Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Undercover ATF Agent Busts Bad Cops!

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Eric Immesberger, a former undercover ATF agent, recounts the wild, dangerous cases and close calls from his career, including exposing corrupt cops, stopping murder plots, and surviving violent encounters, revealing the chaotic reality behind high-stakes federal investigations.⁣ ⁣ Eric's links - ⁣ www.ericimmesberger.com⁣ https://www.instagram.com/ericimmesberger/⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@ericimmesberger⁣ https://youtube.com/@ericimmesberger⁣ Contact for Keynotes: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Go to GoodRanchers.com and use code INSIDE to get a free meat for life plus $100 off your first three orders.⁣ ⁣ F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code COX15 at theperfectjean.nyc/COX15 #theperfectjeanpod ⁣ https://theperfectjean.nyc⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ 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⁣ ⁣ CHAPTERS: ⁣ 0:00 - Bad Cops, Dirty Precincts & The Mike Dowd Discussion⁣ 2:01 - Drug Dealer Claims Two NYPD Cops Are Robbing Dealers⁣ 6:25 - Undercover Sting: Setting Up Corrupt Officers⁣ 12:03 - ATF Agent Brutally Attacked Outside Headquarters⁣ 20:02 - Hospital Aftermath & The Attacker’s Shocking Sentence⁣ 29:17 - The Long Road to Becoming an ATF Agent⁣ 42:34 - Undercover Hitman Sting: Husband Wants Wife Dead⁣ 1:00:11 - Proving Himself Undercover & The “Wife of the Year” Bomb Plot⁣ 1:28:03 - Gun Sting Turns Into Kidnapping & Murder Plot⁣ 2:04:47 - Motorcycle Gunman Shootout & The Final Case Before Retirement Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They were criminals that became cops. Mike Dowd. None of us. Respect that guy or any of them. I understand. And in our opinion, he should still be in prison. I listened to your interview of Dowd. Oh, Mike Dowd.

Mike Dowd. Well, he's very entertained. You've got to wrangle him. He's like a cat. Like a couple of cats. He's a character. Yeah. That's the nicest way to put it.

So he's got, he's got. He's got. two camps, the camp of folks that have listened to his endless recitations, the end, the seven, five, which was super well done, that documentary on Netflix. However, so he's got a camp that, oh, respect the code, Mike, you did your time and you did it like a man and, you know, you got away with all this crazy stuff. And then you got the other camp. the silent camp of good law enforcement. None of us.

Zero. Rhymes with a hero, zero. Respect that guy or any of it. I understand. And in our opinion, he should still be in prison for a lot of stuff. But anyway, the reason I mention that, I will give Mike Dowd if you're listening, buddy.

Not my buddy, but if you're listening, and I'll give you props for being an entertaining storyteller. And it was entertaining. And all of those places that you were talking about, like it was like the 7-5 was probably the one precinct I was in more times than most of the others doing other stuff as a detective with the A's office than later with ATF. But he got locked up in 92.

So the story I'm going to tell you happened in, January 96. So I had gone into this high-profile homicide unit. Then, and now where's the next place I want to get to? SIEU, Special Investigations Unit, super insular. Everybody knows they're there and they're in these rooms. But we really don't know what they do. I'm like, well, I've heard of some of the things they're doing it.

I want in. and I got in. And it was a kid in a candy store. I'm like, the mission, the most violent segment, make cases, proactive, work with all of these precinct detectives. I couldn't have been, I couldn't have been happier. So, very beginning of January 96, one of the guys in the squad runs across a kilo guy. The detective's name was Joey Mow was his nickname and just a good dude. But he's like telling this story.

And he's like, yeah, I grabbed the guy with a kilo. And, you know, the guy's still, you know, chained to the wall. And he's telling a story, yeah, I grabbed this guy with a kilo. Which in those 90s, I mean, you could go into garbage cans in Brooklyn and find a kilo. It's like, it wasn't like, oh, my God, you got a key. You're the, you know, there's 10 other guys with that arrest today, too. But anyway, he says, we had this guy with a kilo. I was doing a case on something else.

And boom. And he's telling me a fantastical story. So he's added a interrogation room. He's in the squad room. He said, God, this guy is saying, what's he saying? What do you need? What do you need? What do you got?

What do you got? What are you got? He says, well, here's what I got. He goes, I asked him, where did you get the kilo? And he says, I got it from two cops. I'm like, that's bullshit. I'm like, that's the first line out of everybody's mouth. They think, if I got cops, I can get away with murder.

I'll give you this cop and you're going to let me go. And that wasn't altogether too far from the truth. But this guy's story is, because now it gets worse. And we almost don't want to believe it. He says, and. I'm a drug dealer. You know that. You got me with a kilo.

A drug dealer. I am in the know with drug dealers. I hang out with them. I hang out with their girlfriends. I'm in the know of weight, a lot of weight and money that gets moved. And I give these two guys the information. They will relieve these people of their kilos and large sums of money. We split the money up.

and they give me the kilos, I sell them, and then we whack that money up. So we let that sink in. And we had a pay phone in the squad room so we could make control calls. You know, who's going to call back a pay phone? I think back in those days it always started with like a number nine, the last four, pay phone. So the guy wants to cooperate. This guy is not built for prison at all. all. And he's, he's like, I'll do anything, I'll do anything. I'll do anything. Okay, good. You're going to make a phone call to

these guys. And you're going to tell them that you're banging a girl, her man is a kilo dealer, you have access to her apartment, you know where the safe is, and you've been able to somehow glean the combo to the safe. And you're going to know when they're going to be there, you know and they're not going to be there. And, you know, I'll do that. I'll do that. And picks up the phone, dials the precinct, the desk number to the 75, 75 precinct,

Sergeant So-and-So. Hey, is so-and-so? Oh, yeah, he's right here. Hold on. The guy gets on the phone. Say, hey, got another one. Okay, good. Well, we're doing eight to four tomorrow,

so it's got to be after four o'clock and we'll hook up with you. You give us the information. Okay, boom. Well, that call happened. that that that right then that's solidified this is this it's no longer bullshitting you know right now you've got to know like who yeah so i was questioning it before so now these two cops they're young guys they haven't been on 18 years they're not they they were operating they were

criminals that became cops so now we know who they are well back way back when 30 years ago We had a brownstone building that the DA's office owned. It was our building, but it was in a row with a thousand other buildings. And all the apartments were our apartments. And our apartments were wired up. Video, audio, we controlled everything. So we get a safe in one of them. And we had a camera that you couldn't see if you looked inside the safe looking out.

you opened up the door to the safe, your face was on the entire video. So I think it was within the next few days. These bird brains let themselves into the apartment, let themselves into the apartment, go right to the safe. And there's two kilos, $50,000. Well, fake kilos, we wrapped them up identical 2.2 pounds each. And these guys hook up with our now cooperator. Here's the kilos. Let us know when you sell them.

They whack up to 50 grand or 50 grand. Let's know when the next one. Okay. Awesome. So now we have to percolate this rather quickly because these guys are out there. Good. So here's the next one that we put together. So the next deal we're going to do and we're going to arrest these guys within a second after they do it. you're going to tell these guys that you have information,

not a money courier. It's got to be moving, I think it was 300 grand, in a car from A to B. And you know where it's starting, and you know where it's headed. And they're like, good, yeah, we'll do a car stop when we're on duty in uniform, marked NYPD, call them RMPs, Radio Motor Patrol.

We'll just pull them over. Everybody looking. It looks like a car stop. And I'm going to take the 300 grand. Now, I had also worked a bunch of cases where it was not uncommon for the money couriers. With the Colombians especially, money and dope never came together. They were money went to this house, dope went to that house. Very good compartmentalization by them.

But it was not uncommon to do car stops, and there'd be a gym bag in the backseat with a quarter million and you'd say, you know, these are targeted car stops. It's like, hey, is that your bag in the back seat? Nope. Whose bag is it? I don't know. Mind if we look in the bag? Yeah, go ahead.

Open it up. $250,000. Cash. Is this your cash? Nope. All right. We're going to go back to the precinct with the cash and you. And they're not that nervous.

They go back and they know one thing. Come back with a receipt, a government receipt. Because if you come back with no money and no receipt, we're going to tie you to a chair and start taking you apart until you tell us where this money is. And then you would, you know, sometimes you say, you know what, no receipt today, pal. Because you came in here with information

and you want to leave with 100% of that information still in your head and this receipt. Well, no receipt today. No information, no receipt. You had to give them a receipt because we knew they were going to be killed. So we'd always give the receipt. But a not uncommon, So when this scenario got presented to these guys where they were working in 75, this was like

every other day. This up, yeah, oh, 300,000 money courier. Yeah, we're in. Good. Sounds like a good idea. Good idea. A good idea. Ferry came into the room.

So now when we set that deal up, that cooperator, you're staying with us. You're going to be in a hotel room with us. You're not making any phone calls. You're not seeing anybody, you're not doing anything until after these guys do this car stop to take the money. And then we're going to stop. We're going to intercede in that little plan and they're going to get arrested. Good. So I'm in the hotel all night with this guy and another detective.

So we bring him in in the morning. He's up in the squad room and we'll start, you know, all the guys ran and we're getting the plan. and we were going to use one of our undercover BMWs to put the money in, and these guys are going to do this car stop. So my boss says, hey, let's get the BMW added a secure area. Let's get it wired up, and we're going to head out and do this deal. I said, I'll go get the car. I know where it is, no big deal.

Okay, we'll see in a few minutes. So I was on our fourth floor office, 210 Jerolamon Street in Brooklyn, next to the Brooklyn Law School, across from the Brooklyn, not city hall, but city hall for Brooklyn, their little government building.

And I come out of the front doors. I'm not playing clothes. I had a leather jacket on because that was like the, if you were detective, could have a leather jacket. So I had the leather jacket. And I was also the firearm instructor to the office.

We had just gone to the Glock 9 millimeters the year before. So I got sent to the fire instructor school. And I used to preach to everybody, hey, I don't care if you're going outside to get a piece of pizza. You know, there's hundreds of people everywhere. Don't leave the office without your gun. I mean, that sounds crazy to say, but I just get a piece of pizza. I'll be right back.

All right. Have you gone? Have you gone? and don't leave the office without the portable radio. The portable radio is your lifeline. You're not going to get a pay phone. You're not going to yell for help. If you need help, the portable is the only way.

Blast out the signal, and 100 people are going to run over each other to get to your ex to help. So I had all those things. Radio. So the NYPD portable radio. And I come out of the front doors. It's kind of like a huge column, anti-room area. But it's outside. And I see a guy standing on the sidewalks.

Martin Luther King Day Matt. Okay. Desolate. No, every government worker is got the day off. The law school's closed. Governments closed. It's, it, it's 10, 20 in the morning, but it looks like two o'clock in the morning. It's like, desolate.

Except for this one guy. And he's waving a, what I can recognize right away. It's a C summons that would be given by like the transit police. you jumped over the turnstice. He's like waving it at me because he sees I have the PD portable, which it has a distinct look. Oh, that's the place.

So where do I pay this? Like, it's odd. Martin Luther King Day holiday. He should know everything is closed. So I walk towards him. And I got the BMW keys in my pocket. I'm like, okay, two minutes with this guy, then I'll go get the BMW.

you. And I tell him, I'm like, bro, it's Martin Luther King Day and Matt, Al Sharpton was one block away with his cast of 3,000 marching down Adam Street to shut the Brooklyn Bridge down. So all of this is going on at the, you know, I can see the crowd walking a block away. I see the news media covering this. Good. So I told this guy, point with the radio. I'm like, you know, He blocks that way. That's where you paid his ticket. And then, never heard it, never saw it. But a guy came up from my side behind me and hit me like Mike Tyson.

Like he hit me so hard in the face that it shattered the nose like under my eye, like, you know, off the jaw about fractures. And that was the open. greeting by another witness and I didn't see this another witness said well the guy that you were talking to then pulled a gun out but then you screamed you were a cop and that guy ran away with the gun he's still running but the guy that hit me now I'm on the ground and his blood at Matt there's blood everywhere and it's all mine and the fight is on and I am everywhere I go fighting this guy. There's just this blood trail going everywhere. Finally, I get him back

out to the sidewalk. I've tried to call on my portable that I tell everybody, don't leave the office without, kick that out of the hand, gone. Awesome for me. Bad day for me. And this guy has said not one word to me. Nothing. I'm the only one talking. I'm like, I'm a cop. Please get on the ground. Don't move. You know, all that stuff. Was he with the other guy? Or these two separate people? Never know. Okay. Never know. And that guy was, the ticket guy was never caught.

And there was a Herculean effort made to find that guy. But finally I get back out to the sidewalk. And now I've taken my gun out, the clock, and get on the ground. Because I can feel that numby, tingley, like, this is bad. I'm not winning this fight at all. and he just looked at me and goes into his waistband and people like you know they tried to poo-poo my version of what happened like i said hey he went right into his waistband yeah sure he did yeah he went into his waistband he came at me like a football tackle so i shot him i got two solid hits in the

upper chest but because he's coming at me in the position that i described they exit his lower lower back. So you could only be in that position and get that wound channel. So like, yeah, I guess you were telling us what happened. Yeah, I was. He goes down. I go down. And now I'm like, I got my wallet out. I had my shield in it. I also had a neck shield. And I'm trying to, all right, let me put my back to a wall. I can see this guy. He's laying on the ground. He's not, he's not, he's not, trying to. trying to get up. I think his leg was still trying to move a little bit. So I finally got my shield out and I see an unmarked car racing up the street just as a uniform guy or two are coming running around the corner. A fire truck heard the shots.

They come around the corner. One of the firemen had just went from the fire department, went from the police department to the fire department to get away from the craziness of being a cop and now he's right in the middle of this thing. So the first cop on the scene, he hasn't seen the shooting, but he heard it and he sees all the ragu coming out of me all over me and he puts over the radio. Yeah, confirmed the MOS member to serve a shot in the face. I need this. I need that. I need, you know, Steve McQueen and 10 Roman gladiators like, I need everybody. Aviation, ESU, highway. So whenever they put over the radio, the cop is shot, there's a cascade of events that happen just, it's, they just happen automatically. Highway cops are going to go to the blood

bank. This is 96. They're going to go to the blood bank. They're going to get actual blood. And they're going to bring it to whatever hospital you're going to. Aviation is going to be up. Emergency service, New York City SWAT. They're going to be everywhere, every pre-s, everybody that was in uniform and not in uniform within like two miles is going to be all of you. It looked, I, it was There was a lot of cops. Right. A lot of cops. So I'm trying to tell everybody I'm not shot.

Like you don't know. Don't move. You're in shock. Yeah. So finally I get up by the help of these cops and firemen. And I'm like, I want to walk to the ambulance. Just let go on me. And they're like, no, no, you're going to fall down.

So, okay. They lay me in the ambulance. And now we have to go, we're going to go to St. Vinny, St. Vincent's trauma center in the village, low Manhattan. But we got to get over to Brooklyn Bridge, which Al Sharpton and his cast of thousands are trying to shut down. Right. That ambulance didn't touch the brakes from Brooklyn to Manhattan. But now the hospital has already been notified.

A cop is coming in and he's shot in face. So the way I'm laying in the end. ambulance, I can see out the windows of the back of the ambulance. They call the bus in New York. And I'm do, do, do, backing up to the emergency room. There's an entire surgical team, gowned up, gloved up, ready to go. There was a, the smallest doctor was a female. I'm getting wheeled out, getting wheeled into the first trauma bay. And she has jumped on top of me and probing for like, where's this gunshot wound? And I'm getting all my clothes cut off. and then I shocker by saying, I'm not shot.

You don't know. I'm like, okay, another. You know what? I'm just going to lay back and let this play out. I get in the trauma room that, like, you're not shot. I said, I know. But there is a guy that is shot. He's going to be here in about 10 or 15 minutes.

He actually is shot. And sure, Matt, they brought this guy into the next trauma room next to me. I'm listening to him screaming. He's not dead. I assumed he was dead. So did I. And his surgeon came to see me in my hospital room, I was in there almost a week. He comes in and says, oh, hey, I operated on the guy that you shot.

He should be dead. You hit him in the upper chest. It went through like 22 inches of body and out his back. I had to take out a kidney, a chunk of his liver, his spleen, a few sections of intestine. He goes, the only reason this dude's breathing still is because he had so much crack in him. He had so much ard. Yeah.

That it literally, until the last drop of blood left his system, he was going to stay, you know, with the land of the living. And he's like, hey, he's going to live. He's absolutely going to live. Okay, good. You know what? I'm glad. I can say that I have not killed another human. human being. And that actually did mean something to me. So. So when they spoke with him, did they,

I mean, did he say like why he attacked you? Just it, I heard a few versions of what he had said. It went from, I just wanted to kill a cop that day to, I don't know what happened. I, he had been in a mental hospital or a mental hold for like 30 days. He was a paranoid. schizophrenic Rockhead Rockhead Yeah Yeah

And yeah That was his deal And his family They didn't come to see me Like his mom But they said To the case detective Hey we want to pass a message

To this guy And the message was We're sorry for what happened We know It was you have no blame in this It was not your fault This kid has been a menace Since he was like 12 years old

once he got started in with the drug game and was sorry this happened to you. We're glad you're going to live too. Okay. So he gets a year. What? One year. This is New York City, Brooklyn Justice back in the day. It gets one year.

I feel like it's still, I feel like it's back there again. The pendulum swung one way and it is swung back. So he's out in a year. And very soon after getting released, he commits. a vicious no my arrest i think was like his 21st or 22nd arrest i was no of course he should be he should be eligible for he should be able to get back out yeah so then his life around so then the thoughts were you know if he had died yeah shot him this wouldn't happen to that core you know you weren't removing a uh it's not like we were losing a patriot right that's you know as america turns

250 this year, it has me thinking about the people that really help build this country. Not the ones in history books. I'm talking about American ranchers. The men and women who wake up before the sun work long days and keep food on our tables year after year. That's exactly why I like good ranchers. Good ranchers honors that legacy by only sourcing their meat from local American farmers and ranchers. Everything from the pasture to the final seal on the box is done right here. in America. I'm actually a good rancher's subscriber myself. In fact, my wife and I had the chicken nuggets last night and they were amazing. And that's not the only thing they have. They have steak, chicken, seafood, and more. And all of it is amazing quality. If you want to support American

ranchers and get great meat at the same time, now's the time to try it. Subscribe today and get free meat plus $100 off your first three orders. That's $40 off your first order. That's $40 off your first and $30 off your next to. Just use my code inside. That's good ranchers.com American meat delivered. Right. And so I felt bad about that. But Matt, I needed like a series of surgeries.

And I was, I didn't get back to work for 16 months. And Matt, because I was out of line of duty for over 12 months, the city, they can, without any input from you, say, we're medically retiring. You get three quarters of your salary, the rest of your life tax-free, and you're done. Because we don't want to keep you on the books. You're a mess. And that got brought up to me by one of my bosses. And I'm like, okay, I was the overtime sponge.

I was the higher-rest guy in my squad. I'm like, I've lived in that unit. I've, like, slept in that unit for you guys. Do not medically retire me. I want to stay. And by the way, I want to be an ATF agent someday. Yeah, like, yes, everybody does. But, okay, we like you.

You're awesome. You say, but unlike you, fuckers, I have a chance. Yeah. And by the way, they did a great job on the nose. They would never know. So I tell the surgeon, and he was an older guy, I said, hey, I want to look like Travolta. Right.

He goes, that's a pretty tall order. And I'm like, try hard. And, you know, I'm, I need yet one more operational. and when I'm driving, which scares the passenger, I'm awake, but it sounds like I'm sleeping. Like one side way back will still shut down. It's just, it needs another surgery. And I can tell you, I don't know why anybody would electively

surgery to the face, the nose, that was, that was like level. Clearly never, you've never been wanted. That was pain. that was like, oh, back in those days, they gave me a bottle of 100 horse pills, hydrocodone. Yeah, hydrocodone. Hydrocodone.

And they're like, oh, you're four times a day. And I'm like. Good old days. So now I had been on Demerol and some other stuff for pain management in the hospital. and I'm like, I actually feel, I feel okay. They're like, because you're loaded up with drugs. It's like, of course, you're going to feel okay. I could stab you right now and you're still going to feel okay.

But this is for when you get home, you're not going to feel okay. I take it a few times just to get to sleep. And then the one day I said, right, I'm going to follow the directions. I was a zombie. I'm like, I'm not taking this. Because it just started hearing stories about, out other cops that got, you know. Yeah, they're hooked on it.

They get hooked. It's very easy. So I'm telling my dad this story. He's like, what are you going to do with that? I'm like, I flushed down a toilet drug turning. I don't know. He goes, I'll take care of it for you. Chronic back pain from his days in the Army and overseas.

And he's like, I'll take care of that for you. I'm like, okay, here you go. And that was that. But elective surgery on the face? I get, listen, I've had a nose job. I've had facelift, what they call them, a mini face lift. It hurts, yeah. You know.

Two hair transplants. I'm getting another one. We're going, we're going, we're getting a group. We're going to get a group deal. Getting one more. We got to call tomorrow. I want it thick, like a, like a dog's hair, like thick, like a bear. I want to look like a bear.

I would never be able to. to discern that you have had that surgery. The lighting is perfect in here. Trust me. We worked very hard to get it perfect. At the 16 month mark, because now I have declined yet another surgery, I said, I'm ready to come back. And the doctor reluctantly signs off, okay, you're fit for duty.

You can go back to full duty. I don't recommend it, but full duty. So I go back. And because I wanted ATF. I wanted ATF so bad. that like I would have cut a finger off to be able to get that job because of the mission. They were going after the worst of the worst.

Everybody, it's like t-shirt, shorts, you know, sneakers. That's the uniform of the day. And we are getting after it. So I apply for ATF. So now I've gotten to know ATF guys. I'm bringing cases over there. I'm working with them. They're in Manhattan.

I'm at Brooklyn. And they're like, oh, my God, we're going to have an announcement. Like, they hadn't opened up the books for like five years. Open the books. It's not like the fucking mom. Do they call it opening up the book circle? Did you apply? They said, the books are closed.

Back then, that is exactly what they called it. That is exactly what they called it. And ATF, at least the guys that I was running around with in New York City, that was run like a crime family. Like it was a insular, like, don't say something stupid in that squad room. You know, it's a shark tank. So the boss of the task force that I'm working with, Billy Frederick's is the boss, and he was a legitimate tough guy. He had been a Marine infantry in Vietnam.

His platoon gets overrun. Everybody is shot and stabbed, bayoneted. He's still alive. He takes a bayonet through the chest and doesn't move, doesn't say anything. they leave, they assume he's dead. He crawls through the jungle, back to, he gets rescued by somebody and back to America,

and gets into ATF. And now he's the head of his task force. Billy Fredericks was such a tough guy, and he was maybe your size, Matt. He might even been a half inch shorter. And he didn't carry gun. He carried the finger gun. There's been more savages

arrested by a finger gun. What's a finger gun? Get on the ground. You don't have a gun. But he was like he was in a world of his we were always around him.

He, you know, the finger gun was fine. We had real guns. But it was funny to watch like the finger gun ordering somebody to ground and people would get on the ground because they would take one look at him and he like he had that brave heart look Mel Gibson like that, that like, okay, this guy, a bullet may come out of that finger.

I don't know. They got on the ground. So he's encouraging me. He's like, hey, we're opening up the books kid, put in for the announcement. Back then, it was the toughest federal job to get thousands applied. And they only hired classes were 24 hires at a time. Why 24? Because there were only 24 desks in the classroom down in joy.

Georgia to Fletsey trainings. I'm like, could we make a bigger classroom, maybe 48, maybe 100? That's the way we've always done it. 24, 24, 24, 24. Okay, good. So I put in, first thing you got to do is you've got to exquisitely follow directions for the application procedure. Like, that was the first eliminator for a lot of people.

Well, you missed direction 43 out. Okay, I get the directions. I meet the requirements. and take our written test. Here's an invitation to take our written test. The Treasury Enforcement Exam, five sections. Math, writing, spatial perception. Here's a shape.

What two, three-dimensional things made that. Synonym and an antonym section and like a reading comprehension thing. The majority of people fail the written test. Pass fail. Nobody knows what that magic number is. You need to get to pass it, but somebody does because you get a letter.

you're moving on, I pass it. I don't get a letter. I know I have to be called now for a panel interview, and that's where they play Caesar. We want to hire you. We're going to start investing money into you, and you accelerate in the program. And accelerate, it took over a year to get hired back then.

It's much shorter now, but, like, you had to want this job bad. And the way I described to people like, well, what was it like trying to get? get that job. I'm like, like I was trying to get laid for the first time in my life. That's how hard it was to get that job. And that's the same energy that everybody went after that job. Nobody, nobody I know that passed it is getting called. And it was called the friends of the director class. Like if your dad played tennis with the director or the janitor's kid wanted a job,

those were the 24 jobs. Fantastic. I take the test again. Pass it. which people were like, how'd you pass that thing like twice? No call for an interview. Nobody gets called for an interview. They're like, yeah, we'll just wait till, you know, we're ready to do another hiring, opening of the books. So now I go to my buddy, Billy, Frederickson. I'm like, Billy, we took a shot.

And he's like, there's another announcement coming out. I remember guarding a murder guy one night. It's like after midnight and bring the call. Hey, another announcement. And you're putting in for it. And you're going to get in. We'll see. I passed the test.

I passed the written test a third time. And then I get a call, a letter, panel interview. So now the panel interview is where the decision is made. We want this guy or we don't want this guy or girl. So I'm in a separate room. Before you get to the panel interview, you have to give a writing sample, but more than a writing sample, you have to listen to like a 60-minute story on a tape and you have to write a report about it. That writing product could eliminate you from the process if it didn't meet all the marks of the standard. I met the standard for that, so I get brought into the panel interview.

I'm being brought into the panel interview by a guy named Alex Diatri, who I knew. He was the number two guy, assistant special agent in charge of the New York office for ATF. And he's dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, some kind of jacket. He was a twin for Sylvester Stallone. And he knew it. Sylvester Stallone. Okay, Alex. And he stops me before bringing me anymore.

He says, hey, you know what to say in there, right? Yeah. He goes, I can't say it for you. You got to stand up and deliver. I'm like, I've been, Alex, I've been waiting for like years for this. I'm like, put me in. So I go in. Awesome.

I feel it goes well. I'm in Seattle on something. I get a call. Everybody in New York, the bosses feel they couldn't ask enough questions. We're repaneling anybody. I'm like, I'll be on the next plane. Now we'll send you stuff to Seattle. and I got repaneled in Seattle

and then this is how you know if you got the job. There's a FedEx envelope leaning against your front door. If it's a FedEx envelope, you're in. If it's a regular legal-sized envelope, sorry to inform you. I drive home, there's the FedEx thing

against my front door. I'm like, I think I was trying to get out of the car before I put it into park. ATF, Kansas City. I'm like, it could, Benwars. could have been to LA. So off to Kansas City, my first post to duty. But like every New Yorker, like I'm off to the flame,

you want to get back to New York. So I'm finally able to get back to New York in, I had also put in to join our special response team, SWAT. So I go to New York on a 30-day detail because I just had told my bosses in Kansas City. I'm like, if I don't get back to New York, I'm just going to go back to the detective in Brooklyn. They're like, we'll get you back, we'll get you back.

And as a matter of fact, the head guy, the special agent in charge, another Vietnam combat Marine, and he was a chain smoker, died of lung cancer. But he would smoke on the roof of the building. And when he would see me, he would say, hey, come with me. Let's go have a smoke on the top of the building. I didn't smoke. I'll watch you smoke and you talk to me. I'll listen.

And this is what he says to me, Big Bob. And he wasn't big. It's a small guy. But he goes, are you dead serious that you? going to quit ATF and go back to Brooklyn if you don't get transferred back to New York City. I'm like, yeah. I said, I left with a five-week-old son. He's like coming up on three years old now, and I've seen him like 10 times, you know.

What do you mean? So your wife and kid didn't come with you, or you were divorced? So no, my wife at the time, she was in NYPD, and I had. told her on our first date i am going to be an at fage and she knew she said sure you are you never got get that job a lot of people that really believe in you um matt i mean i have i have been underrated by many and it's like one more mf her that i have to show right you know she's never going to get that job so she wasn't worried about that but when that fed x envelope it was two reactions I run inside and I'm looking for the first suitcase.

And she's like, you're not taking that job. I'm like, oh, I'm taking that job. I'm like, I've told you, like, every day taking that job. She goes, you got a kid just out of the hospital. I'm not taking that job. And by the way, I'm not going. And your kid's not going. I'm not quitting my job.

And I'm like, I'm taking this job. I will try to get back. They said if you do a year, you came back. that was that was that was nonsense right they're like sure kid do a year we'll get you back no so now I'm saying if I don't get transferred back like a hardship transfer I'll leave so so so what was there so it wasn't Kansas City it was getting back to the wife and kid or or is it like doing all that they were they were living on Long Island and I'm like I can keep I'll just get my old job back but I want to work eight I don't want to work

ATF on Long Island. I want to work if she had come in the city. Oh, okay. Well, so she came with you to Kansas City. You would have stayed. Once I found out how good it was out there, no traffic, property taxes, half, car insurance, half, everybody's nice. Why don't you get another wife? I mean, they got, you know, I was a, uh, partial to that one. Well, I was, uh, I was like, uh, A, I'm not doing that because. You know, I was a, uh, you know, I'm not doing that, because. because there were enough people doing that, and it always ended in a train wreck. So Big Bob's up on the roof with me, and he goes,

are you serious? And I'm like, yeah. I said it to him just like that. And he goes, listen, secret information, I just got promoted to Deputy Assistant Director. I'm moving back to Washington, D.C. I'm going to be working at headquarters. One of my jobs is I'm going to be the chairman of the hardship committee.

Do not quit ATF. And he knew I was crying. I had nothing to do. Matt, 24-7, I was ATF and I was doing undercover. I was doing cases. I was like, I was put in the office like in the news constantly. And again, Matt, I had nothing to do. 24-7 ATF.

Oh, you need this done at 3 in the morning? I'm your guy. Right. The wife's still in New York. Wife's still in New York. My boy is still there. You know, it's like I have nothing to occupy my time. but what I'm doing.

Like, I don't need any time off. I need time to take a shower, change my clothes, and I'm right back in the office. Good. So a senior guy comes up to me, who had been my original ATF training agent? And he goes, I got something that is just right for you. He goes, you, so this is back in 99.

He goes, you still sound like my cousin, Vinnie. Like, you're like, you're like Brooklyn. You're like a spectacle. You're like the, who are you and where are you from? I got a deal for you if you want to do an undercover. It's going to be awesome. So that's the story I'm going to tell you. But that guy that gave me that case,

my original training agent when I got hired a year earlier, my son married his daughter. Yeah, I'm related now. Right. Fantastic. Good dude. He could have done this undercover, but he's like, hey, you're new TTF.

You got the whole Brooklyn thing going. Boom. So he goes, here it is. There's a guy that got locked up for relatively minor stuff, a DWI, his third. And all he wanted was to keep his license. This is what he was willing to give up to keep his driver's license. He goes, I got a guy, buddy. He's looking to find somebody to kill his wife.

Good. Great. I'm your Huckleberry. We get the information and he goes... You've been married at this point, right? Not like it was a shocker. And he goes... I will tell him I got somebody.

And I'm going to give him your number, your left his number, and you guys figure out whatever. Good. I don't have to tell me twice. So I get a very short phone call with this guy. He's calling me from like a pay phone, like he's watched one too many movies. And I was always going by, like my undercover persona was Nikki from Brooklyn.

I was Nikki from Brooklyn. Good. And I didn't want to say anything on the phone because I'm giving him the full stage show. Yeah, yeah. I put on the phone, pal. Let's set up a meet. And he sets up a McDonald's parking lot,

which was perfect because it was four blocks from where his estranged wife lived. Good. So nighttime, we meet in this McDonald's parking lot. He readily jumps in my undercover ATF vehicle. And this is the tale of woe. He says,

we've been living apart for six months. We're going to get divorced. By the way, that building, a few blocks down, that big building, that's where she lives. I want her dead. I want her dead. I want it dead. And he's telling me like these like Hank Williams lyrics as he's, he's like, she tore my heart out, she put it in the third,

she danced on it. It's like if I put a soundtrack over it, I could have had a top 10 country Western hit. But what we do on these kind of cases, we don't want to make somebody a criminal and we want to dial out the emotional flare up. Like, this is what you're telling me tonight, but are you going to feel this way tomorrow morning? So we want to dial those people out.

We don't want to make somebody a bad guy. We want to get somebody that's already a bad guy. And this is what he tells me. I'm like, oh, this guy is a bad guy. I want this girl dead I can't live with this anymore I've thought of killing her myself and then killing me

and then you know I'm done I can't I can't go on anymore and I'm giving them every opportunity to back I'm like dude if I killed every woman that ever you know gave me a jana you know it'd be bodies from here to L.A

and I wanted it wouldn't let me finish sentences I wanted dead I wanted dead I wanted dead and then it comes out with this gem as we say he goes i've already paid somebody 4,500 the killer just hasn't done it yet okay i can't wait right like okay good um you're predisposed to commit this crime and by the way to myself i got to move on this instantly immediately because there's a who know who knows who guy out there that's already been paid to do it just hasn't done it yet i got to find out who this guy is So this is what I do, Matt.

I'm going to find out who this guy is and have it flow. So I've never said to him, I'm a killer. I've never said to him I'm an organized crime guy. I've never said anything, but I've given him little like rings to grab onto that his mind will go to the conclusion that I've said nothing. But certain things I say, he just, I'm like, you need work done. common phrase in New York, you need somebody killed. They call it work. Good.

So he must have watched the movie. He understood that. Then I say to him, I got to find out who this sort of guy is. Listen, that guy is making a bad name for the business. Give me his name. The business. Where does he live?

I want to know everything about this guy. And I'm going to get your money back. Don't ask how. I'm getting your money back. I'm going to keep half. Give you half your money back, but I can't have this. He's like, okay. Here's his name.

Here's where he lives. Here's his license plate. Here's his car. Here's where I put the money. It's hard to find criminals this stupid. And he goes, by the way, Nikki, he just got out of prison not long ago. He did like eight years for a major powder case. Even better.

So now check, check, check all the boxes are getting checked here. And I've got to find a way to put this together instantly, like instantly, like, I'm going to kill this girl tomorrow morning. So now I'm asking about, you know, a little veracity for you really. What's your veracity? You know, again, more chances to back out. Do you really want this done? What do you want me to do?

you want me to you know cut her eyeball out you want me to bring a finger back bring her license but you know what do you what do you want he goes no no no the it boils down to i don't want her to suffer just knock her out and stab her to death and i have a feeling she's dealing powder at she worked in a bar so i want you to take powder cut it up with bacon soda and i want you to dump it on the floor with some money spill some money that's exactly what you he said and make it look like a dope deal going wrong. You've thought this out more than like a hundred times. Okay, good.

So now, again, I'm suggesting nothing. How am I going to get into this? How am I going to do this? How am I going to get into this building? He's like, I've already thought of that. It goes, easy. It's a loft department bill. It's like a converted, like pre-war building.

He said, the office doesn't open until 9 a.m. There's no security cameras. So at 8 a.m., you are going to pose as a plumber. And the maintenance guy, his name is Bernie, but he doesn't get in until 9 a.m. So you're going to ring any bell. Doors locked. Ring any bell. Hey, Bernie sent me.

I'm a plumber. I have to go check out this league. Can you unlock the door? They'll buzz you right in. And here's the apartment. he gave me a picture of the girl. He gave me a floor plan of her apartment. He told me where he thought she was hiding money in powder.

He's laid all of this out for me. Oh, when I said, oh, you want me to do to cut a powder on the floor? Give me some. And he's like, ah, you know, I don't have any. I could try to, I'm like, you're not a powder dealer. That's not your thing. I said, I'll get my own. He had an extra 500.

So I was $5,500 altogether. five thou plus the 500 for the I'll get my own powder. And he's like, oh, great. And he's like, now you're going to get yourself to the door of my ex-wife. And this is how you're going to get her to open the door. You're going to say, he's laying out back in 99 the artist social engineering. Like he almost invented. He goes, you're going to say, through the locked door, hey, I'm the, I'm the, I'm,

I'm a plumber, Bernie, the name of the maintenance guy, because it gives the familiarity, like, yeah, of course you're telling the truth. Bernie sent me over. There's water coming into the apartment underneath you. I just need to get in and just check a few things in your apartment. Make sure it's not coming from your apartment. He goes, she'll open a door. And then do what you're going to do. Okay.

And he tells me, I have thought about this over for months. Okay. I give him another out. I said, listen, I'm going to do this tomorrow morning because now I'm thinking I got to find out, I got to arrest this other 4,500 guy that's out there. I'm doing this tomorrow morning. And he says, great.

And I'm like, if you're going to wake up and have any second, I'm not, I want that bitch dead. I want that bitch dead. Okay. Okay. I've given you numerous opportunities to back out. You're not backing out. So now he starts talking about alibis.

I'm like, yeah. I said, listen, the police are going to want to talk to you. You're like the estranged husband. You're probably to be the first guy that's going to be. They're not going to talk to me because I'm going to be gone. Yeah. I said, you got to be seen, get a receipt, go get gas, go to a diner, buy a newspaper, whatever.

See, I can do all that. I'm showing up to drive a truck. The other guys will see me early in the morning. So clearly I couldn't be in another town. while this murder happened. I'm going to have plenty of witnesses. Great. So this is what I tell him,

because now I know something that he knows. We both know this now. Because he's gotten in my car and given me, drive here, drive there, points out, that's where she works, that's her car, that's her apartment window. This is where she eats breakfast.

This is where she exercises, given it. So when we're driving, directly across the street, at a tiny angle from the building, is the North Kansas City Police Department. They're headquarters. I got an idea.

So I start telling him, listen, police are going to want to talk to you. I don't know how they're going to do it, whatever, not my world, but they're going to want to talk. I'm thinking they're going to want to talk to you first. So be prepared for that. So what I know is we're going to have him summoned to that police station. So now we're going to do something that we were very fond of doing an ATF on the right moments.

We did what's called street theater. I want him to see something. And then I want him to come to an inaccurate conclusion based on accurate information. The accurate information that he's going to see when he comes to this police department that he's been told to come to to be interviewed, something has happened to your wife. I get the police department to put crime scene van, yellow tape, cops with clipboards. He's going to see that when he turns in.

He's going to be like, he did it. He did it. Look at this show going on over here. And that's exactly what we do. We put the wife in pocket that night. She's with us. You talk to her? What does she say?

Do you go talk to her or somebody else? No. That's the other thing. One person, if you're an undercover, that's your job. You're the undercover. Yeah. I happen to do other stuff in that case, but stay in your lane. So the rest of the team, they're putting her in pocket.

They're dealing with the police department, put this, you know, magic show on display. Knock on the door and say, we got to talk to you and just tell her. They, yeah, they basically knocked on her door and said, hey, you know, can we talk to you? You should say he'd never do that? Or does she say, I fucking knew it. This motherfucker's been here. This is really the sixth guy that he's tried to have me killed. She did not say, what?

There was none of that. No. And she was just thankful that, you know, we got into this thing before she got whacked. Did you guys do the whole, we're going to need you to lay down and then we're going to throw some ketchup on you and take a picture? No. You know, sometimes they do that. And they're like, I'm going to show you a pit. You know, this is your wife.

We did the next best. thing. Okay. Because now he's reported to the police department because they've said, we're not going to talk to you over the phone. Come here. And he's like, God, just right across the street from the apartment. So he sees the caution tape. He no, he's done. He sees that and he comes to the inaccurate conclusion that I have killed this woman. All right. Sitting in a hotel with two my guys. He comes in, they bring him into the interrogation room. So it's an ATF agent. and a, no, I'm sorry, it was a Kansas City detective we were doing the case with that later became an ATF agent and a North Kansas City detective. So they're talking to him.

His name was John Clevenger, and he's displaying every appropriate emotion now. I'm like, sorry to tell you, your wife's been murdered. Oh, my God, he goes to pieces. He's crying. I don't, you know, who would want to do this? She let up a room. She left him. Listen, I told my wife last night I was laying in bed

And I watched a fucking TikTok and And I said to her I said, I said, I fucking can't stand it I said when when people die and they're like He was he was such a good guy He lit up a room I said I said I don't I said I don't want anybody saying I lit up a room And she says they won't This goes on for 20 minutes

He's boo hoon He's like Ah, this is the worst this is what they tell him, John, you're an emotional wreck. We're scared to let you drive back to wherever you're going. He's like in his mind, getting out of here. And they go, listen, we have a department grief counselor. They're here full time.

Would you mind just talking to our grief counselor and help you a little bit? I'll talk to the grief counselor. I walk in. I'm the grief counselor. Oh, that's perfect. Nikki from Brooklyn. And as soon as he sees me, he looks away. And the detective goes, John, do you know him?

He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't know him. And I'm like, hey, John, Nikki from Brooklyn. I know him. And then we had to spend, you know, half a minute telling this bird brain, I really didn't kill his wife. Like, you know, we didn't kill your wife to make it look good, you know. Right. wife is fine.

And I saw the caution tape. He took 12 years on a plea. Which leads us into the next, so that was husband of the year. Really quick, how did you ever find the $4,500 guy? Oh, sorry. Yeah. $4,500 guy. So now we have the wife in pocket.

She is now safe and sound. We have now arrested John for attempted murder. Now it is off to find this. this guy named Mike, and we get in front of him quickly. And he admits he's still on parole. You get eight years on a state case for powder. You did something like horrendous to get eight years on that kind of case at that time because those cases were a dime a dozen, but this guy got eight years.

Good. he no hesitation no story no denial he goes oh yeah I took the money I was never going to do it

I just I just took the money yeah that makes sense to me I was never going to kill her I'm like what's he gonna do go to the cops I'm like I'm well

that's exactly what he said easily and I'm like you weren't gonna do it really weren't gonna do it he's had it for fucking weeks he goes it was a layup

if it was gonna be done he'd have done it weeks ago yeah so we got the state parole and they took not kindly to this

imagine this conduct when you're on parole trying to be a better citizen and it seems like a decent guy he's knocking up this is the guy who's trying to kill his wife like I'm okay with the pulling 45 out of his hand he wound up getting his top number

on a parole violation and it was like it was like you would never paroled. You will now finish everything. And that was that. And his kid was in a dope game. And it was just a hot mess. But, hey, you stole his money.

Maybe you were thinking about doing it. Who knows? He was fine. He wasn't going to do it. Yeah. But all's well. That ends well. So now I've got now.

So whenever you're an agent, you really got to somewhat do something, wow, that was a good job. Before anybody really brings you now into the fold, you know, everybody's nice to you, but you got to prove yourself a little bit that you can handle what we do. So there was yet another Vietnam Marine nickname Stumpy because he had half his leg blown off by a landmine in Vietnam and somehow still able to run a mile and a half to get into ATF. Good dude.

And he was a real deal on the cover. And he would never call me Eric. Right. No? He would only call me New York, New York, from half an inch from my face. He would only talk to me from half an inch from my face. Anytime he had something to say to me, he would get up. Listen up, New York.

Listen up, New York, New York. And back, cag, cag, ha. But he's out there on the cover team, so I find this out from the other guys. He was a deep undercover guy. Like he was legit undercover. He's listening to my wire. And he's like, all right, now go into this. And now go into this.

And then I'm going into that. All right, you got to do it. And I'm going into that. All right, we got to find out who that guy is. And I find out who that guy is. I got back from that undercutter. He's like, now from further than half inch he's like, New York, New York. Unbelievable.

And he's like, that was legit. So I was in with Stumpy and everybody else. So it was good, which sets us up for the next awesomeness. So if that was husband of the year, now we're going to go with the wife for the year. Four months later, four months later, I get a call. Now, I'm still like the undercover look. I got the ponytail. I got the goatee.

But my boss, completely straight-laced boss, like he didn't undercover work. that's messy, that's dirty. Like, he's, he was the suit and tie investigators investigator. Good dude. But he wasn't enamored with the undercover thing that I was like doing left and right. I mean, I was, I did that undercover. I got hired more than once as an arsonist for hire to burn stuff down and money. Fantastic.

But anyway, he calls me up like early and he goes, hey, the big one. We have a pipe bomb that was attached to a guy's truck. I had the military EOD guys there. Our EOD explosive enforcement officers there that telling me this is a legit device, get up there, we're all going up there, and we're going to find out how did this guy's truck. It's in Cuba, Kansas, population 300.

It's the middle of, when you say the middle of nowhere, this was the middle of nowhere. Did it just not go off? Or the guy found it before it went off? The guy found it before it went off. It would have went off if he hadn't done anything. So what happens is he goes to get into his truck. It's like 4.30 in the morning.

Wife comes out, a cup of coffee. Hey, hon, have a great day at work. And he's like, what's that fizzling, sparkler looking thing under my truck? It was like a three-foot maroon drawstring, improvised fusing mechanism going into this homemade pipe bomb that's been bailing wired attached to right about under the driver's seat pulls the cord out so now the firing train has been interrupted right and they call the police because he has found one of these on his truck about a week ago didn't know what it was you know the wife was like hey didn't hear any loud noises maybe i got to make another one which she did so i get

up there. Now, I've already been told about this maroon drawstring. I've been, the whole situation has been described to me as I'm driving like 90 miles an hour trying to find the middle of nowhere. Like, it's crazy, man. But I find it. I go up to the house. The one fire truck from town is there. Like the two cops from the surrounding whatever, they're there. The husband is there. neighbors are there and the wife is there. So I drive up and I get pointed out to the wife and husband. They're standing together by the fire truck. And they're indignant.

This is crazy. Somebody tried to kill my husband and the husband's all out of bent out of shape. I'm looking at her. She's wearing a maroon thing. No drawstring. The husband's like, I want to find out what happened. I want to find out who tried to kill me. I'm thinking of myself.

I've been there like a minute. The person that tried to kill you is standing right next to you, I think. But let's do a little investigation. And so the first thing I do is now I want to get a picture of the two of them standing there together. I want to picture her with this missing drawstring maroon thing. And I want another picture with me standing next to them.

And I want everybody smiling because I have come here to help you figure this out. Good. Because, hey, she's thought about this a million times. She says, oh, this is airtight. They're never going to figure this one out. So I get the pitches. And then I start walking around. We're looking at stuff.

I go to my explosive guy, and he says, look, this is a real deal. It's improvised. It's crude. But this would have done damage. And he goes, I think the propellant is flash powder. It's the most highly unstable. heat sensitive, shock sensitive. It's what M80s, M100s, a kid's cap gun,

like if you, you know, the red roller caps when you were a kid, that's flash powder, micro amount. And it still makes a big noise. This is what this thing is filled with. Walk around the house, there's hundreds, maybe more than a thousand firecrackers cut open. No flash powder in them. They're everywhere.

Okay. starting to come together. And Johnny, my explosive guy said, and on video, I did a test burn. It is in fact ignitable. I got the video. This is a real device. Would it went, would have functioned

if but for the husband yanked the fuse up. Okay, good. Now, I started asking some gentle questions because the wife has progressively gotten more agitated. I want to know who did this. I want to know who did this. The husband, I'm like a life raft. Oh, my God, the feds are here.

You're going to figure this out. Gentle questions to the wife. I'm like, everything okay with you? You and your husband, they've been married 23 years. They've got two kids in the Navy. They got an adult kid living at home. Quickly ruled him out. And she said, oh, no, no, everything's fine, fine, fine, fine.

Who would do this? I said, hey, I'm going to want to talk to you in a few minutes, but sit tight. Uh, uh-oh. They're starting to ask questions of me. She calls her son at his place of employment. This hothead drives back to the house, does like, I can see him coming up the lawn, power slide next to the picnic table that I'm sitting on talking to his mom. and he gets out and he's hot. I thought for a second he was going to attack me,

but he's yelling and screaming. There's 20 other guys, but I'm by his mom yelling, screaming at me. And I'm wearing a suit. And he goes, are you trying to say that my mom tried to kill my dad? I'm like, whoa. I'm like, what would you give that?

What would give you that idea? My mom, because she said that you're asking questions. I'm like, everything's fine. you're very upset. Your mom is upset. Calm down. And he does. Bring the mom inside the house with a state investigator.

And I said, hey, a few questions. And I said, basically, did you do this? Yeah. Oh, yeah. A complete, emotionless admission. And she goes through, here's how I did it. I did that one from the week before. I threw it in the garbage.

I, you know, he threw it in the back of his truck. I got it. I got rid of it, threw it out. As a matter of fact, I think she said she threw it out like that day or the day before in the garbage, like a pipe bomb in the garbage. Gone. Another part of that story. And she's given up everything. She goes, oh, yeah, the bailing wire.

I use that bailing wire. It's in the shed. I used these metal cutters. You grabbed them. I said it had duct tape on it. She goes, oh, yeah, the duct tape, right in that drawer, used that. It went all together. And I got a tape recorder in the middle of the table.

No subterfuge. Like, it's right there. And I've read her or writes, everything. Phone starts ringing. And then it stops. She keeps talking. And I'm like, were you trying to kill your husband? Did you want your husband dead?

No, she won't. She's admitting to all this conduct. She won't come out and say, I wanted to kill my husband. But I said, okay, do you have that? Do you have life insurance? No. Do you have a lot of money in the bank? No. Do you have a lot of money in the house? No. We really don't have a lot of money. I said, well, your husband has a pretty good job. You worked for the local newspaper. What would happen if your husband was killed? Well, I'd be able to sell his boats. I'd be able to sell his property. I'd be able to sell the house. I'm like, okay. And I'm like, what would you do with that money if this happened? She goes, well, I want to bail my nephew. at a jail. My sister, we have, we're nine kids. I'm number eight. She's number nine. My youngest sister. I just want to bail her son out of jail so she can just spend some time with her son. Is this inbreeding or something? What, what's, what's meant? I mean, is this like low?

And I'm like, you know, so I'm like, well, what, what's your nephew in jail for? And she tells me this tale. She goes, well, he was in jail for a drug case, but you know the cops. They have all these cops around here are corrupt. Corrupt cops. There's like four cops in a hundred miles. And, you know, this whole thing. I just want to bail my nephew out. Okay. What if you just went to your husband and said, can I get some money to bail our nephew out? Would he give it to you? No, he doesn't like my sister. So no. He doesn't like my sister. So no. wouldn't do that. I'm like,

this, this gal is heartless. Like, emotionally straight-lined. It's matter of, it's like we're talking right now. There's no emotion at all. Phone rings.

I'm like, oh, you can answer your phone. It's her, it's an attorney. And she goes, your husband called me. I'm going to represent you, put that agent on the phone.

I get on the phone. She goes, I'm her attorney. You can't question my client. I'm like, hold on. I'm like, the time is, the date is, I'm just deactivating this recording device. I'm like, I'm done talking to your client,

which I was done anyway. Now I'm just going to arrest her. Good. Now, the husband is vexed. He's outside. I want to see my wife. I want to see my wife. I want to see my wife.

Does he understand she's just admitted? He's been told your wife is under arrest for doing this. Yeah. So they tell me this. I tell the wife, if your husband wants to say goodbye to you, she's now handcuffed. I'll say goodbye to him. I'm like, oh, an opportunity for conversation between these two people?

Right. Fantastic. So I put two cars. I have two cars put bumper to bumper. I tell the husband, you're staying over there. You can talk to your wife, but she's staying over here. No touchy, just talkie. This is what this guy is wearing.

overalls. And he goes, don't worry, hon, I know you didn't do this. The whole town knows you didn't do it. We're going to get you out of this. Don't worry about anything. She says nothing. She's listening. And I'm next to her. This is what she says to the crying husband. Gary was his name. Gary, didn't you hear what they've already told you? I tried to kill you. I couldn't pull out a pad of paper and my pen fans, oh, spontaneous, you know, utterances. We take her away. This now, it's most appropriately prosecuted in the state. There's one district attorney.

He's the district attorney. He's the only prosecutor. He's got a secretary. That's it. I meet with that guy. And I say, listen, we will do everything. We'll, our ATF money, will spend everything for the investigation. We'll do the lab analysis.

We'll get you all the reports. You'll get everything. Indicted her in the state, and you can prosecute her. It's, I just feel with everything, it's more appropriate to do it in the state. And Kansas is brutal. It's almost right there with federal guidelines. I mean, it's a brutal state. So he goes, oh, my God, thank you so much.

Thank you. Good. Yeah, so we give him everything. He calls me, and he goes, oh, you're never going to believe this. that attorney that was on the phone with you, she wants a preliminary hearing, a full-on preliminary hearing, where it's basically going to be the trial, it's almost a trial because she's already informed me that you had no right to arrest her, you have no zero probable cause, this is all nonsense. So you're going to be on the stand as if this is a trial.

Okay. The female attorney is a true believer. Like, because it's not often you get to represent a completely innocent client caught up by the system. I go, my explosive guy, we're both there. We're going to testify for the state. And we do. It's an entire day event. But this gal, like not a trial attorney, not even remotely experienced as a trial attorney.

She is basically allowing me to just open door after door after door. Like you asked me about that, so now I'm going to give you the full story. Oh, you ask me a full story, everything. She's asking me no yes or no questions. It's all open-ended, like she's almost like the prosecutor. Right. Who's sitting there? I'm looking at me.

He can't believe what he's hearing. The judge was horrified by this case. And he's like, I find there is probably. probable cause for this arrest and no bail. You're in jail until this plays out. And she wound up taking five years on a plea. I think everybody, yeah, she had, in my estimation, she had some mental problems. I mean, yeah, I was just say the whole, it sounds like all of them do. Is this the 300, you know, if you have a town of 300, it's not a super deep gene pool there. Well, now the best part of the story, Matt, you might love this part more than the rest of it.

Now I start looking into the story of trying to bail out your nephew, a drug charge. What is that all about? Well, the nephew's not in jail on a drug charge. He was in jail on a drug charge. Him and another guy break out of the county jail. Like, they escape. Right. So where do you go when you escape jail?

Go back to your house because that's the last place we're going to look for you. Right. It's the first place. So he's back in his house and he looks out the front window and he sees the chief of police. Like the one, like one third of the police department is in his front yard. And he's like, ooh, this isn't good. But it's only one guy. He goes, I'm going to go take a shower.

Takes a shower. He comes out. And he's like, I'll just jump out the back window with my three loaded guns. But now he looked after his shower. and he's, you know, drying off and he looks out all his windows. And now his house is surrounded. State troopers, I mean, there is every cop from the area. And he's like, uh-oh.

Jumping out the window's not going to work. So let me do the next best thing. Let me go to the attic because surely they'll never look in the attic for me. Right. He goes up in the attic. He's got his three guns. He gets his little hidey spot, puts his three guns in front of him. When they start to search, they have a, you know,

uniformed dog. One of them was a canine officer. So they're searching the house, nothing. They go, okay, attic, let's check the attic. We'll put the dog in the attic. So the uniform guy brings his dog up the stairs to the attic. It's one of those. You got to move the piece of wood and stick your head up and crawl. And he puts the dog up there. No reaction from the dog. like for whatever reason the dog like whatever he does he sits down by the opening and he's not moving so the uniform officer he's like oh now let me go take a look nothing no reaction from the dog as soon as the uniform guy puts his head up boom shot in the head dead he falls backwards into the arms of like the cop behind him shot in head dead the guy shoots the dog dead then they put gas in the

attic and he gives up. That's what this guy's in jail for. Capital murder of a police officer and a police canine. That's what this birdbrain lady wanted to get. He had no shit. He killed a cop. Right. He's not getting a bail package. Like what what world do you live in that you thought this? She'd probably back with her husband right now. Yeah. So now the asterisk to the story is we got a pipe bomb that this bird brain put in a garbage. Now we got to find that. And, you know, garbage company, collection point. Well, we do all this. Where did it go? Where did it go? Where to go? And she's described the bag that she put it in and what the trash bag looked like. And this is a live pipe bomb. We track it down to a collection point. There is an 18-wheeler loaded with garbage,

compacted going to a landfill, but it hasn't left yet. And now it's like 11 o'clock at night. We'll, like, dump the entire tractor trailer. It's all over the place now inside a huge hut. We put on the spaceman outfits like, you know, Michelin Man, and we now go through every piece of everything from that 18-wheeler. We're there all night till, like, the next morning. And it was pheasant hunting season.

There was probably a thousand pheasant carcasses. The only reason it didn't stink the high heaven, and it did stink, was because it was January and not August. Never found it. Gone. There's a pipe bomb in a landfill somewhere. Right. We haven't gotten cold on that yet.

Seems like a lot of work for five years. You know, Matt, I never took a position on sentencing. I said, look, we did our job. We did everything that we could do to put this case together. The prosecutors, they did everything they could do. And then now it's in the judiciary's hands. What are you going to do with this? Now, the few times that I actually legitimately believed,

I arrested a guy once for DWY twice in 24 hours. Like, arrested them. he got bailed out I went home and slept I came back to work he's out driving again drunk I arrest him again on that guy I took a position

I'm like this guy's a stone alcoholic he needs a program I called the prosecutor I'm like let's look whatever you do on your end do it but this is a guy with a serious problem I am fine if you want to pursue

the let's try to help this guy because his family had come to me and they're like oh my god this guy's such a drinking problem And, you know, the guy wasn't, the guy was probably one of the most polite guys that I ever arrested. He was super polite. So I said, okay, I actually gently suggested, I'm like, hey, if you want to give this guy some kind of divergentary, whatever, I'm fine with that. Like, I sort it out for this guy, you know, deserving whatever.

It was the right thing to do. That guy gets five years in Florida. But the second, D.Y. Yeah. You know. He can get help in prison. 40 plus years ago. There's a support group.

There's an AA group in prison somewhere. Yeah, I pulled the guy over on a Sunday afternoon. I'm in a marked car driving behind a guy that just left a softball game. It's like 5 in the afternoon on a Sunday. And he throws an empty beer can out the window. Pink, pink, right off my lid. I'm like, okay, have my attention. Pull him over.

He's wrecked. Got his license. This is even before I've hooked him up. I look at his license. and I see the name. It's kind of a unique name. And I said, do you have a daughter named so-and-so?

And he's like, yes. And I said, how's that working out for you? He goes, you know, now he's crying. I had just read a big newspaper article about this guy and his daughter. His daughter was born with some severe birth defect, and they were trying everything. to get the best surgeon in the country,

and this guy was like eating peanut butter and jelly, and I said, all right. So, again, 40-plus years ago, I said, hey, if I arrest you and I really want to, you're going to have to spend lawyer, court, maybe jail. I mean, or I'm going to drive you home, and you're not going to do this again. I'd rather you spend your money on your daughter.

And I did. You know, these days you'd be crucified for doing something like that. But again, it's like I understood the humanity of situations. And, you know, hey, sometimes you got to make your own justice one way or the other as you see it. And that's the way I saw that. Just that, you know. So I never cared really about sentencing. I like, you only want to give her five years?

Hey, I don't live in Cuba, Kansas. I don't even live in the state of Kansas. You want to do that? This is your community. I take no position on it. But whatever you think is the right, you know, I didn't get vet, you know, out of my mind upset. Oh, you should have sentenced to 100 years.

Yeah, you know, really? Did they kill an infant 100 years? You know. So I never took really a position on that kind of stuff. but what a story i mean that was like craziness and then when you try to tell agents from other parts of the country you tell them this story and they're like get out of here that didn't happen i'm like bro that that that actually that 100% happened then you know even people you work with around me they scratch the head they're like jesus that's like crazy i'm dressed like an absolute dirt bag at the

elevator at the end of the day once and here comes big bob the head of the whole thing. And he's just looking at me, that look. You know, I'm listening for the girlfriend Mipanima to come over the elevator. And he goes, he just looks at me. And I said, hey, I apologize, I look like this. He goes, I know what you're doing. I see the reports. He goes, if you want to wear the hat, you better have the cattle. You have the cattle. You can look like that every day. You're good. So, all right, thank God. This guy actually knows what I'm doing. And sure, enough. I put in another hardship request. He's the big boss now.

40 hardship requests. One is granted. Mine. 39 denied. I'm back to New York. But I got accepted into the SWAT program, the special response team. So I go to New York for a little bit. Then I go to our basic

SRT school and held at Blackwater a name nobody knew until the global warrant and we use their facility for our training compound. And then I go back to New York and I just, I'm on fire.

I am just being all I can be now. However, being gone for almost three years, you know, the wife, they get their own whole way. You know, you haven't been here in like three years. And it just fell apart. She was. She was sitting in Kansas City. Yeah.

They got women in Kansas City. You just could have, she's done. And we just get another one. Yeah. You know? So, yeah. So we got the voice. And she was, she was a great gal. It's just, we were just two people that should not have been married to each other.

It, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But it, I got one of those. It just didn't. Yeah. It did not work out. But what did work out is our, we have a son. now she wound we were divorced in like

officially divorced in 04 but she wound up dying when my son was in 10th grade of lung cancer so now even you know everything was now to do what I can for this young man and make sure everything is good

and yeah it was an it was an adventure and not looking for anyone else in my life, but fast forward. I'm working a, as the federal judge put this case, this is the most violent case I have ever had in my courtroom. I'm running one of them, kidnapping, attempted murder. I mean, it had a little bit of everything. Here's the setup.

I'm running street. cases, we're doing, we're doing a little bit of everything, but it had to have sort of a violent component to it. So I get an informant. He was a multi-ounce dope dealer. So he was doing really well for street sales in Brooklyn at the time. And he was half white, half Hispanic, but if you saw him, that's a white guy. The whitest black guy ever in the history of Brooklyn and everybody called him white boy. But if you closed your eyes, oh, that's a black guy.

Yeah. Corn road hair, the gold, the clothes, I mean, everything. And he only hung out with black guys. Perfect. So he gets grabbed on a heroin deal, dope deal real fast, and he cannot cooperate quick enough

because he is not built for federal prison or state prison or, He's not built to be behind bars. His world has come apart. I'll give you everybody. He gets brought to me because he's got gun guys. Good. He's doing dope cases with the city detectives,

doing gun cases with me. So this is what he says. He goes, I got a guy that says he has a brand new Beretta 40-Cal handgun. And he wants 800 bucks for it. I'm like, well, brand-new in the box, 800. It's a little high, but yeah, we'll do it. Yeah, Tom, good. So this deal's going to happen in Jamaica, Queens, just north of Kennedy Airport. It's the badlands. Good. And this is one of those

deals that you say, I'm dealing with a businessman. This guy showed up. He was on time. He had the gun. He didn't have to go get it from somebody. This was like a businessman gun deal. Awesome. The informant is in. Minutes later, he's out. He's got the gun, paid the money. We got the tape. It's beautiful. And he's like, yeah, these guys, I know these, I know one of them since years.

And he's telling me, that's my uncle that sold the gun to you. And, you know, he's a crazy guy. He can get all this stuff good. So we get that. Now, at that time, there had been a super high profile murder of a. big guy in a rap. I want to say a jam master something in Queens at a studio backdoor.

Shot and killed with a Beretta 40 Cal. Unsolved. Who done it? Good. Literally a few days later, White boy calls me. He says, hey,

I just got called from the kid I know and the uncle. They have five more Barretta 40s new in the box. Do we want them? I'm like, yeah, we want them. He goes, He wants like six grand. Now, normally six grand, that's, that is, that's a lot of money. Even guns new in the box.

But everybody was hot. Oh, that might be the Barretta 40 to kill this guy. Get the guns. Just get the guns. And then maybe one of these guys did the murder. I mean, all these are new in the box though, but it could still be one of them. New in the box meant it was new in the box. I killed somebody.

and then it went back in the box. But don't mind that gunpowder residue on the gun. Okay. So we put the deal together. And these guys, so it's a nighttime deal. It was, I think it was January 2nd, cold, rainy at night. And it's going to be in Jamaica, Queens, at the same basement apartment deal number one.

So White Boy is not excited at all about it. this. He is like, yeah, it's going to be in and out just like the last time I know these guys, I'm not going to have a problem. Surely they're not going to try to rob me. I mean, I've known this kid for years. Okay, good. We're briefing this thing, so I've got a fat cover team, Matt. I've got probably between 20 and 25, between agents, NYPD detectives from the narcotics unit that we were working with with this same informant. So we had a fat cover team. We do our briefing. And I send everybody out.

I'm going to let the field teams get in surveillance. And then when everybody said, I'm going to have the CI make a phone call. Still good? Ready to go? Yes. I'm literally telling them that. And I'm giving them to buy money. And I'm giving it to them wrapped up in $1,000 packets.

I'm like, just put $1,000 in this pocket, thousand in that pie just in case there's a problem you know it's not just all the money not a brick it's like good so we're doing that bring his phone rings bad guy standing there and he goes park there's no parking on the street so i have my mustang in front of the house hold behind my Mustang follow me around the corner and we'll park around the corner he says okay give him the thumbs up yeah that's fine i'm like don't move he calls the field teams. I'm like, is there no parking in front of where this is? And he's saying, bad guy says he hasn't read as much. Like it, there's a red Mustang parked in front of the house.

And there's signs on the trees, no parking today. Okay. Any last minute change in a dope deal, a gun deal, it's a red flag. There's a problem. But we've already bought one gun. And by the way, every attempted robbery on a gun deal in ATF, New York City, every single one of of them was on the second deal. I could have done a white paper. So we go out and I had told white boy, I'm like, you pull behind the Mustang, go around the block. I don't care if they keep driving.

You park, walk back to the house. So sure enough, it gets behind a Mustang, goes around the corner, they keep driving. And now we're trying, you can't get like right on top of them. and they turned down an alley. There's a lot of alleys in Queens that go between houses. They don't even have names on them. And they're not lit. White boy's talking over the wire.

He's like, I don't know where I am. I'm still following the Mustang. I'm like, moron, I told you not to do that. I don't know where I am. Hold on. They're stopping. Okay. Nobody knows precisely where these cars are now.

I can't follow them into the alley. within seconds, all I hear is multiple voices screaming. The CI is basically getting beaten. I had an idea where this, I only know one area, and I go to that, I had a big expedition. And I had an M4 because I was still on the SRT. I put my M4 on the dashboard, and my boss who was sitting next to me had been on the SRT.

former NYPD. The red Mustang comes flying out, hits me, and takes off. It's your vehicle? Yeah. Okay. Now, white boy's car comes, and we're almost nose to nose.

He's got such tint. I can't, it's raining, it's night, I can't see into his windows, but I got limel tint. Nobody can see into each other. But I've got my M4 with the barrel almost on the windshield. I mean, it was completely unsafe,

but this is going to end in gun smoke, and it almost did. That car drives into me and gets away. Now, who's in that car? There's a kid driving it. There's a kid in the passenger seat with an extended magazine, Tech 9, 32-round magazine, which I later found out was pointed directly at me.

And the only reason he didn't shoot, Matt, is he said, I saw the end of your rifle is the only thing I could think that that was. And I knew that if I took even one shot at you, you were just going to open up with that rifle and there's no way I was going to live. And that's the only reason I didn't shoot you. There's another kid in the backseat with white boy tearing his clothes off. They believed he was still a major dope dealer from his reputation. Their plan is we're kidnapping them, taking his clothes off, we're going to hold him hostage, and we're going to make his girlfriend deliver us money and dope, and then we're going to kill him, and we already have a hold dog in a park, and they did.

And that was their plan. White boy is able to open the back door to car and falls out. We're now chasing his car. Bad guys are still inside. They dumped the car, and now three guys running through backyards. I go run through a backyard and I try to get over a chainling fence. It's wet. It's raining.

I slip in one of those chain link things, like right into the back of my leg. I'm like, oh, that's going to leave a mark. But it forces me to look at the ground and there is the tech nine laying right in front of me. Like, bingo. Okay. I know that's not going to shoot me now. And everybody gets away.

We don't make any rest. We get our white boy back. He is beat up, but he's not shot. Money's gone. Matt, the money is gone. Our recorder is gone. Our transmitter, wire, is gone. Everything's gone.

And we had that stuff somewhat concealed that. Even if somebody grabbed it in their hand, they wouldn't instantly know what it was. We had it kind of made it look like it was like a wallet. Oh, it's a wallet. That's what they thought it was until they see the reels going. They wound up throwing it down an incinerator at a project building. Awesome.

So now the hunt's on. And we know the car we're looking for. We know a cell phone of our main bad guy. And the hunt is on. The phone starts pinging in Maryland. We call up the U.S. Marshals in Maryland, 18. TF in Maryland, myself, all my guys, boss, NYPD guys, we are in a caravan on the way down to Maryland. And we get to where this thing is pinging, and there's the car in front of a house, a private house, our good luck.

It's like 5 o'clock in the morning. So we go out and deflate all four tires on the Mustang. That thing's out of play. It's not having a chase with a car with no tires. When we started making entry into the house, bad guys gone. One kid, we like to call them the innocent bystanders, but he knew them,

and he decided to help Team America immediately. He had no choice. He was given no choice by a Boston, a U.S. Marshal from Boston with the accent, and whatever their conversation was, in the kitchen, that kid was on board. And he goes, I think I know where they might be. Yet another complex 15 miles away. So we get this kid, now we're working on make phone calls. You're going to bring, this is how every case gets solved, Matt. Tell him you're going to bring him a case of beer.

Oh, you're going to bring us beer? Yeah, we're over here. Great. So we go over there. It's now still daylight. all of these guys come out. They're going to get in their car, get this kid, and he's got a case of beer. We're just going to drive around, get wrecked, and what's the next armed robbery we're going to go, except we're all there. And good place to hide,

bad place to get caught. So we get them all together, wrap it up in a bow. And much like every other guy, sit down in the box and say, here's what you're looking at. Well, there was one guy, he understood what I was saying.

He's like, I've been arrested before because I'll help. And here's who this is, here's who that. Everybody had given us a fake name. So we figured it all out and we locked them all up. We indict them. The uncle who was the worst guy, he had business cards. It had his cell phone number and it said one thing, Mr. Justice. Like, I will take care of any problem you have.

Like, this guy was, this guy was no, no, uh, cooth to this guy. He's the first up. He doesn't want to go to trial. He's already done state time for arm robbery and dope. And he's like, how less bad can this be for me? And I want to say he bid off 20. And he was already in his late 40s. So 20 for him was a little, it was a little harsh.

So he gets that. The kid that white boy knew for years and years, he was 18 or 19, had never tasted jail or prison. I'm going to go to trial. And you know what my story is going to be? Because I'm going to testify. My story is going to be,

I fell asleep in the backseat of the Mustang, and all of a sudden I wake up and there's this armed robbery situation occurring right in front of me. I mean, imagine my surprise when I saw my own uncle and, you know, good story. Not a good lawyer. No. Convicted of everything.

Now, the judge, this is the most violent case I've ever seen. She had a little bit of mercy. This guy's a kid. And he really hasn't done, at least he hasn't been arrested for horrendous stuff. He gets, I want to say, 14 years, and it was the lowest he could have got on the guidelines and everything. So he got 14. And he seemed happy with that.

Bad guy number three, who we probably had the least amount of evidence on, but people have gone to the electric chair on half of what we had on this guy. So first of all, he's stuck in DMDC for months. Waiting for trial. He goes to trial. And I knew what was going to happen when I saw the jury come back in. And the foreman is wearing like an NBA basketball warm-up suit and scowling at the prosecution table. I'm like, this may not go good. And sure enough, not guilty. And in the state, a prosecutor wants to go talk to a jury that comes back with a not guilty. They don't want to talk to the guilty because we don't want to. make a record of anything that I have to report. They said this. So the prosecutor doesn't really want to talk to him,

but she wants to give them, like, a message. And they think she wants to ask, why did you find this guy not guilty? She goes, no questions. She goes, you sat in the same room I sat in. You listened to the same things that I heard. You listened to this agent. And you put this guy back in the community.

You know where you put them? Your community. Not my community, your community. Good job. And we walked away. And that was the end of that. Yeah. So that, I feel, I felt bad about that. And that guy, I checked every now and again, I would run the criminal history. No more arrests. Whether he is like, I dodged a bullet on that one. He went to trial and he absolutely refused to cooperate. Like he, I'm like, out of, out of the cast of characters, by all accounts, even our cooperator, you are the least, like, level person in this. But you were in it. I'm like, we will cooperate you before we'll cooperate this other cat. And the other guy got, he got like 18 months. And he goes, all I want to do is get a car detailing business and just watch car. for the rest of my life. He's still doing it.

So why, why is this the most violent case for that judge? I mean, it was, the, the only thing was the robbery. So it was the armed robbery, but that they were going to, um, torture this kid. Oh, okay. Kill him. Yeah, yeah. They were in that. Torture him, make his girlfriend deliver money and dope. And they were probably going to kill her too. And, They already had a grave ready to dump this kid in. Right. So that was crazy, a little exclusive for you. That judge kid becomes a TF agent now running Chicago.

Yeah. I run into him in headquarters once. And I knew he lived in Brooklyn. I knew his mom was the federal judge and we were talking about that case. And I said, oh, and years before that case, I got into this shooting on Jolumon Street. in Brooklyn, the 96 shooting. And he goes, I remember that exact day. He goes, our house was like a block and a half up at that time.

We, I was 12 years old. I'm playing street hockey with my friends in the street. We heard the shots. And then we saw like a thousand cops come. And he goes, that was you? I'm like, that was me. He goes, small world. Yeah, craziness.

So that was that crazy federal prison story. So some months before 9-11, I get called out to go to the FedMed in Springfield, Missouri. I think there might be two Fed meds, maybe, but definitely that's, I think, the biggest one. It's huge. Murder for hire. Organized crime inmate once an organized crime guy on the outside murdered. And he's contacted a CI, well, became a CI, but he was an ATF defendant. And he was like a murderous Dominican from the, in Cowboy Days, Powder Cowboy Days, sorry, Kobe.

And they've approached, and he's a paraplegic in a wheelchair, and they want him to get with his Dominican guys on the outside to kill this yet other organized crime guy. Fantastic. So the part of the story that I'll think you'll enjoy is I am now getting to know the guards a little bit because we're, out there a number of times doing this case, flying out from Brooklyn. And so now the guards, they're like, you know, they want to tell me their stories. So they go, do you want to see the Hannibal Lecter Ward? It's here. This is where the research was done for Hannibal Lecter character by the author.

I don't know if that's true or not, but this is what they're telling me. And I'm like, you have a Hannibal Lecter Ward? And he goes, it's not in a cave, but let me take you. So they take me that. It's a two-story open-air, 20 cells on the first floor, 20 cells on the second floor. There is a pole with a black and white TV, and your only mission in life is to get a cell that you can see that TV. That's as good as things are going to get for you.

So they're telling me, yeah, these are like the worst of the worst. And this is before the Florence, Colorado, Supermax, yeah, was built. And I'm sure some of these people I saw are probably living there now. but if you had killed staff, you would kill the guard, you would killed other inmates, and sometimes more than one, this is where you were going to wind up, this unit. So they're bringing me around, and there's no day room.

They're in that cell, and that's it. 24 hours, yeah, yeah. But the window, and they've got magnets on their doors, various magnets basically telling you, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this with this guy. So the magnets are saying, like, no utensils, can only feed on paper, cannot have any type of periodical, cannot have this, cannot have that. Good. So I'm like starting to look in these windows.

And I'm like, and they want to tell me the stories of these guys. I look in one window and there's a guy chained to the floor, chained to the floor to a cement-type bed, chained to the floor. He's got some kind of bandaged things on his face. And I'm like, it's a story with this guy. They go, oh, this guy. He, uh, sexual sadist murderer, multiple murders. And he keeps pulling his eyeball out because he feels if I pull my eyeball out, I can't, I won't see my victims anymore.

So the eyeball is dangling on his cheek. They bring him to the hospital part of the prison. They put his eyeball back in. They do whatever they got to do. And then they bandage it up. And they go, we have to keep him chained to the first. floor till it heals so he doesn't pull it out but it's healed and he pulls it out again and they go through this and he pulls it out again and this is a cycle what Matt what you do a guy like this

what do you do a guy like this I mean some people just need killing so that was one guy and uh then they tell me a story of this other guy um like what's his story they're like that like this guy is another sexual sadist multi-murters. I'm like, okay, no eyeball, right? Then I'm like, no, it's even worse. They go, do you know what a spork is? I'm like, yeah, it's spooned, a little thing, plastic. He goes, yeah, spork.

He goes, well, this guy, what he does is he'll hold it up by a light fixture until it gets soft, and he bends the spork end part, and he jams it down his tool until just a little bit of sticking out. out and then he'll call staff, hey, the guy did it again. I got to be brought into the hospital. And his sexual thrill was in getting it removed after getting numbed up. What do you do to a guy like that? Well, they bring him down.

And this is the story that's telling me that, like, there's a new doctor. And they're telling the doctor the story of this guy. And they go, yeah. He's done it like multiple times. And he gets this sexual thrill when you numb him up. He goes, oh, we're going to cure him tonight. Huh. How that it?

So to die, they bring the guy in. He's on the table. Dr. Wheels over the metal car. He's got the, you know, 12-inch Q-tips, 22-calibre cleaning brushes, the metal pliers, foreseps, whatever. And he grabs the guy and he goes to clamp onto the spork. And the guy said, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

aren't you going to numb me up? We don't do that anymore. And the doctor says, quote, it wasn't numbed up when it went in. Yeah. And it's not going to be numbed up coming out. And the guard said, you could hear the scream

on the other side of the facility. And the guy never did it again. Now, is that story going to make the American Medical Journal as a, you know, author, you know, hey, this is the procedure? But the guy never did it again. And it was story

after story after story like that, there was one guy he wrote in his feces, novels, floor to ceiling, all the walls, and he was walking, just pacing the cell, having an argument with himself. They go, yeah, 24 hours a day, that's what this guy does. We used to power wash the walls off,

and then he just did it again, and, you know, we just leave it. Hey, maybe you like that. I don't know. No. Unfortunately, none of these are shocking. I mean, I've heard about the guys, in the pen that will cut their junk off or cut their nuts off so that they because they they

because of the testosterone or whatever they they have cravings and whatever and they think that mentally they think that's going to fix them or they they throw feces or urine at the at the staff so they'll lock them up put them in a chair put a spit bag on them you know the bag that goes like they just like what what can we do to do this guy to get him to stop doing these types of things and it's just there's are some guys, they just have such mental problems. Yeah. There should be some kind of a hearing or something to say, eh. So if you can imagine my career from detective, aging, and now I'm at the end of my career.

I'm about two months away from retiring. And I had the Kansas City Gun Squad Task Force. I had been running it since 2014. it's now 2018 when this story happens. It was right before Thanksgiving, 2018. And it was the hottest squad that I had been a part of

in my entire 30-plus year career. These, like, you usually have the bell curve. You know, you have your hard chargers. You have somebody that's like a superstar and then you have people that if you ask them and shove them, they'll do something. Not my squad. these guys were, every one of them were swinging for the fences every single day.

And one thing about gangsters in Kansas City, opposed to New York. Gangsters in Kansas City, out of bed early. Six, seven o'clock, they're moving. It's like New York, two in the afternoon before they get out of bed, not in Kansas City. And my guys, like, in New York, I was glad if I had my task force people in 10, 30, 11 o'clock, because you've got to commute, you've got to look for parking. It's insane. All my guys at the desk, ready to go.

What are we doing today? 7.38 o'clock in the morning. It's like the detectives and agents, hitters. Just like it was that sweet spot, the golden years that, you know, I don't know if it's going to be replicated, stay that way. But I had awesomeness. And we were getting after it. We were crushing it. So into every day some rain's got to fall.

And we would have every group in ATF. There's certain administrative things that just have to be done. Things that come in the door, it's low-level stuff, but you've got to deal with it. And one of the things that comes in the door all the time, it's called it delayed denial. Somebody goes into a gun store to buy a gun. They run the instant background check, not prohibited, sell the gun, go. something comes back on the background check. We're not quite sure, but we need to look into something a little bit more.

Now, the way to law is within 72 hours, you have to make a determination go, no go. And if you still haven't figured it out, the dealer can transfer the firearm. And on those cases where there is something found out after the 72 hours, ATF gets the referral, hey, it's a denial, but it's done. delayed, but now you got to make contact and you've got to go get the gun back. Or somehow that gun has to be separated from the actual primitive person. I hated handing these out to my guys because most of them I solved by, I looked at the package. Okay, I would call them and I would say, stupid, this is why you can't have a gun and you know

that you can't have a gun. But you snuck under the wire and you got it. you need you to go to the gun store, bring the gun back, work out a deal, whatever you're going to get. You're not going to get your whole purchase price back. But if I come to get the gun, you get nothing. We're going to seize it. Work something out.

The deal is going to call me. Verify you brought it back. And this is done over, you know, no more problems for anybody. And almost everyone can't get to that gun store fast enough to give the gun back. Right. But I look at all these packages. And I look at them and make sure it's a guy that really doesn't need to be interviewed. And some of them actually do need to be interviewed.

And we do need to seize the gun. We say these guys are turned down. These guys have like, like, he's a convicted felon. And he went and filled out the paperwork and said, I'm not a convicted felon. They get him the. Yeah. Because that happens. I met a guy like that.

In the state of Missouri, and you'll appreciate this, in the state of Missouri, there is a conviction of a felony and you're sentenced. But if they want to give you some kind of break to not send you to prison, they give you what's called a SIS suspended imposition of sentence. You're convicted of felony, but we're not going to impose sentence. And if so much time goes by and you don't do something else, this case is no longer a problem for you. So then you're no longer a felon.

Yeah. So technically under federal law, like in the state, you're a felon, but federally, yeah, you're not a felon until you're sentenced. You could be convicted, but you're still not a felon until you're sentenced. That was like the big thing with Trump. It's like the prosecutors were maniacal about getting the sentencing. before he could get back in the office, which they did. So now technically he's a convicted felon for, you know, business record violation.

But anyway, I'm looking at one guy's package, delayed denial, and our intel people are thorough. They give, I don't need to know he's registered to vote in Alaska. Just tell me where does he live. That's, you know, that's what I need. They give everything. Here's his Facebook printout. Here's this, here's that.

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With promo code Cox15. Please support our channel and tell them we sent you. Fuck your khakis. Get the perfect gene. He's got the whole thing going. He doesn't represent a club, but as if, even went so far to get a skull tattooed on the people. back of his stance, we could put his hand up to his face and it looks like, oh, that's my skull.

Like, look at this guy. And he's got a gun in every picture in his hand, different guns. Like, look at this guy. I said, this guy needs to be interviewed. And we're going to seize this gun because he is, in fact, a no-go. Prohibited person. Yeah. And these prohibited things would be like for like it doesn't have to be like a direct like you beat your wife you got convicted of a misdemeanor you assaulted her you are now even though it's a misdemeanor you're prohibited for life because it's a domestic violence conviction frank lawtonberg new jersey senator put that in the assault weapons banned back in 94 thinking surely that will kill the bill it didn't and his amendment got sucked in So if you're convicted at domestic violence or, in this guy's case, any domestic violence-related offense, you smacked your kid and you got arrested, domestic violence, partner domestic.

So you would get these like out there in the weeds convictions that fall into you're now a prohibited person. Sometimes they didn't realize it. Sometimes they realized it's trying to get one under the wire. I want to go hunting. feel bad for the, you know, normal person that got a convicted 25 years ago and they're a normal productive citizen, but they made some stupid decision when they were 18 and now that's it for them. Anyway, I'm looking at this. I'm like, this guy needs to be interviewed. And as opposed to taking care of it myself, I actually assigned it out to one of my guys, Charlie, if you're watching,

love you, brother. And I always was a fan. I got it. the entire squad together from lunch every day. If I could, if it was feasible, why? It was almost like a meeting. You know, this is going on. All right, we got this thing coming up tonight. It was almost like a working meeting. And it was good.

So we're in a place. We're all having lunch. And Charlie says to me, he goes, I'm going to grab somebody. I'm going to go interview this guy. And I remember the package. And I just say to him, we're all going to go interview him.

Everybody. I don't know why I said that, but I just got a feeling. And thank God I did. So it's beautiful blue sky. And it's in the city of Independence, which is ground zero for crank. And has been since the 70s. Like every other house is a cook. Every other RV is a cook.

Every other hotel room. I mean, the town is just devastated from all this crank. So I remember. my phone is about to die, and my charging cord is broken. So I tell everybody, hey, wander down. He lived on a cul-de-sac. I said, wander down there and just get kind of set up in the area. I got to go buy a phone thing at Verizon stores right there.

I'll be there in like 10 minutes. Good. Everybody goes, I'm back on my truck going down. And I actually had put my vest on, put my tactical stuff on. better to have it on than try to put it on in the middle of it. So I'm on the radio. All right. Everybody's set up.

We're buried in weeds. We'll wait for you. Then we'll go knock on the door. No, I'm at the stop sign of the call the sacks. So I look down, I see some of my guys. I look at my rear of the mirror.

And it's him. I recognize him from all the neck tattoos that he has. So I put over the radio, I'm like, hey, the guy's right behind me on the bike. I'm just going to get out. I'm going to just say, hey, everything's fine. Just go parking drive where we've got to talk to you for a minute. Everything's fine. I open my door, I get out.

He sees all the stuff. He doesn't try to run me over, but he accelerates around me as fast as the Harley can go. And he's got two hard saddlebags. It was beautiful blue. That bike was the most perfect thing in this guy's life. and nothing else was, but that bike was. So he is around me, and now I flipped my emergency lights on in my truck.

He tries to drive up a lawn, not at his house, at a neighbor's house. One of my guys is back on this hill. He comes down, and the guy's like, where did all this heat come from? And now my other guys are coming out of the woodwork. He tries to get back to Calde-Sex. He's now going to beat it, except he dumps his bike. and as he dumps his bike, the saddlebag, hard saddlebag flies open and a submachine gun with an extended magazine flying through the air across the street. I'm like, look at this.

And he runs, I'm driving toward, now he's running, he wants to get to the fort. He wants to get to his house. But I'm driving on the lawns and I'm going to intercept them before he can get to his driveway. So now I'm directly behind them. He's running at the siren. And he's turning around and he sees the UFO show of red lights and blue lights. That is my truck. Because whatever lights ATF gave me, I glued in like three times more that I had accumulated over the years.

It was a UFO show. And I see him go into his waistband. And I see his right arm is trying to, I'm like, surely he's not trying to get a gun to try to shoot me, which is exactly what he was doing. So in these moments, you have to make a decision. We had the 40-cal Glock. We went back to the 9-millimeter Glock.

It's such a better round, such a better round. I'm like, why can't we make the 40-Cal a better round? I'm like thinking, is this thing even going to go through my windshield? Of course it will. And I'm like, I could just shoot. this guy right through my windshield. I said, all right, I make a command decision. I slam my truck into park.

I finally stop. I jump out. He is now both hands in the waistband. He's furiously looking back. He's trying to, whatever he's trying to do. I tackle him. I wrap my arms around him and I put him in the death grip. And we go to the ground.

And I'm not letting go. I'm like, my guy's, are running over. And I say to this guy, do you have a gun in your hand? And he goes, yes. Don't move. You can think about it. Don't move. So I tell everybody, I'm like, he says he has a gun in his hand. Let's deal with that first. Then we'll get this guy cuffed up. So I'm like, just open your hand. Yeah, fully loaded handgun. Get him cuffed up, dust them off. And what were you going to do? Were you going to try to shoot me? He goes, absolutely.

I absolutely was going to shoot you. Did he not, I mean, what was this? Why? What else has he got going on? This was the answer to that burning question. I didn't know who you were. What did you think of the lights were? What did you think the ATF fucking thing was?

What did you think? Were you confused by all of that? Is it a well-orchestrated robbery? Is that what you thought? I didn't know who you guys were. I didn't know if you were coming to do something to me. I'm like, come on, man, stop, stop.

Everybody vests, shields, red lights, sirens. That was crazy. So he's like, I got an infant kid and my girlfriend in the house. Who, after we get him, you know, dust it off. They're not coming outside to say, oh my God, what could possibly be going on? Right.

So we go inside, they contact with the girl, because we're going to dump his motorcycle now in the backyard. And there's a kid, like, there's dog shit everywhere. The house is a wreck. The girls are wreck. It's like, this kid, there's one direction for this kid.

None of it's good. You know, so we got all the child protective stuff involved, all that. And that was, yeah, so now I'm calling my boss, brand new boss. He was there. It was his first ASAC job, number two guy. And I call him, I'm like, hey, this is going to be on the news, like momentarily. Just give you heads up. Everybody's fine.

He's fine. I'm fine. Everybody's fine. And my boss was like, oh, my God. He's like, what? He said he was going to try to shoot. I'm sorry. I'm like, I'm like, bro, welcome to the gun squad.

This is not the first guy that want to shoot me. is like he goes I've heard about all the shooting incidents you guys have been involved in but geez he goes are you okay I'm like everything's fine and then I retired two months later right well did you retire because it was just it was this right you guys have to retire at a certain point at 57 mandatory retirement because they feel you're not physically capable of doing that job anymore when I got hired I thought that was crazy talk I'm like physically capable. What are you talking about? When I got to be in my 50s, I'm like, yeah, yeah. They're on to something. Like, it is, it is a young man's game for the, you know,

running and gunning and all that. I'm not, man, I'm, I'm not making it here without some I be proffer. I don't make it out of the house. But, uh, but I was 55 and a half. So I was still 18 months away from the magic number. And the bosses had already told me, oh my God, you're crushing it. We're just telling you now, you're 18 months editing. the time, we will extend, we'll let you stay to 58 if you want. Like, we don't want you leaving. So I, when you retire an ATF, you know, it's, it's so deflating because it's a left-click retire in the HR website, left-click, which starts a cascade of emails, headquarters,

your bosses. And I did that, called my boss, the same guy that had just told me, oh, my God, I, I'm sorry. And I said, hey, just want to give you the heads up. We called it the left click. I did the left click. I'm punching out. Just letting you know, like a few weeks at a time.

And he's like, I just saw that. Is that a joke? I'm like, it's not a joke. It's time. You just walk, you walk through an invisible wall, and it's like, it's the right time. And it just was. And more so to the point is my son. was going into the Navy April 1st.

And I had 60 days left. His mom died of lung cancer, and he was living with us going to college. And, you know, we're trying to, you know, be everything we can be for him. And I said, look, I'm retiring early because I want to spend the last 60 days every day. You're going to go off and do great things,

but I'm not going to see you every day. So these 60 days, I'm going to see you every day. And I did. And never looked back. It was the right decision. It was the right time. I went out on a mega high point of the career. Some people, they get to the point.

They hate the job. They hate everything. And, you know, it's a bitter divorce. Not for me. It was the right moment. And people have asked me, Like, you know, how did you know? I'm like, you'll know.

I don't know what to tell you, but you'll know. What's retirement look like? Retirement, I am busier in retirement than when I was running all over the country with ATF. So what am I doing? If, Matt, if I have 10 free minutes in my life, I feel like I should be knitting a sweater because I cannot sit and do nothing. So immediately upon retirement, I built out a production facility, started a furniture, building company woodworking business which is just like it's taken on a life of its own i'm as

busy as one person could ever get your listeners will see a little uh display picture of a little something you got of from the wood shop that's right the first inside true crime uh whiskey flight board um came out awesome uh so loving that and so seriously now I still have the wood business going, but I have this speaking business, speaking, consulting, keynote addresses, how do you build a bulletproof unit, client-facing unit? How do you select leaders, develop leaders? What is a fully functioning, well-led unit look like? And how do you get there and how do you keep it there? I just feel like I have so. much to offer from overlaying ATF crisis stories, law enforcement. How did we solve that problem?

Apply it directly to corporate challenges. It's literally a seamless applicability to the corporate challenges. And I love being able, if I can help a unit, if I can help a leader, if I can help a business, I'm all in. They have 110% of my attention. and the attention of my team. And I love it. And so how did I get into that? One of my guys, one of my task force detectives, Brent Cartwright, dear friend,

he was an undercover, one of the best undercovers I've ever seen. And among the many things we had going on back in my Kansas City time was we were looking for a murder suspect. And this guy, had executed a foreign exchange student during an armed robbery, gratuitous murder at a fast food place. He was originally from Oklahoma,

and he had been termed Oklahoma's most violent armed robbery person in the state out of everybody. That's who we were looking for. So on a Sunday, Brent, a few of the SWAT guys, some guys from my team, they were going to take a gentle look for this guy. If we spot the car, if there's any activity at the house, we're just going to watch,

and then the next day, Monday, we'll get the whole armada together and we'll crush this guy. My guy's new. If you're out there, I'm out there. You don't have to look for me. I'm going to be next to you. I'm going to be in front of you.

I'm going to be right there. No matter what we're doing, I'm right there. Cannot manage a crisis. in an office when your folks are out crushing it. But my wife said, federal prosecutor, we had two young kids. She said, hey, chuckles, you work eight days a week. I'm going to go visit my girlfriend, law school buddy, former prosecutors together in Iowa, at her house. I'm going to do you a favor.

I'm going to take one of the kids. I will take the youngest. I will take your daughter, our daughter. But your son, you are going to take a day off. And don't let me hear that you took your son on a surveillance. I'm like, okay, okay, I'll stay on my watch. Good. Well, that's the Sunday that they find this guy.

And they don't see him at his house. They find him trying to check into a tiny, tiny motel. Brent, my task force detectives, he literally looked like a crank addict. Like, that was the look he gave himself. And he was former 10 years in the Army. He was on the Army's cross-country team. He was a superstar athlete. But he could get the look of Tweaker.

He goes into the five-square-foot lobby to, let me act like I'm right in a room. There's bad guy. Tries to get the troops to come in. The guy gets out to his car, grabs an AK pistol, fires 13, 14, 14, rounds, shoots Brent six times with an AK, shoots a SWAT guy three times, and later shot another detective at a second location. Everybody, the three officers lived. Another one of my guys shot and killed the bad guy dead. So Brent gets medically retired after a few years, and then he writes a book, and he gets called to go on podcasts and be interviewed.

And he's doing just a phenomenal job. Turns out getting shot was not the worst thing that could happen in my life. It's like getting shot saved me from continuing on with this like go, go, go undercover lifestyle. But anyway, Brent's doing all these podcasts and he's telling guys, if you think this story is out of control, you got to interview my ATF boss. This dude has been from New York, Kansas City. to the border. He's done like crazy stuff, stories, and he's a good storyteller, and you should interview him. So last May, uh, things police see, Steve Gould's, uh, I get referred to him. He's like,

yeah, I'll interview you, my first podcast. So last May. And it went well. And I bought all new equipment, the best of to do this thing. And my managers who you met earlier today, uh, Destiny Day and her husband, J.P. Cassidy, they were in Monaco on vacation. And just randomly, that big social media people with their business, they see this interview. And J.P. is like, oh, my God. Now, we had known each other. Like, he was a cop in NYPD, same area where I used to work. His beautiful bride is in the pool on vacation in Monaco. And he's like, out of the pool, out of the pool, at a pool. You sit, sit, listen to this guy. And they do.

And then I get a phone call, three-hour phone call. And they said, listen, I don't know what you got going, but we want to make you a project. We will do everything for you. We'll set up your social media. We'll maintain it. So they did that. And they said, oh, by the way, you own your name now. I didn't even know that was a thing.

the YouTube channel that they set up, we do a series called The Debrief. And we put about one a week up, about a 30 minute. And some of them are comical law enforcement stories. Some of them are, you know, really serious cases. We did one about four line of duty deaths of where I knew all four the people and, you know, was very close to. that was one we did. So we've gotten a tremendous response to the whole YouTube,

The Debrief series. And, and Matt, I was telling you before, but I'll tell it for your audience. After I did that first podcast and then Destiny and JP

like we're making you a project, I told them, true story. I said Matt Cox, inside true crime. That is our goal. We want to get on. I've listened to this guy's story a few times.

I mean, this is like, this is the place, really the place that I had never heard of Ian Bick at the time or any of the others that I've done. Ian. But I had told. You listen to this, Ian? And Ian, I can't thank you enough for percolating this whole thing together. You still went to Ian first? Ian still You were on his first

Yeah So Steve Murphy Retired DEA agent Who the Narco series Was done about the case he did Gravin Pablo Escobar I did a three-part Podcast with Steve Murphy

Steve Murphy's like What can I do to help you out? What can I do to help you out? And he's telling me about Ian Bick And I said do you know him do you think he would interview me and he goes oh my god i'll make one phone call i'll tell him to interview he needs like you got a great arc stories and ian immediately uh his producer mattie ice you know mattie mattie calls me and he goes i've already listened to something

you don't have to sell yourself you don't there's no vetting we want to want you and we set that up and again back to early and trying to get this going nine months ago mac cox i i i this is the golden ring this is this is our goal to get on this podcast because i've listened to this stuff i really it's a fascinating uh story it is and your interviewing style i mean i i said i like it i just sit here and go and then what i like it so destiny is like like preparing a letter, like an introductory letter, getting a whole thing. And then all of a sudden, Ian reaches out, say, got a call from Matt Coxie would like to interview you. So Matt, you are the first podcast that you wanted to do, saw us, that reached out, like without us trying to prompt

or get somebody to do an intro or something. So when I tell you, It's exciting and thrilling and really a goal. It was the first goal was to get right where we are right now. And I say what I mean. I mean what I say. I am thankful for the opportunity. I can only hope that this is interesting to your viewers that they, you know, look at this, listen to this guy.

I'll be able to find something. I'll find something. We'll get at least one story out of this. You know, I'm excited to be here. And another thing that I do through my church or we'll start doing is I've started getting involved with speaking of prisoners. Mentoring. It's going to go over well. I saw, I saw their, these are like people in a county jail.

Jimmy, what are you doing? You know, Bob! You know, America. America is the second chance American Fabrics story and, you know, not to ever be judged by a horrible event that, you know, may not be your all story. Hey, you know what? The internet is replete with people that have created a whole positive another life for them, monetarily super successful. I'm like, listen, there's things for you to listen to you, Ian, uh, other. others similar circumstance.

And, hey, you can be what you want to be. All you have to do is want it. And you can make it. There's examples out there. The template has already been written. Do your thing. Be good. Put this behind you.

So I want to speak to these guys or gals with that positive message that, hey, look at the world I'm coming from and I'm here in retirement to tell you there's more your life's not over. You made a mistake. You move on. We look forwards, not backwards. And so I think, you know, that's yet another avenue of, you know, something to help, you know, my fellow mankind, citizens. I really feel that way. So yet another thing.

but excitement beyond belief for these speaking engagements, engaging with these corporate units, and given them, so there's so many people in that space doing that, what separates our thing. And that is the crisis law enforcement applied directly to your corporate challenge, no fluff, no filler, no death by PowerPoint, engaging. real solutions to help you help your unit. And we believe it, all of us. The three of us believe it, like, to the core. And if I'm able to help somebody and not make a dime,

I'd like to make a dime. But I want to help. And I feel I can, the team, we have something to offer. And thank God for my team, because I would be just, the guy with all these ideas and they, they've done all the stuff that I really don't know how to do. Matt, I always made sure I had an under 30-year-old agent in every one of my squads. Why? They grew up with Google Schmuggle, social media, crazy computers. I tell them all. My first cell phone, Nokia, antenna, 33 years old, 100 minutes a month. That's it. I'm like, this is your guys,

Lane, do your thing, and spit out the answer like the bad computer. And they do. The bad computer. They ought to do that. Colby, that has no idea. Every single iPhone that would come out, ATFs are, oh, going to buy the next best iPhone, next best iPhone, next best iPhone, next best iPhone. They put so much stuff on the iPhone that it would almost shut itself down because it's like,

too much, too much. I'm like, we're not launching missiles. Stop with the security. We're not launching missiles. But they would put so much on, they would have to continually. get 5,000 more iPhones, 5,000 more iPhones. I would just take the box, throw it in my under 30 agent. I'm like, set it up, make me a password, and then show me how to work it.

And then I would do it again, and again. I was the guy, like, if I couldn't get word to work or something on the computer, I would the guy that would want to throw it through the window. As a matter of fact, we had a 24-hour help desk in ATF, the helpless desk. But if you had a computer problem and you like me, the old guy, Call the help desk, 24 hours a day. They will figure out your problem. Well, they decided to give us not only the laptop with a screen, but a big screen that you could have next to your lap.

I'm like, look at this. Like I'm a gamer. I'm trying to get something done. These fucking federal agencies have too large of a budget. Everything is like everything that could happen bad is happening on top of each other in the same moment. and I'm in the middle of some critical thing, the computer just won't work. And nobody knows how to fix it,

not even my under 30 guy. I'm like, helpless desk. And they're like, you know, you need to calm down. We'll just get you a new computer tomorrow. I'm like, I need this to work now. And I wound up, statute of limitations are over. I put my fist through the big screen. And I'm like, and now my big screen won't work either.

They're like, we'll get you another one. FedEx will be in your office tomorrow. Along with a new computer, we're not even going to try to fix your problem. You just get a new computer. Use somebody else's like, okay. But I'm like technology, I'm like 62 with a criminal justice degree. Technology waived bye-bye, although with my woodworking business, I had to learn how to write programs for the industrial CNC machine I have.

I actually went to a school to learn how to write programs. My wife thinks, oh, we're on a moon. You're like, you're a computer genius now. Like I figured out how to do a Roku. She's like, unbelievable. I'm going to send you to all these schools now. Yeah, crazy talk. So I actually had to force my, again, just like being an ATF agent,

you have to learn how to become an expert. I've become an expert to solve whatever. every problem you have. So me, old guy that would throw the iPhone at the young guy figured out, I go to a school to learn how to write computer programs to do all these intricate carving things. And I did it. And I can do it. So there's hope for you too if you listen and old guys can do it. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. Do be a favor. Hit the subscribe button hit the bell. So get notified videos just like this. Also, we're going to leave all of Eric's social media links in the description box along with his website in case you want to hire him as a keynote speaker.

We're also going to leave the link for the YouTube channel so you can go and watch his series. He's also going to be putting out additional content in the future. So once again, thank you very much for watching. I really do appreciate it. Please share the video. See you.