Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Harsh Truth About Hunter Moore | The Most Hated Man on the Internet

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

RDAP Dan Reveals the Real story behind Hunter Moore aka The Most Hated Man on the Internet. The Most Hated Man on the Internet is a 2022 American three-part Netflix docuseries that covers the story of Hunter Moore and his website Is Anyone Up?, a site based on stolen and hacked photos, and the struggle to take the website down.

You are always thinking in the back of your mind, I hope everything's okay, you know, because it feels good. You know, you've got the culture, you've got the momentum, you've got things going. It's that blind spot. You know, I look back on that now and that, you know, that thing that just hits you upside the head and you're like, damn, I should have been paying attention to that. I pour myself another drink and I started thinking, you know, how in the world am I going to live as an ex-convect? You know, do I want to live as an ex-convict? Can I live as an ex-convict? And my girls, I mean, they don't need the stain of a dad, you know, that they're going to have to deal with it.

It's an ex-con. And so I just, you know, I had another drink. You know, I got out the pin of paper, and I started thinking all the friends that have been friends and supportive, put the pin down, poured down to the drink, grabbed the keys of the car, and went down to the garage. And I didn't know if I was going to go hit a tree or if I was just going to let the car run. And it was like, Matt, something hit me. What in the hell are you doing, Brent? You're the glass half full guy.

You're the optimistic guy. You aren't this guy. And what a fool. And at that moment, I thought, you know, whatever happens, I said, you know, I'm going to be a survivor through this. I'm not going to be a victim. I'm not going to be pointing fingers and doing and feeling sorry for myself. I at least going to try to make my family proud of how I handle this situation. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I appreciate you guys checking in on me.

And I'm going to be doing a podcast with Brent Cassidy. And Brent's got a fascinating story. And I've heard some of it. I know a little bit of the story, but it's a lot like it's not the typical story. Well, one, it's extremely unique. but not just that. It's not like a bank robber or something where it was, you know, he robbed five banks and the story's over. He's got a long story. There's a lot of different things going on, a lot of moving parts. So it should be super interesting, really interesting guy. Also, he's running a, he runs the podcast. I'm pretty sure. You have a book, let me switch here to this. I'm not great at this yet. You have a book that came out, right? I do, yeah. You've got a book, you've got a podcast, and so yeah, we're going to go ahead and get

into Brent's story, and so check this out. So Brent, we talked a little bit the other day, and you started telling me your story, and I remember usually I talk to somebody and they'll tell me, you know, they'll talk for five minutes or something, but I can tell right away, like the more we talk, the more I was like, oh, wow, this is going to be, this is way, way more. before than typical you know yeah yeah so you want to start off by just kind of telling me like like where'd you you know where were you born like how yeah yeah so i you know man i thought growing up as a kid i grew up in southwest missouri small town um it's about two two and a half

hours three hours from st louis down in uh kind of a hillbilly country but uh It was good. It was kind of like, you know, one of those kids when you're growing up, you know, you ride your bike around the neighborhood. Everybody, you know, gets picked for teams. You play touch, tackle football and basketball and baseball. And you go home at night when the lights go down and you get, you know, your dinner and you're fed. My dad and mom were actually from a really small town that was about 30 minutes down the street from Springfield. It was Buffalo, Missouri. And so growing up as a kid, I thought we were living a problem. We were living a pretty normal life. I had a bigger-than-life dad in my life. He was one of those guys in his high

school. He won the state championship. He's valedictorian. He went on to be a D-1 athlete, basketball on track, and college. And then he went to law school, graduate, number one in his class. He zoomed out of there and wanted some big court cases. And then he got into business and became kind of a big deal. But as a kid, all I was thinking, Wow, I want to be just like him. He's so cool. And, you know, I was thinking about, you know, seventh, eighth grade, I was a six foot one. I was like a seven footer, you know, being seventh grade, eighth grade, being six foot one is huge because the kids don't, you know, boys don't grow. The girls, you know, get taller. But I couldn't wait to get to high school. You know, I was like, I finally going to be able to, you know, show it all up. Well, dad calls us into the room one night. And says to my brother and I, he says, hey, guys, he said, I've gotten into a heap of trouble with the bank I own. And I think I'm just going to plead guilty and do a plea bargain. And we're going to start from scratch.

And he just lays this on it. You didn't see it at all. You didn't know there was any. No, no, no. And I think at that time when you're a kid, you've got your own world. there might have been some stuff on the news or whatever, but he was kind of always a little bit on the news because he was doing,

he was an attorney, he was doing cases, he was in business, and so I didn't even really pay attention to that at that age. So there might have been a little bit of that, but totally came out of the blue. So his mouth is moving on. I'm thinking, how in the world is this going on? The guy that I idolize,

is bigger than life, is telling me that he's been tied up and caught up in a bank thing. And then he drops the bomb and says, we're going to start over and move to St. Louis, Missouri. And I said, oh, my God. It's like one of the worst meetings of a family gathering I've ever had. So we move up to St. Louis. And worst time to move as a kid, summertime, nobody's around.

You know, you don't go to school. So I was, you know, my release and escape was always playing basketball. So I went to this basketball camp, my dad got me into. and ended up going that summer. Can I ask you one question real quick? I'm sorry. I don't interrupt. So your father, you know, you skated over like he was got in trouble for some bank stuff.

Like what was? And did he go to jail? Did he get? Yes, he did. That was one of those things where, you know, as a kid, you know, he, he. he ended up getting six months in prison. He got charged with bank fraud and insurance or not insurance private tax fraud. Given a loan to a guy that was on the board of the bank.

I'm not even sure if that's an illegal transaction anymore, but back then it was. And then there was an insurance thing with a mobile home parking on it. He appreciated it. That's all confusing stuff, but that's what happened. All right. I understand what happened. Yeah, exactly. So the thing with us as a family was is that I just remember when it finally came down to it, we moved in, you know, up to St. Louis, and we started going to Marion, Illinois, where he was in prison,

was, man, I can't believe we're this family. You know, we were wealthy, you know, kind of had everything going. And all of a sudden, we are that family that goes and visit. are my dad in prison every weekend. I remember, you know, pulling up to that prison. First thing is, as a kid, you're like, I wonder if he looks okay, you know. Like he's going to be in prison clothes and all these things that you think that, you know,

you have in movies and whatever. And he comes out and he's tan, he looks good. Okay, that's great. So when I leave, though, I'm thinking to myself at 15 years old, Matt, this will never happen to me. This will never happen to you. never find myself here. And, you know, there's some weirdness, too, when there's a statistically, statistically, if you're father, if your parents, I know, I fall into, you have like

five times, you're five times. It's five times. That's a scary, scary number. But I do, you know, the other thing that was kind of weird was you move into a place, because we moved into a new neighborhood, my dad's in prison. And there's, you know, the oddness of it, we, we, we, didn't really know how to handle where's your dad or where's your husband and so we kind of said he's out of town working and that was kind of true because he did have a prison job he was out of town so we got around that but I'm sure everybody in the neighborhood thought what in the world is going on with his family and it was kind of a weird thing to start a new high school and your dad's in prison and you're not telling anybody that your dad's in prison and then he came back

then it was all normal. So dad got out of prison. He lost everything, except for one unsexy business. And it was prearranged, it was called National Prearranged Services, and it prearranged your funeral service. So you would actually, Matt, take, go take and make arrangements, and you'd freeze the cost of that funeral. And you could even fill out a little book that would have your pallbearers and your music and everything. And so everything was taken care of. So your family didn't have to worry about it. The burden was taken off of that. Not to jump off your page, wow, that's really a cool company.

But it really had a purpose, and it really took off because it was kind of a newer idea going into the early 80s. And I got into the company about 10 years after it started, got out of college. I had done some sales and stuff when I was going to go to law school. And that was the other thing. I was a political science major and did theater was a minor. And I was going to be a trial attorney. And I don't know if I've always blamed on being left handed, but I was so bad at taking standardized test. I, you give me like, Matt, you give me like a thing to be able to have an essay. I could do great. I mean, it wasn't like I graduated with 3.4 in college. I wasn't on the dunn scale. But if you put a standardized test in front of me, I

was on the done scale. I was the dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, down scale. So I couldn't get it on that LSAT what I needed to get. And so I did a pivot. And I thought, you know, I think I'm pretty good at sales. Why don't I, I'm going to talk to my dad about this. And so we had a sit down discussion. I said, you know, dad, I think I'd like to go into this, but I don't want, I don't want to be in your shadow on this deal. I mean, you're the guy here in St. Louis. And I said, where can I go to just pass, fail, just see if I'm any good at this. He said, well, you see, you go down in Texas. We just opened up a place down in Texas, and there's a funeral home there in Austin. I was, oh, sign me up. You know, I was 22, 23 years old, Austin, Texas, you know, drive something

out. And so I went down there, Matt, and it worked really great. I found out I was really good at it. Won all the national contest stuff. We were in three states at the time. So I was the new kid, And I had my own thing down in Texas. And so I was at this time 24, 25 years old. Well, dad didn't have a whole lot of interest in the sales side. We've gotten into owning an insurance company that funded these prearrangement contracts. So if you had a prearrangement contract, we would buy for like $5,000, we would buy a $5,000 life insurance policy. And so those two companies coexisted.

I had no interest in that insurance company. my dad loved that world of investments and trading and all that and i hated math um and that was one the great things about political science you didn't have any math didn't take math right so he started so when you say he he had an insurance company he started an insurance company he was funding the insurance company himself or was he like an agency of okay so what it when when you start when he first started an insurance company usually have a bigger insurance company and and you grow yourself into the reserves and things that you need in the beginning. So those first few years, I forget what company it was,

but as you grow in and you have your capital and surplus and your reserves and everything, then you are able to stand out on your own. By the time I had gotten into the business, it had been 10 years. We had a standalone insurance company. So he's now taking the premiums that are being paid, and he's investing those premiums. Yeah. And the interesting thing about that, too, Matt, is that in that world, everybody makes a claim.

So everybody dies. So you've got to be real careful with how that all works. I mean, and it's a highly regulated business. I mean, you don't just play around with insurance because in every single state, you have to get approved. Your contracts are approved. Everything goes through. And not every state is the same. same. But every state usually audits you on an annual basis and you are pretty tied into what

what you can and can't do. So that's, and that's one of the things, you know, my biggest thing out of my life, you know, looking back on it now after I, you know, went to prison and all the things that happened in my world, my biggest mistake was is that I had no interest in that. I I ended up creating a very big company of we went from three states to 22 or 25 states. And I just looked at it like, I'm just putting the money over there. They can take care of that as long as. And the thing of it was, there was never any issue with the fact that we paid for funials. And the funeral directors got paid their growth and they got paid their funeral contracts and everybody got their money.

That wasn't the, you know, we went through. 30 years of that being that, our thing was much more complicated and it was drawn out for a lot longer time. But in the backing up, though, Matt, we got into this and it really took off. The company grew. My brother came into the company when he got out of college. And he was more tech, he was more technology savvy. But we had a family idea. And I think I talked to you about this mat where we talked about you know like when queen elizabeth died just a few weeks ago you know you expect the highlight of her life everything that ever happened you expect it now and you want it now and they are they already have it's done you don't do that with your grandparents your mom your dad

your uncle and your aunts and so we decided we wanted to be the filmmakers of everybody else and that got us into two different things we we got into a production company and we started owning because we figured cemeteries in a place that people go to remember. So we would actually go to people who own cemetery property and offer this. This would have been in the early 90s. Okay. Yeah. And it would have been before YouTube and.

Yeah, yeah. I was trying to think about, like I was trying to think about you, you know, putting together. Because when my mother died last year and, you know, they put together, we gave them a bunch of photographs. And they basically popped it into a, uh, a, uh, a, format you know you pick what you wanted but it's basically the same thing i can go on like i'm anybody can do it now yeah evado is it yeah what's the name of that evado invato i i'm signed up for invato and you just plug in the throw in 20 pictures and pick some music and it comes up with it for you but you were yeah way before doing well yeah and

you know we basically started that and we got into the funeral side of it too so for for visitations. And, you know, we would take a little clips out of the life story part if they had that and put it into the music and the pictures and whatever. So we were really at the forefront of that. I mean, there was so many, strangely enough, there were so many competitors of ours that just said that we were like sacrilegious, putting a TV in a room and, you know, people. But, you know, the really great thing about it was it was really more of a comfort because it was more of what people were used to, watching TV, bringing back memories, giving things for people to talk about, oh, I remember when your dad used to coach our little league team, or

you share these memories together instead of that uncomfortable. A lot of this, too, was because we were from the funeral business. So I was very uncomfortable going to funerals. Now, how can I make funerals more comfortable so that I feel okay being there? So the home, you bought the cemetery. Sorry, you would you i got you off track you were investing in cemeteries yeah and what was the process so yeah so we would actually go to people who own cemetery property and we would offer them based well more or less to buy another product and that was to start their life story and it was sold in chapters you know you tell us your earliest memory your high school memories your school college you're when you started your family and kids and whatever and it just kind of

of built and we walked people through their scrapbooks so they kind of warmed up through it and as this got and came through we did about 18 to 20,000 of these live stores so we did a lot of life stores but in the meantime we were getting a lot of press because nobody in this arena I mean nobody was doing anything different than you know basically going from a horse and buggy to a car or a hearse you know, we were doing something where we were saying, you know, we were wanting to revolutionize the way people remember alive. You know, there's an African proverb where they talk about when someone dies, a library burns. So we were thinking, wouldn't it be cool if we could just become a library of lives for the community? So when you didn't know somebody, your grandmother

or whatever, you could go to our console at our cemetery and touch up and pull up your grandmother or great-grandmother you didn't know, and all of a sudden, there you are. So we were really, you know, we were excited about this. This was something that was, we, you know, we got covered by Time Magazine and Fortune Forbes. Entertainment Tonight picked this up when we bought Hollywood Cemetery in Los Angeles. We were on there a couple of times. So we really got a lot of press. And then HBO came calling and created a documentary that was called The Young and the Dead.

And that kind of encapsulated everything that we were doing, except for the unsexy part. which was the part I told you about the beginning, in which we were doing pre-arraged funals. But that was the big part of our business, actually. So we got all this going, and everything was going great. I met my wife when she was 13-year-old. I was 15, and we've kind of gone through every life stage, and we've had three kids now.

And, you know, things have blown up. Life's great. Got a nice house and Nantucket for the kids. and we live in St. Louis, and it's all great. And then one day, and it kind of happens, you know, these blindside things, Matt, especially if you're in business and you've got a big company, our company wasn't that big. I mean, it was big enough.

You know, we had about 400 some odd people that worked for us. But you feel like... 400 people in 25 states? That sounds like a big company. It was big, but not... There's gigantic companies. There's thousands, you know, there's people that have thousands of people. We were big enough.

We were mid-level, but you are always thinking in the back of your mind, I hope everything's okay, you know, because it feels good. You know, you've got the culture, you've got the momentum, you've got things going. It's that blind spot. You know, I look back on that now and that, you know, that thing that just hits you upside the head and you're like, damn, I should have been paying attention to that. I was filling up my gas take one day, and I get a phone call from the president of our insurance company. We didn't talk much, but he said, Brian, I just got a really weird phone call with the lady from the insurance department in Ohio. And she's in the investigating division and says that she's got information that's going to bring our company down. And it was like, I was literally filling up my gas tank.

And it was like just this feeling of dread came over. Because I had felt this before with my dad when I was 15, but it was much different this time because we're all in this together. And I'm in this with him. And in the moment of this happening, the part that isn't as surprise is that we had a gigantic, reinsurance company and they're the biggest in the world out of germany and for those i don't want to get too far in the weeds on reinsurance it's just a smaller company uh you got an a plus

rated uh insurance company and you you basically push your liability off and they pay you a commission for your money basically and and you can use that as a benefit to selling as you go out and sell that you've got this gigantic umbrella that's your big protection so anyway we had a we had the largest reinsurance company in the world that we were doing business with. But they had kind of gotten backwards in the market when 9-11 happened and we had cut a fat deal with them. And they wanted to come back and renegotiate. Now, on my world, I didn't even know about this because I was the stupid one that didn't pay attention to what we were doing in the insurance. My dad, way too smart for his own good. I think, you know, when I talked about him earlier,

I also think dad kind of kept a chip on his shoulder. He's from a small town. He always wanted to show everybody that he was a smart guy. So the easy thing to do for somebody like me, who's not the smartest guy in the room, is, okay, you want to renegotiate? What do we need to do? Because you know you got a sweet deal. Dad wasn't in the contract.

No, hell no. So we go into arbitration, and that probably wasn't smart, because the arbitration for the company that we were up against was the size of a country so they could outspend us at any point through discovery and all that. So we started spiraling into, before any of this happened on the regulatory side, spending $7, $8, $9 million on legal fees hitting our capital and surplus. So that was unfortunate before we ever got into this. and as it went Matt

and it's kind of hard to explain out there to the world of people listening to this but those things can leak out those arbitrations are supposed to be private sealed processes but they're not and they that started leaking out into all the states that we were in probably came from the company that we were up against because it became an advantage for them to have that happen to us and later we found a discovery that's exactly what happened but as it was happening uh it was a nightmare all of a sudden you have a regulatory world and all the states we were in asking questions you know

wanting every document you have of everything that you're doing and and there quite honestly wasn't enough hours in the day so what happens with me is is my dad and our attorney attorney, who's been with us forever, my trustee of this trust, that's how, by the way, that was how we kept that trust from national premium services. It was in a trust. That's why dad didn't lose that. It was in my name, my mom's name, and Tyler's name, which is my brother. So that's how that company existed, and that's how it went on. He wants Khan Bank of America out of $250,000, using nothing but a fake ID and his charm. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy of my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

So dad comes to me and he says, Brent, he says, we've got to get out there and talk to these regulators, tell them what we're doing, our story and back up. Because we've got a forest fire. I said, great. I said, tell me what all we're doing because I'm the ignorant son who completely ignored the wrong things in our business. Now, this is the one I need to go talk about. But I wanted to do it, Matt. I wanted to put on the cape. I wanted to show my dad that I was, you know, going to save the day. And I really thought I could. So, and dad said, I can't go out and talk because I'm an ex-felon. I, you know,

I can't be at the regulatory table and say, hey, here, what do you think? So I, I didn't. ended up, I mean, I was flying all over the place, Matt. I mean, it was, I don't even know how to explain it. It was, it was dizzy time because you never thought that you could get enough time to get to the next place, to get to the next meeting, to get to the next answer. And they were all mad. You're not getting me this. You're not getting me that. And it was just, it was a free for all. And you could feel it too. You could feel like, even though we were doing business on on the real world you it's like you were sucked in a vacuum of dark place that nobody saw except you and some few other people who were trying to save everybody's out here and you go back you were living two different lives you know i was i was flying all around and then i was playing golf uh you know a two-man deal at the country club and or we were going out to dinner with our friends and so i felt like i was brint in this regulatory nightmare and Brent going to the kids' functions at the school trying to make things seem normal.

Well, eventually things didn't come out normal. I didn't save the day. I thought a couple of times that we were there, and our thing went from an investigation of the regulatory world to start a criminal, and we went through six years, and I was indicted in 2010. And so I was indicted for three years before we ever got to the part where they were we were going to go to a trial or there was going to be a plea bargain. And that was a weird time. What was the crux of their issue? Well, it was kind of complicated because it wasn't that we weren't paying our stuff.

You know, normally you would think, okay, well, you guys are really bad because you're not paying for the funerals. You're not paying the funeral directors what they're supposed to be paid. It wasn't that. We had a case that happened back in 94 with the state of Missouri, and it came down to, and you might understand this, Matt, because you kind of have that background. There was a, when you wrote a funeral contract in Missouri, it had to go into a funeral trust. And in that funeral trust, it had, you had to put 80% of the cash in there, and then 20% of it could be done for your administrative and sales or whatever. What you did with that 80% was up.

to you. You could invest in commodities, stocks, bonds, whatever. We bought insurance policies. So the question was, what is the value of that insurance policy? Is it the cash amount of what's been paid on that policy? You might have paid in months premium. You might have paid four months premium. You might have paid it off. Or is it the face amount? Is it $5,000 immediately when it goes in there. Because from our argument, it was no matter what happens, whether you'd pay in one month, two months, all of it, we were responsible for the payoff, all of it. So our argument was it was worth face value and the states said it was worth the cash value and the trust. Makes a big difference when you're valuing the numbers. So eventually it comes down to the, we go, to a statute interpretation before a judge, and the judge says, well, I kind of see it like a car wreck. You don't look at it as an investment. You look at it to pay off for the wreck. So once that happened, they went back and they said, okay, we're going to do a settlement. And we were able

to do business that way up until 2008, until the federal government came in, and they had the same argument. So we were fighting over something that was, is this business sustainable? And will this business to be able to pay out by the cash that you created from the policies to continue on for the next 30 years. There were some other issues, though, Matt, that were in there that's even more complicated. It is in each state, who was the beneficiary of the insurance contract? Even though we went and got it approved through each state that they assigned all the rights and benefits over to the insurance company or NPS, because, because in the end, we were the responsible party to pay.

You're the one who has to pay the funeral. So you don't want to be the benefits. They take the money and leave. Right. So that ended up to be a huge thing. They came back on us and said, well, we couldn't be the beneficiary, and this isn't your policy and so on and so forth. But that was already agreed to.

It was already, the people of signing it over were the people who were the people who were buying the funeral. They didn't have any problem with signing the rights and benefits as long as it was going to be paid. So those were two big issues that became debatable issues. And the reason I say this gets really complicated is because you can get into a conversation with somebody from a federal government that doesn't know anything about insurance like me, but people who in our company that did know a lot about insurance. And they even said things like, well, you don't have enough money if everybody dies today to pay everything off. And well, of course we don't. that's not the way that's the way insurance company works yeah you have actually a farm doesn't have

enough no nobody does but but here's the here's the crazy thing about it is matt is that somebody who's an assistant attorney can say that and then you have to defend an outrageous comment you can't go to the bank and withdraw out all money you know you can't but in in insurance it's directly set up for actuaries to say okay what's your agent? age. Have you had any operations? Have you had cancer? Have you had heart attacks? You balance all that out, put it into this gigantic equation, and then you insure people. So an actuary, anybody listening, an actuary is the person that calculates all the death rate who's going to die at what age is. And so how much money you have to have and how much money needs to be paid in to pay out those policies.

Like that's the person that crunches all those numbers for insurance companies or actuaries. Sorry. Yeah. No, that's exactly. Matt. And so, and I'm saying all that just because I'm just saying how deep it got. There were 12 million documents in this, this world. Right. Of, I mean, we're talking about something that just got so big. And in the end, when you're fighting this, and I, you know, six years of fighting the federal government, whenever you know this, Matt, you went through the federal doing, seeing United States of America versus your name, there's really not much more anything I can think of is more intimidating than that.

That's like, you know, one of my friends said that was on one of my podcasts, Jason said, it's like saying, okay, you get to play the L.A., your soft, your beer softball league gets to play the L.A. Dodgers. You can play it. Right. Just probably. Not even close. Play that well.

You get to get on the same field. But anyway, going past all that, I had three daughters. I have three daughters, three beautiful daughters, very accomplished daughters. They're in their 20. Well, actually, Courtney is 30 now. But my kids were teenagers then. And one of the thing is we were getting just, I mean, so lacked by the media. It was a big story.

And we just, I was very open with the kids, what we were doing, how it was going. and they had really supportive friends. They were really great athletes, and the coaches were very helpful. And so we just kind of cocooned ourselves. And we're not reading anything. We're not looking at all this stuff around. And we got through that.

But one of the things, when it finally got to it, you know, my kids were like, Dad, you can't go to trial. I mean, when I looked at my thing that I had stacked And you know this, how they do it, Matt, with Fed charges, is, you know, we had a charge of wire fraud. So any wire we would have made over the course of 30 years, mail fraud, any mail you would have sent out over the course of 30 years, money laundering, anything that you would have done or bought would be from the fruit of the poison tree. And then my charge that was something, it was crazy that I couldn't even thought of because I didn't. know about it. I allowed an ex-felon to work in the business of insurance, which the company started in 79 and dad, in 1994, Congress passed a law that an ex-fellant couldn't work in the business

insurance. And he did. So that carried a five-year sentence. But how they stacked those charges, I got the drinking one night just looking at my papers. And I got them out. I was looking at 938 years. I was thinking, man, you know, I could be maybe, let's say I could be, almost all these charges, and maybe two, then you're looking at 40, you know? It's like the weirdness of what you do and how you look at things and what seems totally unreal and outrageous

becomes part of your world that you really have to contemplate like, my God. Anyway, when we sat down after six years, I didn't have any money left and going to trial was, seemed like a, I don't know what I would have thought, but going to trial at that time, But I was worn out.

I was, it was just hard to give up after fighting that long. But I told my brother, I get it. They said, you know, dad take the plea. My plea bargain was, was from zero to five years. And so what did they offer your dad? His was zero to ten years. And there was six people indicted. It was my dad.

It was me. It was our attorney, who happened to be my trustee, our investment advisor, and our CFO, and my dad's secretary or executive assistant. Those were the six people that were indicted. And it was, they basically crafted it into what was a conspiracy of all people. And once you have a conspiracy, you have, you know, you can tie everybody into everything and everybody has to defend everybody else's. Even though you're just selling policies, you know what the decisions are being made. You're now responsible for everything, all the conversations that your father and the advisor and the lawyer had for 10 years, you had nothing to do with, but you're lumped into

the conspiracy. And as a result, you're now guilty of the things that, the decisions that they made because you were in some way of beneficiary of those. Exactly. And, you know, and I look back at that, Mark, and I think, well, That's my fault because when you own something, you should be making sure that I had a good friend of mine that owned a gigantic. He had the largest private insurance company in the United States. He was 10 years my senior and he didn't like insurance, but he loved real estate and investing in real estate and just making things look great and hotels and all kinds of stuff.

He was a really smart guy that way, but he didn't like insurance. And he told me one day, he said, you know, Britney, he said, I know you don't like that. He said, just go out and get the very best there is and put them in. That's what I did. And he said, when my dad got sick, he said, I just, and he told me, and I went out and this guy, he says, he's fantastic. I took that advice in, and I thought, that makes a lot of sense, but it would have, it would have been complicated. Family businesses are weird. You know, that was, that was dad's world, and my world was over here.

And we didn't walk in each other's territory, really. I didn't walk in Tyler's territory. We kind of worked around and, you know, not that dad and I didn't talk a lot. I mean, I talk to him all the time. But we didn't really cross into, if I would have gone to my dad's, hey, listen, dad, what I'm thinking, I just had a conversation with a friend of mine, And we're going to hire just a cool, fantastic do-it-by-the-book guy for our insurance company. It would have been a kind of weird conversation.

So if I had to do it over again, we definitely would have had that conversation. We definitely would have set down it. But, you know, at the time, all that was going on, it really didn't seem like that we had very many problems. I mean, that's the, you know, the strange part of it, Matt, is that sometimes, these things could come up on you when you think every anymore when i think everything is going pretty good i started thinking okay what am i not paying attention to because that's the the blind spot thing that kind of scares you is is that when you think things are going really good take a step back and make sure that you've got all the boxes checked because that momentum thing can can cross over

some things where maybe you should be making a better focus on what you're doing but going back to what you said, Matt, my world was I should, my name was on the line. My dad's name wasn't. I should have definitely. And to this day, you know, I look back and it was so complicated in what they argued and all these fancy people that were arguing fancy arguments. We were sloppy, clearly sloppy on the insurance side. We might, we should have been much better. But we did have an in-house council that I, you know, I believed a lot in. I thought it was, you know, handling the audits and doing the things, but we could have done it a lot better. Were we criminal? I certainly don't think there was any intentions on that, because if there was, I would have taken a whole scoop of cash

and put it somewhere and lived a different life. But yeah, I know multiple guys that when you hear their case and what went wrong, it's like, okay, well, that's civil. Like, that's the threat to make that criminal, you know? So it's, but that's how the government does it. It's always like these guys that end up starting a Ponzi scheme. Yeah. Oh, he's all con man. He's always been a con man. It's like, well, if he was a con man from the beginning, he wouldn't have opened the company in his name. Exactly. He wouldn't have won it for 10 years. And then what happens typically something goes wrong and they try and cover it. Something else goes wrong. They try and cover it. So they started lying about things before you know it. They're so far in the hole.

They're now realizing what I've done now is I've now, now I'm running a Ponzi scheme. And I can't turn around and go to the auditors and to the regulators and explain it because I'm having, I'm going to have to for the last six months. I've been lying to the investors and lying to on all the statements and continuing to take in money. And I've lost money. And I'm going to go to prison. So what do they do?

They just continue to run a Ponzi scheme, hoping they can someday dig them. himself out. Yeah, hit the big one. Five years later, it all... And I think the other thing that's kind of complicated about Ponzi schemes is, is, first of all, Ponzi schemes aren't supposed to last very long. You know, but I know they do. I know they do.

But it's also, it kind of blurs the definition because, I mean, if you take the Social Security setup for the United States, it's only a Ponzi scheme. Yeah. But it's legal because it's the government. doing it. They're taking all new funds to fund past and current liabilities. But all that being said, the thing of it is, is once you get into the spin cycle, man, it's a tough one. I mean, what is it, 97% of the people that get indicted plea? And then if you go on from there, the people who go to trial, it's a tough. And that's the thing that people really don't realize. Not very

many people go to trial no the government doesn't want to go to trial and our you know to the attorneys that we have representatives they're not used to go to trial because they're used to going into the dark room back there and cut deals and then go to go play golf with the judge or go to the christmas party with their people but so you're you're but let's go back to your daughters were telling you take a plea yeah because let's face it you know how many guys i mean trust me they've they made the right call because here's here's the reason i say that is you know how many guys I know that were offered three years, went to trial, and ended up with 15 or 20. Right.

Right. No, I really, I didn't do anything. Stop it. Yeah. That does it. Stop thinking it's fair. You've watched too much law and order. Exactly.

Not how it works. And the thing of it was, too, is, man, I was guilty for sure because I allowed my dad to work in the business of insurance. There was no getting away from that. Those jury's instructions would be that I was in a position. I should have known that. as the president of the company. So that one had me dead to write.

The other things that happened, I got to tell you, the thing that the thing that's so discouraging is, is that we had a really great company where a lot of people worked for a long time with us. You know, I had created this division where we were kind of on the cutting edge, kind of like a pharmaceutical division that had really grown quickly and really,

you know, we were the talk of the industry. And so there was a lot of fun things going on. And then we had our stuff that was going on with making our life stories. So it was an environment where I think people liked working for us. We liked doing what we were doing. And I think, you know, the struggle is to be living the life I live now looking at all those people's lives were affected. Everybody's. And the, and we got a black eye.

You know, the company that they loved and that they, you know, spent, you know, 15, 20 years with us, it's, you know, was by the narrative of the world, was run by convicts and people who took other people's money. And it just, that's the part that sticks to me that you can't quite shake off, except there's no way that that didn't affect people's lives. There's no way that all those people weren't having to figure out what were they going to do and where were they going to go. And, you know, it's, I think the other thing you've, and you've gone through this too, man, is, you know,

finally when you get to that point where you realize, okay, I'm in, you went fugity, but you originally, you know, then you got, you got caught and they brought you in. There's that feeling of, okay, now this is my world, now what am I going to do? Because it's the unknown, you know, how, how do it. I make this work? And, you know, prison was for me, you know, we, I went to Leavenworth and Leavenworth was kind of a different, you know, they have the, it used to be a USP, then they made it a medium, and then they've got the camp. And so, you know, we went, I remember I had my mom and my brother and my wife would name we've um you go to you everybody gets processed at the big ugly place 1879

i think is one live worth was built it looks like shosh ink redemption kind of it does it i've seen fit that in atlanta they look they really look menacing horrible just terrifying looking they are and you know i you know and i had i had had this pity party of myself like once i had realized i get a plea. I was by myself, and we just got off a family call. My mom and my brother said they were going to help with the girls and help with like whatever and college and help Julia out and whatever. So we got off the phone and the deal was, okay, we're going to plea and dad and I are going to go to prison, kind of a heavy conversation of a family call. And so I started, you know, I'd already had a, you know, poured myself a drink and kind of one of those just total poor me.

How did this happen to me? How in the world could this have been, you know, just poor me? I poured myself another drink and I started thinking, you know, how in the world am I going to live as an ex-convict? You know, do I want to live as an ex-convict? Can I live as an ex-convict? You know, should Julie, who's been a warrior through this and has just, I mean, been, you You know, she should have worn a cape as far as how she kept the glue of the family together. She needs a fresh start.

She should go with somebody else and be with somebody else. And my girls, I mean, they don't need the stain of a dad, you know, that they're going to have to deal with. It's an ex-con. And so I just, you know, I had another drink. You know, this is, you know, and I got out the pen of paper, and I started thinking all the friends that had been friends and supportive. And here's your fatherly advice to the girls. And here's what you need to think about. And Julie, you need to get a fresh start.

put the pen down, poured another drink, grab the keys of the car, and went down to the garage. I didn't know if I was going to go hit a tree or if I was just going to let the car run. And it was like, Matt, something hit me. I mean, literally, just like a bolt. What in the hell are you doing, Brent?

You're the glass half fool guy. You're the optimistic guy. You aren't this guy. And what a fool and quitter your kids would think you were by doing. how a horrible way to go out. Julie would think you were the weakest of the week. And at that moment, I thought, you know, whatever happens, and it didn't look good.

I mean, whatever I was the ugly stuff. I said, you know, I'm going to be a survivor through this. I'm not going to be a victim. I'm not going to be pointing fingers and doing and feeling sorry for myself. I at least going to try to make my family proud of how I handle this situation, even though it scares the shit out of me because I don't know what the next situation. is i just know that it's scarier than what i know but it really helped me it kind of steady to me i kind of hit the whole rock bottom that the whole you know i'm here and i don't want to be and i'm

never going back at that and even standing at the gate of leavenworth you know i've got my my mom my brother julie i just told him i love him i knew everything i knew and everything i loved was behind me and everything that was beyond this fence was the big, dark, unknown. But I had already dealt with and hit that rock bottom moment to, I'm going to survive this. Whatever it is, I'm going to walk into it. And, you know, one of the things I think you learned, I think, Matt, you probably would agree with me. Nothing is as bad as your mind makes it out to be. Nothing is as bad as your mind makes out.

Not even prison. You know, not in prison. You know, walking through those gates, did it scare the shit out of me? Absolutely. very menacing looking ugly place and you know how they process and prisonize you through you know and make you feel you kind of just feel it like the freedom's shedding off your skin you know you moralizing yeah it's just you know you just you know you just feel it i mean it's just i don't know what that is but whatever that is it works especially the position that you

have been in like you yeah i don't think that you or myself i had ever been in a position where someone was able to talk to me like I was subhuman. The dog, yeah. Yeah. Not even a dog. I treat my dog is great. Like you said, subhuman. The first person that says it, it's always like, or talks about you.

And then the next person and the next scar, and then you realize like, oh, that's right. I'm this guy. I'm supposed to be talking about. I'm a piece of dirt. Right. Like, oh, wow, he's not wrong. That's actually how. that's right that's what i that's what i would have expected you to talk to someone did you worry

did you worry matt about because it was one of my big worries is like becoming part of that prisonized institutionalized mentality because that was one of my big fears was is i don't want to i want to stay me i want to do whatever i can do to make me whatever brett would think and do out there i don't want to lose that in here because i saw a lot of guys that's the one thing about shake of redemption, I think's interesting. It's like some of those those key phrases they say that, you know, get busy living or get busy dying, there's, that's, that's kind of the two things you have in prison. The guys that give up and they're basically in a fetal position and then you see him laying and doing not anything. And then you see the guys that are working out, they're reading,

they've got jobs. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You see two totally, you see guys that are in shape and you see guys that get fat. And there's like not really in between. there's it's either one or the other and for me it was like man i got to do whatever i can not to become that can't you know don't fall off that and so i i use like five different strategy tools in prison that kind of were what i used when i was building the company but i found that they worked for me in prison you know like if like the first one was if if when I, especially when I got there, because you're like looking around thinking, well, what's, what's everybody doing? Like, what do I, what do I do? What's everybody else doing? And I,

I started looking around. So I really humbled myself, not to say a whole hell of a lot, just look around what, what's going on. And then I, I sought people out. So, you know, like, you're doing this. Like, how did you seem like you're doing your time really well. Like, tell me about, so I talked like two or three people. And those people, like, help me get a good job or to help they kind of learn the prison rules and stuff. And I think that's important, not just in prison, but generally. Now, if you humble yourself and you see somebody doing it right, go and talk to them because it's like getting the answers to the test before the test.

You know, get in, no, but first look around you and then seek the people that you need help from. And it works. Yeah. You know, it's good routine. Setting up your routine and getting solid routine as best. you can yes is crucial to keeping your mind feeling like you've got your mind set yeah the second thing that i had was like um it's kind of like the whole shawshank thing with andy defraining you know

he chips through that that wall every night for 19 years but the reason why he does is he's got the zaywantona that he's thinking of it's the bluest of the blue waters the widest the white sands the little place that he wants to put in the boat he wants to take people on fish he's got all that playing in his mind and i think that zaywan taneo thing that of what is you know what do you got what keeps you going what fuels you up even in prison i think you need that uh while you're living in that environment and when you get out to me i i just said you know to me i it boiled down to purpose you know i had to have a purpose that once i got a purpose that changed everything for me like everything became better and i stopped hating being in prison

and it started being i don't know almost almost like a blessing because i suddenly had enough time to work on something on things that i loved and so what was your so isn't that interesting though that it is it took it just took me a while because i'm i'm pigheaded you know first i of course blamed everybody and then that's easy i mean when you go through a lot it's it's easier to blame somebody than to turn on yourself and say okay what what i need to work on you know how stupid is that how stupid like especially in my case yeah i'm totally guilty yeah there's nobody to blame but me still took me a year or two to figure that out to sure like what do you yeah well you see guys like could go through bad marriages or whatever and they might have been just total dicks and they

can't come to it until they finally realize that that was really their fault. It's just like, it's the same thing. You'll feel better. You'll feel better about yourself. Yeah. And I, you know, dad and I had to go through kind of our own relationship struggle. And, you know, he, strangely enough he died uh he got out right when the march 17th when COVID hit which I always think that had to be like the weirdest time to get out of prison like the whole world had shut down I went to pick him up at the airport and it was basically vacant I was thinking how weird it was for him to walk into this world after he had a 10 year sentence and more or less it was shut down and um he was only off for a couple months and died but he he he he was he was he was he

But he wasn't well. But, you know, dad and I never had that, you know, that conversation. Because our thing was really, like I said, I idolized him. I thought he was a brilliant man. And I wouldn't be the person I am today without him and what he taught being in life. The thing I struggled with was is that I never could quite figure out if I was being used or if he just had that much confidence in me. You know, it was like, because he was a great, and I say manipulator in a positive way, because if you're in the business and the world business, you have to be.

And he was very good at finding people in their talents and then building that up, just like a good coach, you know, that's, you know, any NFL team or baseball team, whatever you find those people, you build them up, you're a good coach. That was dad. And so one of the things that I struggle with as a son is we cut. kind of got through this this ugliness was is that he had gone through this before and he knew which i really didn't the danger of putting yourself running yourself into a burning house and so we had this kind of a weird dynamic of you know i think you know i've kind of

Tyler, my brother sent me this podcast. It was really interesting. You can be two people. You could be somebody that loves you unconditionally and could use you. You know, it can be both, and it doesn't have to be one or the other. And he can be that person. So for me, once I came to that, was it wasn't one or the other. Dad was a really good dad.

But did he think that I'd be the best person to? go out and speak to the regulators? Yeah, he did. And I thought it was too. So, you know, you know, looking back on it, would I do it again? Probably would. Isn't that weird? I went to prison basically putting myself into that burning house. I just made me now feel like maybe I could do it better. But at that time, the weight of the world of the company was either going to crash and burn or we had to figure something out. And if it was slim to none, he went for slim. that you tried to make it. And that's the weird thing, you know, you go back into these weird, big cases and like,

what would you do now? And I don't even know if Julie would agree with this, my wife, but I would probably go back out in there and try to save the day, even though that's probably not the smartest thing to do because you just, I think you just wired a certain way. But I certainly don't blame my dad for that. But I think about it on my terms, or my own daughters, would I put them into a burning, house going into it if i was if i had brought them into the company and i don't know i don't think i would i don't think i would but that's the difference between and maybe it's a difference between

a father and a son and a father and a daughter i don't know it's kind of complicated though he once got plastic surgery because he didn't like the photo on his wanted poster his legend precedes him the way indictments proceed arrests he is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crime, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

Well, if it had all worked out, you wouldn't be asking yourself this question at all. True. You know, in his mind, he may have, he may not have even for one second thought it was an issue. It's just like, oh, this is going to work. Yes. That's a good point because that's exactly how he thought. thought he was he he wasn't a naceaer and never thought it was always this and for the most part in your points very well taken so many times it did work right you know as a as a family we were

we did a lot of things and overcame a lot of things and did um bigger things than i ever thought that we could have and i think a lot of it had to do with just you know he always told me as a kid grant you see you got a good plan and you take action with it you can accomplish anything and and i think that's you know his mindset his mindset was we'll tackle this we got through before i mean he we in the 90s i told you we went through that and we got through and i think he thought i thought we'd get through it again well um so i was just thinking listen a lot of the CEOs of these companies that start massive companies and and, you know, like the visionaries right now that are out there are really just con men that

it worked out, you know, like Elon Musk, you know, how many times he was, he almost gone under? If he'd gone under and lost all the investors money, this piece of garbage, con man, don't trust him, he's a scumbag instead, this guy's a visionary, you know? And so things just, you know. And you see that, I've read so many books and God, I don't know, how we book. I've read a book a week in prison, but all those different stories of people who made it, they, they did it by the skin of their teeth and got through it. And that's, it's all taking the risk. The problem with like you and me now is how many times I have people talk to me. And I'll say,

yeah, you know, you just think about doing this, think about doing that. And they're like, yeah, bro, you ought to help. Like, would you be interested in coming? I'm like, no, not why? And I was, you know, and there was like, why? And there was like, why? I don't understand it. It sounds like an amazing idea. Like, why don't we do this? I'm like, because at my age and with my background, I can't fuck up again. Yes.

And if this goes wrong with you, it's civil. Yeah. And maybe you can't, worst thing, you maybe get sued. Maybe you just claim bankruptcy. Most likely you just walk away and the company goes under. If I do it and I take people's money to invest in a company and it goes bad, I go back to prison. even though it's civil i don't i'll never be given the benefit of the doubt that you're given and i just can't take those risks anymore yeah and they don't realize that you know normal

it's a different life i mean i think a lot of people yeah and i think man a lot of people don't realize that you know when you're in we're in the position that we're in it's a life sentence because you have you live as an ex-felon it doesn't go away yeah like okay you were released We are released and we are out of prison, which is fantastic. I not want to give that out, but you have to work really hard to get yourself even with everybody because we're the last of our breed. You can legally discriminate against an ex-felon where you live or if you want to get a job. It's legal.

So you have to work a little extra hard to get this. that job or get that place, whatever you're trying to do. And I'm not saying that as like, oh, poor, poor ex-felon. It's just that you're getting out. That's one of the things you've got to be equipped with to know. I've got to be mindset-wise, know that I'm going to have to tackle that. Yeah. Listen, I have, because of my podcast, I have guys reach out to me all the time asking

me, you know, extremely inappropriate questions. questions. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's like, listen, I can't answer that. No, I'm just saying hypothetically, I'm like, you know what I know. I know that you think hypothetically somehow or another absolves you or me. But the truth is, I said, that's something that your idiot buddies told you. I said, I can't even have the conversation. No, but you wouldn't do anything. It doesn't matter. The fact is, they will simply go through your phone, get my name, add me to the indictment, I cannot go to trial because I cannot get on the witness stand and explain this guy, ask these questions, and I didn't tell him anything. I said, because as soon as I do,

they're going to say, Mr. Cox, how many felonies did you, have you pled guilty? Yeah. How long did you do in prison? How many times, how many frauds have you committed? And then I'm going to say, yes, all that's true, but this time I'm innocent, I said, I go straight to jail. And I get, one of the harshest sentences out there because I'm like a category three or four on the criminal history level and none of these things when you're telling this to the guy

who's asking you this silly inappropriate question are they thinking about at all and I have to think about all those things if I have a bottle of steel weapons permit you're not getting in my car right I'm now they're going to say constructive possession

he had the gun yeah because because a lot of that too right and it's like well okay but I didn't have the gun he has a it doesn't I don't want you in the car I don't want to have to be in trying to explain that to somebody I'm in a bad spot they'll lock me up in jail for six months even if they drop the charges and let me go I'll lose everything and people just don't realize the position you're in for the rest of your life for the rest of my life it is yes sir no sir absolutely

yes officer i was i was speeding thank god you pulled me over can i please get the ticket here's my license i mean i'm the most polite person i've ever been in my entire life because i have to be actually concerned yeah yeah no that's such a good point because that's that's something that just your your life is forever changed in that because you do have that that chip has been inserted into your head that this is different now yeah this my life as I think through things and how I do things, I have to factor that in because I know what that whole thing was. And I know I don't want that because that is a terrible, that's the, that's the worst. You do anything you can to avoid that. Yeah. I'm thinking, I'm not, I'm not

complaining. I'm just saying I'm just, and honestly, I'm extremely thankful to even be out prison you know like it it just like in your case what if you'd gone to trial because you're hard headed and yeah you felt like i really didn't do anything wrong and you said you know what i'm going to i'm going to go to trial listen you'd have gotten 10 to 15 years sure you'd still be you'd be in prison right now you're you'd be hearing about your daughter getting married and you're not going to be there or your daughter having a a baby your grandma you ain't going to be there you know And I'll tell you, Matt, the other thing that I think about is you also have different moments when you get out where you have this feeling like I've got three daughters, so two of them have gotten married. Courtney just had twin boys.

And there's moments that I share with myself because I think it's that I don't know how to express it to anyone around me. But my thought is, God, just thank God, I'm here. Yeah. Think that I'm here. Like if we go on a family trip or something and we're all together, there's a moment where I just think, God, I'm here. Because what a difference that is than not being. Because I know what it's like when I've had of the things that have gone on

and I wasn't there. And there's like that feeling of just complete loss of not being a part of that. And then when you do get out, because you were just talking about the other things or the chip in your head, is a chip in my head that is, I do appreciate some of the littler things just because I know that I'm here and not there. And I don't know if that goes away or not. I don't know. I've been out for six years now. I haven't gone away yet. No, I was going to say, sometimes I have to remind myself, like, somebody will cut me off when I'm driving. And there's a second of anchor. And I think,

whoa, whoa, listen. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, the line's too long. And I'm like, You spent six months to a year just standing in line in the chow hall and to get your laundry and commissary. You can wait. I used to get so upset if I would go to a restaurant and they said, oh, it's a 45 minute wait. I'd be like, now my girlfriend, who was also in prison for like four years, you know, we get there and we're just like. And you'll watch three couples in a row. Go leave. 45 minutes.

Oh, oh, no, I'm leaving. Oh, 45 minutes. Oh, can I sit there at the bar? Can I this? Can I? Oh, no, I'm going to leave. 45. And they're leaving.

And we're like, they're like, 45 minutes. I'm like, give me the thing. You know? You're what I'm saying? Here's my phone number. Like, I always said that prison was like a Disney World nightmare because you everything's lines in Disney World. This was in prison.

You know, I want to make a phone call, stand in line. I want to take a shower standing line. I want to get on this, uh, true legs, core length standing line. It was just everything you wanted to do with stand in line, unless you went out to the yard, you know, did whatever. Well, oh, even then. You want to watch, go to the, they had a movie room in Colvin at one point. You want to go to the movie room?

Stand in line. You want to get something out of the wreck, out of the wreck equipment. You want to get your laundry, stand in line. You want to go to commissary? Commissary is three hours. That's two or three hours of sitting there. I try to avoid commissary like the plague that you had to go to some points, you know. Oh, yeah, at some point, you know, like, yeah.

I was going to say, so how much time. did you actually get you was it three years no i got i got a five-year sentence so oh did you said it was zero to three years no zero to five and then i i i ended up matt luckily enough i was able to get into ardap and uh that knocked a year off so i really did three years what did you think of ardaq well you know it's fascinating because it you know that thing actually goes on in prison um I've got a couple of different opinions about our doubt. One is I think that the program could be good because I think the guys want to adhere to certain things that are there

that they're trying. But I think that the people that are instructing want to be cops. And so for the majority of people that we had, and I'm not saying everybody was. There was a couple of good people that were in the program that were instructors. But for the most part, you had guys that are trying to set people back, you know. If they said something or did something, they gave them two more months or they tried to kick them out of the program, all these different things. So it was, you know, but as far as a nine-month program that could be good, I think they have some recidivism thing that's a little bit better by people going through it.

But I think it could be better. But I think rational thinking and all those things are probably things that should be taught probably in high school, you know. Yeah, well, I mean, but it's not. So I would like to say that what, you know, one, you do not get to the top of your field and end up working in the Bureau of Prisons. So for, you know, nobody graduates college with a, you know, a medical degree and says, you know, what are you doing? I'm going for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, you know, medical position. So, you know, or for a drug treatment specialist or whatever they are. like so you're not going to get top quality people um so you know i understand there's always

that guy there's always a jerk here a jerk there um but overall i thought that ardap was was for being in prison i thought it was a great program i think the the concept of the of the program maybe they're not run all that well the concept of the program i thought was great and honestly, I think, because, you know, let's face it, it, it wasn't about drugs. No, it's about thinking behavior modification. And honestly, and really, like, to me, I think it should be offered to everybody. Like, I totally agree. I totally agree. And, you know, there was some really, ah, what am I going to say that? There were some things that happened in our little group that would never happen outside of that prison.

They'd never be, they'd never be in a position to have to really look at themselves and categorize themselves and, and admit to their behaviors. One thing I was thinking was when we did those readiness statements, you know, one of the guys got up and he was like it was the first time that it just really hit him. What all had happened. And he just broke down. And nobody cries in prison. I mean, not usually. I just remember one of the guys got up and, and, and,

right beside him and read his readiness statement. I thought, man, it's just, whatever just happened right there was, was pretty cool. I mean, we're in prison and, and this is all happening right here in front of us. And I think that was the other thing, Matt, that talking about prison, so many people say it was so many different things about prison, but somebody asked me the other day, like, what was your biggest surprise about prison? I said, quite honestly, I met a lot of really good people, you know, there were people that weren't good, but there's people that aren't good on the outside. I was surprised how many people helped me.

How many people, you know, were smart that, you know, really figuring out how to get strategies through their dark places. And for me, you know, that's one of the reasons I started my podcast was, it was, you know, nightmare success is in and out was to talk to the guys, not about like, you know, why did you do the crime? How did you get through it? What did you feel? What were you thinking?

how did you get to the next step and your strategy of what you were doing at that time? And, you know, the guys' stories are all, we all, all of us, just like you and I can sit here and talk, Matt, we've got a common thread. We can sit here and talk about our debt because we both went to start. We can talk about prison because we both went to prison, but everybody has a different story going into prison and then how they handle prison and then how they get out. So I think that's what makes all those things unique with the podcast and nightmares, And I think what happens, too, is that when people go through dark times and they have strategies of how to get through that, how they adapt and how they survive, I think people listening to that thing, huh, God, hell, that could have been me.

Or I'm in that spot right now. How do I step out of this? Because everybody, you know, my thought on nightmare success on coining that phrase was everybody. And like you said, Matt, all the visionaries and these books that you read about built these gigantic turn of the century. companies that are changing the world, had to walk through their own fears, their own unknowns, their own nightmares to get to where they wanted to be to set themselves free to whatever success that is. So everybody has that. Everybody builds up prisons in their own mind. And the question is, how do you step? How do you take and step into something that's not comfortable? And we saw that in prison so often where, you know, somebody would get so institutionalized that their ugly routine, the one that they did every day because it made them feel like they were in control, got so much into who they were that they got scared of freedom. They got scared at the

outside. And I think that happens. Once you get out of prison, you start looking around, you see that all over because you see people that, okay, the guy's in a bad marriage. Why didn't he get out of it? He's in a bad job. Why does he step out? He had a health crisis. He can step up. So you see people all over the place what what is it and it's usually stepping into the unknowns because it's scary but it's the only way to get over to the other side so that there's somebody i saw the other day that was talking about there's two things in life that makes it difficult staying in your comfort zone or getting out of your comfort zone right right yes either way yeah i i remember it's funny the people that I found that were the most miserable in prison were the guys that were to blaming other people

for being there. And two, complaining about the conditions. And, you know, and, you know, they just complained about everything. And they were, they were miserable. And nobody wants to be around you. You're miserable. And you're not like that. Especially in prison, you know, that. And the, the environment's not going to change you're not going to all of a sudden they're going to oh you don't like it here well we've got a better place for you right over here you just should have said something you don't you just have to adapt to it you've got a plastic chair a locker and a buck that get used to it because that's going to be the way it is right you know it's funny is uh you know i always hear these guys like i'll see there's a lot of these prison um you know podcast and stuff

and they'll do a comparison on what prisons are like in america and what are like, let's say, in Scandinavia, and it's like, yeah, which are amazing, right, yeah, and those prisons are great, but you go, wait a second, like, what are prisons like in, you know, in Venezuela, in, and you know what I'm saying, like, you know, you guys are saying, like, it's, oh, poor, poor me, it's like, you committed a crime, you went to prison, what did you think they were going to treat you like? Right. What do you want to be like, I get it.

Yeah. Time is outrageous. But the environment's not that bad in prison. It's not great. It's not great. There's a ton of things they could do better. Well, I think, I think, too, Matt, it's interesting to me. Because, you know, I lived three years without air conditioning at Leavenworth.

And it gets pretty hot, Kansas. But I'll say this, though, you know, the guys knew how to handle it. Like, before there was ever air conditioning, first of all, there's, probably like six or seven days that are really, that's horrible. I mean, it's like 100 degrees. It doesn't get cooler at night and you sweat and bed and that's, but really there's only like six or seven days. And what they, what we would all do and you would get your ass kicked if you didn't do this, you let the window open at night and let whatever cool air there is, if it's, you know, it gets down to 75 degrees, that's going to be as cool as you get.

And then you shut that window in the morning that captures and it keeps that in. Anybody who opened up a window, they did go searching for you because it was like a furnace that come through there and made hotter. But I was the only reason I brought that up is that I found that even with that you can adapt and get used to it. I got used to it. I almost think that you get used to it because you're outside a lot. In fact, I thought it was more, they didn't turn the heat on until the week before Thanksgiving. And in the Midwest, i think it's pretty cold like in october november i thought that was worse than the heat but my whole point is is that you're you make a really good point is you don't want to talk to

somebody who's whining about that because it's not going to change you got to just figure it out he's got to you know all of us are dealing with this so it's not just you you go figure that out we don't want to talk to you until you come back and you can hang out yeah i remember uh my ex-wife I would talk to her on the phone and she would say he was complaining about having to spend $1,500 because her husband's H-2, her, you know, the Hummer H-2, the transmission had just gone out and the warranty had just ended and there was $1,500 and she was pissed off about that. And I was like, well, do you have the $1,500? We've course, that's $1,500. And she was like, even if I didn't, I put on my credit card, I this, I that.

Like you've got multiple kids in private school. You live in a half a million dollar house. You guys are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. You have to spend $1,500. You just got back from a week-long vacation. And I thought, like, you don't have problems. Like, these are problems. Spending $1,500 on your brand new Hummer isn't a problem.

A problem is they gave me a locker that has three shell. in it and one side has no shelves and so I bought new shelves and now the COs are going around searching looking for that to see who has more than three shelves yeah it was contraband my shelves like that's what I'm down to yeah and you know and so you know I I would get thrilled when you know they would come out with like the movie schedule on Wednesday nights they showed movies like what yeah are they going to show and it was like oh my God they're showing the new planet of the eight like yeah I would talk about that and think about that all we before i would get a book that i love like yeah i just came i just got the new tom clancy exactly oh it's so good and it's funny you talk about the movie thing

because it was movies were huge um at level worth for uh friday night saturday night sunday night and we all go into that that gymnasium with our plastic chairs and and man it was a big deal And you know what the funny thing was too, man, is they say people walk around like in the yard and whatever. You go to the movie tonight? Like there was a choice. Hell everybody was going to the movie. What else were you doing? You got to go to the movie?

What's the movie? I don't know. Of course you're going to the movie. The other thing I always thought that was funny at Leavenworth was that, you know, people stole food and made like the pizzas and all these different things. But it was funny because like when we went down to the gymnasium, there were people on both sides in the hallway. And they all had their goods, you know, like this little brownie thing was like two stamps. And this was, you know, the pizza thing that they'd made with the whatever, the tortillas and whatever, that was four stamps. And so you kind of watch somebody made popcorn.

So you just walk in. It was really actually like a movie. You would pay your stuff and go in. You grab your soda out of the mop bucket, you know, and that was two stamps. But it felt like, it felt like we were walking in, man. We're walking into our own movie, man. i got our own stuff i got my candy and i've got my sony here and we're going to watch but it there was a big deal i mean that was um i guess that was probably one of the biggest deals that we had and it was

really there was a good member of bad movie it was an event for sure i uh yeah it's what you were saying too about uh the people you met which was was shocking to me uh was that i did i met the some of the best people I've ever known. Yeah. Like it was, it was a great. And I think that, I think that's one of the things that, you know, going through the experience that we've gone through, you wouldn't know that unless you go through the experience that we've gone through.

The overall society impression is that everybody is bad in there because that's where they are. But, yeah. There's no doubt there are. me for me. No doubt there are some bad people. Oh, yeah. I certainly don't want to get that impression, no. But for a lot of reasons, there's people, you know, in the very first day I got there, the guy, Romo, who was a Hispanic guy that was a boxer. And he just immediately said, man, you don't look like I've ever been here before. You're going to need a lot of help. And, you know, he immediately starts helping me while my locker cleaning it. And he says, you know, we got to make this bad military style because the warden comes through up Friday. let me show you how to do that and I just literally had gotten introduced to him and he within that you know minute or two he had plugged in and and was helping me get to the next step and they're the guys that will come to you immediately and say hey I have a locker for

your lock I have shower slides for you here which is huge by the way yeah of course right here's a huge or here's a toothbrush yeah just give me the shower slides back give me this back, buy your own lock immediately. Yeah. Just give me the stuff back. And you're like, well, what do I owe you for the? Now, you don't owe anything. Just give me it back.

And, you know, here's a couple soups. And it's like. Yeah, it really opens your eyes. And it happens immediately. Because if it doesn't happen, it sucks. Somebody's, that's hard time. It's hard time until you go to, until you go to commissary and get those things. If you're lucky enough to have somebody that puts money on your books right away.

Exactly. You know, like it could be, you know, So, yeah, there's some, there are some great, great things that happen. It's funny now thinking about how small they are. It sounds small when you and I are talking about it, but when you're telling me, when you're telling me that, I can't even imagine if somebody wouldn't have given me shower shoes. Yeah.

You know, what would I have done? I mean, I don't know. I mean, other than just in general, the filth, but not just that. It's that, you know, you could get staff. Yeah. Who knows? And there were guys that had stuff. That was another thing.

I was really scared of him because we had a guy when we were in Ardap. And that was the other thing you were talking about, man, it was great living in Ardap. I mean, we had all the rules and stuff, but man, it was so much cleaner, you know. That was, I would rather have the rules and stuff and be in a clean place where the bathroom was just, you know, totally clean. I love it because it was quiet. And quiet. You could read. It was like being in a library.

Yeah. It was the best thing. That was great. Yeah. I would, and I think, I think it's surprising to that, that they have that in the BOP. I'm surprised that that was able, that whole program was able to get, because I do think that's the best thing that the prison system offers, and I'm totally agreeing with you. I don't know why they don't teach it to everybody.

It's in the prison. So did you write your book when you were locked up? I didn't. I did it when I got out. And I think one of the things was I was thinking, Matt, when I was in, I don't know, you know, I was more just like focusing on, you know, day to day. And I probably could have started writing my book then, but I kind of wanted to write it once I got out just to have maybe a different perspective of what I was doing and what I was saying. but no i wrote it when i got out and um i think i waited like a couple of years before i started writing and you know when you get out you were you were you were you six years six years in

what do you mean how long did you how long were you in prison 13 years 13 years i do you just doubled it on me so i can't imagine what 13 years feels like because for me you know i just did three of those 13 but it takes you a little bit of while just to kind of get you know it's almost like you get sea legs and you got to kind of steady yourself it's like you're trying to jump in a moving car yeah what what do they miss what's going on how do i fit in uh am i still me all those things that happen when you get up i can't imagine 13 years because 13 years there is truly a lot of things that happened you know there was what what years were you in keep in mind there were no smartphones when i when i went in prison yeah i'd never seen like an iphone i'd never

no wi-fi there's no i remember when i first got out like when i went in texting had just come out you couldn't you couldn't watch youtube on your phone you couldn't that was all none of that was going on um and when i when i got out i got out in um 2019 i was i got hired i went to a gym work a buddy my own gym went there and i remember my probation officer had emailed me something yeah saying you know you need to print this fill it out sign it and so my buddy goes here give me your phone and i said okay and i he said i go can i how do i print this and he said well i got a printer over there he's we print it right now i i said do i go to a kinkos do i there's no kinkos he is it They got, he said, it's UPS.

He said, well, I got a printer right there. And I went, yeah, but I got to print this. It's on my phone. It's on my email. And he goes, here, give me your thing. And he goes, hold on. He did, did, do, do, do, do. And he goes, all right, I printed it.

And now the printer's 40 feet away. Yeah. And I go, no, seriously, bro. I said, I need to print it. Magic. And he looked at me, he goes, I printed it. And I went, how? I go, how?

Like, like, I'm like, like, like, I'm not. Like, I'm not going to walk over there. you think it's a joke? And he goes, I go, seriously, bro, I need to print it. And he goes, come here. We walk over and sure enough, he printed like 12 pages. And I was like, how? And he goes, it's Wi-Fi.

I go, what's that? And he goes, oh, man, man. This is going to be. I'm going to get on. I mean, I just can't, you know, for me, in just the short amount of time of three years, I noticed that when I went in, You know, phones didn't have all the notifications and stuff on it. And so when I got out, I noticed it like when I was with my daughters and like,

we'd be watching TV, they were constantly looking at their phones. I'm like, what are they doing? Why are they watching? Why are they watching? That was one of the weird phenomenons that I saw was like, people went from having the phone in their pocket or a woman in their purse or whatever, that they just constantly are looking at their phone. Yeah.

I was like, what are you doing? and what's happening is they don't even realize that that phone all of a sudden has notifications on it all the time and they're just constantly looking at it with whatever you're doing you can be watch TV or movie or whatever everybody's just looking with the phones well that was a weird thing because that wasn't that way when I went in that was just in three years 13 in 13 years imagine I went into we would go to a restaurant or anywhere we would go and there would be there's like you know there's 20 tables and 95% of everybody is. is sitting there with their spouse or three other people, and all three of them are just staring at their phone. They're not even talking. Yeah. And I was like, and people are walking by, and I thought people had to freak you out. Oh, and people had earbuds in.

Yeah. Wow, talking, having conversations. Looking like they're talking to themselves. I'm thinking people are talking to me. Mm-hmm. So anyway, I told them and I'm like, what, what, what, what, but they just have earbuds in. they're having conversations on the telephone and I don't know I don't know that took me a couple

days to realize that I was I wasn't crazy that they weren't crazy they were you know they had earbuds and what do you think what do you think getting out was your biggest was it just technology was it technology that was like the big piece that was like yeah the technology because nobody because it's it's hard to it's hard to ask people questions because you know younger people they think you're you know you're an idiot if you ask them because it's just they've done them since they were born so right they have no idea and then even other people that understand the situation they still talk to you in such a way that you're like okay you're still you're talking french right now like i don't you're telling me to air drop this and you're telling me well go to your

there what's airdrop right or what's drop box or go to your set go to your settings and turn on I don't know what I don't know what you're saying I don't even know what settings I don't know I don't know I don't know anything and and you know so it took it took time but I got buddies that have been out you know the whole time now and I'm not showing them how to do things on their phones and I'm explaining to them to do that they're like bro like you really adapted to this very like you know I edit I edit my own clips I edit all kinds of stuff. I make videos.

I do. So I've really jumped into it. You picked up on it quick. Yeah, I don't think I'm great. But you know, but you got to be willing to learn and do it too. And a lot of people are really scared. People, especially older people are really scared to try something that's,

they think that's going to explode or something. Yeah. You do something on the computer is going to explode or the phone will quit working if you do something. Yeah. Freaks them out. Yeah. I get it.

I'm a little bit like that. And I started hitting buttons. I get frustrated. I get the anxiety is overwhelming. But I'm also just like you said, I'm like I think most people, you know, I'm sure you've heard this. Like most people have like, you know, they have their other life. They have multiple multi-million dollar ideas.

Sure. The problem is most people are just unable to pull the trigger. And I'm big on. pulling the trigger and I'm I'm okay with failing. Like I've failed. You have to fail. I think that's maybe one of the biggest misunderstandings for people where they think, oh man, I don't know how he did that in business.

Well, most of it is just doing it. And then you figure out, oh, well, that didn't quite work. I'm going to have to readjust that. That's not a failure. That's a mistake that you don't want to repeat. So in business, you know, a lot of times you get ideas. Like, I love getting, especially when I was in my 20s, looking at something and say, oh, my God, I could take that and implement it over here and maybe tweak it a little bit.

And then I don't even have to try to figure it out. I've already got it. And that happened like two or three times to me where I called somebody, they talked to me, and they gave me their stuff. And I was like, oh, my God. And all it was was reaching out to them, creating a conversation. Like, you know, one time it was reading an article about this one guy and he was just blowing things up and I called him and I said, man, you're doing this really cool stuff. And I noticed down at the bottom here, they kind of buried it, but you're doubling market share where nobody's doubling market share. What are you doing? He said, well, young Cassidy. He said, nobody's asking that question. Why don't you fly out here and see me? I flew out there and saw that guy and it changed everything in this one division we had. And if I could teach anything to kids, it would be to do that. Don't be afraid to go and talk.

Because usually somebody who's doing something that they're really good at, they'd like to talk about it a little bit because, you know, they're good at it. So they might want to say, yeah, this is how I did it. But if you don't ask them, they don't tell you. So to me, that's like one of the secret formulas. Like when we blew up and got big in our company, a lot of it was other people's, we had some unique ideas. but a lot of it was taken from other people's ideas that we implemented into our business

and we were able to take off with it in a different industry. And I think, you know, if there's any tips out there for this old guy, 55 years old, is keep your eyes open because a lot of the answers to what you're looking for are in the market. You can take those and then go back to what you said, Matt, do it, engage, take action with it, because you're going to make mistakes. But as long as you're taking action, that puts you like in the 20 percentile, everybody else, the 80 percentile,

they're sitting there watching you on the sidelines, wishing they were in the game, but they just don't have the guts to get out there on the field. That's the real secret sauce to the whole thing is so many people are just afraid to go out and say, I want to play, let me in. And if you do that, you start gaining confidence. You start saying, well, how?

I belong out here. I don't know. Well, these guys aren't as tough. as I thought they were. I can play with this. And I think that's the secret. But you got to step into it. And that's the thing that just scares the shit out, people. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I don't want to go off on a tangent.

It was just, I was going to say, there was multiple guys in prison. There was a guy in prison. The short version is, like, he'd never had a driver's license. He'd never got arrested. He was like 19 years old. Like he just, he was a hacker and, um, I think he got in trouble when he was, I think it was 19 when he got, 19 or 20 when he got arrested. Yeah.

Heroin addict. He did like six years, didn't know what he was going to do, had never had a real job, just, you know, and I was like, yeah, but you like, yeah, but you like, yeah, but you can't do that. I said, yeah, but they're illegal ways to do it. Yeah. And I was like, you know, you ought to, you ought to get, you know, I'm sure there's, there are certificates you can get. No, I can't work in that industry and I can't this. I'm in here for hacking. And I said, right.

I said, listen, let me explain something. At that point, I'd been locked up like 10 or 11 years. I said, I've been locked up like 11 years. I said, you know how many hackers, how many guys have been locked up for the charge of hacking? Yeah. He goes, no. And I said, almost nobody. Right.

Almost no one. I said, that is specific. If I was you, I would lean into that. I would tell everybody that's what I was locked up for. I said, that makes you dangerous, it makes you brilliant. It makes you interesting. federal government mounted an entire task force to catch you because you were so smart. I said, and they gave you six years for a crime that most of these guys get 18 months for.

And I said, listen, I said, you need to lean in that. So he found out there were multiple certificates you got, had to get classes. He did that. He took all. As soon as he got out, he did those things. He then got a job working for you. And I had told him this, like, yeah, you're not going to be able to go work for like IBM. But there's a lot of these companies.

higher sub you know sub companies you could probably one of them that's what he did he went and got a job working for a small company that was that their services were were um you know highly sought after what he was doing right huh it's highly sought after for what he was doing people pay big money for that this kid's making like a hundred and fifty thousand and he's only been doing it like four or five years like with it that's cool in the first year he was making a hundred thousand second year it's a little over he's now making 150 to 160,000 dollars, constantly has headhuners calling him. And he's a felon and everybody knows. Everybody knows. And I think a lot of that too is, you know, first of all, you helped him out. You kind of that you helped him get

focused on what he had that was his, his magic. Yeah, he was madge. I always tell, like I get tons of guys that ask me questions, you know, got young, young kids that, you know, I don't know why. Like, to me, I've bumbled my way through life, but, but, they have a experience. Well, and I tend to give them, they're like, well, what would you say about this? I'm like, you know, I'm going to give you the same advice, any thought. Like, I'm not going to tell you anything amazing, but then when I tell it to them, I realize that, well, I don't know, you know, that I don't think they, they don't have anybody to tell them these things. Yeah, I guess so maybe that could be it, too.

They're hearing up for the first time. Sure. Find something you love. that you're interested in, that you're not going to mind doing the rest of your life and lean into that and find a way that make that pay you and don't do it for the money because if just try and be the best at it, because if you're the best at it, then the money will come. Yeah. And I think another thing I was thinking while you were talking there, Matt, like another thing that I used in prison was, is to try to win the day. And I had a,

my daughter had a calendar that she gave me every year that had like our family pictures and everything. And so I filled out that little box every night on the calendar. I was trying to find something that happened, even in prison, like what happened? I can say it happened good today. Here's what happened to what happened. And one of the things I did to try to keep myself from falling down into a slippery slope was not fill out too bad boxes. That I win the day, you know, one day at a time, don't get too far ahead of yourself. Because like with you, you had, you know, a much bigger sentence than me. But for me, a five-year sentence, you know, looking at that, you know, five years out, that just seems overwhelming.

It's, you know, day to day and then don't fall down the trap. Day to day, don't fall down the trap. So that's one of the things I used was is that try to find something. And then if I did have a bad day, I wasn't trying to win all days. If I had a really bad day, I went all the way down. It was a really shitty day. And I went all the way down with it. But I didn't want to go down two days with it because then I knew that that could turn into a week.

That could turn into a month. That could turn into a year. And I became that guy that was in the fetal position over there. And that's what always scared me. So that was a strategy of mine was don't fill out too bad boxes. Don't do it because you get slippery sloped there in prison. And I always thought, because you see them all around you. You see the good ones that are trying to make it work.

And you see the ones that have given up. And you think, oh, my God, I hope that had never happened to me because that can happen. Yeah. You get a bit of bad news. And bad news in prisons, really bad news in prison. feels that much worse so so when you did get out you went to what a halfway house yeah guy went to a terrible halfway house you know and the thing the thing about not that there's hey there's a great halfway house the one of the one in st louis is the oldest

halfway house in the united states of america and it is as they all are not in good areas and this is in a horrible area on co brilliant boulevard in the ugliest most crime-ridden street in St. Louis. I mean, the things that happen around that halfway house are only drugs and shootings and whatever else you can come up with. And then we're all there. I mean, before I got there, the guy, you know, he must have stitched on somebody and he came out at the, you know, the front glass door and they just moat him down in a drive-by. So you always thought about like when I'm leaving that front door, it was, it was weird, though, because it was so locked down we were like with 150 guys and they had this big class area that you couldn't

get out of you know it was all locked locked down and it was it was worse than prison that that and i had i spent eight weeks there i had no idea why i had to spend that much time because i had a place to go my wife you know i had a job and i still i still spent eight weeks there and it was like the dirtiest and strangest and worst place i'd ever spent well, no, Warrington County Jail is the worst place I've ever spent, but this one, this one was dirtier, that it was, I was glad to get out of there. It's certainly, they're so bad, they get written up about all the time here in St. Louis, and they got their contract taken away from them, and then we were supposed to open up a new dissonance house, a new halfway house,

and they somehow didn't get the contractors done, and so it reverted back. And so now they're, their year by year at dismas house so they're still alive still going on so you you were there for eight weeks did you go home on hang on a like ankle monitor or yeah i did and that was that was kind of unique because the when i got there they had just got a new contract uh renewed and that ankle monitors was part of the new contract and so they'd never had ankle monitors ever And so the month before they get these ankle monitors. So I get an ankle monitor stripped on me, tacked to my ankle.

And I thought, because always what they had done, I don't know if this happened with you, Matt, but they made three phone calls a night, starting from 9 o'clock until 6 o'clock in the morning. And he had to have a landline. And if you didn't answer it, then you had to come back to the halfway house. Well, they didn't stop doing that,

even though they, they strapped us on with the ankle monitor. So I had the ankle monitor, and I had three of those contacts a night, which just was like, you wake up and like, holy shit, okay, okay, I answer it. Because your thought is, if I don't answer it, they're going to send me back. And then I had a defective ankle monitor because they were all these old anchor monitors. They didn't get new ones. And I had a defective ankle monitor that wouldn't hold a charge. And if it doesn't hold a charge, that also sends you back.

So I kept telling my case manager, hey, my ankle monitor. Oh, no, you just need to charge it. And so I finally, you know, after a couple of days, they kept ringing that I was escaping. And I said, no, it doesn't charge. And so they finally cut it off of them and put another one out. So it took a little anxiety off of the situation. But it's so hard to tell people like what kind of anxiety that is because here I am at work. And, you know, I'm back into this new job.

And this damn ankle monitor is going and it's flashing red and it won't. And that means it's going down to the big panel down there that I'm escaping from my BOP world custody. It was just, it was crazy. But after that first week, I was fine. So what was your, what was the job you got when you got out? Well, it's funny because I, I.