#409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud

The following is a conversation with Matthew Cox. A con man recently released from Federal prison where he served 13 years for Bank Fraud, Mortgage Fraud, Identity Thaft, Passport Fraud and other charges. He has admitted guilt to all of it. His written true crime stories are many of his fellow prisoners, and now he continues this work by interviewing criminals about their crimes on his YouTube channel that I recommend, called Inside True Crime.

The mind of a criminal is exploring human nature at the extremes, often in its most raw and illuminating form. And that is something I definitely want to do with this podcast to understand the human mind and everything it is capable of. Alright, this is as batch 134 Matthew Cox.

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How can you find a way to commit crime in this? How can you do fraud in this space? It's very difficult for the average guy to commit fraud because there's so many safeguards set up. If you were to go in and say, I make $300,000 a year. Okay, well, we want your W2s, we want your paystuffs. We're going to call your employer. We're going to check to make sure your employer how long they've been incorporated.

We're going to check to make sure they're registered. We're going to it's like your whole plan fell apart, you know, because the average guy can't do that. He can't even come up with the with the pace of W2. So the average person, you know, or I'm going to put down this much money, but you're going to borrow that money from the seller. Okay, well, then they start asking for bank statements. Where does the money come from? How long has it been in your bank?

Like, you can't even have it put in your bank for a day, get a letter. You know, it's got to have been there for 90 days or 60 days, depending on the bank.

And so there's all these ways for the average person. It's very difficult to commit fraud. The average guy that works at Walmart and makes $60,000 a year, and he's been there for five years, and he saved his deposit. Like, it's a very, that's really the guy that those transactions are set up for to borrow a mortgage from Bank of America. That's the guy they're looking for.

So to commit fraud in this space, you have to misrepresent some aspect of your identity of how much your worth, how much money you have, this kind of stuff, right? You have to be able to lie to the bank. Any time you lie to the bank, you've committed fraud. And it's funny when I was, you know, doing it, I would say, that's in the gray area. There's no gray area. You're lying in some capacity or you're not.

It's, for instance, the very first loan I did, I, I, I, wide it out, my borrower had been 30 days late on her, on her rent. So they're really looking at the last two years. So when, when you go into the bank and that most of what they're asking is a, is it a two year window, they're saying, how long have you been on their job? They care about two years.

And how long have you been at your, at your residency, they're looking for two years. Now you could be at three places in two years. That's fine. As long as you consistently paid for two years, when she had been in an apartment complex, but she'd been 30 days late. Now she caught it up, but she was late.

The bank, the bank doesn't want to lend you money if, if you've been 30 days late. So I was a broker and I widened out the 30 day late. I just got rid of it. And my manager is the person that told me to do it. She said, it'll be fine. And she was right it was. I don't know what to feel like. So that was the first fraudulent action you committed. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was worried.

You know, I was, say, you know, I sweat at bullets for four or five days. You know, but I mean, I, I was concerned. And I don't know that I was concerned that I had broken the law. I was concerned because I was behind on my, on my truck payment. I was behind on my mortgage like I had banked on being a mortgage broker. And I'd gone deep, deep behind on all my bills to do this. So in the last minute, when this loan isn't going to close.

And I have to commit fraud to make that happen. And that the idea, my fear was they were going to figure it out. And maybe I'd get fired. You know, I didn't think I was going to go to jail because my manager assured me you're not going to jail. Like they'll you'll get fired at best. So my concern was they were going to catch it. And I get fired. And I wouldn't get paid. Like I needed that money so bad. So maybe paint the picture here. Where were you working? Who was the manager?

The manager was funny because I, I don't think I ever really mentioned this. Her name was Gretchen Zeyes. She eventually, I don't mind saying it was she eventually ended up going to jail for fraud. Her name was Gretchen Zeyes. And she was a manager. I was working for a company called Eagle Lending. And it was in Tampa. And I, this was like my first month.

So my very first deal three or four weeks into it into that first month. And I walk in. I put the file in front of my manager. She looks through everything. You know, oh, great. Good. Good. And put this one piece of paper over here and sat there. And then when she was done, I said, what's what's going on? She is perfect. Files perfect. She was, but your bar was 30 days late on her rent. And she said, that's, that's, it's done. She's like, that's a deal killer.

And I was like, Oh my gosh. You know, what do I do? And I remember she pulled out a what thing a white out. And the white out, not the sticks with the one. And she started going, and I was like, what she is. If I was you. And she, and she said, I'd white it out. Make a copy, stick it back in the file. She said, it'll be fine. And I went, I was like, that's fraud.

I could go to jail. And she goes. And she was like, it's, they're never going to catch it. She said, look, we do stuff. I do stuff all the time. She said, they're not going to catch it. And nobody's calling the FBI. She was the worst case scenario. If underwriting catches it. Then they'll fire you. That's it. Nobody's calling. You're not going to jail. And I was, you know, and I trusted her. I was like, OK.

And so I did what she said. I stuck it in the file. And I mean, like I said, for four or five days, I was like, Oh my god. I was so scared of seeing. Oh, do you have this part? Probably 29. I think it was 29. You know, like I had gone to college. And so many things had not worked out. You know, I got a degree in fine arts. It's not.

There's not a lot of people looking for anyone with fine arts degree. And, you know, I tried my, I tried to be a, try to be an insurance adjuster. Try that for about a year, year and a half that didn't work out.

And it ended up, ended up working construction for a few years. And, you know, so finally, the girl I was dating said, you got to be a mortgage broker. You know, she just had just started as a mortgage and the mortgage industry. And she was like, you have to do this. Like you were born to do this. This is perfect for you.

What does she see in you? She said, it's just your salesman. And I was like, because I was like, you know, I barely balanced my checkbook. Like I don't know. I don't know anything about numbers. She's like, it's nothing to do with that. It's sales. It's putting together deals. You know, you're good at that. You're good at negotiating your, you know, your natural sales salesman.

And I figured I, I need to try something. So what aspect of mortgages is sales and deal making and what aspects require the charisma that you clearly have? Well, one, you've got, you have clients that have lots of options. They can go to Bank of America. They can go to Sun Trust. They can go to Chase. They have options. If they have perfect credit, I ended up working for a company that was a sub prime lender.

And those people didn't have a lot of options. But honestly, by the time they got to that, to Eagle lending, their options were over. So what ends up happening is you're negotiating with sellers. You know, you would think that a lot of the stuff that in that industry that real estate agents should do, you know, the brokers end up doing.

Because real estate agents are, are used to, you meet them at the house or they take you to several houses. They, you know, they, they open the door. They walk around. They write up a contract that's legit, a legit contract. And you already, you're already pre-approved. Everything works out. But sub prime, that's not the case. You got borrowers with horrific job history.

They don't have enough of the down payment. They can't, maybe they have the down payment, but they don't have the closing costs. So you have to go to the real estate agent and say, listen, I need you to raise the purchase price and have the seller pay the closing costs, which is legal. But that's not to a degree.

But that's not how they wrote the contract. So now you're having to get them to rewrite the contract or you're have your, you know, there's little things you're trying to do. And the more, the more deals you get done and the more you deal with certain real estate agents. The more you start to realize that there, you know, you know, which ones are completely above board and which ones are willing to twist the rules.

And a lot of it works on personal relationships. Right. Right. For some reason, people tend to like me and trust me. Yeah. I don't know why it's, it hasn't worked out for so many people. But people naturally seem to trust me. And so if I say, hey, I can close the loan, but you got to do this. It'll be cool. Don't worry. We do it all the time. It's like my third loan. And, you know, I've been doing this for years and they go, okay. And then they raise the purchase price. They add some money.

They have the seller of the house, give the borrowers the money. They stick it in the bank or they put it in an escrow at the closing company. Like now you're starting to massage deals. What was the second time you committed a crime? So what, how did it start to evolve from the white out? What, I mean, when that went through, you know, I, I think a normal person probably would have said, wow, there was a one time thing got away with it.

I'm good. But for me, it just emboldened me. Like I just got a chat for like, I don't know what it was 25, 35, $500. I was thrilled. And by that time I was already working on another deal. But that guy, he made, I forget something like, he'd made like, let's say, $45,000 the year before in his W2. If you based on his, based on his current track record or his year to date of his pay stub, he made it just enough money.

But if you factored in last year's W2, he was shy. So if I changed that 45,000 to 51,000, then he could the loan closes. I get a check for $3,500. He gets into a house. I'm doing him a favor. You know, I'm doing God's work. So I fix it. I kick back. I'm terrified a little bit. You know, worried about it. Sure enough, it closes. Four or five days later, they call me. He's ready to close a week later. We close. I get a check. Next guy that comes in. I mean, I got very, very quickly.

I was concerned, do you have a house? Do you have a deal? Is it ready? I can get you. I can get you done. Now, if you were in bankruptcy or something, there's some things you just, you pulled their credit and you just couldn't help them if they were. If they had a $550 credit score or something and no job, I mean, you know, they had to be within reason, but very quickly it was changing W2s, changing pay subs, changing appraisals, you know, fixing.

Like I said, verification of the rent. So it evolved very quickly for me. And you're essentially helping people. So I told myself giving him a chance. People that have been really struggling financially in life. So you've been telling yourself that this is you're doing a good good thing for people. I told myself that right up until that those loans were solid and I was helping those people out.

Right up until I went to prison and I was in prison and I had to write the government asked me to write an ethics and fraud course for to help teach the nation's mortgage brokers. You know, all loan officers and brokers have to take. I think it's nine hours of continuing education every single year. And I was approached to write the ethics course. And it was about that time and about the same period of time I was writing writing a book my book.

And that kind of you started reflecting on what I had done. You know, the truth is like. And this is a horrible thing to say because the first time I heard somebody say this, I remember thinking, oh, that's a horrible thing to say. Some people should not own house. They shouldn't be allowed to borrow. They're not in a position financially. You know, and there were there were many occasions where I put someone in a house that they 100% swore they could afford.

It was I was helping them. I told myself I was helping them. And a year and a half later they're going into foreclosure. There's stuff on the corner. They don't know where to go. And the truth is that I'm not smarter than the actuaries that came up with those underwriting guidelines. So in this whole process, how are you making money? You taking a percentage. Yeah, I charge a broker. Or you charge yield spread. So yield spread is let's say the interest rate is eight percent interest.

If I charge them 25 basis points over the 8%. So I charge them eight and a quarter, you know, 8.25. Then I get 1% of the loan back as a fee. So if I charge them 8.5%, I get two points back. So if it's a hundred thousand dollar piece of property. And the bank says your interest rate is going to be 8%. And I tell you 8.5. And I'm charging you a $3,500 broker fee. Now I'm making $5,500. So on even a hundred thousand dollar loan, you could make a nice chunk of change.

I mean, it's so how much gray area is here? You said that there really isn't when you're lying or not. But I mean, you're feels like there is. Well, every time I change something, it wasn't gray area. I just committed fraud at this level. You're either you either meet the guidelines or someone has massaged it in such a way that they've committed fraud. That's it.

There's there's there's tons of ways where you can commit fraud and they just can't figure it out. Does that make sense? Like I mean, I've committed fraud. And it's like they've look at the entire they look at all the documents and they double check everything and they know there's fraud in here. They just can't find it.

It's just because they can't find it doesn't mean it was exactly doesn't mean it wasn't fraud. As part of this, you did a lot of fascinating things. One of the things you did you talked about creating synthetic people. Meaning creating fake identities. What does it take to do that to do that well?

So your credit profile is made up of your your your your your your name, date of birth, your address and your social security number. And you know, those are the kind of you know, and then there's other things where you work. That sort of thing. But what people don't realize is there's so many people out there that think that the credit bureaus already know who you are.

Right. But the truth is the first time the credit bureau has ever heard about you was when you told them the first time you applied for a credit card, you they created a credit profile at that moment prior to that they had no idea. So the first time you apply, you give them your your full name, date of birth, social security number and your address.

And they create a credit profile and they say, hey, no record found of this person. He has no credit. Nothing probably got denied. Well, what I realized through the course of because eventually I end up leaving that one company and I open my own mortgage company.

When I opened that mortgage company, I was I was on the inside. Does that make sense? Like I wasn't just I wasn't just a broker that was sitting out with everybody else and would periodically come in and ask questions or would call underwriting and but really didn't understand what was happening and what exactly what the underwriting guidelines were.

Now I was actually talking to the underwriters and you're you're talking to the to the owners of the lending institutions and the banks and you're talking to all of the account executives. And now it wasn't just Eagle lending I was talking to there were 40 different account executives coming in on a weekly basis trying to get us to sign up with their lender and they're on the inside telling you coming in showing you programs and saying look if your bar were is

self employed. We don't ask for this or this we just ask for them to say their self employed like lyre loans you've heard the term lyre loans. Okay. No doc loans where they don't ask for any documentation if he's got over like let's say a 700 credit score and he says he's been a plumber and he works for himself.

Then he's got over a 700 credit score he just has to say he's worked for himself for over two years and they don't ask for any documentation. He's got the money in the bank. He's got a 700 credit score. He says he's been on the job for two years. He's self employed. We're going to raise his interest rate by 1% and he's got you know that's it. He's got the loan.

So but you start to you start to know how things work because I hired a bunch of brokers to work underneath me and when they would get caught. I would get the phone call so I get the phone call from the owner of a banker or a lending institute you know a lender and that lender says hey Matt we got a problem.

I'm like what's up he's like listen we we caught a fake W2 I'm like what do you mean yeah you're you're broke or so and so sent us a file and this person had there's two fake W2s and we're assuming the pay subs are fake and I'm like are you serious.

How did you even catch that and they go oh well here's what we did we checked with sunbiz dot com you know sunbiz dot gov which is the secretariat states website that registers corporations and we checked in the tax ID number didn't match and I now I know every W2 has to have a matching tax ID number for whatever corporation issued it.

So there's a sequence of checks they do to detect fraud and different documents like W2s right and then you're slowly learning slowly yeah exactly the process for the technical I mean I had a pretty good understanding anyway yeah but so I'm starting to learn and says understanding so I'm putting these things together and I remember one time I had a woman come in and she came in and she had perfect

credit she had like 750 credit scores I mean it was perfect and she came in and one of the brokers came in and said hey man he's like I show you something I was like yeah what's up he just look he said I've got this this woman's W2s here I said okay I looked at him and he goes here's your credit

report and he goes here's the you know application this is the this is the social security number I went all right and he said this is the social security number on the W2 and I went okay give mine you go to get a car loan or credit card they never asked for these things so and he was like I'm really shocked he even noticed it I probably might not have him caught it but he but they were different and I went really and he goes yeah he said so I did you know she just

brought him in you know she's here and I was like oh bring her in here so she came in sat down and say listen here's what we just found and she's like oh okay you know what I don't want the loan I just I go no no no I said listen you're getting the loan you got 750 credit score like I don't

know what we have to do we're getting you the loan I just want to know what's going on how are how did you we how did you get 750 credit scores under this social security number when clearly this is your real social security number you've been working for this company for 10 years and your credit profile says it's only like three years old and I was like what happened and what she told me she did was she had been she went through a divorce she had been married for 10

years and her husband's I mean his surname for 10 years so she has no credit under her maiden name but when they got the voice she switched to her maiden name because when she pulled tried to get anything in her in her husband's surname it was denied bad credit so he had bad credit their credit went bad so he switched to her she switched her name and a friend told her if she needed to get her electric or anything turned on she could use her name and

use her daughters or sons social security number which was like a four year old kid so she used that and it went through she had to put a deposit down but it went through at least wasn't denied so that went through then she went and she applied for an apartment with that sure enough it went through she had no credit but they said you don't have bad credit so she said once she moved into the apartment she then

started getting these pre-approved credit cards so she she but I knew I had applied there using my son social security number let's say so she started filling those out and sure enough she got a credit card and then she got to and then she got a pre-approval from Ford Motor Credit she went and got her self a new car got approved she'd been making the payments ever since just 750 credit scores she thought

she'd try her hand at buying a house in his name in his social security number and we caught it and she got a house in that name we we closed it I just was like wow like this is great I ask you a question about that because it seems like she's able to pay for everything right so

while this is highly illegal is it unethical is it like it's it's unethical in that it's messing with the system on which a lot of people rely but it feels like there's some aspect of the system that's broken in that it doesn't give people a

second chance she could have claimed bankruptcy and then two years later listen two years out of bankruptcy you can go into Bank of America and get a conventional mortgage assuming you have perfect credit outside the bankruptcy you have the down payment you make enough money there's a

bunch of you know a bunch of a underwriting guidelines you have to meet but that's possible but you're right for instance she wasn't getting an apartment using with her bad credit she wasn't getting her utilities turned on she wasn't getting any of those

things done so getting a life back on track is just harder it's extremely hard so there's a temptation to take the shortcut and the shortcut is often going to be illegal right and she stumbled into it but she basically explained it to me and I I mean I don't

think she had walked out of the of my brokerage office before I went and I just started making up you know names and think I went I went and into our file cabinet and grab some people's 1040s which we had you know their tax returns and looked up children's

social security numbers and just grab some random kid social security numbers and their name and went and pulled them and sure and you know but I changed their date of birth to be an adult pulled it and sure enough it came up no file found you know didn't say fraud alert

or fraud or anything they didn't say mismatched this mismatched that didn't say anything it just said you know no file found well then we went and we pulled apply for a couple credit cards using a child social security number and then we went and pulled our own

credit report and sure enough it didn't say no no file found it just said that there had a lot of inquiries applying for credit cards so I was like wow like that's a credit profile so that turns into me going to social security and calling or calling social security and trying to get them to issue me social security numbers to adults that had never had a social security number issued to them I need to get social security number to give me a clean social security number but I called up

and of course you know I'm a novice I don't really know what I'm doing so I'm caught call up and I say hey yeah I was I'm never had a social security number issued they were like how old are you I was like 31 years old you know and they were yeah that's not possible do you have a driver's license yeah you have a bank count yeah you have a social security number bring your driver's license in and we'll we'll pull it up okay well that's not gonna happen hang up call back hi my son is

seven years old or three years old and he he never had a social security number issued oh okay was he born in a hospital yes well he has one he has one go ahead and get your son come in here no I'm not doing that hang up call back so I called back probably ten times and eventually someone said I kept altering it kept altering what I was saying to I got to the point where I was saying my son was born with a midwife not in the hospital and the pediatrician told us that

we needed to go we need to get social security to issue a social security number and they would say well he should have issued it but that does happen sometimes so bring your son in and we'll you know you can fill up paperwork we'll have one issued you know first we'll check to see he never had one issued and if he has it will issue one and so then it turned into my son is out of the country and I need to get a job and then that turned into oh I'm sorry well how does he I was like

you know he's three and they go well I'm sorry he's over the age of 12 months old he has to come in hang up the phone call back my son is ten months old he's out of the country born with a midwife never had a social security number and then they go oh okay that's fine just get his birth certificate and a shot his shot record come in fill out the paperwork will get issue you a social security number and that's what I did so I figured out how to create a birth certificate you know I

ordered the security paper you know when we make a copy says you know void if copied so I ordered had to order a bunch of that and I went online and figured out how to make a fake birth certificate it was great too because like the county actually they give you a blank form and then they actually show you what it looks like filled out like a handwritten one filled out so I knew if he was born this day he got these shots two months later he got these shots six

months later he got these shots so I just filled it out I even had to order a a seal so you have to have a seal that says like Hillsborough County vital statistics or Richland County vital statistics or something and I couldn't get anybody to make that so I changed it to like Richland County office of virtual records and then I took like 220 grit sandpaper and and hit it over and over and over again to wear it down and then I stayed you know I did the

embossment on the on the corner and you know I printed it on the security paper embossed it nobody looks at those things you can see Richland County you know you could you could kind of see that and then really they just grab it and

they go like this this is what you realize after you when I started getting started getting a driver's licenses issued by by the state DMV right the state I figured out eventually it was easier to just go into the DMV and have them give me a driver's license to actually make one so but you notice

they would just grab the thing they feel the form and go okay like they don't even look at it so which is upsetting if you put as much work into these documents as I am for them to go okay yeah that's good sit over there I felt like going like hey bro like take a look at this this is artwork yeah but they're looking for the low hanging fruit of crappy fraud right yeah this stuff was right through so okay so so birth certificate gets you a social security

number so it's it's it's interesting because you've also you've done a lot of different approaches to creating synthetic people this homeless people involved so sometimes it's grounded in real people or real names and then you're right like some parties fake some parties real sometimes and sometimes

it's completely all fake right because now I have the name I have the social security numbering what's great is they mail you what's even better is you get it what ever name you want you know because when you pick your child's name he doesn't even have to have your last name you pick any name so I would pick a name and I just say oh my wife's last name is this if it they questioned it which they never did but you know I've got a social security number and then I would go

apply for credit cards and I get denied of course but they would all offer me a secured credit card so I I then fill out the secured credit card and I send them send the bank the money and they would give me a secured credit card for $500 $300 $1000 whatever it was and then once you start making the payments I pulled the credit and a credit profile shows up saying that this 31-year-old man with the social security number that I know was issued you know a couple

months ago has three three credit cards they don't even say secure they just say there's like this credit card is $500 it was issued by Bank of America this one was issued by Capital One this one so I've got three of them but I had no credit scores so at that point I kind of kicked back and waited I just kept making payments and I remember thinking to myself I bet you they don't that the credit bureaus don't generate credit scores for at least a year and I was like God this

is going to be a year-long process and while that was happening I started other I was starting other ones because I figured at least in a year I'll have a bunch of these secure you know these we call them like phantom borrowers but

now they call them synthetic identities so at least I would have these synthetic identities and maybe I do something with them but what happened was it six months I went and I randomly pulled the guys credit you know the person's credit and 705 credit scores 705 701 695 I was like oh my you only

needed a 620 to borrow to get a 95% loan from the bank so I was like oh my God this is in this is amazing sure enough a month later the other ones I had started all of them bam bam bam so what do you do with a phantom borrower like what how do you make money on this so I think most people if you were just like a scammer fraudster you would you would probably just get credit cards and maybe build up that history or maybe try and borrow a personal loan which is

limited you know it's personal loans are used to be used to be you could go to an FDIC insured bank which borrowers money those you know the personal loans they lend out at the max 15 thousand dollars you know so you could do that so you can go through this whole process of creating a fake identity getting a card paying it off building up credit and then you get 15 thousand dollars at the end or right you get 15 maybe you know if you want to keep making the payments you know if

you could wait a year you could probably get 15 thousand maybe you could maybe get 20 30 thousand and a bunch of little smaller ones you know you get $7,500 because I did I did this was $7,500 from city bank you know $5,500 from American general so you maybe get what 25,000 you know maybe 30,000

and personal loans maybe you can you could then apply for you give maybe get another 20 or 30,000 in regular credit cards you know 10,000 here 8,000, 5,000 and then you go to the lower department store cards and you go to the deep oh you get a thousand you get 500 so it ends up being maybe you can get 50,000, maybe if you really good you could get up to 80 or $100,000 in credit cards and personal loans if you really knew what you were doing but per person per identity

per identity but I had the ability to leverage that perfect those perfect credit profiles against properties and I mean ultimately that's what I end up doing and so each one of those identities was worth you know a few million he explained how that works so it's to leverage them against property so how does that work with the mortgage so what I did eventually I mean this was like is down the road but you know I mean at this point when things are just my whole life it kind of

gone off the rails I was on federal probation and so what I did decided I was going to do was start running a scam a much larger scam and what I was going to do was I was going to start flipping properties right like buy houses cheap fix them up and sell them there's an area of Tampa called ebore city so I was going to start flipping houses in ebore city and you know I thought okay I can buy these houses for you could buy a really crappy house at that time for 50,000

let's say 50 and then you could put 25,000 dollars into it in renovations you could renovate it for 25 and maybe you could get an appraisal for a hundred so I thought what I could do is I can I can buy these houses renovate them and sell them to you know regular people but I also had been working on the synthetic identities and then I thought well or I could just sell them to synthetic identities and then I wouldn't have to dump 25,000 into it right and these guys

are perfect they have perfect credit I can provide W2s and paste devs because by this point I'm manufacturing businesses so I've got I've got I've incorporated businesses I've got websites for the businesses W2s paste up so these guys have these guys look perfect so I figured I'll buy these properties for 50,000 sell to these guys for a hundred maybe I'll pocket 40 or 50,000 I don't really have to do anything but that seems short-sighted so I thought what would be even better is

that if I did a little bit of renovations and then I sold it for much higher maybe I put 10,000 clean up the outside of it because these guys don't care what the inside of the property looks like you know they they're not they don't exist so and then I and then I but I can't am I getting an appraisal for a hundred thousand dollars well do you know how appraisals work okay so the bank sends it an appraiser out or at that time you could provide an appraisal they can review it so they'll do

what's called the desktop review they review it they review it on on the computer they never go out to the property or they send someone out they they call that you know it's like a field review they send someone out and they just look at the house

they don't go in it though so I have to clean out they clean up the outside of the house so what I did was but the problem is is if your houses you're trying to sell that house for let's say 200,000 the other houses they have to pick three comparable sales in the area they're also going to support a

two hundred thousand dollar sales price well there's no other houses selling for 200,000 near this house so I thought if I want to get these things appraised for 200, 250,000 I have to have comparable sales and that appraisal is going to be reviewed so what I did was I started I went out and I bought this house for 50,000 and I recorded the sale at 200,000 so when you buy a house for a hundred thousand dollars you pay seven hundred dollars in dock stamps but if you pay the

extra an extra seven hundred bucks the sale shows up for 200,000 I'm buying these things for 50 so I'm paying three hundred fifty dollars and I'm just paying an extra one thousand fifty dollars so I'm so it ends up being four you know fourteen hundred dollars but that but the sale shows up at 200,000 on a house that's a crack house I bought for fifty thousand dollars now I go I trim the trees we mow the yard we clean up the porch we put a porch rail on maybe we

paint it real nice we black out all the windows you can't see inside but from the from the curb it looks great and I get an appraisal so I do that with that house I do that with another house all within a mile so I buy four houses knowing I could use the all there's a subject and three comparables for all of them so the first thing I did is I bought four houses for 50,000 60,000 40,000 and I recorded the values at you know 210 200 190 so I get an appraisal to come out

there he appraises it he said of course he says it's horrible but there's comparables here now of course it is in bad shape and he says it's in bad shape but I I go ahead and I correct all that so I correct it so now if you if you

review the appraisal and you're in California or even if you drive your car down your the appraisal comes to the house it looks at it from the street it looks fine but the truth is I've got sixty thousand dollars into this property and you're praising it for two hundred thousand so the banks rated

not they're not going to lend 200 but they'll lend one ninety so the bank is ready to lend this synthetic borrower a hundred ninety thousand dollars on a house that I have sixty thousand in so I walk so I schedule a closing and we close

on the house and I walk away with sixty thousand dollars you know and the thing is like the problem was is by the time I got to this point I knew so many people in the industry I nobody had to really at that point show up although I've had people show up for the synthetic identities and sign for

them almost all the closings nobody ever showed up I just showed up and set to the title to the title agency and said hey my borrower he's at work right now he can't make it can I just take the file and I'll have him sign all the

documents at his work and I'll bring them back he's like an hour and a half away from here I'll be back in two or three hours they're like oh wow that that that thank you so much and they would give it to me and I'd go sit in the parking lot and I sign all the documents I wait an hour or two

and I'd come back in and say here you go how are we able to keep all this in your mind because you have to not slip up and in these conversations it's pretty easy for me to for me to keep them everything in the correct category does that make sense like it it's it's I'm not great at a

lot of things but this I was very good at but well there's these fandom people that exist and they were becoming real people in your mind isn't like you're able to tell good stories with with those people right like because if you're talking to the appraisers you're

talking to the everybody involved will keep mind the appraisers almost never meets the borrower never not even almost like 99.99 99 99% of the time they never meet them but you have to talk about them yeah so I guess what I'm asking is you're able to converse fluently about these synthetic identities yeah they all had different jobs they all had all the jobs were basically they were all on the job for five years they were all I was a lot of it was does it template yeah exactly

but yeah I got it yeah it listen all matter fact almost every one of them had the same birthday you know so because I you know who knows there's so it yeah it wasn't difficult and keep mind the a lot of the the brokers barely ever meet meet the bar they call in on the phone but it didn't matter anyway because I'm walking insane I got a slam dunk deal for you and they're like oh wow Matt you got the W2's the paystabs you've got all the you got all their rental history you

have everything done it's perfect thank you so much they're happy to do it hey I print up the docs and I'll have him go sign it great wow thank you you know assuming they didn't already know about it almost everybody involved in this by

time I was done was involved there's probably 15 or 20 people that all knew it was going on the full of it they knew the full depth of it yes yeah yeah maybe not 100% everything but they definitely knew this is fraud and they were still going along with it yeah yeah keep in mind that even

when I give you an example one of my you know let's say in this happened with almost all of them was he would buy five houses so the guy what happens the basic design was I buy the houses I record the values higher and this person

buys all five houses refinances him he ends up barring a little bit over a million dollars in his name then of course then I go and I get personal loans from several banks I get credit cards I run up all of his credit cards by this point I've got ten twenty thousand dollars worth of credit cards

in the guys name the guys are all worth like a million million and change well once I stop paying you start getting letters from the collection companies right from the banks you know then they sell them off so after about three months you're getting tons of letters and what I would do is I would

take my borrowers name I would go online and I would find or I go in the newspaper and I would find I would find an article about let's say like a 12 car pile up you know so there's you know the huge accident on I for it's very dangerous so there's a 12 car pile up and someone in the accident

was life-lighted to Tampa General Hospital I would cut and paste that article and I would just insert my borrowers name into the article saying that you know Brandon Green was life-lighted to Tampa General Hospital is currently in critical condition I would then print that article out on newsprint I

then make a copy of the cut it up make copy of the newsprint highlight his name and I would write a letter from Brandon Green's fictional sister to the collection companies saying several months ago my brother was in a horrible car accident he is currently they've got the article they have the

highlighted name he clearly was in in this in this accident he is currently in a coma and the doctors say even if he wakes up from the coma he will never work again that you know so you might as well just foreclose on stop writing the letters and take the houses back and that's all they're looking

for is is is a reason at this point even if they look into Brandon Green they can't figure out if he's a real person or not because he's got a social security and he's got and everything went bad at the same time he's got multiple rental properties or his primary residence all of his credit

cars went bad everything went bad we have an excuse we have a letter that happens people get divorced they lose their job they get an accident it's reasonable when they look into it all looks legitimate even if they ordered another appraisal by this point it's not for comparable sales or

three or four comparable sales by this point it's like 10 15 20 30 40 50 because I kept making more and more of these guys what was your just almost like a tangent what's your thinking process there's a lot of cleverness going on here so like the car pile up as a solution newspaper you mail it

what are you sitting there alone and thinking through this like how do you come up with that idea is it is a very interesting a very clever innovative idea so at first I thought about making like a fake death certificate he died you know but I thought I don't know like what if you

know like some of these places had like you know that you know primary mortgage insurance like what if the primary mortgage insurance like what if they try and claim because he was dead or like I don't know I don't know that side so I'm like I don't want to do that I want to do something that

semi verifiable and third parties like a third party telling you this is what happened I thought well like the newspaper you know and you know or do I claim bankruptcy and I've done that I've gone and got the bankruptcy forms right you can go to the bankruptcy court and they'll give you forms to

mail to all of your creditors and you mail them they stop contacting they wait to be not located by or notified by the bankruptcy court but my fear there is you know nobody's ever going to notify them like I'm not going through bankruptcy for one of these guys so it was like this is a this is a

better bet than just writing a letter saying I'm going through a divorce my wife's keeping those houses that's her problem you know you could do there's lots of things you can do but to me this was they're not going to try how do

you how do you shut it down without him dying how do you shut that down this is how you shut it down is that a coma he'll never work again he was in a car accident here's the proof he can't even write you I'm a sister I wrote you the letter it's a one-time letter that seems to tie up all the exact

exactly exactly you know I get only the exact exactly how that you know what sparked that is as much as there were so many other avenues that I could have gone that I was I just didn't know how you were thinking through all those different avenues yeah are you mostly thinking alone I mean you know I had guys that was bouncing ideas ideas off of there were other guys that were involved in the scam you know everybody think that scam ended up making like

the FBI said I was like 11 and a half million or something and and you know but but there were so many other people that were involved in that scam that were you know this guy's getting 50 this guy's getting 20 you know 17,000 20,000 25,000 and you know the we're just doing it constantly and so the bank would foreclose on that property they take it back they put it back on the MLS they put it back on the MLS for 100 for 200,000 it wouldn't sell then they drop it to you know

150 wouldn't sell then they drop it to one 25 130 wouldn't sell they drop it to 90 and somebody buy it for like 90 it wasn't worth 90 but by that point that whole area had should we done so many houses at that point the whole area shot up

and the FBI said we did 109 houses I don't think that's true but we we when I end up leaving Tampa after that scam falls apart and the FBI shows up Forbes came out with an article whatever six months later and they said that the Ebor City zip code was one of the top 20 fastest growing z appraising

areas in the country and you know everybody was like oh that's Matt because this place is a dump like this is a horrible place like this is and I remember one time I had talked to a guy you know years later and he was like oh all the comparable sales have dried up like when you left they were just nothing even close to 200,000 you mentioned right before telling the story of this elaborate scam that you were on federal probation how did that happen so I

mentioned that I own the mortgage company yes right so I I had started a mortgage company I had maybe a dozen guys working for me and and they were fraud you know like I would say it wasn't all fraud but whatever 60 70% of it was

fraud that was going in there and from the outside of that that business it looked very legitimate you know we were an FHA approved lender we were a VA approved lender we did conventional probably signed up with 40 or 50 subprime lenders but but there was a considerable amount of fraud and

you know it kept getting you know it became a game right you know it you start you start I started getting just more and more creative like like I said every time I would get away with something like you become emboldened by it it's like nice you know like hey the underwriters looking for this and looking for this and you sit there and go man so that she you know that's what am I gonna do what I'm gonna do you know what we could do we could create create our own

bank what yeah here's what we're gonna go on like how do they know if this bank exists that these people are in California they're in New York they don't know so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go online keep mine this is 2000 you know this is 2000 2001 like this is the Internet's in its infancy still right so we figure out I remember go daddy I think had just come up with a site where you could build your own website like how cool is that so I go

online with a buddy of mine and we create something called the Bank of E-Bore you know we cut and pasted things that we like from other banks and we got a one eight hundred number you could call or one eight six number whatever it was and you could call it and it would go to a voicemail and so we set up this bank and then I ended up making bank statements which by this point I already had been making bank statements to prove someone has their down payment

because a lot of times people they have good enough credit to borrow 95% or 90% but they don't have their down payment so we'd raise the purchase price high enough to cover their five or 10% down payment and we would bring their down payment for them or we'd have the owner of the house bring the down payment for them and then we would have a check cut out of the closing statement to a construction company that I owned and we get our money back so they get into

the house for a hundred percent financing or 110% some turned into 130 we want to pay off their car give them an incentive to sign they don't have so they'll have the money to buy it so we're doing all kinds of insane things well at some point remember Gretchen Zeyes my old manager

original yes she came and worked for me for short period of time and then she and her husband went and opened their own mortgage company which you should have known it was going to be fraudulent from the big it go because it was called

creative financing it was with yeah create C fm creative finance no creative creative creative was in the name yeah creative was in the name so she she's doing very well and and we became very close by the way we go on vacation with the Puerto Rico together I'm I got married at the time I got

married I was married our kids you know play together we babysit we go to each other's parties were close we're good friends and she's got her own mortgage company she calls me up periodically asked me hey can you make a W2

or hey can you make me a pay stub sure no problem for friends that's what fraudulent friends do so you know if I needed somebody to verify rent or verify somebody's rental history or employment she had cell phone she would answer that sort of thing for me well when it ends up happening is

she gets in trouble she starts doing fraudulent loans for some guys you know and these guys are doing what's called a cash back scam so they're they're getting like a half a million dollar loan on a house that's worth $300,000 so they're getting out they're buying the house for what are

$300,000 it's really only worth $300,000, $350 but she happened to be in an area where she could get it the praise will jacked up so they buy the house they get $200,000 $300,000 back and it's a it's a straw man's scam right

is a cash back straw man's scam so it's a real person is buying the house he's got perfect credit but he's willing he's willing to let to ruin his credit to get a couple hundred thousand in his pocket so he never has any intentions so it's not a synthetic identity it's not a stolen identity it's a

straw man he's a fake kind of a not a fake person but he's just a straw man he's a standing so he stands and he signs a paperwork he buys buys the house they end up getting two three hundred thousand with this guy buys like five houses so he's

to cut two three million dollars they've lost five six hundred six seven hundred thousand dollars and these guys never even make the first payment they just let them go in for closer so the bank immediately investigates and realizes this is fraud so the FBI comes in they grab peat and

Gretchen she has to hire an attorney of course and she doesn't get thrown in jail or anything they just come to their office and they they tell them they're investigating them they know what's going on and they they want to talk to them they're like well look we want to talk to you and you're going to be indicted okay so she comes to me well actually Pete came to me and said look man can you refinance our house and get a seventy five thousand out to pay our attorney

I said no problem Gretchen gives me W2's pay subs fake the whole things fake I get her I refinance I get a second mortgage on our house seventy five thousand dollars they pay their attorney their attorney immediately says you need to wear a wire on this guy like he just got you seventy five thousand dollars you know I don't know how you got seventy five thousand dollars but the attorney knows something wrong because the attorney's like they just your home mortgage

company was just shut down there's no way you could borrow seventy five thousand dollars so he's like this this guy is doing fraudulent stuff and she says yes of course he is and he says you need to work with the FBI wear a wire against this guy so she calls me one day and says listen I got to talk to you the FBI is asking questions about you know I go what and she goes yeah I was like meet me at the piece of place down the street so you know don't come in my office because

everybody knows she's been indicted like everybody in her office quit when the FBI shows up and gives you a business card announces they're the FBI everybody quits so I said do not have do not don't don't come here because they already know they're already concerned so I go and I meet her and Pete and we sit down at the at a restaurant you know a little p3a and I sit down and she starts telling me that the FBI is asking questions about me I'm like what are you

talking about like what are they asking she is look they came in they took all our files and like I was like I don't know any of this I'm like when did this happen she's like yeah they have a couple weeks ago and they and they have

some of your files because I had closed several loans for my wife at the time we were buying rental properties my wife didn't have a job so there it's all fraud but I couldn't close I could not close those loans in at my mortgage company because I own the property so I'm selling those properties

I bought properties renovated them and sold them to my wife to get around something called seasoning seasonings says you have to wait six months to a year to refinance at the market value otherwise you want to refinance that's fine but you have to refinance at the price you purchased the property at but I bought these properties for 80 or 100,000 renovated them sold them for two 300,000 to my my wife who got a very cut didn't even get a big mortgage we were just

trying to kind of get around a guideline so but my wife was not working and I provided W2s and paystubs so when she says all this she says yeah they're looking at at your the loans you gave me at at your white slums and I went oh my god I said well you didn't tell them that the W2s

were fake did you you didn't tell them the paystubs were fake did you you didn't tell them that the down payments were you didn't tell them that we were married did you I mean just absolutely buried myself and as I'm telling her this I was like okay I I was like I kind of call myself and I'm okay wait wait wait wait a minute look okay here's what you're gonna tell him you're going to tell them you never met her she called on the phone like I start trying to devise a

plan that will answer their questions without getting my wife in trouble or them in trouble and if nobody cooperates the whole thing should shut now you know they said it doesn't go anywhere there's no way there's no word for them to go if everybody just kind of stone walls them so as I'm

saying all this Gretchen says Matt we can't lie to the FBI and I go what are you talking about you're already lying to the FBI I mean you you you know you you been lying to the FBI I mean I just refinance your house before I can really say anything Pete jumps up her husband stands up and says we've never lied to the FBI we may not have told them everything but we've never lied and I thought like what who are you talking to like I know that's not true so you're

not saying that for my benefit so I was just I kind of look at them and I'm like what and I just I remember looking down and this may mean nothing but both of their cell phones were right next to me right and I remember they probably just wearing wires but I just remember thinking those cell phones are microphones they probably weren't but I remember thinking oh wow and I just I looked at and I went wow and I said well I hope you're gonna get something for this you

see immediately starts crying and she says Matt I'm sorry I I have a kid I can't go to jail do you have kids at that point yeah I like I have a kid like I have a kid and I was like wow I wow what have you learned about friendship for that

like loyalty oh yeah just no there's that's a that's it's sweet then must have hurt it's cute I mean I love the idea of it you don't think that no I'll take a wipe so I go back to my I go back to my office I remember our told her to tell the FBI agent to call me on the phone do not come in my

office so I go back I'm still trying to figure out how to weather this right I go back I sit down phone rings my secretary comes in and says hey agent I'll never forget his name agent Scott Gale with the FBI and I was like okay is on the phone and she's standing there I was like close the door I get out and close she's like so get on the phone he asked me if I'll come down I said yeah absolutely let's schedule it for next Tuesday you know I put it off four or

five days I go to my brother-in-law immediately who's who's a lawyer and he says oh yeah yeah I don't really tell him exactly what's going on but I tell him this is what's happening kind of and I'm maybe in trouble I need I need a federal defense attorney I don't even know what a federal defense I don't even know the difference but he said you need a federal defense attorney's the FBI so he we go on a couple we meet a couple lawyers I end up getting a lawyer I

give him like 75 grand and he started to have be convinced initially he had me convinced I was probably gonna go to jail for a few years but really that's what they kind of do to justify you giving them $75,000 right and then but the more I thought about it that you know and and read he gave me the guidelines that that supposedly I had I had you know the the fraud that I had committed and what the got in the guidelines that oversaw that and I read it and I was like

I'm not really in trouble here because I'm looking at a felony but I'm not gonna go to jail because there was no potential for the bank to lend to lose money so because I bought the house with like a hard money loan and then I renovated it with my own cash and when I sold it it appraised at 250,000 my ex-wife borrowed like 180 so there's plenty of equity if the whole thing had gone into foreclosure they still would have got their money back and to be honest by

this time all this happened there was only like three of the three properties it was like five but we'd already sold a few and at this point we'd just sold another two there's like one or two properties left so we're selling at that moment we were selling them so I was like now I kind of argue with them but then he wanted 75 grand I gave him 75 grand and then he comes back and he says good news there was no potential fraud so I can get you three years now here's the

thing here's here's what I always kind of look back at when I first got went into his office he said he said listen you haven't been indicted yet I spoke with the FBI I spoke with the US attorney they believe and they've been told and he said look they didn't tell me exactly what they have but they said what the evidence that they have on you based on two confidential informants that it's you cannot go to trial and I was like right of course I knew that

and I was like okay he said but he said you haven't been indicted yet and they are fairly certain that you're running a mill right a fraud mill over there and you guys are churning out fraudulent loans now they can't come and they can't come and rage your office and do anything about it yet because so far they only have you but here's what I'm saying is that he said I can keep you from being indicted it's called pre trial is a pre trial intervention where

we go in and what we'll do is you go you work you go in talk to the FBI you go grab a bunch of your mortgage brokers most egregious files grab them bring those files to the FBI go work with the FBI they will indict them and you will not be indicted and I said which I I kick myself to this day I said absolutely not I'm not gonna snitch on them I'm not gonna cooperate I'm not going to you know I'd seen the Godfather you're not supposed to cooperate you're supposed to

be loyal I'm not gonna do any of that and you know and so I say all of this we're you know looking back like I would have if I could go back in time I would have gone into our weekly meeting with a dolly and I would have walked in front of everybody and scooped up two or three of the file cabinets and put them in the back of a truck and said listen you guys are gonna be talking to the FBI soon I suggest you attorneys and I would have driven off but I didn't

I thought no be loyal you know don't do that and and what happened was when might when the other thing falls apart right when the next scam falls apart every one of these people go to the FBI like they're not even coming to them

these guys are going to the FBI with lawyers I want to cooperate I want to tell you what Cox did I want to help I want to and I'm think like I never had to get and I did to begin with so you think that most of these people from your experience are going to sacrifice all integrity that's a funny word

sacrifice why is this but that they're going to sacrifice friendships and loyalty for just to save their own ass yeah that I only had one person that did not talk to the FBI I had one person that every time the FBI or the Secret Service went to that person's door she said don't come to my house again I don't have anything to say about about Matt I have nothing to do with any of this talk to my lawyer you just happen over and over again and that's my ex-wife

she's a gangster so are there people in this world you trusted or you still trust I you know the problem is eventually I cooperate and at the time I didn't want to cooperate I didn't believe in cooperation but after seeing how many people cooperate and the way the system is set up I think that my

understanding of loyalty is vastly more realistic now and I think that if you're committing crime if you're absolutely like the things I did I did a bunch of scumbag things you know I mean I'm not killing people but I'm doing scumbag things I'm lying cheating stealing that I'm a thief you know you boil down to it that's what I am so you can't go around behaving like a scumbag dealing with scumbags and then expect those same scumbags is suddenly abide by some

kind of a street code and not roll over on you you know and it does happen but it's like in the it's in the 90% tile of people that cooperate 90 something percent and people cooperate when they're not even looking at any real time so if you're looking at 30 years and especially after going to prison you go to prison and it's like this guy's a stand-up guy over here he got 30 years he could have cooperated against all of his co-definance but he didn't nobody comes to

see him his wife divorced him you know his kids ended up in foster care his you know his his friends are are are cleaning out his house nobody puts money on his on his his books nobody comes to see him nobody answers his phone nothing he took 30 years most of those guys turned around they end up getting indicted for other things years later they cooperate and the best thing this guy's got it going for him is that he can walk around and say well he's a

stand-up guy that guy's going to the same halfway houses me he's probably he's gonna do 30 years where I'm gonna do 10 stand-up guy meeting he never snitched right and so everybody's seeing this example and saying well I'm going to

snitch then but it sounds like what people are doing is they're signaling virtue signaling like there are they would never snitch and it actually do secretly I mean what is it I I remember I talked to one of the CEOs at the prison one time and he said he said I said shit I said 50% of the guys here

snitched he was more than that he said but listen he was a hundred percent of them are lying about it he said so you'll use nobody here that's gonna tell you they snitched nobody so there's guys tons of tons of them that cooperate if 80 90% of of um defendants cooperate you know you start doing the math and you if you you ask 10 guys in prison all I'm so I didn't I didn't cooperate I didn't cooperate I didn't cooperate like okay I'll ask a hundred I didn't

cooperate I nobody's gonna say I cooperate it's that break your heart a little bit that people backstab each other like this it does it it does but you know but I have such a low opinion of people you know I'm saying like I don't expect it's not that I I don't like people is that I just don't expect anything of them you know I don't expect you to look out for me you know there was a time when I did I thought I look out for you you should look out for me but I just don't

expect that anymore see but I think humanity flourishes because there is a lot of people out there that do the thing that is difficult to do in terms of integrity that maybe but these these aren't people with integrity these are criminals if these were decent human beings and all of them will tell you well what you do that oh you know Mr. Drug addict right I needed the money well if you were if you were a decent human being you would have gotten off the

drugs you would have gone and gotten three jobs you can work 80 hours a week I've done it you can work 84 85 80 40 90 hours a week you can do that oh I did it for my kids no you're lazy you could have worked three jobs for your kids instead you decided to sell methamphetamine well I was I was addicted you could have gotten off me it wasn't important it was the easy way out you're not someone with integrity so for you to sit there and say hey I'm gonna act like a

scumbag but now I got caught or you got caught and I don't want you to tell on me well you're a guy that Rob's bank you stick guns and people's faces you kidnapped people you torture people you sell drugs you're not you're not a moral ethical person but you want you want everybody else to hold up to some ethical code while while you're robbing grandma that's not right like you know so you know I get I get the whole Omar to a code you know and there was a

there was a time when I was you know delusional enough to believe that but you know after you go after you're going through it no and after going through it multiple times no I have to really think about that I deeply appreciate you're honest and this I think I mean there's all kinds of criminals in this world and they all have all kinds of stories and your story is one of I don't know if it came from desperation versus a love of this kind of game right I

get it wasn't part of it an attraction to the the creative aspect of this of breaking the rules when nobody else can and you figure out a way to do it I think I think initially it was I needed the money like that's the first thing you know you say okay well I need and if you ask most guy oh well man I need the money you need the money but and then I I definitely needed the money but then you get $50,000 in your bank and then you get a hundred and then it's 200 and

then it's half a million and then it's a million and what the hell are you still committing fraud for you've got half a million or a million dollars in the bank or worth of real estate or you've you're making five ten thousand dollars a month just in rental income why are you still committing fraud so it turned I think it morphs into the creativity and part for me and and two it was a chance for me to prove to everybody how smart I was you know I mean it was done at a

desperation initially and then it just turned into pure narcissistic arrogance look at me look at how I can do things that nobody else can do look how smart I am I just walked into Bank of America handed them seven documents that were all fraudulent they cut me a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars like wow I'm amazing you know and guess what they're never gonna get their check and they they won't know even know where to start to try and find the person

because they're looking for a phantom so you know and you feel great I felt great I used to I felt like I felt like James Bond I felt like double seven it was amazing and you know and it did it it feeded my need to feel important you know even if it it was it was even if that was a lie because all that success was just a lie well no you're good at it it was good at it but it was it's not it was illegal like I'm Elon Musk you know I'm saying like there's it's not like

you're an ex I'm an exceptional human I'm an exceptional human being at a horrific thing at at F committing fraud well the question is how many people are getting hurt because initially the thing is initially nobody got hurt that's the thing nobody ever lost any money directly like I didn't go and say give me fifty thousand dollars and I ran off with your money like I wasn't doing that and that was a great justification but at some point and we'll get

into that you know I take off on the run and people do lose money I didn't take that money directly in for some reason in my you know sick mind or whatever the case may be that seems like a distinction to me that makes me feel okay is that I never said give me three hundred give me ten thousand dollars and I ran off with it but I put people in the position where I damage the credit or damage the the title to their house and they had to go get a lawyer to fix

that you know and and so that they'd go pay a lawyer ten thousand dollars so I absolutely caused that person did I stood to meet your victim and I owe you that money and it was a shitty thing to do because even at the time I was like oh they'll make a couple phone calls it'll be fine it wasn't fine and if I really put a thought into it all I would have known it's gonna it's gonna really affect these people and those people had done nothing wrong with the

exception of trusting me they rented me their house or they owner finance their house they made the mistake of bumping into me and now they owe ten thousand twenty thousand dollars you know and I'm sure a ton of anguish so what happened when you were caught that first time so I was caught I got three years probation you know I took the probation just that involved initially it was it was such a slap on the hand on the wrist we allowed to still practice now okay

so I wasn't I had to I couldn't own the mortgage company more that was a good question because like I you would think you know wouldn't be creative I could keep on going but what they said was you know you you have to forfeit your your brokerage your brokerage license and your brokerage business license and what I did was I I transferred my brokerage business license to a guy that essentially bought my business they allowed me to work as a consultant in the

mortgage industry you know because they went you know they go my my lawyer goes to the judge and says what else can he do so and so I have a friend his name Dave Walker he was a CPA he came in and he bought my business and he paid me like nine thousand dollars a month and that covered my bills my wife and I got divorced so she's my ex-wife and I I don't know what to do right like I don't I'm I could you know and I was saying you know I could have like you know

you look back and it's like I could claim bankruptcy I could have moved into my parents' spare room you know something like that but you know because I had I had I lost everything in my divorce I had huge child support payment you know not that that has anything to do like with my my ex-wife like I absolutely signed up for that like I wanted to pay that but it was it was it was a chunk of change you know so we're gonna make a couple thousand dollars a month for you

know for child support she got all of the apartments that we have we'd about a million million and a half dollars worth of apartments which isn't a lot now but that's probably a five or six million dollars now so she got all the apartments so she got everything so now I'm sitting here like I got I can't be a mortgage broker I can get my nine thousand dollars but I have to help this guy run this company train people do that sort of thing so what I decided to do was

I was gonna start flipping houses legitimate here well initially I thought about doing it legitimately right but at the same time I was also in the middle of figuring out how to make these synthetic identities so I'm making the payments every month remember two months in three no no credit scores no credit scores no credit scores and I'm also saying I'm gonna go I'm gonna start buying houses renovate them sell them so to the truth is we actually renovated

probably one house completely I remember it was on 26th Street we renovated the house completely on the outside and the inside yeah outside inside it's done it's good okay right me and me and this guy actually Dave Dave Walker the guy that bought my business so we renovated and it just so happens at the same time I go to pull credit one day and wow 700 plus credit scores and I went we don't have to sell this thing at all like we just we just I can sell it and put it in

this guy's name and let him refinance it and so that's what we did we ended up I ended up selling it to this synthetic identity do you remember the first synthetic identity the name the first one was a Joel Cologne yeah and then I started getting creative because the ones after that I started naming well I so I had like Joel Cologne and an Alan Duncan but then I I do remember the movie Reservoir Dogs so I I started naming the characters after guys in the

Reservoir Dogs so I had a James Red you know I had a like a Michael White Lee Black I'd a William blue David's over Brandon Green so then I start developing these guys now I thought oh forget those those normal things I'm going with these with the Reservoir Dogs and I thought I was so cute too you

think of the retrospect those are so stupid that was just it's just there's so many things so many mistakes I made I mean within the fraud they're mistakes I made but you know other than just the overall committing fraud but it was just like I thought it was so cute and then you know you get in front of the judge and the judge is hearing about the Reservoir Dogs and Mr. Mr. Green Mr. Black Mr. White Mr. this Mr. and he's looking at me just like you Jack

ass like and you know what am I say I'm like I thought that was cute you know but nothing's cute so you know plus I'm making fake banks what's the purpose of the fake banks well sometimes you have to have your down payment in the bank right so you have to they've that they want three months worth of

bank statements to see that hey he's got his fifty thousand dollars in the bank and the more the more properties you buy they want start to want to see what's called reserves they want to make sure that you can pay all your mortgage payments if this guy loses his job can this guy maintain all these mortgage payments for the next six months and see they do that and they think you're gonna go you know oh no you can't do they go well then we won't lend it well

when they do that to me I go of course I do of course he's got it let me send you over the bank bank statements oh you want to call the bank call them so there's a phone number is a website yes you can call we'll get on there I'll do the whole you know and hold on okay what's that name again do you have the account number hold on you wait a little bit okay I got to hear I can't tell you the exact amount right now but what is the what what was this balance last

month and the you tell oh yep that's it exactly okay thank you click would you do different voices or would you be no I've done different voices or I just have somebody else do it you know Gretchen would have done it or or one of the brokers Susan would have done one of the brokers that worked for me or you know Kelly or Johnny Moon I have so many guys and you know they just get on the phone they do it because they're all doing something fraud and we're all working

together so hey I need you to call this guy need to call this guy and verify this say oh I'm at the bank okay I'm at the bank okay cool and they call back and does this feel like an organized system or was it more improv just like dealing with the different situations the government would definitely say it was organized I would say it was you know you're a bunch of you're just a bunch of guys you know to you know it's you're joking around with everybody you're

you're helping each other and it's not like everybody's you know kicking up the Tommy yeah you know so and then all these new puzzles come up and you figure out which is right you go in and you say hey I've got I've got this loan I need to get this loan that this guy is trying to buy this house and I need a loan that looks like this where can we go and by the way they cannot they cannot order a copy of his tax returns so you don't want to have to sign

what's called the 406 so they're like okay listen so and so's got a program that you know and you go back and what but you have to have this much in reserves but you got the bank right yeah yeah I get the bank I could do that you know so you go in and you throw it out there to five or six guys and you're gonna come up with an answer so you're on probation here just to self reflect did you start doing this while on probation because of the money or because it gave you

meaning God I you know I mean part a big part of that the reason is I did not want to move back in with my parents and I didn't want my father to see me struggling and I didn't want him to it was my success he had no idea my success had been the first time he'd ever really been proud of

me does that make it a success yes at which point what was the first time you told them you did something he was like you could say it being proud oh when I became a mortgage broke when I when I became a mortgage broker and I went to work for the company and what was time but within a

week I got a client three days later I got a client a week later got a client two days later got a client like I close four loans my first month and my dad was like well how much money you're gonna make and I'm like oh I'm charging this much this I got a point on the back I got this I got boom I'm

thinking I'm gonna walk home after taxes like 10 11000 Jesus God almighty you know are you sick well well we'll see don't start counting your chickens before that you know and and then you know two whatever three weeks later four weeks later you know boom I got a check it's like

nine thousand dollars or something or and then you know the next month it's twelve and the next month it's sixteen and you know then they make me a manager and you know it just he didn't know he was illigent no he thinks he thinks my son he's brilliant you know he's great he's wonderful I had you

know was certainly not proud of me prior to that um but you know my dad was athletic he was extremely bright I mean brilliant and I was a kid who had to be put into special schools who barely graduated high school who ended up going to college and getting a

degree in fine arts because I was never going to be able to get a degree in business it wasn't gonna happen so when I graduate at college I remember with the the degree in fine arts he said the best you'll the best thing you could do with that is maybe you could draw caricatures at Disney World

you know I'm saying which wasn't a compliment but it wasn't like hey you could draw um so yeah he you know and then I turned around and I tried to go to work for state farm insurance which is who he worked for he worked for them for like

40 something years and I failed the aptitude test so then I went and worked for another insurance company and I was an insurance adjuster but I couldn't keep up with the workload then I end up working construction I'm still barely paying my bills you know that's basically where my

dad felt like that's that's you know he's polite to me you know we were we were you know cordial but yeah I wasn't I think he felt he deserved a better kid so when you when you started doing mortgages that's when he was like worse he was like this kid's got something

I'm driving I'm driving a new I gotta just pull in in a new car and I gotta I just bought a house that was you know four or five blocks away from his house from where I grew up from where he lives you know lived at that time you know

six blocks away from where my sister's married to her lawyer husband like I'm doing pretty good and then within three months we bought you know where my new wife we buy a quadplex and then we're buying a triplex and another quadplex and a 10 unit and a duplex and another duplex and a

quadplex and it's like what the hell's going on this guy is blowing up he's going on vacation here and vacation here and you know so he you know and so when when the FBI comes in and they indict me and I take the three years

probation like I mean the probably the worst thing in the world you know other than going to prison would have been just having to just sell everything and go move in and start over and sell used cars not that there's anything wrong with selling used cars but I just felt like you know

I just didn't want to disappoint him any more than I already had so I thought I'm gonna flip houses and then I'll start maybe a development company so I'll buy some vacant lots and all this and that the problem is these houses on mine for

50,000 if I fix them up and sell them maybe I make 20, 25,000 and then you got to find a qualified borrower it's very hard to find a qualified borrower that wants to live in Ebor City back then it's I still think it's rough but those same houses are going for three and four hundred thousand so

you know I'm buying houses I gotta I gotta get qualified borrowers I have to do all the renovations it's it's a nightmare you know and if I you know looking back let's like okay well then you gotta bite the bullet it's just what you have to do I didn't want to do that I didn't want to do it whether it was laziness or I don't know you know I just thought I'm good at this I'm gonna run I'm just gonna start running a scam I'm gonna figure out how to drive the prices up

buy the houses for 50 record them at 200,000 and then have these synthetic identities buy all the properties refinance them pull out the cash make six months worth of payments let them all go into foreclosure and that really really started working well very well I had one time where I had a guy it was James Red the synthetic identity was James Red and he'd bought two or three houses and there was somebody at the office who was friends of somebody who knew

the title company where we were closing the loans and he called that her her name was Mary and said Mary this guy James Red like Cox is doing something shady James Red doesn't even exist she goes and looks at the file her last couple files and she realizes of course obviously like this guy never showed up she remembers Cox picked up the files like and he's saying he doesn't exist so she freaks out she calls the mortgage broker mortgage broker calls me

mortgage broker calls me up and says listen Mary said she's not closing the next loan unless James Red shows up and I went wow that's that's a tough one and she's like okay so what do you want to do do you want to go to another title company like we're supposed to close in like three days two three days I said well I mean he's gonna have to show up then I said I'm gonna I'll figure it out like like like give me a couple days give me let me figure this out she's like okay well

I don't know that's gonna happen it doesn't exist keep in mind at this point I don't need IDs I don't need a real ID I mean I can I figured out how to kind of make a real ID right like I could make one I could take sandpaper and sand off the information on a regular ID and then I would print the the corrected information in reverse on a piece of transparency and I would glue it over there and you could still see the holograms and stuff it actually worked pretty good

I know the cops not gonna it's not gonna pass muster with a cop but some of you the bank like I was able to go in and I would open a bank account with it well so one of the things I had done when I was closing these loans was I would go online and I would pick you have to pick a photo of somebody right to put on the on the driver's license right so I'm not making a fake ID for all these guys because I don't need a fake ID for all these guys not with my

picture on it but I need a fake I need I need a copy of an ID but I need a picture where I get the picture so I go to Hillsboro counties a rest website and I would find people that I knew that had been arrested and so I found a guy named Eric Tomorgo who had been arrested he had like

I don't know what it was the DUI or domestic violence I forget what it was but there was a picture of him so I print out the picture I cut it up I paste it on to a driver's license and I make a copy of it you know for James Redd that's what I've been giving the title people when I

would close I'd sign all the documents and I'd leave them that copy so that it looked like they made a copy of it and then they would not arise all the documents even though they'd never seen this person they have a copy of his driver's license everything's signed cock said he signed it it's good

notarized here's your check so what I do is I think let me see if I can get Eric to do this he's been to I knew it'd been prison before so I call up Eric and I remember one of my buddies like he's never gonna do this and I was like I think he will I think he will so that's how and that's really that that kind of like you think what do you think now let me try let me call him I don't know bro like that's the kind of conversations you're having like it but really looking back I love to hear the

open a few sentences that you have with him I got I can tell you exactly what I said because it's burned in my mind he comes in so what Eric was doing at that time he's actually working for us he worked for somebody else but periodically we would you know we'd buy a house and we'd call him up we'd say hey can you you're in your boss can you guys come over and trim the trees of this house trim all the trees take all the crap and the yard clean it up they go

yeah sure no problem because that's what he did work for like a handyman service so they would come they clean it up and they'd do that so I say can you come over and he was like yeah so he comes to the office whatever a few hours later and he comes in the conference room

I said hey Eric what's going on and he says uh he says hey you know how's it going I said yeah I said um listen I said I'm I'm gonna tell you something I need a favor he's like okay cool he's like what is it I said you know all these houses we've been having you

going clean up he's like yeah we had that you had you painted that one house you did this yeah yeah I know I know right so here's what we've been doing I've been buying these houses for $50,000 recording for 200 and then I have these fake people

buy them and I explain I just lay it out for him and he's like wow that's he's like that's fucking bro that's ingenious man that's some that's smart like oh you know I was like okay I say yeah I know that's great so here's the thing I said the title company who's been closing some of these loans

and we have a closing in a couple days she wants this guy James red to show up and I need someone to show up as James red and he goes wow he is who are you gonna get to do that and I was just thinking just like you're not

understanding I'm not confiding in you because I need a friend you know so and I looked at I said well I was thinking you might do it he was like whoa he's that's the big favor I said that it is a big favor I could be in a lot of trouble and I said I know and he goes well wait a minute

because I can't go he said you have to give these people a driver's license you said the driver's license is you were you were using mug shots she you said she's closed a couple of these she already she's seen this guy's picture and I go she has seen this picture I say the thing is for James red

I pulled the mug shot offline of you when you were arrest a couple years ago and he jumps up and he goes Joe motherfucker and I go oh I said Eric I said wait a minute I said hold on hold on I said listen I said I only did that because I knew if it came down to this

moment you were the only person that I knew that could pull this off that had the balls to walk in and do it and he sat there and went yeah you're right you're right and I mean I I don't I couldn't believe he fell listen this guy would beat the brakes off me he was he's like 5 10 5 11

he's boxed he's a big guy yeah so you know it's like I've weathered that part of the storm and he sat there and he was right right and he goes well I'm not doing it for free I'm not doing it for nothing I said no but of course don't I mean what you know what he's like you're making a lot of money

I said we'll keep in mind a lot of that money goes back in the property it's not like we're walking away with you know I think I said like tens of thousands we're really walking right with hundreds of thousands and it's not like we're walking away with a bunch of money here you know it's you know we got to put it but we got to buy more properties where I keep it going we got to make payments no I know but still I can get a lot of trouble I said I understand

bro I go well what do you want and I remember thinking if he asked for more than like 10 or 15 thousand like I'll just I'll do it myself we'll just change title companies and we'll go and I'll I'll do it myself and he sat there and he went I want $500 and I went $500

let's just I almost start laughing I mean I was like I put my hand over my I was like $500 yeah it's it's gonna take you 30 minutes and he's like he's like I don't care bro I get a lot of trouble I was like oh well yeah I'm not paying you now you got to sign first and he's like oh you know I'll

sign I'll sign I know you're good for it I you for $500 I made a fake ID form he goes into the place he signs James red comes out what was even for you what was funny about that was when we walked into the title company we're sitting in the in the lobby

and Mary comes walking out she looks at me she goes Mr. Crocs I don't know why you're here because I told Kelly that was the broker she's I told the broker that I'm not closing alone unless unless James red shows up and Eric stands up on cue and he goes I'm James red and she was like

and she goes hold on a second she runs in the back comes back with a file opens it up looks at the picture and she's like oh I'm I'm so sorry give me five minutes I'll I've got to file I Prince of the Docs he goes in signs and when we're there she's passing out the checks

5,000 here 25,000 here 35,000 here 7,000 here 6,000 here so he sees all these checks and I'm like oh I I got that I and the construction coming in and I I have that I'm I'll take care of that I'll take care of that so I get all the checks and I leave we go sit in my Audi and he sits down he's like

bro there's a lot of money there's a lot of money goes back in the properties here and he's like I still bro and I said um and I count about 500 bucks but listen a week later we had another closing so I he comes in I said hey bro he's hey what's going on and I said I need you to do the James red thing he was yeah I've been thinking about that I did that way too cheap I said I get it man well how much do you want what do you want and I'm thinking if it's it is more than 10 or 15 I'll do it myself

and he sits there and he goes I want a thousand dollars I go a thousand dollars oh my god so I give him a thousand dollars and he did another one and but by that point it was like five or six we've done five or six with that guy and after five or six plus the credit cards plus you know all the other things like their credit scores start dropping you know if it was 700 now it's down to like 600 and at 600 you couldn't really borrow enough to make it worth it

so like I have other people in the wings waiting so you know we would just we'd go out and I'd run up the credit cards and and pull them as much money pull all the money out of the banks and close the accounts and then stop paying and you said a lot of people knew

yeah he was one of the people that he was one of the people why do you think nobody said anything I well I mean I think everybody was making money the appraiser at that time I had an appraiser eventually I order the appraisal software and I just start doing the appraisal myself

like why give this guy 500 bucks so you were doing the appraisal yourself bro I'm telling you how's that possible how's that is there a check against is there there is it's just funny nobody ever questions that you actually have to have a license to get the

appraisal software so I get an appraisers that we're working with I get her license and I I create a an email address as her so it was a synthetic appraiser right it was a real person but I end up ordering the appraisal software by by emailing it was called Alamo Alamo appraisal software so I end up emailing them as her and they go well we can't give we can't sell you the software unless we we need a copy of your license boom here's your license so I send her the license and then we

paid for it with a credit card you know you could go get like a green dot card you go put 500 bucks on it or a thousand the software was like 1500 bucks or something so you pick him like back then you know it's a long time ago so 1500 bucks they mail it to us and now I've got the software

so now I can you know I can do the appraisals myself what stops you from appraising it not for 200,000 but even more there's no comparable sales so no matter what you sent to the bank they're going to look at it like they're going to have a their in house appraiser is going to do a desktop

review he's going to go online he's going to check to make sure all the appraise all of the comparable sales are sold for what you said they sold for are the same square footage were built what the pictures look like where how far they are they're just going to double check everything but you know he's some guy who's on salary and he does you know whatever 40 or 50 of these a day or something it doesn't take them long and so it's cheaper that way where we pay for their

appraiser appraises the whole thing got it so everybody's getting paid right and so at this point I'm doing that right you know and I'm getting caught periodically can you give an example what do you mean getting caught I'm living in Tampa Heights which is right next to Ebor City and Tampa right so

this is all these are all like little suburbs of Tampa and they're all built back in the 1920s right 1890s 1910 1920 so I'm I've bought this eight unit building I renovated it into a triplex I mean I'm driving an Audi I'm dating a woman that I should not have been dating

I mean I don't know what she was thinking um so I'm you know I'm you know I'm going on vacations like everything life's good so but everyone so while you know like we're you know we're things happen you get a phone call hey this is what just happened and I one time I got a phone call from

same broker Kelly Kelly called me up and said listen we got a problem this was I want to say this is Alan Duncan this was one of the first ones that I had done right we we used him but uh and so he so she calls me up and says listen Alan Duncan never made his first mortgage payment

and I had a friend of mine or one of my co-definite when we closed on that loan we both got checks for whatever 40 or 50 grand keep mine we're also buying some of this money's going into a business account we're buying property we're but so it's not like I'm pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars or even you know even 20 or 30 thousand dollars on every closing I'm more like I'm getting 25 10 20 and this guy's getting 10 and this guy's getting 15 and then we're taking 60 and

we're putting it into the business account we're buying a bunch of vacant lots or we're building some new houses so we're trying to kind of take all this and turn it into a development company um but we still have to pair bills so you know my buddy's got to go to he's got to go to Amsterdam at least for two weeks you know he's from Belgium that's you apparently have to do that at least once a year so he he was so when I gave him his chat the check I said look

you're gonna make the pay here's like 20 grand or 15 grand but you got to make the payments on this thing for the next six months you have no problem I said okay so she calls me up a month and half later and says hey Alan Duncan did not did not make his first payment

and I went oh my god and I he was actually renting the apartment downstairs for me so I run downstairs and I open the door and I go bro I'm like did you make Duncan's payment and he turns around he's like is it do and I was like oh my god so I run back you know I grab the phone I'm like he didn't make it he didn't make it she's like okay well here's what's happening the account executive is calling they've got the file and it was called self-starbed bank

self-starbed bank has it they're reviewed it they've already been ordering documents they they're saying that this guy there's a there's a problem they are it's it's it's falling apart like the whole thing's fallen they know something's wrong

but they don't know exactly what it's just something suspicious and that she didn't tell me that on the phone okay like she she's saying there's something wrong they're freaking out yeah because the account executive didn't really know she just got a phone call saying hey

have you ever met this this broker did she meet the guy who is the guy he hasn't paid we're calling the cell nobody's answering and really most of this was was my buddy Rudy's fault he just not doing any of this stuff he any of the things he was to be doing so we go to the office

and I call self-starbed bank I get the secretary and I said look I need to talk to whatever the guy the big guy was it was one of them was like the president and one was like the somebody else anyway vice president so I said he just talked to so and so the vice president and she says I'm

sorry he's in a business me and I said we'll listen tell him this is Alan Duncan like you know go tell him his Alan Duncan's on the phone right now I'm sure you he wants to talk to me and she's like all right hold on and I mean like 20 seconds later you know speaker phone hey mr.

mr. Duncan this is so and so and you know I'm here with the with our lawyer and the president of the bank and our head of fraud we were just discussing you and I was like okay I understand that you guys are I haven't made my first payment I said it actually came back in the mail I had

the wrong address that was completely my fault and I apologize I said but I can get your cashier's check today I will overnight it no problem hope that's going to be okay I say they said way we're way past that way past that said okay um well what's what's the issue and they were like I mean look

to be honest I don't think I'm talking to Alan Duncan I don't think there is an Alan Duncan he's like I mean your social security number was issued a couple years ago um the we call the bank um and and this was why we had gone with like south or sund trust bank right so it was a real bank

mm-hmm so it wasn't our normal bank and they called they don't they don't have any record of you and I was like well I've never been happy with South Star bank there if you know it sounds like a banking error um and they're and they're like yeah I don't think this isn't cute he says I don't

think I'm talking to Alan Duncan right now right and you were a terrible it just terrified I'm but you have to be playing it cool I guess I mean I know what am I going to say no you're talking to Matt Cox like I can't say that like I'm just gotta keep running with it just like okay well look

you know it and he's like you know we called the DMV this you know they don't have a list for you in the in the you know in their website we think that the you know we don't think you exist yeah you know we're still waiting for our phone call back from who so and so and so and so and so and I'm just like oh my god and I said um have you called have you called the authorities yet and they were like no we haven't but once we put our file together we will and then the head of

the fraud department they said oh by the way mr. I forget it they but the head of the fraud department is worked for the FBI for like 10 years or something or 12 years and I and I so I mean I'm just like and by the way the appra- the broker is there and my buddy Rudy is there and I mean there he's

pacing the room she's in tears crying like there and I'm like okay well fellas I said where's this headed where's this going what are we doing and and they so they're they're kind of chuckling and joking about it and I remember being like thinking what's the like

it's weird and I said look well why don't I just let me just pay you back and I said ah well we'll we'll get the money we're not worried about I said you don't seem worried about the money about getting in the money back like don't why don't you just let me I'll cut you a check I can

get you the money back like what are I I owed him like 150 or something I forget exactly there's nothing like I owe you 150,000 let me cut you check for 150,000 and they were like no no you know that's uh we'll get the money back when we foreclose in the property and that's when I was like oh

they think the property's worth like $195,000 or something and I went oh I said I understand okay I said you have the appraisal in front of you and they were like yeah and I said open it up I say take a look at comp number one that's owned by a guy named you know Lee Black comp number two you

know is owned by you know whatever David Silver whatever the names were and I'm like you know like black silver red I said I am all those people and I said let me tell you what I've done and I tell them just laid out boom boom boom boom I said so you can call the FBI but you're not gonna get all

your money back or you can let me give you your money back and we can let this we let sleeping dogs lie the whole thing goes away I apologize you know I had every intention to make it all the payments it's a glitch you caught me no my bad and so these guys are just like oh my god like now they're

they put me on hold they're looking through the file they come back and I remember at some point we go back forth back forth and finally they come back and they said listen you still have the money I said yeah well first they come back they threaten me oh well when the FBI we give us the

to the FBI you're nice that's not true I said the money was deposited into a bank account it is since been moved the bank account bank account has been closed it's been removed in cash that money has gone you will never see that money I will be cutting you if I pay you back at all it'll be

from another account and so the FBI agent ends up saying he's right even if we caught him red handed the likelihood that any of these funds will be ever be recouped is is zero like there's almost no money's ever recouped and so we end up they put me on hold again they come back and they go how

quickly can you get us a cashier's check and I go like that day I go get them a cashier's check overnight the cashier's check they never called the FBI they never did anything now at that point we actually ditched that hold that James or Alan Duncan I remember at that point we went to the

mall ran up all the credit cards and just threw everything away and walked away because it was shot you know that whole that guy was shot I think we borrowed whatever $800,000 or $900,000 in his name with the banks it's really really all about the money that listen when I go on the run

I got one where I was caught so red handed it's it's insane how how bad it was and listen that's nothing I got caught by a Washington Mutual one time I was caught by Washington Mutual where we had done six owner occupied duplexes so if you say you're gonna live in a house you can get about

95% financing but if it's an investment property you got to put down 20% you get about 80% financing so a buddy of mine who was a sheriff's deputy we had his wife by I'm gonna say six owner occupied duplexes saying she lived in every single one of them well you can't

honor occupy six dwellings like it if that's fraud now we're in her W2s and pay subs were correct but she didn't put the down payments down even the down payments we didn't put down we actually got cash back but months later we the they called the alloyer from Washington Mutual ends up calling

the mortgage broker and saying that they ended up with two of the owner occupied duplexes because Washington Mutual had a credit line extended to one of the lenders who'd lend the money so it actually was Washington Mutual so it was a couple months later when they went to sell

sell it and up you know they package them together and sell them they realize we have the same customer with two duplexes side by side both owner occupied this is fraud so she comes in she tells me oh my gosh this lawyer's on the phone this is what happened I'm like oh wow this is horrible

I end up getting on the phone with him we have a huge we have a conversation and I'm like you know he's like look you know this is a big deal we could call the FBI I'm like look who knows who was involved in this maybe somebody on your side was involved maybe somebody on my side I don't know

what my mortgage broker did I'll deal with her on my own why don't you just let us refinance the properties not only did we talk him into refine allowing us to refinance the properties he gave us a reduced a reduced balance of what we owed him because we couldn't we couldn't borrow enough

to pay him off so they took like a $20,000 hit just to refinance those properties never called the FBI never did it it was absolutely fraud yeah I had a broker one time we got called with over a million dollars and loans that he had done that were fraudulent pinnacle bank court which was out

of a Chicago the owner called me and he was like look your mortgage broker did this like there was a bunch of canceled checks they were fake canceled checks so they look like they had run through the bank for this somebody's rent but they hadn't does that make sense like yeah you pay your rent

they deposit it it goes to the bank and they've got all the numbers and everything well I had a bunch that were blank that all you had to do was fill out your your borrowers information and then you cut and pasted his full his name and his address at the upper left hand corner you make a copy

of it it looks like canceled checks we have 24 of them well my one of my brokers was using them for all of his files like even if the person really had a rental history he didn't want to order it he just did this it was easier it's faster yeah yeah just wow so they catch a million dollars

with a loans they call me up and then they caught another million dollars but they had already sold them to household bank so while I'm on the phone with the the owner his name is Gary and we're talking he's like look this is what we found this is this this is what happened and I remember I said um

Gary at the end of this conversation if you think I'm cutting you a check for a million dollars I said I just don't have it they don't have it and this is what I own the mortgage company and he says uh uh no I what I'm I'm asking you for your word that if any of these come back on us

they're in Florida they're in your area you'll help us get rid of the properties you'll we'll foreclose we're gonna have to resell them I don't want to be flying down there just help us get rid of them I said absolute of course no problem I said what about the I said well what do

you want to do with them he's well they're going to be a part of a a package like a three million dollar package we're selling to household bank the other ones they had caught had already been sold the ethical thing to do is to contact household bank say we will buy those back we're going to take care it's not what happened in fact Gary flew down a couple weeks later took me in several of the brokers not that broker but several of the brokers out to dinner had a few drinks and he openly admitted

he's like look I don't care if all the loans have fraud in them as long as they don't come back on me that's what I'm concerned about because there's a clawback clause for one year he's like so if they can perform for one year I don't care that was it how many people in the industry do you think are

operating like this um and by like this I mean in the aforementioned gray area I would say there's probably after like the like after the 2008 financial crisis I would say it cleaned up considerably but I would say at this point it's it's just as bad as it ever was and

and keep mind these a lot of the loans that caused the problems were like you know they called them liar loans or or you know you know no no qualification like no qualms right no income well those loans are they exist again like there are subprime companies that are doing that

again I don't know the kind of thing I call them subprime anymore they call them so they got some other name yeah really branded yeah they rebranded a little bit but it's it's happening all over again it just seems to hold the whole real estate slash banking system is very prone to this

kind of corruption I mean but how can you fix it like if if a lot of the things they fixed a lot of the manipulation they fixed but if you tighten it too much then the average person can't get alone like you you so you you know and and the thing is some of these loans sometimes changing

at W2 you know should that person have gotten into that house no he shouldn't have he didn't qualify but he makes all of his payments so it's like is it a fraudulent loan yeah but it performs so you know I think that I would say that I forget what the FBI statistic was it was like 20% or

30% prior to the two out prior to the the financial crisis was like 20 or 30% of like bank loans they were saying that contained some kind of fraud even if it was just a lie you know if you want to cut 30% out of the out of the you know that's a ton that's a ton so you're on probation and you're

doing these you're almost getting caught you're almost getting caught and doing these really large scale scams how does it get to the point where you're on the run so I'm doing multiple scams right so it's not just that I'm doing the scams with the the reservoir dog scams right I'm not just doing

those guys have I'm also creating other identities because I've got other people that are involved they they want to do a scam so this chick I was dating she wanted to she wanted to run a scam so I set up a scam it's semi complicated but the the bottom line is she ends up stealing a real

person we we steal a real person's identity I have a real person's identity we get a driver's license in her name open up some bank accounts go rent a piece of property in her name and I transfer the D the D from the property out of the real owner's name I transfer it into her stolen identity

we then refinance the house like three or four times and so she starts going to these different closings she's her name is Allison and she's pretending to be a a Puerto Rican woman named Rosie Depress um Allison has brown hair and blue eyes Rosie Depress clearly doesn't

so Allison when when we make the ID she dies her hair black curls it a little bit um and gets the pictures pictures taken of herself but before she goes to the first closing to get a check for like a hundred thousand dollars we've got like three of these scheduled

um she she changes her hair color like that she dies it back like like a dirty blonde and she goes to the first closing and she gets a check let me check for a hundred thousand let's say I don't know what it was like it was like 95 or 105 whatever roughly a hundred thousand dollars

she gets a check at the closing they give it to her we then go to the next closing well the next closing the the title person has her sign all the documents but she's looking at her like something's not right looks at her ID makes a copy of the ID looks at it and says this this

doesn't look like you and she's like you know you don't look Hispanic and she's like oh I'm half Hispanic what what do you what and she's like you don't I mean but keep in mind the photograph was her so she's saying this doesn't look like you but it's her granted that she had you know the

curly hair a little bit but that's it so Allison is like it's me and she's like look I'm not going to get cut you I'm not going to give you the check yeah I'm gonna let's just sign the documents you know we can get you need the check I'll let you know so she goes gets in my car she's

saying yeah listen there's a problem so we're driving on the road she explains it to me I realized you know okay that's done it's over we're we're not going back she's like what about the other closing no no no more closings we're done and and I you know and it was probably more of a yelp

screaming and yelling like what the hell did you do why told you not to change your hair why would you change your hair like that when she came in like the day before and I was like what did you do what did you do and she's like I changed my hair what's the big deal it's still me sure enough

you know and that's like like it's not that I knew that that was going to happen but why attempt fate how did you meet Allison like she was a mortgage worker okay and and I had done some fraudulent she need she works for another mortgage company sorry I she worked for another

mortgage company she couldn't get a loan closed the owner of that mortgage company called me and said look we got a loan we need it closed and I said great and I spend guys would call me I say great I'll come pick it up I'll give you a $300 or $500 referral fee no no it's a couple hundred

thousand dollars we want to close it well if you then close it well I can't close it we need a W2 or we need this we need that we can't figure out how to do it so I go over there and typically I convince them just give it to me it's not gonna close she was she was she was she was you

you have to see this check she was gorgeous she was gorgeous very flirtatious made me feel like I was thin and handsome so like she gets whatever she wants yeah so I'm like okay look here's what you do and I explained to her do this do this do this do this send it here it'll close and she we

close it well then she starts calling me right hey how's it going we go to lunch next thing you know we start sleeping together she realizes what's happening she says I want to I went on in on this so now we do the closings we're on our way I say look that checks dead what she was what about the

other the other one I go no no it's all dead we're walking away now that was easy for me to say because for me I had money she's going through a divorce she's broke you know like none of this did I take into consideration at the time by the way to me it's like nah that's dead we're done

uh we'll start over again well and she's to her in her mind she was about to make we're we're getting probably that was a million dollar scam she was about to end up getting you know whatever it was half or one third of half a million dollars in the next week now she's got nothing so

she says look let's at least cash this one and I had a buddy named Travis Hayes who had been you know we actually were we've been friends since high school we were like best friends right really close friends in high school we were still close Travis was running a scam scam this one

with hers was in clear water his was in Orlando so I'm all I'm getting them all over the state at this point right so he's running an Orlando scam that's already yielded half a million maybe more he's still pulling he was still refinancing properties right so he's about to close on another half a million dollars worth of properties he's got a bank account that's open she says let's give it to Travis have him deposit it in his account he's already pulled out like 300,000 out of the account

and she's like shouldn't be a problem I was like um no no no and she's let me call him she calls him think I call them and and I explain the situation he's usually it's okay and I said no I don't think it's okay I don't think it's okay at all and he's like nah it's not a big deal um just give me

that give me the check so I give him the check he goes he deposits the check they say they're gonna hold it till it clears you know that was kind of a thing back then um it takes I don't know I don't know how long it took five days six days whatever it was he was supposed to go back and it

would have cleared and he would have been able to start pulling money out and so I call him one day because Allison's bug in me so I call him and I go hey where yeah he goes I'm actually on my way to Orlando and I said oh okay so you'd but let Allison know I'm not getting any money he said the

bank manager called and said that because the check was over a hundred thousand dollars they have to witness me endorsing the back of the check or they had to see my something right and for me to come in I'm oh I said something's wrong something's wrong don't go to the bank um what do you

think's wrong I think the cops are waiting for you that's what I think for him and he goes no the cops aren't he's man I'm in the parking lot right now just pulling the parking lot there's no cops I'm gonna be in squat cars like then he's like now he said it's fine you're over reacting bro

and I'll never forget what he said he said you're shaking like a little girl bro calm down I got this I'm cool with the manager like the manager like because you've chopped it up with the manager he's gonna let your fraudulent check go through so he walks in the cops are in there they locked

the door he just told me later you know they closed the door locked it the cops are in there they grab him and uh they bring him downtown he didn't say anything he won't say anything um that's not true by the way um but he's so he just where he told me he'd been saying I told him I'm talking to

you covers oh he told yeah yeah he told you but he actually did he actually did talk to him so um he what he ends up doing what ends up happening is we can't get in touch with him yeah so we're calling and calling calling and then finally I decide you know what I'm not gonna call

his cell phone anymore I'm gonna call the name of the person he was um that the synthetic identity is number right so I go and I call the synthetic identity is number I call and I say somebody answers and I go hey is so and so there and he said and it's a gruff authoritarian

voice you know it's this is law and for any and he's like no who's this he's no he's no this is office or so and so who's this and I go I was like oh this is Lee Black I said he said he's how do you know so and so I was like oh no click and I just hung up and I called for like a payphone

so I turn around I said he got arrested and then later on that night he showed up on the the county uh website you know the the arrest website showing he had been arrested and uh the next day he calls me and he asked me to get him out of jail like hey I you gotta go so

I I have to give his brother-in-law money um you know we get him out on jail uh he actually got out for bail yeah he got out for like nothing and here's where I should have known like he was cooperated it went from like $300,000 bond down to like $10,000 so it's a thousand bucks so

right then I didn't know at the time but obviously that means we're gonna let him out of jail where he's cooperating so they let him out of jail I go and I get him a lawyer a state this was state by the way it wasn't federal so um I get him a lawyer for like $15,000 I he come you know he comes

you know of course he tells me look they ask me a bunch of questions I told him that you know I that he you know he made up some story about there's a he's working with another guy but he doesn't know the guy's name he made up a name like it's a whole he's this whole kind of thing where he

tells them about me but not me and he's like and then you know the numbers none of numbers led anywhere so they're all lead lead to cell phones that are only being used for those scams so it's a dead alley or blind alley and uh I'm like okay okay and I mean I'm paying him like he's coming in

man I my truck's no good I need another truck I buy him another truck hey man my the electric is gonna get turned off and I don't have I'm I need a thousand dollars of course here's a thousand dollars I don't know what I'm embarrassed you had to ask here's a thousand you know and week

later you know he needs two thousand for this a thousand for this two thousand for this he wants to start a tree trimming company he needs to buy a tree trimmer how much are those five thousand of course such ten so I give him another twenty five thousand starts like a tree trimming

business which he runs to this day um what I don't know is that you know the whole time he is actually working with a task force that's been put together federal or this is state at this point it's a state task force because there's multiple counties involved at this point and it wasn't

hard for him to explain like this this is this comes back to reservoir dogs I got a much all you had to say to the officers were listening you got to let me go I can't do any prison time I'm going to tell you about a much much bigger scam and they go okay well how can you prove that scam pull up Hillsborough County uh Hillsborough County's tax appraiser website okay look up the name James Redd look all of these were built bought six months ago six months later they're all in foreclosure

pull up Lee Black all of these were bought look six months later all of them are foreclosure hey pull up James you pull up branding green pull up so all of these are going in foreclothes I mean it's so it's like you know that what I thought was so cute not cute there's just stupid and so he very

quickly they put together a task force he's working with them on the task force and we're still buying houses flipping houses doing everything because I'm I believe him I believe he's not you know he's saying look if I have to go to jail for you know a year or so like you know

and he's also paying you know he hasn't paid them back yet but he but we're saying he can pay them back like it's like look if we get to the point you know when we get to that point like we'll pay them back um but we haven't paid them back yet because we have no way to show where that money

came from we can always go to like one of his relatives and give his give his dad 40 grand give his mom 20 grand you know that kind of stuff and start putting money that way and all that money was taken out in cash too so we could always show up with a chunk in cash regardless you know

it's still in the process and I think that we're still in the process and it could be six months or a year away because it's a slow thing I've already been through the process my first time when I got in trouble and it was a year but from the time that I was spoken to until I pled guilty and

was sentenced so um I'm not concerned about it well that's happening we're still flipping properties and one day I have a buddy named Steve Sutton remember the sheriff's deputy and keep in mind it's funny because like I've done bad loans for police officers sheriffs lawyers doctors like you

know across everybody across these aren't like all you know yeah everybody guys that you know these are all like you know construction workers or guys that work in your mechanics or something these are like the legitimate these are legitimate people that have credit problems or whatever

the case may be so one day I'm sitting at work and and I'd been getting phone calls for the prior week from people at title companies saying hey Matt wanted to let you know we just had some subpoenas served on several of your files and I'm concerned like that had me concerned then a guy named

Jeff Testerman starts making phone calls Jeff Testerman is a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times he's calling people saying hey um I know notice that you sold a piece of property to Lee Black have you ever met Mr. Black you seems like and they're like just hanging up on him or saying no I don't

know what you're talking about I'm not sure what that guy's name was let me call you back and I'm getting phone calls from people so I know something's up with the newspaper now now I know something's being looked at but nobody's really talking I know that there are subpoenas being being served

and I'm nervous you know I'm very concerned and then one day I'm in my office and the share step that he walks in Steve Sutton in his uniform too which everybody always stiffened you know when he would walk in so it walks in I go Steve I said what's going on he's head and usually he's

jolly and laughs and stuff and he goes and he says I gotta talk to you outside I was like okay I walk outside what's up and he says uh he used to date this girl in the like the Tampa police department or something right I was like okay he said she showed up in my house this morning at like

six o'clock in the morning I went okay he said she said that she's been working on a task force and he said apparently one of your buddies got arrested in Orlando they're investigating some other thing and clear water they're investigating a ton of properties here in in e-bore Tampa heights

and I mean there's like a hundred properties involved and my name came up because you've sold some properties to me which I had and and he's like so she came to me and said look your buddy Cox he said and I go I was like okay he goes he said well the task force is on you

and she said to stop talking to you because they're gonna come arrest you in a couple days they just handed over the task force findings to the to the FBI and the FBI is going to come arrest you in a couple days and she said not to talk to you because and because you're you're going

to cooperate and because all white collar guys cooperate so she thinks you're gonna cooperate and and not to talk to you because she's afraid you're gonna get me him up and she said just a to walk away and and he was like so I thought you should know and I was like okay and he said what

are you gonna do I said oh I'm you know I'm it well first he said what what should I do and I go tell him tell him that I arranged all the loans for you you came in you signed the paperwork I filled out all the documents you signed the paperwork you you know I arranged everything I'm like

you're not a mortgage broker you don't know if this is legit like you sign you have perfect credit you signed the paperwork you walked away with a check for 30,000 you don't know yeah and he was like because he did because he had a job he was a share step you like I'm not a you know

I went in I applied I would applied for a loan at a bank they said if we can but you can buy the house and we'll give you $30,000 so of course I'm gonna do that you know that's not gonna happen but he doesn't know he's and and I said just tell him yeah tell him you'll cooperate like absolutely

um he's what are you gonna do I said me I said I'm leaving bro I'm leaving I said I can't I can't stay here I can't go to prison like I was just sentenced I'm on federal probation right now like the judge isn't gonna be cool with me getting popped again like I mean he I can't do it can't do

it I said I'm leaving can't go to prison I'm adorable bro like you know I can I saw Shaw Shank redemption I know what's gonna happen I can't yeah I can't do that let's not gonna happen like I can't you know I can't not gonna defend myself against a guy who's six foot three and

Tatted up no so and you know and I can't I'm not gonna I'm no benefit to a gang yeah I'm not a nonviolent you know soft white collar criminal so I was just like I was like yeah I'm leaving or I'm leaving so I actually went home well actually I was able to I started cutting checks to people right

so I cut checks to Allison to Johnny to like everybody I could think of here's 5,000 here's 7,000 here's 8,000 here's six here's nine and had them going to all these different bank accounts pulling out cash but this is like a Thursday at four o'clock so the next day they show up with cash

write some more checks they go again I get about 80 grand in cash that's all I can get I I go home that night I start packing my bags and I was dating this this chick named uh Rebecca Halk we've been dating about a month and she shows up at my house you know I hadn't

returned her phone calls all day and apparently we're supposed to go out and I'd forgotten about it I had bigger issues and so I'm packing a couple of duffel bags and she walks in she's like what's going on I'm like um I'm leaving where are you going I thought we supposed to go out at such and

go do something tonight I'm like I'm leaving it's over and and she says what happened I tell her what happened this is what happened she's like oh my god like she had no idea but she had no idea about anything you were doing no I barely knew her like I mean she's coming over two three times a

week for a month like I've you know this isn't love this isn't you know this is a booty call that's all it is like we're hanging out we're having sex and that's it I don't even know you so she suddenly just begs to come with me you got to bring me with you you have to this you have to

that I'm like what are you talking about like you you've got a you've got a son you have your mom lives here you're and she's just in tears and crying and she suddenly said this is what's so funny about is that she had just moved from Vegas to to um St. Petersburg to work at the dog track

to work for a company that owned the dog track right the casino interest or a yeah like a gambling company and she said you don't even know why I'm here I was like okay why are you here she said I'm here because I was working for a law firm that worked for the the casino company that I work

for she said I got caught in bezel nailing nothing it was like ten or fifteen thousand dollars from my boss because she had a gambling habit and she said he didn't call the police because we were sleeping together and he was afraid his wife would find out she said so instead he banished

me here to St. Pete my son just came to live with me he's been caught sneaking out uh he because he her the father had raised him he'd only been living with her since she got the Florida and she's like I was about I was gonna send him back he's failing school he's smoking pot he's been caught

sneaking out after curfew I'm like okay I don't know I don't know any of this she's like he was going back in December you know I don't know he was going back after the school year which would have been like May okay and I'm like so where before five minutes earlier I thought she was this sweet

secretary sweet innocent secretary and and she's like you know I've been married three times I am a gambler I've played bankruptcy I'm sleeping with my boss I got like you know she went from this you know seaving adulterous you know and I thought these are all really beneficial to my

my future plans yeah you know and I shouldn't have at that moment you know I was so just flipped out and concerned and up and leaving your life and everything you know behind that's it that's terrifying and you know and and so now you're alone in a strange place and

I'm the first time you've done something like that like leave to go in the road yes so I'd never just up and moved and keep mine now I can't call home I can't like I'm leaving there there are things that I feel like get you caught and every you know I've watched tons of these TV shows

and you know there are certain things that get you caught and you know one of them is keeping in contact with anybody in your old life so I'm thinking that's that's not gonna happen like I'm not I'm not contacting anybody I'm leaving and that's it that didn't really happen I kept in touch

I call my mom everyone's well but I was like okay that's cool did the loneliness of that hit you early on or no like the as you're I've been I never did well you're leaving your life I mean there's a it feels like a fundamental transition oh listen I think I mean but listen not just that like I'm

leaving my my son I have a son and I'm you know I was I was leaving everything I was just terrified of going going to prison and you know I mean I just it's just so stupid it was just arrogance and you know I should have stayed like I may think so much worse but I also thought

I'm smart I can I can figure this out like I can change my identity blend in I'll be fine aren't you already like people know what your face looks like they do they do but I one of the first things I did was I got plastic surgery what what kind of plastic I've got I've got a no-sh job I got

what they call a mini facelift they go in through your back of your ears and they suck out all the fat in your neck does that change appearance much a little bit I got I was balding I got a two hair transplants you know two hair grafts so the hair in my head listen my hair it's my hair but

it's from back here so there's they cut it here and they I appreciate it so they re-implanted it there you know got liposuction just some you know other stuff and you know got my teeth done that sort of thing you know so you know and I that was kind of like my plan I'll go I'll take off I

got 80 grand I'll steal some more money you know but I I let her come with me and we ran up all my credit cards over the next few days packed up the car traded in my my Audi and got like an Audi I don't know was it like an A6 or like a Ford or like a big Ford or whatever it was got that

and uh Joe straight to Atlanta and um so I I wrote a letter to my parents before I left just explaining this is what's happening I'm leaving I'm done I'm not going to prison love you sorry sorry sorry sorry I'm I know I'm in disappointment sorry bam so I take off go to

Atlanta when we went to Atlanta I already had the name of a guy named Scott Cugnell that I'd done a loan for so I I had his his you know his uh his vital information right like I have his name date of birth social security number mother's made name and where he was born one day we were

having a conversation and I just slowly pride all that out of him right like I already we done a loan for him so I had his name date of birth social security number but I need to steal his identity I need to know where he was born and his mother's made name so through the course of a

conversation I just pride you know I you know Cugnell is that you know what is that is that like I wish is it no it's such and such a what's your mom's name oh such and such okay yeah you know uh we born here you're born in and we're watching from oh man I was born here I was born in such a

oh it broke out I mean you know like I so it was no big deal we get to Atlanta I make a fake ID for both of us but keep mine I don't I don't have like I don't have a driver's license I do but they're they're fake like I can't give this to a to a cop can't give a driver's license this is

David Freeman what's David's residence Florida or is this Georgia no this is Florida okay but it was just a made up name I'd gone to like high school with a kid named David Freeman so I had an ID but I can't give that to a cop like that's enough to get like rent a place or do something or yeah

so we go go to Atlanta make an ID set it up make some business cards set up a couple websites set up some uh get a an HQ which is that like a it's a company that will you can do virtual you're in virtual you rent offices and they'll answer your phone for like a hundred bucks a month and

they'll for them so it seems like you have a an office they'll they you know they give you a phone number that you call up and they say you know hi united southern bank you know and they'll answer the phone and forward messages so we get one of those make a business card for uh for

Becky she rents a house from a guy named um Michael Shanahan so we rent Michael Shanahan's house it's like $200,000 $200,000 house and Alfa Reda and I then go to Alabama wait I then order Scott Cugnose burst certificate social security card I think I registered a vote in his name

and I and we I made a lease agreement in his name and I think that's all I needed and then I went to Alabama and got a driver's license in his name so I went into DMV give him all these documents and which are almost all I'm a real except for the lease I said sit over there I sit over there

I sit down boom 20 minutes later I have a driver's license it's you know it's $27 it's nothing so I get the driver's license now I'm driving this I'm still driving a car that an Audi that is in the name of Matt Cox so I park that I then go get social security to issue me a social

security number in the name Scott Cugno and I then turn around and I go and I get a loan you put down 20 30 percent there's all these first time or first time buyers 30 percent down rent get like a Honda or something so now we're living in a house we've got some furniture bedroom furniture

and I go downtown I pull the title to this guy Michael Shanahan's house and I go downtown and I satisfy the loan on his house so he had two loans with Bank of America and so I make create two satisfaction of loans from Bank of America so Michael Shanahan owns a house in the name Michael

Shanahan he has one mortgage with Bank of America in a second one when you pay your mortgage off the way public records knows it's paid off is they mail public records a satisfaction of mortgage the one-page document and it's not raised so I fill out two I created two of them I just ordered

you know you can read to research so when I went downtown I researched Bank of America satisfaction of mortgages and you know thousands show up so I just grab a couple of them now I know what the basic template is they're all and they're all different by the way so it's you

know it's not like you even have to be that close but whatever I mimicked some of them ordered I had a notary stamp not hard to get you know you just you go in and you'll you go into three different you know office depots and you say hey I need a notary stamp and you give them

the information and you come back four day or whatever a week later and they give it to you so I've got these notary stamps so I notice the satisfaction I go downtown I file them boom the mortgages are gone keep mine Bank of America he's still paying the mortgages they don't know that

they've been satisfied in public records they're not notified so those are gone but it takes about a month or two for it to show up Atlanta was that far behind it was Fulton County they were just way behind so we just kind of have to dick around for a while right so we're going on little vacations

we're going to New Orleans we're going to different places as Scott cut no driving cars Scott Cognum we open up several bank accounts we have multiple bank accounts and then we end up going to Vegas and we don't get we do go to Vegas but what happens we're driving around and I remember

thinking telling her I was like you know this is a problem like we have to get real IDs real driver's licenses I mean this is real but this is a real person too and he may stumble across it and and so what I did was I started running ads in magazines saying home loans available

good credit bad credit no problem call now government loan you know government you know VA FHA finding you know whatever I call this number so people start calling and I'm getting their information one of the guys I got was a Michael Eckert yeah I remember Michael Eckert

poor Michael Eckert I actually actually legally changed his name to Michael Johnson at one point but at this point it was just Michael Eckert so I don't I wanted to see you know I'm bored I want to see what the process is how much is the cost kind of is this possible let me see if I can change this guy's name it was it was 1500 bucks I changed it with him ever showing up anywhere so you can fake the driver's license in his name right I am him so he did show up he showed up at the lawyers office

he so you know right so I'm so I do that I'm living in the house and we're driving along one day and I'm saying we got to get real like these people that are calling like that one guy I I get his information but during the course of taking the application and I'm asking like these these

government survey questions at the very end there's like 20 questions and I'm rambling them off and at some point he was like he said he volunteered like I didn't know I never even asked anybody about criminal history and he just he ended up saying something well I do have a felony

does that matter I mean he's like he was I mean it was a DUI I had a couple DUI but I got my license back and that was part of the reason he had bad credit and it was like okay no no it doesn't matter don't worry I'm thinking you know I get it alone so this is I'm just taking your I'm just

stealing from you certainly your information so I get all this information I'm gathering it and so one of the things I said to Becky while we are sitting at this stoplight is I'm like we got to get real people's real information and I said like for instance I said what if I steal somebody's

identity I get a driver's license in his name four states from where he lives and he gets a DUI I could get pulled over two years later and get arrested for a DUI that he got in Florida and she's like well what do you what do you what do you think anything like like criminals or

I'm using it like like prisoners like mental patients like and I went I mean I don't and I looked over and there was a homeless guy holding a sign and I went like that guy and I remember when she goes she's the hobo like I know who calls the hobos and she's like the hobo and I said yes

that guy I said hold on pulled over to a subway got out she went inside to get subway I walk across the street pulled out like 20 bucks and I said hey bro can I ask you some quick questions real quick he's like yeah what's up and I go here's 20 bucks I said listen um I said when was

the last time you were gainfully employed he's like I you know whatever 10 years I go okay do you have a criminal record he's like I've been arrested in misdemeanors like you know vagrancy and he names off some things you know drunk in public whatever and I was like are you on

probation because I can't I can't do probation they don't give us probation they keep us for 90 days they release us like they the judge knows I can't do I'm not going to show up for a probation I'm like okay do you have a driver's license he's like maybe I don't think so I think it's just

I go is it just give DUI he's like no I think it's just expired did you have a driver's license with you he's like no I got nothing I'm like okay well you know he told me lived in like a tent in the woods and and so I give him like another 20 bucks ask him a few more questions and

uh and then oh and and I remember in the middle of it he said he goes well you're taking a survey or something and I am where I remember thinking I go nothing I go I go I kind of chuckle I go you get a lot of surveyors out here like that and he goes yes and sometimes and I was like really

because yeah he said like the um uh he said people from like you know halfway houses and uh what do you say uh um social workers and stuff they'll come out and they'll you know they'll pass out stuff and they'll ask us questions and stuff and I'm like oh okay and I was like I thought that's

good to know so I go back I get grab Becky and she's like oh she's like you give him money I said give me like 40 or 60 bucks or something forget what he's you're like yes what a waste of money that was good that was money will spend I said that guy's perfect I said that guy is he's got everything

he has no way to be contacted he has no documentation on him I said he's he's not going to drive a car he's not going to get it to you I he has an expired license I just have to get his license reinstated and I can be him so I went home I typed up a what I called a federal statistical survey form

and I made a little thing I mean I went online I mean I'm always filling out federal documents as a mortgage broker so it looked identical I mean I had like this little like the the recycle symbol and it was like you know federal form 17 017 you know and so I print out these forms I

get a go buy a clipboard I make a little a salvation army ID I pin it on me and I go out and I start doing a service I start serving homeless homeless people don't judge me bro I was in a bad spot I was in a bad spot I see the judgment I see the judgment let's main let's maintain civility here

like stay neutral stay neutral so these homeless guys I mean they have they have a social security number they have a birth certificate I guess I mean they're a real person right they're real person they're just not using their real person yeah they're not actively engaging with the the economic

system the financial systems they're not they're not employed they don't have housing all that kind of data they don't file taxes they don't so I if one of the questions I even asked the guy at the one the last questions I said do you believe that you will be gainfully employed within

the next two years everyone said no no no so you know it's like okay they're not even trying and they all had alcohol problems or honestly the few of my talk to like it was pretty clear I mean it takes literally five minutes less than five minutes to fill out the form and I filled it

out form of course um but even filling it out and that brief just asking questions back and forth half of them you could tell you've got some mental illness like something's not right with you like these aren't guys that are gonna go out and get are going to get jobs they're not cleaning up

so they were perfect for my purposes as horrible as I know that sounds so if you're bad about this little this small tangent now do I feel bad about it the homeless people in society are really it's a difficult life like dealing with mental illness dealing with drug addiction all

that kind of stuff I mean being in prison and then the the kind the people that are in prison that you know are are going to be homeless or have been homeless or the mental illness that I've dealt with in halfway houses and even doing this I don't know what you do with these people I don't even

know that you house them you can't necessarily even house them together you know they they cause such problems like I don't know what the solution is other than just kind of keeping them fed maybe and keep them away from normal people you know so they don't cause crime or whatever

I don't know about housing them in one area that seems like a mistake like there is absolutely no good solution to that problem none because it's not like hey if we gave you a house so we gave you a job training and we gave you this okay you might get 5% yeah 10 but most of them are on the

street because they've just messed up over and over and over again and I just kind of gave up but you know I guess we still have to remember that they're human beings I mean we mentioned off my soft white underbelly he highlights the humanity of people who've had a real difficult life

he does it well he's not yeah marty later is amazing he's amazing and one of the things he had said was like these are he was like these are real people and he's like their stories he's like they have stories and they need you know but if you also talk to mark he'll tell you you can't just

you can't give him money you can't like you can't like he's tried over every time he's reached out and tried to help these guys put him in apartments fed them got them back on their feet within six months they're back on their back on the street I mean just it just happens over and over and

over again I mean I think the amount of money that would have to be dumped into correcting that problem I don't know I mean you can say we have it just you know you should do it because it's the right thing to do I don't know who's paying for it it's complicated but for your purpose

they they have a security number they got to their box they seem very happy there you are with the clipboard taking survey right took a survey went home ordered there and they you know of course they give me everything name data bar social security number mothers made name where

they were born have they ever been in the armed services have they ever had a passport issued what states have they had identification and have they ever been arrested they were been on probation have they ever claimed social security disability SSI I mean every I mean I had

like 17 questions and it absolutely answered everything what high school did you go to because high school transcripts are great for documentation a lot of times they'll ask you for high school you know can you get us a copy of your high school transcripts like that's good now and I'm

a big believer in overkill so I mean I ordered a ton of stuff if I needed three things to get a driver's license in your name right you know I'd come in with like six because what you do is you get in front of the the the guy at the DMV and you kind of fumble through like oh I got this

what else do you need you know I know exactly what you need but you know they'll be like oh was that high school transcript I'll take that and we're oh I voted registration card give me that yeah that's you're perfect you're good sit down right over there sit who's by the way lurking

in the shadows trying to catch you you mentioned FBI secret service you mentioned I think I've heard you mentioned yes marshals which is interesting cops in general the police CIA I guess CIA is international only FBI is internal yes okay well so who is when you're doing this

who are you afraid of so by the time I've gotten to Atlanta within four or five days the FBI rated my office I guess I kind of missed that back to Florida back in Florida when I left and drove to Atlanta and left remember this FBI was going to show up a few days later they were going

to arrest me and they did they did they showed up like I left on a Sunday night or something because for some reason in my stupid thought I thought well they won't arrest me on the weekend like they don't work on the weekends so they came on like a whatever it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday or

Thursday like within a few days they come in the office they rate it they're looking for me but I'm gone nobody knows where I am and so now I'm I'm surveying the homeless guys and I turn around and I'm ordering their documents and as their documents are showing up you know I'm I'm going to

different states and getting IDs so I'm going to Florida so over over the course of this whole thing I've had 27 drivers licenses and like seven different states I've had two dozen passports because if you're going to get the drivers license in the guy's name you might as well get or an

ID even you might as well get a passport because a passport's not difficult to get they don't fingerprint you you know all they look all they're doing is saying this is your ID and where you're born here and then they run a check and if it comes back or it doesn't and back then you could do

it expedited it and I'd have it in like two weeks like now it takes like 90 days or 60 to 90 days to get one but if you have multiple ideas for a single identity that's more proof like right right so wait what number did you say how many how many IDs how many identities so I had

well I've had over 50 identities but I've had 27 drivers licenses issued from state DMVs department of motor vehicles like legitimately legitimately I walked into the DMV said hi my name's Michael Eckert and I just moved here about three weeks ago four weeks ago

here's my lease and here I I lost my I lost my driver's license brown like I don't know what I did with it I don't know what I don't know what happened I don't know and they're like it's all right what do you have you have I need a proof of residency well I have my lease oh okay um I need a

primary okay here's my birth certificate okay and I need a secondary here's my social security card but I also registered you know I registered to vote my girlfriend made me vote immediately and she said I wouldn't need it oh yeah it's perfect you're good I don't need that okay great stand

over there pay that perth they call your number two seven five you know 45 minutes later you go you pay your 25 bucks you stand in front of the the screen they take a picture you got a driver's license you walk out it's still warm it's beautiful it smells like hot plastic it's amazing and so I

I'm opening up different different bank accounts in these guys names and just what do you say well what are you mostly doing with A-Daddy is you opening up different bank accounts right now you're doing a credit starting to establish credit or not some of them like I might order I might order

secured credit cards so I can't get credit you know I'm building their credit like it's not helping me in any way I'm just sending out $500 to get a capital one card or a American I'm sorry a bank of America secured credit card whatever so I'm building their credits but not all of them only a few

because I'm collect I was although I'm collecting them I'm also going to be moving soon I'm only here to get a few hundred thousand dollars and move I need some kind of a base so I don't want to start getting credit cards and building up a history in Atlanta in anybody's name but I am getting

drivers licenses in other states so I'm in like North Carolina South Carolina what's the primary method of income here when you move to a place South Carolina how do you make a hundred thousand at this at this well I'm right now I'm living in this guy's house and I satisfied his loans the

houses worth 200 thousand so what happens is one day we go and we check public records when I told you it takes months for it to show up and it shows up he's got no mortgages on the house so now I turn around and I make a fake ID in the name Michael Shanahan and I'm living in his house

but I have no credit right there's no credit so I've got to the ID I've got a social security number and I order some secure credit cards in his name so if you pull that credit profile it does it shows up saying he's got some credit cards but it's they've only they're only a month or two

old so I can't go to like Bank of America I mean I could but I needed to get the money as quick as possible like I want to get out of Atlanta so and at this point by the way there's multiple articles showing up in Tampa so the St Petersburg Times is is writing multiple articles about me

with your face with my picture yeah but it's honestly it's it's pretty I mean not pretty or and I was it's post internet but it's it's in its infancy like no nobody's it's not huge and and honestly it's a it's a it's a it's a local newspaper in Tampa it's not that big of a deal like I'm not concerned about that so much at this point what I'm concerned about is getting a chunk of money and just moving on and kind of reestablishing ourselves in a better way where we're not living

in a in a building that we're going to be committing fraud in with our house so but I'm living in this place I make a fake ID in the name Michael Shanahan and I call up three secured or sorry three hard money lenders a hard money lender is a guy that lends his own money or other investors money

on property kind of like a bank but he's lending his own money so it doesn't have to really meet banking requirements and he can charge a much higher interest rate these guys are charging 12 13 percent interest a simple interest and they're only lending you a per a much lower percentage of

the value of your home so they're not lending you 90 percent of the value they're lending you 65 percent 60 percent so I call three of these guys they all come out to the house at different times and each one of them says I'll end you up a hundred thousand or it's like a hundred fifty thousand

hundred fifty like they all lend roughly a hundred fifty thousand so we schedule three separate closings and none of them know about the other perfect so what I do is I close I close one loan on let's say Monday and then one on Tuesday and then went on whatever Wednesday or Thursday or

that Mive all been the same day to be honest but I don't remember the point is I go to three separate title companies or real estate attorneys and we close and I get checks for you know after cost and everything the total ends up being roughly four hundred thousand so I've got four hundred

thousand a Beck and I run another scam and in and Tallahassee Florida and we get like 50 grand and plus we the 80 the 80s do and go down to close to nothing because we we had gone on several vacations we went to like Bermuda and I think we went to Jamaica we actually stayed at the ritz

and in Jamaica so it was very nice I went back you so Becky turned out to be pretty good in terms of scams on the road no she was useless she was she was horrible and she just spent money all the time and by the what I realized too very quickly is she's bipolar so she's bipolar

and she's absolutely you know insane she smokes pot all the time did that matter for you personally or did it actually affect the if I'll good you were able to do this these particular scams it was that she was the type of person that would start an argument at one o'clock in the morning

yeah and scream at the top of her lungs and get the cops called okay so I can't have the police called I can't get taken downtown and fingerprinted I can't have the police showing up I don't know who's really looking we haven't had plastic surgery at this point we're still pulling money together

so oh Becky yeah Becky's a problem and at some point I actually we send her to like a psychiatrist and they they give her they put her on zooloft she takes it for like a month or two and then she stops taking it she she she thought she was all better like you're not all better so give me

a time out here how long are you able to be on the road here successfully three years three years this is me this is the first few years well so years yeah what happens is we like we get that little chunk of money we put it deposited in these bank accounts and we start pulling out cash

it which works out fine because we got a bunch of accounts and we're pulling out little amounts seven thousand five thousand eight thousand and you know I would cash checks against her accounts and they would call her to verify oh there's someone here trying to cash a check for nine thousand dollars you know can you verify that payee and they go oh yeah that's Scott Cugnell okay thank you and they cash the check you know these are new accounts so it looks odd but you know we're

always I open the account so what what ends up happening is we're cashing them and I remember getting really frustrated because just taking forever and I go on into a bank one time and you know they have banks with that they they cash they actually cash like large checks like if you go into bank America and you try and cash check for a fifteen thousand dollars or twenty five thousand they probably won't do it they'll tell you we don't have that much cash on hand we don't this we know that they

have certain banks that do that so I they told me where one of those was I went there I had a check for like twenty nine thousand that had been cut on a closing for Michael Shanahan number I'd refinance Michael Shanahan's and then I've got a check for twenty nine thousand that was issued to

Scott Cugnell so I'm sitting in the bank I go in there I say I need to cash this and she says um you're gonna talk to the manager I go okay she says go sit down now over there I go sit down in the little glass cubicle he comes over and he says I see you're trying to cash his check and I was

like right he goes why don't you just deposit in your own bank and I went my bank my bank is a credit union or something and it's in like Florida like they'll hold this thing for like two weeks like I need the money now I have people I need to pay he's like well um I'm not sure and I was like

well it's fine it's it's a cashier check like it's good and he goes no it's it's good it's good as you have the money and he's like yeah we have the money he said it's just odd um hold on he goes back in the back and he comes back and he says um where'd you get the check cashier's check I

said it was a cashier's check it was drawn off of a closing for um somebody's property that I were doing the company I work for we're putting on an addition on okay that makes sense it comes back because well why do you need cash and I was like I'm caching guys checks that work for the

company like there's a lot of these guys are like Mexican guys they give them a check they go to a check caching company or they get charged five 10% so I cashed them I'm like I don't under like what the check's good right like my and he's like yeah we're just trying to verify some stuff

anyway um yeah hold on he leaves again and I remember my cell phone ring and I pick up the phone is Becky what are you doing what's taking so long ago I had the guy's being a jerk you don't want to give him the money oh she's like oh my god get out of the bank get out the bank and I

can't get out of that bank like I just got my ID he's got my credit card my ID and the check for 29,000 like he's gonna call the police if I just jump up and run and I go do it don't don't don't call me again I'll let you know it'll be fine hang out the phone she calls back same conversation bouncing all the laws I'm like I'm going crazy it'll be fine hang out the phone he comes back out and he goes uh he said um I said hey I said what's what's taking so long and he goes um we're trying to get

in touch with uh with Michael Shanahan to verify the check that's not good for me like I'm thinking right right okay okay and he walks away the phone rings Becky what's what's going on he's they're trying to get a hold of Michael Shanahan she's oh my god

oh my god and I'm like oh my god I would remember think that I should I shouldn't let there into the keys there's a good chance I run out of this place and she does she's not there but by the way when you're sitting there yours who Scott your Scott I'm Scott Cugna and then the other guy Michael Shanahan right they're saying they're trying to get in touch with Michael Shanahan so then the phone rings my phone cell rings again I look and it's not Becky's yeah not Becky so I pick up the phone

I go hello and she says hi this is Kim is it from SunTrust Bank is this Michael Shanahan so I'm like yes it is Michael Shanahan and she says there's a guy here he's trying to cash a check it's very large could you verify the payee and I go sure it's Scott Cugno he's trying I said I believe

the amount is 29,000 dollars she goes that's right thank you very much I appreciate it I said okay I said hey by the way how'd you get my number this is my cell number and she's like oh I'm sorry we called the title company and the title company gave us your phone number well I close those

loans that's myself that's why if they look in any other way I would have they could have gotten in touch with a real Michael Shanahan so I was like okay hang up the phone you're sitting you answered the phone from the bank while sitting in the bank as as my as Scott as Scott pretending to be my

so I just verify the check myself as massive pretending to be Scott as pretending to be my right yeah so I wait there terrified still they come out about two minutes later the manager comes out plus a woman I'm assuming maybe it was Kim she never said anything and she walks out she says and

he counts out the money twice 29,000 29,000 and I stand up and I mean just like I like shoving the money in my pockets like I'm trying to get out there so quick I'm like hey I'm like okay cool um like I'm thinking this whole thing I just you know feels bad and I'm getting up and I'm so I'm

I'm starting to walk out of the bank and he goes he said um excuse me mr. Cugno and I said yes sir I turn around and he goes I like you know like you to know that I feel very apprehensive about this transaction like a really what is it exactly he goes I can't put my finger on it and I go it'll

come to you and I turn around I just bolt right out of there and to keep my a week or so later the secret service shows up did you cash a check for 29,000 dollars so um what so funny is like that was one of the last checks we cash so we ended up with like 400,000 was there a connection

between the secret service and this guy no the apprehension so the FBI's looking for me it's kind of in Tampa yeah and they've put out a fugitive warrant for me which is how the US marshals got involved so this US marshals tracked down fugitives yes federal fugitives they tracked down but

everybody's after you you're on every list right I'm on the FBI's most wanted list at that point the secret service got involved once I leave Atlanta so when Beck and I pack up our bags and we leave Atlanta the secret service got involved because of identity theft you know banking identity that

the secret service doesn't just do counterfeiting and protect the president they also protect the financial infrastructure of the United States and they especially have jurisdiction when identity theft is involved so identity theft plus bank fraud there that's when they move yeah that's it

that's their their their territory so they don't marshals are just fugitives US marshals just fugitives they don't do any investigation they're all kind of work okay but they're all kind of working together yeah yeah the you know like the US marshals are like let's say up an arm of

all of the various law enforcement agencies federal agencies not the states the states have their own fugitive task forces are fugitive so when you leave Atlanta basically everybody's after you everybody's after me did you know this at that time or did you sense it no I mean now yet

you know world every day you're looking up you're looking your name up every day like I'm not because I'm just trying to get a bunch of money and just blend in right things were not as interconnected at that time as they are now yeah but they're starting to get interconnected but

of course I have no idea how much I barely go on the internet for anything you know dating I say anything I'd never been on Facebook at this point on Facebook is even if any out yet this is 2006 still we're trying to stay low yeah I am I'm not a flashy person like I'm not driving you

know like I didn't go out and buy a a red Lamborghini you know I'm driving I'm driving 40-50 thousand dollar cars you know I've had some sports cars 70-80 you know maybe that's 150-100 thousand dollar sports car now but it's still about flashy it's not like it's bright red or yellow I

mean these are it's always something you know non-descript and I'm living in areas that these cars are everywhere you know I go to that so I end up going to Charlotte North Carolina we rent an apartment we decide to run a scam in in South Carolina so I go to Columbia South Carolina and in

between this period of time we go to Las Vegas and I when we go to Las Vegas to drop off a bunch of money to Becky's son's father who's taken care of her son we drop off some money there we go and we start and while we're there it's like hey there's homeless people here so we

you know usually I don't feel bad telling me to make me feel bad I'm sorry I'm sorry my judgment is showing no but you have to be collecting identities I guess to be constantly creating you at so I got my survey forms so I go and you know we we go out and we're taking I'm taking

service and I end up going up to this guy who's like two or three guys that are standing on like a bench or sitting on next to a bench or something and I see him and I walk up and the guy one guy gets up and he comes over he's like hey what do you need and I went I'm taking a surveys for the Salvation Army to determine where we place our next homeless facility and the guy goes oh I'm not interested and they always said that I say it pays 20 bucks cash right now it'll take you five minutes

and they're like what 20 dollars cash right now I was like yeah I show them the cash and they go okay yeah yeah what do you need name data birth social security number so when I get to criminal record the guy he says criminal he's like yeah I've been arrested he's I've been arrested like three four

times for he said for a prostitution he said um but they're like misdemeanors and I went okay um and it was like okay well prostitution to me women get charged with prostitution you know men get charged with solicitation I went prostitution and he goes and he went he said yeah

yeah he said I offered to blow an undercover cop for 20 bucks he said I that's what I thought you were coming out here and I was like and I was like no no bro I said okay and he's like yeah he said you know he goes he goes I mean he said I mean a girl's got to do what girls got to do you know

it's any made some comment or something I was like okay so I jot down the rest of it we're good I give him 20 bucks I get my car I leave uh we get back to North Carolina I ordered all of his documents his name was Gary Sullivan I then go to South Carolina when I go to South Carolina

I get a real estate agent we drive around for a day we look at like five or six houses I put five contract five owner uh owner financing contracts on five different houses so I get him he writes up five contracts all of them I'm uh I'm asking for owner financing I'll put down

10% I want owner financing two of them end up coming back and saying yes we'll do it I have two closings one of them's a house this works like 225 thousand I put down 25 grand another one's 110 thousand I put down 11,000 so I buy these two houses I then satisfy the loans to on both the

houses everything seems like it's going okay although Becky's a lunatic at this point she's she's had so many she won't take her medication she's had so many outbursts uh that and we've had by this time we've had plastic surgery like she's gotten plastic surgery she's gotten a boob job she's

gotten liposuction I mean all kinds of stuff so look way different like appearance changes or thinner better looking you know just tighted everything up I guess you know she was in her she'd had a she'd had a kid and she was 30 33 34 I don't know how she was 20 32 33 I don't roughly my age so

yeah I thought she looked you know she lost like 15 pounds like she was not because of the surgery but just in general we're not we're just working out we're going mountain climbing we're you know we're riding bikes we're doing you know there's frauds not a full-time job so you know we

have plenty of time so we're we're goofing off and uh but she's also a lunatic you know she's getting the cops called she's out able to go out and she's able to stay stone 24 hours a day she's she's going out with friends drinking I never leave the house you know uh even to this

day I really barely I really the house I'm I'm very much a homebody kind of person so like the the idea that I'm able to make my living doing YouTube and I'd never have to leave my house I love that I don't ever go anywhere except for the gym and back home that's it so what happens is

uh I I've actually moved her out of the my apartment like I had apartment downtown 30 story building actually move her into another apartment she's that much of a lunatic we can't even be in the same place multiple times I've tried to leave her she's called me up and begged me to come back

it's horrible so I end up buying a couple houses in in Columbia South Carolina I satisfy the loans on the houses I've got an ID not a driver's license but an ID in the name of Gary Lee Sullivan and I refinance or I refinance those houses because keep in mind they were

as owner financing but they also had mortgages so there's something called a wrap around mortgages so these guys did wrap around mortgages so let's say you buy a house for $250,000 and the bank lends you 200,000 and then you owner finance the house to me so we do I give you 50 grand down

but I'm not I'm not able to get a loan from the bank to pay off your mortgage so what we do is you do a wrap around mortgage so I'll pay you your mortgage and you pay the bank so there is a second mortgage on the property but it's called a wrap it's a wrap it's wrapped around that you're

first that's legal yeah so I wouldn't lie to you so it's so there's these have wrap around mortgages so you're always selling I and you're good at it so I go I satisfy the loans the owner finance loans the wrap around mortgages and I I satisfy the loans they're the original loans that these people

took out on their own mortgages one of them by the way I sat you know you have to sign as the president of the bank right yeah so I sign it as Seamont Gumry Burns which is the aging tycoon in the the guy that owns a power plant in the Simpsons TV show yeah so I sign that and I notice it

which I thought was cute I actually wanted to sign all of them cartoon characters and Becky was screaming her head off and wouldn't let me do it right like I wanted to do all the Simpsons right but she wouldn't let me do it she's screaming and hollering so I ended up you know see nobody knows

who Seamont Gumry Burns is so I sign it notarize it all of those are satisfied I then go to the multiple bank banks and I refinance start refinancing all these uh these properties multiple times so I'm applying for these loans and I'm getting the loans and I'm closing so I've got like

five or six loans on this one house so houses like 225,000 I think was like 230 whatever I I get I borrow like four five loans on that house so I borrow like a hundred and ninety thousand dollars like five times so I've got like eight hundred thousand dollars and then I borrow another

three or four hundred thousand on the other house the one the smaller one right so it ends up being like one point three million dollars it's actually like one point five million it was more but what happened with that was so keep mine I you can only open up so many bank accounts in your name

you can go to Bank of America they'll open one then you go to SunTrust they'll open one they're gonna they might even ask you did you did you open another bank account today because every time you do it there's an inquiry into something called check systems or acu check and so then they go

so then by the time you go to the third bank they'll say listen something's not right you've got multiple inquiries you know if you go to whatever mercantile bank they might be they might go okay we're gonna open one they're gonna need an explanation but you're not met you're not opening more than

three by the third one they're like absolutely not something's wrong so you know I've got multiple identities but I can only open up so many so many banks the other problem is that these these checks they'll only give you so much money on a refi usually after a hundred thousand they only

want to let you walk away with let's say a hundred thousand dollars so one of the things I did was I would I would typically record another mortgage and have them pay that mortgage off so I had to open I opened a corporation to do that so I could then turn around and go open corporate bank accounts

because now it's not going off my information is going off the corporation so I can open up multiple corporate bank accounts these corporations are fake or real no no I went to a real corporate bank attorney corporate attorney and had him open them I gave him whatever game like $1,500

$2,000 and he opened up a corporation for me Gary Sullivan and I then turned around and I went and opened up multiple bank accounts in that in those that corporation's name how how are you keeping track of all this because I don't need this so I'm in your head or do you have good

information I have every single identity has its own file with with you know plastic inlays sleeves for their past ports that's nice and all this yeah it's same you open this I'm Gary know right it's that's exactly what it is like you kind of go over boom boom boom when you sit in

your car for a minute you put it down you're walking well what happens is it went up like 1.5 million and I'm pulling money out of the bank and then one day I got a phone call on Gary Sullivan's cell phone the guy it's a it's a lawyer they call up he says hey I'm lawyer with Washington Mutual

we have an issue I said what's that he says we got a phone call from the title company one of the title companies that I was attempting to refinance a one of the piece property with notice that I they've been sent they've been sent to document that showed that I had purchased the property

and I said I purchased it cash and I the documents that I purchased it cash and they got that and there was actually a mortgage on the property and so somehow or another they they they connected it and they called Washington Mutual and they said look there's an issue

there's a fraud we have a fraudulent document here and he was like he said so we went and we looked and it turns out that we pulled public records and that there is a mortgage in front of us several mortgages in front of us so there's like three or four mortgages in front of me

Washington Mutual UOS and it wasn't that much it was like a hundred hundred it was like a hundred grand right like 95 or 100 and I said okay and he said so there's an issue here you've got a few mortgages in front of us and we're supposed to be a first mortgage and we're not supposed to be

two mortgages behind or three and I was like okay sounds like a sounds like an air not a big deal um have you contacted law enforcement he said no I have it I was hoping we could rectify this some other way I said you know what I think we can I'm gonna have my lawyer call you back I'm

gonna go to his place right now give me about two hours no problem I immediately run jumping my car head towards South Carolina call my corporate lawyer tell him look I need to talk to you here's what's going on I explain it to him he doesn't really understand he says um this sounds pretty

complicated I have a my bit my wall partner is a criminal defense attorney I'm gonna have I'm gonna set up a meeting right now with all of us okay I get there 45 minutes and later I walk in the door I sit down he says what happened I said oh they said you know Gary this is this is

doesn't sound right what's what he what happened I said okay so listen bought this house I bought it cash I then refinanced it I didn't buy a cash but I told him I bought it cash I refinanced it like four or five times with them day or two of each other and they were like how

was that even possible I was like well I went to different title company and I explained how I do it I said Washington Mutual just found out that they're in like second position or third position and or I said but they're probably they may be in fourth position you know they mail these things

in so you never know and he was like oh my god he's like that's uh what do you want to do I said I want you to contact them and agree for them to not contact the authorities provided we pay them I paid them off he said you have the money I said I do have the money I can go get the money

right now he calls the lawyer they this is back when fax is right so they fax some documents back and forth they make they do a couple emails back and forth and they have a conversation I remember the lawyer started arguing because he wanted to charge me like yield spread and fees and stuff

when I was like I was like what are you talking about like I'll pay it like so it ends up being a little over a hundred thousand and I'm like that's it so he's like okay and so he says okay um that sounds good and so he said okay all you have to do is go get the check and he said bring it

to a Washington Mutual branch tell them to close it I'm not going into Washington Mutual Branch bro I'll bring you the check so he calls him back he's not doing that right he's not okay I'm not I'll bring it here you guys take care he said no problem okay hang up the phone and he turns to me he

says okay well we have a problem he said we still have the problem of these other mortgages and I went right and he said um and he goes okay well I said they don't know anything he said I know but Gary he said what if they find out I said they find out that they're like in second third and

fourth place he's like right I said I leave town anyone they so they both laugh they Gary you can't just leave town they have they have a copy of your drivers license they have your social security number they have your birth certificate I said they'll find you it's the FBI and I go you're assuming I'm Gary Sullivan wow you tell them and they listen they looked at me and they went and I remember he said he goes well uh we'll cross that bridge when we get to it I said it's

right my immediate problem is getting rid of these people and he goes right right so I go get the check bring it back give it to them never called the FBI can't believe you got away with the with the Washington Mutual oh bro this is I mean these are all really close calls it seems like you no this

is the close call I have two more close calls that my hands wet thinking about it I walk in I walk into walkovia I just opened this account two months ago so it's a new account so whenever I would go in there I'd say hey I need a seven thousand dollars six thousand dollars anything over three thousand dollars they had a call to get permission right like author authorization so she's like okay yeah I got to go call I said no problem so she's the the girl walks in the back sitting there waiting

all of a sudden a massive person reaches over my hand and grabs my wrist and somebody grabs it from the other one and they pull my hands behind my back these are two of possibly the largest law enforcement officers I've ever seen in my entire life and they're massive and they they handcuff

me and they say your mr. Sullivan you're being detained we're taking you into custody and you know putting you we're holding you until a detective gets here who are these guys is this yes marshals or is this cops or what these are sheriff's deputies sheriff's deputies right and as they walk me in

the right as they walk me in the back they're calling me mr. Sullivan right they sit me down and by now I'm you know the secret service are looking for me they're they're calling me uh what they were calling us john and jane doe but now they figured out who we were and so now I'm

on the secret services most one unless I'm not like number one at that right like I probably was but I we just found out I was on like on that list so it's it's getting bad so they sit me down and I'm waiting and I remember thinking that the FBI was coming you know I don't really know

at that point I couldn't tell you the difference between everybody and then five minutes go by and you know I'm sitting there going what is going on you guys have any idea what's going there like we don't know we're just grunts we should do over told so suddenly this guy walks in he's probably in

his early thirties maybe he walks in grace suit I think he looks like he's FBI he says hey I'm a detective with the uh I want to say Richland County you know whatever church department uh police department whatever and I was like oh okay and he says yeah listen we've got an issue

walkovia walkovias wants this they want us to arrest you he said that they they're saying that you've got three mortgages on on your house and I go is that illegal and he looked at me and he went you know to be honest I don't know yeah and I I just stinkly remember thinking I'm walking out

of here all I have to do is convince this guy haven't done anything wrong he's already said he doesn't know so he gets on the phone with the head of walkovias fraud department and he's telling that saying this guy is running what's called a shot gunning scam which is absolutely right and so what is the shotgun it's where you're you you close on so many loans simultaneously they can't catch it anyway they they start going back and forth and he's on the phone he's like um why did you close

three loans and I said I you know what why are you pull what I said I it's not illegal I have a first mortgage a second mortgage and a and a home equity line of credit that's perfectly legal and he goes and you could hear the guy yeah it's not they're all first mortgages and I said I read

every one of those documents not one of them said they were first mortgages and they don't first mortgages don't say they're first mortgages it's the placement of the mortgage placement of the lien that determines is their first second or third so it's possible that I wouldn't have known

it certainly that I could have read those documents and not known and he's like that's not true and he's screaming and uh so I go yeah listen and and he said well you're taking out a cash why are you taking out a cash I said well I mean I don't know if this this sounds I don't know

this might be illegal I said I don't know I said I mean I work for for a I work for a um a labor company labor on demand I pull out my business card you can call so I'm like I work for labor on demand and I said um we we hire a lot of guys that like they don't have banking out so the company

pays them and then usually I'll pull out money and I'll I'll cash their checks because they get charged like 10% of these check caching companies and I feel bad I know the checks are good so I just deposit them I mean I don't think that I said but I don't I don't know if that's illegal I don't

think that's illegal like if if and he's like no no it's fine it's that's that's the decent thing to do it's not that's fine I'm like oh okay so we're so he's talking to the guy and you know Wacovia screaming not hollering he says um uh he's doing that you know he's going back and forth

back and forth so we're going back and forth back and I'm just derailing everything this guy says and at one point he says um he's screaming he's committing fraud we want him arrested and he's like I don't know what to charge him with and he's like you know he he's saying

these aren't you know what how did you know how did you he's like hey look how did you even do this what I go look I didn't do this said I came to Wacovia I met with a loan officer I said I need a first mortgage I need to pull out like a hundred thousand dollars I want to start buying

houses he says that's right you own another house here too don't you I said I do I said we're putting a new roof on it we're gonna build an addition we're putting in a pool I'm buying one right down the street from that one I said so I'm obviously I'm pulling out money I said

so I told my need a hundred thousand dollars they said that's fine we they said they could only get at me a hundred thousand dollars out for something about Fannie Mae guidelines which is true and I and I said so then she said I I can get you I can send you to a friend of mine who's a

loan officer she can get you a second mortgage which she did I said then I told her she could only get me a hundred thousand or so hundred ninety thousand in the out and she said you should get an equity line of credit if you're gonna be doing like you know um renovating properties

so she sent me to somebody they got me an equity line of credit I said I said you know I haven't committed fraud I said I wouldn't know how to commit fraud if you told me I said what sounds more reasonable a guy that worked for a labor company ripped off a bunch of banks for over

half a million dollars I said or some loan officers got together and did something illegal I said there's a problem at the bank and he says I think you've got a problem at the bank and this guy goes nuts and while he's screaming he needs to be arrested this is fraud my loan officers have not done anything illegal they wouldn't do that he says look at his ID his ID is fake his ID starts with zero zero zero South Carolina ID start with zero zero zero this guy's in California

he has no idea so when he says that he go he the the detective looks pull looks at my ID and he goes listen he said this is a real ID I ran this guy through NCIC he said this is Gary Sullivan and I and I looked at my go now I'm not Gary Sullivan I go come on bro what are we doing here

and he goes I know Gary I know and he says I'm gonna take him downtown I'm going to talk to my whatever lieutenant whoever captain and I'm gonna fill out a police report and I'll let you know and he hangs up yeah I get up they've taken the handcuffs off I stand up as we're walking

out with the detectives as we're all kind of walking out he goes hey you have an ID do you have a driver's license and I went um I do but it's in like Nevada and he goes oh that's right he is you're from Vegas and he looks at the two deputies and they all kind of grin and I think he ran

me through NCIC which means he ran a statewide criminal database which means he thinks I've been arrested three times for prostitution in Vegas all right I listen I'm humiliated I was just like and the grin told me every and I was just like oh man yeah and so one of the cops

goes uh here give me the ID takes the ID he goes I'll check and see because I have to follow him back in my car so he goes and by the way my car is is in the name Michael Eckert so Michael Eckert he doesn't have a photograph of Michael Eckert right because you can't pull up photographs from

other states so he doesn't have a photograph but he knows that's not my car and he asked me who's car you driving I said oh that's my boss Michael Eckert I said that's my boss and he goes oh Michael Eckert I said yeah exactly and he's like and I'm like oh my god so I'm thinking he knows Michael

Eckert knows it's registered in North Carolina knows the address which is where I was currently living that's a problem so the police officer or the um sorry deputy grabs the ID walks outside comes back I have no idea if this homeless guy has a a driver's license in Nevada I don't know he had

nothing on him he comes back and he goes he's does he have a valid license he goes yeah it's valid and he hands it to him or he hands me the ID and he says uh he said he goes his valedict and he looked at me he goes yeah well he said it says he's like he says he's five foot eleven like

it was like five ten five eleven I'm clearly not five ten or five eleven and they all look at me and I go fellas with a good pair of shoes like that and they all go follow us Gary yeah I follow them back to police station Becky is calling me on the phone screaming her head off

now I'd always told Becky if I ever get arrested yeah immediately go get me a lawyer the lawyer will be able to get me out on bond because it'll I'll be arrested for something stupid mm-hmm I said it'll be something like trying to cash a check you know fake check or uh you know

use of somebody said it won't be all my IDs are real so it won't be for fake IDs so my ID and if my ID won't be in question and most most um police departments and sheriffs at that time did not run your fingerprints through aphus so they didn't uh because they charged them for that

so they don't they don't typically do it unless your identity is in question mine wouldn't be I have a valid driver's license or a valid ID in that state so I go back she's screaming she's like oh my god you don't understand I just check the I just checked the um just check the internet the website

you are number one on the secret service is most wanted list and I was like I got bigger problems right now they just held me in the bank I'm following them at big right now and she was like yeah get on the get on the interstate go go I cannot go the detectives in front of me the cops are behind

me they're escorting me to the police listen she's like oh my god run run I go look I'm not a NASCAR driver like I'm driving it's it's a sports car but it's not gonna outrun a radio or a helicopter like I have not that's not gonna happen I know it looks it seems nice I'm not that guy

um so I was like I can't I said look you don't understand I was in handcuffs 30 minutes ago I just taught my way out of them I'm gonna get out of this and I and I said the worst that happens is I'll be arrested as Gary Sullivan you can get me a plea or you can get me a um an attorney he

can get me out and she goes I'm not getting you an attorney I'm not getting you out on on thank you I'm not risking everything I've got for you because she has all the money we've got seven eight hundred thousand dollars at this point so oh and by the way she's not even in

North Carolina at this point she's relocated to Houston Texas because when this scam broke went fell apart we were gonna move to Texas so we were already moving there so but by the way just a small tangent where do you store money in situations like this that

uh like when you talk about 800 thousand you have to keep moving accounts to make sure it's not accessible by FBI well there's about six or seven hundred thousand accounts but keep mind I'm getting that out in cash like there's no Bitcoin there's no none of that stuff exists so my

you know I I probably should have bought diamonds or bought gold or bought like I don't know any that all I could think of is go in slowly be patient um don't drain the accounts you know fluctuate them like I was writing getting cashiers checks from one account to another so the balances were doing

this you know they weren't just going shoo they were doing this and then one day boom they're going okay got it so so we got out like whatever we got we got not like six or seven hundred thousand there's still like six or seven hundred thousand in the bank but I I'm not going back I'm done

I actually to be honest with you so well look I I go in so I go into the police station and what first she says if you go in the police station I'm done if you get arrested you're done I said well I better not get arrested I hang up the phone cop standing behind my car get out I go in the police

station I walk in I fill out the police report he tells me I got to talk to my captain real quick can you wait he couldn't leave me in his cubicle he was can you wait in the hallway I can't leave you in the I said no no problem so I go and I wait in the hallway in the hallway are a whole wall full

of on the cork board um wanted posters black and white black and white black you know car thief you know rapist murder secret services uh uh most wanted and I'm on the I'm on my face right down like holy Jesus and you know everything in me told me run bro just just fucking

haul us right now right now just go you're you're you're luck to run out not that I even thought he was there were so many I didn't think it was going to see it but it just everything in me just said run the the problem is if you've ever been a pleat into a police station you're not getting

out of it that you understand that there's a lot of cops are not just that but they buzz you in yeah you get in the elevator you have to punch in a code right you have to punch in a code to get back out of the elevator you have to punch in a code to get into the next door there's like a I

mean it was it's impossible like I'm never I'm not going to get in the elevator so guy comes back up to the cop comes back up he said hey Gary appreciate it no problem my captain said we're good we're going to wait for a phone call from the no the the district attorney called already

mm-hmm they're looking into it um I'm gonna go ahead and let you go I go downstairs he walks me out to my car he said look to me a favor he's like we we do have some serious questions at this point like the district attorney said there's there's some some things he said and I said not with

me and he said well just do me a favor because don't don't leave town I said bro I own two houses here I'm not going anywhere I said I'm telling you right now I said walk over they they fucked up and he's like I believe you I believe you said I worry you said whatever he's like I hope you

I hope they're right I'm sure you're right okay so I get my car I leave I go to two more banks pull out more money but at one point I go into a bank and like two of the cashiers practically slam in to each other trying to get to the phone and I get tell something's up like on and then

something's up so I back I get my car back out one of them you know kind of runs out looks tag number you know so I drive I got in the interstate I go you know Becky of course she's you know I'm sorry I love you I would have never done that was just scared I understand I go Becky sounds

like a handful oh my god bro you so I go all the way back to Charlotte I pack up my apartment I drive all the way to Houston with my entire apartment packed up by the way in a U-Haul like the next day the next morning we pack she's got people they're packing it up movers we pack it up I drive

the U-Haul all the way to Houston takes a couple days I unloaded it into we have some guys unloaded into a into a storage unit because I'm gonna stay with Becky until I find my own apartment as we're driving around the neighborhood super nice she's living in like whatever like that 20th floor

something of some huge high rise great apartment we drive by and I go oh stop the car and I I want to get out on it is one of those cone things where there's flyers for the house for an up house jump out and I get the flyer and and she's like what are you doing I go I just want to

you know I just look look at flyer and she says I don't want to do a scam here I want to live here this place is nice I love it here and I went right I understand I said I'm like I said no but I have a fun on apartment and she is oh you just I'm just so disgusting you can't spend stand to

spend even a couple weeks with me you just and she goes just ballistic she screaming at the top of her lungs and I know she's gonna get me caught she's never gonna get me out right she's already told me that so we go back to the apartment we go upstairs I was so scared of this this chick bro

I was so scared I remember I was going up in the elevator and this girl gets on this clearly a stripper I mean drop dead just but wearing stripper clothes yeah and I'm staring like and I'm sushi gone on Becky gave me that where the face and I'm like this I'm like

staring in the corner and never look at the girl and I remember we get off the elevator being it opens we I bolt off it Becky bolts bolts office and I off the elevator and I remember she squeals I bet you just love to fuck that tramp and the girl as the elevator doors are closing she goes hey

thought that was funny so I go to the apartment yeah we we have a screaming match kind of don't I want to split up the money she tells me she's not gonna give me split the money right because she said you can go somewhere else and do this again you'll have a million dollars

right in six months you know I have to live off this money did she threaten you oh she threatened the it was funny too because the conversation back and forth I remember saying no I want to happen and she goes and she said I'll give you ten thousand dollars I said you're mine I said I

said I'm telling right now you come it was something reasonable I'll take all of it and she said what did she say I said I'll take all of it she's in what escape in that you haul they're gonna she's a cop's are gonna be looking for in five minutes and I went I just remember thinking oh wow

and keep mine all of my IDs everything are in the storage unit that she has a key too like I'm not getting this is over yeah I got an ID right now that says my name is Michael Eckert yeah I am driving I got I'm driving a youhaul van yeah sounds like she has a lot of negotiation leverage right

so we start arguing back and forth and she says a hundred thousand dollars yeah I'll give you hundred thousand I said I'll take it she counts it out uh counts out the hundred thousand later when I recounted it wasn't even a hundred it was like ninety eight thousand that's fine that's fine so um but you know we've got a mole mark you know two thousand five thousand six thousand she's like two thousand five thousand that's twelve that's it that's it that's it that's not my money so I I take it

I end up you know I take it I leave and as I'm leaving she'd always called me before on the phone and begged and pleaded and cried I messed up please give me a chance I'm sorry I'm I'll take my medication I'm sorry I thought it was better I thought it was okay and I remember walking out I

put my cell phone on the counter and just walked out went downstairs got in the truck and drove um and uh drove when I got to Louisiana I stopped at Baton Rouge and got a I mean at some point I stopped then I got like I think I got a room or something at one point I know I stopped so you drove

without a plan essentially I drove back to Charlotte to get my car got it so I can't be driving I can't be driving so I stopped at Baton Rouge at one point and got a cell phone you know I like a a burner phone like a Verizon Virgin mobile or something uh one of those little phones so I bought one

I call a few people at home back home call my mom um she's in tears crying my dad's yelling in the background I call uh what's your mom just a small danger what would your mom and dad say you know anything stand out to use no my dad you know you know you know well I hope you're happy

you know your mother every time someone mentions your name your mother cries which is funny to me because like growing up like he was never concerned about her crying you know so it was like since when did you care you know and I just so I mean my dad's like he's an alcoholic you know he's

been sober for two years a month and a half drunk drunk and binge uh or drink sorry drinking binge and then sober for six months and then did it again then sober you know it just went back and forth there and uh in and out of alcohol you know drug programs uh but like I said it worked for state

farm and state farm he was a top selling manager and so what they would do is they they'd put them into a 30 day program and and I mean like a like he has to stay there and they had they were the only ones that had that kind of control because they're like you're gonna do this and you're

gonna pass it or we're firing you you know he made a lot of money and he made a lot of money for state farm and he hired he hired and trained a ton of agents and he had one of the top performing agencies so he was worth a lot to them and uh but so I I end up what ends up happening is I'm driving

through I get that phone that I was telling you about and I call so I call talk to my mom she's you know she's crying she's like I love you so much you know I just want to make sure you're you're safe I end up calling a Susan Barker which I was one of the brokers that worked for me at the time. Call her and I say hey what's going on? How's she's like oh Matt you know what's going on?

FBI is everywhere like they're there they've been talking everybody they you know and this has been it's like a year and a half at this point and she's like it's not you know they're they come around every once in a while everybody's gone in everybody's cooperating everybody's talking

everybody's blaming you um including her and uh and so as we're talking she said look I've the main FBI agent on the case she told me if I ever spoke with you to have you call her and I was like yeah I'm good so she says her name is Candace and she she wants you to call her she's at

least call her for God's sake maybe you could just turn yourself in maybe maybe you can negotiate just like a couple of years like it because they're if they're not going to catch you then they maybe turn yourself in maybe they'll help at least hear her out and I was like okay all right you're right

hang up the phone I call Candace she picks up the phone I go hey uh she has this and I go this is Matt Cox and she has hit hello Mr. Cox how are you and I go I'm I'm doing okay how's it going I understand you want to talk to me she's I do I said what can I do for you she's you can turn

yourself in I go well that's not gonna happen I said what else do you need and she said I think that you should think about turning yourself in I said why what am I looking at she's well that's not how it works it way it works is you turn yourself in and you know we take that into consideration

I said no no no no no that's not good enough I said I'm not not stupid enough turn myself in and hope for the best so she says well let's talk about this and I said well what am I looking at she's I don't really know I can't you know really I can't tell you that and she's I said well

well then we don't have anything to talk about she's well wait a second she said let me hold on let me call the US attorney maybe we can work something out so she calls us she she so I said okay I'll call you back and she said we'll give me your phone number I'll call you and I went in

and I said I'll I'll call you said I'm gonna hang up the phone I'm gonna turn the phone off I said a fraud I know you're trying you're letting this phone call right now or something you know and she's oh give me a break she's you're not that important and I remember thinking who do you

think you are white like she like right like you're you're just some little fraudster guy running around you know like you're not a terrorist you know like and I almost I almost was like okay here's my number which you probably already had but I almost like it's like okay I'll wait for your call

and left my phone I said now you know what it's I'm gonna hang up the phone I'm gonna turn off anyway and I'll call you back she's all right whatever I hang up I turn off the phone it turns out I found out later when I ordered the Freedom of Information Act she actually immediately called

the US marshals and they immediately called took the phone number and tracked back the phone and immediately had two marshals from Baton Rouge or go immediately to that place where I had been damn oh listen yeah I mean they were fast yeah she's oh she's

good too not just that I I made the initial calls sitting there in that where I went and bought the phone it was like a gas station there was also like a subway station I had ordered like a subway I was eating a subway playing on my computer program the phone and making phone calls so by

the time I talked to her and they're they're good driving I by that point I walked and gotten into vehicle my vehicle and I leave but you know who knows I don't know if they showed up 30 minutes late I don't know like I could have hung out like oh I'm just gonna finish my food could have shown

up so I go I call her back an hour or two later she says listen you know the first time he wasn't hadn't got back with her then he did then he came back he said seven years she's got to turn himself in here so okay seven years that's that seems like a lot and I was like seven years and

that's seven years for for I was that and I kept saying that seven years for everything and she goes yeah that's for everything I was like that's everything like everything and that happened like in Atlanta like in it's some stuff that you don't know about she said look what's important is

you turn yourself in in Tampa and I was like okay well I'm closer to Atlanta why wouldn't I turn myself in in Atlanta and she's like look you know you don't want to do that you don't want to do that well because that would have been the secret service would have gotten credit if I'd walked in

there right so you know and I don't know anything about rivalries and how they work at that time I do now but so we go back and forth back and forth and I continually ask her does that include it lantern everything and at some point I realized like oh she's just not answering and so finally I

said listen you keep dodging this question and she said all I can speak for is Tampa so if you come back to Tampa and you cooperate against everyone seven years and she's telling me she wants me to cooperate against my ex-wife and I'm like I'm not gonna do that I said my ex-wife didn't do

anything she doesn't know anything she didn't do anything she's never you know that's not what I heard and she's going on and on and I was like no no I was like oh wow I was like so that's just for and she's like that's right I said all right we're done she's no wait I can call the Atlanta

US attorney's and now lady I wouldn't believe you if you told me water was wet I don't trust you and I hung up the phone threw it out the window and I end up going to Charlotte drop off the U-haul van go to my I never did I would have brought it back to the dealer

like it's not like I abandoned I brought it back so I bring it back I go to my old apartment and downtown Charlotte and I remember thinking I would be okay and I know by this point that they they knew Michael Eckert's name they had the address and Charlotte so I know they

they by this point it's been five six days so I know they've tracked him back there so I figured if I could get my car I'm fine so I go into the apartment complex and it you know it's like five so there's four five six story apartment you know those are parking things that stack

up so I go into this you know underground it's not underground but whatever this parking garage thing so I go in I'm on like a third floor something I look at my car you know I'm and I get my car and I remember as soon as I walk drove out of the the parking garage I was like I'm good

so I can go ahead and pull across the street and stop at Starbucks so I stop at Starbucks I walk into Starbucks I order Starbucks I'm standing there waiting for the barista I look over and it's two people from the apartment complex staring at me

like that's what I'm like and there's their whispering and pointing and no and I remember thinking this is like the hits of the month I hadn't paid my rent and been there so I thought that it makes sense maybe they like I'm picturing an eviction notice or a three day notice on my

door something and I'm like okay and then one of them bolts out the back the woman the there's a guy on a girl the woman what runs out the back he stayed in the staring at me I get my my my my my Vinti Vinella latte all right I get my little proof I get my proof through drink yeah so I got my proof through drink I walk out I get into the car he follows me getting the car I set everything up I put my seatbelt on I'm okay he's standing there staring at me I you know I'm thinking something's wrong

like what's up and all and I check to see there's no traffic I'm good I'm about to about to leave and he starts screaming he's right here he's right here I look in the rear view mirror there's two guys running towards the back of my car I punch it and I take off sounds dramatic wasn't that dramatic

I'd already there was no cars I knew there was no cars already pulling out you know wasn't like a TJ hooker where I jumped over the slit across the the hood and sling you know they didn't catch the car and hang on the back but you know I so they're running and I boom hit it just put the cuff here no because it's one of those little things it was actually nice but it just you're making it sound like you're pretty calm what's your panicking here and it was terrified yeah terrified so

you're under under fear you're still operating yeah I operate like I it's funny you say that because the the secret service when they talk to these guys they all the people that they spoke with said the same thing over and over again the guy was a professional he never seemed upset he never

seemed agitated he always he was never in a hurry yeah he you know like but most of the time I wasn't because I you know it wasn't until the police got involved for the law and federal law enforcement got involved that I I started really you know getting anxious so at that point I dry I

take off I drive about a mile down the road who are the two guys by the way I thought it was FBI I ordered the freedom of information act when I got to prison at some point you know in the future and it was it was us marshals all right so sounds pretty dramatic to me you

as marshals running towards the car you pull I mean I mean you know but all right it's not to tell it like it's dramatic I understand but it was there's not much traffic yeah it's not like they're you know their fingers were at the back of the car they're holding on you know but it was yeah

if I had waited an extra 20 seconds yeah they would have been on my car they would have been right there at the door as you consider giving up there or no no I like to think of this hall listen my my instinct is get out is go go go go go go go go go you're already on the run I'm already in

trouble it's not like they're gonna be they're gonna it's they're gonna add anything although to be honest you know it only got worse because at that point actually at that point I drive down the road I stop at a homeless facility I survey three guys I'm a mile down the road like looking back on

I think what were you thinking but there were three three homeless guys that were in their early 30s and they were they were all Caucasian that's hard to find so trust me I've looked spin hours before trackifying in these guys so that's like the the golden thing you're looking for is white

guys in the 30s right because that's why I was in my 30s that that was an old man like I am now so I I survey them I drive straight to Nashville yeah get to Nashville drive through an area called Green Hills um well I first like when I got to Nashville I stayed the night and the next day

I went into I'm gonna say you a UPS store it was actually a kinkos there used to be something they used to be called kinkos but like going to remember kinkos oh yeah they got bought by um um FedEx I feel like oh is it FedEx FedEx FedEx okay then it was a FedEx store so I go in there

and you give them like 50 bucks or something or 20 bucks or something they'd give you like a hundred business cards so I get a I go get a a burn a phone number a burner phone I go in there I make up oh I call and get a phone number from HQ the local HQ I come up with a name

manufactured funding group I've got two phone numbers I get business cards made with the name one of the guys named that I surveyed was um uh his actual name was uh Joseph Marion Carter Jr I went by Carter so I get business cards made at Joseph Carter I then drive through Green Hills

took him like an hour to get the card so I'm driving through Green Hills I'm playing I'm going to an apartment but I'm still I don't have an idea I don't have anything like I'm I'm wondering how what am I gonna do how am I gonna get a place to stay I'm gonna stay in a hotel like what am I

doing I'm I'm using an an idea that the cops are looking for so as I'm driving trying to find this big apartment complex there's a guy putting a sign in the front yard of like a townhouse because several townhouses and I probably in his 60s I pull in jump out of the car and I said hey

is that this for rent he said yes it is I said oh okay uh yeah can I see it sure I go in check it out come back downstairs it's perfect I said listen I uh you know I work for a company you know manufactured funding group boom hand in thing I said I I've been in in uh uh Europe for the last

time I forget what I said I said England I some little town outside of London and you know whatever dexterly you know London for the past five years I don't really have any any credit but I said I I can put down a double the security deposit or you know whatever you need here's my

business card he looked at me and he looked at my car and he goes you look like an honest young man he said I'll uh I'll take the first month's rent and a and a deposit and he said now go get a leash right now and I said okay and I said oh okay fill that a leash right then game in the keys

like nice like very trusting in in in that town without oh yeah but there must have been nothing about you as you you're just I mean I don't got a nice car look I know you're you're gonna get a lot of comments to say white privilege but I that's what that's what you're

I think the charisma has something to do with it um well it I so he gave I appreciate that so he gave me the keys listen I ordered all of all of uh Joseph Carter's vital information right like all of his uh burst certificate social security card everything uh that night from like a

kinkos or some of the I forget where but from some one of these places I went online you could go online back then right like there wasn't Wi-Fi everywhere so I ordered the stuff and it shows up a couple days later I take that information I go and I get a driver's license

we're gonna go within like seven or eight days I've got a driver's license in his name I get in that car um Michael Eckert's car I drive it all the way back to Nashville I leave it in long term parking get on a plane fly back to Nashville go in and buy myself a brand new car was a brand

who was a couple years old but from like car max um right within two weeks I am completely 100% set up I start dating for three four months that gets really boring and uh where where again naturally Nashville okay got it so I start dating a bunch of chicks and then I end up meeting

this one girl by the way are you lonely here because you're on on the run is that I'm listening being an I'm telling right now being on the run was the best part of my life really everybody but you know how all these guys say it was horrible and I was so was so concerned and looking

over my shoulder and it wasn't I wasn't keep mine I've gotten I've gotten five or six traffic tickets while on the run I went to traffic school as someone else I got so many traffic tickets in his name I went to traffic school as him like if I got a pulled over like I'm not concerned

so your confidence just was and I'm driving a driving a vehicle in the name of the driver's license that I have that was issued by that state yeah full coverage insurance I'm not an idiot I'm not driving around a stolen car with a broken tail light in a body in the trunk like I'm covered like

I'm not concerned about the local cops uh plus you're going to Starbucks sipping your coffee and driving away from uh US Marshall right right that was you could start believing that it's impossible to catch you that is exactly what it is it's it's every time I just kept getting more and more

emboldened more and more cocky arrogant like they're not gonna get up too good you know which is great until they catch you and so I I meet a girl named Amanda Gardner well what I end up doing is keep my number one got a hundred thousand or so so I go and I start buying houses in the area

in this area called JC Napier next to it's just close to downtown and I buy of these houses and I start record I buy them for like 60 70 thousand and I record the sales at 210 190 1205 that's where they same thing and I refinance the houses I start pulling out money I meet this girl a

Amanda Gardner she we hit it off within a few months she's moved in to we move into a house in that area I renovate a house we move in there I borrow three and a half million dollars and I'm buying houses now I'm buying houses recording the value I started all over you know I borrow like

whatever three and a half million dollars I meet a Amanda we move in together we're we're we're do you tell her do you tell her kind of you know what she knew was that you know it's it's it's odd right I have no photographs everything I own is brand new she's like you don't there's nothing

in this house that's more than four months old so six months old you have no photographs you have no internet presence you have no you know it's every stick of clothing is brand new you don't have old pairs of jeans do you tell their stories about the past of any they is there

fabricated the initial initially there was a fabricated version that I owned a I owned a mortgage company my typical story was like I owned a mortgage company and I got bought out by household bank so are doing very well I got bought out by household bank I have a no non-compete clause I got

you know I ended up with like half a million dollars after paying off all my bills and just decided to kind of travel around the the US and now I'm here I'm going to start renovating houses but that you know you don't call home nobody calls you your family doesn't call you you tell

stories about your mom your dad your brother your sister friends I don't know any of these friends never seen any of these friends they never call you they never you know it's just like it's like a shit so at some point I basically just said to her look I'm listen at one point I had to have a

check cut I refinanced the house right and I had like I want to say I'm gonna say something like it might have been 30,000 but let's say 20,000 I had a 20,000 large check cut to a man to gardener because you have to have these checks you can't have them cut to me so I would say hey there's a

second mortgage on there and I provide a second mortgage or I provide you know I provide different things and I knew I I need names of people to cut these things too so I had a check cut for whatever so I remember we're at dinner one night this is before she really knows who I am

and I said hey I said oh and she was oh did you had to refine she's had that thing though you're refinanced I go oh thank god you said that boom I said I need you to deposit this give a check for 20,000 she's like um I can I can to I can go tomorrow and I can deposit it and

I um and I'm like no no I'm like look it's fine just deposit I can get as soon as it clears I'll I'll get to your cashiers check um I was like no just deposit it and keep it in your bank it's fine so she's like what is going on you know and so we have this conversation and I tell her look

people are looking for me who law enforcement which ones all of them you know she's like like that doesn't even for what I go mostly bank fraud and she's like well how are they not finding you I mean everybody you know people know you like you know your general contractor

which I met four months before this guy six months before this was two months before you know she's like so and so so and so and I'm like right right well I said well she's like I mean they've got your name they've got your I go well that's identity theft and she was like

what do you mean I said well my name's not you know my name's not it's not Joseph Carter and what is your what is your name I go look you know it's you don't need don't even worry about it this is what's happening this is where I'm at and this has been months into the relationship

I mean this is or oops I say maybe a month or two in but you know she was just too inquisitive and oh I know what it was she found like $40,000 in cash in my freezer one night that was another thing that happened she went to get a popsicle and she opened up the the flip

to get a popsicle and she opened the wrong one and there was all cash and she was like like you know I have the other day you know in this conversation the other day I opened up the popsicle box in their cash and I'm like so I kind of explain it but I had a feeling she's not gonna she's gonna

be okay with this you know so she was okay with this like I mean to me that's just a fascinating conversation to have like it was a great conversation because oftentimes in relationships you learn about each other and you find out new things and here you find out that's a doozy yeah it's a good one

the name you're using is not your real name and the secret service to FBI and everybody else they're looking for you yeah and you're like to be honest you're not a violent criminal so it's like and I you know you know but she didn't know my name like she was like she and I was told or I

said look if you start digging if you find out my name like I'll leave like there's certain things that catch you staying in contact with people that you know that's how you get caught you know going back to see people that's how you get caught you know telling people who you are that's how

you get caught and I was like so I'm Joseph Carter everything's fine and she was like okay you know and keep mine too this girl do you oh your car is broken or your car's not doing well take it and trade it in we'll go get you in on the car we'll go get you you know an infinity you know

FX or whatever you know a $55,000 $60,000 vehicle she's driving the equivalent of a beat up old Nova you know I mean it's you want to go on vacation we'll go on vacation you want to do this you want to do that so you know we're buying houses I I'm we're we're renovating houses we're we're building

brand new houses we're buying lots like she's like in the middle of this like holy Jesus there's hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank in our bank account her bank account I open up a corporation in her name she's opening up bank accounts she's got web there's websites it's it's a lot

and while this is happening we start seeing a friend of hers so this other girl comes in the picture her name's Trina and Trina is semi lesbian so this is like a sexual thing yeah or actual relationship yeah it's no it's more like she's coming over a couple times a week okay so we've got a ton of

tons going on and I put this so while this is happening I I end up coming out and like several magazines so I'm thinking this whole thing's dying down but it's not dying down because now I just got caught and handcuffed in a bank walked out of the police station

outran marshals although that in that part the marshall thing never was never in the papers but the getting caught and handcuffed in the bank when that hit the papers that's everywhere brother's huge you know suddenly Chicago Tribune's running a series the fugitives

I'm in Bloomberg business week they run an article article called you know sharks in the housing pool then you've got a fortune magazine comes out with a thing because by now I guess what Becky's been caught oh Becky Becky she and Houston or whatever in Houston got caught

and did she but gangster bro like the way she here's the thing hey hey there you go no oh no she told on me immediately oh she did oh no it's fine she took the right thing so here's what's funny about that about that she here's what she says loyalty's everything in this world

ever that you and I disagree on I just took off I just took off still out on her and left her with with with listen with like six or like five or six hundred thousand dollars is what I left her with it's not it's not all about money Matthew it's also about just like you know

right or die there's a meaning to that I'm sorry go ahead oh so she told that she said everything well here's what what when I say gangster when she gets caught yeah um they come in she's in the middle of beauty school she's paid for beauty school she's going through beauty school she's

gonna open like a salon or something so she's in there cutting hair in a class you know on a man again at all of a sudden like five or six secret service agents come in guns drawn screaming get on the ground get on the ground she said everybody dropped the ground she's I'm sitting there with

scissors going you know they grab her they handcuff her they bring her in and the whole time now at that point she was Rebecca oh she was yeah her name was Rebecca Hickey she went by Becca she was so she's Rebecca Hickey which is a you know it's she's got a Texas driver's license the whole

thing and they're screaming at her and they she they put her in the car and they're driving the whole way she is the guy the secret service agent told me 45 minutes she's telling us you're losing your job bro you're losing I mean he's like I couldn't believe it like we've got pictures

of her yeah well like this is you she's like that's not me are you insane look at that chubby little thing yeah she would not budge till they actually put her hand on the scanner and she is okay um I'm Rebecca Hicke what do you need they're like where's Matt Cox she's I have no idea that fuck

her left me like a year ago so but she contributed to the story to the legend that's already growing oh oh because she was interviewed by Fortin magazine and it was horrendous the article is horrendous he was abusive he he's a dawn wand that that forced me to fall in love with him commit mortgage

fraud and then took all the money and left by the way they found like 40 or 50 grand on her and maybe another 30 or 40 in her bank account and no other money yeah where's the other money um so anyway and she was by the way she got caught she was in communication with her family

was so she's talking to her mom and she got caught off and her mother through multiple conversations one conversation being mom I'm doing fine I can't tell you where I am you know exactly but I I'm in Houston Texas I'm fine next one six months later I enrolled in beauty school

Houston Texas beauty school how many are there yeah in her mom bipolar I just want to see my daughter yeah I'm gonna call the secret service yeah I'm doing the right thing yeah and honestly she is doing I think so um so you getting more and more famous it's that nationally right so I got

all these how you you you're you're having three similar Amanda and Trina and and what ends up happening is we end up going up you know and listen Amanda and I we've gone on we've gone to Greece Italy um Croatia where we're we've gone we're going on multiple just multiple trips

and when we just gotten back from like a 10-day cruise of the Greek Isles and there's we get home and Amanda goes online and there's a blog about date line about their in one of their new specials called the Thief of Hearts and that's me apparently on the Thief of Hearts and I'm apparently going

around and I'm and it's based on you know Rebecca's you know Becky's story that I'm wooing women to commit fraud stealing all the money and then leaving them to hold the bag well they interviewed her they're interviewing multiple people multiple in my in my case

they put together this they're putting together an episode gonna be released in a few in a month or so so I'm terrified I have at this point I've been on the run three years and I'm like I mean there's lots of things I could care less about fortune I don't know anybody who's fortune

Bloomberg come on I hang out with I'm hanging out with contractors and laborers and you know I'm not hanging out with these guys so you know local news who cares you know even even local news channels you know I don't care but date line there weren't 400 channels back then you know so date line

comes out even if you don't see it the first time they're gonna rerun it in three months or six months or five years ten years from now they might rerun it again my face is gonna be on it so I could be perfectly fine five years from now and one day I the barista that I go to every

every other day look it looks at date line he goes oh my god that's mr. Johnson or that's Mr. Tom Mr. whatever so the point is is that I was like yeah I gotta go I can't stay here I gotta get out of the country so I was gonna go to um well we really started doing research and Amanda ended up

saying Australia Australia at the time I don't know how it is now but at the time if you went to Australia with like like a hundred thousand dollars and a business plan you could become a permanent resident alien you you you you can't vote but you can buy property you can open a

business but you can't get job and they didn't require a fingerprints so there's no criminal um background check now if you wanted to be a citizen you have to get an FBI criminal background check like I got it is not good so I was like wow I can go there and start a business and I'm

gonna start show up with a couple million so what we do is we start refinancing houses we're start pulling out money as quick as we can I'm asking guys laborers guys that I work with my general contractor my real estate agent hey man can you cash this check for six grand can you

get nobody says no everybody yeah no problem no problem not few guys like yeah man if you can be 10% yeah I'll give you 10% so that's happening we're pulling out cash um one day Amanda gives Trina a bunch of checks and asks her to cash them that sparks a conversation

that like what it was happening she confides in by this point by the way Amanda knows who I am mm-hmm so by this point she's actually came across the letter that I wrote to my parents when I left Tampa so she's figured out who I am she tells Trina his name's Matt Cox

date lines coming out we're gonna we're leaving we gotta get a bunch of cash and Trina goes okay I'll cash the checks what she does instead is she calls the secret service they watch my house for three days I come home one day they pull the cars up and they rest me so you know it's a

little bit longer than that but that's shorter that's a short version of me getting arrested and you know I've probably skipped over all the trouble because you got in the way with much more complex situations it's women man it's women wow they also are the thing that make life worth wow listen

god bless Trina she did the right thing it honestly based on there you go back to the right thing but I mean based on what she saw uh-huh based on what the secret service told her and what and the the articles that she's reading I'm a bad guy I mean I'm a bad guy in general

right so I don't do their loyalty I don't think so I'm ripping people off and she's thinking that her friend is in danger you know the FBI saying I have a weapon he's he's dangerous he's got a weapon you know we believe he's armed and dangerous when I was in Florida I had a concealed weapons

permit but I got rid of both my guns when I was placed on probation I've never had one since I've never touched a gun since but they used that to say you know they said oh he had a concealed weapon okay well then he's armed and dangerous like there's these little things and think they're telling

her read this article look he forces girls to fall in love with them then he that's what she's gonna do your friend so she negotiated a also I think she got 10,000 I think it was just embarrassing I'm in shame that she got she got $10,000 and said everything yeah and told them this is where

he is his name is Joseph Carter you know he's you know this is where he is they watch it they grab me they rest me they bring me downtown you know what what did what did you feel like when you got and it feel good brother it was bad it was a bad day it's a bad day first of all

Cassino Royale was coming out on Friday it was the first Daniel Craig as a James Bond yeah and the whole week I'd been telling Amanda I'm gonna go see Cassino Royale she go okay well on Saturday we're gonna go to the festival I go that's fine but on Friday Cassino and she's like right

Cassino Royale and she's okay by the way on Thursday I thought we could go to dinner that's fine but on Friday yeah Cassino Royale and when they put the handcuffs on you were the first thing I thought of I'm not gonna fucking sit to see Cassino Royale I'm not gonna get to see it not gonna

see and I saw it about about five six years later and when on the institutions movie channel you know it's nice it's not the same but um yeah so I they they bring me to Nashville then they transport me to all over the place I go on you know uh Conair they fly me to Oklahoma they fly me to

Atlanta then I get go to Atlanta I'm placed in the US Marshall's holdover I get assigned an attorney going front of the judge plead not guilty meet with my attorney you always plead not guilty you know whenever you face people say can you believe that he plead not guilty this is the first

you don't nobody walks in and pleads guilty you plead not guilty while you kind of figure out what you're gonna do but I plead not guilty there's no bond obviously I've got they caught me when they caught me I had four or five passports so that's no good um they they charged me with uh you know

bank fraud conspiracy commit bank fraud wire fraud mail fraud um passport fraud conspiracy or what I was you know um aggravated identity theft money laundering use of a fraudulent passport uh you know and there's like there's there's like you know

30 accounts of this 20 counts of this 20 but none of that matters like even if you just took the dropped all the counts the one count stacked them it's like 150 something years not so everything everything they yeah and that's though they always say you're looking at 150 that you know and your

lawyers they're like this you're not looking at that you're looking at 54 years of what's no better that's no better so uh yeah so uh my lawyer comes in and sees me one day you know like our first meeting and I she says you know I'm uh milley milley done and she says uh listen I've

looked at everything for first they say you're responsible for it's like 25 or 20 or 30 25 or 26 million dollars in loss and I'm like that's I've never that's not true that's not true and I was like you know not even I said maybe not even potential law there's just no way I mean

it's not way and then they come back she comes back and she says well they're saying 19 million now I stop possible telling you I didn't know so when the FBI saying like 40 million they're saying 11.5 in in Tampa plus 40 million for the mortgage company so that it ends up being like

plus what I stole on the run it ends up being like 55 million but she gets them to drop like the 40 like that's that's that's his brokers that's this that's that drop it and they're like we've he's so done it doesn't matter they drop that so it ends up it ends up being like 15 million

and then it's down to what is he oh they said 9.5 and I got it down like 6 million so you know which you know I'm good for so uh what ends up happening is they've charged me with all these things and and she's like okay you know you're like you can you can play guilty and you can go with the

sentence and guidelines which is going to be like she's like I mean it depends she said it might be whatever 50 four years she's but if they run them you know concurrent or consecutive depending on which one they do she said it most likely it ends up being like 30 years you know it's like

that's not good that's not good so we kind of go back and forth back and forth and figure out try and figure out where I'm looking at now as we go through the whole thing we end up she ends up with she ends up saying you know she knocks off a bunch of stuff that they're saying I did you

know enhancements because you'll have a base level and a base level of let's say level 8 you know that should be that should be maybe a few years but then they start adding on enhancements you know um did he what did what he do was sophisticated yes okay three levels for sophisticated means um

were there more than how many victims were there more than 50 victims yes okay that's six more levels okay uh did he change the jurisdiction to evade detection yes that's four more levels okay did he they start adding boom boom and when you start adding up all those levels

plus your criminal history and I have a big criminal history because I was already on federal probation and I committed a new crime on federal probation so that was another enhancement and this you know this case so I'm in like a category I like category two or three so they come back

and they're saying I forget it's like 20 well they don't come back right away but she ends up saying you're probably looking at 14 years okay that's reasonable that's reasonable and so she's saying so we get the when we get the psi back we eventually get what's called a pre-centage report

they're saying 26 years but they really said 32 years and I argued and we got it down to 26 years in four months that's what it is it's 316 months that's how they do it in months because it's not sting that much I guess she's saying months yeah so she says to me Millie says down with me and she says listen you got to cooperate and I was like okay and she said because you're guilty you're extremely guilty she's like you can't go to trial and she said so you need to cooperate it's like what do I

get if a cooperate she's the way it works is you cooperate and you hope for the best and I was like are you serious you tell them everything you know and you hope for the best and she's like the the part of the problem is she said everybody in Tampa is cooperated

Rebecca has cooperated everyone across the board is cooperated there's nobody that hasn't cooperated by the way when you said cooperated I mean they're an inform they told they said they a case right they they came in they sat down with their lawyer and they said this

is what he did he did this he did that they showed him documents yes yes yes that's my signature I didn't know what that was I you know they everything was my fault they didn't do anything it was all me so they've all cooperated and they haven't been charged they've been indicted they're all

named as unnamed co-conspirators on my indictment so I've got like 12 people even just like probably 20 people are involved but there's like 12 of them that are so I've got all these names you know kbdlc what you know it's like I know who that is like I know who dw that's Dave Walker I know who

you know I know who these people and so there's just a list of them just like 12 of them you know plus me so in some of some of them walked in and said I'm guilty I just want to be pleaded guilty the the the girl Allison she walked in said I am I'm too I'm tired of waiting for you to come get me

walked in with her lawyer and said I just want to plead guilty and and they sent in certain she went to jail she got like 36 months or 30 months she called the prison that she went to the low security it was a female prison at the time female camp called the camp and asked for if she

could come by for a tour before she went and they went excuse me she said well I'm going to be there for about two years so I'd like to come in as a like a tour I can take because I like to know where I'm going I mean what it's going to be like how I should prepare and they just start laughing

they said there's no tourists we will give you the tour when you get here you gotta love that like yeah I mean I thought I was I didn't think I thought I wasn't prepared so Becky Becky got 70 months but when I got caught and when I was sentenced they reduced it to like 30 or no 40 to 40

months they reduced because she cooperated that term right do you want to say snitch or well there must be I mean snitch is too harsh of a word but yeah the rat it I mean you're saying I don't know well we can get there we'll get there all right all right so where did the sentencing

end up so I should say first on the cooperation yeah subject my lawyer wanted me to cooperate and by this point I realized like you don't have a choice you know no that's that's not true I could have been a gangster yeah I don't need to be a gangster in this case like you a stand-up guy I

could have said I'll just take it give me 54 years go fuck yourself I'm not going to snitch on nobody and I know you look at me and you think tough guy I'm not a tough guy at all I'm not doing 50 some odd years like I'm not doing it I don't want to do 30 years you know I was hoping for you

know I knew it wasn't possible but I would have satisfied first another slap on the hand like I got the first time it really thought I deserved honestly when you if something when my lawyer asked me what do you really think you deserve and I thought I deserve 10 years you know I deserve 10

years but so she said look they want to talk to you so the FBI well first of the secret service flies in they come in and they interview me who's more terrifying FBI secret service you know the secret service was so overwhelmingly professional the FBI and really only the one of the FBI

agents they interviewed me I don't know how he's an agent I don't know he was just ineffective in confidence oh so it's a competence issue the other one was the Candace you met her of course I did of course she's was her 511 where well three inch heels yeah she's a giant and impeccable

shape attractive one of the angriest human beings I've ever met and every FBI agent that I've met since then that knows her and I mentioned they all say oh did you think of her and I'm like what why they go I was like kind of aggressive they oh yeah yeah she's a bulldog she's a I mean all of them

or like yeah yeah she's she's a she's salt melts like secret service is a little bit more like very personally very you know it's their job it's like hey this is just my job they're polite professional you know that's it so it's just this is just a this is my 9 to 5 so but they they

they come and they fly in and they meet with me for three four days one of the one of the funny things is that when I first first sat down with them the one guy's name was a Dan like brazen scouser or something so he he sits down he says look before we get started we need to

talk about something and I said what he said we know you've hidden money and we you know and I was like what and he goes you you know we we know you've got money hidden I said I don't have any money hidden what are you talking about my lawyers like do we need to talk about no

no I don't have nothing I give you everything I give you all the accounts you got everything and he's like you're looking at an obstruction charge at this point I was like I I don't have anything and he says we know you have money we know you have money in different IDs different identities names

and I go what are you talking about and he pulls out a bank statement and he slaps it on the counter and he goes you've got money in southern exchange bank you've got 190 thousand dollars in southern exchange bank and I look at it and I went um it was in the name Walter Hulcomb and I went

did did you call the bank he says yeah we call the bank I went okay did anybody call you back and they go say we're no we've left several messages I said did you go to them bank website he's yeah I went to the website I said what do you think anyone what do you mean I left with bank

website I said yeah but it was professional right it was like a professional website and he goes it's a bank website and I go yeah but it's it was well done and he goes oh god and I go yeah convincing and I went I go with all in illusion and I said the bank doesn't exist the fake bank I

made the bank made it when I was in not even in Tampa I think I I gotten to Nashville when I made it and I was like yeah it's an illusion the the bank statements he's like they're color bank statements I'm like yeah well no shit so you know there's no I said a matter of fact I said who did you leave

a I haven't paid for the service in months and he turned around and he called it and it went you know boodoo you know it is it was disconnected and I was like how do you not know that's a bank what turns out there was a southern exchange bank and I used their bank routing number and so I mean I

always thought that was funny that they it's like well I remember it's a really first split second there I was kind of like a really embarrassed that they caught me I believe this you're the secret service anyway I talked to them I you know there's there's really as far as secret services concerned

there's just not much I can tell them just you know like it was me Becky's already told them everything Amanda's already told them everything it's not hard to track down when that when they rated my house they've got boxes and boxes so it's laid out we still it took forever like I still went through

everything I explained how I got the driver's licenses how I made the the bank statements how I made the birth certificate how I the whole social engineering of figuring out how to what these little loopholes are it's like seven days total with these guys so you mean like in my question yeah it was

like they question me for all day and then they take me back to the Marshall's holdover and then the next morning I wake up and they chain me up again and bring me back what's that like what's that process of questioning like are they I mean you're somebody who is exceptionally good at conversation

caresmatic it was part of the games you played are they good at conversation I mean they're you know the problem is they're not there to shoot the shit do you see what I'm saying like they have a agenda but they have to use their words to get information out of you aren't they trying to

do you I'm not I'm not holding anything back okay I'm not it's not like I'm sparing Jim you know it's trust me Jim's got to go I mean you're looking at you're there 20 some odd years with Jim can do five Bill can do some Tom can do six I don't even like I don't even like Jerry Jerry can do 20

you know so I'm I'm I'm ready I'm ready to cut everybody's throat but you're not guaranteed that you know you're getting anything for that right and all my time I've seen one one time where an inmate got a guarantee to have his sentence reduced and it was signed by the head of the

FBI was Robert Mueller gave it to him to have a conversation with him that's the only time I've ever seen that document okay so a lot of days of both the secret service and the FBI so FBI was a Candace was a irritated didn't like me and I remember when I she un took the cuffs off I was

like rubbing my wrist she has your wrist hurt and I go yeah and she has get used to it and she was just an asshole yeah just all around not that she didn't have a right to be but everybody else was professional you know so okay and this so we you know we we we talked for three or four days

with the FBI and you know they asked a ton of questions they brought a ton of they brought documents you know so it's like hey who signed this you know it's like oh that's not that's not my signature so and so signature or I signed that I signed that I signed that that's so and so where

this checker who is this oh that's so and so you know you're looking over everything one of the things they wanted to know about was which I never talked about because it seemed so minor is I bribed the politician I got elected because we got him elected to the city council so he could

vote to get our our the lots we bought like a hundred vacant lots in ebore city and I wanted them all they were all single family we wanted them zone multi family and so we bribed him and got him elected that doesn't seem minor it's not as sexy as the that's pretty I mean so that's a whole

another thing like I mean you know all right so what happened is when they got all of the bank accounts they see all these checks going to Kevin White and so they're like why did James red donate five hundred dollars to Kevin White why did Brandon Green donate why did Alan Duncan donate

why did and at you know so I had explained oh yeah well he was we wanted him to be city councilman so we paid you know gave him a bunch of money so he could run the ads so he could get elected so he could then get all of our stuff but because he never did you know I took off on the run before

he was able to do that and then he ended up getting a not long too too long after that he ended up about five six years later he ended up getting indicted for bribery but not mine on somebody else's case I take a small tangent here and ask how many politicians do you think commit crimes are a

little bit or a lot criminals I mean I think there's some ways that are they're they're they're seemingly legal the aforementioned gray area well that's not gray like I this guy was like at one point I couldn't find anybody right five hundred dollar checks anymore so I just game cash like I'm

just handing them seven eight thousand dollars ten thousand dollars in cash so uh but you know I think most of them have legal ways to make ungodly amounts of money for you know influence you know but is it legal no it's their politicians they've made it so that it's not illegal

if you really sat down and explained it to someone you know the average person would say that that's that's not right that's oh no that's legal so okay so at the end of these few days um well was the sentencing like yeah I end up I go to sentencing I get my PSI back and it's 32 years

to life and and so we argue about it with the prosecutor just before sentencing and they get it down to these 26 years four months and then it millie says listen don't worry because I'm trying to back pedal at this point I'm like I might as well go to trial if I lost it trial I couldn't get more

than 30 that you can't well more than 32 years because you can't get life 32 was a max it's just like mistake he said 32 is the life you can't get life so it was like the most I can get it's 32 years so I was like I'll go to trial might as well get go to trial and see if I can get them to

reduce some of these enhancements she insists that she can get the enhancements knocked out and if you read they actually read the enhancements some of the enhancements they didn't apply to me so she goes and and you know I believed her and I think she she made a valid argument we get

to we go to sentencing my mom's there she's crying my dad's there he's looks at he's looking at me like he's disgusted and crowd there's a whole bunch of reporters like the whole places packed and I'm I plead guilty millie gets up my lawyer gets up and she argues these enhancements

and every single time you know the judge is like I disagree you know overruled and it's like boom five more years you know bam six more years bam because if she had won the enhancements she argued I would have got 14 years and now keep in mind to prior to this a month or two prior to this the

pro US attorney had called millie and said look date line date line had already come out by the way remember I was worried about day line coming up well he it had come out but they wanted to do a follow-up because it came out like a a month or two after I got arrested and they were saying hey we

want to recut it with interviews with him well gal McKenzie wants that's the US attorney she wants me to do that and she says I'll consider that substantial assistance now when you cooperate with the government they consider it substantial assistance that's what they call it so I cooperate

with you it's substantial assistance she says if he's interviewed by date line we'll consider it substantial assistance and millie says you have to do it by the way what's the idea behind that that like you serve as a warning for others or something like that yeah exactly it's a he

so you know you become a cautionary tale like don't let this happen to you so I go and I I interviewed by date line I've Keith Morris or whatever his name is you know that that guy Mr. Cox was you know that guy so he comes and he he he interviews me becky's interviewed I'm

interviewed Amanda's interview like Allison is interviewed like everybody the secret service agent I think is interviewed like everybody prosecutors interviewed you know I it's funny at the time I would have I was when I watched it I was like that's not true that's not true and that and

it honest was like 99% true is like looking back on it yeah you know I'm I'm like you know like my Audi TT wasn't blue it was silver you know it's just stupid but anyway so I'm interviewed by them and they recut it and they air the video so I you said this was substantial assistance

and then the other thing is I was interviewed by the FBI and the secret service now my my lawyer calls the prosecutor the night before sentencing and says look he was interviewed by date line and he was interviewed by the secret service and the FBI and if you do that you said

you'd reduce his sentence you'd consider it substantial assistance and you would reduce his sentence what are you going to ask for his sentence to be tomorrow at sentencing and she said we did consider it substantial assistance and it's just not enough what do you mean nobody was

arrested yes but what about date line millie I I don't know what to tell you it just wasn't enough we considered it we we considered it we will consider it and they did consider it so oh man yeah that's like that that's you have to really you know the meaning of words is so important I'm going to use that at some point I will consider I'll consider I can see it so and still feel the same she's she calls me I'm I'm crushed and she's like but look you know they're still investigating

they're gonna make these arrests and so when you get a sentence reduction at sentencing it's called a 5k one when you get a sentence reduction after sentencing it's called a rule 35 so she said we'll file a rule 35 as soon as the arrests are made okay so I go to sentencing and millie says

you're gonna get 14 years I'm gonna argue these enhancements she argues that enhancements she loses the enhancements not that she's not an amazing attorney she's an amazing attorney the judge wanted to hammer me he hammered me you know millie was a great attorney she was always

polite to me and by the way to this day will answer my phone call like most you most public defenders you call them now you call them after your sentence they don't they don't answer your call great person thank you millie I didn't give her anything to work with you know it's like I'm a little

overwhelmingly guilty it's like there's no defense so I end up getting sentenced 26 years um it's a lot of years I would like to tell you that they they when they gave me the time you know that I I was stoic and I I stood there and I I took it in you know but the truth is I

cried like a baby like a small child like you've never seen anyone cry like this in your life I was just how did I get 26 how what did I do to get 26 years like murderers rapist I've met guys at kidnap guys that got 15 26 so yeah I was scared I mean you know does a pub wear a funny

hat like of course I was scared terrified yeah I mean you know but I kept telling myself ah they're gonna reduce the sentence they'll reduce it they'll reduce it they'll reduce it like okay okay it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay um you know but it wasn't okay I got I got

said I got moved to Coleman the Coleman complex and Coleman Florida the federal correctional Coleman complex and Coleman Florida which is the largest complex in the nation federal complex in nation there's a there's a there's a at that time there was a a camp which was a

female camp there was a medium security a low security prison for men a medium security prison and two pinnets entries and so I get moved to the medium now I'm moved to the medium not because like that's where like real criminals go right like I'm I'm a soft white boy like I'm

no danger to anybody like I hurt I hurt someone's feelings once but other than that I'm I'm not a prop I'm not gonna be a problem but if you have more than 20 years to serve you have to go to a medium so even though my security level said this guy should be in a camp I had 20 years so if

you have you can't go to a camp till you have less than 10 so as soon as I'm given 26 years and you know 26 years they they knock off three but you still have three years to get below 20 so they go to the medium so I go to the medium and their guys getting stabbed the very first day people

being stabbed I get locked into you go to my cell meet my celly they scream lock down somebody got stabbed in the wreck yard I remember I asked that my celly which I met 20 minutes earlier I was like what's been on he's like hey we got to get in the cell I was like what's going on he's

somebody got stabbed in the yard and I go somebody just got killed and he goes nah they just stabbed him up a little bit and I thought you're in a place where they say stabbed him up a little bit like you're not prepared for this bro you got to get out of here yeah so anyway I go to the

medium I'm there I go as the first day and night when I remember I already had been locked up yeah in the county and they're they're county jails where they call them us their US martial they're holdovers but they're really county jails they just keep you with the with the um

federal guys so I'm not mixed in with like hobos and you know people like that like I'm mixed in with the federal people so I already felt like a like a prison yeah it's a music prison I mean it's it's jail but it's a prison and unless you've been locked up you don't really

know the difference so it's it's a jail a jail suck jails are much worse the whole time I was locked up in these in the jails waiting to be sentenced guys were like I just want to get sentenced to go go to prison Roger and I was like why did they keep saying that like prisons worse than

this right I saw shank shank it's horrible and they're like bro prison listen prison I can walk the wreck yard I could go to the movie room watch movies out listen within right after count for this four o'clock count they count everybody at four so they are like right after count

I'm gonna go to commissary somebody's gonna buy me an ice cream I'm gonna be eating an ice cream walking on the wreck yard the first day like and I'm you know it's been months and months and months and I've been locked up in this county jail and I'm thinking I want to go to prison like that sounds

nice I love I like an ice cream yeah but there was a stabbing in the first day yeah I will I you know I did everybody kept telling me I was gonna go to a camp you're gonna go to a camp you're gonna go to a low I see you know and and honestly I I was very quickly I was walking on the wreck yard

I was you know so I was at the medium I got there you know it's it's a real prison with the doors bam and they can open the little tray thing and feed you out of the tray and there's a stainless steel toilet and sink and you know they have that in the county too but you know it's it's exactly

what you think of prison as being but it feels like a fundamental different experience when it's 26 years and the door locks and yeah so yeah I have a celly and but I'm also as they sent me to a prison where guys have tons of guys have 30 40 50 years you know life sentences there's there's

gangsters there there's there's murderers there's serial killers there's you know really bad guys there's you know there's guys that are you know trying to take advantage of guys right yeah sexually yeah um but by the time I got there I'd hurt all the you know how you can get yourself in

trouble you know how you can like don't go in somebody else's cell you don't know the guy you're not 100% sure do not go in his cell don't even go near his cell don't go into places where you people can close the door behind you or they can trap you in an area don't there's all these

things that I've been told not to do again for sexual reasons right because I'm I'm a small guy in prison yeah you know I'm tracked away dude yeah it's a problem it's a problem this yeah it's bad it's all bad well it's good in the outside world but bad in my you know yeah my

fear was there make me shave my head to make sure that the mop wig yeah fits correctly but there's certain things that I always hate to say this but I mean it's this is a simplest way to say it is that if you get stabbed in prison you had it common you did something like they're not running

around just stabbing people you did something you and the things that get you hurt is you argue over the TV what channel you want to watch you got 50 80 guys watching one TV don't argue about it like it's not worth it borrowing things that and not returning them that's a problem running up debts

that's a big problem you know gambling gossiping you know those are the problem those things get you hurt not being polite be respectful I'm super respectful so I was respectful very quickly when I got to Coleman there are continuing education courses one of the courses is

residential real estate the guy that was running the residential real estate didn't want to do it anymore because he was doing legal work and it just was taking too much time so he came to me that listen you just got here you got a real estate background like nobody else does can you take over this class and I'm like I'm sure so I looked at his curriculum I kind of rewrote it a little bit and I started teaching the residential real estate class and at one point I was teaching two classes

like a semester or a quarter and these guys loved it right like they all think they're going to get out in flip houses so I started you know from the fundamentals I talked about credit how to borrow how hard money lenders different types of bar like everything and you know guys are walking it's

the first time in my life this was funny not that I think I was really in a position for this to happen this was really odd though probably the second or third class when guys are leaving and I'm having to check them off the roll multiple guys are stopping and saying yo bro putting their hand out shaking my hand and going good class was a good class bro then I have guys coming to me telling me hey what what do you teach in these guys I get what do you mean they go he was my cell is telling me

he's going to get out and make millions I'm taking coxers real estate class I'm telling you I can do this I'm going to be a millionaire and it's like this flipping houses like this is not but the truth is if you know it is the flipping houses was what I basically told these guys

especially the drug dealers right the year drug dealer and you were raising the projects and you're going back to the projects like this is this is the one industry or you know that you will thrive at because you're a hustler you're not afraid a 45 year old divorced white woman is not

going into the hood knocking on doors to try and flip houses but you will and you know everybody in the neighborhood and you'll knock on those doors and you'll hustle and you'll you've been told no before and you don't care you're not scared you're not this and there's tons of money to be made

in lower income areas and so I and then when I go through the whole thing and how you can leverage you know leverage your credit to borrow money to get into the property and rent do the renovations with very little money down and I do the whole thing these guys like they loved it so I was and

and what that did for me was two things one if you got to the class 40 guy show up for the class and I say look if you don't want to go you don't want to be here you just want it because your your counselors making you get a certificate you don't want to be here that's fine bring me two

coffees and like two creamers from commissary and I'll fill out all your paperwork and you'll pass you'll get a certificate I don't have to see again I have full a coffee and creamer because at least 10 or 10 or 15 didn't want to be there the other guy seriously wanted to be there and I don't

want those guys to be there anyway they're gonna be a problem so the other guys are serious about it and and some of these guys sat through the class two three four times some of these guys got out and sent me money so you know which is like a huge sign of respect you know by the way

because I don't know me anything but I did that and I taught GED because you know I you have to do something for money and you know I met some I met a bunch of cool guys and I was hanging out and I was doing well and after about three years they they transferred me to the low security prison

at this point like the FBI starts showing up asking me questions they asked me questions about the politician I bribes you know ask me questions about him special limitations was up and they were trying to tie him into the bank fraud because his name was Kevin White and one of my guys name was

Michael Kevin White and so they were trying to tie him in you know did you did he know about it because if he knew about it it's that your limitations is 10 years we could now he didn't know should have thrown him in there but anyway because like a couple years later he gets

and dide he ends up going to jail anyway it could have decreased your sentence yeah listen listen stop stop listen oh my god I got all my judgment out after the the homeless conversation listen it's only gonna get worse I mean I really appreciate your honesty and your insight about like about

snitching honestly that I have a sense that there's a at least a desire for loyalty in the world wouldn't that be nice did you ever feel in danger and and medium or low it's funny I had more problems at the probably at the low than I did the medium but at the medium the only thing that

happened was an article came out in the newspaper when I was at the meeting it came out and said because they're you know they're still investigating things so this article comes out and I'm on the front page of the St. Petersburg Times it was about the politician big article and in the article

it says they interview Millie my lawyer and she says well when Mr. Cox was being interviewed by the FBI one of the first things they wanted to know about was this politician so she just said Mr. Cox was being interviewed by the FBI so I immediately get taken into custody and they put

me in the in the shoe that the hole right for my own protection and I'm there for like 45 days and then after 45 days they're like Cox what do you what do you want us to do do you want us to ship you I was like no put me back on the compound I'm like half the guys here cooperated and he goes

yeah it's more than half he said but this is this is a guy from SIS which is like their internal security so that's when he told you that that's when you're higher percentage right but he goes but 90 per he's at about 100% of him relying about it he said you just came out in the newspaper I go

man I'm not concerning if you are concerned you got to come immediately to the lieutenant's office and tell us we'll ship you I said okay I get out there people are giving me like the looking at me and what's up you know but I don't have a lot of friends anyway and I come there to make friends

and so at one point this one guy comes to me I'm walking the yard probably two days later after I get on back on the compound I'm walking guy comes to me he has a goatee and he's got a it comes down here he's got a skull like a little skull thing he had he'd made with all that

of wood or something and you know definitely looks scary but so I'm walking and he's stopping you say gocs I'm never talked to these guys I'd been there for a year or so and never talk to any of these guys they're all like bikers and you know air and brotherhood and so you know I'm like

uh yeah what's up he said Bubba Bubba is their leader he was he was Bubba told me to tell you uh not to walk the yard you don't want to see you out in the yard and I went okay I said well I'm gonna walk the yard tonight um I said enough I get the shit kicked out of me then I get the

shit kicked out of me but did you talk back to a guy with the with the wooden skulling enough as good I did but you know what it was right in front of the guard check and so there's guards in the guard check you know like they're 20 feet away really you weren't scared I mean

I think I just got numb like I'm not stupid but I'm all I'm walking around I'm you know I was scared from the moment I got there on if that makes sense so you get to a point where you're just numb and you're waiting for it especially when I got out of the shoe got out of the shoe I went

straight to myself lay down a couple minutes later it was locked down they closed the doors I wake up the next morning I go to chow I go to my job like it starts all over again so I was I had a very packed routine so I didn't spend there although there's guys everywhere and I'm I'm thinking at

some point I might just be walking around I guide my walk up and just smash me in the head but it didn't happen and it's not the guys aren't getting stabbed but they've got it coming I didn't tell on anybody here I didn't do anything it's not that on other yards I might not have gotten smashed

but I didn't get smashed and I'd been there a while and I taught the real estate class and everybody wanted to take real estate take real estate so I think that insulated me to a degree I also had a made a few friends there and I think they were probably also kind of putting out the words

like bro cut this guy break so I'm walking across and I tell the guy I said look man I said you know and I wasn't rude to him he wasn't even rude to me really he said don't walk the yard anymore but I didn't want you walking the yard I said well listen I'm gonna go to chow and then I'm

gonna go out there tonight and walk the yard and if I get smashed I get smashed I go because I got 26 years and I cannot walk around for the next 26 years not going on the yard I said so I'm gonna be there and then that happens and that happens and he looked at me he goes man I don't give a

fuck what you do is that's what Bubba told me to tell you he said I told you anyway because I don't give a shit what you do and he walked off I went out there that night with a buddy of mine named Zach a guy named John Gordon with my cousin and a couple of his buddies we walked the track for about

an hour Bubba and a group of his guys stood there and looked at us and as we walked probably closest we got to it was 30 or 40 feet that went on for 30 minutes and then they kind of broke up and went their separate ways and you know there was a couple of times where I would go to the chow hall

and I would go and I'd be sitting at a table and Bubba would walk up and tell the other guys at the table I want to let you guys know you're he didn't even call me a snitch he said you're sitting with a cooperating witness he said he said that's how you want to roll he said you ain't gonna be

rolling with us if there's any trouble and then they all kind of looked at me and they got got up got their plate and they moved off he didn't tell me to move and he could have walked up and said this is a snitch motherfucker he didn't do that Bubba was very respectful so as respectful

you could be whatever you want to say Bubba right he was a respectful man he ever talked to him into a thing never had a conversation with him so that went on but I mean not when I say that went on I mean like literally like that's a couple of times he said the same thing to a guy in line

one time guy came up to me later said look man I'm sorry Matt I he was standing next to me in line Bubba said something to him he went like 10 or 15 people back and stood in line later on he came up to me and I'm sorry but you know I he said I said bro I said look I get it we're not

friends don't worry about it and here's the thing at some point there I got I end up getting well the FBI started showing up there at the at the prison questioning me about my files in in Tampa the room of the 12 guys that were invited they show up and they started asking me about it

and so they're still kind of working it well at the same time I end up getting moved to the low security prison I get the low security prison they show up over and over again but at some point they come to me and they say look we went to the US attorney we presented everything we have

we have it we I have but why I'm enough for an invest I have enough for to indict all of these guys I think it was whittled down to maybe eight instead of 12 and they said look the entire economy is melting down at this point these are some of these are four or five years old we don't we've

got banks that are melting down right now we got we got 100 200 300 million 500 half a billion dollar banks that we're investigating we don't have time to deal with this we're not going and we're not going to indict those people so they get away the agent I was working with her name was

Leslie Nelson very nice person she came actually didn't have to do this came to the prison to tell me this is what happened and when she'd first come to see me I told her listen I want to do all this but no matter what happens I need you to write me a letter if they don't and if they don't

indict these people I need you to write me a letter that I can present to the US attorney on my behalf that I did everything I could and she says I'll do that it but that's not going to happen we're going to get the indictments everything I was okay so of course a year later she shows

up after nothing happens and they drop the case she says up as she tells me what happened and he's not going to do it I was I go do you remember that you she was like I got the letter right now gave me the letter she was like that's it great letter you know it says you know Mr. Cox has worked

you know blah blah blazed on this this is great and even said you know he deserves a reduction in my opinion blah blah so but there's no there's nobody nobody was arrested nobody was arrested so I call my public defender I call Millie I explain it to her and you know she starts you know

she starts crying and she's sorry and well what are we going to do well there's nothing you can do your your time bar like you have one year to file a 2255 which is to say that you're a lawyer is ineffective or that the court has made a mistake in some way and it had been over a year

it it been years it'd been like four years and she's like yeah I mean you're just there's nothing you can do and she's in tears and I kind of feel like I'm done at that point I'm done and what I do is I start writing a book right I write a memoir my memoir and and this is not a shameless plug

for my memoir by the way which is amazing but uh so what happens is I actually I actually write it you know I write it and then I have to rewrite it right couldn't really know what I'm doing you know and I've been reading true crime and that sort of thing and I've always liked true crime

I get a literary agent comes to see me tells me I have to rewrite some stuff we rewrite it as I'm finishing up my memoir there's a guy that comes on the compound and his name is Ephraim Devaroli Ephraim Devaroli and his business partner uh guy named David Pack-House were selling

munitions AK 47 rounds really tons of munitions but they got in trouble with this and they were selling them to the US government for the Afghani security forces and there had been an article in Rolling Stone magazine about him and I'd read it and somebody points him out and says hey that's

that guy and I went up to him and said hey bro you just got here it's like yeah and I said look if you want to write a memoir or anything I'm finishing my memoir I can always help you I can help you write an outline you can get a professional writer whatever you need help he's like yeah all right

Ephraim Devaroli was played by Jonah Hill in the movie uh um war dogs um so a few months later he comes to me and says you know hey they sold the movie rights I was like oh wow that's great and I'm like you and you don't want to write a memoir and he's like yeah man it was sold to the guys

from the hangover movie and I was like so the guys from the hangover movie are going to make a movie about you I said you understand they're gonna call it like dude where's my hand grenade and you're gonna be spikoli from fast-timed at richmont high like you're gonna be a joke all because you

don't want to write a memoir and get your your version out there and he was like holy shit so I ended up writing an outline for him we worked together and then he asked I can I read your book and I was like sure and I give it to him and he reads it and he comes back and he said bro he says this

is the best thing I've ever read in my life and to be honest I later found out he'd read about three books in his entire life but still was very yeah it was very nice you know the Jeff the other two so uh he asked me if I'll write his book I write his book we work out a deal and uh

uh we do that because and I'm I'm saying all this because I basically settle in I'm done I'm gonna do 26 years by the way just in a small tangent how did you how did you know you'd be good at writing I'd kind of written a manuscript prior to even taking off on the run I used to

listen to uh John Grisham books you know I'd listen to him in the car like I like John Grisham books and I'd actually written a manuscript about a mortgage broker um you know he writes about lawyers and it's like lawyer being a lawyer is not exciting if you can make that sound exciting I can make

being a mortgage broker and I wrote a wrote a book you know put it in my desk and uh you know the FBI found it and they'd you know said oh it's a blueprint to the fraud that he's going to commit it wasn't stop it's as much that character was as much me as John Grisham's characters are him but it's still kind of interesting that it is John Grisham didn't write I mean you know if John Grisham did something similar to what one of that yeah I saw a quote somewhere that uh the criminal is

is the true artist and the detective is merely a critic something like that does that resonate with you or not to look that up okay so you already knew you could write well I knew I liked it but yeah I think I got better and better at it I mean you know as you're

writing and they had created writing classes you know in prison at the low you know the low was a much different breed of animal you know like it you know it was you could very easily get hurt you could get hurt either place but there were guys that have life sentences that been working out for

20 years and we're just super angry you know at the medium and if you got hurt at the medium it was probably really go bad as opposed to you get hurt at the low it's more like a a a fist fight in high school so with knives so anyway I so I'm there I'm writing I'm doing that and

there was a guy on the compound that came on the compound about that same time his name was Frank Amadeo Frank Amadeo is a a rapid cycling bipolar with features of schizophrenia rapid cycling bipolar with features of schizophrenia so it's just constant right and so there are

moments in in his manic state where he his reoccurring psychosis I guess is the he believes and since he was in his early teens has believed that he is preordained by God to be emperor of the world he's a lawyer despoured stole close to two hundred million dollars from the federal government

they gave him 22 years and they sent him to Coleman but it doesn't this is the part I love the delusions don't affect his legal work doesn't say a ton for legal community but I do know his delusion I'm just asking questions yeah he's he's trust me he I I mean it's it's not me it's like

the transcripts the lawyers the doctors the you know yeah there's a ton of fun and then if you saw him in action you'd be like oh wow yeah you know he'd be he would be completely normal you would be having a completely normal conversation and somebody would say something and he was he'd go

that makes me so angry I I can't I'm not gonna let them do that when my lesions march on Washington we're going to burn the constitution and the president will kneel at my feet and he goes I'm gonna need your transcripts I'm gonna need a 22 55 form we're gonna file a

you know and it would just right and everybody would sit there and be like okay Frank I'll get this not good he was insane it was the most insane he was basically running a medium-sized law firm from inside of the prison he was training people he taught the he taught the um the legal research class

and was training people on how to do legal research in prison how to put together motions how to fight fight their cases how to do the research how to type them up everything he's teaching he's teaching a law it's just like a law school right like he's teaching these guys he listen they made

such a mistake oh come this guy up so he's a great lawyer listen it's gonna get worse that's gonna get worse because here's what happens is at this point I don't talk to him for probably a year or so because everybody's saying he's crazy you know and he's and then for like a year he gets

there he's drooling out of the side of his mouth they got him on a ton of medication it takes him about a year to get him them to take him off the medication so he gets them to take him off the medication and then he starts kind of stabilizing his mood by drinking Pepsi uh I know it's great I

know it's crazy I know how I see I see you look at him like this guy's delusion I know it works but whatever works so at some point one of my buddies comes to me and says look you got to go talk to Frank it well here's the other thing over the course of a year or two that he starts doing legal

work for guys he starts just taking on guys cases I'll do the motion I'll do your legal work I'll do this keep some busy but suddenly you start hearing people get released you know you know Jimmy just got 10 years knocked off his sentence he's going to halfway house next month you know Tom got an

immediate release he Frank's walking people up to R&D shaken their hands guys are walking up to him in tears crying and and so you know crazy or not what choice do I have I I called three different lawyers on the street and said this is what happened what can I do

what can I do they they had me they told me to do this and this and this and I worked with them and then they decided not to proceed and what can I do and they said you're hit bro there's nothing you can do you cannot in the middle in the in the 11th circuit you cannot force them to file a reduction on your behalf you cannot do it it's impossible you're hit you're done it's over I'd

love to take your your money mr. Cox but it's not going to happen I can't I'm not just going to take your money you're going to lose three different lawyers I talk to I or TI's lawyer told me bro it's not going to happen it's over so my buddy says go talk to Frank I said well why why wouldn't I

I got nothing else to lose so I go talk to Frank he actually has a little manic moment that little thing that I just showed you that's exactly what he said the first time I talked to him based on your case yes I won't let this happen in a he's like I'm going to need your transcripts I'm

going to get this I need to see your indictment I'm going to need your pre-sentence report I'm going to need it's like okay and I turn to my buddies like bro I know I know what you're thinking it's fine I'm fucking crazy and he's like I understand let just what what choice do you have

that's like fuck so Frank files a 2255 motion on my behalf stating that I'm not time-barred that milley was we file it against milley stating that she was ineffective right that she didn't understand the law she had me plead to something because she thought I could get a reduction simply

for doing date line oh by the way when I was in the medium the government came to me and asked me to be interviewed by American greed I do that I'm interviewed you know they they they get me on the phone they talked to me everything my the prosecutor wants me to do it she's re-interviewed

everybody's re-interviewed it airs milley goes to them to the government says look reduce the sentence they go no milley it's not enough then they come to me and they ask me to write an an ethics and fraud course I write an ethics and fraud course the guy write the course with he

they flies up to Atlanta he talks with I think he drove up but he goes up to Atlanta he talks with a US attorney talks to milley she insists if he does this I will reduce his sentence I will definitely consider this definitely consider yeah definitely consider and then we do it it's being used all over the nation not enough consider it that's where at this point I go to Frank I tell Frank what's happening Frank says yeah this is he was every time they asked you to do something it reset the time

bar you have a year from that time to file a 2255 now he insists that that was a viable argument nobody else does but he said I'm not going to let them do this I'm going to take care of this I'm going to get your sentence reduced okay emperor okay emperor so he is a character anyway he so he files a

2255 the government comes back they say he's time bar Frank comes back he you know they answer his motion he files a retort they file you know it just goes back and this goes for six months to a year and at some point I go to mail call and you know they call my name and they they hand me this

thing and I open it up and it says the government's filed a motion for a stay so that they can they want the court to appoint me a lawyer and to discuss filing a rule 35 reducing my sentence and I you know I I'm like I read it but I couldn't even understand like what I don't understand

so I mean I rush to go find Frank I show it to Frank and he says he says yeah they're staying it they're going to send you a lawyer and you're going to negotiate for how much they're going to reduce your sentence he says perfect so they fly this woman down her name is extra panich

she flies down we come through the visitation room they bring me there the lawyers room whatever they call it and so we're sitting there and I remember talking and she says uh listen you're your motion your 2255 is written well but honestly you don't have much of a prayer and um they're

offering you a one-level reduction which is 30 months and I went oh that's that's not enough and she said well I don't know what to tell you um she said they're willing to bring you back and I was like well you know I mean I don't know I got to talk to Frank Frank said I deserve

this many levels and we're going back for she's she's who's Frank and I go Frank's the guy that's doing all my legal work she is he didn't write all this and I was like no she is who wrote and I said I explain it to her and she's like he's an inmate and I was like yeah and then and she's

wiser here and I tell her well because he's she stole a bunch of money from the federal government because he's trying to take over the world so I tell her that whole thing and she's like you're letting a mentally incompetent you know person do your legal work and I was like yeah because all the

competent attorneys wouldn't do it they said I didn't have a prayer your people said I didn't have a prayer and I said Frank said he was gonna he could get this done and she's like well I mean you know you don't like I don't even know why they're offering you one level I was like well

Frank said you know and I'm like Frank this Frank that and so she even I end up saying she's like you're taking advice from a legally an incompetent person I said yeah and she said you know you really don't have a prayer I said then why are you here I said if they could crush me so easily

why are you here I said they're giving me one level let me talk to Frank I'll let you know what we're gonna do so I leave I call her a couple days later I tell her Frank and I talk to Frank Frank said go back go back and argue for more he said I think the judge is gonna give you more he's gonna

give you at least you know between whatever he said like six or seven levels or something so I get I get moved all the way back to Atlanta the FBI agent comes to talk on my behalf the guy that like multiple people show up to talk on my behalf they say you know Millie who I filed the 2255

against so I'm basically saying you're you're ineffective you're incompetent you know but she knows the game she's like I get it she she gets on the stand and testifies for me so the judge goes you know listen I think we were asking for like nine levels or something outrageous prosecutor

starts arguing for one level and he said listen one level is not nearly enough for what Mr. Cox has done he said Mr. Cox I know you're arguing for nine nine levels off you're sending it to you as that was never gonna happen like I got slapped and he said it so I'm gonna go with six levels

no no I'm sorry he said three levels I'm gonna go with three levels he is which is which is seven years which she said for somebody who has no arrest associated with his case he said I think it's pretty good and that's my that's the judgment and blah blah blah blah blah

and hammer put the handle down and walks off that's it it's over I guess seven years and I was hoping for more so I get moved back to Coleman I get moved back to Coleman and I go to up to Frank and I said Frank I got I got seven years off and he's like I know I know I said I don't

don't mean to sound unappreciative I said I just I was hoping for more he was I was too he said it looks like we're gonna have to eat this elephant one spoon full at a time and he goes something will come out something's gonna happen he said keep your ears open something will happen

and I said okay and you know I honestly by that point I'd done you know I'd done eight years and I remember like if I got a year off of the drug program and good time and this and I had about eight or eight years left to go or something nine years left and I was like you know I can do that

all right you know I'd been writing by that point I'd I'd actually written a story like I got a book deal for Devarole you know and I ended up writing a synopsis of a guy's story and I got him in Rolling Stone magazine and I got a book deal for that like I got in advance it's like 35

hundred bucks for being in prison a prisoner to get a 35 hundred dollar advance like a million air there's a lot of money so and then we option the film rights basically the synopsis that I wrote for this reporter journalist for Rolling Stone he goes to Rolling Stone with my with what I wrote

and gives it to them and they okay it they say yeah this is great we want you to write an article based on this okay he writes the article he tells me that the article will be from him his name Gielosson Douglas Dodd which is the name of the kid I wrote the memoir about and Matthew Cox

a couple of weeks before it's going the article is going to be published he tells me Rolling Stone doesn't want my name on the article because I'm in federal prison and it doesn't look good but don't worry he's going to put my name in the article and that's just as good

um and I argue it's not just as good it's not I'm like I would be I would be a writer for Rolling Stone magazine like you understand I'm trying to I'm trying to come up with something here that I can rebuild my life as a true crime writer that's no good

what that wasn't so bad that wasn't the worst of the worst of it was 90% of the article that he published was taken directly from what I sent him like I mean sick to my stomach bro just sick over it so but they option they option the life rights for that and I got a piece of that

so there's like $7,000 I get a check for that so I'm thrilled I can keep writing because you have to understand writing on the computer there they charge you so I start right oh they charge you for phone calls writing comedy every single thing calls money so I start writing all these

guys stories I start writing books I just come back from went back to Atlanta got recent got sent seven years knocked off my sentence come back and I'm walking around the compound now there was a guy that was there named Ron Wilson Ron Wilson ran in that if you look at the newspaper it says it's

like a a hundred million dollar Ponzi scheme but really it was fifty seven million dollars it so he had lost fifty seven million so it says a hundred you know they you know they always exaggerate because fifty seven's not enough Ron ended up getting 19 and a half years Ron was an old con man

mm-hmm early 60s 62 61 I don't know and Ron I and I like Ron um so we're walking around the compound and he's like so what are you gonna do I mean yeah yeah I eight or nine more years ago and I was like you know I'm gonna keep writing and when I get out of here maybe I'll have a huge body of

work and maybe a boo boo sell it or maybe I'll be able to option some more stuff and if I could get together with Rolling Stone or get with some of these magazines I could start writing for them and I could option those maybe I could walk out of here or something so right right right so Ron was

who'd only been locked up like a year or so he was cooperating with the secret service in his case against some of his co-definite so he's he's already been debriefed he's cooperating he's actually thinking he might get brought back to have to testify to trial we're talking and we're walking and

he keeps saying you know even if I even if they they charge those guys and even if this happens they're not gonna reduce my sentence they're not gonna cut my sentence and you know first of all well probably because you stole a bunch of money from pension funds and churches that didn't help

your case but I don't say that uh so I say oh they have to bro they'll have to they've they've you know if you cooperate they're gonna have to and if they don't we'll have Frank Fala 2255 and he's like uh ah that crazy man um so he says uh okay he's like yeah yeah you don't

understand you don't understand so this goes on for months and I'm like what is the problem and he says you know they think I hid Ponzi scheme money you know and he'd actually dug up like five or six million dollars in Ponzi scheme proceeds that he dug he he buried in these oh

literally literally buried in aluminum ammunition canisters a super interesting guy so he actually went and dug them up and gave him to him and I'm like well you gave him all the money it's you didn't hide anything relax it's not a big deal they're not gonna find anything so don't worry

about it and so he mentions it oh a couple weeks later a couple weeks later and then one day I go bro why do you keep bringing this up like what are you concerned about they're it's not gonna happen and he said can I trust you and I went probably not and he goes I did hide some money

I was like okay I said you buried it and I can somewhere and he's like no you say I uh get my wife like 150,000 in cash I said okay well she's not gonna say anything she's using and now you don't understand since then she found out I was having an affair

and she we're gonna get a divorce and she hates me and I think she'll turn that money in just to make sure that I don't get a reduction because if you lie to the FBI they're not gonna they doesn't matter what you've done for them they won't give you anything and so he's played

I mean I'm sorry secret service or anybody he is clearly lied to the secret service at this point if she goes and says this is what he gave me so he's like I was like oh wow and he's like and I gave my my brother's holding maybe 30,000 for me and at that moment I was like wow

like this poor guy no that's not what I thought at all what I thought was is that enough to get me a sentence reduction he's so big and I sat there and you know what I thought I thought I I did I thought no I thought that's not enough that's not enough it's nothing that's not even

$200,000 like and they didn't want to give me a reduction my prosecutor was pissed that I got seven years off she wanted me to get 30 months she's not gonna give me anything it's up to her she's not gonna do it so I go I lay down I go to bed like a month later I'm on the phone with my lawyer

because I had written remember I wrote a man I had a manuscript for my book and I wanted to put some of the stuff that was said at my in my sentencing in the book so I was trying to get my lawyer to mail me my transcripts and she hadn't done it so I called her and I said listen you said you're

gonna say like oh god man I'm so sorry I'm so busy I'll do it I'll do it and then she went this is Esther she was so what else is going on in there and I was and this she never wanted to talk to me like she didn't you know when they were paying her she didn't want to talk to me and

and I was like what do you mean nothing I just need my transcriptions she's like nothing's happening there's nothing you want to talk about and I was like oh you know what you know what you know what there's something weird happened they listen to this and I told her about Ron Wilson

and she goes hold on she looks at my computer she's oh wow this is a bad guy this is a bad guy and he told you then you know where to this absolutely she and I can tell you exactly and she says okay okay okay she just let me look into this I go okay so a week later a CEO comes to me and

goes hey Cox and I go what's up he goes listen at the next move because you know they have controlled moves all the doors are locked and they open them up for 10 minutes so you can run to the chow hall or you can run to the you can't run though they know running on the compound but you can

walk fast yes to the wreck yard or the library whatever he says at the next move go to SIS you know so I go to SIS on the next move but I was used to going there by the way because I was constantly ordering freedom of information acts and they would so I'd order your your your an in May night order

I'm writing a story for you and I'd order it and they'd send it to me and then they would catch it and they'd be like why are you getting Lex's information so they'd call me down there and I go no I ordered it for him and I'm writing a story and I'd already been enrolling stone and they're

like what's the story and I tell him the story they guys are pretty good story here and so I go down there but this is different this the guy answers the door and his guy they call him bulldog he was a real asshole uh it was lieutenant if SIS and he's like uh come here get in here Cox sit

down he dials the phone he goes here you gotta talk to this guy and I'm like what I pick up the phone I'm like hello and the guy goes hey this is agent Griffin with the secret service I understand you know where Ron Wilson has has a hidden Ponzi scheme money I will I want something in writing

I want you know so I start doing that and they go okay then why get his his email address and we start emailing each other back and forth and he ends up getting a letter from the US attorney in South Carolina that says they will consider it substantial assistance if they if they make arrests

or recover a substantial amount of money that's the best I'm gonna get is consider so I start talking to this guy and he starts asking me questions about Ron Wilson like hey ask him this ask him this so I'm like bro I got to kind of work that into a conversation that's an odd thing to ask

this goes on for six months so I'm asking questions and I'm typing up little reports and I'm I'm a I'm a prison snitch now so I'm not just like cooperate I'm not in a prison so I've L I've moved down I moved down actually from being just a cooperating witness or because you're in

prison yeah what makes you a prison snitch you can't even really say um now you could say prison rat you can say prison rat I think prison snitch I think that's probably the closures to the term that most guys would use what's the difference in a snitch in a rat in prison I'm not sure

I it rolls off the tongue better prison rat doesn't sound as good as prison snitch I don't know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this so what happens is I'm I'm asking Wilson questions periodically and at some point they contact me and they say listen Wilson's about to

get some bad news I'm like okay um and they go he's you know like I want to want to tell you what it is let us know what happens it's like two days go by and one day Wilson comes up to me one day and says cocks cocks and I'm like oh shit I'm like hey what's up you know and he's like oh my

you're not gonna believe this I got indicted I was like what what happened no yeah my wife they question my wife and my brother and my brother my wife walked in first she said I don't have nothing I don't know what you're talking about the next day the brother walks in and gives them

a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash and so the next day the wife comes back and gives them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash and a bunch of silver like gold bullion and silver you know because this he was a his his Ponzi scheme was based off of silver you know he was

gonna invest in silver for you so half a million dollars they turn over half a million like half a million dollars I thought she was like a hundred thousand or something and he was he's like I know I didn't know I could trust you I'm like Ron what are you doing I thought we were so he um

I'll tell you something just for the icing on the cake by the way yeah I sound the cake let me explain one more thing yeah there's so if you're gonna if somebody cooperates with the federal government let's say I get arrested and they go you want to help yourself and you go yeah

okay um look uh Jimmy is uh he lives next to me and he's running a math house you know a math lab whatever and they go and they raid Jimmy and he gets arrested you're gonna get something off for that not a lot but you're gonna get something now and they could just say we were gonna

bust him anyway we were already on to him right now the next level would be you wear a wire so I wore a wire and I I was in danger now keep mine I'm asking this guy questions inside federal prison I'm in danger so whatever that's like the next level you're active you're taking an active

participate participation in the um investigation and the third level would be you actually get on the stand and you cooperate and you you testify there's no better cooperation than that so when Wilson says to me they're gonna move me back to South Carolina they've indicted me they

charge me what do you think I should do and I go I think you should go to trial because I know they'll have to call me as a witness yeah just to let you know because I don't I don't want you to I don't want to walk out of here and have you feeling feel like hey there's

some there's some good to this guy no so I'm ready I'm ready to cut Wilson like a fish so yeah but you are putting yourself in danger if you get a stand right I'm already in danger if people they're heard what I was doing I probably would have been in does not increase the chance of them

hearing or no it does but it also increases my ability to get more off my sentence so what happens is a couple days later he's on what's called the packout right they're gonna move him maybe a week later so they come and get him they move him he gets back there to South Carolina and he pleads guilty

he he they sentenced him he gets six months added on he's so now from 19 and a half to 20 years and and by the way when COVID hit he was released so he only ended up doing like six years on a 20-year sentence because he was older he's by that 20s 66 67 years old you know he's an old anybody older

than 55 was in danger especially in the prison so they had a a COVID thing where they were releasing these guys and sending them home on an ankle monitor like he's an old man he's not he he's not gonna hurt he's not he's not a danger so they sent him home so he ended up doing so he didn't

even serve the six months even serve the original sentence whatever not that I care so I'm just saying if you make you feel like poor Ron it's okay so his wife got like a hundred year a hundred she got like a hundred hours of community service or something or 60 hours and I think his brother

got six months papers they they got charged with obstruction of justice you know and they didn't neither one I'm you know just like six months probation and community service nothing so when we try to turn around I'm waiting for my reduction waiting waiting after about 90 days after this guy gets sentenced maybe six months I send a letter hey what's going on to the prosecuting to my prosecutor there the prosecutor both districts no response then I go to Frank I explained to Frank and I Frank

is known what's going on the whole time and Frank goes okay I'm gonna follow 20 to 55 so we follow 22 55 government comes back and they first thing they say is your honor we don't know about any cooperation we've never heard about any cooperation so of course then we submit the letter that we have

the judge comes back and the the judge ends up saying it's a little complicated but he ends up saying look I don't have jurisdiction to hear this because you're you may be time-barred but I'm gonna let the the appeals court here now typically you have to you have to get what's

called a like a right of sort of a certification to appeal you have to make sure that you actually have a case he says I'm waving the cert and I'm waving the $500 fee to file with them he said and I'm he's he basically expedites it for me which is a subtle way of telling the prosecutor I think

he's got something and I'm sending it up there and he in the way he writes his motion it's basically saying I don't have the jurisdiction to hear to do anything but they do they need to do it and I'm paving the way you don't have to pay any money and you don't need that sir so the prosecution

immediately comes back they file a one-level reduction and we immediately frank file something saying hey stop we don't want the reduction we don't want the one level we want to come back to court please don't don't rule on it so the judge says okay I'm freezing everything I'm I'm putting a

stay on everything I'm going to give this guy a lawyer to try and figure out what you're going to do they fly down a lawyer Leanne Weber so she comes and she comes and sees me and she says listen I I see that you want to go back and fight this and this but you honestly I don't think you're

going to get anything more than one level I talk to the prosecution they said they'll give you but she said I can work on trying to get you two levels but you don't have much of a prayer you're going to get crushed and I said well then then why are you here if they can crush me so

easy why don't they do it why would they pay you like they pay them like 12 grand or something just to fly down and all your expenses to to negotiate for me why not crush me and she's like I I don't know so well Frank said four levels and she's like who's Frank I go Frank's the guy that wrote all

this and she's like oh is he an attorney and I go is he in here I'm like yeah he's in here she's like why is he in here and I tell her he was taken over the world and she says that's the strangest thing I've ever heard my entire life and I said I understand but Frank said

and she's like you're listening to an incumbent and you know I like you absolutely and she and Frank said four levels we want four levels she he said from it tell you we want four levels she says okay she leaves she goes to US attorney we argue two levels they come back say two levels no we go back

and forth we start filing motions saying we want to go back we want a hearing we want to bring back all the FBI agents the secret service agents and she's like well you want to turn this into a circus exactly what I want to do I'm going to turn it into the biggest circus because I've already got one

level they come back one day she says listen three levels is the best you're going to get she said so I guess you'll be moved back here we'll go to the hearing I said no no I'll take three levels and she says what are you talking she said you said four levels you said Frank wouldn't

take unless you take anything less than four I said no Frank said to tell you four I was happy with three I wanted you to argue for four I'm good with three I'm out here in like a year yeah so and I don't want to be moved back I don't have to get on that bus you don't want to be moved

it's horrible so I said I just want the three levels so then we argue about the wording for about two three months and then they file it and then I get five years knocked off my sentence because three levels at this at the level I was at now isn't seven years every level you get a little less

time so I get five years off so now I've got 12 years knocked off my sentence at this point I maybe have a year and a half to go and you know that's doable so I was super super happy and I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you something and I'm sorry bro um but every time I think about it

and I just feel like I have to say it like Frank I'm an I don't insane but I can like I didn't have a fucking prayer without that guy and as crazy as he is and much of a pain in the ass as he was um like I could never repay him bro like like I'm not I shouldn't be here

I'm supposed to be in prison right now my out date was third was 2030 without that guy where is he now he got himself out he didn't do all that time he got himself out I don't even know how he did he they've even thrown back in prison again for six months and he got himself out again uh

he's insane he's incredible he's insane but he's incredible is really that insane he's an Orlando is he I mean he seems like he seems like a good lawyer and a good man he's he's he's great he's great I mean there's no doubt in my mind I would be in prison right now if it wasn't for him and he's done this for others walk people right out 10 years off five years off nine years off 10 years I mean it's I didn't pay and I didn't pay for one thing I didn't pay for my stamps he paid for

everything sounds like the other lawyers don't really believe as possible and he does it's interesting well I think he's he was willing to he's willing to badger them into doing you know what they should have done to begin with I actually wrote a book about it which he loved about him about him and his story his it's so over the top what happened with him um no I mean little I tried to take over the Congo I mean there's a documentary about it there's it's called nine days in the Congo it's an

insane story I'm I'm in this is one of those stories it's just like how is this not a movie it's not a movie it's no I don't I've pitched it several times and it would be great but so I wrote a synopsis and I turned that into a book what's the name of the book oh it's insanity it's insanity

yeah but about it like a year and a half later like I ended up getting out of prison and I went to the halfway house would that feel like freedom I was uh oh this is bad bro this is bad I remember when I was leaving the prison so you know I'm at some great guys in prison which is a

weird thing to say but I've met better I met better people in prison than I'd ever met outside prison at that low um I mean because it was the first time I actually had friends you know like I I I really had someone that wanted to hang out with me just like I didn't I didn't have anything to

offer them I can't make you any money I can't do anything for you we just hanging out because we like the laugh or we have things in common or we're fascinated by each other or we just have good time and fun so when I was leaving I remember my mom showed up and my brother showed up and they

picked me up and we were driving off and I remember looking back at the prison and my brother said I'm glad I'll bet you're glad to see that you know uh to leave that behind you and I started crying as I nobody talked I was so uncomfortable uh it was just started crying and and it wasn't because

I was like oh it's over it was because it was like survivors guilt you know like I was leaving all of my friends and I felt so bad that I was leaving them uh but I I went to the I went to the halfway house and uh I had I had four I had so when I was getting out I remember joking that I had exhausted

my trueling account my my inmate account I'd exhausted it I had nothing I like 18 cents I couldn't even figure out how to spend it and they give you a debit card when you leave and I said like and they charge you every time you you sweat you use the card like I don't even have enough to spend

the 18 cents you know it's because it just charges like three dollars so I was like I was like yeah I was like I wonder if they're still giving me my debit card and I'm laughing everybody's like what are you gonna eat what are you this what are that and uh and on my one buddy looked at me it's like

you can't go to the halfway house with nothing bro and I was like no it's cool I said no it's cool you know I said no it's cool I said I want to start at the bottom I've got that coming I got working at McDonald's coming so I'm gonna work at McDonald's I don't give a fuck and it was like

well I think I think I think you're gonna need to buy clothes I think that's it oh it's so I said it's it's it's it's a it's it's at the goodwill they'll give you a bunch they give you a bunch of crap if you don't have anything if you're injured and I said I'm injured and a couple days before

I'm leaving $400 ends up on my account and I was like what the fuck and it was from a buddy of mine and I go to him my buddy uh Tommy and I was like Tommy did I go to $400 on my account and he said I can't let you go for but nothing bro so I get to the halfway house and I go to

Walmart and I buy $300 worth of clothes at Walmart I've never been in a Walmart I go to super Walmart there's huge and I go there and I buy a bunch of clothes and I buy about 300 bucks for the clothes and I still have some of the blue jeans to this day I still wear some of the blue jeans

and I was staying in the halfway house and I called the buddy of mine named Trion Trion Calta and he owns a gym and you know I grew up with him his whole family like they owned up a bunch of gyms and I called him and I said hey man I'm in the halfway house and he was like

hey what's going on he said can I do anything for you and I was like I mean I need a job I didn't think it was gonna give me a job he was broke you're hired I'll give you a job he's talking a minimum wage I said that that's fine if I can stay out of here I you could work like 80 hours

a week I was like if I can just stay out of here 80 hours and you pay me minimum wage he's oh he hell yeah perfect so I'm at the gym and I got free reign so I'm playing on my computer goofing off all day and my buddy Pete who still locked up he's texting me and calling me and he's like not

texting me he's emailing me through the core link system and and he calls me periodically he's like have you started a website because one of the things I was gonna do when I got out was I was gonna start a website with all these stories that I written and I was like no Pete I don't I can't

like I don't have a computer he's like well how much does a computer I was like I don't know they're like 300 bucks I was like I said I could probably get a used apple like MacBook like a five year old MacBook or something I don't know for like three four three hundred fifty dollars whatever

and I said but he's like okay so that's all you need 300 bucks I said no no no no no I said it's not three in a box bro it's 300 bucks plus it's getting a WordPress website which I said cost money plus it's hiring somebody to help me figure it out because I don't I'm I'm I'm

inept I don't know how anything works so he okay and I said plus I need this plus I need that I mean I know a bunch of stuff I need six hundred dollars for this I need three hundred for this I need five hundred for this I need a thousand dollars for for this and he goes okay he said

I'm gonna get you okay I got it so he reads off a list he was I got you the Pete doesn't have any money I go how are you gonna give me any money he was he was every day I walk across the compound some he was people stopped me and say house cocks doing and I say always okay and they say does

he need anything and I say no no he's good he said I'm gonna start telling these fuckers yeah yeah he needs something you want to do something for him here's what he needs I ended up getting two laptops sent to me I got the computer program um final cut pro I had uh I guys in prison

cutting me checks so that I could build a website and put all these stories on the website so I start putting the website and I don't know what I'm doing I mean I put them on the website slowly it takes forever um putting pictures up I'm trying to figure out how you know

Photoshop works how all this stuff I the whole time I was I wanted to start because everybody the last one I was just getting out of prison everybody kept telling me like bro you got to start a podcast you got to start true crime podcast and I don't know what a podcast is the term podcast came

into existence in 2009 when I've been locked up three years I had never been on YouTube yeah so by the time I get out the last year or two guys are coming up to me giving me magazines like this is what a pod you need to read look true crimes huge and you got to think guys are asking me

every couple of days cocks you got any stories and I'm like yeah did you read cash and coke and they're like uh is that the one with a guy's or robin the drug dealer yeah I don't know I read that one uh did you read this one no no I haven't read that that's the one with a guy and I'm like yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah so I mean I'm just giving these little stories and then they'd come back and give them to me you know it's you don't have you don't have anything in there right so this is guys it would never read in their life or reading and I'm writing about the guy in in B2 the guy in C1 so

I put up the whole thing and and they're well anyway they're all telling me do a true crime podcast true crime podcast I don't really know what that is but my now I'm starting to listen to them on YouTube you know a serial and a cold case files you know that's kind of stuff and I think

that's what I want to do well my buddy Trion says there's a guy named Danny Jones that runs a podcast called concrete and it's in St. Petersburg and he lives a couple miles from me I see him all the time and I went okay and he said you should you should email him he's got a guy on there all the time

that does real estate and I go I just got a prison for for bank fraud related to real estate he doesn't want to interview me he is well you could maybe he does maybe you could ask him about starting a podcast okay so I sent him an email I remember it Danny called me and he said hey is this Mac host I was like yeah this is Matt he's like I got your email this is Danny Jones and I was like okay and he says uh he says yeah I got your email bro he's like a good fucking email

and I was like what he goes I get a lot of emails bro he said that is a good one that's a good one he's that was really good like I mean that was well written he's like I like I immediately knew I had to talk to you and I said okay I said uh because you know I start off with I think I started off

with hey my name is Matt Cox and I'm a con man I open it was recently released from federal prison and so he was like oh yeah I mean who who says that so anyway he said uh what's going on I said well and I tell him what's going on I want to start podcast blah blah blah and you know Danny he

listens to me for 30 minutes to an hour and I've heard this and this and he's like yeah right he's it you know YouTube's not really like that and that's not really how we do it and you know I don't know that you're you're gonna have to get a production company and blah blah he goes but you know what

what you really need to do is to see if people are even interested in you or your story or you're able to talk you should come on my show you know shameless yeah trying to get some content well I mean so as I told you off line Danny and concrete podcast is really good so be sure to listen to it yeah

yeah I mean it turns out people do like listening to you turns out I mean you're good at telling stories well anyway I by the time I got I couldn't do Danny's podcast like I can't do a brother in the halfway house so maybe I get out of halfway house in a couple months go by just maybe two

months three months go by and one day I get a phone call from Danny's like bro you're out of the halfway house right and I was like because I told my god out in July it's like October November I'm like right he's like listen I had a guest fall through I got nobody I need you to come on I answered

all your questions you know I'd call them five six times you know I have you said and I was like ah I was like I'll I'll I'll I'll do it that video got like a two million views then I did Patrick that David flew me out you know then I did soft white underbelly you know then I did

Vlad that I did all like people started and I'm sorry and then you know it just blew up and then people started asking me to come and you know talk for no reason for for which was crazy but you were saying I'm sorry is your jazz to us no he died when I was in prison he came to see me uh yeah he

came to see me two or three times what is the first time he found out that you were doing fraud the first time I got in trouble when you got the project because I had you know I had to kind of explain that you know like something's happening I didn't want him to hear from anybody else so

you so you talked to him directly about it super disappointed did he ever tell you he loves you after that so I after I got the 26 years and the government decided they weren't going to indict anybody and I really was like wow this is it like you're done he came to see me but just

by himself and I remember he I remember when he came to see me I you know he was by it was by himself like he never came by himself so I remember thinking my mom something happened to my mom and now like as soon as I walked in you know he walked it like what how where's mom and he's

oh she's fine she's fine and he sat down with me and he said uh and I he said uh how are you doing I was like I'm good and it was just like hey you know he was getting sick he was getting older so you know we talked for a little bit uh just about the situation and I was like yeah I mean

he's like what we're going to do and I was like you know there's nothing I can do like everybody I've called multiple attorneys I've talked to people there's nothing I can do and he was like um you know we're gonna you're gonna figure it out you know he was um

um he said your clever and you're smart and you're gonna you're not gonna do all of that time and I was like I'm done it's over I'm gonna get out of here when I'm 60 if I behave myself and if I don't I'll be 64 and he was like I got to happen and uh so he said uh I think that was

the first time he you know I knew he was proud of me when I was making money but he never said it you know you got to look like he was like impressed but we were sitting there and he said I remember he said because the only time I can ever remember him

saying he was proud of me and I remember he said you're gonna figure this out he said I'm not proud of where you ended up but you've done amazing things you know I said I wish you'd use your talents for something different but you've done things that I could have never done and you've read an amazing adventurous life and I'm proud of you and that you know I wish he could see you know my mom uh I know my mom's always my mom's funny because my mom came to see me my mom's a gangster mm-hmm

my mom came to see me every two weeks for 13 years she missed about a month and a half when she had a stroke and ended up in a wheelchair and then she came in the wheelchair and she would make my brother bring her my brother and sister would be like mom are you sure you want to go like you know

it's it's so hard to it's such a long drive and you get so tired while sleeping the car I know but you know uh then you we have to wait in that that lot live that the you know in that um the waiting area you know forever and it takes forever while I'm in the wheelchair so I'm fine

well I know but it's such a pain to get in and out and then and and out she's like she's I'm going to see my son and you're taking me she uh yeah so I so she yeah she was uh she was something else and uh I would say you know like if if I had to say

you know I don't think about all the things I did to get out like I know you know there's all these guys that are like you know like you know I wouldn't done that I'd have been a stand-up guy and I'd have been well good for fucking you bro I wanted to get out I wanted out and

the icing on the cake of me getting out and I would have cut every mother fucker's head in that prison off I was able to get out just in time to spend the last year and a half of my mother's life with her I saw her two or three times a week took her to dinner once a week

I was able to walk go on walks with her in her wheelchair I was sitting right next to her when she had her final stroke I held her hand when she took her last breath so if I have to be called a snitch the rest of my life I don't give a fuck like I may not deserve more but she deserved more do you regret so she just looked back would you do it would you do any part of your life different oh I'd scrap all this yeah yeah yeah I'd scrap all this to be you know you always hear these guys say

I wouldn't change it because it made me the man I am today the man I am today is a fucking 54 year old scumbag multiple felons starting my life over broke you know you know living off of scraps you know trying to make you to work like you know I've got

you know two dead parents I'm divorced I have a son that doesn't talk to me I have a son that doesn't talk to me for good reason not because of a misunderstanding because he understands like I he's you can't even argue with me got a powerful argument like I don't want to be a part

of this guy's life he's a scumbag he stole money he went on the run he abandoned me when I was you know three years old I don't want anything to do with him like I get it like I you know and I tried to I tried to I've tried to do all the right things you know I wrote the letters I I drew

in pictures I've tried to call it and it's not happening like I would do anything to go back and just be that regular middle class guy with the two kids and the wife working a regular job you know I I like that's a good life you know those are that's a good person and you know I

I just made one arrogant decision after another after another until it snowballed and I couldn't take it back and then I did everything I could in if I wasn't the calculating backstabbing scumbag motherfucker that I can be I'd be in prison right now sorry you know so yeah yeah I would much

rather be a CPA right now I would much rather you know should have stuck with me an insurance adjuster or something I mean you know I never should have widened that 30 day late out never there was a mistake that was your first mistake I was a huge mistake you think you're so forgive

you no unfortunately according to my my ex-wife and my sister and everybody that he is a part of their lives you know and I've seen him you know my mother's funeral I saw him you know I've seen him at several functions you look across and he looks right through me uh I think that he's a

everybody says he's he's just like you he's just like you and everybody says I'm just like my dad I've never smoked a cigarette I've never drank alcohol not a drop never done any drugs because my dad was an alcoholic and my dad smoked two packs a day and everything in our house

wreaked of nicotine and I've never smoked and my dad was a pillhead he was he was always on some kind of prescription medication he was drawing you know and I don't want to I didn't want to be that person and I like one day I drew a line in the sand and I wouldn't do it and I think he's drawn

a line in the sand and he's decided you know this is the hill I'm gonna die and I'm not gonna back off it and the thing is my ex-wife tells him this he's a good person you should be in his life his his father because he was adopted when I was in prison they adopted him uh Nick is his uh

you know his his dad uh Nick has told him and Nick came to see me when I was in prison you know Nick has told him like hey you this this is a mistake you're making a mistake like everybody that knows me knows him and he said he has said no so I fully believe it's no I mean I hope it's not

well I hope he figures yeah I think there's a lot of good in you despite you calling yourself as comeback over and over and over and keep bothering you you mentioned that earlier um what advice would you give to young people given that you've lived quite a non-standard life what advice

would you give them how to live a life that can be proud of I mean it's it's I'm in a position that anybody would listen to me but I because to me and I don't have any advice that I don't think a father would give you and it's like work hard be appreciative I mean things are so good

out here I hear people complain all the time and I think a huge part of just being happy is being appreciative like I didn't appreciate anything when I had this is so cliche but when I had all the money in the world I was miserable but when I got out with nothing I was happier in prison with

nothing then I was with two or three million dollars prior to prison and when driving date and a chick I was never should have been dating driving a sports car vacationing all over the world miserable I'm crying driving away from prison because I already missed my friends

that you you could have never told me that was gonna happen turns out money in fact does not buy happiness now and I know and it is such a cliche right but it's it's so true crying driving away from prison yeah you know what um I met my wife in the halfway house

so she had just gotten out of prison she was in the halfway house with me she just did five years for like a meth conspiracy I never would have met her finding out in prison yeah and now your date night is hunting alligators together yeah we know that was that was that was like a month or

so ago this is Florida folks this is what this is what bad-ass people doing Florida my my my while hunting is a former she used to so she was a military an MP in the military she was she did she hunted she ran a hog hunting tour guide service for six years yeah went to prison for five

years got out and then you know now she's a marine mechanic and yeah our date night the other night was uh we went in the middle of the night went to a lake okitobi and went hog I went to alligator hunting yeah and if I may say so she's quite beautiful thank you and I did and did nice

she didn't want to date me the halfway house too I kept saying I feel like you're sweet on me she's like I'm not yeah I'm not I make fun of guys like you you're a city boy I'm like I don't know I feel like well you wore her down I just I just like exactly what I did yeah it's that charisma

it always works oh man thank you for for being so honest thank you for being who you are I do think there's a lot of good in you and thank you for telling your story and the story of others who have uh who've made mistakes in their life thank you for talking today I appreciate

you having me on I was a really short conversation thanks for listening to this conversation with Matthew Cox to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from mario puzzo author of the godfather behind every successful fortune there's a crime thank you for listening and hope to see you next time