You. Chilly Effect is sponsored by Wall Street Window dot com and listeners like you. Nowell fifth day of June twenty twenty three, allegedly according to that thing we call a calendar, and this is indeed the show you were looking for. How do I know that because you're hearing me Babylon about the date and everything else. Anyway, if you're hearing us live on Ocelli dot com and the various radio apps and all that good stuff, welcome to you.
I know most of you will listen to this via your final slab of choice, your applicable application, your podcast. It is your and uh that means who knows what time of day it is? Day it is where it is, when you are when you're hearing this, no matter what, welcome to it. So it is Moonday, Monday, in the first broadcast day of the week on Ocelli dot Com. We've already heard from Chris Graves and he
had an interesting guest earlier. But now it's time for this. Um. I'll tell you a topic that is not often discussed anymore except in passing. What about that collapse, that financial collapse that occurred in two thousand and eight? Right, Oh, well, you know Freddie and Fanny, Oh well, that was the problem. No, it was idiots who were borrowing money that they knew they couldn't possibly pay back. It was the market. It was greedy real estate people, it was greedy bankers, It was all these
things. We all suffered through a bit of a problem there in the early aughts, so to speak. Right, I mean, the majority of you guys are old enough to have been adults at that time, for sure. I know a couple of you aren't, and you know, prepare for an education. But you know, the majority of you were old enough you remember
it, even if you didn't own a house. I mean, I was, what, four years out of a really vicious three four years out of a really vicious divorce, So I mean, you know, I had to sell off most of what I retained from that divorce, which fit into one hefty garbage bag, and that was about what I walked away with, and I had to sell off most of that, so I'm starting from scratch for those years. No house, okay, the car she got that, you
know, whatever else Okay, I had nothing. And yet this affected me because even if you were renting, even if you were trying to conduct business. Even if you were I don't know, work in certain jobs, you got affected. And then the next thing we know is there was a giant tart bailout. What's that going to mean? Does that mean that we're all going to suffer now from some nassive inflationary curve? Oh, this is Obama's
wall. Blah blah blah, and on and on. Everybody wanted to do a spot, you know, at tribute blame to someone, and it was usually an industry or whatever. Well, I've got a guest tonight who might have gotten a different version of the blame game played on him. Not might
have did, but anyway, we're gonna hear all about that. And I'm trying to avoid the Freudian slip because I saw his last name on a list, and I saw the last named Viola, and I thought to myself, I remember a picture for the New York Mets named Viola, and that was
Frank Viola. This is Tony Viola. And I'm gonna give you guys a website to go to to check out his story for yourself, Okay, because this is really interesting, and I know that he's probably not alone, because others probably bent and broke under pressures to carry some of the burden of blame from the mess that went on in those odd days. But this story ought to be very interesting. And you're not gonna hear a lot from me except
to ask a couple of questions about his personal journey through this. And oh, by the way, you know, I just full disclosure. Everybody who listens to my show knows I don't have a lot of faith in the legal system. I don't think this is going to bolster your faith in the legal system when you hear this part of it. And what happened to a guy who Look again, I got nothing against people how they make a living right, and uh, and and whatever. I mean, Look, we just
had a real estate hustler from Queen's was our was our president. Uh, what are you gonna do? I don't hold things against real estate people. Good thing I don't um anyway, Anthony or Tony Viola again, you guys have got to check out this website. And the name of it, by the way, is free Tony Viola dot com. Now he appears to be
free today, but then again, he's still got problems. And uh, we're going to get an explanation about all of that and how that links to the financial crisis of two thousand and eight, etc. Uh, right about now, Tony, How are you doing tonight? Hey, Chuck, I'm doing great, And thanks so much for the opportunity to be on your show. I really appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you for taking the time. Um, your your story linked to one of the more interesting recent times
that again has been sort of memory hold. Everybody forgets about it except they bring it up in passing when we talk about this, you know, tremendous financial problem we're having now with massive inflation, and again people want to a spot, you know, a distribute blame, uh two different individuals and different groups and so on and so forth. And I gotta tell you, Um, your story of how blame sort of got applied to you is it's just
messed up. I mean, I'm laughing. I'm not laughing because it's funny. I'm laughing because, of course, and I had not heard your story until very recently, and it is it's it's remarkable. Um. You know again, you're you're not part of Freddie and Fanny or anything like that. What was it you were doing before that financial collapse? That you know again, was sort of activated or initiated or ignited by the real estate crisis and all that. Oh and by the way, you were in real estate at
that time, weren't you. Yeah, So I started a real state business my high schools sweetheart, Katrina Rose, she was a photographer. She still love the old houses in Cleveland. We're in an old community, old part of town, and so we started buying houses and fixing up houses. And then we didn't really have that much money, and there was other folks in town that had more capital than we did, and so we became real estate agents. We became realtors, helping people buy and sell houses, and we
engaged in property management. And while we were building this business, these banks created all of these zany no money down by ten houses at once loan products. And in the old days, the people who loaned you money cared if you'd paid it back or not. But in the aughts, as you said, the banks sort of separated making a loan from the risk, and they packaged these loans and resold them on Wall Street, and the result was a
big real estate boom. People were making money, banks were loosening their lending standards, and we were real estate agents. We never did mortgages or had anything to do with the financing, but the government blamed me. I guess I'm the guy that caused the financial crisis. According to the United States Attorney's Office, they rated our company one day. So you know, fast forward,
We've built this business head over one hundred team members. We had offices in Ohio and Florida, and the FBI kicks the door in and get guns. We got CNN Live breaking news nation's largest right mortgage fraud case. This is the guy, This Tony Viola guy just crashed the economy. And they said that I stole forty six million dollars by creating all these fake mortgage loans.
Now, wait, yeah, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait hold hold our office, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, because you're moving so quick, I need to go back here for a second. I love this that he's got this. He's gonna go bang banging, and I'm gonna let him do it. But let's just rewind a little bit. Okay, before the crisis happened, I recall this again. I
was an adult at the time, too. Uh. You know, all of a sudden, you could get no documentation loans right where you didn't even require because, like you said, they used to care you could pay this stuff back. Now, again, this is not actually your business. Really, it's connected to your business, right, So you're not somebody who's out
there giving mortgages, I mean online. There were people that you never even had to meet with or even share a space with, that we're turning around offering you loans through like websites and all this stuff in like two thousand and two thousand and one, two thousand and two, and all of a sudden, buying power got expanded for a whole lot of people who maybe didn't really
have that much to show as far as income and things like this. This was a weird phenomena that to my mind, was brand new in say two thousand and two thousand and one, in that time period, right, so this goes on for about five years. Now, I'm not saying that you had anything to do with that, because clearly you're talking about, Look, we figured out a way to buy houses and sell them and make a profit off. So what we're doing is you know, we're getting you know,
clearly you're not one of these people. It was like let me flip a house. Flip a house, flip a house. But you're engaged in that where you know, maybe you're not to fix it up and flip it people, but you're engaged in that business so that you can make a living just kind of moving. Okay, I'll find some underappreciated real estate, get it in the hands of somebody who wants to take it and make an investment. And that was really like your business, right along with your high school sweethearts
taking pictures, which was a very important element. I mean, obviously, when you take a look at a listing, you want to look at a house, you don't go to every single house right off the bat. In those days, you might have gotten a piece of paper. Nowadays, maybe you look on websites you see the pictures. Okay, all of this makes sense, but clearly you got Did you get in before that time period when like all of a sudden, these no dock loans and things were available or
was this right when you were getting into the business. We've been into business for years before these what it was called a nina loan or no income no asset loan or a ninja no income, no job, no asset loan. We had nothing to do with these loan products, and customers were getting like you said, go online, get approved. They'd walk into our office and they'd be approved. Hey, I'm preapproved. I want to buy a house, I don't want to rent anymore, or I want to buy a rental
property. And as let me just give everyone a news flash. If you call a real estate agent and you're preapproved and say you want to buy a house, I mean we're on commission, right, We're gonna sell you out. We're gonna get you to the car. Let's go and find a property. So that's what we were doing, connecting buyers and sellers. And yes, basically what these banks did was they decided to sell these loans off and
everyone thought the houses we're going to continue to go up in value. So it didn't really matter how much money someone had, if they couldn't make the payment, they'll just sell the house and pay off the loan. I mean, this was what the banks had decided. And this is how the industry
changed. And we were one of zillions of real estate companies that were you have to do business in the environment that we're in, and customers want it to buy properties not rent and more or they wanted to buy rental properties, and so as a realtor, we sold people who were qualified. We had nothing to do with the bank approvals or people's taste stubs or any best stuff.
We had nothing to do with that. Yet the government blamed me and said that I secretly owned mortgage companies and was involved in financing and with guns. They came to our office looking for mortgage files, which we don't have, because all you would have is, look, I've been approved by this bank, this organization, whatever, and therefore I can pay for a property. Now find me a property. Your job was just let me connect you, since you have the funds or the loan or whatever. Ready, I'm
just connecting you to the thing you want to buy. That's it. How are you involved in the mortgage process at all in anybody's mind, because I would think that, again, no offense. You're not a rarity, okay, especially in Florida. And I don't know what the real estate markets were like in Ohio, but I know that real estate is a constant booming business
in Florida. Sure, okay, so you're not You're not rare or unique, But what the hell why Are you suddenly the guy to pin the mortgages on when that's not your business, that's not your shingle, that's that has nothing to do with you as a real estate guy. You're just there to say, look, if you have the funds or you have the loan, I'll help you find what it is you want. I mean, that's really your job basically, right right, And prosecutors later it's got named Mark Bennett
and the Southern guy, Danka Saris. They said that I was we were selling houses to unsophisticated buyers. But in real estate there's no such thing as a quote unsophisticated buyer. I imagine if you came into my office and you were preapproved and I said, man, Chuck, you seemed like an idiot. I'm not going to sell you a hou. I mean, it's ridiculous. Nobody would say that you can discriminate against somebody for one reason if they
can't afford something. If you're approved to buy a two hundred thousand dollars house and you want me to show you a million dollar house, I can say, sorry, you're not approved. I'm not going to do that. Period. That's it. Otherwise you have no it's fair housing laws. You you sell the customers what they want, where they want, and you show them things. And that's what we did. And we had a real estate attorney,
we had compliance, we used the forms from the realtor association. Yet the government later claimed that I was doing all these nefarious transactions with these scandalous forms and contracts that were fraudulent. Let me just let me just get the
labor herds out that an infiment. Well, hang on, let me just beliebor this point per a moment, because actually, if you would have discriminated against somebody because they are indeed an idiot, and I'm sure you encountered idiots if they were an idiot, and you had discriminated against him for this reason
and that was it. If they were financially capable and you said, look, I'm not going to sell this guy house because clearly he's too stupid to know what he's doing, you actually would have been in violation of various laws. You would have been even if you knew, yes, there's idiots, but yes we have to sell idiots who are qualified to buy house house right as real estate agents. I'm gonna be like Walmart's telling you you can't buy this tube of toothpaste. Wait a minute, I have the money now now,
I mean, realtors serve the public. Okay. We people come into our office. We don't know them. Necessarily we may, but we oftentimes don't. And it's our job to find out what they want, what neighborhoods they want to live in, how many bedrooms they need. I mean, this is what realtors do, and we go and show them a house.
Trust me when I tell you I've went to jail for ten years. I never thought for one second that engaging in real estate sales, which we were licensed by the state of Ohio and audited by the way every year by the Division of Real Estate, I never thought that this was a pathway to going to jail. But Mark Bennett told the judge in one of our hearings, the prosecutor that when you see Tony Viola at a Starbucks with his briefcase, that's not breakfast, that's a crime scene. I mean, this is what
they were saying. And they said that I sold forty six million dollars and crashed the economy. And I'm thinking, my god, we're this little real estate company with a coffee pot and chairs and tables, and you mean to tell me that that my business crashed the economy. It was absolutely ridiculous. We found out later that an informant said Tony was at the office when I was making false statements on my mortgages. But there's more than one guy named
Tony. And apparently this informant who ended up in a romantic relationship with the prosecutor Dean Gassaris, she thought that I was a different guy, a different Tony who was involved in a mortgage business. But I'm Tony Viola. And the government never really took the step of the checking tax returns and seeing and they just rated our office and indicted me in both state and federal courts,
saying I was doing these dummy mortgages even though we never did mortgages. And the FBI and the police were running around our office with guns telling everybody that if we didn't give them the mortgage files, we were going to be charged with obstruction of justice. But there were no mortgage files because we're realtors. That's how this whole mess started. And talking about confidence in the legal prosecutors are not willing to admit a mistake and they're not, but they locked themselves
into this false narrative. So all this misconduct and all the shenanigans that happened later then the government playing games with evidence resulted from a half assed initial investigation. Or I didn't even know what businesses I owned, and went on national television and said that I sold forty six million dollars from mortgage companies. My employees were shocked. We're like, this is crazy. We don't do mortgages,
we don't have mortgage files. But that's how the case started. Yeah, see, how do you steal money from mortgage companies if you don't really actually deal directly with mortgage companies. Also, you know another question I don't know the answer to. Okay, by the way. By the way, Also, I sold forty six million dollars and there was no bond. They said, here, signed here, and you can go. I said, are you serious? And so I told the reporters that were standing outside that
this is a joke. I sold forty six million dollars and just signed here and go home and we'll call it a day. The government didn't even try to shut my real estate business down, but they issued press releases. They're all my web site. You can check it out. That say that that I sold forty six million dollars in the nation's largest mortgage fraudcase. I never did a mortgage in my life, and I never got money from these companies.
In these indictments, they said that I got money from a company called Family Title, which was not true, and that I owned this company called transcottin on a lending, which was not true. So how does the government. How's the United States of America? The FBI supposed to know the answer to every question before they ask it, the greatest law enforcement agency in the world. They can't figure out what business Tony Viola and Cleveland, Ohio owns.
This crazy well, you see, there's my next question, all right, because is it possible? I mean, you got more than one Tony duh? How many guys named Anthony have you run into in your lives? I asked you the listener. A lot. Okay, there's a lot of guys that you could call Tony. All right, fine, let me just ask you a couple of off the b questions. You're real fast, and one of them is because you have a valid the end of your name,
right, so do I? So I feel comfortable asking this question, is it possible that they really wanted to hang sort of a criminal conspiracy against you, because quite frankly, there's a lot of people who vows at the end of their names at a certain point there that might have been involved in a lot of white collar crime. And maybe they were going with this supposition that you were one of these kind of guys because they had you mixed up with
yet again another Tony somehow. Who Look, I'm not even saying that theoretically there isn't a guy named Tony out there that is involved in real estate fraud or or or a mortgage fraud guaranteed. Actually there's probably a guy named Tony out there, but not Tony Viola you in particular. Okay, But I'm saying that I would not be shocked if there were many guys named Tony that
might have been involved in a mortgage fraud. Okay, But but um, you know, what are your thoughts there that maybe they kind of made sort of an ethnic judgment on you, thinking maybe you're Italian or Sicilian, and possibly that's the thing. Maybe you didn't crash with everybody else because well, you were still selling real estate. Whether it's updown or whatever. You get
to make a commission. So you were still making a living and you weren't suffering, and maybe they thought, well, this is like you know an Italians, Jews, daan or something. What do you think is that possible? The answer is yes. They they They absolutely called me Tony Soprano. They called me the pod Father. I was in jail and the pod in the county jail, and they called me the pod Father. There was plenty of anti Italian bigotry, no question about it. There was also a lot
of jealousy lesson. These prosecutors were shocked that people were supporting me. After they rated my company, and the employees kept telling these Mark Bennett. They would go to the US attorney. They would say, look, this is guy's an honest business guy. I wouldn't work here if he was no good I had. We had a lot of employees, and so they also the same thing. They said, I have kids, if the guy was ripping
people off, I wouldn't put my reputation on the line. I had a couple full of ex political figures that had been elected the public office that had these, you know, good reputations, and they all said look, I wouldn't work for somebody if they were doing something shady. So the answer is, yes, there's some anti Italian in this whole thing. I agree. A lot of people have said that. I've heard comments made by the prosecutors.
They've also made racist comments. One thing about Mark Bennett and Danca Saras, the federal state prosecutor. These guys put all kinds of crazy stuff in writing. They never thought anyone would ever see their emails, and whistleblower gave us a lot of stuff. Lady named Don Pasella, and then records production caused more. But these guys put some crazy stuff in writing about this, and they do make comments about Jews and Italians and Africans. I mean,
they do say some pretty crazy stuff in writing. Mark Bennett admitted that one of his witnesses lied, which the government's not allowed to use false testimony to imprison people. So there's this sort of arrogance of like Mark Bennett and Danka Saras and the invincibility of prosecutors. We can do what we want. We're on the side of good. You must be some kind of crook. But the government really doesn't understand business, and they really didn't understand the difference between
a loan officer and a real estate agent. I mean they really didn't looking before we documents in a real estate office. It's ridiculous that they couldn't figure this out right now before we go there and the nuts and bolts of why this doesn't work as a as a prosecutorial you know, situation where it starts to make sense because I can't make sense of how it is. They came up with these ideas maybe you, maybe you'll tell me how it worked. But before we go there, I got this other idea in my mind,
and that is that a real estate guy. Now I've been I've worked with real estate people in different businesses and things. They're usually involved in the community to some degree because they wind up buying advertising, so they work with other businesses. You wind up hiring other people and actually hiring other businesses to come in because real estate people, you might need let's just say, cleaning crews, so you might hire house cleaners, you might hire signmakers, you might
hire printing companies. There's a lot of ways that you could be worked within the community. So there's other business owners within the community who also know you, who are also dealing with you just out of you know, proximity, because you need them and they need you. What about that? Did they try and pull in any of those people, like, do you realize you're working for this master criminal here? Can you tell us anything about his criminal
activities? You would figure that known associates right in business, they would pull you in. I mean even when a mob guy owns a bar, they'll pull in the bartenders. They'll pull in the guy delivering the beer and they'll ask him, did you see anything? Do you know anything? They do that a lot. Did they do that with these other business people that you, you know, by depault would have had to have been working with in Ohio and Florida? The answer is yes. They threatened people the FBI,
a guy named Brian Stark. They said, look, if you continue to support Tony and do business with this guy, we're gonna raid your office. I gotta give a lot of people in my organization a heck of a lot of credit. There's a lady named Sarah Swartz. They threatened to take her kids. I mean, it's it's crazy because they were desperate to not lose this case. And they did go to people and they all told him essentially the same thing, which is, this guy's a nerd. He's not some
mobster, he doesn't do mortgages, he's not a crook. He's an honest business guy. We've done business with him for many years, and we also did property management. We were collecting tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars for buildings, and we had online banking, and all of our customers said, look, the guy has never cheated us. We you know, this is crazy. But so what happened. This is why the
government used false testimony. This is why this lady Catherine Clover ended up lying in the first trial, and at my second trial she recanted. So the answer is these banks were willingly making these zany loans. There is no mortgage fraud in these cases. And when the government has a bad case, that's when they commit misconduct. They don't commit misconduct when someone pleads guilty, or if there's video of some guy going in and shooting somebody or something like that.
This case was started out a slap dash affair. They didn't have the basic facts. They locked themselves into a false narrative, and then they were scrambling around trying to backfill the evidence that they needed, and again a whistleblower ends up finding out that they're shifting evidence around their hiding records, right, And this is totally strange because again, how they're doing this, I might have just there you go, and so your your call just dropped for a
second there, So we didn't hear that part. But I was just saying that, let me, let me just roll back into it. The thing is, you've got all this, this track record as a business operator and everything else. How it is they're going after you still? I mean, was there any indication at a certain point that they could have said or seemed
like they were about to say, look, we made a mistake. If they might have come in at some point here before throwing you in prison, before you know, rating your businesses and everything else, I mean, if somebody would have come in and said, look, we were working under a false pretense here or we made a mistake or something like that, I don't think it would have been that big a deal if they were going after the people that were really responsible, because again, I think a lot of people
felt the pain from this, and somebody needed to be held responsible. But if they would have said, look, we looked into this guy and he's not the responsible party. We need to keep going, I think that would have been acceptable. But see, prosecutors don't always do that. They will
stay locked in. I mean, I've even brought up stuff on this show where they'll go after two different people, two entirely separate people, and basically claim that they committed the same crime, and they'll hold you know, but your case is even weirder because there's no reason to think that you're owning a
mortgage company. Did they ever give you even a remotely plausible reason as to why they would think that you were controlling or running I mean, did they say that somehow, you know, created a shell company that owned a bunch of companies, or I mean, did they ever give a reasonable kind of explanation as to how you could have been operating legit business over here and then
supposedly, you know, unfairly. I mean, if you were running a mortgage company and working with your own real estate company, it would have been a bit of a conflict of interest. I think it's not permitted in Ohio. You can't you can't do both at the same time. But so but the answer is in law enforcement. It's fascinating because, I mean, these guys are unbelievable. The lack of evidence convinced them that I was guilty. So the more they couldn't find mortgage documents, the more they were like,
this slick, tony guy hid. He took great steps to insulate himself, so the lack of evidence became, oh, that's the tip off that he's guilty. So that's crazy that these police and prosecutors are so locked in that they won't consider anything outside. But part of it was they uncorked a media circus. If I got into a fight at a bar and it really wasn't me, it was somebody else, they might have dropped the case maybe, But in my case because they did this live breaking news raid and press conferences
and Mark Bennett got an award for prosecuting me. I mean, all of these media circus that they created. I mean, that was the joke. The most dangerous place in America was between a TV camera and this guy, Dan Cassaris. I mean I saw him in court almost run over an elderly woman in a wheelchair because one of the local TV stations was getting the camera going, so these prosecutors basked in the publicity early on, and the public
ld that someone was being held responsible. So I think they there was no way. It was so high profile that there was no way they were going to say, oh, we made a mistake. They just don't do it. So they would rather imprison innocent people, hide evidence, and then commit crimes themselves, which has included the destruction of these computers. Earlier, I was trying to make a point about the computers. The first thing a defense lawyer would say is, Okay, well, we don't think Tony owns these
companies. He never got a cent. Okay, us attorney, give us the computers from these mortgage companies, so we can have a forensic accountant to go through and identify how many mortgages Tony submitted and how many dollars Tony got, and the answer would be zero. But then the government claimed that they quote lost the computers that they seized by the way to televised race. They rated a bunch of companies on the same day, and they seized the computers
and then supposedly lost the computers. The whistle blower later came forward and said that they destroyed the computers, because if they turned them over to us, they would have lost the case immediately. See now, look even if the guardrails are off here regarding the prosecutors, right, and they're just ambitious and going after this because it's a media event and they can raise their own capital,
their own cachet, so to speak, as prosecutors as lawyers. Now they're the famous lawyer who took down the guy who was responsible for the domino effect that affected the whole nation. Okay, I get it, But somebody would say, at some point, doesn't a judge have to step in here and go, look, where's your evidence? Boys? I mean, isn't that part of the normal situation here? A lot of times, right, prosecutors try to bring cases and somebody looks at it and goes, well,
first of all, your key witnesses a liar. Second of all, you're telling me you got evidence and you don't show it to me, And a lot of judges will toss this stuff. Welcome that didn't happen in your case? Do you know? Yes? Well, first of all, the case was unwinnable the first trial. We lost the first trial for two reasons. One, we couldn't properly cross examine the banks. The banks came in and
said, we don't allow people to get no money down loans. Now, if you want to disprove that or cross examine them, you have to have contemporaneous documents from when these transactions were actually submitted. So the best defense, which Dawn Posello, the whistleblower, identified later, was to say, look it, it doesn't matter who owns the mortgage company. There was no fraud.
The buyer says they have no money, okay, Number one. The buyer says they're not putting a down payment down the closing instructions when this deal was approved by your bank says there's no down payment, And the title company closed the deal with no tim payment and gave them money back because you said so, so why am I supposed to go to jail? But without documents,
government witnesses and banks could tell whatever story they want. So the bank said, well, we don't usually allow that, and we'd like to see people make down payments. The jury said, well there must be fraud somewhere. Well, this Tony guys seems in the middle, maybe he's guilty. So the government painted with a very broad brush and we couldn't win because they
hid the documents. At the second trial, when the bank says, ah, shucks, we don't allow these loans, I was able to say, wait a minute, on page eighty seven over here of your program book, you offer a no money down, cash back loan. Is that true or not, Well, we don't do it that often. It doesn't matter you offered it. So I was able to disprove the government's theory, which is
the bank as an innocent victim. Now, in America, we have very wide ranging conspiracy laws, so supposedly you don't even have to know what you're doing is wrong. So a prosecutor, if they were on the show, they would say, well, you know, Tony might have been involved in some way, whether or not he owned the company, he might have known something. So that, by the way, that would be the prosecutor's answer. But the answer is you win a case like this with documents, not
witness testimony. Witness testimony might be suitable if there was a fight or somebody got shot. This is a real estate transaction, So the question is whether or not we submit it in a transparent way and the bank, in their own wisdom, accepted it or rejected it. By the way, these are the largest banks in the country. Poor innocent JP Morgan, Chase. Listen, if they don't want to do the City group, if they don't want to do the loan, they can turn the loan down. They turned plenty
of loans down. Incidentally, the craziest thing about my case is the government, on the exact same transactions, claimed that the banks were duped, that I tricked them into making these no money down loans, and that I had to go to jail and they lost millions of dollars. And on the same transactions, the government said that the banks were knowingly making crazy loans and they
made these banks paid billions of dollars in settlements. JP Morgan paid a thirteen billion dollar settlement and said, oh yeah, sorry, we made a bunch of crazy loans. So the government was pursuing, just like your example earlier, Chuck, they were pursuing two mutually exclusive theories of criminality. At the same time. The bank is an innocent victim duped by us and then making
the loans. Oh no, what, Actually the banks a criminal. They were making crazy loans and lying about it, and so the bank has to pay back the people that lost money who bought the loans later. So it's how can you defend yourself? What's wrong with this country where they putting me on trial and I can't even defend myself. They supposedly lost the computers,
they don't have the documents. Well, the lady inside the prosecutor's office, John Pacello, witnessed this and thought it was just a little bit ridiculous that they were playing this many games with the evidence, and she started taking it home and gave it to me later, which is why I was convicted and then later exonerated on the exact same charges because I had the documents. Well,
how long did this take? I mean, bring us into that part of the story, because you got one trial, two trials, then you got an exoneration. I mean, what are we talking about time wise here? I mean when did this whole circus start exactly? I mean, the answer is, if it's not quite over, because my initial conviction has not been vacated. The answer is, my company was rated in two thousand and eight, okay, and then I was put on the first trial in twenty
eleven, and then I was I lost and I was imprisoned. I was in jail for ten years that I had an ankle monitor for a little bit. The second trial was while I was in prison, and I won, so I proved my innocence, but still they wouldn't let me out of jail. It took ten years of legal wrangling. Finally the FBI said this is crazy, by the way, and it's on my website so you can read
their version of this. The FBI claimed that they were unaware of their own records in their own record system, and then they blamed this guy Mark Bennett for making false statements about evidence. Then I was finally released from federal prison on an ankle monitor, subject to further proceedings. And then they took the ankle monitor off. But now they're not agreeing to vacate my initial conviction.
So I was acquitted on the same charges by the same task force at a subsequent trial in state court, but my original federal conviction was not vacated and still hasn't been. So this is the craziest thing. I was the only prisoner in America in jail. I proved my innocence at a trial, and I had the proof of my innocence in my locker and the judge in my federal case, Don Nugent, would not allow me to have a hearing to
present the same proof of innocence that I used at the second trial. So the government played games with this Federal State Task Force and said, oh, it doesn't really matter what you put me on trial a second time if it doesn't matter, and there's all this legal wrangling. The government, the FBI, the Justice Department will say or do anything. They will say or do anything to win a case number one and number two, to keep a conviction.
They will say or do anything. It is a disgrace. But during the course of the last decade, the things that we've on earth is nuts. I mean, the fact that the prosecutors knew the witness was lying and they refused to withdraw this lady's false testimony because they said it jeopardize the outcome of the case, meaning its material. It's crazy. That means they had to use her false testimony to imprison me. So you know, the judges
are all former prosecutors and they don't really supervise. There the reason these prosecutors, the reason the Justice Department wins ninety nine percent of their cases, is the prosecutors feel invincible. They're all buddies. They work in the same building, you know, they go to lunch together, and they they really have not followed the law in America. In my case, They're not allowed these perjured testimony, yet they did. They're not allowed to hide evidence, yet
they did. And yet the prosecutors themselves haven't really suffered the consequences of their misconduct. And meanwhile, remember this too, Chuck, My case is not some one off wrongful conviction. If I'm innocent, probably most or all of the people this task force went after are innocent, which is twelve hundred people, twelve hundred people prosecuted realtors, you know, title agents, people buying and selling houses by this joint federal state task force on the same charges.
My indictment is like a copy and paste of everybody's indictment, the banks and innocent victim. Mark Bennet's appalled. He's gonna prosecute everybody. I mean, if I'm innocent, if I didn't trick JP Morgan or these banks into making no money down loans because they knowingly made them, then everyone's probably innocent. So it's it's a crazy story, and so maybe we can get all these
cases reopened. We're trying right now. We have a great lawyer here in Cleveland, Kim Corrall, who's working really hard to get all these cases reopened. And Yale Law School has taken my case as well, so we have some big dogs really fighting for us to hopefully we can get some justice. Well, it would be nice if they could look, if they could make
sense of it. Okay, if they could say that, you know, you were a guy who rigged these things, all right, and I'm gonna be blunt with you, if they could say, you were a guy who rigged these things and you caused a massive sinkhole in Ohio. Okay, Basically, there's a massive financial sinkhole in Ohio that you're responsible for because you were duping the you know, the poor idiots buying houses, and you were duping
the trusting bankers. If you were in fact doing that, I would say, you know what, I don't really care do you got to sit for ten years because you've probably ruined a lot of lives. Right, But here's the problem, this did ruin a lot of lives. I don't see how you're responsible for it is my you know, like somebody has to make that case, and they don't make that case. They took ten years of your life. Anyway, it's a very weird thing that they at first are releasing
you on your own recognizance. I mean, look, white white, white collar crime sometimes goes this way, right, where a lot of guys doesn't matter how much damage they do, they haven't paid a fine, you know. I mean, I can think immediately of the Sackler family and how they've avoided any personal responsibility. But you know what, our company is guilty, but we're not, even though we're the ones running the company. I love that. So there's all sorts of uneven results here. Okay, yeah,
let me just jump into two quick points to that. I agree with what you just said. Two things. One, if I actually stole forty six million dollars from J Morgan Chase, trust me, they would have filed a lawsuit or at least stopped doing business with me. In other words, that if you missed your car payment, or you've missed your credit card payment and you owe one hundred and eighty dollars or whatever, five hundred, they're gonna
call you. So the notion that I stilled forty six million dollars from these banks and they didn't do anything. Just shows you that the whole case is nonsense. But the other thing is this, there is a responsible party for this, and it's the bankers because they were they were selling off loans on Wall Street and misrepresenting what they were. But the government wasn't honest with the public. What the what the what the government should have done? But they
never out They never do the right thing. Ever, they can be forced to do the right thing, but on their own, the government never does the right thing. So what they should have done was just been honest with people and said, look, if we start prosecuting banks, we're going to put banks out of business. Your ATM card's not going to work, the economy is going to be worse, your retirement savings are going to evaporate. It's not helpful. Small businesses won't be able to borrow money and get loans.
But they weren't honest, so then they blamed realtors for for problems that banks or misconduct committed by banks. So there was a responsible party, which was the lenders, and the government was not honest with the public, and they had all these press conferences saying that I stoled all these millions of dollars and that we somehow engineered these foreclosures. Well, as a real estate agent, the last thing I want is somebody to buy a property and going foreclosure.
Our whole business is referrals people doing well. I mean, think of it, Chuck. If you bought a rental house from our company, okay, and you're doing well and you're making money and everything's great, guess what, you're going to probably buy another one, and you're going to tell people, Hey, Tony's company's pretty good. They helped me manage the property. They found me a good deal. So the last thing a real estate agent would want is anybody to acquire a property and then not be happy about it.
So the idea that we were secretly wanting people not to make their payments or something, it's nonsense. I mean, it's just not the way business works. But the government should have said we're not going to prosecute banks and here's why. Or execute them if you want. But the idea of prosecuting non responsible parties and putting innocent people in jail is Unamerican. It's unconstitutional, it's wrong. It's also destroying confidence the public's confidence in the fair administration of
justice. Nobody believes the government anymore when they say somebody did something, because it's been proven over and over again that they they commit misconduct in cases to win. This idea of win at all costs. You know, we're prosecutors. We're on the side of good, we're on the side of God. These guys are bad, and because they're bad, we're gonna win. We're gonna take extreme measures to win. I mean, and if you have a sec I'd like to talk about some of the crazy things that these people did
to quote win the first trial. Yeah, I want I want to know that, because again, look all I'm seeing here is again I'm shocked at the twelve I was not aware of. Twelve hundred people were probably brought down under this very same issue. And that's just in the Ohio, that's in Greater Cleveland. Yes, the Iyahagac County Mortgage Fraud Task Force, which was
an amalgamation of federal, state, and local officials. And let me tell you something, these law enforcement people could not get enough of this case to sit in an air conditioned office all day and interview realtors. And they interviewed my secretary fourteen times. I mean, this was the this was their dream. I mean, they weren't exactly afraid of getting shot. Okay. So this was the the dream of these law enforcement people to do this case.
And they loved it. They they loved these mortgage cases. They brought people in and they're asking them fifty questions about houses. And by the way, again, the documents are key because these indictments were five or six years after these transactions. Who remembers what page papers you signed five years later? What just say on page eighty nine? So this was the way. The reason
we won the second trial was the actual documents themselves. Yeah. And what's crazy is look another thing that you brought up and I want you to go back over it just real fast. Is that quite frankly? Okay? I remember you remember the pizza connection deal with the guys who got busted because they had, like Heroin running operations out of all these pizza places in the Northeast,
right. Okay. So one of the first things that they did when they discovered that and took it down is they shut down all those businesses, right because they were involved in doing something deceptive. They had a front business and you know, this is what I'm imagining. Was the idea with you is that you have a front business, but your real business is this, you know, mortgage fraud. Right, this is the the concept. This is the idea that they have that they're prosecuting under. Right, So this
is sort of the front business. Now, usually what they do is they take down the front business. Right, you said to me, they didn't turn around, and you got to be licensed, you got to have all sorts of agreements with different state agencies. The state agencies didn't shut you down even though you're supposed to have this front company going while really your millions are
being made through mortgage deceptions. So how they that ridiculous? Because if I'm a crook and I stole forty six million dollars and I'm responsible for foreclosures, why would you continue to let me serve the public and sell a house. The next day, my lawyer, this guy named Jay Milano, who was a total joke. He's like, oh, yeah, just keep just keep going. Everything's fine, Just sell real estate. Just keep going. I said, are you serious? Yeah, yeah, you can keep selling real
estate. So I mean, if I was this threat, okay, and stealing millions of dollars. I mean, how would you like it if I would stole money from you after I supposedly was already indicted. I mean, they never even got a restraining order to stop me from engaging in real estate business. Yeah, and there was no bond. I supposedly stole forty six million dollars. I could have had a private plan and hopped. You know, I'd love Cleveland, Ohio. It's my hometown, but not exactly the
coolest place to stay in the winter months, you know. So, I mean, the whole case was ridiculous because what they were saying was completely contradicted by their own actions, which was to let me continue to do real estate. But that's my point is that, look, if you're gonna do that, even if the guy's got legit businesses and he's in criminal activities, they'll seize and stop that legit business. Why didn't they do that in your case
if that's what they really think you're doing. Because again, honestly, if you were, if you were doing something illegal and seizing all this money and taking advantage of people, I would say, well, first thing we got to do is stop him from interacting with people in this business world at all. So I would think they would put a stop on your real estate business immediately, right. That's the role of a prosecutor at the end of the
day. A prosecutor's job is to protect the public, right, that's what they're doing. But they didn't do that in this case. They didn't protect
anybody because they let us all continue to do business. Right. So if their theory of the case is that through that business you are taking advantage of the public, you're you're stealing from banks, you're doing all that, then I would say, well, it's idiocy that you don't say, look, your honor, we want you know what do they call that an injunction against this guy's business where he can't conduct business now because he's using that business to
commit these crimes. So one would say, look, even if you're again these pizza shops with the pizza connection thing, right, some of them, Yeah, there were people working there that were just making pizzas, that's true, right, But they shut all that down, they put it in receivership, and they turned around. Even if they let the business run, they would take it out of the hands of the guy running it and turn around and put in you know, like a state manager sort of like there are
people that come in. It's called receivership. You know what I'm talking about. Absolutely, It's done all the time, and it's done to protect the public. The reason it's done is to protect the public from further injury or further harm. Right, But nobody did that in your case, which makes zero sense, correct, Okay, just just double checking on that. Okay, So by all means, continue on. We'll take another like say, fifteen minutes going through this. I want people to go to your website though,
I want them to read about the case. I want them to learn about it because it is still ongoing, and I want you to touch on that before we're done, exactly what's happening and how people could maybe get their own voices after they learn about this a little bit and find out about what they could do for you, because clearly, you know, again, with the selective enforcement that we have in this country, you are it's weird. I'm usually not on the white collar guy side. I gotta be honest with
you. Most times, when I see white collar criminal, I think guilty automatically because I'm a very street level person and I know that there are people in the white collar world that are constantly screwing over the public and that's how they make their livings. But a guy who's just selling real estate, I
don't know. It's just if that's all you're doing and you're not. I mean, if you were running a mortgage company, or you were running a fake mortgage company, I'd say, you know what screwing you, You're part of the problem. Go you know, and and I'd be on the side of these guys hanging you out to dry. But you're not. This is not the guy who's doing this to you. And meanwhile, you know, are they blaming you for the whole Domino effect? I mean, does does
do all roads lead to Cleveland here? I mean that's another thing, because this was a nationwide issue, sod our tiny real estate business in Cleveland, which is as a joke. I mean, do we affect that the national economy at this level was preposterous? But they did say a prosecutor named Nick Geigrich, who's still active now in Lorraine County, Ohio, he told the jury at the second trial that if your house went down in value or your four oh one k went down in value, it's this tony guy, right,
here, We've got the guy. This is the guy who did it. We've got the guy. It's ridiculous because whether or not we existed or not would have had no impact on whether or not there was a financial crisis. We just didn't have that large of a macroeconomic impact. We went some massive company engaging in all these you know, like nationwide real estate transactions. We're a bunch of realtors, you know, drinking coffee with blueberry muffins in
the office. It was wildly out of proportion to any effect that we had. And again, as realtors, we don't affect the lending. We can't. We have to operate in the market the way it is, well, the way it was. The banks were making crazy loans of letting people buy houses with no income and no assets. It wasn't my idea. But if
people wanted to buy houses, yes we sold them houses. But I want to tell you, as this case started falling apart, and as Mark Bennett and Dan Cassaras realized that they'd bid off more than they can chew okay, and that I was not going to plead guilty. I was not and I'm not saying I'm right, and I'm not offering advice to anybody in your audience who is listening, But I'm saying I told these people to take this indictment and stick it up there. You know what, I'm like, You guys
don't know what businesses I own. I don't do mortgages. I don't have forty six million dollars. You are destroying everything I worked for my entire life. I have zero criminal history. I wasn't in arguments with my customers, we weren't didn't have banks suing us. So why they decided to do this to me, I don't know. But and Mark Bennett, they wouldn't even meet with me. They said, well, you're a target of the investigation.
We're not going to say we wanted to. I wanted to bring my tax returns, and I wanted to have my attorney and accountant go down to the prosecutor. This is when I thought court was fair. I was like, well, maybe if I show them, you know what, they don't want to hear it. They locked themselves in. So these dudes, these prosecutors, started engaging in epic misconduct, not just to me, but for all these task Force cases. First of all, think of a triangle.
There's federal and their state, and there's this task force, and they're all working together through this task force. These guys were shifting evidence around, playing games with where the evidence was hiding records. The prosecutors are not supposed to interview witnesses. Prosecutors are supposed to present a case in court. FBI agents or detectives are supposed to interview witnesses. But the prosecutors started getting nervous because
people kept telling them I was innocent. Well, yeah, this is also why I'm sorry. This is also why the position of investigator and a prosecutor's office exists as well, in order to have a separate person who is concerned with that, not the prosecutor conducting the interviews. One two. And that you see that all over the cases like that that case in South Carolina recently where they had these different people who were investigators or the prosecutors offices and people
were asking about that. That's why that position exists. First second, if Mark Bennett wants come on and explain this to me, I'll welcome it good and I'll have you know, Tony could listen to it too, or maybe on him after this, and I'll let him know that you've invited him on the show. I think the prosecutors should go on and explain their their behavior.
I would love to know the answer to that. But here's another question, just really fast, and then and then I want you to go ahead and tell us what we can do about this and what we can learn about it moving forward, because and this is a weird question, so bear with me a second. I would think that if you've got fifty four million dollars, right, that they have an amount that they have in mind that you have garnered in this illegal way. Okay, So don't they have to demonstrate
that you made fifty four million dollars? I mean, don't they have to show that. Look, we can show through forensic accounting. They've always had to say, even if it was, you know, drug transactions in cash, they've always got to find some marker to say, look, we can prove that he took in hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars or ten thousand, whatever it is is, depending on the size. Right. Again, you can tell them a little more familiar with criminal law than I
am with this stuff. But yeah, but the point is that when you make a claim that somebody made a particular gain in a legal fashion, right, you generally have to show here's the game. So did they show or did they attempt to show that you had fifty four million dollars in the bank or you had fifty four million dollars worth of houses or something. No. And to top that off, we got a statement from one of the banks that they didn't lose any money. So the government was saying that I caused
all these millions of dollars. And so we called Mark Bennett and Dan Cassaris and we said, hey, we have a statement from this company called Urgent Mortgage, which was owned by City Group, and they said that they didn't lose any money. And Mark Bennett said, it doesn't matter, because you intended to cause these multimillion dollars of losses. And so I'm ordered to pay
restitution to lenders that did not lose money. So even though that they we found out later that they didn't lose money, the government said, it doesn't matter. You intended to cause losses. Listen in federal court. These prosecutors do whatever they want. They trample the constitution. I'm ordered to pay millions
of dollars that I never got and that the bank didn't lose money. And now the thing is called and you guys can google it if you're board intended loss, and the government can still set sentencing amount based on intended loss because let me tell you, if there's no loss, we could go to trial and lose and we wouldn't go to jail. I mean, if I steal exactly zero dollars in your chuck and I'm convicted of it, okay, you know, or I steal one cent or something, there wouldn't be a jail
sentence. My jail sentence was based on these huge loss amounts. And even when we proved that there was no loss amounts, the prosecutors still I mean again, they'll say anything. Facts don't matter with prosecutors. They do whatever they want to whoever they want, for as long as they want. But when you ask, by the way, real quick, I'm going to answer the question, what can people do? We have a petition unchange dot org. It's linked on the bottom of the free tone Viola dot com website.
We really need people. We've got almost five thousand signatures. Why aren't these prosecutors indict it when they break the law and hide evidence. So that's one two. If anyone wants to go on our website and sign up for the emails, you don't get that many. It's every six weeks, but we'll give you a case update. You want to share your thoughts or or information with us, please do. We have a great private investigator if you want. If anything we have it's helpful to anybody, we will share it.
If anyone has information that they want to share with us about any any of the players in our case, we appreciate that as well. Mostly, the thing people can do, they're already destroyed my life and ruin my business. The thing we want is this not to continue to happen. So we need to get rid of this thing called qualified immunity, where government officials can break the law and they can't be held accountable. We need to have accountability.
I don't hate the police, I don't hate prosecutors, but I'm just telling you they should have to follow the law and if their case sucks, they should dismiss it. Instead, let me tell you what they did. So back to the point. So Dan Cassaris and Mark Bennett were worried that some honest detective would write down what app Michelle's and Obi saying that I was innocent and I didn't own mortgage companies because she worked for me for ten years and
knew that I was a realtor, not in the mortgage business. And so the prosecutors were worried that honest police or detectives would write that down. So they started interviewing people themselves, and then they didn't make notes of people who said that I was innocent. Guy named Nick Miles gave me a statement. Remember those mortgage companies and vanishing computers. Dan Cassara, as the prosecutor,
said, look, you're going to go to court and commit persury. You're gonna lie and say you never gave us these computers, or we're going to indict your wife and put your kids in foster care, and you have four minutes to decide. I'm gonna go right back to my office. It's not a big deal, grand juries here. I'm going to indict your wife, or you're going to do what we say. So we have the government manufacturing false testimony in federal and state court. But let me tell you the worst
thing thing they did. The worst thing they did was Mark Bennett's and Dan Cassara shared an office manager named Dawn Pisella. She was the office manager of this ask force. She was handling all the evidence in the case. They were worried that I was going to win a trial, and they had her pretending to be a paralegal helping criminal defense attorneys prepare for mortgage fraud trials. And she was wearing a wire and recorded our trial strategy, our trial preparation
sessions. She's involved with our trial preparation and she's actually working for the prosecutors. And this is after I'm indicted. This is completely illegal. It would be like if I bugged the prosecutor's office. That's a strade violation of your attorney client privilege to begin with. And then exactly so, okay, right, it's illegal. It's called intrusion into the sixth Amendment right to counsel. If the government wants to talk to me, they got to bring me down
to the office and I could bring my lawyer. I was indicted this time, but they were worried they were going to lose the case, so they thought it'd be a good idea to have this lady Dawn Passella. Then she wrote a check towards my legal fees so they could track and then they used it to track the law firm's expenses and and investigations. Then they found out
who else was supporting me, because people were donating to help me. Anyway, Dawn started taking the evidence that these guys were hiding out of the office, and after I'm convicted in federal court, but before my sentencing, she comes forward and tells me, Hey, these guys are hiding all kinds of evidence. You're totally innocent. And I'm like, well, where is this evidence? She so I haven't, and so she gives it to me that they knew the bank offered to no money down Ninja, no income, no
job, no asset loan. They knew that the people said they had no money when they were buying these houses, and the bank approved. And so Dawn offered to testify at the second trial. She helped me prepare before I was imprisoned for the second trial, and we totally destroyed the government's case with
their own documents. And she said that documents are the key. The prosecutor can't intimidate documents, can't threaten documents, and they're contemporaneous with when these deals actually were submitted them, destroy them, hide them, and that's the problem. Look, I got a couple of live comments and questions from the chat room. I just want to go over them real quick before we'll let you go. And let's see when they was he prosecuted by local, state or
FEDS? I thought he said the FBI was involved. Were First of all, there was a joint task force. And then he was actually prosecuted both in federal and state court. Is that correct? Yes? Correct? I was treated like a terrorist. It's very rare to have people prosecuted in both federal and state court at the same time by the same prosecutors on identical charges. How can you defend yourself? I've got the United States of America versus
Tony and trust me. That means the government will use all of its power to destroy me and the state of Ohio. So at the same time, I'm fighting both of these prosecutions. Yes, that is correct. Okay, So we got one comment here, sounds like the American way. What do you want? Yeah? I get that in my attitude. Also, at let's see, so they violated the Brady rule use the spoiled fruit of a Yeah, they used the poison fruit of the tainted tree, right, which
is very simple. If you have somebody that has probably committed perjury in this case especially, but even if they probably committed perjury in a court before you got a witness, that really should be discounted or at the very least, a jury needs to be informed this person has lied under oath. So that's the way that usually works. And yeah, it does y to violate the Brady role, that's one way to put it, but it actually violates a
couple of things. Let's see um committed criminal conspiracy themselves and the DOJ sounds routine. Okay, Yeah, sometimes you have to send to win. That's a quote from da Henry Wade. And indeed I believe he did say that. I'm one of the few people I know that actually spoke to Henry Wade before he died. But anyway, yeah, interesting guy wanted to tell me that story about Jack Ruby having built it out the hole. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Let's see riveting blah blah Joint Task Force. Okay, here's
the suggestion from an anonymous chatter. It says, if he was wise, he should volunteer to testify right now under the political uses of the DOJ and FBI probably would bring this to an end. Question mark um call Representative Comber is a follow up? I looked. That's the advice from the chat room, my friend. I'm just telling you, Tony, so maybe look look into it. People are having hearing put a chat or a comment. I appreciate it, Thank you so much. I wrote these suggestions down and I
will follow up. And I'm grateful that folks took the time to make those suggestions. So thanks to each of your live listeners who were able to make a suggestion. Absolutely, and I'm putting the website once again into the live chat at o'helly dot com. Now, if you're not on the live chat, that's fine. You can go back to the chat room and roll it back. It sits there on chat Tango. You don't even have to sign
into it to read it. So go right ahead and you can look back at this and also get the direct link to his website, which is free Tony Viola dot com all one word free Tony Viola dot com. That is where you can go. The change dot org petition link is on there. He said. You can sign up for the newsletter and they're only gonna bother you about once every six weeks. With that, if you sign up for the email newsletter. Is there anything else they should do besides that except learn?
And I would suggest learn your you know, find out what your position is, and always remember to be as well educated as you can be. The moment you get a whiff of you might be prosecuted. It doesn't matter if it's state, federal, whatever. You got to be careful with these guys because a lot of times they're out for a result and they don't really care about what happens to you. So white collar, blue collar, no collar. The criminal justice system, as per general, as per normal,
as per usual is guess what selectively enforced at all times. Welcome to what we used to call America anyway, Tony, anything you want to say in closing, well, for two quick things. One is never talk to an FBI agent ever unless you have a video camera rolling, because the FBI does not record your statement. They write up a summary, and trust me, they write up what they want, not what people tell them. So don't ever talk to an FBI agent without a camera rolling or recording it yourself or
with an attorney. People want to help, and when the FBI says, hey, we have a couple of questions, Oh, sure, don't do it because they'll prosecute you. They are already decided that you're a target. Don't don't listen to their stuff. But I guess the most important thing is is justice for Dawn dot Com, which is another thing. Dawn Fissel, the whistleblower that came forward to help me, was going to testify at the
second trial and was found dead under mysterious circumstances. So I guess that I want to conclude by saying, yes, we're fighting for my exoneration, but it's much bigger than that. We want all these twelve hundred of these cases reopened. We want to know what happened to Dawn Passel of the office manager that was wearing a wire. She's treated very poorly by these prosecutors Bennett and Cassaras, and they should be ashaded of themselves. But I think that they
also engaged in witness tampering, witness intimidation, and maybe worse. So I want to conclude by saying, if it wasn't for Dawn, I wouldn't be on your show right now. It would be in jail, and secondly, we need to she's not here to fight for her for herself. We want to try to encourage anybody who has an inclination to learn more about Dawn's story. Dawn Pisella and their website is called Justice for Dawn dot com. Chalk, thank you so much for the chance to be on your show. Absolutely
on her and I wish you the best and all you do. I love your show and all you do, and I'm just so excited to be a part of it. Listen, I really appreciate that. Can you do me one paper and just spell out Dawn's name for the listener who is not reading anything right now, just spell out her name so they can look her up begin to take a look at her case, her situation. I think that's entirely necessary. Actually, you you have a way to link off of your
website to her circus. Yeah, you can go to the free Tony website, but it's Justice for Dawn dot com. Or you could just google it. Because there's been a lot of coverage of what's happened at Dawn, including Uncovered dot com, which is helping spearhead a new investigation. Her name is Dawn fossella pas e La and she passed away during my second trial under suspicious circumstances and with the family, and I and her friends are demanding a new
investigation into what happened her. So any ideas or support or help or signing our petition unchanged. Dot Orgust greatly appreciate it. At whish John was here. She's my friend, she's great, Everyone would have loved her, but but we have to try to get justice or at least accountability for what happened to her. So I guess I'd leave everyone on that note. And Dawn was an idealist, so you know, an idealist always thinks that somehow,
some way it's going to end on a positive note. So that's what we're hoping for, fair enough, And look, justice is often delayed, but it is never too late for the truth. Tony Myole has been my guest this hour, and I hope you guys learned something, and unfortunately I think you did on this Ocelly effect. So no matter who you are, where you are, when you are, I am merely o'ceelly, all of you are indeed the effect. Good Night, Wall Street, Greindow, Dot dou
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do? Revelation through conversation in a radio show slash podcast. You want the good news, listen to the o'celly effect. Shack o'celli is the most underrated voice in all media, news, education, and entertainment. The daily bread from o'celli dot com. Go there,