#RolandMartinUnfiltered - GA Online personality accused of Doxing, DOJ investigates Miss. Prison, Mich. Overtaxing, Flikshop

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

4.20.22 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: GA Online personality accused of Doxing, DOJ investigates Miss. Prison, Mich. Overtaxing, Flikshop An Atlanta social media cook is accused of blasting out personal information of people who questioned or disagreed with him. Putting out someone's personal information for intimidation or harassing purposes is called "Doxing."  In the RMU studio, one woman who was in court yesterday defending herself from stalking allegations by Darius "Cooks" Williams, who she says has been doxing her.  We'll also have an expert to give us tips on keeping our information safe. The Justice Department says the conditions at a Mississippi State Penitentiary violate the Constitution.  We'll show you some of the conditions of the prison. The arrest of a young black boy accused of stealing a bag of chips by Syracuse police is causing outrage and debate about how cops should treat children. Nearly 100,000 Detroiters lost their home to foreclosures because the city illegally overtaxed homeowners $600M. We'll talk to one woman who lost her home because of this and a member of the Coalition for Property Tax Justice who is working on getting those homeowners their money. It's taken two years, but A Connecticut state trooper faces manslaughter for killing a man after a high-speed chase. And in today's Tech Talk segment, a former inmate created an app to bring a little love to others in prison. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. An Atlanta social media cook is accused of blasting out personal information of people who questioned or disagreed with him, putting out someone's personal information for intimidation or harassing purposes is called doxing. Well, we'll talk to one woman who was in court yesterday

defending herself from allegations of stalking Darius Cooks-Williams, who she says has been doxing her. We'll also have an expert to give us tips on keeping our information safe. Justice Department, Civil Rights Division, says the conditions at a Mississippi state penitentiary violate the US Constitution. We'll show you some of the conditions of the prison

and what the DOJ unveiled. The arrest of a young black boy accused of stealing a bag of chips by Syracuse police is causing outrage and debate about how cops should treat children. Nearly 100,000 detain Detroiters lost their home to foreclosure because the city illegally overtaxed homeowners to the tune of $600 million. We'll talk to one woman who lost her home overtaxed homeowners to the tune of $600 million.

We'll talk to one woman who lost her home because of this and a member of the Coalition for Property Tax Justice was working on getting those homeowners their money back. It's taken two years, but a Connecticut State trooper faces manslaughter charges for killing a man after a high speed chase. And in today's Tech Talk segment, a former inmate has created an app to bring a little love to others in prison. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered

right here on the Black Star Network, let's go. He's got it, whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the spook, the fact, the find. And when it breaks, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks.

He's rolling. Yeah, yeah. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. Yeah, yeah. It's Rolling Martin! Yeah, yeah! It's Rollin' Martell, yeah! Yeah, yeah! Rollin' with Rollin' now! Yeah, yeah!

He's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's Rollin' Martell now! Martell! The Justice Department Civil Rights Division says a Mississippi prison violates the U.S. Constitution, specifically the 8th and 14th Amendments. The notorious Parchman State Penitentiary is accused of routinely infringing the constitutional rights of people incarcerated by the following. subjecting people to prolonged isolation and solitary confinement in egregious conditions that place their physical and mental health at a substantial risk of serious harm and failing to protect incarcerated people from violence at the hands of other incarcerated people. Man, them folks took us out at 29, man.

MSP 29, man, put us in 32. How much time? Time? Thank you. What happened yesterday? Right. do everywhere man on the things ain't no running water paint coming out of the water we ain't got no running water we ain't eight and we ain't ate. And we ain't ate in 10 hours, man. It cold as a... Man, look at all that black mold, man. Ain't nobody got no mask.

No mask, bro. We sleeping on straight concrete, man. No mask. Look at these guys. No mask, no power. No power, none of that. Water everywhere, man. Water everywhere.

No water, man. No water, period. Spiders all the same. Look how old this is. No water, man. We ain't got no food, no hygiene. We ain't got no hygiene, no toothbrush, no water in the water. Look at the water on the floor, man. Look at all this water on the floor, man.

We can't get a wild phone. Look at the mold on that, man. All right, go ahead and shower. Man, I'm empty. Look at him. Look at him. Look at him. Look at him.

Yeah, yeah. All right, man. What's up? Shower. We ain't got no water, man. We ain't took no shower since we been here. Man, show them out here. No running water, man. We ain't took no shower since we been here. Man, show us out here. No running water, man.

I ain't sending Cody out there. Man, look, men do every what, man. Who in the town, what they doing? Now, that is cell phone video taken by one of the inmates showing the conditions in the prison. Folks, there are other videos showing dirty water, bad conditions. Also, a number of people have died in this prison. To understand the history of Parchman Penitentiary, you have to understand that this was a notorious

prison that civil rights workers were often placed in in horrible conditions, packed in jail cells during the 1960s. So this has been going on in Mississippi for several decades. Let's go to my panel right now. A. Scott Bolden, of course, a lawyer here in Washington, D.C. Monique Presley, lawyer, crisis manager. Robert Petillo, also a lawyer. Of course, executive director of the Rainbow Coalition, Peachtree Street.

Roger Wall Street Project. Let's have all three of y'all here. Let's just get right to it here. Monique, Rock Nation, Until Freedom, Rekia Lumumba, and others, they have been protesting for years about conditions in this prison, the number of inmates that have died in this prison. Mississippi is notorious. And so this action by the Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Division,

led by Christian Clark, is important. We detailed the other day how they have been targeting correction officers in other prisons as well in South Carolina, in Oklahoma, in Florida. This is a continuation. But this, what they're alleging here, is a whole different level of abuse and mistreatment. Absolutely, it's deplorable. There's no excuse whatsoever for the conditions that we just looked at and more, and it is a violation of every single person who's detained. It's a violation of their constitutional rights. I applaud the leadership of Kristen Clark and the Department of Justice. And as I tweeted out

earlier today, this is why voting matters. This is why representation matters. This is why when you have people elected in office who actually care about the humanity of conditions for all those who are under the control of the federal government or the state government, then you get different results. My only concern is what will actually be able to happen and how far the government's reach will be in terms of bringing about corrective change. This is just, again, this prison has been notorious, Scott, for their abuse and mistreatment. It is as if the government of Mississippi doesn't give a damn about what happens there. Governor Tate Reeves, again, just utterly ridiculous in terms of how they're dealing with inmates there. And this action by the DOJ has to happen to put these folks on Front Street with their treatment. Well, it's the first step, but it's not the last step.

And, Roland, let me be real clear with you. The only thing unique about Parchment as a state penitentiary is that it's still open. I can give you Moundsville from West Virginia, where Jimmy Gardner spent 27 years wrongfully charged. That's closed now. But there's several others. Stateville in Joliet, Illinois, where I grew up, was just recently closed in the last 10 to 20 years. And so Kristen Clark and her team can go to every state, especially across the South, but even in the Northeast and the West, and find these state penitentiaries that are in deplorable conditions because Republicans and Democratic elected officials believe that it shouldn't be

a country club. Well, but it ought to have human decency standards. And so I'm really not surprised at this report. She can do 49 others, if you will. The reality, though, is they're either going to shut Parchment down or they're going to rehabilitate it or they're going to move the prisoners when they redo it. And then you've got to remember, the private prison system, penitentiary system, would love to take over this facility or move these prisoners to one of their updated facilities. And then the horrors of parchment just sit there. In Stateville, for example, it's a museum, if you will. They've done absolutely nothing with it. And it's a tourism attraction. And so we've got to not only

be cognizant, but vigilant and continue to put the pressure on these state penitentiaries to not only do better, but to figure out what to do better as we move forward, whether you move the prisoners out or whether you fix these prison systems, or better yet, at least to our elected officials, build another prison. They have whole towns set up around these prison systems. You know, Robert, I think about that Robert Redford movie, Brew Baker, that was about a prison in Mississippi. It was fictitious, but some say in many ways it was real. And to Scott's point, this attitude in America, oh, the hell with these people. They don't deserve to be treated like human beings.

I grew up in Texas. And I can tell you, sure, I know the names of Supreme Court justices, but I'm going to tell you right now, I don't know the names of many federal judges. Would you know who's stuck in my head? William Wayne Justice. Literally, his last name was Justice. Why is that name stuck in my head? Because William Wayne Justice was a federal judge in Texas who ruled about inhumane conditions in the Texas prison system. He literally oversaw the Texas prison system for more than 20 plus years. I grew up reading the newspaper, watching news in Houston, and it was always federal judge William Wayne Justice. To Monique's point about voting,

those are appointed judges. This action here is the Department of Justice. The Biden Department of Justice, they're there. Kristen Clark is there because of how we voted. So when people talk about, oh, Biden hasn't delivered on this, hasn't delivered on that, I bet you this, if you got a loved one in a Parchman prison, you damn sure glad to see Kristen Clark leading the Civil Rights Division. If you got a loved one in a South Carolina prison or the Oklahoma prison where they just got convictions of correctional officers.

You are glad to see a Christian Clark leading a Biden-appointed Department of Justice. And so people need to understand when we talk about elections and them having consequences, this is a perfect example. You're absolutely right, Roland. And for the people who make the argument of, well, you did the crime, so you should do the time. You know, they don't really care about the conditions for prisoners. I'll remind them, not everybody in prison is guilty of the crime that they were convicted of. This is the reason we have post-conviction appeals.

This reason can go all the way to the Supreme Court about your case. And because of that, there's no reason to strip individuals of their basic human rights because they're incarcerated or they're in state custody. Beyond that, let's look at the way that we've appraised human rights around the world. We'd say that China is violating human rights, that Russia is violating human rights. What does it say when this is how we keep individuals, American citizens in this country, who one day will be released, who one day will return to society, knowing that this is how society treated them when they were at their lowest points. The purposes of punishment, our purposes of punishment in this country should not be simply to torture people while they're incarcerated. It should be to rehabilitate them, to give them new skills, to make sure that when they return to society, they can be prosperous members and such.

So when you say you did the crime, you do the time, you fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of our prison systems. We're not in a medieval star chamber any longer. We're supposed to be in an advanced 21st century, first world country. And because of that alone, we should be fighting for this. So we have to understand that the only difference between this prison and many others is that the people in custody had cameras that were able to live stream this thing. This is pervasive around the country. There's small state prisons way off the highway, down in the middle of nowhere. So we need to make sure we're fighting on a federal level to put standards in place so that basic human rights are respected, that we're going to continue to have our position of leadership around the world and keep pointing at other people for the human rights abuses.

This is something you will see in any third world country that America will try to bring democracy to. Let's bring democracy to Mississippi. Well, we love talking about how people are treated in China and Iran and other countries. Well, this is called abuse in the United States, and so we certainly appreciate Kristen Clark and the DOJ the work that they are doing when

it comes to trying to hold these folks accountable. Folks, got to go to a break when we come back. Darius Cooks, a lot of folks follow him on social media. He does various dinner parties. Many people have accused him of doxing. Well, yesterday, he was supposed to be in court against a woman who he claims has been stalking her.

He got a temporary restraining order. We'll tell you what happened in court, and we'll tell you who showed up and who didn't. You're watching Roller Mark Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. These bins have all accommodated larger rollerboards. They put tin in here? Tin. And you don't come out until you die. And you eat him, poop him. Oh my God. Thank you. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealthy, you'll meet Jandy Turner, who took her love of sports, expanded her network, and created a thriving business.

I settled on developing a golf event planning business, which in and of itself has been very viable for me. One of the things that I've learned from producing hundreds, if not thousands of golf tournaments is that business gets done on the golf course. All on the Next Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. Pull up a chair, take your seat. The Black Tape with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation

only on the Black Star Network. I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. All right, folks. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. So there are a number of people, obviously,

who are now operating these days on social media who gained significant prominence as a result of their social media following. One of those folks is Darius Cook-Williams. He is a chef. He sells products. He's gotten a significant following on Instagram, Twitter, as well as Facebook.

People are buying his products. They are attending various dinner parties that he presents all across the country as well. But many people also accuse the Atlanta cook of doxing people who disagree with him. Some have called him a scammer, a cyber bully, for doxing people who disagree with him or who make a complaint. Now, you might remember that a local reporter in Atlanta did an extensive story on him with regards to the complaints that have been made against him.

That's been going on. Again, that was Atlanta Fox 5 reporter Randy Travis. And he actually confronted Darius about the allegations against him. This was some of his report from a couple of weeks ago. So why are you putting the names of your critics and their personal information online? You don't see that? Yeah, I've seen the actual clips.

Let me talk to you. Let me call my lawyer. Yes, please call someone. Help us understand why you're doing this on your social media pages to people who complain about you. We got her kids on there as well. Kids information. I put it on my Instagram.

And it has been a living nightmare. A self-taught cook, Darius Williams has built an impressive online presence, not just through his website, Darius Cooks TV, where he sells cookbooks and cookware mixed in with his cooking videos, but also on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where he claims 1.5 million followers.

He also sells seats for seven course meals called Dining with Darius, like the one we visited, held in various cities across the country. Williams often goes live multiple times a day to talk about food, and sometimes brag about background checks followers send him about his critics. I can tell you who got the speeding ticket.

I can tell you who moved from what state to what state. Now, yesterday in an Atlanta court, there was supposed to be a hearing where Darius Cooks-Williams was going to, was supposed to get a restraining order against my next guest. He said that he had gotten a TRO, a temporary restraining order against her. And so they went to court yesterday. She showed up. She says he didn't.

Melanese Ford, she flew in from Atlanta to share her story and all of the drama that she has been embroiled in and how this has impacted her and her family since all of the drama that she's been embroiled in and how this has impacted her and her family since all of this began. Glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. So yesterday's court hearing, again, was supposed to be a hearing to make permanent this restraining

order against you. So what was the accusation that Darius Cooks made against you? He made a false allegation that I had been stalking him. And yesterday was his opportunity to go and present those facts to go from a temporary protective order to a permanent protective order. Pretty much anyone can go into a court room, state facts, and if you're convincing enough, the judge will give

you a temporary restraining order, but a court date is then set. You have to appear in court and then prove those allegations. Now, again, he was pursuing the TRO against you. That's correct. He filed it. Correct. So, you would think that he would show up in court to make it permanent. What happened yesterday? One would think. He chose not to show up. In fact, my attorney for this particular matter, Will Davis, was able to be in court, he chose to be online cooking and fighting with another well-known social media personality, Andrew Caldwell, about the alleged statements for

him frauding people. Now, did his attorney show up? No. So, you go to court. Yes. No one's, again, this is a temporary restraining order that he sought against you. Correct. And he doesn't show up. Correct. And no one from his side shows up. Correct. And your attorney, while you're in court, pulls up and he was live online on Instagram or something else at the very time he was supposed to be in court?

That is correct. Okay, so where did all this begin in terms of how did y'all meet? Where did this begin? Darius is an online personality and I bought a cookbook from him. You know, one of the things I,

several things I could say, but I will give him credit. He, back in 2016, didn't have the following that he has now. He's quite engaging. He is, you know, at the time there was a platform called Periscope. On my Twitter. So basically, live streaming platform.

Correct. You put in your likes and these personalities and pages start to feed. If I put in cooking, then you'll start to see a bunch of things related to cooking. That is one of the things that I noted and he showed up. Very engaging, seemed to be funny, seemed like no harm. I purchased a cookbook from Darius. Just talking from over line, we kind of became connected, just like, oh, thank you for your support,

so on and so forth. And eventually it led to a situation where he did reach out and he said, hey, as a way that I try to engage my audience, I tend to find out who my demographic is. I hope you don't mind me reaching out. And I Googled you and I see you kind of got it going on. And I'd like to know a little bit more about you. Prior to that, unbeknownst to me, Darius and I had a person in common. And I saw what the brother was trying to do. And let me just say this, Roland,

my husband and I do philanthropic things all the time. It was at a time we started to see a lot of our young men being killed, and we said, you know what, let's try to do something for some people out there doing some good things. Let's help some entrepreneurs. And so Darius is kind of one of those people that fed into that thing. And so when he reached out to me, I also extended myself.

I saw that he was doing these dinner parties. He was calling them seven courses. But the homes that he was holding them in, they weren't what you would consider to be something that you really would want to entertain. There was a lot of area for improvement. And I'm not an expert, but I think if you're going to be here, let's try to help one another as much as possible. So we've become connected. Over time, I only attended one event, but he did ask me, and once I saw that he had a platform,

I suggested, why don't you try to do things that are good? He asked me to speak into his life, and I said yes. We were coming up on the 2016 election. I said, you have this platform, and people truly did seem engaged. I suggested that he encourage his fan base to vote. Why don't you encourage them to get registered? Why don't you do things like a community garden? And so it was speaking into his life.

And one of the things I actually mentioned to him was, you know, why don't you consider starting a book club? He stated that he didn't read like that. And I said, okay. So the two of you had a very friendly relationship. It was friendly associates. Like I've never been to his home, he's never been to mine. But two of you had a very friendly relationship. It was a friendly associate. Like, I've never been to his home. He's never been to mine.

But, yeah, you try to talk to people. And were y'all corresponding? Were y'all talking? Were y'all emailing? Were you texting? DMing, DMing. And then it did get to a point where we did have phone numbers for one another. And we did converse from time to time.

But very rarely. And so he was going to do this book club. And he asked me. and I gladly accepted. And I said, of course, I'll head that up for you because I do read and I like to read. But that was supposed to happen like on a Sunday, and I want to say that Thursday before. Darius goes online quite a lot. He got online, and it was just horrible the way that he spoke to one of his followers. Now, what's really interesting about that is he'd gone online and the conversation was about him.

He had gone to some company and had his credit fixed. And he was talking about that. then started a company which the state of Georgia shut down and levied a $145,000 fee for illegal activity. But this woman kept asking for the name of this company and he refused to give it to her. And then finally he went off and it was just really, really nasty and just horrible. I reached out to him again because he'd given me the permission to and he called me Auntie Mel. And I said, you know, you shouldn't talk to your supporters like that.

You shouldn't talk to anyone like that. And, you know, I think I'm going to take a step back. And in truth, I started to see little things and I just wasn't feeling comfortable with, you know, pursuing. You know, you put your seeds in good ground. And I just didn't think that that was the situation that I needed to find myself in.

So I backed off, and he immediately went to the group. And at that time, Ronan, online, I was known by my business name, my moniker, Agate Adorned. He called me Auntie Mel because obviously he- Say it again. Agate. Agate Adorned. He called me Auntie Mel because obviously he... Say it again. Agate. Agate Adorned, got it. Got it.

He knew my name obviously because he'd mailed me a cookbook and we'd started to converse back and forth just very lightly. But when this happened and I spoke to him, he went onto the book club page and then gave my full name instead of what people normally knew me as, you know, Auntie Mel or Agatha Dorn. He made a statement that said, you know, well, Melanie Ford will no longer be heading up the book club.

And then someone made a comment that said, well, Darius is always in some SHIT. If he can't get along with Auntie Mel, he can't get along with anyone. Well, he didn't like that. And so he decided to up the ante. And then his story then changed to, well, the real reason why I am not dealing with Auntie Mel or Melanie's Ford is because I've been seeing,

I've been, he had been receiving death threats and hate mail and that he had traced my IP address and determined that I was the individual that was sending him these threats. Roland, that is a lie. I've never done anything like that. I wouldn't do anything like that. But as a result of him putting out that lie,

I was swatted. I had hate mail. I had hate emails. People found my profile. It was absolutely horrible. So much so, one of his followers found me by the information that he had put online and called my phone number because he gave my name, my full name, my address, and other pertinent information, found me, called me, read to me not only my address, but get this, the address of my parents, and told me they were going to find me and F me up as a result of what I had, what he had alleged that I had done to him.

Again, this is not true. This is not true. And, again, he has alleged that you were, this was a tweet that he sent out. Let me just double check here. This was on March 17th. And he says, Woo, Melanie's Ford stalking me in the bushes after putting a t-shirt on my car. Yep, call the police.

Yep, getting a restraining order. And unlike them, I'll let the judge handle Georgia Statute 16-5-9. Let's go. Now you see here further, folks, I'm going to pull up another tweet here where he says here, he says that he was granted, let me zoom in for the folks, he said that he was granted a temporary order of protection against you, this says this includes any mention of my name on social media without my consent.

If you observe, my DMs are open for screenshots. And he has the, he puts the stalk, the protective order, and then it says on here, has a judge's name, it was so ordered on March 23rd. You and your attorney say that was, y'all never received that. No, I was never served with that. But I became aware of it because he posted it all over social media. And because I do not hide, I showed up at court.

And so in looking at this here, again, he said that in terms of, and you look at, you put your name in, you will see a number of these tweets, folks who support him, people who make other allegations. But you would think that if he sent a tweet out on March 23rd saying that you were stalking him and he got a TRO and then said this is going gonna be handled in the courts, why would he not show up? Just so folks know, I had sent Darius a tweet.

So first of all, folks had sent me various tweets saying, hey, you should be covering this. And one of the things that I explained to people is that there are a number of people who have made allegations. Some say they were cheated out of products, out of money. And I actually sent tweets to him, and he said, well, if they have, they should sue me. And I said, you should come on the show to discuss this. I sent an invitation for him to come on.

He didn't respond. He follows me on social media. And so you see, I just tweeted this. Hey, Darius, I'm live on Roland Martin Unfiltered. And I said, she says, you didn't show up at yesterday's court appearance. Why? You filed a TRO. Why did you fail to appear?

Hopefully he actually responds during the show. This has been an ongoing battle, going back and forth, back and forth. You said it's caused you significant pain, the constant threats, people from him. You could have easily tried to say, you know what, let me just drop this and move on. Why did you say, no, I got to go even more public because of what's been happening? Well, unfortunately for me, I did do that.

I'm in a position that this is not me. I am not on social media like that. If you can find my page, which I've grown to great lengths to make sure that certain things aren't found, but if you find my page, which my Instagram is public, you will see nothing but positive affirmations.

The few tweets that are, the few things that are there are positive, flowers, so on and so forth. My Twitter, which I had to literally dust off because I had created it and not used it, has been one where I've told my truth about my experience with Darius. And to your question, why have I done this,

I had no choice. This man has put me all over three platforms calling me a stalker. Before that, if you Googled my name, you would see philanthropic acts, things that are positive, you know, the boards that I sit on, positive things. Now, the first thing you Google, it says that I am a stalker. He took one snippet of a video and then labeled me as a stalker and put it on there. So let's talk about why I was there. You mentioned Randy Travis in an investigative report.

He had no idea that Randy Travis knew I was there. I've never followed that man. He got online and presents these facts as if I have been following him all around Georgia and has told that lie. So again, when it came time for him to prove those facts, he chose not to come. Had I not come, he would have gotten a default judgment for the protective order.

The video that he posted saying that you were tracking him, what was that about? What happened? gotten a default judgment for the protective order. The video that he posted saying that you were tracking him, what was that about? What happened? It really was a really, really odd coincidence. So, I get a ping from the investigator. There are several people that are after Darius. I have an investigator that I work with that has been keeping

an eye on things as far as Darius is concerned because he has a long history of evading service or not being held accountable. And he also has a problem with doxing people. So I like to keep my name out of his mouth. I like to be aware of what he's doing. And there is a person that does that for me and my family. Because Darius has a habit of bringing this up every now and again, once a quarter, maybe a little bit longer. And he does this for engagement. He's very proud of the fact.

And there's video that sits out there where he says, ooh, I tell a good story. And that's part of the challenge. He does this for clicks and engagement. But to your question, I was literally right across the street at my car dealership. And I get a ping from the investigator that says, hey, Darius just went online, gave the address, and said that Randy and some other people are probably going to go and try and catch up with him. I said, you've got to be kidding me when he gave the address.

I literally was across the street, and I brought that with me. One of the things that Darius likes to do, because he thinks he knows everything, is he said, well, there is no, because he put my car online, including my license plate, he says, well there is no Bentley dealership across the street. Well, Roland, we have more than one car. So he thinks he knows everything. He tried to debunk it and so I was there waiting on him

while, not waiting on him, I should not say it that way, but I was there when he came out waiting on the investigators and Randy texted back and said, hey, I can't come. My photographer is here. And so I did stay. Randy, I have a tweet from Randy, said, hey, can you get some video for me? It probably was not the best move, because that's not what I do,

but hey, I was across the street, and I have to be really honest with you. When someone has tormented you for so long and has evaded service and has lied and so on and so forth, there was a part of me that wanted to see him finally, finally this man is going to

be exposed, finally the law is going to come and catch up with him. So yeah, I wanted to see it. I did. Unfortunately for me, even though there were other people there, Mr. Williams chose to only take a very small snippet of me, then take that video, put it online, and proceed to tell people that I had been following him for years, that I had moved back to Georgia to stalk him, all sorts of horrible things,

none of which are true. So I remain quiet. I've done the best that I could, but this has been horrible. I feel doxxed all over again. I have been, not only when he put me online, he body shamed me, which he has a habit of doing. And let me just say this, I'm not the only one. He has docked Sonny Anderson. He has docked his clients, his customers, anyone that speaks out against him, he will go online and he will give your name,

he will give your personal information, your email address. Again, to the story that Randy Travis in Atlanta highlighted, he did a whole segment on it. And Roland, there were so many people that came forward, he had to do another one. And there's still an opportunity for more segments to be aired because he continues to harm people this way.

There have been stories. Southern Grit did a story. for more segments to be aired because he continues to harm people this way. There have been stories. Southern Grit did a story, go to my computer, where they said Darius Cooks or hashtag Darius Crooks, popular food personality under fire amidst multiple allegations. That's a hashtag folks have been developing.

He also posted this tweet here April 14th. Review the list of the people effing with me and their status. The kitchenista gone. Danielle Holland gone. I think Danielle Holland is a woman who accused him of putting her children's photo, photos of her and her children on, if I'm correct.

You are correct. And he did do that. She's absolutely correct. It was photos that she had posted. But then he reposted those. But then he says, I've got a few more to blast and get rid of. This is the smoke everybody wanted. I'll give it to them.

They started it. I'll finish it. Hashtag Darius Crooks. Hashtag a forever problem. Mrs. Holland never put her children on Twitter. Once he found out, she was online anonymously. He found out who she was, went and sought out her page, and I believe it was, this is factual, he went to her Instagram, found pictures of her, her husband, her children,

and put them online. He has said things and done things. There's a video out there where he gleefully says, hey, I have their background checks, I have their social security numbers. One of the problems, and I'm glad we're talking about this, is he enlists and incites his fan base. He's not only the problem, there's also many willing participants that choose to believe

what this man has said, and they go after these people. Well, and this is scary to me. I have screenshots where there are people that have said, I work for the police. Tell me what you need. This is what they do all based off because he has this really charismatic persona for those that aren't paying attention. And so once people start to pay attention and they say,

wait, something's not right or they don't receive their product or speak out against him in any way. And these are things that he's done. These are not people that just decided to wake up one morning and say, hey, I want to just be after this guy. These are people that he's injured, he's harmed. He's fighting right now when he was supposed to be in court yesterday with another online personality, Andrew Caldwell.

That man has posted on his Instagram page where he now has received death threats, where they're calling him an F-word. This is what happens when he calls it he activates his fan base. And it's like sport for him. He loves it. When he did it to me, this is he wanted to monetize it. He was on

live on IG and he said, let's go to Facebook and make some money off this hoe. That's how he thinks. This is about clicks, engagement, and likes for him, and he's getting paid for it, and he loves it. I'm gonna bring in Shereen Mitchell. She's the founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women.

She is a digital specialist. My legal panel is still here as well, and I got some questions for them, too. But, Shereen, first of all, explain to people the idea of doxing. First of all, is doxing legal? Is it illegal? What is out there?

Can somebody just put your personal information, your address, your phone number, or whatever, on social media? Do you have any sort of recourse? So the challenge here is that the things that are public information, it's not doxing if you share it again because it's already public information. But if it is information that they have for you, like let's say he had credit card information

because someone purchased something from him and then he used that information to share, that's the part that's illegal. This situation to me explains that there are multiple facets here, but there are also people doing other things like giving him that information and then he's using it. Where those people are getting that information from is the question, and then that may be illegal in those instances. And Auntie Mel, I'm sorry, when you said you got swatted, I wanted to explain that too. When people get your public information, including your address, swatting means that they can call the police and say there's an active shooter and have the police show up at your doorstep with guns blazing and potentially get someone killed. So it's not even just the death threats themselves, but it's also the fact that they can actually use the police department to actually commit a different type of crime,

and that's what swatting is. The challenge with doxing is that sometimes people give out that information themselves, and so it's then easy just to grab it from your social media accounts, like where you put your address or where you put your phone number, maybe like on Facebook or something like that.

That is not doxing if you put that information out. But if they have done things to kind of use your information, like with credit cards, that's something that is illegal. And that the problem is, is that whether it's illegal or not in these, in these instances, it's unethical across the board. And that is, I'm sorry, that's the part that's important. And I will say in my case, and I can only speak for myself, I did not have that type of situation. I have always been a very private person on social media. So unless he broke into or hacked, which that wasn't the case, he said that he had my information, obviously, from when I purchased a cookbook. So putting my first and last name out there and my phone

number. And he.. You all are not.. Obviously because it's a spider web. There's so much online at the hashtag Darius Crooks where he has just put people's information out there simply to activate his fan base, if you want to call them that, to harm people.

There is no reason for him to put out anyone's Social Security number. He's had his previous baker, Palma Arthur, who came out and said things about the way he ran his baking company. He put her pay stub online and posted it. It had her social security number, what she made, and her address.

Why is that okay? It isn't. No, actually, that's not legal. That one's not legal. He did it. Like birth actually, that's not legal. That one's not legal. He did it. He did it. So, like, birth certificates, Social Security cards, those kinds of things, that's not legal. That's something that they would have access to. And if they did get access to it, that would be on the illegal side. He did it.

So, that's what I'm saying. Like, we have to be really careful about which parts are illegal or not. So, for example, people who own homes, in many instances, your home is listed in a public file because you own the home. And sometimes it's easy to connect. And that is where your address can come from. That's public information. or a tax return or a birth certificate or Social Security card, those are things that people have the right to actually have a case against the person because that's illegal. And you made a good point, and I am very well aware.

And that's been part of the challenge is because some of this isn't illegal somewhere in a lot of places. Some of this teeters on just unethical or cyber bullying. But I think, I hate to speak to people, but I think we could all agree that it's just not okay. If your viewer or your follower doesn't have access to my address, but for you giving it out, they weren't thinking about my address, but for you giving it out, and one't thinking about my address, but for you giving it out. And one says, hey, it's time for me to enlist you. This is what he does.

Again, he's done it to Sonny Anderson. He's done it to Angela Davis. He's done it to the Hollands. He's done it to numerous customers of his, and it's just bad behavior. And the other level of this, which makes this very, very disheartening, his fan base is largely, I would say 99% of the very people that he's attacking.

So he's having- Meaning black women. I'm about to say it. Other black women attacking Meaning black women. I'm about to say it. Other black women attacking other black women. And they ask no questions. I responded to someone on yesterday. And generally I don't.

But someone tweeted to me. She says, you are an old black bitch. And I found that very interesting. And I said, do I even know you? Like, what have I done to you? Why are you so angry at me? These are his followers. They feel like I have, by

telling my truth of what this man has done to me, that I'm doing something wrong. But I've made clear to them, especially the ones that come out and say that I'm in the law enforcement zone and so forth, they are being, every live that he is on, there are other people monitoring everything that he does and that he says. And so when they want to be big and bad and say things like, hey, I work for law enforcement, tell me what you need.

When they want to threaten you with harm and things like that. Okay. You might want to rethink your motives here. I just don't understand how, and I guess the ones of us who are logical don't, why there are people, and it's a bit of a naivete, but I guess it depends on the way your life is going. Would you wake up in the morning, seek out a stranger, and threaten them for no reason? It's pretty ridiculous. And he does it for sport. Bring our attorneys in right now.

Because I posed this question on social media, posed it to him and to others who were tweeting me, that people accusing him of fraud. Are they suing him? You know, has any charges filed against things along those lines? You talked about the $145,000 penalty that had to pay.

Let me start with you, Robert. You're there in you, Robert. You're there in Atlanta, Georgia. And again, there are a number of people who have been tweeting me, commenting and saying, oh, this person has to be stopped. But the reality is being rude to somebody on social media is not illegal. Cussing them out is not illegal.

And so, but as an attorney, I do want to get the thoughts of you, Scott and Monique. If someone says, I'm taking a TRO out against someone, and then this is going to be handled in the courts, and they don't show up to the actual court date, what are your thoughts on that? Well, a couple things. One, I actually interviewed Darius Cooks on my radio show probably about six years ago.

I've been five or six years ago before he blew up on social media along with him and Chef Lindsey Collette from Collette Caterings. And just as was just articulated, he actually went on Periscope Live during the radio show. It is his own show in the studio during the show that he was supposed to be on. So I'll post a clip on Twitter. It actually ended up being hilarious. But he's a narcissistic individual. And because of that, he's had many of these run-ins. I think there was a scandal a few years ago where he was doing fake credit repair for people and got sued. His restaurant got closed down, those sorts of things. I think there were two restaurants that got closed down. Yeah, two restaurants that got closed down.

Two in Atlanta, one in Chicago. So he maintains these online scams, preying on the hearts and minds of his followers. And even just as was just articulated, after our show, because we tend to ridicule people when they act up on our show. He actually went on Periscope Live to talk about me and our producer and some of the other guests after the show. So this has been going on for a long period of time. Now, legally, when somebody talks about you online, that's just talk. But once they get into this place of making threats, either violence, threatening to release personal information, well, that's where you can actually file a criminal report against this individual. And if they do release improper censored information,

personal information that is privileged, that absolutely, you can report that to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations or to the Federal Bureau of Investigations for them to look into it, particularly if you have multiple individuals who are involved in this. So I think people have to understand that this is not high school. We do not play the dozens on Snapchat or on Instagram Live. These are grown people, grown people issued. They cannot be playing around with their personal information. So I would suggest other individuals who have experienced this to contact some legal representation and then find out the process for filing criminal complaints if it continues. Monique, your thoughts, assessment?

And first of all, Melanies, y'all got a continuance? Yes. I'll see him on May 17th if he shows show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show.

I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm going to ask you to come back to the show. I'm out, you know, $50 for a cookbook. I'm out. He didn't give me this refund, so on and so forth. They choose to walk away. I was the same. Roland, my life is bigger than this Internet stuff.

I have real things that I'm doing with my life and trying to be a good force in this world. I have had the opportunity and been blessed after so long to come back home and I'm making new relationships and so on and so forth. And so now, where I sit on boards, my husband sits on boards, we're trying to do beautiful things. But now, when I meet people, generally when they're curious about you,

and you know what I'm trying to say, what's the first thing they do? Google you. They Google you. Now the first thing they're're curious about you, and you know what I'm trying to say, what's the first thing they do? Google you. They Google you. Now, the first thing they're going to find about me, again, instead of philanthropic acts and good things, the first hit now is, there she is, the stalker. And now I've got to try and explain that. I was laying in the cut, minding my own business, working with a reporter, partnering with a reporter to help expose this behavior. And unfortunately for me, he is very crafty. He took a snippet of a video, just me, didn't focus on anybody else, just me, and turned that and placed it online

and created a narrative that has been so devastating and so harmful that I have no choice. He outed me. I have had no choice, and I'm not the first, and I'm sure I won't be the last. And so when people came after you, I thought that was so unfair because they had no idea of what you were doing and what you were trying to do and what you were

prepared to do. Darius took your initial tweet because you reached out to him. And when he thought that you weren't going to do anything, see that's why you don't put all your cards on the table, he responded to you. And then he got online, trued his persona and said, ha, Roland Martin says, well, why haven't I been sued?

Again. Which was just a question. Which was just a question. But now that he feels as if, oh, you're going to ask the hard questions? I would be surprised if he responds to you, just like when Randy Travis asked him the hard questions, why are you doxing people, before the cameras went away, he immediately responded, you don't see me doing that. And that's typical him.

Again, so I don't want to monopolize the time, but what we have is a group of fan bases made up predominantly of women. The same people that he's taking advantage of are the same people that are supporting him. And so you have the ones that will speak up and ones that don't. What I find over and over and over again is that when men step to him, oh, that smoke is not there. He's not going to respond. He just won't. And so it is a cowardice. It is a mean-spiritedness. And while I recognize that it's not illegal, this is what he counts on. He counts on charging just under the amount that makes it a felony. He does things just to get by.

One of the things, when you speak to a wise and he'd been sued, he charges. So he just sold tickets for 2023. He purchased, he sells things a year in advance. So if he doesn't show for the show next year, the dining event, good luck with trying to get your refund back from your credit card company. Because typically, maybe unless it's an American Express or something like that, you have 90 days. And what he does is he takes your voice. He does not respond to, just like you said, he's not responding to you. He doesn't respond to the emails. And when he feels the heat, what he's done lately is get online and hold these online

customer service types of issues. Why should I or anyone else have to go and wait for you to go online and hope that you pick my question to ask you about a product that I didn't receive? Randy's piece came out, and my inbox has been flooded, so he's on a cleanup mission now, so he's issuing refunds. I had someone send me screenshots where he's done a refund from her, for her, that he owed her from three years ago. Three years ago.

Monique, the question for you, and again, I did have folks tweet me mad, upset. Why don't you look into this? And I had to walk people through that. First of all, when a series of people are making allegations, you have to literally investigate and vet each one of the claims and you, frankly, if you're one person, you can't do all of that. And even tried to hire someone to do the reporting

was unsuccessful in doing so. What made this different is the fact that there was a court hearing. And so by having a court hearing, and it's again, so the basis of, okay, and matter of fact, we could have so by having a court hearing, and it's, again, so the basis of, okay, and matter of fact, we could have done this story three weeks ago, and I said, what we're going to do is let's wait for the court hearing.

Let's see what happens at the court hearing. Now you have an official record. You don't have allegations, comment in IG, tweets. You actually have a court hearing. Well, in this case, he didn't show up. So we still went ahead with the story. But there are people out there who are saying, okay, these things happened to me. I got no recourse. Okay. From a legal standpoint, what can they do? What should they do? You heard what Robert said. Your thoughts. Right. I had less to say than Robert. I understand that and I'm very sorry for what your guest has been going through. I don't have another side or another set of facts to compare that to. or whether it's filing a false report, which if the report that caused the TRO was false,

then that is a criminal offense or something like that, then it can be handled in the courts. I actually, though, have a question for your guests, for Ms. Ford, because I just wondered why the case was continued yesterday. If he's the one who filed for the TRO, did he call with a reason that he didn't show up? Because I don't know why a judge would ever give someone another chance on a TRO that they're responsible for pressing and prosecuting if they missed the court date. They obviously don't take it seriously. Well, I have to be careful about how much I divulge, but I will say that at the very end, he did not show up. My attorney was able to show where he was online cooking instead. They did reach out to him and he had to appear via Zoom. And he said that he,

he initially told them that he wanted to drop the matter. And then the judge was quite upset that he was not there. He asked him why he was not there. And Mr. Williams then proceeded to blame the court for mixing things up. That did not sit well with the judge. So the judge did say, well, you know, well, are you going to show up? Is this something that you want to pursue? And he said, well, yeah, kind of.

And I said I'd like to pursue it because it is important to me to get this man on the stand because there are other items at play. And I have to be careful about what I say. Okay, I understand. But I didn't know before this question that they actually had reached him during the course of being in court and the hearing happening. So the continuance makes more sense in that light because that's not the same thing as a blanket no-show where you're the only one there. He's not reachable. And the judge just extends it. So if he asked for another date and was granted one, then to that extent, that makes sense. And I certainly can understand you wanting to get your record cleared. Was the basis of the TRO request just on him being videotaped or being surveilled by you and by the reporter you were working with? Correct. But I had my attorney had seen or I had heard from what he posted online,

the facts in which he used to even secure the TPO are not factual, and I will say that. But you are the person who's on the video. I am. I absolutely am the person who's on the video. I am. I absolutely am the person that is on the video. Absolutely. And so I think that that, you know, it is legal for, we see people all the time

who are taking videos of police when they're doing things because we are concerned whether they're doing it rightfully or wrongfully and they're public servants and that is lawful. But you can run into trouble doing things yourself, like surveilling another person, being on private property, being on public property, but using a scope lens.

All of those are things that I just would suggest. Private investigator, reporters doing their jobs, anything except for one of the actual parties, because that's how the system, he was able to use the system in order to put you in court. And he can't be accused of lying about it because the video is there. And you say that you all were intentionally trying to track him and get pictures and get information on him. So that part is difficult. If I could interject, I did not say we were intentionally. I said they were. I was across the street, which I have provided proof for.

It really was a coincidence. And I've proven that. And I will prove it again. I happened to be across the street, which I have provided proof for, it really was a coincidence. And I've proven that and I will prove it again. I happened to be across the street. Strange coincidence. And then when I was notified, so were others. And so I did make the decision, which I later regretted, to go. And I had a human moment. I had a human moment of wanting to see the person who has terrorized me in one way or another since 2016, you know, continuing to bring up my name and so on and so forth. And so, I wanted to see it.

But I didn't bring him there. And I didn't follow him there. And so, that's something that he's asserted and continued to assert. If my understanding, and you're an attorney, but my limited understanding of what's going on in the And I didn't follow him there. And so that's something that he's asserted and continued to assert. If my understanding, and you're an attorney, but my limited understanding of when you take out something like a TPO, you have to prove a continued pattern. I haven't seen that man since 2017.

I've not reached out to that man. So for him to go to the courts and lie and say that I have been stalking him, it just isn't true and it didn't happen. He's had my name in his mouth over the years for engagement and likes. And what is a problem for him, I'm not the only one. He does this to a lot of people. Again, Sonny Anderson, the Hollands, Palma Offer. There's a list of names that I could go down. This is his motive, and this is his moda operandi. This is how he operates.

And it's unfortunate because they're real lives. And to the other point, there aren't laws yet that says that he can't do this. If I wanted to leave this studio and go online and say while I was in the studio, Roland Martin hit me upside the head, I could do it. Now, Roland is going to have to then take me to court and prove that that didn't happen

and hopefully get lucky enough to take this offline. My attorney, my other attorney, Lisa Moore, is the same attorney who got Cardi B her injunction to get these things removed. They're working on that. Lisa Moore. The suit against Tasha K? Yes. Got it. Okay. Same attorney.

She doesn't take everyone, but she looked at the facts, and she's trying to assist with this matter. This is wrong. And there are real human beings on the other side of these lies and these tweets. I'm trying to live my best life, but to be in that situation where someone wants to take you

and splash you all over the internet. And that's one thing, you know, we're grown, you know, somebody wants to call you fat, you go, okay. But it's something entirely different when someone wants to paint you as a crazy, deranged stalker and take a snippet of a video, didn't show anybody else and then paint you as such. I'm out here trying to tell the truth. I will tell the truth and defend myself because I'm not the only one he's done this to. Most people cower.

Most people say, you know what, just whatever. Hopefully it'll die down. This isn't right. This is not right. Scott Bolden. Yeah, a lot to unpack here legally, but I'll try to be as brief as possible. So the ex parte hearing, everyone can go by themselves, according to most jurisdictions, and take out a TRO or TPO, and they'll be granted it for its face. Now, this

hearing that your guest was at, where there was a no-show, at least initially, usually the case is dismissed by the court because the plaintiff didn't show up in court, as Monique said. But here they got him on the line. I'll be honest with you. judge was unhappy with his uh him not being there like most judges will be then and the defendant your guest did not uh want to dismiss it because she wants her day in court she can either file her own tpo for tpo she's got enough they probably her and her lawyer probably considered that or she could file a civil lawsuit for injunctive relief as well as monetary relief if she's really suffered the damages that she has described so eloquently here. And I'm sure her and her lawyer are contemplating that. That's the expensive side.

The less expensive side, and you can do all of this together, is with law enforcement or the government, if you will, just not the Federal Cybersecurity Act, whereby these are federal offenses. If you get enough facts that you can share with the FBI and you can get them interested. But the local police have their cybersecurity folks. It's hard to get local police interested because this takes resources and a detective to really investigate. But there's another state government agency in Georgia that I'm familiar with. It's the Attorney General's Office that has a Consumer Protection Act that they enforce, right? So if you get the Attorney General for Georgia or the State Trade Commission

or the equivalent of the Federal Trade Commission or even the Federal Trade Commission, you write a letter to them, register your complaint. Those federal agencies and state agencies are required to investigate your complaint, and they will. It's less expensive than filing a lawsuit. But you can do these on parallel tracks so that then you have like a dragnet of civil and government interests and eyes on these bad acts and bad actors, right? And at some point in time, his world gets really, really small, right? Because there'll be a lot of enforcement, regulatory enforcement eyes on it, and there'll be a civil lawsuit. And so it seems like you've looked at all of those options, I presume, because you've got great counsel. I know at least one of

your lawyers. And so good luck with it. But being able to stop these bad acts is a noble effort, but it can be expensive and the wheels of justice for your relief can move slowly. But if you're committed to it and targeted, you can get it done along with other people, including possible class action, right? Possible class action for those who have been done, who have been the victims of this bad actor. So lots of options for you. Some expensive, some not. But if you do all of them parallel,

his world gets a lot smaller. I want to, Shireen, if you could, again, there are people out there, people who say these things have happened to him. You know, what is your advice for people when it comes to having their information put out on social media? We hear about these cleaning processes, things along those lines. Just share your thoughts on that. Yeah, there are a couple of services out there. It's a cost, right, for Delete Me and others that are out there. But i did i do want

to before we move on i just wanted to say really quickly for her uh to understand that the targeting of women especially black women which is what our organization focuses on is is is on purpose because that's the group that's least protected and as what was said earlier, to protect themselves is very expensive. I do appreciate the class action aspect of this, because I think there's an opportunity that those women can come together and support each other and do this in that way for those that have the resources. I want to name that because I think there are multiple opportunities where that could have happened before with others, that they would not be using this as a tactic, that he's not the only one that's done this. There are plenty of other social media influencers that do this kind of thing, especially when they're trying to discredit the people who are basically calling them out. So I just want to name that.

And then I also want to name the fact that he gets away with it because his base includes other women. So he can say, well, I have women who love me. These are just women that don't like me. And that makes it really easy. So when she made the comment, your guest, Auntie Mel, I'm going to call you that, Auntie Mel. That's right. When she made the comment that he does not respond the same way to men. He never does. That's a tell. That's a really important tell about a pattern of behavior that can also be documented and used. So I wanted to name that in this particular case, because I think that there

are some other options here, especially if anyone else is watching this and they are also victims, that they can basically even kind of keep themselves anonymous. Because sometimes people want to be anonymous, but still be able to support these cases and maybe come up with a class action suit where your name doesn't necessarily get added um in in public um so i like i need that to be said and like to not move past that because there are things people can do is what he's doing right nope is what he's doing ethical absolutely but there's lines there where he's coming up across actual legal actions that others can take. So I needed to name that.

The other piece is that when it comes to these types of services to clean yourself off of the internet, she said something really important that is also key. It's SEO, right? You're going to have to clean up the SEO of the bad content about you in order

to get the good content to come back up. And that takes work. That takes energy. That takes sometimes PR firms. And not everyone has the money to do that. But that is one example. Delete Me is another that can help with those types of things. Because once you're already doxxed, it's now working backwards to kind of clean it all up. And that takes work and time and energy that some people are not willing to process. But to prevent it, right, to do your best to keep that information out there from being out there, it's like make sure you're cleaning up any third-party data broker websites like Spokio and others. They're out there. What they do is they just collect information. You get to remove yourselves from those databases. Much of the ones that I can tell

by the way that people say, well, I found your information this way or that way, they probably went to those data brokers. Some people pay for those services so they can be able to get that extra information that can connect you to your parents or whoever else is a family member based on last names or presumed family members, because last names don't mean you're actually a family member. But if you can go through, because it's free to do this, you can go to those data broker services and tell them to remove you from their database.

That's one of the easiest things to keep yourselves from being doxxed. The others include what you choose to do, what you put out about social media. If you put it out publicly, there's nothing anyone can do. So just make sure that like at the end of the day, like make sure that you're not giving anyone access to harm you. That includes taking, you know, be careful about the pictures you take about. I heard about the other lady. I think Holland was her name. You know, it's a really complicated space to be in. You're just putting pictures up about you and your family and social media. And ultimately for them, like that gives them another opportunity. So the fact that he actually said out loud, here's their children's information,

that's also a pattern of behavior. And I think there's another angle there that other women, if they're, if they're being, if their children are being threatened, can use in the case. But even what you have to do, because we've gotten so used to putting so much of our personal information out there, as an individual, you need to really start honing in, putting out too much information that easily could just be searched by your name or go to any of your profiles. And then if you ever, I don't't know some people do this they get web domains and they host they or they or they grab domains and in there they just like add because this is public information as well um they just add their address because they just want to you know have their name with their name on it i tell people all the time put a po box put a business

address don't put your personal information because you're, again, in that moment giving that away. And I think sometimes people don't realize you're just grabbing a domain. You may think about it later. You may use it at some point. You may never use it at all. Or you have an existing website. But if that has an actual real address where you live, that's another way that people can get it and they don't have to go through any other services. That is also public information. And then the last thing, as always, we have a resource list. So if you ever want to see a resource of things that you can use, go to our website, which is stoponlinevoward.com slash resources,

that you can actually go look through other ways that you can help yourself sort of protect yourself from the things that will get you doxxed melanie's final comment and you know robert go ahead i'm sorry robert go ahead well i i just real quick i wanted to respond to some of the people commenting on uh online to this uh do not get goons i've seen that comment over and over again handle this the the legal way through the court system through law enforcement i I would not recommend finding You're saying no street justice. Yeah, do not get gooned by all means. But I would, however, recommend that you do Georgia's Now Open Carry state permit list. So I would recommend just because when you have this crazy people on the internet who now have your personal information, know what you look like,

who you never know what deranged person there is out there. So join the Bass Reefs Gun Club, NAGA. They have classes every Saturday and Sunday for women. Go right down to Stoddard Gun Range. Kim Kimbrough will treat you nicely if you need to get trained. That part I do recommend you do because I think everybody needs to make sure they can defend themselves. Y'all knew Robert. Y'all knew Robert. That's your advice.

You knew Robert was going to work. He wanted to go get a 10-millimeter. You knew Robert was going's your advice. You knew Robert was going to work. He wanted to go get a 10-millimeter. You knew Robert was going to work guns in. You knew he was going to do that. Why didn't y'all tell him to spot him on site? Why didn't y'all turn around and walk away? Scott, it ain't no difference than you showing your ass as a Kappa. Same thing.

Something's going to happen every Wednesday. Melanie's final comment. I just want to thank everybody for the information and for the resources. I think that this is a long-standing problem with this gentleman, and it's multilayered. It is his behavior on top of trolling behavior, on top of how do people feel about themselves that would allow them to want to participate in this type of behavior. And so I'm going to continue to do the good work. And I appreciate you having me here. Alright.

I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. And again, Darius, Coach Williams, you're more than welcome to come on this show to explain yourself, to answer these allegations. We'd love to ask you about not showing up in court yesterday. And especially look forward to May 17th when that next hearing is taking place. And so, Shireen, we thank you as well for joining us. And especially look forward to May 17th when that next hearing

is taking place. And so, Shireen, we thank you as well for joining us. Folks, got to go to break. When we come back, our Black and Missing will also talk about breaking news. Donald Trump, he gots to pay Omarosa. I'm going to tell you about that. And this video, Syracuse police,

how they treated a black boy accused of stealing a dollar bag of chips. Folks are pissed off. We're going to discuss that. You're watching Rolling Mark Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Don't forget to download our Black Star Network app. Our goal is to get 50,000 downloads by May 1st. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TV, Xbox One.

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That is the Collins. So, folks, thanks a bunch. I'll be back in a moment. I'm Dr. Jackie, and on a next A Balanced Life, it takes a village to raise a child, and truer words have never been spoken. If you're raising a child, you know that it's a blessed challenge like no other. Even more so if your child has a disability. We'll talk to parents and our expert panelists about the best way forward for your child to help you maintain your own sanity.

On a next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie on Black Star Network. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me,

Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. When did you know that this is what I wanted? I think right after high school, because in high school I was in all the plays, but I was always funny. But I didn't know nobody would pay me for it, you know? And then I saw Eddie Murphy. This was like 84 when I saw Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Murphy was the hottest thing in the whole wide world. Not just comedy, but anywhere. He saved Saturday Night Live. If he hadn't started that, that show would be gone. He had done 48 hours, trading places, his first Beverly Hills top, could wear the hell out of a red leather suit, and he wasn't but 23 years old.

He was rich enough to pee cream, and he got all that telling jokes. I said, shit, I've been funny my whole life. I didn't know people gave you money like that. So I went and got some Red Fox albums. I went down to my mama's basement, where I was living anyway. And I stood in that mirror and played them albums

and them jokes until I could tell them like they were mad. Wow. And that started me doing jokes. And then I went and did comedy in the street. I was standing on State Street, tell jokes will pass my hat, and white folks would come up and just hand me money. And I liked it. Pull up a chair. Take your seat.

The Black Tape, with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. I'm Angie Stone. Hi, I'm Teresa Griffin. Oh, Roland.

Hey, Roland. I am so disappointed that you are not here, first of all. Where's our dance? It's like we get a dance in every time I see you. And so now you're not here for me to dance with, sir. You and your ascot. I need it. I need that in my life right now.

Okay. I love you, Roland. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Trevion Gray's family has been looking for him since July 20, 2021. The 16-year-old disappeared from Bethel Springs, Tennessee. Trevion is 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighs 135 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Trevion Gray should call the McNary County, Tennessee Sheriff's Office at 731-645-5700.

731-645-5700. All right, folks. Yesterday in our Where's Our Money segment, I was telling you about Wells Fargo. The city of New York is refusing to open bank accounts with Wells Fargo because of their discriminatory past. One of the things that we talked about here, when it comes to housing, it is the issue of how we have been screwed in terms of lack of refinancing, lack of investments. But the story out of Detroit is absolutely crazy. The story breaks out how the city of Detroit, the city of Detroit literally, literally, legally was overcharging people to the tune

of $600 million from 2011 to 2016. Nearly 100,000 homeowners in Detroit, mostly black folks, lost their homes as a result. They ain't got their money back. Yo, do y'all understand how crazy this is? The home foreclosure crisis in America led to black people losing 53% of all black wealth. I remember in 2007 and early in 2008 reading a Wall Street Journal article talking about the home foreclosures that were happening in Detroit. Many of these people were educators, or they worked for the city, or they worked for the county. They were government workers. Many of them teachers as well, folks making $70,000, $80,000, $100,000,

where all of a sudden these balloon payments, these large payments, they begin to lose their homes. And the article, I'll never forget, it showed in all of these different areas how this was happening and how they were losing the home here and here and here, the tax assessments, all of those different things. Now, the homes in Detroit were assessed at 85% of market value. The Michigan Constitution says they can't be over 50%. The Coalition for Property Tax Justice, they work with those impacted by the city's overtaxing. Sonia Bennett is a member of the Coalition for Property Tax Justice and community legal advocate at the Detroit Justice Center. And Kim Hunter from Engage Michigan joins me from Detroit.

Glad to have both of y'all here. I still got my legal panel as well. Sonia, I want to start with you. I mean, this is, I was critical yesterday of Wells Fargo because here are black people not getting their homes refinanced after, during COVID at a 47% rate. Whites were at 72%. And so whites are saving hundreds of millions of dollars. Okay?

Black people were losing their homes and these banks, oh, sorry about that. But the black folks now are renting. They don't own their homes. Now the families have lost out on that generational wealth as well. What is the city of Detroit saying? How are they going to make amends to these nearly 100,000 black people who lost their homes because they were taxed illegally? Well, they're doing what white folks do when it comes to talking to us about giving us our money

back. They're ignoring us. Or the conversation that they're trying to have with us right now is that they have a legal opinion that says they can't give us monetary reparations, to put it in a word. They can't give us money back. They really don't want to give us property back or even tax credits on our tax bills. I lost my home due to illegal over-assessment. I want my money back, just like all the rest of these Detroiters. The crazy part about what they're doing here is they're attacking the lowest income valued homeowners. So they're attacking the people they know already are struggling with the bills and they pump up this tax bill. And then when you can't pay it, it's a personal thing. Right. Like I failed. But then when you find out that the city is charging you taxes

that you didn't owe, and in cases like, man, you lost your home when you didn't have to, man, it sets a fire off in you. But right now, as of right now, they don't want to give us our money back. I'm dumbfounded here. What the heck was going on. Kim, maybe you can explain to me, okay, first of all, how does this go on for five years and nobody says anything? Well, it was discovered, first of all, the coalition knew that folks were being over-assessed, but there was a newspaper in town, the Detroit News, that came forward with a story with some real hard numbers on their over-assessment. That's where we got the $600 million figure from over a period of, you know, a few years. And thanks for having us on here.

I'm going to say that, you say that we're not going to let this just go. The coalition is not going to say, OK, your lawyer said you couldn't pay it back, you didn't have to pay it back. We're not going to let that go. We have a relatively new city council that is really behind us that's not going to let it go. We will find ways to stabilize the city. I just want to say there's a moral and there's a practical, there are moral and practical reasons that we have to do this. Detroit used to be the epicenter of Black home ownership in this nation. And now we are majority renters. And we cannot let that go. We cannot let, continue to let the intersection between racism and poverty destroy black home

ownership and black home wealth in the city of Detroit. We're not going to let it go. We are going to try to get people some compensation, houses or money, because we have to stabilize our city. We're a city of mostly single homes. We're not like, you know, Chicago or New York where people rent. We're single family homes. And we have to have those homes stabilized. We have to have those homeowners stabilized, those families stabilized. And one of the ways we need to have that done is to get this six hundred million dollars back to where it belongs. Robert, Scott, Monique, the thing that is just mind-boggling for me here, we talk about how we were treated by the banks. But here you have the city.

Sonia and Kim, these people no longer own these homes, right? Yes, sir. It's 100,000 homes. In some cases, they're still in the houses. But the point is, is that even the ones that are in the houses are barely holding on. People need to be secure in their homes. You know, and we can't have that when you got $600 million that's been taken from them. And it still happens.

Sonia, go ahead. It's still happening. I work, I'm a community legal advocate at the Detroit Justice Center, and every year, along with a student-ran program that the Coalition for Property Tax Justice does, we do the appeals every year. So Detroit has an appeal process where if you tell the city, hey, I don't agree with this tax assessment, and you put that

in writing, they take a look at it, they take a look at what the assessment is, what your property looks like, and they lower it or they don't. And then it goes to what's called the March Board of Review, where a group of Detroiters decide whether they should lower your assessment or not. So every year we do these appeals for the residents to get their property tax assessments lowered because it's still happening to this day. Scott, go ahead. Yeah. One of the challenges is once you go through that process um that's the process it's not like you get another bite at the apple right but here the the assessment of 85 percent over is a direct violation of the state constitution it says you can't do more than 50 percent. And as a result,

I would argue, right, on behalf of those residents who basically were, $600 million was stolen from them between 2010 and 2016. Remember, Detroit filed for bankruptcy, Chapter 9, in 2013. As a result, you've got to believe that the city was financially struggling, and someone in the government came up with this plan that no one would ever figure out through the assessment process. Now, when I was a baby lawyer, I did real estate tax appeal assessments in D.C. It's pretty similar in every jurisdiction, right? So you don't, after you go through that timing process, you usually don't have another bite at the apple. But if these residents were to file a suit, say that their constitutional rights were violated, that their federal constitutional rights were violated based on an unlawful taking,

then as a result, the court, federal court, or state, but federal, would have to figure out if the city is liable, then how do you make them hold? They could find that the city owes these folks their money and direct a judgment against the city and to pay these class action residents. Now, you may or may not want to do that, but that creates leverage for Detroit, Detroit, I'm sorry, Michigan state officials and Detroit officials to figure out how to make this right. Because otherwise, you can't just walk away from $600 million that you just stole from people and say, well, too late and we can't do tax assessments. Well, the council can authorize

in the budget a payment, yes, right? But what's going to make them do it, not on their time, and they can be as committed as they want, is going to be a lawsuit where it's almost hands down that they did this. And if you violated their rights, a federal judge or a state judge is going to have to find in their favor. It just doesn't seem like there's much argument about that. Now, I don't practice in Michigan, but those are two opportunities that you've got to be looking at if you want to recover this $600 million. But you can't just take $600 million from your residents

and say, too bad, too sad, and we'll catch up, and we'll do it right next time. You just can't do that. So I hope the lawyers involved are looking at these opportunities, legal opportunities. Monique? I agree with Scott, but I also am concerned that, well, no, first I had a joke because Scott said when he was a baby lawyer, and I wondered if that was like about the time of the second reconstruction. But my concern- Oh, you're coming at me? You're coming at me? I ain't even shooting.

Okay, okay, it's over. Let's go. I mean, it's just, let's shake it up for a little while. Goodness gracious. But we've seen just over and over different iterations of our community being prey, not just to lenders,

but at the hands of the federal government. And to me, this is just a continuation of the same. Robert? I also would say that there should be a political solution to this. 100,000 people in any city is a political force. 100,000 homeowners in a city with a population as high as Detroit, that can decide any election possible. So I would highly recommend trying to organize the people, getting in contact with many homeowners who are homeowners who are still there, put together a coalition among them,

and then present your grievances to the city and make sure that they understand that, look, in this next election cycle, this 100,000 homeowners can put any of y'all out of office immediately. Do not pass, go to not collect $200. That is immediately get your ass out of office if you do not feel like making these homeowners whole. So I think that might be part of what the solution has to be, organizing these people into a political force that can facilitate change. Kim, first, then Sonia, final comment. Yeah, so we had 700 people at an event on Zoom, and the reaction was just what you can imagine. Most of them said, we want somebody to cut a check. We want some sort of compensation. So we are working to organize folks and put them together. But like I

said, we're not going to let this stand. We're not going to let this continue as it's been and not let it be business as usual. We are organizing folks to try to make their voices heard with the city government. And we also have, like I said, a new city council, and they're helping us make some things happen. Sonia. So first of all, when it comes to the class action lawsuit, the first thing we have to do is challenge the legal opinion, right, which is the city saying legally, and they're quoting something about credit lending when they say this, legally

they can't give us cash back. So first thing that the lawyers involved have to do is figure out a way to challenge that legal opinion. Secondly, we've been organizing and yelling into the wind for almost six years now. We've been on local radio, we've been in the papers, and they ignore us. And when it comes to the city of Detroit and getting its residents to realize what's happening is happening systematically, and that it's not that you're so poor or that your neighborhood is so tore up that this is happening because of you, it's like pulling teeth. But we are trying. We are organizing. We are fighting. It's just a real uphill battle

because it's been hell trying to get people, even like yourselves, to listen to us about what's happening in one of the last chocolate cities. All right. Yeah, Roland, if I can respond just real quick. The lawsuit in federal court would be for a violation of your constitutional rights. It would not be in the tax setting, if you will. I understand that opinion. But it would be for a violation of your constitutional rights. It would not be in the tax setting, if you will. I understand that opinion. But it would be for violating your rights. And if you got a federal court order or judgment, the city would have to figure out what to do.

Their defense could not be, we can't pay them back because your constitutional rights, federal and state, have been violated. Put the pressure back on the bad actors to do something about it. And to be honest with you, plaintiff's counsel would take this case, class action or individual, on a contingency fee basis. It wouldn't cost those residents who lost $600 million a nickel because your rights have been violated, and it would be hard for a federal court or a state court to argue otherwise.

All right, then. Look, we certainly appreciate it. Y'all keep up the good work. have been violated, and it'll be hard for a federal court or a state court to argue otherwise. All right, then. Look, we certainly appreciate it. Y'all keep up the good work. Keep fighting the good fight. Keep us abreast of what happens next. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Thank you so very much. Folks, going to a quick break. We come back. Breaking news. Don Trump, he got the pay Omarosa. I'm sure our lawyers don't mind when I tell y'all what happened with the arbitrators ruling today. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network.

I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. And on the next Get Wealthy, you'll meet Jandy Turner, who took her love of sports, expanded her network, and created a thriving business. I settled on developing a golf event planning business, which in and of itself has been very viable for me.

One of the things that I've learned from producing hundreds, if not thousands, of golf tournaments is that business gets done on the golf course. All on the Next Get Wealthy only on Blackstar Network. Hey everybody, it's your girl Linnell.

So what's up? This is your boy, Earthquake. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Alright folks, we came on the air. Breaking news came out that the Donald Trump campaign, they got to pay Omarosa Manigault $1.3 million as a result of them suing her

regarding their nondisclosure agreement. An arbitrator ruled that Trump has to pay her legal fees after he sued her for writing her tell-all book. Monique Amoroso, good friend of yours, she of course feeling real good today. And the Trump folk, he just keep taking L's. Yes, I'm texting her. She actually, she's a first-year law student now, and she's in class, and they have to keep the camera on. She wanted to come and talk for herself.

Don't worry about it. We'll get on tomorrow, Friday. Right. I know she'll make her way in, but she did send me some things showing that somebody from the Trump camp told Politico that they're going to challenge the award in court. They're such bozos. They agreed to binding arbitration. There is no, it's not going to be challenged. This is the end of the road. I wish this was a windfall for my friend, but I'm at least glad that her attorneys who did a good job for her will get their money.

You know, Robert, Donald Trump and his stupid life, they love suing people. He hates having to pay. But all his podcast he's just taking these L's. Took a L with the election. He just keeps taking L after L after L.

Roland, I'm glad that she was able to win. Y'all know damn well Donald Trump ain't paying none of this money. He ain't paying nobody. He's gotten away for the last 40 years. Like, if a brother had this record of not paying bills, let's be real here. So congratulations on winning, but Trump ain't paying none of that money. Well, Roland, both my colleagues may be right, but let me tell you what happens with binding arbitration. They can appeal it to the state court, but it's a very high bar.

The level of review or the scrutiny or the standard of review at the state court level will be either abuse of discretion by the arbitrators or clearly erroneous of law, whatever state it is. And traditionally, state courts frown upon upending or granting any relief from binding arbitration. Now, they can tie it up in court, and then they can appeal that ruling to the Court of Appeals. So I'm not saying that she won't get this money.

I'm saying it's going to be a minute, it could be a minute before they stroke her a check or they'll negotiate paying her some lump sum, far less, in order to avoid continuing to litigate. But if I were the Trump lawyers, I'd be concerned about litigating because she's spending more legal fees. And then there's a provision that they could, in most states, whereby... Ah, there's Scott and that cricket Wi-Fi. Okay, hold up, Scott, you froze. What? You said there's a provision, then you froze.

So what did you say? There's a provision, if I'm not freezing, there's a provision that says they could continue to get attorney's fees in some states if they lose on this appeal because the arbitration award, the level of review and the level to turn that over is so high. So we'll have to watch that.

And by the way, I gave you $1,000 and you've never given me a shout-out. I'd appreciate a shout-out. But I digress. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm sorry. When did you give that? Recently?

Yeah, in the last week or so. I got my receipt and everything. I got receipts on you. How did you? I'm sorry. Did you give it via Square? Did you via Cash App, Square, Venmo, or Zelle? No.

Your people sent me an email and said I was supposed to give $1,000 a year in perpetuity. Okay. So you responded to the email? I did. I clipped it. I went on and paid $1,000. And I ain't even got a T-shirt yet. Hold up.

Hold up. I'm checking. Or a jacket. I'm checking. I'm doing a search right now to see. I have T-shirts and a T-shirt and a shirt and hat. You do what you got to do. I'm doing a search right now because, you know, Scott, you know I'm going to lie.

You like Trump. So, you know, you know I'm going to lie. Nobody lie. That money came out of my account. I'm checking. I'm checking. Let's see here. Let's see here.

All right. I got it. In fact, I text you when I got it. I thought it was offensive. No, you texted me complaining about it. Yeah, I did, but I did it grand, so you should have the text. Let's just be clear. Let's just be clear.

You texted me complaining about you getting the actual statement. So let's just be real clear what you were talking about. You were complaining about it. It was like an expectation. They sent me an email that said, we ain't got your damn money yet. Where's our $1,000? That's exactly what it sounded like.

You damn Skippy. I said, you know. You damn Skippy. And we appreciate. Let me go to the other TV over here. Let me go to the other TV over here. Let me go to the other TV over here. So, yeah, we appreciate Scott Bolden. Invoice number 00015198-R-0003.

And, yes, Mon. And yes, Monique, yes, we were gangster. We were very gangster where it says repeats yearly. Repeats yearly? In perpetuity, Monique. Can you believe they sent some shit out like that?

Let me go ahead. Let me just go ahead and blow that? Let me go ahead. I know that's the way that's going. Let me just go ahead and blow that up, y'all. Roland, you've got to fix that, man. No, I ain't fixing a damn thing. There is no contract in perpetuity. Hey. Say what?

Say it again, Monique. I said I appreciate it because otherwise I will forget when it's my annual time. You still got a yes or a no, Scott. Stop acting like anybody can intimidate you. Repeats indefinitely. My family got to pay when I die. He going to send a note to my family. Hey, I told you.

My Aunt Betty. My mama's oldest. No, I told you, Scott. My, my mama's oldest sister. No, I told you, Scott. My Aunt Betty, my Aunt Betty Kirkendall, my mama's oldest sister, told her daughter Sharonda. She said, after I die, you are to give my annual contribution to Roland Martin Unfiltered. And my cousin Sharonda sent me a text saying, Mama, I had to promise Mama that I will give every year in her

honor. Mama made me promise before she died. So Scott... I ain't got no Sharondas in my family. So Scott, to Erica and the whole family, if Scott becomes an ancestor, repeat indefinitely.

So Scott, you can be in heaven with my Aunt Betty saying we still supporting Brother Barton on television. Oh, God. Yeah, that's it. So that's right. You don't talk about them the way you talk about me. Hell, at least talk nice about me. Say one thing nice about me, Roland.

One thing nice about me or the Capas. Just one. I just gave you $1,000. God damn. Say something nice. You want one? Just one thing nice. You want one nice thing?

Just one nice thing. One nice thing. Scott, you're looking well today. Scott, you know, the Capas are really a strong organization. We're glad to have them in competition. It's something, one thing. That's all lies. Oh, I got it.

The best thing about Capas, your middle name is Alpha. Can't do it. Scott, you ain't got to take this, Scott. I gave you a compliment. I said the best thing about Kappa's, your middle name is Alpha. He cannot do it, ladies and gentlemen. He cannot.

I did. What is it about A. Scott Bolden that bugs him so much? Okay, all right, all right, Scott, Scott, I will give you, I'll give you a compliment. Okay, what is it? I can't wait. Here we go. Praise the Lord that your wife believes in charity.

Praise the Lord that Erica is such a Proverbs 31 woman. No, I'm giving. See, you want a compliment. You want a compliment. Just'm giving, see, you want a comment. You want a comment. Just say right. I'm giving you a comment. Praise the Lord, Scott, that you had enough sense for at least an hour of the ceremony

to go through and marry a Proverbs 31 woman who has to, who more than likely, no, no, no, no, who more than likely to go through and marry a Proverbs 31 woman who has to, who more than likely, no, no, no, no, who more than likely has to continually lay hands on you, to pray over you, to keep that ego in check, to make sure, hey, you asked me to say something nice. I am offering praises to absolutely your better superior half. You're going to do right by me one day, Roland.

You hear me? You're going to do right by me. I'm just saying. That's all you get. Go into a break. Go into a break. Look, hey, I gave you two. I guess.

Okay. See, that's the best. One was $500. The other one was $500. I gave you two. All right, y'all. When we come back, we're going to talk to a brother who created an app to make it easy for folks to stay in contact with their loved ones who are in jail. You're watching Rolling Mark and Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not.

From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and on the next Get Wealthy, you'll meet Jandy Turner, who took her love of sports, expanded her network, and created a thriving business. I settled on developing a golf event planning business, which in and of itself has been very viable for me. One of the things that I've learned from producing hundreds, if not thousands, of golf tournaments is that business gets done on the golf course. All on the Next Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. When did you know that this is what I wanted?

I think right after high school, because in high school I was in all the plays. Well, I was always funny, but I didn't know nobody would pay me for it, you know? And then I saw Eddie Murphy. This was like 84 when I saw Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy was the hottest thing in the whole wide world. Not just comedy, but anywhere.

He saved Saturday Night Live. If he hadn't started that, that show would be gone. He had done 48 hours, trading places, his first Beverly Hills cop, could wear the hell out of a red leather suit, and he wasn't but 23 years old. He was rich enough to pee cream, and he got all that telling jokes.

I said, shit, I've been funny my whole life. I didn't know people give you money like that, so I went and got some Red Fox albums. I went down to my mama's basement, where I was living anyway, and I stood in that mirror and played them albums and them jokes until I could tell them like they was mad. Wow.

And that started me doing jokes, and then I went and did comedy in the street. I was standing on State Street, telling jokes that passed my hat, and white folks would come went and did comedy in the street. I was standing on State Street, tell jokes and pass my hat. And white folks would come up and just hand me money. And I liked it. Hey, yo, Peace World. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon.

Hey, I'm Qubit. Omega the Qubit Shuffle and the Wham Dance. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devine. Hey, I'm Qubit, the maker of the Qubit Shuffle and the Wham Dance. What's going on? This is Tobias Trevelyan. And if you ready, you are listening to and you are watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. All right, folks. A former inmate-turned-CEO has launched an app that sends postcards to prison inmates. FlickShop allows anyone to send a personalized postcard photo or message to any incarcerated person in the United States. Although the goal is to reach inmates, anyone can use Flick Shop to send a postcard to anyone they desire. Marcus Bullock is the founder of Flick Shop. He joins

us now from D.C. Marcus, how you doing? What's up, man? I'm super pumped to be here. All right, so where did this idea originate? You know, I mean, I'm super passionate about wanting to connect families with their incarcerated loved ones. It started with me wanting to connect with my friends who were in prison. I went to prison when I was a 15-year-old kid for carjacking somebody in a shopping mall parking lot out in Fairfax. I got sentenced to eight years in adult maximum security prisons as a result of that stupid decision that I made as a 15-year-old sophomore in high school. I spent the rest of my teenage years and my early 20s growing up inside of the state of Virginia, some of the state of Virginia's worst prisons. And my mom, she started to see me begin to get into, like, this depressed state around, like, year 16, 17 years old.

And she started to write me letters and send me pictures while I was in prison. It saved my life. And I wanted to be able to give that back to some of the other folks that were still in prison that I left behind. But then you went to the technology side. And so how did that come about? I mean, if I'm being honest, it didn't start off with me just launching a tech company. I mean, now we're one of the most talked about social impact apps out of the app store. But when we first started, like when I first came home from prison, I was looking for a regular job, just trying to get a job anywhere, working anywhere, doing anything. And I had to check that box that said, have you been convicted of a felony on every job application that I filled out? It wasn't until one application had the question, have you been convicted of a felony, comma, within the last seven years? I had already served an eight-year prison sentence, so I was able to honestly tell

those folks, nah, I haven't been convicted of a felony within the last seven years, and it gave me a job working at a paint store. When I was working at that paint store, I saw an opportunity to be able to connect the people in D.C. who needed to have their kitchens and living rooms painted with some of the painters who were complaining about this real estate bubble that was causing the construction industry to change during the mid-2000s. I started a small painting business there. That painting business began to grow and expand. And then I was able to quit working at that paint store, run that painting business, that grew into a construction company full-time. And over time, I was able to pull revenue out of that construction business to launch my now tech company that I

dreamt about doing for so many years. Wow. How many postcards have come through your company? So to date, we've sent almost over 700,000, almost 800,000 postcards, over a million and almost a million and a half photos that end up going into some of these prisons. And we ship postcards into, you know, every fifth, all 50 states. So it's not just, you know, a local county jail or a state prison, but also federal prisons and ICE detention centers, juvenile facilities. It's something I'm really, really proud of.

All right. Questions from our panel. I'll start with you, Robert. This is a question. We've noticed a lot of people really like dating people or being pen pals with people who are incarcerated. We just saw Monica hugged up with sea murder while he was in custody. Have you thought about kind of evolving this into a dating concept where people can connect with folks behind bars and have a correspondence going back and forth? You know, it was interesting because folks like C Murder, they one of our like most flick shop folks that's in these prisons.

I remember when Meek Mill was locked up, he was like definitely one of our most flick shop celebrities. Because it's interesting, like this is the place where you know that they're sitting down and you know the person that's locked up is going to actually receive this thing, right? And so folks were, all fans from all over, they was at Chris, when Chris Brown was locked up, when Lil Boosie was locked up, all of them folks were sending these postcards. And what it allowed me to be able to see was exactly what you're saying.

It was folks who were looking for relationships and maybe not with the celebrities, maybe some of them were the celebrities, but some of them maybe not with the celebrities, but just with pen pals. And so we started to, like, evolve our technology so that you can now send postcards to anyone anonymously. Like, you can just send a postcard to someone that's celebrating a birthday through the app or maybe someone that's sitting in solitary confinement through the app. And maybe if you send them that, you know, that encouraging message, if they decide to write you back and you guys build something there, that would be dope.

Monique? I think what you're doing is wonderful. Congratulations on its success. I don't know if you were watching, but we started the show with a terrible story about prison conditions and thankfully what our Department of Justice is doing about it. And I think it's a real arc for us to see on the other end of it,

the level of humanity that you are facilitating for people who definitely need that human connection the most. So thank you for your work. Thank you so much, Monique. I'll tell you, like when I was in prison, look, there's no social media or no internet. There's no easy email and texting in any of these facilities. And so you're talking about millions of people. I mean, it's 2.3 million people that are incarcerated in this country. And a lot of us know that stat,

but what we don't realize is that 600,000 of them are coming home every year. And as I think about how we want them to come home, I want to make sure that we're preparing them in a way that we think about other communities, whether or not it's people coming home back from college and we want to be able to make sure that we got a connection for that cousin that needs a job in marketing or whether someone is coming home from the military and they need connections back to the community because they're trying to figure out their way how to fight back into a different kind of reentry. Either way, we want to be thoughtful about how people are returning to the community. I was blessed to be able to have my mom, who was thoughtful enough about ensuring that she helped pave a way for success for me

when I came home from prison. How are we being thoughtful about those other 2.3 million that are coming home or the 600,000 that come home every year? That's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about. One of the things I'm most excited about what we're working on now with Flick Shop is allowing even our employer partners that are leveraging our technology to send notifications back to people that are in these sales to let them know, hey, listen, we still hire people that have felony convictions at our company. We still want people to come work here. And now here's an opportunity to be able to come and work at our company when you come home. Leveraging the big data that we have now allows us to be able to segment these kinds of populations and not only help connect families on that journey, but now we're working with employers. It's one of the things I'm really proud of.

Yeah. But, you know, this is Scott Bolden. The power of this concept and the power of your entrepreneurship is what you're giving those incarcerated. an employer or big data or just from a family member or a fan, that's probably the most positive thing they have or receive while they're in prison. Everything else is negative, if you will. I mean, they're regimented. And so entrepreneurship is the key, in my opinion. And I've had a challenge. It's been a challenge getting my brother to take up the entrepreneurship mantle. As a felon, it's hard to get a job because of those questionnaires still notwithstanding. And so could you talk a little bit, or as long as Roland will let you, about the power of entrepreneurship compared to your incarceration, where you are now, versus where you'd be if you were still, quote, looking for a job, versus really creating opportunities to employ others, and you own the company.

I mean, absolutely. Look, you hit the nail on the head. If I'm being honest, you know, one, I'm grateful for that one application that had that comma, you know, after that question, have I been convicted of a felony, because it allowed me to answer it in an interesting way, right? But the interesting thing had that comma, you know, on, you know, after that question, have I been convicted of a felony? Because it allowed me to answer it in an interesting way. Right. But the interesting thing about that is, is that I filled out 41 job applications before I got that 42nd one that

allowed me the opportunity. Now they're talking about the same markets at the first 41 that landed on that 42nd that allowed for me to transform that into something amazing, like our construction company that eventually allowed us to be able to launch this tech business. One of the things that, you know, our families suffer from, you know, our brothers and our sisters that are coming home from these sales is not the lack of brilliance. There's no shortage of brilliance that are sitting in these sales.

Really, a lot of it is about the social capital, access that folks don't have when they come home. And if we're being thoughtful about helping to prepare people for a real reentry pathway when they come home, it's going to sometimes going to look like entrepreneurship. That's going to look like that's the best route. It's going to be the route that will allow you to create some sustainability around how you want to live your life. It allows you to be able to flex your creative muscles as you try to deliver on all the things you've been thinking about for all of these years. I mean, I dreamt about these moments when I was sitting in cell C12, right? I mean, like, dude, you have no idea, like, how many times, like, my folks that's locked up and they, you know, I'm going to send them pictures and screenshots of this, Joe, right here.

And I'm like, yo, for real, RollerMind, the same Roller of mind we was on, we was listening to, watching on a day room in a pod, like, that's magic. And what it signals to not only the people that are sitting in those sales that, one, it can be done, right? Because sometimes you can't be what you can't see. And if you've never seen a successful entrepreneur that's became a successful,

a venture-backed CEO, I mean, like, that's a stat that you don't typically see or hear about that's coming out of these sales. So, it gives those folks that are sitting there the ammunition and the belief that they can do this thing. But it also signals something to the families, right? Because if I'm being honest, if you would

ask any one of my, you know, some of my cousins or aunts and uncles, would Marcus be the CEO that's going to be able to create the technologies that will help reshape how we think about the justice system. They're going to, they will look at him like, eh, I think he's pretty smart. So he'll probably come home and do something.

But we don't know if it's all of what you're saying is going to be. Now folks will look at me and say, well, wait a minute. Maybe my cousin is going to, maybe my cousin can come home and be the CEO that he talks about when we sit in a visitor room. Well, first of all, the point that you made there, Marcus, I'll be honest. The one, the biggest thing that I regretted when TV One canceled News One Now

were the number of brothers in prison who watched the show. The number of people who came up to me all around the country brothers said man i got through prison watching your show and so the information that we were providing the comedy segments the business segments i mean these brothers in fact uh ron lester uh ron as a brother who opened a transportation company here in dc and they were um uh were, Ron told him that he was going to be on my Tom Jonas segment the next day. He was like, wait a minute, Roland Martin, he said, man,

the prison took TV One off the cable system. He said, we shut the prison down. He said, we boycotted for almost a week and forced them to put it back on the network. And that's the thing that I tell people, you don't know who you're talking to

when you're doing shows like this and how you're speaking to somebody, inspiring people. And so I'm sure that somebody who's now watching you, if a brother is sitting in a jail and they're seeing this, they're streaming this show, they're getting some inspiration by what you did with Flick Shop. And so folks can download this app

on all the platforms, correct? Yeah, so it's available on Android, iOS, or you can visit flickshop.com and send a flickshop directly from our website. Alright, Marcus Bullock, man, I appreciate you joining us. Good luck with it. Can't wait till you hit that one million

mark as well with those postcards. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. My God. Thanks again, Matt. This is a surreal moment. And better believe it's a bunch of you boot dudes in the housing unit who are going to be super excited to see my face on a show that, you know, with somebody that we've watched for years. So thank you so much for this opportunity.

Brother, I appreciate it. Thank you so very much, and congratulations on that. Facebook, excuse me, YouTube, y'all hurry up. Y'all got 11 likes before we hit 1,000. That's it for today's show. It's some stories we didn't get to. We're going to cover those tomorrow, but I'm not going to be here tomorrow. First, I've got to go speak in Clemson at their

Men of Color Conference. I've been there a couple times before. And also, I'm literally flying up tomorrow speaking. I'm flying back because tomorrow's also my 21st wedding anniversary. This is Reverend Dr. Jackie Hood Martin. This is a photo that I shot before I went to Liberia.

But this is the photo. We got married 21 years ago. So all y'all folks who think it's new that me wearing African outfits, I got married in a white and gold one. So don't sit here and try to play a brother, okay? It ain't new to me. I didn't just start wearing them when I went to Ghana and Liberia. So y'all might want to go ahead and check yourself.

So again, I will not be here tomorrow. Who's sitting in tomorrow? Reese is going to be sitting in the hosting chair tomorrow. Y'all know she's going to be cussing up a storm. So just go ahead and let y'all know. While y'all are still watching tomorrow's show, we got some great stuff for y'all tomorrow. So don't miss it.

Don't forget, if y'all haven't seen my Michael Collier interview, go ahead. Go to the Black Star Network app. Absolutely hilarious. Check it out. We also, the first seven parts of our Ghana series, also on the app. Fantastic. If you have seen that, so go check it out as well. And don't forget, we're trying to hit 50,000 downloads.

Kenan, send me a text. Where are we staying now? How many downloads do we have? We want to get 50,000 downloads by May 1st. WHERE DO WE STAND NOW? HOW MANY DOWNLOADS DO WE HAVE? WE WANT TO GET 50,000 DOWNLOADS BY MAY 1ST. HIT ALL THE PLATFORMS. WE'RE ON ALL OF THEM. ANDROID PHONE, APPLE PHONE, ANDROID TV, APPLE TV, ROKU, AMAZON FIRE TV, XBOX ONE, SAMSUNG SMART TV, AND, OF COURSE,

PLEASE, MAN, Y'ALL BLEW IT OUT YESTERDAY WITH YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS. I ASKED Y'ALL, LET'S RAISE $5,000 to hire a business writer. And I'm actually gonna make it a three month project where we're gonna simply go, we're gonna target all these companies. And I'm adding one thing, all these companies that talked to all the promises they may have of George Floyd's death,

we gonna call every single one to see how that money is being spent. Yeah, we about to check some folks for real. And so Scott, your $1,000 will certainly come in handy to pay that business writer. So, yeah, so your donation was on time. So, we appreciate that for a cap of doing something good for a change. Y'all, go ahead and appeal box. Send a check or money order, 57196 Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Monique, will you send your money?

I need to double check to see if yours came through. Cash app is Dallas Sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RM Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. That's it, y'all. Again, I'm going to be chilling tomorrow for the anniversary.

Have we finally hit a thousand likes? Man, y'all got to stop having me try to beg y'all to hit a thousand. It don't make no sense. We had 2,500 people watching that one time on YouTube and here we finally crossed a thousand. All right, y'all. Again, Clemson, I'm going to see y'all tomorrow.

Talking to the brothers. I got a word for y'all. Trust me. And also, to all my Texas A&M folks, tomorrow's also Aggie Muster, where we remember all Aggies who died in the previous year. So shout out to all of my Texas A&M family members, especially those black Aggies who passed away in the last year.

Folks, that's it. I'ma see y'all on Friday, but y'all come back here tomorrow. Y'all know how we do it. Holla! Martin! on Friday, but y'all come back here tomorrow. Y'all know how we do it. Ha! Martin! This is an iHeart Podcast.