Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Why Criminals Can't Change | Exposing The Dark Side Of Prison w/ Dave Durcocher

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Why Criminals Can't Change | Exposing The Dark Side Of Prison w/ Dave Durcocher

I stole everything you could possibly imagine to support my habit. I got into Dad's wallet, got the safe combination, was smart enough to get into the safe, stole thousands of dollars. I'd wait in my room for the neighbors to leave, run downstairs, go out the sliding glass door over the block wall, into their house. I'd go to other neighbors and make up stories about what I needed money for. I just did everything you could possibly imagine. But when I'm in jail or prison, and I'm getting letters and I'm getting visits,

and I'm getting phone calls, and I'm getting quarterly packaged, and I have a TV in myself, doing time becomes easy. I'm telling you we're doing it wrong. You are celebrated as if you graduated from college. They get quarterly packages, they get money sent in, they've got all their family coming to visit them, as if they're doing something productive. Why the hell should we allow that to happen?

I would change the entire system. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I appreciate you guys checking in and watching the video. I've got an interview with David De Rocher. I feel like I. You nailed it. Did I? I feel like I messed it up again, but that's fine.

So really interesting story. He runs like a reentry program, but he's got an interesting true crime story. He was, I think we were just saying that he was doing life on the installment plan, you know, two years, 10 years, five years, you know, little bits and pieces but interesting story and so check this out right now i'm in salt lake city utah i'm the executive director with an organization called the other side academy and the other side academy is you know i think it's important before i tell you who we are to who are not when

you think of treatment facilities the average treatment facility now is 30 60 or 90 days long and the first question they ask you when you get there is how much money do you have and if you don't have you have to go out there and continue to die. And if you do have money, it's not yours. It's mom or dad's or somebody else is paying for your recovery. And then, you know, when that money runs out, it's time for you to leave, whether you're ready or not. The treatment facility, the treatment model in this country is broken and it has been for about four decades intentionally because it's a money-making machine and it's built around a funding model rather than a helping model. That doesn't mean there aren't remarkable people working there that mean well, but their hands are cuffed because

they only have us for 30, 60 or 90 days, and nobody can change in that amount of time. And I don't give a shit of somebody. Can I say shit? Yeah. I don't give a shit if somebody gets clean and sober. I think that term should be a felony. We're killing more people trying to get them clean and sober and not helping them actually change. But we'll get into that more as we go through our conversation. But the other side academy, juxtaposed against a treatment facility, is a minimum of two and a half years long, residential, minimum requirement to start. now about 65% of my students are asking you to stay a third year but here's the interesting thing

we're two and a half years long we are completely free if you walk through our front door and you take a seat on our bench and we interview you and we accept you you you start right then if you write us a letter from the county jail while you're fighting your case pre-sentence we go into the jails and interview you and we accept you then the judge lda and prosecutor can sentence you to the other side academy only if you've asked for help we've interviewed you then they can suspend whatever time they deem necessary over your head, you come to the other side academy. We take no money from the government. City, county, state, federal government, rich mommy and daddy, Medicaid, nothing.

We generate all of our own revenue through our social enterprises. We have a moving company that does between 300 and 350 moves a month, number one rated moving company in the entire state of Utah. If you look at that trophy up there in that corner, top shelf, that's the Ernst and Young entrepreneurs of the year. We won that award over the Utah elite where the moving company ran by ex-felons and ex-drug addicts. Wrapped your mind around that.

We have two huge thrift boutiques, about 30,000 square feet apiece. We have a construction company called the other side builders, and we have a storage company called the other side storage. Those social enterprises generate all of our revenue so that we can continue to do the work that we're doing, without charging anybody, anything to be here. And the reason why that's so important is,

when I was going to jail, who was paying for me? Yeah. The taxpayer. I was a burden. When I was going to prison, I was a burden. When I'm going to programs that I can't pay for, I was a burden. You come to the other side academy, you are no longer a burden. The day you get here, you become part of the solution, not the problem. Nobody's paying for your horrible decisions in the life that you broke and wrecked.

you're going to do the work yourself. The beautiful thing about that is you can stay here as long as you need to because there is nobody on the face of the planet that's a drug addict that's ready on day 30, 60 or 90. You have to people leave programs for one of two reasons because they have to or because they can. At the other side academy, you're allowed to stay as long as you need to, as long as you are a contributing member of this community. You are working hard. You are helping other people.

And if you need more time, you can stay because that whole person transition, takes time that really is our model in a nutshell we're long we're structured we are hard we are free we take no money from the government and we support ourselves we're completely self-sustaining okay all right well um how did you get so i guess i i'm you know not that i'm not interested in that that i don't want to talk about that i actually have a couple of a bunch of questions because i actually have a friend that since i've been out like he's always had an alcohol problem. Well, it actually, you know, it started at alcohol and now it's, it's all the way to like crack to crack. Like he's apparently it's, you know, that's a major problem for him. Um, but like since I've been out of prison, he's relapsed four times that I know of. This is a grown man. This guy's 55. He's just turned 55 years old. Yeah. And this is not, you know, clean cut white guy, blonde hair, blue eyed. That's the nice thing about him. He can always get a. job he can get a job just enough to get hit all of his shit together be okay for a month or two

boom next thing you know relapses and i mean relapses like sells his car to the drug man sells his self i mean just calls me up asked me to pick him up and i'm like like i can't be around like i pick him up and i help him out and i help talk to his sister and drive around and try and get his stuff back and i'm like what am i doing bro i'm not in this i can't be in this position enabling him right but um oh oh i agree i trust me i can't tell you how many times i just had that conversation with his sister yesterday she's on the phone crying trying to find his car and i'm saying don't um but what i was going to say to you is like he's actually gone back into a program he just and he's had he's had five he'll go five or six years sometimes and then just have two years

of just completing that cycle. So I was just wondering, do you sometimes have people that come back to get out and come back? It happens. It's not commonplace, but we do have people that have recycled through a second time. But the fascinating thing about what we do compared to other models is your average treatment facility has a three to five percent success rate. I challenge anybody listening to this podcast right now. Go online. If you find any organizations that have the integrity to post the real numbers, your treatment facilities can boast three, maybe seven percent tops. You come to the other side academy where 73 percent of our students who stay two years are DCE, drug-free, crime-free, and employed. If you stay three years or longer, it's 85 percent.

Those who've stayed with us for four years or longer, it's in the high 90s. The farther you get that old life, just pretty, I mean, it's such common sense. The farther you get the old lifestyle behind you, the harder it is to return to. Brand new circle of influence, been with us for four years. You turn around, you look back, your friends are dead, in jail, in prison. There's nothing to go back to. 30-day program, complete it, turn around. Your old lifestyle still has its talents in you.

All the phone numbers are still the same. People are still around. We're the idiots thinking that those places are going to work very well when we send people there. And I can go on and on about how broken the model is as it relates to that. So the beauty of this model is you stay a long time. transform, completely change the way you think and your odds of success go through the roof. So the reason why your buddy probably uses, gets clean, uses, gets clean, uses, gets clean, goes back to what I said earlier.

I absolutely despise the term clean and sober. I think when people use it, it should be a felony. I know that's going, you know, way out there. But getting people clean and sober is not always the answer. If it's true that when I was out there and I was a criminal, I was a liar, a chief, a thief, a manipulator, self-centered, self-seeking, violent emotionally, far more violent, physically human being. Go ahead, get me clean and sober. And what do you got? A clean and sober, can I say asshole? Yeah. Because that's who I was. I had become a complete animal. So go ahead,

send me those 30-day models. Anybody who sent me to a 30-day model needs more help than I do. They're not going to work for a guy like me or anybody else like me that has 27 years of that learned behaviors we need to go someplace that's long and that it's structured and gives us the time we need to learn to tell the truth to learn to be accountable to learn to have integrity to learn to be dependable and reverse all those bad behaviors that we've learned over the years all right well so how did you get here like where where were you where were you born like what what what got you to this place because i i know um you know you've done you did a ted talk i know you've You've done a bunch of these interviews, because I know you have like a, you know, a crime, you know, well, I mean, what, you know, a ton of time, you know, locked up, you know, but also, you know, a story of addiction and, you know, and just of various crimes.

And I'm wondering, like, what, what, how did that, you know, were you a bad kid? Were you a great kid? Were you, do you remember Dennis the Menace? Yeah, yeah. That was me on steroids. it's all right matt i was i was a criminal before i ever did drugs literally i was born in anaheim california my parents lived in serritos uh mom and dad are still married today 58 59 years something like that really for all intents and purposes good parents um all parents have their issues

and what happened was you know dad was a drinker he drank beer he had his friends over he had dirt bikes that's how i learned to ride and when they'd come over and this was the 70s so people didn't really look at it back then the way they do now and dad would have his friends over i'd go get the budwisers out of the refrigerator pop it open take the first drink you know give him to his friends and at the end of the evening you know assuming i was still awake i'd get all the cans i'd take the last drinks and i'd throw the cans away i started that at a really young age then right but even before that when i was six or seven years old uh before that ever even started i was the kid literally that would wait for the postman the mailman to come around during christmas to drop off the mail and i'd

still mail out of mailboxes. I was no more than six, seven, eight years old because I knew there was probably cash in the cards being sent to some of these houses. So I was stealing shit at a very young age. I cannot explain to you why I was like that at that age, but I can't explain as I go through my story why I turned into the person that I did. So could you imagine trying to deal with a kid at that age? I was sneaky. I was manipulating. I was starting fires in the trash cans in my room. My mom and dad did not know how to deal with me. and my dad became verbally violent. You son of a, you're never going to amount to shit.

What's wrong with you? You know what I mean? And then there was physical abuse in there. But that was a norm for me. It's not like I was an eight, nine year old thinking, this is odd. That was the household I grew up in. That's what I knew. It wasn't until many years later that I realized the error in that way of bringing a kid up.

But I don't know how I'd have dealt with me either. I was not an easy kid to deal with. When I say Dennis the Menace, that's an understatement. I was hell on wheel. Probably how every in this. 70s and 80s. That's how everybody. That's how you were just dealt with. I mean, yeah, it is. It's not like here, you know, let's give him a hug and sit down and send them to accounts like, you know, work either. Yeah, there's, you know. So, you know, we'll just say

that I was just born that way. It was in my DNA. That's the kind of kid that I was. And it probably perpetuated the problem with the way it was dealt with. And it just added, it was insult to injury, if you will. And I ended up in about 11 years old, just stealing alcohol out of my dad's booze bottle he'd go to work i'd go to school i'd come home from school i'd have a few drinks i'd replace the uh water in the in this alcohol container because he would never find out and lo and behold after a few days he'd come home from work and he'd have a drink and realize he wasn't getting the desired effect he was looking for i was right um as you can imagine that conversation didn't go well uh more of the same and at uh 12 years old i was smoking pot and at the age of 13 i did my

first line of cocaine. Now, it's difficult enough to navigate your teenage years without any of that stuff. At 13 years old, I'm doing cocaine, and when I did my first line of cocaine, I thought I found God. I didn't feel like I felt previous to that. I felt like Superman. I stole everything you could possibly imagine to support my habit. I got into Dad's wallet, got the safe combination, was smart enough to get into the safe, stole thousands of dollars. I'd wait in my room for the neighbors to leave, run downstairs, go out the sliding glass door over the block wall, into their house. I'd go to other neighbors and make up stories about what I needed money for. I just did everything you could possibly imagine. I went through a drive-thru at a bank on my bike with a forged check of my

dads and got busted in the drive-thru to get money for cocaine. That's how bad things got. I did cocaine all the way through high school, right? And I barely made it through, got girls pregnant, had abortions, or they did. I eventually had my first son while I was a senior in high school, got her pregnant when she was a junior. So I'm having kids, could you, man, I can't even take care of me, let alone a kid. And I'm having kids in high school while I'm doing cocaine. And I'm just pulling this out of my pocket real quick. Things got so bad, Matt, that I was the kind of kid that would go to school. And while the teacher was up with the chopboard, I'd be sitting in the back of the class. This is chapstick. It's not a viola cocaine. But I'd have that little viola cocaine in my

pocket. And when the teacher wasn't looking, I'd pour it out in between the pages of my math book or my English book or my history book, whatever class I was in. And then I'd pull the pen apart, you know, and I'd make a straw. And when the teacher wasn't looking, I'd bend over and snort coke off my pages and my book in class. That's how bad it got. Somehow I managed to graduate high school. graduated in 1985 by the skin of my teeth and I went from when I graduated high school I graduated from cocaine to methamphetamine and really that's when the wheels fell off I mean they were already wobbly right but they literally that's when things went off the track and you're still in California I'm still in California so what when was this what time period I graduated 1985 he built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million because 50 million wasn't enough and 60 million seemed excessive he is the most interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crimes but when I do it's bank fraud stay greedy my friends support the channel joint Matthew Cox's Patreon okay so when I graduated

so meth is just starting to kind of hit the the area at that time yeah it's P2 P it's old biker dope. It's that kind of thing. You know what I mean? The kind of stuff you do a line and you're up for a couple of days. It's not that bathtub stuff that you get a lot of today. But it was, you know, back then it was that P2P biker stuff that, you know, was floating around in the 80s. And I fell in love. I mean, I literally fell in love. It's cheaper. It lasts longer. It's just the whole dynamic was different. And I never set out to be a drug dealer, Matt. I didn't. I didn't like one day go, that's it. I'm going to deal drugs. I would just buy some. 16th, break it into quarters, sell a few of them, buy my next one, just enough to support my

habit. And then one thing led to another. And then I'm buying an eight ball and I'm, you know, it doesn't sound like a lot. And it was to me it was back then. And then I'm buying a quarter ounce. And one thing led to another. And I continually bought more and more and was just breaking it down and selling it. And pretty soon I realized I have this entrepreneurial gene. I never even knew existed, and pretty soon I'm making money. But with that, comes the weapons and the arrests. And I started to get arrested in the 80s and started going to prison. And my first prison term was two years. I didn't have any violence yet. So I did, you know, better than half of that two-year term, considerably more than that two-year term, because I lost some time. And then got

out, stayed out for 59 days, got busted again, a large amount of methamphetamine, loaded firearms. And I was literally in Huntington Beach, pulling into a motel. They were waiting for me all day long. I'm in a convertible. I pull in. I hit the button. The convertible tops coming down. And then the hotel doors open up and they come out and gun, you know how they do it.

And I'm just sitting there like, holy shit, what just happened? The convertible top never even made it all the way down. And the cops were on me. And I had two loaded nine millimeters. One of them had cock killers in it. For those who don't know, it's just a bullet with the top chopped off and the dark coming through the center. And they're Teflon-coated to go through the vest. you can imagine what the cops did when they found that.

I'm sure they were thrilled. Hand cuffed. I'm on my knees. A cop picks me up and with one hand swings me this way. And with the other hand, hit me in the side of the face. And I've never been knocked out. And that was about as close as I'd ever come at that time in my life and rung my bell because they took that personally. Needless to say, that was my two-year prison sentence, got out, stayed out for less than two months, got busted again, got a five-year sentence.

I went to prison, got out, got busted again, got a six-year prison sentence, got out for four months, went back for a 10-year prison sentence. But the thing was, literally, the day I got out of prison, I was on my way back. There were times that I got out of prison that I had a homeboy pick me up, were leaving the parking lot. He says, reach under the seat. I pulled the bag out from under the seat. Everything's in there. We're getting loaded the whole way home, the big welcome home party as if I did something, and I'm off and running again. And even while I was in prison, you know, but we'll get back to the in prison.

Two-year term, five-year term, six-year term, ten-year term. Then I'm in Huntington Beach, California after my 10-year prison sentence. I'm at a house at Magnolia and Atlantic. Well, I'm at a house on Magnolia. And I'm weighing stuff up. I'm doing my thing. I look out the window and there's a helicopter hovering really, really high in the sky. He's just sitting up there.

Usually these helicopters are floating around the city, just patrolling the city. and as I continue to get on the phone and do my thing, I look out, that helicopter is still sitting way the hell up there. I mean way up there, but it's just sitting there. And I'm thinking, nah, there's no way. Get everything done, put everything in the bag. I leave that house and the cops were everywhere. Huntington Beach, PD, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, parole.

And I had told everybody that I know that I'm never pulling over again. They're never taking me alive. I already know when I go back to prison, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in there. So I took them on a high-speed chase. I had complete disregard for public safety. I had wanton disregard. I was displacing vehicles.

I was up on sidewalks. I'm going through red lights. And I'm trying to get to a bridge in Huntington Beach to throw everything out the window down into the water. And if they find it, they got to prove that's mine. That was my train of thought. Well, I never made it to that bridge. I'm on McNoia going south. I hit Atlantic and I see the cops there.

And, you know, it was interesting because that helicopter had come all the way down. the casophony of sound between the helicopter, the spotlight and my vehicle, the sirens and the commands to pull over were deafening. And in that moment, I knew this is probably going to be it, but I am not stopping. There's just no way. Why would I?

I'm going to prison. There's no way around it. And when I got to that intersection, there was a couple cop cars parked there that weren't following me, and I had a decision to make. Go through that roadblock or stop and let him arrest me. And I opted for A.

I wanted to die. I wanted to use my car as the battering ram and I wanted the cops to kill me. And human nature is funny. As I'm approaching that intersection, I hunkered down in the car. I want them to shoot because I don't want to get arrested and go to prison. I want it to be over. But they didn't. And when I made that left hand turn, the cot closest to me did the pursuit intervention technique,

the pit maneuver, spun me out of control, up on an embankment. And those cops commenced once they pulled me out of that vehicle at gunpoint to give me one of the worst beatings of my adult life. And I'll be honest with you, had that shit coming. I had put their lives in danger. Everybody else's lives in danger. They really, by right, should have shot me going through that intersection when I hit that cop car and displaced it to get it out of the way. They should have. But they didn't. And I'm thankful today that they didn't, obviously. But one of the last things I heard before I passed out was stop, stop. We're going to kill him. I'm in a shopping center when they spun me out of control up on

that embankment in that parking lot. So there's people coming out of the gym and the other little strip mall stores that were there. Anyway, I go to jail, and when I get to jail and I go to court the first time, my offer was 29 years. That was pretty damn sobering. I had already spent a large portion of my adult life going in and out of prison, and now I get to go back and I get to die there. So over the number of months, some of the ancillary charges had fallen off, and it came down to 22 years. My judge at that time in Orange County was Judge Pacheco, and he was very, very stern and very resolute in his decision that 22 years was what I was going to get. I had a one year prison prior, one year prison prior, one year prison prior, one year prison prior, one year prison prior

from my four terms, three year enhancement, three year enhancement, three year enhancement, three year enhancement, just because the other prison priors and all the crimes were the same. Sales, transportation, loaded firearms. Sales, transportation, loaded firearms. So all my enhancements actually added up to more time than just the sales and transportation of the current charges, but 22 years was it. So I fought my case for a long time in the county jail in the hopes that it would come down to something manageable like 15 years. I was just kept going to court. I've playing the game. I want to stay in the county. I want to get the girls. I want to get the visits. And I'm going to fight this case as long as I can. I'm firing public defenders.

I'm doing whatever I got to do. And the hopes that the judge eventually will give me something less than 22. Thankfully, he didn't. But along the way, as I'm fighting my case, I write a place called Delancey Street. Have you heard of Delancey Street? No, just from what you've said. Okay. Delante Street was widely known as the gold standard in this country. It was a two-year residential Life Skills Training Academy for people like me and others who had completely destroyed their lives. And it's really the only place that judges would send people like me, because they're not going to send me to a 30 they're not stupid right why would they but i wrote delancy street a letter in los angeles they came and they interviewed me in the county jail and they accepted me

but when i went to court and i asked the judge he and no in certain terms told me hell no you are not delancy street material i will never send you to delancy street stop asking you're going to prison for the rest of your life so you know i go back to myself and i am tired i'm broken and really for the first time in my life, Matt, I was scared. I'm like, Jesus, nothing's working. He's not, they accepted me. He's not going to let me go. So in that process, you know, I wasn't really busy in my cell at night. I decided to write him a letter. And I wrote Judge Pacheco, a four-page letter on legal pad, and I admitted everything. I own it. I'm guilty. I took a chance, Matt. Four pages long, I explained everything. I said, Your Honor, you got me dead rights. I am everything you say I am. I'm all

those things. But Delancey Street interviewed me and they think they can help me. Why don't you give me a chance? One of two things will happen. You'll send me to Delancey Street, suspend my sentence over my head, and I'll get kicked out or I'll split and you can lock me up for the rest of my life or the next time you see me, it's because I'm coming back to say thank you. And about six weeks later, I went to court. And for those of you who aren't my age, I don't know if you remember what a phone booth looks like, but just a metal cage. But in court, it's much smaller. And in California, you, that's how they did it with guys like me. So I'm in ankle irons, waist irons, handcuffs, and I'm sitting in that little cage,

and Judge Pacheco said, Mr. DeRosher, against my better judgment, I'm going to give you the opportunity of a lifetime. I'm going to send you to Delancey Street. I'm letting you go. But you're going to plead guilty to all of your charges today, and you're signing a deal for 22 years. And I don't know if you've ever felt vertigo. You get really good news, really bad news, completely unexpected.

You know, you get a phone call, someone's died, or you know, you won a lottery, whatever. you kind of get that dizzy feeling, I'm in that cage going, holy shit, I'm getting out of jail to go to a two-year program. I couldn't believe he was giving me the shot. But that letter tugged on his heartstrings. And other people had written letters, you know, in my corner saying, come on, Dave's better than this. Give him a shot. Whatever it was, he gave me a shot. Can I say something? Sure. You don't sound better than this. Like, you sound like you've been in and out of prison. like this sounds like a huge opportunity from a judge who had no reason to give you a chance at all yeah i mean you know i'm saying it's like how how many i i talk to guys and i you know

i talk to guys go in and out in and out all the time and there a lot of times you know they're irritated the judge and the system and this and that and i i just always think like like what did you think like what were you what did you like you don't deserve back you and better than it's like being in prison and listening to guys complain about the food it's like you're a scumbag what did you think they were going to feed you yeah like when i was when i was committing fraud i never thought well at least when i go to prison they'll feed me good you know like i don't like i used to say i don't even deserve this you know they got fried chicken right that's right matt listen make no mistake about it i am all about accountability jails and prisons saved my chicken

shit life. Every time I went to prison, it's exactly where I belong. When those cops beat me senseless, I had that shit coming. I never complained when I was in prison. I earned it. I asked to go there. It wasn't the cop's fault. It wasn't the judge's fault. It was my fault. You know, it's fascinating in the world we live in today when we don't hold people accountable anymore and we make excuses for people. There are no excuses. I knew what I was doing when I was doing it. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I chose wrong. I can't complain when I get arrested. And there's many other really hairy situations and some of the other arrests that might be interesting to talk about if we have the time. But I had that shit coming. I am not one to complain about the time. I'm telling you,

prison saved my life and it probably saved yours. I don't mean you personally, but what I mean is in my arc and my criminality, I challenge you. You'll never find someone who robbed a bank and that was their first crime. It all starts way down here and ends up way up here. You did the same thing in your criminal career. You didn't start what you were doing up here. That's just where it ended when you got caught. Yeah. I always think I wish they grabbed me. They had grabbed me way beforehand because I would have been facing way less time. Yep. You know, I got such a, the first time I got in trouble, I got a slap on the hand. And all it did was emboldened me. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Matt. You know, there's so much more we can talk to about the accountability piece now and the

criminal justice reform. I have my opinions on where things are headed in this country and how we're doing it wrong. And I always ask people, and I'll be in Miami in a couple days with our mayor and our chief of police and our DA at a high utilizer conference. And I think they want me to come along because I can say things they can't. We're killing people. And I ask people all the time, is the problem getting worse or is the problem getting better? And they all say, oh, it's getting worse. No, it's not. Our response to it is. I don't give a shit if you're a drug addict. If you're a criminal, hold me accountable. If you're out there committing crimes to support your habit, I don't care if the drug addicts attach to it. Arrest the criminal, lock them up. I mean, be fair about it,

and give us opportunities on the inside to get the help that we need and at least afford us opportunities to get into programs on the inside, if that's what we wish to do. But when you're a guy like me in California in a California prison earning all my ink and swastikas and white power and all that shit you got to put the work in to get that when I'm doing that kind of stuff in prison leave my ass there I have no right to be on the on the streets I'm not adding anything to the community I'm tearing at the fabric of it I deserve to be in prison he built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million because 50 million wasn't enough and 60 million

Stop Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie The Naked Gun Liam Nissan Buy your tickets now I get a free Tilly Dog Not included

The Naked God tickets on sale now August 1st Seemed excessive He is the most Interesting man in the world I don't typically commit crimes But when I do It's bank fraud

Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon. He built some of the nation's largest banks out of an estimated $55 million, because 50 million wasn't enough, and 60 million seemed excessive. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't typically commit crimes, but when I do, it's bank fraud. Stay greedy, my friends. Support the channel. Join Matthew Cox's Patreon.

Yeah, I hear it. Listen, I, I, you know, it's so funny is, you know, I, like, I met some great people. I'm sure you met some great people in prison. But the vast majority of the people that are in prison that I met, I don't want them living in my neighborhood. I, I, you know, it's like, I don't want to be around you. I don't want, you know, you don't want your, your kids around you. I, my buddy, he, like, wants to, you know, he's hoping that his sister will let him move in. And I'm like, your sister, you're not the kind of person that your, your sister doesn't want you around her kids. Yeah.

And she can make. Right. And she's right. Like she, you know, that's the worst part is that, you know, that, like that was, I, the, the nicest thing about being in prison for me was that unlike, you know, you talk to a lot of guys who always complained and bitched and moan. And I used to, I used to be like, you know, listen, I, the nicest thing about it is, is that I'm 100% guilty.

Like, I absolutely should be here. Yep. You know, so. It's funny you say that because, you know, every time, when I got arrested and got beat, there was a couple times that happened, but that last one was the worst beating I had taken by law enforcement. I had it coming. It's not like they came to church and pulled me out of church and pulled me out of church

for singing too loud in the church prior. I mean, good God, I had it coming. If I was, if I was law enforcement at that time, I don't know how I'd have dealt with me any differently than they did. I literally had it come. And, you know, it's unfortunate in the world we live. in today sometimes a good ass beaten is what it takes you know we don't do it anymore but sometimes that's what it takes and people learn a really valuable lesson and they'll never do that again yeah but we've

gotten so soft in this country as it relates to incarceration we've swung way to the left right and it's usually because of this because the people making decisions about guys like you and me are academics that don't have a damn clue who the hell we are you have educated scholastic uh uh uh uh uh uh people who have gone to college making decisions about guys like us who have never been drug addicts never been to jail never lived a day on the street never been to prison what the hell do you know about us and they're not close enough to the consequences of their decisions to understand where they're going wrong yeah it's fascinating yeah you know i tell you know what's so funny um and this is this is you know it's 13 years okay so you know that now i met guys have done 20 25 years like

God only knows what they're dealing with. And I don't even feel like I had any real major issues when I got out, right? Like I had a little bit of, I was a little jumpy. You know, I was a little bit and I definitely was a lot more aggressive or assertive than I'd ever been in my life. Like, people were like, bro, you're so angry. You're so aggressive. And I'd be like, I'm like, I didn't think I was aggressive. I didn't think I was, I was like, I'm just assertive. And you know, that's how you have to be. But, you know, I'm not saying thank you. You know how it is. Like, They don't say, you know, hey, you know, excuse me, can I borrow this or please or, you know, hey, thank you or what, you know, it's always like, yo, bro, you got some sugar.

You got sugar? Let me get, let me get a piece. Let me get one. It's always like, what the, you know. So when I got out, that's how I had gotten. Yeah. I moved into a to a spare room in a friend's house who was renting room, right? It was a big room.

There was a closet in the room. I moved my bed into the wall. large closet was just big enough to fit my bed, no, no windows. And I slept in there. And she was like, what are you doing? And I was like, well, I have more room now in the bigger room because I paint and I do that and I need that space. And she's like, doesn't bother you. Listen, the best night sleep I think I got was when I was sleeping in that little room. Yeah. Like it was great. I was fine with it. I was good with it. Like it felt comfortable. Yeah. It's been so long. Yeah. You know, I'm 17, almost 18 years removed from the lifestyle, and my wife will tell you today, even when we go out, we go to restaurants, I still want to pick a spot where my back is to the wall.

I still want everything in front of me. I don't know that I'll ever change it because it just makes me feel comfortable when I can see everything in front of me happening. I'm not comfortable with groups of people behind me. And I wasn't like that before I went into prison. It happened in there. And I don't think that's one of the things I need to change. but to your point, I feel your pain. There are little things I still do that I don't know that will ever go away

that I brought with me from the years of incarceration. That anxiety, even if, you know, like, will that anxiety, it took six months. It took me about six months before I stopped thinking to myself, they're going to realize they made a mistake. Like, I'm waiting for the phone call or I'm waiting to answer the door and have the, you know, have a couple of sheriffs there going, hey, listen. that sorry something like oh fuck like and then it took and around four o'clock you know how four o'clock count you start getting that like I'm supposed to be somewhere I'm supposed to be in my

room I'm supposed to be waiting to be counted it was all these little and they're stupid but it's that little tingly anxiety that you're like I can't believe I feel like this like this is this a problem like something's wrong do you still make spreads like spreads Yeah, you know, top ramen soup with all the fixings in it? Oh, no, listen, I did have a top ramen soup. You understand, I got top ramen soup. I actually used to have a thing of Keefey coffee. Yeah.

I don't know if they sell it. I used to have a thing just as a joke. Yeah. But, oh, yeah, listen. Oh, you need a can of bugler tobacco and you're good to go. Look, I'm. Yeah, it's, it is. Oh, God.

It's so funny to my girlfriend and I, we joke all the time about, about being about the food they would make and listen amazingly ingenuitive as far as you know that the foods that they would come up with and the way they they would take commissary and make stuff and but anyway um so the judge gave you let's go back to the judge gave you a chance so you're in your you're in this little cage i'm in my cage i've seen the cages i know what you're talking about by the way and uh and when he said that he was going to give me the opportunity to go to delancey street i could not believe that that that letter and others had worked. And we'll get back to that judge in a moment. So this is on a Thursday, I believe. I'm in Orange County, jail in California. My parents live in Las Vegas. When they heard that I was getting the opportunity to go, they drove from Las Vegas to Orange County to make sure I got picked up from the jail and taken straight to the Lancy Street. I get out of jail and there's a girl waiting. It took all night long. They were not letting me out until they were 100% sure there wasn't a mistake. There was no way. It took almost a day for me to get out of jail. When I got

out that next morning, there was a girl in the parking lot. I jumped in her car. We drove across the street to the block. It's a mall. And we read Bible verses either car in the parking lot, right? You get it. And then I went back and my girlfriend picked me up. And we took off and I was gone for hours. Now remember, my mom and dad are at a hotel down the street waiting for me. So hours go by while I'm with my girlfriend, right, the girl that I loved, right? As if we know what the hell that word means. And finally, I got this, this, this conscience. And I knew if I didn't go to Delancey Street, I've just thrown away in an opportunity of a lifetime. I'm going to go back to prison for the rest of my life. I'm going to get that 22 years and whatever else I get busted

for on my way there. And I called my mom, and this is no exaggeration. She will tell you to this day, she was screaming on the phone and crying on the phone at the same time. I could barely understand her. I'm hours late. They know I've been released and they're just, they don't know what to do. Do they drive home? Do they wait for me? She's screaming and crying. I've got 15 minutes to get to where they're at or they're leaving.

I told Jennifer, get me to my parents right now. I got there. They took me from that parking lot at the hotel to Delancey Street in L.A. And I was really late. They didn't need to accept me. I sat on that bench. They gave me the second interview and they took me. So I get to Delancey Street with a 22-year prison sentence suspended over my head.

I'm required to stay two years. Matt, I stayed in that program for eight and a half years. I stayed in a residential program for eight and a half years. Two years to beat a 22-year prison sentence and six and a half more because I fell in love with the process. And for the first time in my life, I fell in love with me. And the last five years that I was there, Mimi Silbert, the president of Galancy Street, asked me if I'd run the L.A. facility, 200 to 250 people, residential at any given time,

15 vocational training schools that generated all of the revenue, I managed a multi-million dollar organization for free. You couldn't have paid me enough to do it. I loved what I was doing, helping get other people from where I was to where I had gotten. It completely transformed my life, being able to balance the scales and make a difference. I found my drug. I found my new high. It was just an incredible transformation, but it wasn't easy. It was like chisling pieces of the rock off of, you know, the statue of David. You know, it just took some time to chisel off those rough edges. And I was so grateful that I got the time that I needed that I was afforded the opportunity

to stay as long as I did. And then, you know, after Delancey Street, I got a great job in Southern California, hauling heavy equipment, had my commercial license. I was, you ready for this? I was making like 30 bucks an hour, Matt. 30 bucks an hour. It was the most, I had been out of the workforce for decades. The last time I'd had a job, I was making like $9 an hour.

I don't remember what it was, but it was around. that right i had been out of the workforce for decades now i'm in a teamsters union i'm hauling heavy equipment you know underground pipeline construction but a bunch of my buddies that had graduated delanti street were up in the bachan and north dakota making completely ridiculous money and they were letting me know and showing me their you know their their paycheck sums how much they're making they're going dave you've got to get up here so i went up to the bachan the day i got there had five job opportunities stayed up there for five months the first month i was up there i made seven $17,500.

I worked 31 days in a row in the oil fields. And a couple things happened. Now I'm making really good money. The cops can't take it. And I realized two things, that making money is fun. There's no denying that. But saving lives was rewarding. I missed the people part.

I missed the Lancy Street. I didn't like work in the oil fields. I loved going to work every day and supporting me, but I hated my job. And I wanted to get back into the people business, but I don't believe in the 30, 60, 90-day models. I think they're a crock of shit. Not that there isn't great people working there because they are, very well-intentioned,

incredible human beings, but the model's broken. So I came back to Southern California, did some presentations at all these different programs, and then a Godshot happened. A lady who was in Delancey Street for 38 years, her name was Charlotte Baker. She was in San Francisco facility for 38 years, had graduated a couple years before that.

We had remained friends, and she met some people in Utah, Joseph Grinney, our founder and Tim Stay, our CEO, and she said, Dave, they want to start a replication of the Lancy Street. I told them, I only know one person that can help him do this. Do you want to meet them? Joseph and Tim flew to Los Angeles. We met at Fleming's Steakhouse near L.A. Live with the Lakers and the Clippers play. And we sat down and I asked them both, who in the hell are you? What's the genesis of thought behind this? What makes you think you can and why would you want to? I interviewed them. Who's first? Go ahead. And about an hour into that, after each one of them told me who they were.

I knew I was in the presence of great men. And about three hours later, they said, are you willing to come to Utah and help us get this started? And I said, not if you quit in six months when it gets hard. And that's how my story intersected with the other side academy. And in 2015, I came to Salt Lake City. We bought the property. And now I have 105 students living on property in Salt Lake, 20 staff members,

most of which are homegrown came through the program. We've already scaled the model in Denver. We've got 50 students in Denver, so we were able to take this model and scale it. We are immensely, immensely successful. People come from all over the world to study the model. We go all over the world studying other models, but it really has become the model to look at as it relates to this population and how to help people transform their lives. Did I miss it?

How long have you been doing this? Since 2015. A little bit over seven years. Okay. Is it, I have a question, is it faith-based? It is not faith-based. Okay. It is faith-friendly.

And here's the reason why that is. Pretend like this is a Bible, right? Right. A lot of guys go to jail. They pick up the Bible. They go to their cell. They kick their feet up. They start reading the Bible.

A year later, Derosher, roll it up for release. That Bible ends up in the trash can as I leave the jail. Right? There's more Bibles in that trash can. Listen, I don't give a shit what anybody says. they're wrong. You cannot have a healthy relationship with God until you have one with you. If you are still a liar, a cheater, a thief, and a manipulator, just because you pick the

Bible up doesn't mean you're going to solve anything. It's just comfort while you're incarcerated. You can hide in your cell behind the Bible so you don't have to get involved in the prison politics. And the day you get released, you go start using it again. It's not like you have your Bible with you and you've got a crack pipe in your hand and you're going, thank God for my crack. You know what I mean?

That's not what happens. You don't even know how to have a relationship with God because you don't have one with yourself. If you can't be completely honest, completely vulnerable, completely transparent, have integrity with you, how are you going to have it with your higher power? Yeah. People get confused all the time. They think these faith-based programs, not that they don't have value in some cases, but by and large, it doesn't work very well. Well, you know, it's funny, my buddy, like, not this time, but like two times before, before the last. the last time he was you know i was listening to him talk to his girlfriend about what had

happened with him lying lying even though it wasn't a hundred percent of a lie a lie it was down playing down playing that you know and it was um and i remember thinking and i even well i think i even said to him why aren't you being honest what do you mean i said i just heard you call your boss and lie to him. I just listened to you for 30 minutes lie to your girlfriend. I didn't lie. I told her this. No, no. No, no. You did lie. You said this and not that. You said this and not that. You didn't mention your vehicle. You didn't mention where you were. You didn't know, like there's all these little subtle things that you did to make it almost seem acceptable. I said, or downplayed. I said, the truth is, why didn't you just fucking tell her the

truth? You know, the 100% honest truth. Well, bro, I don't want to lose her. I said, listen, bro, you're a fucking crackhead she's not leaving you know and as far as your boss is concerned i said why don't you just call him up and tell him the truth well because you know bro he's gonna fire me this he's fired you anyway he fired him anyway right it's like what does it matter now you're a liar and you got fired and you're right and then same thing when he was uh the last time this happened i drove him to the i drove him to um uh to not the self you know no it was salvation army i drove him to salvation army because he was asking him if you could stay here. I said, no. Why? I just heard you on the phone telling your

girlfriend, you drank too much and your car was here. But guess what? That's not what happened at all. Your car's with the fucking drug dealer right now that you owe $400 to. And it, and it was crack. Like, and he's like, no, I was just drinking. I was just drinking. Let me explain something. You don't know the $400 to a drug dealer because you got drunk and disappeared for two days. you ran it up on a bill and gave him your car as collateral. I said, you're lying to her, you're lying to me, you're lying to your sister, you're lying to fucking everybody. I said, as long as you keep telling these lies or these subtle lies,

you will continue to be a drug addict because you cannot be honest with yourself. I said, what you need to do is start from this point right here. I'm a fucking scumbag and I need to change. You cannot continue to behave like a scumbag and not expect to end up the same fucking spot you know and lying is a huge part of that i i say stuff that is detrimental to me all the time i i own up to shit all the time that because it's those little subtle lies that build up and build up and build up and make things acceptable and before you know it you fooled yourself into thinking that you can get away with things in the next thing you know you're

committing grime and you're doing all kinds of shit yep you know so absolutely but i i think uh Exactly what you're saying. I think that the only true people I know that have ever really beaten addiction are super honest. Like to their own detriment. Just the moral issue. It's a software problem, not a hardware problem. Yeah. If you get people clean and sober, I don't care if they're if you put, if I'm a drug addict and you put me in jail and I'm going to sell by myself and there's no drugs and I'm there for a year, what am I? Clean and sober. Yeah. The day I get out, I go straight to flock. I go. to pick up because I haven't changed. Matter of fact, I'm probably worse. I'm writing eight different girls making them all the same promises and none of which I intend on keeping. I'm calling home to my family and at the end of the phone call telling them that I love them. Oh, by the way, don't forget to send the money, but the money's not for anything other than a mailout for drugs. I'm manipulating people even when I'm incarcerated. Drugs have nothing to do with that. Drugs are never the problem. Ever, our behaviors are. We become such parasites

tearing at the fabric of our families, the fabric of our communities, street urchants out there committing crimes, petty shit, or dealing dope or whatever the hell we're doing. You know what I mean? If we won't change those behaviors, we'll use every time. I have a question for you. You know what the ARDAP program is in federal prison? I've heard it. We've had people here that have come here through the federal system that couldn't come here

because they wanted to do the ARDAP program. Oh, okay. I did ARDAP twice. you know what they almost never talk about in ARDAP drugs yeah it's it's complete behavior um you know modification or whatever you want to however you want to you know label it um and all they do is talk about thinking errors and and and you know all of you know and and all these different things and i mean i i just remember thinking of myself like this is insane like these guys this is not a drug program at all but i mean you realize in there well yeah that's

because drugs isn't really the problem. Not the problem. You know, like they call it Ardap. Yeah. It's got nothing to do with, well, you know, they call it, you know, whatever, a drug abuse. What is it? Yeah, it's a residential drug abuse program or something like that. But you really never talk about drugs.

Right. Yeah, that's good because it just isn't the issue. Who gives a shit about the physiological inflammation, implications of methamphetamine on the pituitary gland? You're not going to tell us anything in the classroom we don't already know. Let's talk about the fact that I'm a habitual liar and have been for three decades. Let's talk about the fact that I'm a drug dealer and I'm killing people selling them drugs. They could take it home and they could drop some and their kids can pick it up and I'm a scumbag for doing it. Let's talk about the fact that I'm violent.

I'm stabbing people, right? They're only 80 bucks. Let's talk about the fact that I'm putting people in the trunks of their car and driving them down the freeway and leaving them behind a wreck. Let's talk about those behaviors because that's the shit that has to change. Yeah, it's, yeah, no, I agree. It, you know, it's amazing, too, is the people that run the program, well, like, the one doctor that, like, listen, that she, you could walk in, sit in her office and she knew everything about you. Like, she, you know, they're categorizing the behavior, who you are, your personality type, everything knew. It was just amazing how she was amazing.

She was, she was an amazing doctor. You know, I always tell, I've interviewed a bunch of. of other guys, you know, obviously that have been to prison and actually almost always we end up talking about how I think everybody should have to take. I remember the other day I said, I go, I don't think they should release you until you've passed the program. Like everybody should have to take that program whether they have a drug addiction problem or not because you would learn so much about yourself. I'm not saying it's going to cure you, but it sure as hell is going to slow that recidivism rate you know lower it and succeed you know if i had my way can i

share a thought with you if i if i had my way right when you get in car if i ever run for politics or get involved in that and i've had some people ask you should do this you should do this when you go to prison there's no letters there's no phone calls there's no visits none of that ever for a long time you have to earn it because what we're doing now in jails and prisons is we're making it so easy for people so easy doing time is easy when i'm in prison and i've got no letters from the outside i have nobody to call and lie to i have nobody to manipulate i have none of those things going on right it makes doing time really hard well guess what happens i don't want to go back but when i'm in jail or prison and i'm getting letters and i'm getting visits and i'm getting

phone calls and i'm getting quarterly package and i have a tv in myself doing time becomes easy I'm telling you we're doing it wrong. Now, if you've got a long time to do and you've been in prison for a couple years and you're taking classes and you're getting certificates and you're passing those classes and you're showing signs, you've earned the right to call home. You've earned the right to get letters. You've earned the right to do this. You've earned the right.

But we're giving, look at California. 75% of the population in California are gang members. In my opinion, if you are an active gang member, active gang member, you're not working. All you're doing is running the streets and terrorizing. neighborhood, every active gang member should be in prison. Now, when that active gang member says, you know what, I'm dropping out. I want to change. Now let's find them some help. But as long as you are an active gang member, you shouldn't be allowed on the street. And if you're an active gang member on the inside, you know, it's fascinating in California when you're doing time for a lot of like the

Sudannios and Nortagnos and Bloods and Chris, but particularly the Hispanic gang members, it's a right of passage. Yeah. Family expects you to go to prison and then they celebrate you paroling you are celebrated as if you graduated from college they get quarterly packages they get money sent in they've got all their family coming to visit them as if they're doing something productive why the hell should we allow that to happen i would change the entire system but you know who am i um you know what's funny uh my girlfriend her her brother was incarcerated he's constantly in and Now, listen, tablets, watching movies, playing video games. Can you send me, you know, can you send me like $10?

Why, I want to watch a couple movies. And it's like, what do you mean? You're watching movies. You're playing video games. But wait, wait, wait, wait, let's make it even better. You have a grown adult 40 years old who made the decisions to put him in prison asking another grown adult who's working their ass off to support themselves to support me my bad decision.

We shouldn't be allowed. We shouldn't be able to manipulate and exploit our family members and friends to take care of us from we're making bad decisions. Because here's the problem. Matt, there is a difference between making a mistake and conscious decisions to do the wrong thing. If I forget to set my alarm tonight on my phone and I wake up early, that's a mistake. If you and I are driving down the street and we're having a spirited conversation,

I happen to have a lot of those and I blow the light, it's a mistake. When I make a conscious decision to deal. dope to run guns and to hurt people that is calculated it's thought out that that is not a mistake i knew what i was doing we need to deal with that population differently than those who are making mistakes people in prison aren't making mistakes or making conscious decisions to do what the hell they want knowing what the consequences are yeah i'm no i i absolutely agree i'm you know god who was it that was talking the other day i forget what happened but i forget what they said and i just and i went what do you forget how what what they said but I was like what are you talking about like well yeah

they were supporting their family and so that's why he did this and I'm like no no no I said if he was a I go right he's a scumbach well I wouldn't say he was a scumbag I go no if he I said a decent human being would have worked an extra job or told his kids I'm sorry you can't get that right now and explain the situation a decent human being would have taken a step back and made the right decision. I said, that's what a decent citizen does. I said, he chose to be a scumbag and try and steal something and then justified it by saying he was going to give it to his kids or he needed the money for his kids, but he probably didn't even need the money for his kids. Absolutely. You're speaking my language, brother. Right. Because the truth is, I said, everybody I've ever known,

and I've known, listen, I've known 10, 15 people at this point. I probably knew even at the time when I was locked up, I think I knew seven or eight guys that had Lamborghinis. I said, do you know that out of all the guys I knew that that had money and women and tons of and cars and houses and everything that they own do you know not that not one of those guys ever went to prison and laid in his bunk bed and missed his Lamborghini none of them it was always my kids my what have I done my my my mom my sister my this what have I done what I've done I said so you know the truth is like that your son would rather have you out and broke

than in that Lamborghini taking him somewhere. Yep. Or no, oh, my dad, he was out for two years, went to prison for 10, but he did have a Lamborghini. Yep. My mom's dating this other guy. He's raising me now. Like, come on, bro. That's not, you're not, you're not doing the right thing. Like, you're not, you're fooling

yourself. Absolutely. But, yeah, I definitely think going to prison, it completely changed my entire perspective. And, you know, and I, I always say that like, like I had, you know, and I had millions, like I had millions of dollars and was miserable before I went to prison and have been, even in prison, it's happier in prison than I'd ever been on the street with that money. Yeah. And I've been happier ever since. You know, not that I wouldn't love some money, but, you know, I'm not turning it down, but I'm not doing things just because of money.

Yeah. And listen, I have guys all the time reach out to me and, and suggest this or suggest that. yeah, bro, I can't even have this conversation. Like, I'm not risking having this conversation with you. You know, I'm not, it's, I can't, I can't be a part of anything like that or even take part in that discussion or, you know, I'm sorry, good luck. You're on your own. You're hit. And sorry, it's over.

Solid boundaries. Right. Yeah. And I prison definitely, listen, the judge was very, very clear. I cannot be in front of that man again. I mean, I'll never get out of prison. Yeah, so listen, and I know, I know guys, especially in the federal system, you know how, I don't know how it is. You know, every criminal history point you get, it gets extremely worse for you.

Yep. I know a guy that got the same sentence I got for about $80,000. Yeah. Same sentence, but he'd been locked up like six times. Right. And, you know, got to the point where his points are the same, but his criminal history level was off the chart. And that takes me back to how they got to the 20. 22 years. I had a their enhancements. One year prison prior, one year prison prior, one year prison prior, one year prison prior. Then three year

enhancements were committing the same crimes again. Pretty soon I got 16 years worth of enhancements. Now we got to add the new crimes. It's exactly what you're saying. You're adding those enhancements for the criminal history. And was this prior to the three strikes you're out? It was going on at the same time, but I didn't have any violence on my jacket when the three strikes law went into effect in 94. I didn't have violence, didn't get caught for any violence until I got in the high speed chase. and use the car as the battering ram, now I've got a weapon. Even the loaded firearms I had on me isn't considered a violent offense because they're not used in the commission of a crime. Oh, that must be a California thing in the federal system. Yeah, you get bused with guns and drugs, even in Utah, it's a federal, you're going to get federal time.

Yeah, well, and it's, and they're going to say, they're going to add violence on it. You can't get ARDAP either. You can't get your own for ARDA. The feds got involved in my case, but the state and the feds got together because of all of my enhancements, the feds, especially on the last one, could have indicted me federally. It wouldn't have been able to give me nearly as much time as the state because of all the enhancements, the state enhancements.

Yeah, you got super, super lucky. I am grateful, Matt, for being a drug addict. I am grateful for all of the time I spent in prison. When I say grateful, I mean, I mean it. I am grateful that I got incarcerated all the time that I did. I'm grateful for every time I got busted, but I'm more grateful for the stuff I got away with. God has a mysterious way of working.

I should be doing life for the things I got away with. And I am grateful I got away with him because I wouldn't be sitting here today. I wouldn't have been able to go to Delancey Street. I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing today. If every bust didn't happen when it did, if the high-speed chase didn't end the way it did on that day so that my case was in front of that judge, everything happened exactly how it was supposed to

to give me the opportunity to do what I'm doing today. I'm grateful for everything that happened and nothing bad has ever happened to me. It's all my fault. It's funny you say that because I can't tell you how many times I've had people say, man, I can't believe that they gave you that much time. And I always said, no, no, no, I gave me that much time. Absolutely. We asked for it.

Yeah, absolutely. I gave, that was definitely me. Did you ever go back to the judge? No, thank you for asking. So about three years into my stay in Delancey Street, I had stayed beyond my two years, asked to stay a third year. That was before Mimi came down to ask if I'd stay five more years, and I didn't know at the time she wanted me to run the LA facility. But at about three years, we contacted Judge Pacheco, and I got to go into Judge Pachaco's chambers with another student from Delancey Street. We sat down and we had lunch, and we shed a tear.

I'll never forget saying thank you to him for the opportunity. And then as a result of all of that, he sent other people to Delancey Street with 15, 18, 20 years, not because of Dave DeRosher, but because of the success that the decision that he made with me was having. So it's really important to know that my success in staying and doing what I did allowed others the same opportunity. But it was great to have lunch with him.

It was great. And the DA, his name was Jim Mendelssohn. He jumped up and down on a soapbox. did not want me to go to Delancey Street. My cases were going in front of the especially assigned district attorneys for large amounts of drugs in that whole lifestyle. And Judge Mendelsohn did not want me to go. And I love this story, right?

It took me a while to get Judge Mendelsohn's to come visit me in Delancey Street, much longer than it took for me to see the judge. But at about three and a half, four years, Judge Mendelsohn's came to Delancy Street in Los Angeles and he walked through the front door. He had a cop with him. and he kind of peeks in and he looks back and forth. I go, Jim, come in. He comes in.

We have a three-hour meeting. At the end of that meeting, we embraced. And it was wonderful. Two weeks later, I'm in court. I'm taking one of the residents from Delanche Street to court, and Jim Mendelssohn's there. And he goes, DeRoche, come here, I want to talk to you. There was a girl when I got busted and did my tenure sentence.

Her name is Sheila. She got busted with me, the number of people were involved. I got 10 years. They all got 16 months and three years. Sheila McCarthy got her first prison sentence. It was 16 months. During the time I was down during those 10 years, she had gone in and out of prison a couple of times.

Jim Mendelsohn had her case and was going to give her a life sentence. He pulled me out and he said, Mr. DeRosher, I want to tell you something. Because of our interaction and the success you've had, I'm taking the life sentence off of Sheila, and I'm sending her to Delancey Street, suspending her sentence in San Francisco. She stayed in that program for 10 years, Matt.

10 years completely transformed her life I got her her first prison sentence my interaction with the DA got her out of a life sentence do yeah bro this is I mean

man I'm trying to think have you ever seen the have you ever seen the show Soft White Under Belly? Soft White Underbelly, isn't that Bloister Colt's original name? No, I don't.

I don't know. This is no exaggeration. Really? Oyster Colt, the band. Yeah. Their original stage name is Soft White Underbelly. Oh, really? I didn't know that.

Yeah. Well, there's a, there's a, there's a guy named Mark, I want to say Leda. Mark Leda, his studio is on Skid Row. and he interviews people, if you look him up on YouTube, it's called Soft White Underbelly. He interviews drug addicts, criminals, and, I mean, we're talking, homeless people, prostitutes, pimps, the whole thing. Yeah. You know, he interviewed me. He's interviewed a couple other guys that are like, you know, criminals.

But 99% of it is homeless people, drug addicts, pimps. prostitutes that sort of thing i mean i i feel like he could and by the way the quality like he's a professional photographer and he's basically on a mission to like change he's he's a super interesting guy one you would probably be amazing to be interviewed in general but i don't i almost feel like there's something like he'll travel he travels places i almost feel like there's something he could do, his view, his stuff gets millions. I mean, some of his stuff has 20 million, 10 million, 15 million. Mine got like a one and a half million, you know, and I feel like if you talk to him

or reached out to him, if not your story in general, the people that are at your facility because just because of what a dramatic, you know, change you're making that, that I think, I feel like he could do something to really have a conversation with him. He's, he's, and listen, he is, he was a professional photographer for like 30 years. He's done everything from Apple to Nike. He's like their main guy. He's amazing. And then he retired, you know, I'm sure he's a multimillionaire.

He retired and said, you know what I'm going to do? The rest of my life, this is what I'm doing. And the program, and it's amazing, I can't stand to watch, watch them. Because I mean, we're talking about, you know, you're talking about heroin addicts and, and, but it's so artistically done. It's phenomenal. And I think if you looked at it, and if you look at his channel, and if you like it, let me know. And I can get, I can get you in touch with him. Okay.

Because I know there's, I know that he could, you could probably work on something with him. Yeah. just to put it in a way that's super polished. And what he does is he takes these battered people and he makes them, he makes their stories really come alive. And just a very brief interview. You really have to check it out.

If you like the interview, do me a favor. Subscribe to my channel. Hit the bell so you get notified. Leave a link in the description. Let's leave a link in the description. Leave a comment. hit the bell hit the thumb share the video i'm going to leave uh the website uh dave's website in the description if you want to donate any um any funds to his program uh i i think it's i think

it's a great i think it's amazing i think he's got an amazing story and i think what he's doing is amazing um thanks for watching this this whole thing uh because i think it's a it's just an amazing I think what he's doing is amazing. So I appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. See you.