Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - THE LARGEST RACKETEERING SCAM IN US HISTORY | Healthcare Fraudster Exposes Industry Secrets

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

United Healthcare CEO and Luigi Mangione have brought a lot of attention to how healthcare really works. Nelson Rodriguez shares his experience committing healthcare fraud & more. Nelsons Links https://www.youtube.com/@UCU8SOOozDSNqteFb4i1K6Hg https://link.me/montanamethodmindset https://www.instagram.com/montanatheprophet?igsh=ZTZuemluMjFwbnY= Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code COX at https://Mandopodcast.com/COX #mandopod Get 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7 Send me an email here: [e-mail] Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content? Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news   🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt 🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/re Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8 Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438 The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402 Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1 Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel! Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69

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On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor. About Wagoe. Ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers.

You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit Wagovi.combe.com for savings. Exclusions may apply. The whole health care system is such a scam. You're talking to a guy that was on the inside of an insurance company. The FBI swarming a Miami house over health care and wire fraud. What United does is what every insurance company does.

You want to talk about a legal racket that's protected by the federal government? It's the biggest racketeering scam on the face of the planet. The official charge I was given was conspiracy to commit health care fraud. And looking back at it, I didn't think it was a big deal, but now I understand kind of like the cost of white-collar crime. So what I thought was happening was we were taking the money from the insurance company, and it was like, eat the loss, fuck you, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not what happens. They take, they don't take a loss. They report the fraud to the federal government, and the federal government reimburses them every dollar we've stolen. Okay. So now I didn't steal from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Now I stole from the American taxpayer. Right.

Now I'm on the hook for that money with the federal government. So it's like the whole healthcare system is such a scam. Like this whole thing with Ligi Mangi-Manjione is a murderer. I'm not even going to try to defend that guy. But the conversation, it's a total scam. You're talking to a guy that was on the inside of an insurance company. What United does is what every insurance company does. They deny a bunch of claims.

You know how many legit doctors I saw that were billing or legit hospitals that were billing for a legal within compliance procedure they did that the insurance company was like, we don't feel like paying you $50,000. You know, we're going to deny your claim. Go appeal it. Go appeal it to who, to the same people

who don't want to pay me? It's a scam. It's a total insurance is like, you want to talk about a legal racket that's protected by the federal government? It's the biggest racketeering scam on the face of the plan. The difference is that what I do is illegal and what they do is legal.

You know, so it's like the flip side to the coin. But, yeah, I didn't realize the toll, like, how that system is kind of, like, really protected. And how I'm really, like, what I did was it really hurt, like, everyday people. Because at the end of the day, that causes, like, all kinds of burdens on the economy and the average taxpayers. So, yeah, it's, it wasn't until I finished doing everything and I learned more about the legal system that I, it was like fuck so that's that's what happens that's how i affect other people it's so i works for a medicare hMO right so we're dealing with low-income senior citizens people who can't afford regular health insurance and in miami is such a scam you have like leon medical centers simply

health care plans sun health uh humana i'm sure this means nothing to you guys but all these insurance companies offer what's called medicare advantage so basically instead of having original Medicare through the government where you're covered up to 80% of your medical bills. They get this Medicare Advantage plan where basically that company is getting a subsidy from the government. And what they do is

they go in and negotiate with doctors to pay them a lower rate and they get the difference in the subsidy. Okay. Right? So it's a total scam. Like instead of you just having your regular Medicare that pays you, it's a company that basically goes in, takes over your

Medicare and like low balls all these doctors and hospitals to make money off of you just to give you an idea of how lucrative it is simply health care plans the company I worked for before I quit they made $3 billion in 2018 or 2017

3 billion they had actually just gotten acquired for a billion dollars by Anthem Anthem is the same company that owns Blue Cross Blue Shield and a bunch of other giant companies they deny claims all the time even if you and it was

It was an HMO, so that means they had a network. You had to go in-network. You had to go to an in-network doctor, in-network facility, unless it's like an emergency, and emergency bills got denied all the time. They would deny people for going, oh, because you didn't go, oh, you went to the right doctor, but you didn't file a, or you're one-digit off on a claim number. Oh, you did this, but, you know, you didn't do it at fucking 5 o'clock, which is the time when you're, like, stupid shit.

And they denied any little reason they had to deny. medical claims they did it and again you're talking about senior citizens people who we should be looking out for it not trying to take advantage of right you know they talk about scammers like what i did oh yeah you're you're a fraudster yet these medicare hMO companies are taking advantage of old people like the most vulnerable class we have in society which is elders and kids so yeah man like the whole thing that's going on with united yeah fuck luigi he's not cool i mean he murdered a guy and cold blood but it does bring up the same old conversation like and now how they're involving AI to like deny claims and stuff that's a whole other ballgame I don't I haven't seen how that works

but the conversation definitely needs to be had I mean there's no reason they should be federally backed if you get if money gets stolen from you got to deal with that that's why the fuck is that coming from taxpayer money why should that come from the federal government that makes no sense you know these systems they should definitely be updated or something something you know it's it's a broken system that's for sure we had a tick talk about that same topic due to two million oh that's fantastic yeah and the guy was talking about the AI basically yeah the healthcare you know the AI that was denying claims and they knew was faulty but the CEO is just like let it roll let it ride yeah so no no no the CEOs are completely complicit and aware of denying these these claims

don't think that it's like oh yeah it's some guy and no no no no they're making the decisions from like a high level. They are hyper aware of what's going on in their companies. And they're the ones making the decision to deny those claims to make the company more money. It's, it's completely illicit and it's disgusting. It's pure greed. It's just greed. I've been using Mando's whole body deodorant. And let me tell you, you can use it anywhere. Pits, balls, thighs, and even your feet. Mando's powered by mandelic acid. So it stops odor before it even starts. It blocks odor all day. talking 72 hours. I love the scents too. My favorite is bourbon leather. It smells amazing.

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Once again, that's shopmando.com and use the promo code. Cox. So what do you want to you? Let's kind of start at the, at the beginning? I actually have to start before I'm even born. I have to start with like my parents. No, I'm serious.

I'm serious. And it'll make sense. Okay. So. We had a guy do that. It was four and a half hours and it never makes sense. We'll do. It was 30 minutes of him talking about shit that happened before he was born.

And in the end, it never tied it. But that's why I look at Colby. Because Colby and I, when we, when he left, Kobe and I looked at each other and went, did that motherfucker start 30 minutes for 30 minutes before he was even. born? Yeah. His, yeah. Yeah, it was like...

All right, well, I'm born and raised in Miami, Florida. Right. So, a big... I'm a walking contradiction. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm very... I was incredibly inspired by Scarface as a kid. Not for the drug dealing and not for...

I know. I know, but follow me for a second. Not for the drug dealing and not for the murdering. I knew I wasn't going to do that. I knew that that guy was a moron for doing that. What I admired about the guy... is that the guy showed up here with fucking holes in his shoes. Mind you, he got here the same way my mother did.

The same way, the Mario Boatlift. You know how my mom, you know how they had the whole thing under the 10, I-95, and all that? My mom was one of those people. So it was a very real story for me. Like, it was, this guy was just another one of the guys that showed up on the boat. And how he just said, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, and he did it. It was like, it was inspiring to me. Because I didn't, at that time, I didn't know anybody's successful.

they made money so i was like man like if i could do that but with something else my life will turn out pretty good you know and it it really it just stuck with me and stuck in my brain like he was like this confident like ambitious guy right so that whole and that whole era to me is like i've told you that's my one of my favorite eras they're like 80s miami all the fucking

gangster drug lords and shit it's just to me it's it's a never-ending like exciting chain of stories like look at the fucking Cowboys guy he's look how much money he's made off that franchise he's made like one two documentaries a talkie series

and it's all like 80s Miami Cuban drug dealer guys you know so that all that all was very inspiring to me as a kid you know I think of his name Corbin

Billy Corbin Billy Corbin yeah Jewish guy down in Miami so so that's how my mom got here she got here in 1980 and the boat lift um

with my grandfather my grandfather that's that's I lived with him for many years. My father got here in 1988. He actually got a fake Venezuelan passport and went to Panama. And then in Panama, he took the bus to Mexico and then he crossed the border

where my aunt was waiting for him to go get him. My parents met. And then, funny enough, right when I'm born in 1992, I don't know how this happened. But my dad decides to get involved in the drug trade. Don't ask me how he decided to do that after he had kids.

You saw Scarface. right this is the way you do it yeah so he starts making money make a really good living um and that lasted that that was very short-lived because what's short-lived like six months or a year two years what's the lifespan of it well i didn't find any of this out until i was older i was like a teenager when like i started oh so that's why we went to disneyland every weekend you know did he did he go to jail no no no no no no no no he he gained enough sense to where he stopped but it was a good i would have to say a good solid three years okay solid three years um you know he'd tell me stories when i was older of like you remember

that little you know bag that had woody on it that i would take to like trips and that was like your bag and i'd put in lockers yeah that had a hundred thousand dollars in cash in it i was like okay that's great or my uncle would be like oh one time i walked into your house when you were like at school and I went to go see your daddy. He was like, hey, come here. And he went, he opened the mattress and you had like, you know, $250,000 under the mattress. I'd hear these stories when I was older and I was like, bro, what the fuck? But another thing you got to understand about Miami and Cubans in the 80s, like everybody was doing it. Right. That was just the way of life. I have an uncle. I grew up with all my extended family, so all my grandparents' siblings were like my

aunts and uncles. I have an uncle. He's since passed away. My uncle, Artemio. It's, Spanish for Arthur, he was a huge trafficker. Like, he did it for years. He did it for like 25 years, never got caught. Like, it was, it's pretty wild how it was just such a normal part of Miami in the 80s. It didn't make sense to me. And that's built the whole city. That's built the entire city, downtown, the skyscrapers, and it's, it's kind of spilled over. Like, that was the basis for the boom in Miami. You had that whole gold rush you see in Miami now. It's like the second version of what happened in the 80s, you know, but now it's like fraud. Yeah, we talked about that yesterday.

We were talking about how like that whole kind of from Miami up the coast there, it's like there's tons of con men and all these guys get arrested in New York and go to prison for fraud. They all relocate back down there. The mobsters all relocate back down there. Yeah. And South Florida, funny enough, my judge sat in court and said, you know, if this were other areas of the country would be having a different conversation but I specifically have a message from Washington that I need to send a message to you guys here in South Florida because this is the

the fraud capital of the world the fraud capital of world bro that's that's fucking insane that's I didn't even know that but yeah I don't know what it is about Miami I think maybe it's a lifestyle that that attracts those kinds of people snakes and the con man and all the weird shit that goes on I've never really understood it but that's that's a stigma that we carry unfortunately and it sucks because there's a lot of great people that have built the city. You know, my grandparents, my uncle's aunt, so they're just honest people. But, yeah, like, that's just been the way of life down there. You know, everybody knows somebody.

Everybody has that uncle, you know. It was, there's, so there's a funny joke that went on in the 80s. When you show up at, like, a mini mansion or a mansion, there was this big party. And you'd meet the owner of the house, and you'd be like, what do you do for leaving? And he's like, oh, I'm the marimberro. I play the marimba. The marimba is the silophone. It's like a wooden siloform.

So that name caught on So that's what we called Drug traffickers Like Cubans in Spanish We call them Marimberos Okay That's like a made up term That doesn't even exist

In the rest of the country It's funny When you think about it And then we actually tell other people Who speak Spanish about that term And they're just like They don't even know what that means All right

So anyway So I'm born in 1992 You know That all happens I'm like in elementary school, a kid, you know, my parents are square people at this point. They make money. They're like doing my mom's a waitress. My dad's a truck driver.

And then I have a fairly normal upbringing besides here and there, you know, again, the Miami culture had a cousin who was just like nuts. You know, he was a little thug on the street. He's actually the one that showed me Scarface for the first time as a kid. Makes sense, right? so and in a weird way in spite of him kind of like being wild and like doing all that wild shit on the streets it was good for me to be around him because my parents were getting divorced at the time so he was good like a good older brother figure kind of to have um i'll actually tell you the story of how he moved in so my my parents uh were fighting for years before they got

divorced and then for whatever reason i don't remember why my sister wasn't home but i was there that night and they got an official hey we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with a TD small business account manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play, get up to $2,700 when you open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. It was bad.

They got in a fist fight. They beat the fuck out of each other. They threw shit out of each other. Like, I was like hiding in my room because I would hear glass break and that kind of shit. Thank God my cousin. My other cousin was there that night and broke him up and took him. So I actually decided to leave with my dad that night to get him out of the house. So he wouldn't hurt my mother.

So I left with my dad and they took my other cousin took us to my grandma's house. And then my cousin Lewis, who's the one that showed me Scarface, shows up at my grandma's house and picks us up or picks me up and takes me. mom back to his house and I live with him. We live with him for like four years or three or four years at that point. And I'm exposed to like, you know, his dog friends and smoking drugs and all this crazy stuff that's what Rio shouldn't see, but to me it was kind of normal. You know, it's the kind of stuff I'd see in school and drugs to me at that point were like, okay, you know, I never did them like that at that point. But to me, drugs like just seeing drugs like that

around it didn't really affect me it wasn't like oh my god what is that i shouldn't be doing this it was like okay just another guy who sells drugs or those drugs whatever right it wasn't i was desensitized to it which thinking back is kind of weird because a 12 year old kid or a 13 year old kid would be like the normal kid should be like what's that right and to me it was more like okay whatever you know well and also you'd see movies and been exposed to it that too that too yeah i started watching other kids probably wouldn't be watching at that age yeah yeah yeah Yeah, yeah. So he watches Scarface every day.

I'm not exaggerating. Every day. That's horrible. Our parrot's name was Yeo. Like just... And we named him Yeo because his favorite line was Chi-Chi, Chi-Chi, get the Yeo. Like, he said it every day. And like I said, in a weird way, I knew the things that were going on were wrong.

Like the things he would do was wrong. The things Scarface did was wrong. but I didn't want to be like my environment funny enough even though I ended up in prison which is I'll get to that I didn't want to sell drugs and I didn't want to like run around on the street I wanted to be like just different you know I didn't want to I saw that as like almost like that oh that's what like they do I'm not them I'm different you know so that's how I kind of started watching these gangster movies as a kid they get inspiration you know I kind picked what I thought was good and kind of left what I didn't like so that was that was about

middle school I get to high school and then my my mom ends up marrying my stepdad well they don't get officially married but they get together and my stepfather is a notorious career criminal notorious like he was he had done six years gotten caught a few times the only reason he hadn't gotten deported is because Cubans are like a special we have this weird thing because of like Cuba and it's a communist country and that's a whole they don't have to send you back yeah you're here illegally you're allowed to stay right exactly wet foot dry foot all that stuff yeah yeah yeah so my that was like I mean he tried he tried to sort of hide what he did from us but it was it was too obvious you know he was notorious gangster like he he would sit on

houses full of drugs and wait for the right time and bust in there with three of his buddies beat the fuck out everybody steal everything sell all the shit he there was this one story this one time my mom told me that was it was pretty wild he sat and watched this guy who owned the jewelry shop for like four days and he would just follow him and follow him and follow him and follow him and follow him until like he got his his schedule down and then this one time he just sat waited for the guy that guy walked in for the jewelry shop he popped his trunk open because he had seen him put a bag in there took the bag and you just took off and the bag had like 50 grand in it you know that's how he made he's living like robbing stealing selling like

whatever he's in the building in fcii right now in uh downtown miami yeah it's crazy can't get right no no no no no he's done this is the third his third fed case okay and every time he's gotten caught it's been worse like worse and worse so that was again in a strange way it was good for me because he was like an alpha male so i got some good qualities from him but again don't don't do that because you're going to end up like him right he ends up getting caught because they set up this whole case against him where for months a CI was recording him on a call like the feds were recording him talking to a CI on a call every for like months and they were telling him yeah this house you know i know where it is i know how much drugs it has we're going to break into we're

going to steal all the shit and he did it for like six months or more i remember like it was an old man i remember him he used to drive this escalator i remember it clear his day he used to come to my house and shit it was it was pretty wild so the day they do it my god fought my my stepfather leaves my house and he pulls into a gas station or something to get gas and then as he's leaving the gas station the feds just they scoop them up um i don't even know what the official charge was but yeah that's that he ended up getting an 18 year sentence for that uh it was it was pretty crazy yeah and then my like my mom needless to say it was left alone we went through foreclosure

my house actually burned down that's a whole other thing car repossessions we had to move into a fucking trailer i hated that trailer bro the trailer oh my god you can't pay me enough money to move back into a trailer park i can't i have such a negative association with trailer parks that it's like it's disgusting Um, so we think everybody does. I mean, there aren't, there aren't, and there's probably nice trailer parks. There probably is. There are.

There are like retirement trailer parks where they actually have like an association. They keep it up. Yeah. Yeah. With a planned trailer park. But in general. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Growing up in the 80s, 90s, you know, you had a really, they were just, because they were

a lot of the ones that were built in this 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, like they're just horrific. Yeah, yeah. And there are, I've seen them in Miami. There's a couple like real clean ones that they, it's in a nicer part. of town but right you still don't want to get by a hurricane in one yeah definitely not it's not a good idea but yeah um so he goes away he gets an 18 year sentence our life falls apart uh i'm still in high school at this point i'm like 15 16 and then at this point my great grandmother dies so

my great grandmother's like the matriarch of my my family she raised me until i was about 15 very good influence on me uh very good influence on like she brought everybody from cuba like she was she kind of like was like yeah like the leader of the family right so she dies my my stepfather goes to prison we lose her house so my mom is like mentally just like falling apart she's not doing well mentally and at that point i kind of just um i had a decision to make because she wanted to move and i was about to graduate high school so what i did was i just ended up moving out of my own and i let her move to wherever she was going and i stayed at her move to wherever she was going and I stayed in Miami

and I kept going to school I was working you know like 10 hour days at McDonald's and then I'd go to school from you know what was it 6.30 in the morning till like 2.30

so my life I fucking hated my life for my life was terrible. It was so bad it was like that real like work sleep go back to work sleep doing something you hate so

there is the first time I get one of those big opportunities right leading up to to how i ended up getting arrested later but so this someone approaches me and it's actually a like totally legit company and i was like i didn't understand the concept of selling something like i didn't know what selling was or entrepreneurship or any that shit you know i just kind of like oh rich people and poor people so someone approaches me a really good friend of mine he's like hey these guys are like offering us just like sales job and And I was like, the fuck is sales. I don't even know what that is.

So they explained the concept of like, oh, you know, you sell something and they pay your commission. Oh, that shit. Long story short, I get involved and I go like full throttle. What was it? It was a direct sales company selling like AT&T and Verizon and like home service, like stuff you use in your home. Okay. And I ended up building a massive team, like 600 agents, 4,000 customers. I did really well.

And it taught me a lot. It taught me like how to go and are they going. Is it like a, are they, um, is it a call center or is you knocking door door? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, you could do door to door. You could cold call. Now that I think about it, it wasn't like, they didn't even supply leads. It was horrible.

But I was just so hungry and I want. You go to a neighborhood. You go to a neighborhood. You just scour the neighborhood. Yeah. Just knocking. Was it, is it, is it dialing for dollars? It's been knocking for dollars.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it taught me a lot of good things. It taught me like grit, be tough, you know, Rejection. Rejection is a big one. People fucking hate rejection, bro. I realized, I read this book. It's called Overcoming Rejection will make you rich. And after reading that book, I really understood, like, it's inevitable. Like, you'll get what you want in life as long as you keep trying. Yeah, yeah. It is the whole, you know, you have to knock on whatever 50 doors to get one sale. Yeah. So every time you knock on a door and someone says no, then you got to count that as, okay, well, that's one more towards my 50. That doesn't matter what they said. I'm now one down. You know, next door. Oh, no, not interested. Absolutely. I'll have they closed their work. Great. Now, two down. I just got to get to 50, you know, and I'll have at least one statistically, I should have one sale. Right. If I knock on 150 doors today, I'll have it statistically should have three sales. Exactly. You still have to be good, but, you know, right? Most of those are a script, right?

Yeah. Just reading the script. Funny enough, that company was actually endorsed by Donald Trump now that I think about it. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I think that's the only, like, private business he's ever endorsed. Funny enough. But yeah, I actually got to see him at a conference. was really cool i got to see him and hear him talk and he told this cool story of like when he was broke and like he owed like 99 million dollars in debt and then he went to this one meeting this one meeting changed everything for him it was cool um he likes to tell the famous story about

how he was walking with his daughter and they were walking down the street out of one of his buildings or something and some guy there was a homeless guy yeah and he pointed it yeah yeah see that guy that guy is worth more money than me or has 99 million dollars more than me Yeah, I'm worth more money than I am. $99 million in debt or something like that. Yeah. And then he tells the story of like I almost didn't go to the meeting because I felt like shit and like everything.

But, you know, I forced myself to go to the meeting and then I met this banker who ended up like changing everything for me. So that's another good lesson. I've learned a lot of good lessons in that company. One of which is like most of the times when your life is like on the verge of falling apart, you're probably on the right track. Right. It's always darkest before the dawn

Yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff Yeah, I met Ross in prison Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, I know You told me when we when we interviewed me Yeah, yeah, yeah, so and we'll get there So yeah, yeah, and for context People watching Ross Mendel

Who we previously interviewed Yeah, yeah, we did a video We could actually link it at the end of this You know, so there you go Click on that Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely So it goes great Like I'm not a millionaire, but I'm making a great living

I get great mentorship. I'm reading books. Like, I'm really developing myself as a person. None of us knew that the leader of, like, that little team had a horrible pain habit. Horrible. Like, it was really bad. And then he ends up marrying another chick that has any of the brain habit. So, like, he was our leader and he would teach us everything.

And then he wouldn't show up. And then he'd be late. And then he was like, all right, you guys got it from here. and then everything kind of just fell apart. You know, once we found out, everybody got unmotivated and everybody kind of stopped doing that business. It kind of fell apart. Okay.

So at that point, I have to do the one thing I don't want to do, which is go back and get a regular job. And it sucked a soul out of me. You know, when you work for yourself and you have to go back and get a job, it's not really all that good. So I go into health insurance

just because it was really the first job I was kind of offered. So I'm fucking miserable. I stayed later than I needed I'd always get my work more than done I'd do extra I'd ask for overtime like I did I went above and beyond and I moved up pretty fast within the first like six months in that company but then I start making people look bad

and that kind of whole negative like corporate America environment kicks in and I start like resenting that company okay you know like in my heart I'm just like fuck these people bro like I'm here working hard and I'm trying to make something of them not just for myself but I'm trying to turn this into like more than it is so like that that whole

negative conversation that I never should have had I should have just quit the job is what I should have done and then so this guy approaches me while you know unfortunately just the timing was bad like I already started resenting that company I worked for I had I was broke the brokest I'd been in years which I was not used to and this guy approaches me he's basically like what what health insurance do you guys have i'm like oh blue cross blue shield why he's like oh you guys get physical therapy benefits and i was like fuck if i know i don't know right so he's like well let's try something out go to go to one of these clinics and sign some papers and then call me after and i was like why he's like well you know we can pay you there's some money here involved if

if it turns out well i was like right but like how much like he's like well you know this time around I'll give you a few hundred bucks. I was like, 200 bucks. Just go sign some papers. Okay, whatever. So, me, okay. One, can you speak up? Yeah, yeah.

Okay, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just, yeah, I just, yeah, I just, no problem. No problem. Okay, so one, you didn't ask any other questions than that. Like, no, he just said it's, you have to know that. No, he just said it's a clinic. And you're going to go and say you need physical therapy, and we're going to bill your,

He didn't even say any that shit He was just like, look, show up and they're going to give you a bunch of papers to fill out And after that, give me a call. You're not thinking this is fraud, this is a scam, this is... Not at this point, not yet. Okay. I'm already kind of like,

like I have a feeling there's something weird going on here. But you're also desperate for money and don't want to ask a lot of questions. Correct, exactly. You're more concerned about getting $200 than you are about... Definitely, 100%. Possibly something being wrong. 100%. You can always claim...

ignorance like I didn't know what you just said I 100% okay and it really just looked like intake forms it didn't look like anything crazy that I filled out when I was there so willful blindness yeah yeah exactly that's that's the I get it's attorney yeah I said in my case ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law anyway so I go I fill out the papers and then you know they get photocopying my insurance card all that shit and then the guy that was there who's like all right man you're all set you know the doctor's not here today but we'll give you a call to rest schedule your appointment. I'm like, okay, I'll probably have to come back at some point. All right. The guy actually ends up calling me and he's like, yo, did you go? Yeah, yeah, I went.

All right. Look, come here. I'm here. Come to my house. I go to his house. And he gives me $800. And I was only expecting like $300. Okay. All right. This is cool. And he goes, hey, all right. Well, does everybody get your job have that insurance? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, well, let me tell you. I'm willing to pay you a little more now because I know this is legitimate. I'll pay you $2,000 per person that you bring over here. And I was like, now I'm just like, what? So you're going to get $2,000 and he's going to get $800? The other person's going to get $800? No, he's going to get me $2,000 and it's up to me how much I pay the person. Okay. Yeah. So at this point, I'm like, oh, shit, all right. Now we're talking, right. And I never

asked, but at this point, I'm like, all right, there's something illegal here, but I don't think this is enough money to get in trouble right so i'm i'm in my head i'm like it's a few thousand dollars yeah i get it okay it's a couple thousand dollars he's really the main guy i'm not all right whatever so he's robbing the bank you're just driving the getaway car i didn't do anything oh okay that excuse doesn't work well yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and my whole reasoning the whole time was like i'm small fish they're not gonna they're not gonna want me um and then i refer one i refer two I refer three I refer four

10, 20, 30 and it goes pretty well and the guys what are you paying these guys when you approach them are you telling them like thousand bucks typically I'll give you half

yeah right okay yeah yeah no I don't even mention what I'm getting paid right just like hey it's a thousand bucks how you got to do is show up and sign some papers I was basically a recruiter right so I mean almost no one at work

said no right and i worked in a company with like 500 employees i didn't do everybody obviously i know who to approach and who not to approach and then the guy every time you know he thought we were going too much to one clinic he gave me another address and i'd send them to another place and it was just this ongoing thing you know it was it was really easy like i didn't have to do much and then so what is he doing he just was actually happening here so what's actually happening here is all these clinics are completely fraudulent every single one of them not one of them is like you know they're they're basically just like here and this guy knows all of them and they have an arrangement with this guy so somebody set up a clinic because you don't have to be a doctor to

set up a clinic correct I can go right now and set up a clinic and then I can hire doctors to come to the clinic correct meet patients and really the clinic owner is in charge of leasing the building, setting up everything, hiring the employees, hiring the staff, and keeping with compliance. Correct. Typically it. The doctor comes in as an employee, and he meets these people, and then I bill, as the clinic owner, I'm billing their insurance company. Their insurance, correct.

What is getting built? What are they getting billed for? Physical therapy sessions. And the physical therapy sessions are he's billing out, what, $1,500 for 10 sessions? And that's $15,000? On average, no, on average, they were doing, they were doing somewhere between 30 to my knowledge because they could have been more 30 to 60 sessions and how much is each session get does this insurance company pay I don't know each but combined per person it was

like 15 to 30 thousand dollars okay they were pocketing let's say 20 grand they're given you right so two no no no but here's the here's the kicker so he this guy that that my plug this guy I don't know how the fucking don't ask me but he knows like 20 of these motherfuckers right right and that guy works out his own deal because he's a fucking con man and a scammer he works out his own deal with each one of these guys

so the clinics are kicking him back maybe five grand for or 10 some of them are going 50 50 okay so 10 grand he's paying you two fucking two right you're getting he's getting eight and then the clinic is billing

like 20 right so they're just filling out of the paper saying this guy showed up on the third on the fifth and the whatever yeah nine yep you know physical pit therapy was good a little pain in his back yep 100% so it's really just becomes just kind of like a mill at that point they're just cranking out cranking out look paperwork

that looks good so they can mind you this slime motherfucker he's he's got other people that work I don't know how he did this probably just like every time I referred somebody he'd probably talk to them be like yeah send me people of course he lied to me because you know we're all fucking stealing money so later I found out after I got arrested that he had like another guy there sending him a bunch of people

when he like he was like no no I swear to God you're the only guy there you know and me like an idiot believing a comment but anyway and then imagine he had me at my place right and then he had another guy that worked at another place and he had another guy that worked at another place and he had another guy that worked at another place he had like 10 of us so imagine this guy's fucking yeah he's raking it in where this guy first approach you at like where did you How'd you come across them? So I actually got referred to him like way before we started doing business.

Like I was with a friend of mine and she was like, hey, you know, because I was really complaining about like injuries and like she's like, well, if you need physical therapy, call this guy. I said I know a guy. Yeah, and I was like, okay, cool. And I called him and he was like, no, you know, I guess.

Come here. No, no, no, no. At first, I called him for the first time, and he actually wasn't really, like, about it. Deceptive. He's like, oh, this guy's actually going to want physical therapy. Is that what you think we're doing? Right, right, right, exactly. That's just the name on the sign.

No, and imagine, he's like a Miami Street guy. He's like a Cuban guy, and he doesn't know me. So he's probably like, oh, fuck this guy. I don't know this guy. Like, almost a year later, the guy is when the guy calls me. he's like oh yeah yeah yeah you know and he eggs me on so it was through like fucking sheer coincidence it wasn't even it just made no sense how how i ended up connecting with this guy so yeah and then again the guy's involved in like 17 different scams

the guy's like doing some fucking bank scam the guy's doing some fucking shit with like like he's diversified he's an entrepreneur diversification is the it's the key he's To continually making money. He's a total fucking con artist is what he is. I mean, I think you're just upset because he had other guys working for him. No, at my office.

I was upset because he lied to me about having other people in my office. Because that's supposed to be my territory, you know? My territory. That's supposed to be my fucking shot. Like, what are you doing? What the fuck?

You're all con men. We are. We are. We are. You know, he's a con man. You're a con man. I get it. These guys are all lying to each other.

Some I have to tell you, though, there's there's there's there's a scale like you can't compare what I did with like fucking I don't know with fucking what's the guy's name the I need more than that

Bernie Madoff yes like there's levels of it no I know but I know but there's there's levels of con you know oh yeah yeah no what you're saying like he wasn't bilking people out of their life savings like he wasn't saying no fuck him I was saying we were all conning people

but what he was like just on another level like he was yeah yeah like we were all what i did was wrong what i did was wrong i'm not saying i'm not defending what i did yeah yeah but like i wouldn't do some of the shit he was doing you know like later i found out he was dealing with like a clinic that was billing for chemo and like what it's oh yeah yeah he's like giving a bad bad drugs and you think you're getting chemo and you're actually getting water it's wild it's wild what the fucking guy did he's i mean it was and then the guy was always broke legitimately always broke Right.

Sometimes he'd be like... Do you be a gambler? It's so amazing how many gamblers I've met. That were scam artists? Well, they're scam artists, but they'll... If they weren't scam artists, then they're making... Like, they'll make a million dollars a year. They're just raking in money.

But they're always broke. Their work ethic is insane. They're extremely good, you know, salesmen. They're really raking in money. and yet they're always bouncing checks and they're broke it. And they're going... It's like, you're just made $200,000.

You went to the casino, you walked out owed them 20. That's fucking... You see what I'm saying? No, they pay them back in a week. Then they get another couple hundred thousand and they go back and they lose it again. Like, it's such a sickness that you can't understand it. I have no idea.

So with him, I think it was more like money in, money out. Like, it was easy money. You know what I was saying? Like, easy money comes and goes. Is he buying? Is you buying Bougatis? I mean, is he buying Every time he goes out

He's buying like $2,000 dinners So he's paying for everybody's a big shot Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, that kind of shit Yeah, that kind of shit Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, He's living in like this apartment He should have been living in

Like an hour away from town On the beach Like, he's renovating the apartment Even though he's renting it Like he's doing stupid shit Yeah, yeah, you're just pissing money away Yeah, he had this ducati Like, bro, you don't even ride

motorcycles the fuck you buying a ducati for it you know that kind of shit it's just and then he his his worst vice honestly in my opinion was women he every time i was with him he showed me a picture of a different chick he was banging and he had like 15 different chicks and as you know money is kind of goes down extremely expensive if they're if they're out of your league yeah yeah you're dating a 10 and you should be dating a five or a four and that 10 is costing it's over it's over it's over and then he would there was legitimately sometimes where he would just be like, hey, you know, just give me like two more days. Because he'd spend the money he was supposed to give me, he'd spend.

He'd just fucking blow it. And then he'd do some other shit and come up with another 50 grand doing some scam, and then he'd paid me from some other shit, you know? It was pretty crazy. Nothing worse than a con, man. It's just bad with money. Yeah. Do you know any of his other scams, like the specifics?

Yeah. One, which I don't know how he didn't go to prison for, was, and I don't know how this flew this is what he told me and I don't know how it worked out he had supposedly he had a contact at Bank of America that like looked at accounts

and he'd get a tip as to like accounts that were like heavy like 20 30 40 million right some stupid number and he'd hit him up and he'd be like all right go after this one so he'd make a check and they'd make it out for like a hundred grand some amount where the person might not notice

and he'd look for people to cash these checks. Right. And he wouldn't cash him. I don't know how the fuck he did this. He'd go to a casino and he'd take out like $100,000. He'd promised the person 10% of whatever they got, which is insane because they're the ones taking all the risk, right? Yeah, and they're the ones who have the tax liability to.

People, it's so funny people will do stuff. They'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, give me, give me, I want, 10% and they take 10% and not realizing, you understand at the end of the year, you're going to get $10.99, you're going to pay $30,000 in taxes on this fucking money. And they think they think, oh, man, I fucking got off. I made $10,000 for nothing.

No, it's not what just happened. It's fucking wild is what it is. So supposedly, yeah, he had the contact at the bank that knew that would overlook these accounts that had a lot of money and he'd tell him, hey, go after this one. And he'd go, he'd find schmocks off the street that were like, oh my God, $10,000. yeah let's do it

and then he'd take him to a casino in the middle of night they'd go to the casino like one in the morning and somehow they'd cash like I don't know how the fuck they did it but they'd cash that check

and they'd get a hundred grand in cash pay the person and then that's it they parted waste and he was doing that for like years I don't even think

he went to prison for that he went to prison well I'll get to what he went to prison for but yeah the guy was just like he was already on federal probation he actually was on probation he actually was on probation

because he had stolen he used to work for Budweiser and he stole a bunch of beer and sold it and then he claimed like oh yeah I got robbed and they found that it wasn't and he was already like had an open case so he was he was on FMA leave what's that called

FMLA leave from Budweiser they were paying him because supposedly he had a broken knee like the guy was like the scammer he was doing every scam possible right under the sun it was pretty wild so the guys like

every time he tries to at this point I'm just like bro just yeah keep that over there don't even don't even tell me about what else you're doing because I was like you know if I ever get in trouble if I get in trouble let me just get in trouble for this and let's leave it be I don't need like

to spend the rest of my life in fucking prison with this fucking hit for just doing business with someone I shouldn't even be associating with honestly right so what happens eventually I actually end up leaving the insurance company just because, and this is completely legitimate, this isn't illegal.

I get approached by a buddy of mine who wants to open a medical clinic in Florida. This is right when it goes legal. This is like end of 2017. So right after Trump gets elected, we had it on the ballot in Florida to make it medical. So we voted yes.

And his idea was always like, you know how they have that saying of like, oh, picks and shovels? Like, yeah, people got rich in the gold rush, but the people who got really rich are the people who were selling the picks and the shovels. So that was his idea of like...

Book club on Monday. Jim on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers,

you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. eye exams provided by independent optometrists. The green rush. He was like, yeah, all right. I don't want to deal with, but what's the things, the ancillary services

in that business where we could make money? Right. And then he got the bright idea of owning the doctor's office. He's like, if we own the doctor's office, people are going to need their cards. There's no insurance involved. They have to pay cash.

It could be pretty lucrative. Everybody wants to get their cart, right? How many people smoke Florida and they want to do it legally? You open up a clinic? You hire the doctor. That's it. Every patient that comes in and pays about $200,

he gets $75 bucks for every person that he sees and you just crank him out. Yep, 100%. So he approached me because he already knew I had the sales background and all that stuff. And we had become a good friend. This is like another friend of mine.

So we opened the doctor's office and I leave the insurance company. Like I just drop it. And we start doing that. And that starts going really well. And it's all legit money. Right. So around the time I'm already going to tell this guy,

hey, I'm done. Like, you know, did way more than I was at this point I'm like you need to stop Nelson you need to stop right you've made at this point I've probably made like in cash that's gone through my hands I've probably had more than I can't even tell you honestly I like was it more than or less than a half a million dollars close close yeah close half a million dollars can and and roughly roughly roughly yeah allegedly you know yeah I mean there's right off there's gas all that kind of shit yeah depreciation of your of your right but that's money that went through my hands like

remember I had to pay these people so all that I didn't keep all that money yeah yeah no so you have to deal with them and there's management issues I understand I understand no no I'm just saying I didn't physically keep all that money because I gave like half of it to other people but it was hundreds of thousands of dollars I made within like 18 months Right. Right. And so that money was funneled into a legitimate... No, no, no, no. I didn't use that money. Oh, okay.

I blew it. I traveled. I fucking... Did we just have a conversation about the way it was the idiot that was blowing all the money he made? I know. I know. I totally get. You're a jackass. I'm going on vacation for $20,000. You don't know what you're doing. You're buying a Bugatti. That's insane. That's stupid money. I'm going to get a push.

At the end of everything, so this is what happens. When I'm just like, I have some money saved. Don't you understand the best way is to bet it all on black? See, I'm investing. You're an idiot. That's not what happened. I don't gamble. Anyway, I did go on some very nice vacations.

I'll tell you that. I went to Costa Rica, went to Colombia. It was nice. Anyway, so we'll talk about Colombian women later. So what happens is I have enough money stashed to live for like a year, probably. We're doing nothing. Like, if I do nothing, I could live off this money for a year. Okay.

And I'm like, all right, we're starting the cannabis business. I can live off of this. Let's go legit enough. You haven't gotten caught until now. You're fucking lucky. Go tell this guy to fuck off. And we're done, right? I call the guy.

The guy doesn't answer the phone. That's never happened. The guy always answers my phone call. I was like, something's wrong here. This is bad. call no answer I get a call from one of his associates that I knew this lady that night she's like

hey Nelson what's up we gotta meet I was like oof here we go I was like all right yeah let's meet here I give her a center and address and she pulls up and she's like hey Felix got arrested by the FBI today I was like oh for what so

at that point I'm like all right but is that all you know like what's going on he's like well you know he's he got arrested we don't really know anything else that's that you know and i was like okay all right cool you know whatever of course i'm like all right so take this as a sign stop right this is over the guy went to prison you know we got arrested and you got arrested no no yeah he wasn't he got arrested by the feds yeah he's going to prison but he just got arrested at this point you said he just got arrested right but but when you get arrested by the feds in miami you get sent when you're like when you're don't when you don't get bond

you get sent to the man the building in downtown miami that's prison that's like federal prison you're you're not even though it's it's it's a transition point but you're going to be there until you either get bond or you you get assigned to a prison and get sentenced so he he's in prison um mind you they gave him a 15 000 brown and he didn't have the money how about that $15,000 and he didn't have the $15,000. That guy had made millions, millions. Easily, since I met him, he had made three or four million dollars easily in that year, year and a half.

The guy didn't have the $15,000. His fucking wife was, like, going around, calling, like, his buddies to borrow money to get him out. It was fucking pathetic. Anyway, she never called me because, I don't know. I guess she didn't have my number. So what happens after that? I'm like, all right, I'm done.

I'm going to leave this alone. Whatever happens happens, but I'm going to stop doing this, right? But he owed me money. He went to jail and he never paid me about $10,000 that he owed me. I'm sure that was foremost on his mind. Yeah, no, but I was, but it was on my mind. That's for sure, probably not his.

So I was like, fuck, man, how do I get paid? So I call, since he's not in the picture, I have to deal with the owners directly now, right? So I'm like, let me let them know that this guy got arrested and I'm out and to pay me my fucking money, right? So I go and I approach these guys. They had dealt with me a few times, so they knew I wasn't like trying to...

So you weren't coming out of nowhere. Yeah, because they see my face. Yeah, yeah. And Felix had explained to them, the guy Felix or whatever, had explained to them, this is my guy, right? So I told them, hey, we gotta meet up.

We got to talk. And then I, okay? So I go to their place and we go in the back office and I'm like, listen, Felix got arrested. Do you guys know that? And they're like, they put these faces on. They're all free.

Like, what? And I'm like, oh, you guys are finding out for me? You guys are fucked. Okay, well, look, that's not my problem. I need to get fucking paid, bro. Where's my money? And the guys are like, well, we paid him for some of it. This and that.

And I was like, oh, here we go. They're not going to pay me. They ended up paying me half. Because, I don't know. I guess I wanted to be nice guys. They could have told me to fly a kite. There's nothing I could have done about it. But they paid me.

And out of courtesy, I gave him the warning. I was like, listen, this is what's going. on. I'm out. You paid me my money. I'm not doing this anymore. Of course, one of them calls me back and he's like, hey, come back. You know, let's talk. And for the life of me, I just don't understand why. I was like, yo, all right, let's talk. At this point, I'm telling myself, like, bro, what the fuck are you doing? You want to turn into this guy? Now you're going to have all these scams going. So basically what ends up happening is one of the guys,

I end up cutting a deal with one of the guys, and I end up getting like what he used to get paid. Okay. So he was like, look, this is how much I'm billing. I'll give you half. I was like, okay, cool. So at this point, I'm getting paid $3,500 per person, right? And then I go off to the races again.

Because you can get physical therapy every six months. So what? Just go grab the old guys. I go back. And I make probably just as much money all over again, if not more, because I didn't get to everybody. Right. I only got, because some people didn't want to do it or whatever. At that point, everybody knew the scam.

Everybody knew the racket. And I go to town. But then what happens? That guy goes to prison. And again, I'm not in prison yet. I'm not indicted. I'm not nothing. So I'm like, bro, should I count my blessings at this point?

Yeah. Aren't you concerned that any of these guys are going to turn over on you or? I had never been arrested, you know? And I was like, at this point, like, if he got arrested, now I'm doing what he was doing. I'm not like a level below him. Now I was doing what he was doing, right? So it's like, count your blessings at this point. So I left it alone.

And at that point, I didn't really have a choice because the main guy who dealt with me, that's it. I didn't have, like, other clinic owners I could approach. So I kind of left it at that. And then at that point, the medical clinic was kicking ass. Like, it was doing really well. So I said, all right, what? For real this time. Like, I'm not going to go out and look for a clinic owner or any of that shit.

Which, of course, like, since I hadn't dealt with the system, I knew, like, I didn't know they were going to rat on me. I didn't know any of that shit. I just, I was like, all right, whatever. They got caught. There's nothing I can do about that. And I just walk away. And then the medical business starts booming, right, with my buddy. And I just started doing that.

And the funny thing is, people, when I got arrested, most people thought, because obviously I never told anybody I was doing this, right? So, like, the pandemic happens or whatever. So this is like 2018, I don't get arrested until 2021, four years later. I really stopped doing everything in 2018, and then after the pandemic is when I get arrested, which is wild with thinking about it because it's like, fuck, man, why'd they take so long? Apparently the FBI told me it was because of the shutdown. They didn't work for months.

And they came after me just like when they reopened and everything was like kind of moving again. So in the meanwhile, I'm like this entrepreneur in the community. I'm like breaking records in the medical company. We have like 4,000 clients in four years. Everything's going fantastic. Everything's going really well. One of the partners gets bought out. Like everything is going fantastic.

Everything really, really well. So. That month, the company had actually made more money than it's ever made. So I was like, all right, I deserve a break. Let me go to, go to Colombia. Which is funny, that whole thing about Thailand that you guys talk about here, it's the same thing in Colombia. The same exact thing.

Like, the women are like the most gorgeous women you've ever seen in your life. They'll marry you for like a dollar. You can have the most badass penthouse you've ever had in your life for like $700 a month. A meal on the street is like a dollar. It's an amazing place. And then Medelleeing, like, these women have these accents that just, like, bro, they could ask me to eat a piece of dog shit. And I'd do it with that accent that they have, I swear. Like, I'd eat a mile long fucking turd just to eat out of where I came out of.

This is not because they're bad examples. All right. I hear you. All right. Yeah, the most gorgeous women you've ever seen in your life. Anyway, so I go to Columbia and I have my three-day, three, four, five-day debauchery binge. I'm like on top of the world. I have like a super fantastic business.

I got away Scott Free. I'm a legit guy now. I'm not breaking the law. So I get back on a Monday and I get off the plane. And we're walking towards immigration. And there's these four TSA officers. Mind you the one. There's two of them are wearing regular clothes.

He's like, hey, you two. Step aside. And I was like, the fuck is going on here, you know? Mind you. I'm coming back from Columbia. so I didn't really like I had stopped doing it four years earlier

right so at this point I really did think like you forgot all about this this is I got away with this yes this is done you know they're not going to wait four years exactly crazy no no no a thousand percent so the TSA officers pull us aside

they let everybody pass where the last ones left it was like this you just think it's a random stop I have no idea at this point I think it is weird but again it doesn't doesn't occur to me so they stopped me they asked me where are you coming from me why'd you go for a vacation who you with him who is he my friend this is mind you this is a buddy of mine that just went to

columbia with me they do this like 30 minute interrogation there in the hallway then they put me in a room to look through all my shit fucking pat me down after like an hour of being with them they let me go and i was like hmm that's fucking weird whatever i didn't think much of it i just left it it it was random. That was Monday. So Thursday, I got a call at 5 in the morning to my call, to my cell phone. It's a phone number out of recognize. So I just turned the ringing off and I, and I go back to sleep. But then I get a knock at my door. Was it a nice knock? Or was it a law enforcement knock? It was, it was a concerned knock. Okay. So I, my aunt is my landlord. Okay. So she comes to knock on my door. And I open the door and I'm like,

I'm legitimately like waking up with a row. And she says, bro, I'll never forget this. La Policilla is out of the cops are outside. They're looking for you. I was like, the cops. What? My phone rings again, and it's the same phone number that just called me five minutes earlier. I was like, I should answer this.

Hello? Nelson Rodriguez. Yes, this is agent such and such with the FBI. You have five minutes to come outside of your house. Click. okay that that may very well be the nicest arrest i've ever heard so they couldn't come in my house right because my gates were locked that's the only reason they couldn't come inside and thank god that i lived so i live in um they have these things in in miami called efficiencies i don't know

if you ever heard of yeah but you were yeah so i lived in like a half of a house thank god my aunt lived next door and she was able to come and knock on my door because if not who knows what would have happened they would have put

you know whatever so I'd go outside there's four city of Miami cops blocking off this road with like four city of Miami cruisers blocking off this side of the road with like eight cops

another four city of Miami cruisers blocking off this side of the road with like another eight cops there's four FBI cars outside my house with like eight FBI agents and four of the FBI agents are fucking pointing AR-15s at my house

and I'm like what am I a fucking terrorist This is fraud This is ridiculous It's a fraud case Again, it's been four years man You don't understand This is gone

It's still not like registering in my head I understand that I'm saying in general In general terms What are you doing? It's a fraud case No I get it

Nobody got hurt There was no guns There were no nobody's been murdered This is a fraud case I don't know if there was like I'm a big Second Amendment guy. I owned a ton of guns. So I don't know if maybe they were...

Oh, they might have known that. Yeah. So maybe they... Not that they keep lists. Because they don't keep lists because that would be unconstitutional. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we heard from a guy, you may have some weapons. And the fact that you're constantly wearing a scar-based jumpsuit...

Does it, didn't help the situation. Definitely not. So, and this is a month. month after George Floyd. Like a month. So I'm, I'm here like, all right, these guys aren't going to kill me. I take my cell phone out. I give it to my aunt. I tell her, call my parents. I put my hands up. I turn around and I start backing up towards their cars. I don't even give them a chance to, like, say anything, nothing. One of the FBI agents starts telling my aunt, look, this is my card. If you want any information, we're taking them. They don't read me

my Miranda Rice. They don't say shit. They pat me down. I can actually have the, where is the fuck i have the video of me getting arrested channel seven news who's out there i back up they arrest me and they take me i'm sitting in the car and i'm still like all right whatever this is probably not not for me though explain shit we'll clear this up later i honestly thought they were looking for my dad because me and him have the same name and shit like this has happened to me like four times in my life where people were looking for me and they're actually looking for my father so i was like all right we'll we'll clear this up later they take me all the way to the fbi quarters in Miramar, Florida, which is like 30 minutes north, 30 to 40 minutes north of

Miami, I'm sitting there and I'm just, I'm calm. I'm like, we'll figure this out. You know, this isn't a big deal. They start bringing in other people that got arrested. And I was like, you start recognizing people? Yep, instantly. Tommy. No, no, no, no, no.

Cheryl, what are you guys doing here? This is crazy. Hey. It was all the people I dealt with. during a whole fucking clinic scam. And I was like, bro, these guys... And these are just the low-level guys are bringing it?

Or are they bringing in the doctors? A mix. No, the doctors were never brought in. At least not with me. I don't know if they were ever brought in, but not with me. They're bringing in the owners and some of the other recruiters.

What about the main guy? He was already in prison. He ratted everybody out. How much time did he get, though? The FBI told me, at some point, whether I don't know if it's true or not, they were going to give him 14 years. and he cooperated so much

and gave so much information that he only ended up doing two He had three years coming to him Yeah He could go right now And commit a crime And they're like, oh, yeah You've got three years coming

Yeah, it's wild So he ended up doing two So mind you, he gets arrested in 2018 He's rebuilt his whole life Before you guys He got out in 2020 Before a couple years before you even get arrested He'd get arrested in July of 2021

That guy's already out Bump into you and them all And be like, you're still out you're probably behind you might want to put some money aside it's wild yeah so

that I mean it's pretty much game over at that point I know what I'm getting indicted for you know right I call a lawyer they let me go on bond that same day we have a virtual court hearing because my news is July of 2021 so it's still like pandemic all that shit they take me from the FBI headquarters

to the U.S. Marshal's office and that's in the same building as the federal court in downtown miami and the whole time i'm sitting there in the in the in the fucking jail cell they fingerprint me do all that shit the u.s marshals i'm like man like this is nuts like at this point i feel like some sort of i don't know like drug dealer like drug smuggler i feel like fucking osama bin laden or something like the amount of agents and shit that they come out with is pretty wild u.s marshals like i thought u.s marshals like only went after like you know these big time cases and shit anyway

So I'm there, and the whole time I'm sitting in the jail cell, and I'm like, my life is fucking over. I am fucked. Goodbye plans, you know? Bye-bye, all those plans I had, you know? Because I was thinking of taking the company public and doing all these crazy things. Overnight, I'm just like, that's not happening.

And I have no... I'm just like, I'm terrified at this point. I'm just like, what the fuck is going to happen? I don't know anything about federal prison. I'm probably going to get sent to a camp. I don't know about any of that shit. I'm just like... Here we go.

I'm going to be in a fucking bunch of prison and a fucking with like, you know, a prison with a bunch of like thugs and fucking people I don't want to be around. I'm having all these thoughts in my head. The thought that pierced my head though was the piercing image of my mother crying.

It was, to this day, it gives, like, my heart just like breaks. Like, it sucks because I just don't know why I couldn't get the image of my mother finding out and being so disappointed in me

because I was supposed to be the one guy in the family who was never supposed to go to jail, never supposed to get in trouble. And I took it to some further. I didn't just get in trouble. I got arrested by the feds. You took it a step further. All your fucking dumb-ass cousins and shit

and your uncles, oh, the state got them. But you got arrested by the feds. So, you know? It's a, yeah, yeah. It's a graduation. More, yeah, more serious than, yeah. So they let us stew in there the whole day,

and we have our court date. like four in the afternoon, like damn near the end of the day. I get out on a promissory note bond because I'd never been arrested or anything. You know, my mom and dad sign a paper. They're like, yeah, we got to pay $100,000 if he flees the country, which he's not going to. I surrender my passport the next day. I have to give up all my guns. So, you know, I sold all my guns to my mom.

And then I go see a lawyer. And he's like, bro, you know, this is it. They showed me the discovery. It's not really all that good. But, you know, we got to get. give this time. This is one thing I'll say. I was so naive and this is how much I didn't

understand the system. My lawyer is a federal lawyer. Like, federal defense attorney. He's done thousands of these cases. And the guy edged me on the whole time. Like, oh, you might not go to prison. You're going to get convicted for sure, but you might not go to prison. You might not. Obviously,

hindsight is 2020. I didn't realize that the feds have like a 98% conviction rate. And unless you're like, I don't know, some politician who can rat out like a president of a country, you're going to prison. Right. Period. Yeah, by the time they've arrested you, their case is already done.

It's solid. Yeah. You know, unless you cooperate and get some time off, but even then, even if you cooperate and get time off, you're still going to prison. Yeah, yeah, you're going to do some time. You're not getting, you're typically not getting off free and clear. Correct. Correct.

So the guy just tells me there's a good possibility you won't go to prison. You're definitely getting convicted, but you might get like house arrest or probation. so the not knowing was what really bothered me like if from the beginning i would have known i was going to prison i would have been okay but i was out on bond for a year and a half while they were like doing whatever the fuck they wanted to do and putting you know putting some of the people supposedly someone at co-defendants wanted to go to trial and they were like figuring all that shit out so i pled guilty right away and then i got i didn't get sentenced until when that i his sentence. So I get arrested July

20th, July of 2021, and I get sentenced in October of 2022. So I was out on bond that whole time. And needless to say, in a year and a half, like, I kind of want to, like, do, I want to figure out my life. I'm like, all right, what else am I going to do when I get out? You know, even though I have no clue

how much time I'm going to get at that point or anything. I was like, you know what? I'm going to write a book. Because at least, like, basically the way I saw it was overnight, all the proof that I ever had of, like, having lived a life, got wiped away. So I was like, damn, if I die tomorrow, there was no proof I was here. Okay. So I decided to write a book.

And I actually have a copy here. I'll give you one. And then I write the book. So I started writing the book in August of 2021. And then I published the book in March of 2022. I ended up doing, like, this book, mind you, no one knows I'm out on bond. No one knows I got to rest. Right.

I'm just kind of like doing this and, like, people know me as this business guy. So they're like, oh, it's the next chapter of his life. I was writing a book. I do this book launch party. I make like five grand that night. What is the book? Is it just on your, Chris, a true crimes type story? Or is it about starting or is it just everything?

Up until the point of I got arrested, but I didn't say anything about like all the fraud I did or any of that shit. It was just my life up until that point. So, needless to say, I need to write another one. So it went really well. Like, I was like, okay, but how can I, like, do more of this? Like, I like storytelling. So what can I do?

And fun fact, me and Joe Rogan actually have the same birthday. Oh, okay. August 11th. So I was a big Joe Rogan fan. I have a lot of time on my hands at this point. So I started watching him, and I'm like, maybe I should start a podcast. I was like, all right, let me look into it. And then in June of 2022, I decided to start doing it.

But I did it audio only. I didn't get cameras. I just did, like, me in a microphone. I started doing it. A few people listen to the episodes. They say, oh, man, this is good. Later on, within a few months, I find a studio that kind of does studio time. I rent it.

I start doing the episodes. And then right when I started doing the podcast in October of 2022 is when finally I get sentenced and I get sentenced to eight months in federal prison. So what happens is they let me self-surrender. So I picked January. So between October and January, I started. recording episodes and I was like all right eight months I do an episode a week I did the calculations I recorded enough episodes to schedule everything while I was away okay so if you didn't know me

you thought I was still on the street right right so and it was you're a fan if you're a subscriber they have no idea you've disappeared they have no idea exactly and the funny thing is the day I got out from prison my mom had me my cell phone and it was like bro you're a fucking dick where are you what the fuck is going on you like people were we're trying to tell me congratulations on the I said on all that shit, but obviously I didn't have my cell phone. Anyway, so I record enough, and I, the week before I went away, I, so this is like December, between December 30th of 2022 and January 9th of 2023, I spent that whole week just like scheduling everything for all those months.

Mind you, January 9th is my sister's birthday, which was yesterday, happy birthday, Janace. On January 9th, she has to drop off her baby, baby brother at prison, her 32nd birthday, fucking hell of a birthday present With my niece, my nephew, my mom, and my sister It was wild So I schedule everything And then They dropped me off at Coleman

At the Coleman camp So Nice Yeah That's where Jess was Yeah It was a female camp Yeah

During COVID they They swapped it They changed it to male Mm It's pretty well Is that where you met Ross? Yeah So I have a question

Was there a guy there named Donovan Davis Yeah, he was in my same unit Yeah, yeah I wrote a story about him Oh, that's cool The Gap Oh shit, yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah Wasn't he on Forbes Or something like that? Oh yeah, you know, he was in Forbes Yeah, yeah Forbes.com wrote a couple articles about him Yeah, yeah

He was doing all the repairs on all the equipment And But yeah, Donovan He's hilarious, right? He's funny. He's a funny guy. You met him at the medium?

At the low. That's a low. Okay. I was there with him for probably five years, six years. When did you get out? I got out in 2019. And when did he go in? You remember?

Yeah, about 14 maybe. Fuck, he was in there a while. Well, he's got like 17 years. Fuck. He's still in. Yeah, that's why. He's supposed to be getting out. Because I met him in 2023 when I went in.

He's supposed to be getting out in like... February or March of this year. Oh, good for him. Yeah, that's just because of the credits and everything. But yeah, he, anyway, so I just wanted, because everybody knew him, right? There's only, what, 300 people in the camp? How many people are there? By the time I left, just under 500.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. They were shoving people in there by the time I was leaving. And you met, see, I didn't know you met Ross there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I go in, strip church, all that shit. I've never been strip church in my life. So I was like, oh, this is going to be great.

So I changed clothes. I walk in, they introduced me to the Cubans, which is weird because I would have thought that place was full of Cubans because it's in Florida and it wasn't. There was like 10, 11 Cubans. Later, I found out that Cubans, the reason there were so little of them is because you can only go to a camp if you're a U.S. citizen. Right. If you're a resident with a green card, they don't let you go below the low. Yeah. So most of them are in the...

In the lows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would assume Miami law was probably Chuck full of Cubans. Yeah. Or maybe the Miami camp. So that's, like, that's it. I'm in prison. It's crazy.

Like, I couldn't even, I still couldn't believe it. It was still hard for me to, like, like, process. I mean, for you, obviously it was different. But for me, it was like, how the fuck did I end up here? Like, I was supposed to be this kid who just did things differently and, like, was a decent kid and here I am at 30 years old like right when I'm 30 throwing in fucking

prison it's fucking wild that night and then that night I'll tell you the funny story about first night in the shower so I'm taking a shower first night at the shower I'm taking a shower and there's I don't know the whole thing

about the the the slippers no I was going to say dropins no no no no no no no Well, I don't, I didn't know the whole thing about the slippers. Right. So, shower slides. Yes.

Shillars slides. Yes. So the shower slides, I leave him at the end of the stall and I go in. Oh. So I hear someone yelling, Kua, Kua. That's what they used to call me in there in Cuba, whatever. Because my, my prison was full Puerto Ricans. Like out of the 500 of us that were there, it was like 350 Puerto Ricans.

It was crazy. I never seen so many Puerto Ricans in one spot. The guy who's yelling my name. name or my nickname is this guy named Mello. Mello has a scorpion tattoo on his fucking face. So I'm thinking like, here we go. I turn around and he's like,

ponte la chancletta, he's like, put your fucking slides on. I put them on. I finished taking a shower. I go outside and when I'm like drying off in my room, he's like, yo, bro, you're gonna get fucking fungus on your feet, bro. A tap or fungus or something. Yeah, yeah, you'll get.

That's how like, familiar with the prison system I was, you know? I wonder how bad it really is. You know what I'm saying? I mean, everybody wears it. Like you don't wear it. Yeah, no, it's disgusting. Right.

I mean, in our prison, I'll be honest, it was really clean. No, I was going to say, and the thing is they clean the, they're constantly cleaning. Constantly cleaning it. It's not, the environment isn't filthy or anything like that. But the fact is, is that you have to understand that if this guy gets a cold, everybody's getting cold. Even though they're wiping everything down constantly, you're just, you've no. idea how many people everybody's using the same stuff and there's just and not to get gross but the shit that guy's doing the shower yeah of course i think that that that's to me that's what my thought

was yeah because i was like there's so many chemicals in this place i don't think that there's anything necessarily a lie yeah but even if you miss a spot or something you know everybody's taking a piss in there and fucking wagging off in there it's gross so that night so that happens in the shower uh the cubans are pretty cool with me so everybody gets me like a pair of slides actually two pairs of slides so nice enough i meet these old poppy he has cancer now god he's he's not doing well he got out after doing seven years and then he got diagnosed with colon cancer he's fucking horrible man now the coolest old man you ever meet um he he gets me what i need he likes he knows i like to write so he got me like this notebook all the

cubans kind of hooked me up so that night i'm sitting in the in my bunk i'm just like laying down you know they did count or whatever i'm laying down in my bunk i'm looking at the roof and I'm just like wow girl in fucking prison. Like, I'm in shock. I'm in total shock at this point. I can't even, I can't cry. I can't laugh.

I'm so, I'd never been in shock in my life. I got, we feel like, oh, he's in shock. Or when people freeze or whatever, I never understood what that was. And then that happened to me that night.

I was just like, you know, the fuck is going to happen now. But then funny enough, you know, life is, life is strange. When you think you're at,

you're at your lowest, it's like, it's more like a, like a springboard or like a catapult. to like another phase of your life, you know, it's pretty wild. So. For some people. For some people.

Yeah. So they hit bottom, they just stay there. So, yeah. That brings up a question. Do you think that's a choice? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Some people just let that define them and they don't, they tell themselves, I'll never

break, I'll never, I'll never, I'll never, amount to anything. Yeah, I'll never get out of this. I'll never bounce back. I agree. They just, that self-talk kind of just destroyed. They, they, you've heard. the term you know you suffer more in your mind than you do in reality 100,000% and that's that's true it's like uh you know like when i went to the dentist like you know i told you um listen i was so overwhelmingly

anxious and worried and it was nowhere near as bad as what i had in my mind it was just never is every time it's just never is anything that i worry about it's like this going to happen this is going to be horrible and then it happens and it's just not right so but yeah it's the same thing you get to prison And just like when I got out of prison, I told you the other day, like, I thought, I'm going to be working at McDonald's. I'm never going to get a shot. Maybe someday I'll be able to sell used cars. I'm never going to bounce back. I'm never going to make any money.

I'm never going to, you know, life's going to be, my expectations of life had dropped so dramatically. I just didn't have any real expectations. I wanted to do some things that I thought if I busted my ass, maybe someday I can pull these things off and I'll work at it. But, you know, my expectations were very low. Yeah. for me it was and mind you the podcast is already working right meaning like it's it's functioning without me right but I'm so in shock and so in my brain that night that I couldn't even think about that like whatever but anyway so I wake up the next morning and that's kind of gone I don't know

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And I wake up, they send me to unicorn to work, you know. Fucking newbies get the worst jobs, all that shit. I get acclimated, you know, who's who, this and that. Unicorn is the factory that they have for inmates to work. at. What did they make there? You start at like 12 cents, 10 cents an hour. No, no, I mean, what do you fabricate? What do you make?

Oh, we got like these long pieces of plastic and some long pieces of metal. So I'm assuming when you assembled it, it became furniture or something like that, or like shelving. Oh, okay. I was going to say, you know, because at the other one, they make the paneling or dividers for cubicles. It could be that because we got these long things. you never asked what you were doing i didn't give a fuck about that place fuck that place the fuck um so unicorn yeah so i get sent over to unicorn and uh this this is interesting how life comes full circle so being from miami rick ross is like you know a big deal down

there and rick ross would always mention this group of guys named the booby boys in the rap songs and I didn't even know what that really was until I went to prison I'm going to tell you why so I go to prison my second day third day whatever they send me to unicorn I go to unicorn this old black dude is like teaching me what to do and stuff they send me back to the unit we're done working for the day and some guys like oh you know who that is I was like bro I just got here yesterday I don't even know where the fuck I'm standing no I don't know who that is oh that's spoon like spoon the fuck does that make me fork is he supposed to be someone important i don't know he's like bro he got pardoned by

obama he was the miami guy so i end up looking him up and i was like oh shit i wrote a book report about this guy in like middle school and he's the booby boys was basically this big drug group that controlled like the the black neighborhood in miami for years they did it for a while and that's who it was weird me and him became really good friends like we took on this weird like mentor disciple thing right um the spoon knows i'm gonna write his book one day he said he got pardoned by what it Obama yeah because he was given out yet yeah yeah it was they got a commutation commutation yeah yeah yeah so Obama was he wasn't allowed to go down and and so that happened they let him start working his way down from commuted the sentence instead of

of you being like a pen and then correct they commuted the sentences where he was like but they did it gradually so you didn't just get let out because they realized like if you can't somebody had been locked up 20 years you let him hit the street with nothing no halfway house yeah yeah it's not good

to commit another crime and go back to prison so you have to grab so these guys from the pen we're going from like the pen to the medium to the low to the low to the camp to the camp yep to a halfway house then to the street yeah pretty much so I caught him he maybe only had six years left at that point he'd been in jail for like 17 years something stupid uh he's in north carolina now i think he's getting he's getting transferred to the

miami camp soon but anyway him and me become buddies become good friends so he uh that was pretty wild like again i'm like you know i like the gangster stories and all that stuff i ended up becoming friends with one of them in prison like one of those gangster stories from when i was a kid it's crazy how life kind of like you know does all that but yeah that was my second day in there by that time I'm a month in I'm used to it I got my routine you know I'm doing I'm exercising what bro you did 14 years I still don't I did it too but what's this like 13 years I'm sorry 13 years browning up you did that yesterday so sorry sorry sorry sorry 13 years

um uh what do you mean that's actually from the state it started in the state and then it kind of came over so in the state i don't know which state i don't know if this is all states or just in general you're not allowed to eat i mean so you're not allowed to speak when you eat like the inmates in florida this is my understanding at some prisons and i don't even know if they still do this but they the guards like they give you five minutes to eat so you come in you sit down across from somebody else at a long table so you sit down you you eat real quick and they count down so they start counting down and then as they count down and you're not allowed to talk so it's not like hey bro you know you're not allowed to take anything from off another person's plate or doing anything

so you basically just eat and and you don't talk and because you're not allowed to say hey man I'm going oh you got or say hey I'm leaving you you knock on the door it's a way of saying like you know I'm leaving. See you guys. And everybody looks up and nods and whatever. I just started doing it because I saw everybody else doing it. So it's funneled down from the state prisons to the... Interesting.

Yeah. Okay. So... That's how it was explained to me. You know, did you have Hamburger Day? Of course. Wednesday. So the way Wednesday was explained to me was that the Cubans had been, I don't know if it was Jimmy Carter or it was Reagan.

I forget who. All the Cubans. were being deported, right? Really? Yeah, it wouldn't, you know, keep it on, after the Merrill boat lift. Oh, yeah, yeah, after they were running rampant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Crime wave. They'd arrested, you know, thousands of them. They were filled up in Atlanta. And so Reagan was saying, was that, was that prison riot that happened? Yeah. Reagan was saying, like, he was going to send them back.

I want to say it was Reagan. I'm not positive. It sounds like Reagan. He's going to send them all back. And what they did was they had a riot, and they took over the prison. and then they negotiated over the course of several days

after they took it over and one they wanted their sentences to be reviewed and not have to go back to Cuba and two they wanted I forget what else they wanted

and some something completely silly and the other thing they wanted was they wanted hamburgers and french fries on Wednesday or at least once a week and so the BOP said fine we'll give you hamburger and french fry we reviewed they did everything they got the three things that they got one of them was hamburgers and french fries on wednesday thanks to the cubans thanks to the cubans that's what i was told i was like that can't be true and everybody they were like i'm telling you

that is absolutely true i'm like there's no fucking way they're like it's absolutely true you know what else i heard and i think it happened in 96 if i'm not mistaken in 1996 so it was under clinton if that's if that's true uh what i also heard is that's why a certain amount of it did i don't I don't think this can be true because I'm sure there's prisons in Miami that have more than... They don't allow a certain amount, like more than a certain amount of Cubans in each prison. It's because of that. It's probably possible. It's possible.

That seems perfectly reasonable. Yeah. I remember one time I was like, I can't believe that every Wednesday they are giving us. When I first got there, like the hamburgers and french fries were good. They gave us like cheeseburgers and for me. It was good. Everything was good. They weren't bad, but it was too small.

They were tiny when I were. Yeah, but this is when I got there, we were on the old menu. You were on the national menu. When I got there, we were just, it was just regular food, like it was good. And I remember thinking, man, I can't believe that on Wednesdays they give us hamburgers and french fries. That's hilarious. And I remember one of the guys goes, it may be prison. Or he said, he looked at me and he said, this was my cousin.

He looked at me, he goes, it may be prison, but it's still fucking America, bro. And I just went, but he said it with such conviction. I love it. He's got a point. So, so I actually start getting, like, by the way, the friend, if you go to prison and you have friends

that, like, ask your mom about you, send you commissary, like, you need to cherish those friends for the rest of your fucking life, okay? If those people call you in the middle of you having sex with your dream girl, you need to stop for a second and talk to them and entertain

whatever the fuck they want and hang up the phone whenever they're done, then go back to fucking, your dream girl because those people they're invaluable, bro. They're worth their waiting gold. Anyway. So my mom's telling me when my friends are selling me commissaries, she's keeping me

updated. The podcast is actually getting some traction while I'm gone, which is cool, which was the plan. I mean, I couldn't control it, but. And then while I'm in there, they take out my celly, this Puerto Rican kid name, who we used to call him Jack Sparrow. This Puerto Rican kid, they

take them out, and then they put some weird dude in my cell. And I'm like, all right, fuck that so I had already become friends with the head orderly in the other in the other unit so how that happened was the second day I got there when I was getting commissary I hear a familiar voice and I was like there's no way on the planet I know this guy that is not Jose Batista over there I look over Jose Batista Jose Batista was my co-worker at the insurance company okay he also caught a separate case for me but for the same shit same exact thing got ratted on everything it was it was weird like we even got like more or less the same amount of time so i walk over to him like hosie remember me oh shit nelson what's up he greased me he's like yo coming to my unit tonight i go to his unit and who do i meet ross mandel oh okay ross is sitting in his in his room with the heterordidly g who also i became really good friends with this kid named geo who was like the unit chef like he would whip up stuff for us and that's how i met ross okay

Which Ross looked very different in prison. He was like 60 pounds overweight. He hadn't gotten his teeth done. So he looks very different. But yeah. So that night I'd become friends with the head ordeley. So what happens is they shove some weird guy in myself. I was like, yeah, I'm done.

Let me leave to the other unit. So I talked to the head orally. Gee, I became friends with, he moves me over there. When he moves me over there, basically, me and him, become really good friends and that's when I build the routine I start writing I read I read a ton of books in those I end up getting out in five months I read like 31 books I love I love reading man it really I hadn't read in a long time so you didn't do eight months you did five months you did five months because would you have halfway house or just home because of carries act okay yeah so you know how they did the whole 50% or whatever yeah I end up getting out in five months and they I was supposed to go straight home but what ended up happening was they didn't do the whole home and inspection or whatever the fuck so they actually helped me hostage there for like two months and then they sent me home so the cool thing was when I got let out and I was at the halfway house I had had a couple of YouTube shorts to like 150,000 views that to me was like

oh my god it's good for a channel you had just started and weren't monitoring exactly exactly so I get let out the podcast is going well mind you I had like scheduled way out in advance right so you get some time yeah yeah so i got plenty of time to figure out what i'm going to do so while i'm at the halfway house i actually tell i get in contact with the owner that studio i used to record at and i managed to convince the halfway house to give me an internship at the podcast studio i have a fucking ankle monitor at this point and everything right so i get to go there at night and record my episodes and then just come home

so that's how i kept it going like i kept recording and eventually I got let off the ankle monitor, right? So now I'm like mobile on probation. I can go. Eventually some guy that I had on my show, he's like, do you know this guy? And I'm like, Ian Bick, I've never heard of this guy. I know, who is he?

And he's like, oh, he went to prison. He's a podcaster. You guys, you shouldn't hit him up. So I DM him thinking like, bro, this guy's a podcaster, legit podcaster. He's not going to respond, hey, man, I love what you're doing. I went to prison too.

I would love to connect with him. But at that point, he was just doing shorts, right? he wasn't did he didn't start the channel yet right not yeah yeah this is this is October September of 2023 yeah yeah about to start it because I think he started in January of 2004 or did he do no no no I think 23 was it 23 23 yeah because he had some episodes out oh okay so okay because when I heard about him he didn't even have a channel yet it was just TikToks he was blowing up on TikTok yeah yeah he did start with the short form stuff so I just leave it alone

and I also knew like man he's busy like you know how you did with your phone how you're like bro this is the whole day like you know I have to get back to people like hours later because he's the same his phone is just like cluttered it's horrible but anyway he gets back to me and then I end up setting up something with him in March of 2003

no 2024 I'm sorry I go up there I record his episode and that was my first big little pop like of getting my face out there and getting my story. I've become good friends with him since. I actually, last month, I went up to his studio and recorded a bunch of stuff

because I'm in between studios in Miami. And here we are. Now I'm on Matt's show. Have you ever seen the original guy that you were working with and got out? Have you ever seen him? Never seen him again.

I would rather never see him for the rest of my life for obvious reasons. The restitution was half a million dollars. Okay. And they were obligating me to actually pay $122,000. Okay. So they're splitting that among several people. Yes.

Okay. And I'll get to that now. Right when I got, that's a great question. Because right after I got back from seeing Ian at a studio in March of 2024 and recording my episode with him, the week after my probation officer calls me, mind you, you know what this is like in financial crimes. Like they're into your, like, I'm broke as shit. I'm making no money on purpose. because I'm like, man, if I make more money, all this stuff, like,

it's just hard. It's a difficult situation. Right. Because they're looking at you with a fine tooth comb. My, my, I don't know, can we say the C word on YouTube?

Anyway, whatever. This fucking bitch of a... You can't. Yeah, don't say that. Because it'll immediately... I didn't, I didn't. I didn't. You're difficult to deal with probation officer.

My... Difficult fucking asshole of a probation officer that I was dealing with. basically like blackmailed me into like paying more than I should long story short March right after I get back from Ian Big she calls me and she's like hey

Nelson what's up it's you know such and such a probation hi ma'am how are you doing okay so I don't know how this happened but the restitution is paid off one of your co-defendants paid her all off so you as of today you don't owe any more money I wanted to ask and I was like I can't ask can I write and I'm not going to so I wish I knew who it was so I could thank them but yeah I got off I'm very blessed because that never happens ever hey you guys if you like the video do me a favor hit the subscribe button hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this also share the video

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