract fraud that occurred in iraq when he had a contract in iraq uh providing security for the airport in kandahar i believe um so i went back why was it going to be in diet like over billing or over billing or it was like you know $4,000 toilet seat yeah yeah you know that kind of thing and um that was going on running rampant and the doD was finally getting to look into all the stuff that had been going on I mean because this had been like six years prior right or more actually well in any event I told my boss

and he was a younger boss wasn't that great a boss and he said well you know do your thing manipulate the guy we don't want to lose him as a source so you know I went back and I said hey don't worry about this we'll figure out a way to get rid of it and he he had assumed that I was going to be able to take care of that indictment, which for people that are, you know, watching, listening, a street agent can't get rid of an indictment. It's not like a cop and a traffic ticket. Right. I would have to pull the wool over or get approval from like 50 upper management, including the DOJ. So at the time, to Taylor was being investigated by the DOD OIG, the Office of Inspector General.

One day they called me and they say, hey, are you trying to get Michael Taylor off his indictment? And I said, no, no, I'm working with them. And they said, well, what are you working on? And I said, I can't go into it. You know, like it's classified. Have your boss call my boss or whatever you got to do. Now, I know they have an investigation on them, so I'm assuming that it's a good one, and they're using all the techniques that they possibly can. But I already have a setup with my source and how we're contacting as he goes back and forth from the Middle East.

So in my head, I'm like, all right, well, they're probably going to see this, our communications, but at the point, I'm talking. around everything and um what they were hitching their wagon to was him saying to me like in a text or an email hey you know how's it working are you getting this thing to go away and me saying oh yeah yeah don't worry about it i got you and i'm basically manip i'm lying to him you know right in our in our world we call it manipulation but the bottom line is it's a lie yeah i'm not doing anything to help him get off his indictment so does he but he feels like maybe you are yeah 100 you're working on it yeah now in the same rep a good source works the agent as well right and it's like that's how the game is played you're both working each other and it's who's working who the best

that wins so he's also you know giving us tidbits and saying oh i wish i could give you the whole thing but you know i got this indictment and you know i'm waiting you know so he's playing the game too and he's look he's a very smart man and he and he uh he knows he knows how the government works so as it as it goes along i um i realize it's too much and i want to close him out because i don't want to lie to the guy so i asked my boss i said look i want to close him i don't want to deal with him he said no no you can't you can't close him and i said well can i transfer to another agent and he said no he's only going to want to work with you and at the time my partner um i even remember uh coming out one day after i met him and

I was like yeah, you just offered me a job when I retire. And like I vocalized it. Like it wasn't something that I was like, you know, sneaking around. And eventually what happened was it was like a perfect storm because eight months prior to this, if you remember, Senator Stewart was in Alaska. And he had been indicted, investigating and indicted by what they call the pig, which is like the public integrity unit at a, out of the DOJ and headquarters in Washington. And the public integrity unit, the U.S. attorney that handled the case started to like make up evidence in order to get the guy to be guilty. Right. And the FBI agent that was the case agent on the investigation blew the whistle on the U.S. attorney and said, hey, you know, he's filling in the graham crackers with fluff or nutter.

You know, this ain't a real smore. Right. And he ended up, the U.S. attorney ended up, it was a big, huge mess. And he ended up being investigated. And unfortunately, he took his own life. Okay. Okay. Always, I always amazes me when people do that because, like, they don't want to go to prison or something.

But the truth is, you either brought it gone to prison for a few years, and it wouldn't have been that big of it. If even that, if he was, you know, it might have been an administrative issue. Right. I was going to say, and, you know, but they can't imagine going from up here to down there. their ego right your ego won't let them so they kill themselves like to me it's like that's insane like that's the leap you took right right and unfortunately for me his partner all of a sudden sees a dirty FBI agent in his sights and becomes the u.s attorney working the case against me okay so now they're coming at me like this

you know because they want revenge and it um it got ugly because the attorney that i hired was a way over his head and i didn't realize it until my CEPA hearing confidential confidential information procedural act well well how did that how do we get there like how did that how did that whole thing how did he get on to you like it's to me so far you haven't done anything wrong right so the uh their interpretations of our text and emails led them to believe that because he offered me a job when i retired that and you know that we were going to do business together or there were like business deals that might happen um that he was very driving me and because I was saying oh man don't worry that's great I would love to work with

you you know you know this that the other thing I can't wait to retire um you know they they basically believed my lies right and it became you know to my detriment so they searched my house well can I ask you like how did they even get on to that like who's reading these emails that said, hey, you know what? This sounds like, you know, whatever. The investigators that were investigating Mr. Taylor were on to our communications. Okay. And so they thought, hey, this sounds like he's bribing this agent. To get him off his indictment. So they started their own investigation. Okay. Yeah, basically the, the OIG agent that was working against.

Taylor who had spoken with me and I had said no you got it wrong like I'm not like I'm just I'm doing my job buddy and I can't go into it he went to the public integrity unit and said hey I got a dirty FBI agent

and they were like oh yeah this is great like I can only imagine how they were after their colleague had you know six months prior killed himself So because an FBI is it blew the whistle. So through their interpretation of our communications, they decided that they had enough to indictment, to indict us. And I was indicted. I was arrested on September 28th of 2012.

Well, I was put, you know, it was a, obviously it's a Friday because that always happens so they can wet you down on the weekend. Right. But I was put like in Manhattan Correctional Center, which is like a crap hole, and they shoved me in like a solitary, could find would sell. And I stayed there for the weekend and I got bond, $2.5 million. how did they justify that high of a bond i have absolutely no idea i have no idea so my family was um generous enough we all like put up our houses and um i was released i should take a step back

and just say that my arrest was horrific it was a felony car stop on my family and I wasn't even in the vehicle and they throw our two kids and my wife into the driveway at machine gun point because there were 25 U.S. Marshals because I guess they thought I was like Jason born and I was going to take them all out or something and their background investigation It was so poor. I wasn't even in the vehicle when they when they did the felony car stop. So I hear screaming out in the street. So I'm coming around the backyard where I'm planting tomato plants for my wife. And there's eight marshals pointing machine guns at me. One of them's yelling get on the ground. The other ones yell, put your hands up. The other one's yelling like do jumping jacks. I mean, they're all yelling something different, you know. And I got a shovel in my hand. And I got a shovel in my hand. I'm like, I basically scream at him to shut up. And they finally shut up.

And I say, I'm going to put the shovel down. I'm going to lie down on the ground. I'm going to put my hands up. I'm going to face my palms up in the air. Like, I basically arrested myself. Right. You know, I went through the motions so that nobody would get hurt. I went out.

They dragged, they took me out in cuffs and, you know, read me the charges, which was conspiracy to obstruct justice. And, you know, then they took me down to MCC. I ended up getting bonded out. Part of my bond requirement was I couldn't have any contact with any potential witnesses. Well, while it was away, one of my friends was on vacation, and he had met Michael Taylor,

I think through a social event that I was at, that Taylor met me at. And, you know, it wasn't like Taylor's identity needed to be hidden, like, some sources because, you know, it's Mike Taylor, high school football coach, private investigator. You know, it wasn't a situation where, you know, I couldn't hang out with the guy, so to speak.

So my friend was away and it comes back. and he had heard over the news that I was arrested because it was all over all the news is. And he comes home from, he was overseas and he pulls into my driveway. And I see him and I walk out and I'm like, hey, look, you can't be here. I'm not allowed to have anybody here.

And he's like, what's going on? You know, what happened? And I like explain a little of it to him. And then he leaves. Nine months later, through the investigation, the public integrity unit interviews this guy and he's like look you got it all wrong Bob's like the greatest guy in the world matter of fact when I visited him when I got home when he was out on bond and boom they brought me in the court and revoked my

bond because I had spoken to a potential witness my witness but a potential witness nonetheless yeah that's such a fucking reach yeah oh but i mean that's you know but unfortunately my case was out of utah which i had never been there like how it became out of utah was mike taylor's partner in that original indictment had bought a house in Utah. So ill-gotten gains in Utah for that indictment somehow made me involved to the point where my arrest, the case was coming out of Utah, which the nexus made no sense. I mean, so off to Utah I went on Conair and I had a special situation because I don't know why but I didn't just get you know the shackles I got the bar between the legs and the black box

yeah you know I got the full Hannibal Lecture treatment except for the leather mask and they stuck me in a county facility while I was away to go to court in salt lake city and i was in solitary confinement in a super max when for uh 17 months 20 months something like that and i um i finally got out into max security where i mean you they couldn't they didn't they revoke your bond but they couldn't they couldn't um like you it's you didn't get a a court hearing where you could go in front of the judge and say the guy pulled into my fucking into my driveway yeah like i just told me hey bro you can't be here i explained look i got arrested there's an investigation you may be a witness so i can't talk to you and then i would you would think that the the judge would be like okay that's reasonable like what are we doing here you would think right but we're talking about salt lake city and okay there's a whole other mindset out there okay And you're talking about a government employee and you're talking about an area where righteousness is number one on everybody's mind, even though righteousness is a decision that they make arbitrarily. not to speak disparagingly about, you know, certain communities, but to be an FBI agent, arrested in an area that's 90% Mormon, Latter-day Saints, is not really a great thing.

It's like the, I had a buddy that went to trial, and during voir dire, they asked one of the juror members, can you be impartial? about this. And he goes, I don't think so. And they said, why not? And he goes, well, the guy was indicted on 30 counts of wire fraud. He did something. Right. And it's like, okay, just because I've been indicted and arrested doesn't necessarily mean that I've done anything fucking wrong, but people can't see that. Well, he was indicted. Right. You can indict anybody. The old saying, you can indict a ham sandwich. Right. I mean, literally, some of the indictments that I saw were like, when I was in, were like, ridiculous. Yeah. So in any event, I was out there.

Michael Taylor was in a county jail out there as well. And I had made the mistake of not researching my attorney. And to be honest, I actually got my attorney on a recommendation from Michael Taylor, which looking at it later on was probably the second. dumbest thing I've ever done in my life right you know so first being taking the transfer because the irony behind that whole little league story and coaching is my son quit so I wasn't coaching anyways um so it all came down to that CEPA hearing Matt and you know my defense is was I was doing my job and I can prove that that I was manipulating or trying to manipulate

Taylor by showing them all the other cases where I had manipulated people into doing things through deception. So at the hearing, the judge asked the prosecution, what are you going to do if I let Mr. Lustig talk about his job? And they said, we're going to drop all the charges. So in my head, it was a Thursday. In my head, I'm going home. Right.

They don't want to hear the stuff that I've done. I mean, I could have got up on that stand and talked about a source that raped a woman. And when I went in and said, all right, well, let's close this guy down. You know, management was like, no, we can't. you know like sources that committed like serious crimes right the because of national security and the information being provided we were told to keep working them right you're going to let this guy keep roam the streets and potentially rape another american citizen because he's a source which is what occurred and um i uh i figured you know

I'm going to lay that all out and a jury's going to see, hey, this guy, you know, might be guilty of being a good liar. Right. But he was putting, yeah, yeah. He didn't commit any crime. So she said she was going to rule on Monday. We came in on Monday and it was a quick decision. She basically said, hey, or lustic everything in your head is proper the united states government it's not going to come

out in court and when that happened you know the assistant director of nsa the CIA legal team the FBI they all got up they like looked at me kind of waved and walked out of the courtroom and i i knew that day that i was kind of done yeah you don't have a a viable defense at that point no no they get to present your case and you have to sit there and just sit on your hands and keep your mouth shut and my lawyer was like oh maybe we'll figure out a way to talk around it you know but i also knew that that wasn't going to be allowed right you know so at the same time my lawyer and i were not getting along it was all about money money money money I owe you you owe me money you owe me money you owe me money uh he had done some things

with my wife without me knowing you know like financially he had CJA but he was still getting money from my wife okay so for anybody listening that that's basically he's a court appointed attorney he's getting paid uh by the government but he's still asking for more money yeah that's not i don't even think that's allowed no it's not No, it's actually a crime, but, you know, one that while you're going through what you're going through, you can't prove. Right. You know, it's like not, I don't have, I don't have the common sense, the wherewithal to, like, prove that at the time when I'm watching my entire life going to the toilet, you know? So basically what happened was the judge.

after I told the judge what was going on we had a conference call and the judge in that conference call said look mr. lawyer what you're doing is borderline unethical so you're off the case and I got a court appointed attorney and what it happened right before that was and this this is like a nightmare like if i start to cry just don't start laughing at me um no i bro listen i cry i cry like every other day so like the trial is going they're going to start picking the jury on monday and this is like friday my lawyer looks at me and he's like how did you meet michael taylor again and i was like i like i like started like convulsing you know and I said look what is going on like you don't remember like we've been

talking for almost two years now and he's like my co-defendant like you have to know what's going on and he said oh I'm writing my my opening statement so I want to make sure I'm clear on it and he was having myself and another attorney print out text messages from discovery and writing on them like what it meant Friday before Monday so I knew I was done and I said to him what you know what's going on and he said you know what you're you should change your your plea to guilty and i said well why would it you know why he said you're only going to get like my offense level was a 15 right or 14 so that's like 15 to 21 months you're only going to get 21 months you've already done that so this will be over with and i i i

I said, you know, are you sure? And he's like, yeah, like, this is going to be done. Just go in and plead guilty. So I talked to my wife and kids, and they were, have been distraught, you know, the whole time. My, you know, my children, my son saw their dad who had been like a hero. Right. And now, you know, it was the opposite. So I went in.

My lawyer called the prosecutor and said, hey, my client is going to go in on Monday and change his plea to guilty. What can you give him? And the prosecutor said, sounds like they don't got to give him anything. So my lawyer put the cart before the horse. And my dumbass, excuse my language, went in and pled open. yeah that was definitely a the dumbest thing i've never done yeah and your lawyer sounds like it's just a complete moron i it's funny when i i got my PSI right it was 32 years to life and i went so first of all you can't get life for what i did right and i went i'll go to trial

And they were like, my lawyer's like, what? And I said, I might as well switch my plea. I mean, the motion gives me 32 years. And you're saying the low end is 32 years. I'll just go to trial. I can prove a lot of these enhancements aren't true. And I probably get myself sent this to something a lot lower. And she was like, so she calls the prosecutor.

Prosecutor actually has the secret service agent come down with my pre-sentence report to a meeting with my lawyer and the secret service agent. And I go, we go over my PS, PSR with her. And while she's like, okay, well, what do you think doesn't apply? And I'm like, this one. She's like, okay, this one, okay. And while we're there, my lawyer actually says, well, we can get rid of these, this two level enhancement, because you can't charge him with this,

with like taking advantage of a vulnerable victim you can't charge someone with vulnerable victim and charge them with over 50 victims she said that she said if and she showed the um the actual enhancement and how it said that has you can't charge them with both and then i immediately thought why would you say that like why would we tell them that why wouldn't we just get it as far down as we can and when you go and and have the U.S. attorney agree to it at sentencing, then go in front of the judge and say, Your Honor, by the way,

you also have to remove these two levels because you can't charge them with both of these enhancements. But she was such a poor negotiator that as soon as she said it, I thought, what did you just do? I immediately thought, what did you just do? Like, you just cost me like three years. Right.

because you're such a bad negotiation and that's the same thing like oh my client's going to plead guilty what can you give them no you go in and say listen we've got this and this and this i prepare my thing we're ready to fucking go like if you're going to make an offer make it now because when we start this thing i'm telling you right now we're going to clean your fucking clock so i'm just calling up to let you know if you want me to bring something to my client let me know and then have him say right listen bro if he just pleads fucking guilty i mean i'll cut him loose like that's the way to go about it. And they have nothing on the line. That lawyer's got nothing on the line. And the hardest thing about it is people don't understand the chance you take when you go to trial in the United States. The whole idea of, you know, fair trial is just ridiculous. When I learned about the term break you off.

I was like, I can't, that doesn't happen in America. And what I mean is, you know, let's say you have a zero to five year, max is five years. In the United States, if you go to trial and lose, they can double, triple your length of sentence because you went to trial. Yeah. And it's insane. In other countries, say like Canada, if it's zero. zero to five the max you can get is five and you go to trial like they don't clee out they go to trial and then you'll get five years in the united states i had an offense level 14 15 to 21 months

i was enhanced 10 levels because the job opportunity that i was going to get when i retired was a 200 000 a year salary roughly so that was a 10 level enhancement um i obviously was as a public official so that was another three i had to be the leader organizer because i was the case agent so that was another three i went from a 15 to like you to like a 34 and for doing what my job i mean it's insanity and i understand why why they have a 98% win rate Because, you know, lawyers, even defense lawyers, especially public defenders, will tell their client, look, we can go to trial. But if you lose, you're going to get, they're going to break you off. Yeah.

You're going to get your sentence doubled. And, you know, you're never coming out. Yeah, I was going to say, like, I can't tell you how many guys I know that were off for three years and went to trial and got 20, got 17 or got 19. you know what do you and you know it's like how did i you think i deserve three years and then i went to trial and you gave me 19 like that the disparity is is it's massive and i was going to say the other thing i always tell people is so if you're guilty you got a hundred percent chance of being found guilty if you're innocent you got about 50 60 percent chance i don't even think it's that high i mean i think it's higher yeah i think you're guilty until proven guilty yeah like

That's what I learned. And, I mean, I look at it from, you know, the other side of the coin, like federal courtrooms are set up specifically for intimidation. You know, you have the judge up high. You have the jury box. Right across on the wall in every federal courtroom is the United States seal where it says, in God, we trust. They put that deliberately across from the jury box. on the defendant is down low he's furthest away from the jury the whole thing is is set up for to intimidate people and to take in a plea it feels like it's the judge jury

against this guy yeah it's wrapped around pointing at this guy yep and they really you know they they have the advantage of, you know, walking you in in handcuffs. You're, you know, orange jumper or whatever you're wearing that day. Even if you're guilty. Yeah, I mean, you're guilty. You're guilty and so proven guilty in the United States. 2% get away with, you know, being innocent. But, you know, the reason that these guys take all these plea deals is because, you know,

I'm a young African-American male, and I get busted for a drug crime. I have 80% of African-American women, black women in America, 80% of them know somebody that's been indicted federally. Like, that's how it is in their community. So if I'm a kid from the street, I know a whole bunch of guys that have already gone in. And I know how the games played. You know, I know I'm going to get a plea agreement. I'm going to take it and I'm going to do my time. I'm going to get out.

In my world, in small town USA, where you're like a local hero and you're like an FBI agent, you don't know that that's how it works. Well, and you think, you know, it's funny. It's like, oh, you're innocent. Well, then you should have gone to trial. Right. Exactly. Well, if you're innocent, why did you plead guilty?

Right. And the greatest irony is they tell you, you're innocent. can't lie and then they make you lie they literally say you can't lie to us so we're going to charge you with perjury but when you go in to change your plea lie like stand up in front of the courtroom and and throw yourself by saying how guilty you are right because if you don't now you lose your two levels of responsibility you lose your so it's hey we're going to go throw another three level two to three levels on there uh so that and two to three levels you know obviously every level you get is more and more months so like you know that extra level might

go from 17 more months and then you say oh no no now there's two more levels it's not 17 twice now it's 17 plus an additional 19 oh no no it's three and if it's three but then it's 17 19 and 21 or 22 like it just like it just starts getting to be outrageous and i mean you're in a cell and all you're doing is thinking about it yeah and you get 10 minutes to talk to your spouse to come up with a decision you know it's a 15 minute phone call or for me out in utah was 35 dollars every time i call home wow yeah so you know it was like when when I was thrown the bait that it was only going to be a

21 month sentence and I listened to my children and my wife crying I unfortunately took the bait and changed my plea in my world what I did I think at worst would have been

an administrative issue you know even if you know even if it was what they say how did it go from a level 14 to a level 34 i mean that's just you know it's unfair it's unfair and i don't want this to be about myself i want this to be about like guys like you other guys that are out there guys that have gone through it look the system is unfair and you don't

know it until you go through it and when that happens it's too late you know like it's like going into a port of john right you think you're going into a clean restroom the port of john's a mess you're sitting on the can and you're out of toilet paper you don't realize you're out of toilet paper so it's time that white you know what i mean like not to be totally disgusting but i mean that's what it's like I mean, you realize, uh-oh, I need something and, whoops, it's too late. Like, I'm already done. I'm already going where I'm going. And so that's what happened to me.

I, after I changed my plea, I went and I was, I did diesel therapy. So what did you get? 15 years. I'm sorry, you said you did diesel therapy, you got sentenced and then got diesel therapy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So what I also got diesel therapy because I went back and forth from New York to Utah like seven times. So anyways, I ended up, you know, bouncing through, I must have been to a dozen different jails and prisons.

and ended up at a damn very low where i was told i'd never be able to go to a camp by the captain why's that um i had a a public safety factor for greatest severity for kidnapping yeah who's you kidnaps well because my as it was described to me explained my my My job, you know, when you work counterterrorism, a lot of times you'll, I guess, take people and interrogate them or interview them or whatever it is. I don't know. So it looked like I was going to do my whole time, you know, at Danbury. And one day I said, this doesn't make sense and I'm getting punished for my job. Right.

So I wrote the judge and the judge said that he recommended that the Bureau of Prisons removed the public safety factor. Two days later, I'm in the chow line and the captain calls me over and he's like, you're leaving, roll up. And I was like, where am I going? And he's like, you're leaving tomorrow, you're going to a camp. And I said, all right, I'd like to go to Otisville, you know, like, that's my number one choice. And he said, Luston, the choice, you're going where I send you.

And I ended up in Ferretton, New Jersey, which is like, that's good. Yeah, it was three and a half hours away from my house. And Otisville was 30 minutes. Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. So, but I was at a camp. So that was great. and i was at the camp maybe two years when i um was sent on home confinement due to the cares

act oh okay so how much time had you done completely eight eight years fuck yeah eight and um i have a year to go on home confinement i've been home it'll be four years i think this june yeah this june so i think all together i had to do 12.75 or you know something like that on a 50 15 year bid so i have a year to go and you know home confinement is a blessing you know but it's also a curse right you know people are always asking me what it's like and you know the restrictions are real tough although I'm very lucky my case manager is you know fantastic um but it it's like going to a strip club with a roll of quarters right you know you're gonna see the dancers but you ain't gonna get asked to be up

front right and literally that's what it's like you know I can put in for a request to go maybe to like my son's college football game or or uh to the doctor or things like that but it's not like i'm walking out of my house and i'm you know going anywhere socially or or or anything like that but it's you know still not prison yeah it's a blessing for me yeah i was going to say when i um told my my probation officer that i got married and she's like oh okay she said you uh you uh you you plan on going or you know to go to a honeymoon and i was like no no we're going to schedule something she said okay she said make sure it's close i was like i said i i can't go to mexico she says no and i said i can't go to i said what about colorado i could go skiing and she

goes that'd be nice she said but it's probably not going to happen yeah it's and you know it's so arbitrary because you'll hear some guys, especially like, you know, in New York, where the probation officers are like swamped even more. You know, they'll, um, they'll get to go places. Well, I can travel for work. So, I mean, she has to, like, I have to show her, here's the email, here's what's happening. These people want me to come to Los Angeles. I have to go, here's what I'm doing. I'm getting paid to do a keynote speech. I'm, you know, I go through the whole. thing and then she then it's what flight are you taking when are you coming back where are you staying what are the phone numbers where are the addresses how are you traveling what i mean everything

so it's like man this is it's and you know another thing that was hard to learn is is that the whole idea of hey you did the crime you did the time doesn't exist what what people especially like from my world don't realize it's things like a credit card you get a credit card and then they cancel it when they find out that you're a felon or you know you uh you might pose a risk in in in one way or another you're when i was initially arrested uh city bank dropped us like they they basically said, yeah, you're a high profile. You violate our morals clause or something like that. USAA insurance that I had been involved in in 25 years dropped us. Things like that, that I can't help because I'm incarcerated. And it's all dumped on, you know, the people

that are outside, in my case, my spouse. Right. People don't understand it. The real victim on our side of things is our family right we get three hots in a cop you know we're wherever we are whether you're in a cell or whether you're in a you know a dormitory setting you're at a camp whatever it is you're still getting meals you're still got a place to lay your head you're not paying bills anymore you're not you know doing anything like that all you're you're doing is like trying to find magazines to read or read books or work out or you know play cards or whatever you're doing and it's your family that's suffering well i always say it's like it's anybody who has a relationship with someone in prison it's such a one-sided relationship with

it because all you can do is can you send me this can you look up this can you call so-and-so can you do this i mean like if i wasn't a prick on the outside if i wasn't a selfish prick on the outside boy put me in prison where all I can do is call you like I can imagine soon as these people saw my number come up on the phone they must have been like you're exactly right I mean I it it just forces you to be me mean me because you have 15 minutes or 10 minutes and you're lying in your bunk or you're sitting wherever you are all day long thinking about that call that's going to come that night and all you can have running through your head is what do I need what do I need what do I need I mean I can't tell you what an ass I was how many times I was like

yeah but did you put money on my books yeah you know oh your son broke his arm yeah all right but is there money on my books I mean whatever was going on in the in the real world that they had to deal with you don't even it's in one ear and out the other because because there's nothing you can do about it anyways. So you compartmentalize it. You kind of like just don't even hear it. You flush it. And you go right to, yeah, but did you call the lawyer?

Did you sign me up for Sports Illustrated? Did, you know, is there money on my books? You know, and it's, it's terrible. It's a terrible situation. And, I mean, I came home. I don't know about you, but I came home when I was, I was institutionalized. Oh, yeah.

Big time. For about three to three 30 every day for probably the first year, I felt extremely anxious like I'm supposed to be, I have to be in myself to be counted. I have to be like there are so many times during the day when I got this extreme anxiety or even for the first month or so when the front door, the doorbell would ring or someone would knock. I remember thinking just instinctively, like they figured out they shouldn't let me go.

That's the marshal's coming to say, listen, Mr. Cox, it's been revoked. We're grabbing you. You got to go, you know, it's terrible. I mean, my wife, when I came home, she was like, you know, can I ask you a question? I was like, yeah, sure, what's up? She's like, why do you flush the toilet 15 times every time you go in the bathroom? And I was like, well, you know, every time, you know, every time it hits water. And she's like, what are you talking about?

Like the rules that you learn when you're in, they just don't translate out in the real world. I mean, she said to me, why are you lining your shoes up under your bed? What, like, you have a closet. And I was like, uh, and then another time that I carried my tooth. brush out to the living room. I literally I literally brush my teeth and then you know you're used to like

going in taking it out you know and you're probably standing there watching TV and holding your toothbrush and didn't think a thing about it. There was another time where I took the roll of toilet paper out with me. You know

another time I freaked out because my wife put two rolls of toilet paper on the desk right outside the bathroom I use and I like started to like Twitch because like you're used to like when you get

to like a lower camp they put that role on your on your rack you know all of a sudden I was like why are you doing that? She's like you know you need toilet paper like yeah but don't put it on don't put it on the desk like that you know she's like

you might want to go to therapy and another I mean my relationship with like my family was was rough i mean especially my son he's he was you know when i left he was a a young boy and every visit he asked me when he coming home dad and i would have a motion in and i was like i'm going to win this i'll be home soon and i believed it you know i was like oh for 47 i mean the only one i won was to go to a camp and to get the cares at so i was two for 47 so i'm not going to the hall of fame as far as like uh violent motions so um you know i would

say to him oh this is going to be in i got this motion in i know i'm going to win i'll be home and i would lose so it went on like that year after year for year so he became skeptical so everything that came out of my mouth he was like oh yeah and he would like google you know like right in front of me like And they'd be like, no, you're wrong. That's wrong. And there was one meal we were having, and we're at, like, the island in the kitchen. And he, like, reached across my plate to get the ketchup. I grabbed his arm.

And I, like, slammed it down on the island. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Excuse my language. Yeah. He's like, the ketchup. And I realized, you know, in in when you're in you don't reach across somebody's food trade like you're right saying let's fight you know and i had brought it home with me i had brought home a lot of

those a lot of those prison rules that make no sense and even though i had been in a camp for two years i still hadn't lost a lot of those rules and it it was something where i had to really you know, take a hard look at myself and become a better person. You know, this whole experience for me occurred because I let my ego take my soul. And I thought my, my poop didn't stink because I was like the eye, and, you know, and there were only 4,500 of us or something like that, you know. and I think at some point I was like above the law because I was the law right and I got myself into a jam there was a day my wife and I were talking about Michael Taylor and she said hey you know

this don't sound right you should close this case and I was like nah I you don't know what you're talking about i got this like i'm going to catch this terrorist i'm going to ride off on a white horse you know i'm i'm going to be the hero again and i ended up to go you know and and it's my fault like i'm not sitting here you know talking you saying i didn't do anything wrong this is my fault like i own up to it and i don't want anybody who you know listen to us to think that i'm not like i i own up to it like i mean i have deserved 15 years but I deserved I deserve to have my ego brought down you know I needed to be humbled right but sadly it took prison to do that um can I ask you a

question when you went to you went to what a low initially yeah okay when you were at the load like did people know you were FBI it's a funny story so when they transferred me across the last place i was in was pittsburgh or maybe ohio but it was a real it was not a nice spot and um and they took me on a bus to danbury alone which you know is right away hard yeah and everybody in intake like all the orderlies are like oh wait what's going on here you know i get to danbury and s is comes to talk to me and they're like hey look don't tell anybody what you did uh don't let him know that you're with the fbi or this you know you work with the cia or whatever you know whatever you were doing you know like nobody knows nobody needs to

know um if you see anything going on let us know and i was like like no those days are over like that ain't happen um and then they shut down the yard and walk me across to my unit right across the compound they unlocked they unlocked my unit door and the inmates standing there looks at me and goes hey the FBI agents here so i mean it didn't even last a second right you know so that being said in the beginning you know the rules are no sex offenders no rats and no cops in a tv room so i was in the tv room and you know a shot caller came up and said hey you can't be in here and i was like no i'm good and and the second shot caller came and said look you know we got rules here you can't be in here and i said no no i'm i'm gonna be in here

then it brought the the the white boy shot caller and they're all three but we're like yo dude you you can't you know you can't be here so the shot caller for the bloods had one of his buddies with him one of his boys with him who needed to like earn stripes like to move up and they were like all right well how do you want to handle this and i said well let's go to the shower so we went into the shower room and you know they were uh the the white boy said the he said who do you want first and i was like well let's just get it over come on all everybody let's just make it fun and they they were like looking at me like i was crazy now mind you i'm not like a little guy right and you know i'm i'm you know relatively strong

It actually saved me in a lot of different ways. So anyways, they send the guy who needs to, like, move up the ladder. And, you know, without going into detail, I took care of business. So I'm allowed in the TV room. But the next day, I'm out in the yard. And about 20, you know, guys that maybe are affiliated, you know, I don't want to call anybody out they come walking up to me and I'm like oh man in my head I'm like this is it like this is not going to go well maybe I'll take five 10 of them with me but this is going to be a bad

movie and the shockroller comes up and he's like hey you know I need to talk to you and I was like look what what do you want and he's like we don't want any trouble we're wondering if you could like teach us a class like what you did to that guy yesterday like can you teach us that i was like what you want me to run like a like a defense tactics class like in prison i said no i can't do that so when i first that was like the second day so that day i went into the weight pile into the wait room and that a weight room yeah damn very used to be a female prison and they switched it over to men so they had a wait room but the weights only went up to like 35 pounds and like it was but it was a weight room right and I was excited

because back in the day I had won a couple bodybuilding shows I had been a football player I was a big weight lifting I walk in all Jamaican guys and big Jamaican comes walking over me big huge guy dreadlocks he's like you know you uh what car are you what car you in and I was like He was like, what car are you riding in? And I was like, Chevy Tahoe. Like, I had no idea what it meant because I had been in soup. I had been in solitary and stuff, you know, like. And out in Utah, there aren't any minorities except for, uh, Polisians that I never saw a black guy.

The whole time I was in Utah prison. And, um, they were all laughing at me. me and and one guy stepped forward he's like oh you're the fed you're the fed i'm like yeah i'm a yeah like i guess yeah so they let me work out and i like put 315 on the bench and i like crushed it like 22 times and they realized wow this guy and it was like the only time i never done that in my life that many times like i knew i knew this is it man i got to do this right now like this is it like where's my adrenaline you know and i gotta i gotta make this work long story short i ended up working out with four of the shot callers and me like a latin king a white boy a blood and an fbi

aging like right that was our workout car and i ran recreation i was the head of recreation one this is a funny story one one day i'm uh i'm set up for floor hockey because they had floor hockey and i put the goalie equipment on just for like giggles and the guys are shooting on me and I'm like saving everything so one of the guys from like the genovese family comes up and he's like hey there's a christmas tournament coming up you want to be our goalie and i couldn't stop laughing and he's what are you laughing at i said like every movie we've ever seen every mob movie like i'm the fbi agent like you're the mob guy like i can't be your goalie and he said come on man you're really good so i was like all right what the hell i did it

just because it was like something that's tell people yeah i was just going to say i'd do it just for the content yeah i literally did that so we win four games and i'm like playing like um going to the hall of fame i mean i'm saving everything and we got the final game coming up and it's like two nights away and i'm sitting in my recreation all office and the CO comes up and he's like man lusty i can't believe you're like going to be the goalie in the championship game for the mob guys like the italian guys and i was like yeah you know me either he's like yeah you know they got they got big money on that game i was like what like yeah they got like 140 grand in that game and all i saw was like me to

letting up like 10 goals and then my family disappearing so i got to tell you matt i looked around that recreation office and i reached up in the cabinet and i grabbed a three-hole punch and i smashed it out of my hand right in front of the ceo and i said i need to go to medical and he looked at me and he was like he takes me to medical now medical in prison like it ain't medical yeah yeah yeah So the PA in medical is like, oh, I'm just going to put tape on it. And the CO's like, nah, put him in a cast. And he's like, no, no, no. His finger, the two of his fingers are broken.

But he doesn't need a cast. I'll just, you know, I'll tape him up. And the CEO, probably saved my life, was like, no, put him in a cast. So he casted me up. And I went back out on the yard. And, you know, the CEO. told the story that a violent cabinet had when we were moving it had landed on my hand so i got out of that game and i i mean what that what the italian guys were you just like man i'm sorry

i wanted to be there for you guys too yeah oh no they came to me they were like oh my god we can't believe this happened man we feel so bad you know like they were like legitimately like you know nice to me and you know the funny thing is you would think this like my life would have been a living hell right but i got to tell you and people need to understand it i actually met better men in prison than i sat next to in like fbi offices i mean they were like higher like they were good men like i met good men and you know i made lifelong friends And I really, you know, people need to understand that because you can't judge someone for a moment of unclarity because we all have it. It's just that some people, when they lose the moral compass for that moment, you know, really mess up and get caught.

Other people, you know, become U.S. congressman. I mean, it's really just a matter of where you are and what time it is. You know, it could go either way. It could go either way. And I saw a lot of guys whose paperwork was screwy, who's had FBI paperwork that I knew was wrong. At one point, we helped the guy get out. I talked to his attorney because I knew that the FBI had, you know, erroneously done some of this paperwork. he ended up winning and getting himself out um the men the men treated me based on who i am

and like how i how i treated them i mean at the low units were released to the chowhold based on how he did in the weekly inspection right we were last like every week when i was there And finally, I was like, screw this. And I started cleaning the showers and the toilets. And we started winning. Right. And all those guys that had a problem with me, because I was a cop or a fed or an agent, all of a sudden, I was feeding them. And they started to be like, you know what?

This guy ain't some asshole cop. He's like on his hands and knees cleaning the toilet. And I'm getting the benefit out of it because I'm going to the chow hall first and not last where there's nothing left right and you know they started to show me respect like a lot more respect and my time there you know I had a couple situations but only one physicality ironically the other ones were cleared up by members of the group organization that the individual who was having a problem with me was from they would come up and be like you know you don't want to mess with that guy right and you know it would it would go away and I was treated I was treated

great I mean the funny thing is like the upper management had more of a problem with me than like inmates, you know, because you have captains and stuff in the BOP that, you know, probably had applied to the bureau or other agencies that didn't get the job. And then here I am, you know, the dirty FBI agent. And so I hope people don't, you know, don't judge guys that come out just based on the one mistake they might have made because they're, you know, there are a lot of great guys. I mean, sure, there are a lot of, a lot of dirt bags, but they're also a lot of great guys, you know? Yeah. No, definitely. And just like you, I mean, I've probably, you know, the, some, matter of fact, to be honest, I don't really even know or hang out with anybody that

I didn't meet in federal prison at this point, you know? I mean, so you kind of froze. Okay, never mind. Yeah, I was going to say, it's funny because like the, I always joke around and say it's because the decent people don't want to be around me, you know. And, and the thing is, is that I don't really want to be around them either. Like, I like, you know, it's, it doesn't bother me, but when I hang out with regular people, you know, my, my wife and I went to this thing the other day, this guy at the gym invited us to go to a, um, like a party at this place called the crates, which is like a outdoor mall. And he does it once a year, I think. And so we, went. And so I saw these people because I met this guy at the gym. There's tons of people at the gym. And they, you know, you see them to nod. You see them every morning. So you nod at them and stuff. But you don't really talk to them. And so now you got a chance where they come up and they start talking to you. And I never shy away about being in prison. You know, usually it starts with the whole, you know, oh, what do you do for a living? Right. I'm, you know, oh, I run up, you know, I have a YouTube channel. Oh, okay. What do you talk about? What's that? I'm like, oh, it's on true crime. Oh, how did you get into that?

like not that I'm avoiding it I just know the natural progression of the conversation I said oh you know well I got into some trouble and then I went went to prison I did about 13 years and they're like you I'm sorry what you were what you know then they're like well wait a minute you were in prison for 13 years I'm like yeah got out a few years ago started channel and so I interview other guys and they're like well what did you do like oh it was bank fraud and you know I kind of give them a very brief the three minute version and even then you can tell their entire tone changes oh yeah like you know because we must have met six or seven different people that we see every single day or at least five five six days a week and they completely like became standoffish and oh um oh okay like the relaxed giggling and laughing and having a good time completely changed on each one of them and you know it's it's but if some guy's been in prison you don't get that. You know, they're very, you know, hey, what's up with such and such and hey, you know, and it's, it's very familiar. And if you say something that's, you know, a normal person is put off by, they're not put off by that. No. You know, they meet like,

oh, bro, what'd you do? What have? Would you go? Okay. You know, it's a completely different feel because they've been through the experience and it bonds you to them. Oh, 100%. 100% because you know everybody's hell is relative but when you're inside everybody's in hell yeah you know like we're all in there together and i always feel that like when you find yourself in hell keep walking right and a lot of those guys that i was in with you know we did that walk together And now that throughout, you know, I was able to help a lot of the guys get like, you know, certify as personal trainers. They've started their own businesses.

You know, I try to do as much as I can to help the guys and I knew that we're in that are out now because, you know, recidivism is a real, a real right in your face kind of deal because it's so hard when you get out to do. anything it is it's it's crazy of you people like yourself that are so successful it's like fantastic to see what there's like a hundred other guys that don't want to work at walmart not that there's anything bad about working at walmart but you know they don't want to they can't survive you know and they just get driven back to the street yeah for whatever reason They don't have a support system. All these things you heard about on inmate.com about,

oh, there's all these grants you can get when you get out. The government will help you. They're going to help you get back into society. You can get a free college education. You know, you can, there's all these things you can do. They don't exist. No. You know?

And if they do, they're buried so deep that I can't afford to buy the shovel to get to them. Yeah. You know, and it's sad. And it's sad all the way through, Matt. I mean, a CEO in the federal prison system gets paid less than an FBI secretary. So that guy walks into work every day and has to listen to crap. And then has to go home and listen to his. spouse and her crap because they're barely making a check to check.

And then they wonder why you might have a CO that gets dirty. And, you know, they talk about like, oh, there's so much drugs in prison. Well, in my opinion, you know, if you cut the head of the snake off, you don't have to feed it anymore. so if you paid COs what they're worth because it is a dangerous job i don't care what anybody says things should go wrong so quickly right and if you pay them what they were worth the temptation might go away and then you may not get guys you know as many guys having trouble with K2 or drugs that are in there or a lot of problems, I think, would go away if, if COs, you know, were, in my opinion, paid like what they're worth. And when I speak about this, guys that

were in are like, oh, what are you talking about? Like COs, like you, why are you on their side? And that's like the unique perspective I get from being on both sides of the coin is that I see that, you know, these guys, there was a, at the camp, we had 150 guys. One of the guys went into a seizure outside of the basketball court. Everybody surrounds him. Nobody's like actually, you know, helping him, helping him. And our CO is a pregnant female, like eight months pregnant. right she's the only ceo yeah so now she's on the ground trying to help this guy who's having a seizure and the guys just keep moving in not that they're going to do anything but they want to like

you know see what's going on or help or whatever you know whatever it is support the guy that's having a seizure and in my head i'm thinking like she's thinking i'm like oh my god she must be terrified because she's starting to like snap around and look around so what do i do i go in because i have some training i go in and i like show her like oh move his bend his knees move him here do this do that you know and you know i committed the ultimate offense i touched another inmate so believe it or not like the next day i'm in the lieutenant's office and they're thinking of like writing me up and she came to my defense and she was like i'm eight months pregnant and i'm working the camp by myself i was terrified and this guy helped me you should be rewarding him not writing him up

so you know it all went away but my point is you know they have a dangerous job i mean even at a camp because there's some campers that move their way down as you know and they still got paperwork in there and you don't know when that mail call comes and that guy gets you know his denial from the court and then somebody says something to them and they think they're joking around and they don't realize the lousy days have that guy could pop off and if he pops off in a camp by the time that CO hits the red button it's like 15 20 minutes before they come from the medium right you know like it's a ceos have a dangerous job the FBI people think oh that must be so dangerous we do our homework we'll sit outside your house we'll turn your power off we'll turn your water off we'll wait

we got all the time in the world you know We'll show up with 100 agents. Seals, they don't get that opportunity. You know, they got to react right away. So I know it's not a popular argument, but I really feel that they're underpaid and they're undervalued. And the same thing is a lot of them are former military. Right. So what kind of value are we given, you know, to our veterans if we get them out of the military and they're now.

making the same amount as they were as an E5, only now they're getting taxed out of, you know, wazoo. I don't mean to preach, but I want to make sure that, you know, it's clear that I have regret and for what I did to my family and my friends in my career. But I also know that it's not that I'm glad it happened but it made me a better man right I can see I can see that I mean I feel the I feel the same way like I don't feel like I needed to do 13 years but I feel like you know it it put it put life in perspective for me me as well like like I said in the beginning my ego destroyed my soul like I was I was a person who who always trying to to do the right thing for people and I always want to help people and that person got lost

because my ego was so strong that I needed to have that one last big case and it led me down a path I should have never went down and I was manipulated by the person I thought I was manipulating and i uh you know i regret that it happened but like i said i really i'm glad i was humbled and i'm glad i really like the person i am today and i don't think the person i am today would like the person i was i don't think they'd get along you know i really don't so that's interesting yeah i like that that's an interesting thought yeah i mean it's crazy but it's true you know i i was i was that asshole FBI agent you know yeah i did you ever see the movie the big short yeah a long time ago at one point um one of the guys goes down to florida and he's

interviewing brokers and there's they they interview like these three brokers and they're young good looking guys and they're like you know he's talked there the guys ask him like well who are you doing these loans for and they're like uh you know like i i basically focus on strippers bro like you know and the other one's like yeah i i'm straight illegal you know i'm saying no doc no you know no documents uh zero down like you know high interest rates you know that that you know me yeah then the other guys like me i i i totally i i you know they're like well who are how are they getting these loans oh i I stick them with lie boys, bro. I stick them with variable rate mortgages, get them in there, tell them this.

You know, you know, I'm saying? And I, you know, when I watch that movie, I think, those were my brokers. Like, they were all, all my brokers were douchebags. I had 12 douchebags and these were the guys. And at the time, I loved them. I thought they were great. But I look at them now and I go, wow, you were douchebags. Yeah, like you wouldn't like that.

No. It's funny, too. I think about that all the time. I think I couldn't stand to be around those guys now. Right. So, you know, and they're all driving BMWs. They got the right clothes. Their hair's perfect. You know, they got the whole. And I just think, God, bro, like what was important then is so not important now. And the way you learn that lesson the fastest is when they never visit you and they never want you. Yeah, and you're like, wait a minute, I gave you that BMW, I gave you that Porsche, I gave you that opportunity, and you can't even take the time to go on CoreLinks, or you can't even, like, write a letter or, you know, come visit me. And it sinks in, quick. Like, it's a quicksand in your mind.

Like, these people do not give a rat's ass about me. Yeah. And you really see the people that care about you when you come out of prison. Like, I'm fortunate. My community embraced me. And that's because when I left, I was, you know, a small town hero, for lack of a better term. And I came home and they saw the same, you know, the same person. and they they they didn't judge me the ones that do i don't know i don't hang around them

the ones that you know cared about me then care about me now i know because they showed up in my house when i got home right you know and it's just it's such an eye-opener when you go when you go through prison there's so many days you walk around with your eyes wide open it's like i can't believe this. I can't believe it's like this. I can't believe they did that to me. I can't believe my friends are gone. I can't, you know, it's just everything is I can't believe, you know? Yeah. I was talking in a toilet. You know, I tell people that story and they're like, what? I was in solitary confinement and I'm lying in my bunk and I hear voices. I hear my name and I'm like, I'm losing it already. I've been here like three days. I go over to the toilet.

and I hear empty out the water, empty out the water. So I'm like, all right, I empty out the water in the toilet, into the sink because they're combined. And I realize in prison, a toilet is a phone. Right. You know, and I talked to this guy who I never saw. I never met in person. I only know his first name. And he taught me all about prison and what to expect, what to do, what not to do.

and the guy like saved my life and literally he's a toilet like he's a voice of toilet you know i mean it's it's when i was locked up in uh it's called atlanta city detention center they call it acdc there were guys that would say bro what time is it and i'd be like uh it's it's almost seven oh i got to go and i go why they got a date like two stories up was the women's floor yeah so they would have a date where some girl in like you know whatever room number 21 would go to the girl in room number 19 and they'd empty out the toilet and they would have a date and for an hour I mean it's crazy never never if somebody told me oh yeah you're going to be talking into a toilet like in a month

I would have been like what are you talking about yeah and I know forward to it every day i'd be scooping that water out you know i mean it was it was when you look back it's ridiculous but look that guy that guy saved my life you know right my life i mean he taught me everything and i if if you're out there listening to this you know thank you because for a guy yeah yeah right look it's a great opportunity for me so for people to hear what i went through because the lesson really is you know listen to your soul before you listen to your ego like when you got something in your head telling you man don't do this don't do it like listen listen to your gut basically not your ego my whole my whole case is because of my ego and i uh

regret it i appreciate people like yourself because it gives me the opportunity the opportunity opportunity, you know, to maybe change somebody's mind who might be about to do the same stupid thing or something similar. And, you know, it's people like you that you have this way of getting a message out that's so important. And I don't think you give yourself enough credit for, like, how many lives you can actually change because there's so many people out there that probably listen to your show.

And it makes them think with clarity. and possibly not do something that maybe they were thinking of doing that they shouldn't. And that's a huge thing. And like I said in the beginning, you know, you might have touched a lot of money in your previous life. But now you're touching a lot of lives. And that makes you a huge success, Matt. And I appreciate having the opportunity to spend time with you. Well, I appreciate you saying that.

Hey, I appreciate you guys watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button. please check please leave a comment share the video and um check out my patreon thank you very much for watching see you