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Master Thief Known as 'Golden Eye' | Real-Life Bank Heist Genius
February 7, 2025
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podcast and enter promo code SPACE80. It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home. A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name David Minor the fourth and we talked to him.
Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jean Chatsky. You may know me as the host of the Her Money podcast or the financial editor of NBC's Today Show for 25 years.
Today I'd personally like to invite you to join my women led investing club. It's called investing fix with two X's. We walk through current market trends, teach investing fundamentals and build a real portfolio together. Plus your first month is absolutely free. So come check us out at investing fix.com. We'd love to have you. One day his friend comes up to me and says, your roommate said he was going to do this.
I wasn't looking to get rich off of the banks. I was just looking to not get sick.
Hey, this is Matt Cox and I'm going to be doing an interview with Scott Martinez. Scott is a former heroin addict and bank robber. He's got an interesting story that I think you guys will find fascinating. Scott, what's going on? Talk to me. We've gone back and forth on text. We talked a little bit.
Tell me what's going on. How did this whole life story, how did this start? I was born in Northern California. The most I can really remember was just my mom and me all the time. I didn't really know my real father. Vinny knows him out there, it'd be great. He was a biker, I guess, and we always lived in this kind of chaos environment.
I was born in Scott Green. I've had several through different marriages, different names and that kind of thing. I used to see my mom go through some physical abuse and I was gaslighted at a young age and those kinds of things. I just never felt like I fit in anywhere. Growing up,
Probably the first crime I committed was stealing my mom's cigarettes and going behind the A&W to smoke a few when I was like six years old. And then I went to a private school and I was a chatty, popular kid, but always doing stupid things, you know, and like grabbing the phone and payphone and dialing zero and yelling fire. When I was in first grade and the police saw the fire truck show up and all kinds of crazy things. And as life progressed, I just that
That sense of soullessness kind of where you just feel like you're this person in life but you're not there. There is no real reality. They would tell me we're going to Magic Mountain when I was a kid and bringing three of my friends and I would just sit there very stoic and no smile, no emotion. Somewhere around 12, 13, I started running away from home and those kind of things.
I ended up robbing my next door neighbor's house with some friends that basketball went over. Why'd you go ahead? Why were you running away from home? I mean, was, are you saying it was a, was it abusive? No, my mom. Yeah. No, my mom, my mom's a great person. Like she always treated me well. She's phenomenal person. Now she does a lot of good for other people. And my stepfather now, Tony, he's a, he's a great man too. Like there was never really any issues.
With them, I had progressed to the point where I couldn't attach to people. There was just this blockage of emotion in me. That might be a common theme with that sense of feeling lost at an age. I was an only child and spent a lot of time with my grandparents and around adults. My mom couldn't have any more children after me.
They decided to take on foster children and that just kind of threw me for a big loop because here we were finally in a stable relationship with my stepfather and her and they're doing great and he's taking care of her the way you know a husband should and these new kids come in and I just you know I don't know just uh that's always been my fighter you know and I've always just been the the flight there instead of the fire right and so most of my time
I go down to my friends and I take his bike and I remember my girlfriend at the time is all the way up in Santa Barbara.
And I lived in Redondo Beach. So it's about 180 miles, something like that. So I stole this little BMX bike and I'm like, I'm going to go see this girl. She's all the way up at Santa Barbara with her mom. And I'm like in seventh, eighth grade and I'm just pedaling away through Malibu and the hills and stop at the store and grab some nuts and come back out. And man, it took like two days, slept on the beach in Oxnard and ended up going to Santa's Village in Santa Barbara. And I get there.
And then I see her with her mom as they're getting in the car to head back and I like, what are you doing? Like, I just had to come here and see you. I had, um, in high school, I started, um, drinking and smuggling weed and doing a little coke and I was about 15 and I thought, you know, this doesn't make sense back to back in those days in the eighties, you could buy an eight ball for 300, you know, when it was a hundred bucks a gram, like it doesn't make sense to
I spent all that when I could just sell the $300 worth and get my little gram for free. Of course, the friends all take advantage, don't pay. I ran away and the Armenians came through bricks through my window and my parents' house. It just got real chaotic. I had robbed the neighbors. I saw their window cracked.
So we did that and I was living in this abandoned house. We pawned the things off and I'm living in this abandoned house and I remember my ex-girlfriend had a code on their alarm and I'm like, ah, I think I'll go in there and, you know, just take a little bit and get out. Well, I found this big box of credit cards back in the day, you know, like JCPenney's and whatever. So this guy was staying with this abandoned house and like, dude, let's get some tickets.
and we'll go to Miami and then we're going to do this right. I'm 16, you know, so we're going to do this right. Miami vice it. And so we ended up getting the tickets and I'm sitting at LAX and it's about 20, 30 minutes before they start boarding. He and I are sitting at LAX and two police officers come up and they're like, uh, Scott, I'm like, yes, he's like, uh, we need you to come with us. And so,
I'm like, what? And the other guy is, what? And so how did they know you were there? We go back and well, I found out later they got an anonymous tip that I had sold some credit cards and I was bought a plane ticket. So they got an anonymous tip and I'm sitting in the thing in there and they're like, okay, so how did you get the tickets? Do you know these people? Well, we have to verify with them. And I just, you know, I just said,
I took the credit cards. I bought the ticket. This guy over here has no idea what's going on other than we're going to Miami. He was 18 already. So, and you know, I, you know, I responsible. So I ended up going through the process there. I spent probably about eight, nine months at a central juvenile hall, which is just completely chaotic, you know, and I had a
I had this Judge, Judge Dorn and everybody's like, Oh man, if you get Judge Dorn, you're screwed. And so I ended up going to this place called Kirby, which was like a closed placement. So you're with other kids and you finish your high school and you get counseling and those kinds of things. Your parents kind of come on the weekend and that kind of stuff. But I was there about six months. And so right when I turned 18, so about a year and a half total,
Then when I turned 18, right after that I was released. I had credit card fraud. I had breaking and entering on two places. I probably had five or six felonies all listed in that whole mess before I'm 18. I got out after I'm 18. I think that was around September or so.
I had a friend who had just gotten out of the Navy and I'm thinking like, I'm going to enlist in the Navy because every time you see the Navy guys, they're always partying. They're always hanging out, having a good time in the bars with the girls, you know, so I'm going to join the Navy and I go down to the recruiter and talk to him and he does a few things and he's like, well, Mr. Martinez, I'm sorry, but we can't, we can't take you. You have all these charges.
I'm like, oh, should I go? But I was a juvenile, he goes. It doesn't matter. It's pulling up in the system. So we called the public defender who had represented me, and he's now in private practice at this time. And so we get a court date and go in front of the judge. I tell him what I'm trying to do. And good old Judge Dorn, he goes, you know, Mr. Martinez, I think this is a good thing for you. You want to serve your country? Slams it down. He says, all those charges are dismissed. Just completely dismissed as if I had never been found guilty. Nice.
Yeah, it was just, he did me such a huge solid, you know, and we go back to the recruiter and I'm in there and he's like, where are you just in here? He goes, I can't take you. I can't take you. I go, look it up. And so he punches in. He's like, well, Mr. Martinez, welcome, welcome. So I take the, I take the as bad and I squirt pretty high on it. And it's the test for the military.
I couldn't do was nuke nuclear, like thank God. And, um, but they wanted me, I signed up to be a cryptological technician with like the highest clerics thinking you could ever get, you know, I was going to decode secret messages that work on the machines and sitting in some little room with two other people on some NSA building, you know? Right. Yeah. Like I'm the worst, the worst one you ever want. And so I'm in my, I, so I went into the Navy and, um,
Bootcamp was very horrible, had some bad experiences in the Navy, but I'm going there and they're interviewing me to go to this CT school and my high school diploma says graduated from Los Angeles Department of Probation. So, you know, it's like, well, why did you graduate from there? I ran away a few times. So that never ended up happening out. So I ended up doing some other things in the Navy and just
Drinking my whole way through and I went from E1 to E2 to E3 to E2 to E3 to E2, E3, E4. Yeah. Yeah. In about five years yet. Are these for charges or for being written up or? Yeah. Yeah. Not criminal charges. No, I went to Captain's Mass twice. So I was in Plattsburgh, New York and we're walking along and I find this money order on the ground for a hundred bucks.
No name written out on it, no nothing. And the receipt part's on the back, the carbon and everything. I'm like, well, I'm just going to write it. I was married. I got married at 19. I can talk about that after, but I was married. And so I just write my wife's name on there to me and go in and cash it. Well, it turns out it was either the commander or the executive commander of the whole entire base there in Plattsburgh, New York. His wife had dropped it. So they were able to search it. And next thing you know, I'm getting called in
And so I'm sure in a legal world, I did nothing wrong, but you know, when you're supposed to be of the highest ethical standards, you tell them I was definitely that my wife wrote me a bad money order. You need to talk to my wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish I wish I was that kind of person. Well, like just. OK, just.
It's like even even even when I was at the airport, you know, and I'm just like I automatically have always taken the rap like With houses that we broke into there were three other ones of us that were in there Like I just always just ate it, you know, I'm figured I'm caught I'm already busted, you know, so Why why throw other people into the mix? but I was upset about that and I had to do base restriction and Horrible. Yeah, and so and then I
Another time we were flying in Tampa and we landed and so we have 12 hours before your next flight where you have to stay sober so we had to do a lot of repairs on the plane and a lot of communications equipment and those kind of things and so we go and I'm only 18, 19 at the time and so I think I heard when you said on one of your interviews you talked about you went into the bank and threw lamination over an ID to change something.
Yeah, we could do that with our military ID. I'd outline a number with tape, and then I'd put another piece of tape over it and rip it off, and the transparency of that number would stick on the sticky part of the tape. And then I laid it over my 1969. And so, I got so shit-faced that night, and I'm swimming in the wrong hotel pool at a holiday in naked
It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home.
A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts.
naked and hopped a big juniper tree over the eight-foot cinder block before they caught me. And then I made the jump to the tree and just slid down and that was about it. So we're in the back of the police car and the ops like, so what's your name? And I'm like, Martinez, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just give him my social security number. E3, United States Navy. That's it. Like I'm a prisoner of war or something. You know, just stupid, stupid.
And they pull in the, you know, they park the police car always and they go to the locker room, put in their guns. Well, they took me out before one of them had put in their weapon and he starts to take it out and I grabbed for the weapon. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm like half blacked out. I grabbed for the weapon. They pull me back. And, and, um, what's going on YouTube, R. Dan here, federal prison time consulting. Hope you guys are all having a great day.
If you're seeing and hearing this right now, that means you're watching Matt Cox on Inside True Crime. At the end of Matt's video, there will be a link in the description where you can book a free consultation with yours truly, R. Dap Dan, where we can discuss things that could potentially mitigate your circumstances to receive the best possible outcome at sentencing or even after you started your prison sentence. Prior to sentencing, we can focus on things like your personal narrative, your character reference letters,
Prepping you properly for the pre-sentence interview, which is going to determine a lot of what type of sentence you receive. If you've already been sentenced, we can also focus on the residential drug abuse program, how you can knock off one year off of your sentence. Also, we have the First Step Act, where you can earn FSA credits while serving your sentence. For every 30 days that you program through the FSA, you can actually knock an additional 15 days off per month.
These are huge benefits and the only way you're going to find out more is by clicking on the link, booking your free consultation today. Alright guys, see you soon at the end of the video. Peace. I'm out of here. Back to you, Matt. It took me about eight hours or so to wake up in the cell because we were drinking B-52s and Bloody Marys and so much to get it all in before our 12-hour window closed. And that's pretty serious. That kind of thing could have put me away for
Who knows how long, you know, at that point. And so I missed my flight, which was pretty bad because we were a specialty crew. So to miss my flight was pretty horrific in the Navy's eyes. And so, but they came and they got me out and no charges, no charges pressed on me or nothing. And I went in front of the captain again and that was pretty much it. I lost my clearance, lost my wings, lost everything.
So you, you were, the last we talked, you had caught naked in the pool, missed your flight back in front of it. Yeah. Grabbed the pop gun in the, in the holding area and yeah. You're nuts. I don't know what I was getting. Uh, back in front of the captain. Yeah. Cause I was Navy. So it was the second time around. I had a, they were familiar with me when I first checked into the base because I was there for training.
at the same base and the same unit I was in. And so I was in training, I was dating this girl out in town and she had given me a calling card to call her when I was out in California because I was stationed in Maryland. And so I met another girl. And then so when I left California, I was calling this girl with that calling card. And, you know, this is back in the 80s. So, you know, it was a buck a minute on AT&T and, you know, so a racket. Yeah, yeah. What a racket they had.
I was sitting on an airplane flying to a boot camp in Orlando, and this guy's got his laptop open. And I said, so what are you doing? What do you do? And he says, well, I'm a finance manager. And he goes, I'm just reviewing some stock things. I go, you got any good picks? And he said, yeah. He goes, MCI. So MCI had started as a multi-level marketing through Amway, and then they went
So you were back at the base? Back at the base. Restriction. I mean I had to stay on base so my wife's home alone and you know they sent me through this alcohol class and
They said, well, you're just an abuser and not an alcoholic, but just a binger. So I did this little thing, but I ended up getting out at E4, which I was the same rank as everybody that I was in training with that didn't get busted twice. I managed to pass the test the first time around. I felt good about that and I ended up getting an honorable discharge.
Well, you got for this, for that, that issue, they asked you to leave or you just? No, I finished out my time there. I finished out my time in the service and so, but I just, I couldn't fly anymore. I couldn't do what our unit was doing and those kinds of things anymore. So I had lost my Clarence, everything. So I pretty much everywhere and everybody that I knew I was isolated from because I
I got out of the service in 1994 and I grew up in California, originally Northern California. I was born in the hospital of my last name, Martinez California. So we're living in Southern California now and got my real estate license. My parents sold real estate. I was familiar with that because
My dad would give me a stack of flyers like this and pay me $0.25 an hour and I'd put a few on the doors and throw the rest in the dumpster and come home until the trash day and then all the flyers went out all over the floor, all over the ground and the street and people are calling them, this is where Tina is, get your flyers off my lawn. If I've done it wrong, I've been caught for it. I don't know
Do you know people like that that just whatever they do they end up getting caught? Like the dumbest things that just Yeah, I definitely Like you think I would learn by now, but I am my second ex-wife said I suffered from hot stove syndrome that Every time I touch the hot stove and burn myself. I just believe the next time it's not gonna be hot and right that seems to be that somewhat of the truth but I am so I was married and
Tried doing the real estate. Those things didn't really work out well. We traveled quite a bit, California, Oregon. I was licensed, real estate license in California, Oregon and had my license in Maryland when I was their station there. But the market in that time was just horrible. They were laying off engineers and everything. So I ended up moving out to Cleveland, Ohio and lived there for a while. Got divorced.
Just drinking constantly. And odd jobs here and there. And I had a lot of PTSD from childhood and from the service. So it's difficult for me to, like I get brilliant ideas, but to follow through on them is, uh, it's tough to stay with, you know, everybody has, everybody has that book syrup or something. It's like, everybody has three,
I think my favorite that I came up with is endangered species animal crackers. I thought you can't hunt them but you can eat them. I thought that would be great. Get Sierra Club to come and sponsor the spotted owl and talk about it a little bit and then you could have the spotted owl and dip it in some peanut butter and
We've got to make that phone call to the animal cracker people. I looked it up a couple years ago and someone's doing it now. You could partner with National Geographic. They could sell it to zoos. I thought it would just be great. We're giving a portion of the profit, a very small portion, to the Sierra Club or Greenpeace.
Yeah, yeah, like have little clubs and baby seals there as an animal cracker and you can just eat them away. Yeah, so I got divorced in Cleveland. And then living there for a while and got remarried again. And I was just desperate, you know, like clinging on to anything, you know, I was living on my own barely paying rent. And I lived in this little artsy neighborhood where
people would come and it was like Michael Simon's first restaurant there I know if you know him he's on a show called the chew but he has a restaurant there called Lola's and he got his start there and so but surrounded by it is all projects you know so people come in on the weekends and go to the art galleries and eat at the restaurants and we call them tourists you know and I used to love to go there in the beginning and watch the local people watch the locals and then after a few years you realize you're the one being people watched
I got pulled over a few times for drinking and wrecked a few cars and never got any kind of trouble with alcohol, no DUIs, nothing like that. And my second wife worked for the Department of Justice and so I got pulled over one time doing 95 on the freeway and at 60 and went and so we're
on the way back to the police station and I said, so what's the bond on this? And he goes, well, it's a hundred bucks. I'm like, you know, my ATM is right by the police station. Can you just take me through? And he took me through. I pulled out my hundred bucks and yeah, you're like, I released the, I released the cup and I did the ATMs. I'm in the backseat at the ATM and I go there, I bought myself out and you gave it to him and said, let's go.
I ended up getting what's called a physical control. I don't know if they have
So basically, I was in physical control of the vehicle, but not driving, but doing 95 reckless driving on the freeway. So I didn't get a DUI at all. And I've been fortunate that way my whole life, like the Judge Dorn incident. And when I was in Cleveland, I would meet some people and like, if anybody talked crap to me or whatever, and we're about to go outside and have a fight, they're just like, no, no, no, we got this.
And so it's kind of a pattern in my life. I don't know, like there's felt like there's always something there looking out for me in some way, like grabbing the cop's gun and not getting, you know, five years for that. And, um, and you can say one time we're playing pool and this guy comes up and he's talking crap and, and I start to walk outside, we're going to go outside. And, uh, this other guy is like boots. He says, no, no, we got this. Um, and,
I'm like, I'm going to come with you. He's like, no, no, no, you don't want to come out here. And so about a half hour later, you hear the ambulance is coming and they beat the shit out of that guy. But like I've never had to do anything like that. Like I've probably been in two fights my whole life and that's in including prison, you know, which is crazy. So I am. So I left Cleveland and drinking real bad and went on a driving hiatus and ended up in Las Vegas.
I had a little money from schooling I was going to get for the VA Veterans Administration and so I ended up in Vegas. I was heading back to Ohio but I got as far as Vegas and just lost it all there and I'm homeless at this point. I come out to Phoenix from Vegas and I met a girl from, I knew her back from Ohio and she was super to me and everything. When I got out there I was just a wreck.
You know, and I get out to Phoenix and I'm homeless and I don't know if you've ever seen the homeless situation out there. They got an area where it's just 10 city and they would lock you up in this area at night because they have like a shelter, but the shelter is always overfilled with people. But if you stay there, you could get meals and you know, the VA system was there inside the center and
I just couldn't do it anymore. So I started talking to some people and the VA gave me my own apartment because I was homeless and my record, my discharge anyway with the military would be honorably discharged. And they gave me my own apartment and my neighbor, he would, I'd see him and he'd be kind of nodded out and happy or whatever. And I asked somebody and they said he shot heroin. And I said, like, ah, I want to do that, you know, like, and, um,
Man, that first time, Matthew, it's like a calm came over me that all of those feelings that I had or lack of feelings inside of me just went away. It was for the first time I felt normal, if that makes any kind of sense. The problem with that is after three, four more hours, you're not feeling so normal anymore.
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I was never one to steal from people. I couldn't go rob a beauty salon or something like that. If somebody came to me and wanted something, I would get it for them and bring it back and not take from that. I'd expect them to do the right thing. Like I said, when I was holding the signs, all the people with fancy cars would roll out. I'd just say, homeless vet, please help.
and all the fancy car people and most of them would roll up the windows and you know very just you know that face and the people that would give me money were you know the the people that look like they didn't have any money the hispanic lady with three kids in the back seat would give me 20 bucks and i just like i can't do this this is horrible like what you know it makes you reflect on yourself like what kind of person am i you know like you can tell this lady doesn't
seem like she has that much money to feed her kids or anything, you know, and here she's given to me to support my drug habit. And I've been pretty isolated from my parents, so I never asked them for money and that kind of thing. So I met a guy and he's staying in my apartment. He's a heroin addict also. So one day his friend comes up to me and says, hey man, your roommate said he was going to do this, go to this bank and walk in.
What did you do? You wrote a note?
I wrote a note and I had long hair. I'm kind of growing it long now, but I had long hair before that, about down to here. And so I cut my hair and I threw on the little Irish, you know, golfer Irish hat and I had a long sleeve shirt on and pants, but like I went and got the elastic, like grandma pants, you know? And so underneath my long sleeve shirt was a short sleeve t-shirt and underneath my pants were shorts.
And I stashed a backpack in this underground garage. Um, and so when I, so I went into the bank and I wrote a note, I put it on the counter and he's just looking at me and I see his hand go like this. I'm like, don't you press that button? Don't you press that button? And he goes like this, just right in my face. Like, there you go. Stick it, you know, press the button. And I was so nervous, like, uh,
Like it's just pure adrenaline at that time because I, you know, I got the discovery back and I never even put the glasses down over my face. I'm staring at the camera like, you know, when they get the discovery. And so you didn't get any money. No, I got about three grand. He gave me the money and hit the button and hit the button. And so he gave me the money and
So I went down into the garage, did the little switcheroo, threw the stuff in the backpack and I had a little black bag like this and threw stuff in the backpack, walked through the parking garage, came up an elevator that was on another side and took another walkway and up another elevator to street level and then went across and then I got on the light rail there in Phoenix and as I'm coming across the police are pulling into the bank and I'm just like, and so
That was the first. That was a U.S. bank there on Central. No weapon or nothing. I was very polite in my notes. I said, good morning. I think the first one I put, this is a burglary. This is a burglary. I said a few things and like, thank you, and gave them the note.
But you know, I think I've watched a few of the videos like you don't really get very much when you go in and do the teller like with a note or unless you're doing some giant takeover. Yeah, unless you go after the cash. Yeah. And if you go into the, a lot of these guys will tell you if you go into the cash drawer, like someone, they'll have a main drawer with 10,000, but usually those have per year and all kinds of problems. I got, I got one of those, like my, my third bank. Yeah. Cause I got like, uh,
Right. And so then I went and
Trying to think which was next. That's the one with the head teller, way on the north side of town. I had a driver for that, but he didn't know what was going on. I just said, look, you're going to go here and you're going to park right here and I'll be back in a few minutes. Then I got back in the car and I'm like, go, go, go, go. I got the main teller in that one.
He figured out what was going on, you know, so obviously now one person knows and then my roommates know and you know, that's never good. And so, and so by the time I did another one right next to the first one on central and they had one of those machines where almost like a printer machine, but it's a little small ATM machine. And so I go in there and she gives me a thousand dollars. I'm like, what the fuck is this? She didn't even open a drawer or nothing.
She goes, I have to print it from the machine unless they go back into the vault and that's going to take some time. And then she goes, if you want to wait five minutes, I can print out another thousand kind of like a drop drawer at a, you know, like circle K or seven 11, something like that. They have those drop drawers and I'm like, ah, so that was like a thousand bucks out of that. That's rough. My average, you know, but uh, but after that second one we got robbed. Um,
Cause my roommate was real sloppy. He would get all Xanaxed out and have these periods of heroin Xanax, three day blackouts. And so he had people come into her house and late at night cause he was selling and we got robbed and he's getting pistol whipped and I jumped and come trying to do a Superman and ran right into a fist. And, and, and so I had about four grand in those, you know, those Russian maternity dolls, like the one inside the other, inside the other, inside the other.
So I'd rolled all the cash and put it in that it was on my dresser and I think the guy knew I had money. I think it was a setup like someone knew told him I had money or something because he was going through the whole house. He's looking under the mattress unless he was just looking for dope money, but we weren't those kind of dealer people, you know, and he picks that thing up and he puts it down. He moves it over and you couldn't find anything. You know, so he just stole my phone on my TV, but it's you know, that's the
I'm lucky we didn't get shot because a guy was getting pissed, my buddy was getting pistol whipped and I grabbed the guy with the knife and just, uh, crazy, crazy things, you know, but that's what happens when you're, when you're living that life, you know? And, uh, so I, I did the third one and then they, um, they started putting me on the news. Those bastards. Those bastards. Yeah. Do you have the clip? I don't know if you have the clip or not. Um,
Did I send it to you? The YouTube clip? I don't think so. Yeah, send it to me for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up, they started putting me on the news and they, I come home and my roommate said, dude, you were just on the news. You're just on the news. I'm like, ah, shit. And so I did, um, one more bank after that. And then I decided, you know what? This is it. I bought a Lincoln. Like, uh, this is 2016. So I bought it like a 2004 Lincoln.
limo editions, special edition windows tinted and I'm like, you know, this is cool. I got money now. I'm driving my dealer around. I'm so I'm getting hooked up. I'm getting hooked up, you know, like every day. I don't have to worry about money to do my habit, you know, cause I, I wasn't looking to get rich off of the banks. I was just looking to not get sick. Right. And so like I'm hooked up. I got, I'm driving my dealer around, making deliveries for him, going here, going there.
And so, some crazy things started happening. Like, I feel like we're being followed. He's like, no. No, you know, he's selling meth, so everybody out there, huh? Well, who would follow us? Yeah, right? You've only robbed three bags. Right, right. And I'm driving around with him with, you know, a couple ounces of heroin and meth and then shotgun in the back. And like, who would follow us?
Look at all heroin now driving the Lincoln. My excuse was, that was called livery service in Arizona. My justification for it, if I ever got pulled over, I had nothing in the front. It was all in the back and I don't know what he brought in the car. It wasn't me.
So I just figured that was the, you know, that was a safe way to go about it. I was like, man, I feel like I'm being followed. And, uh, this was about, um, September, uh, 2016 and like I would park, we park somewhere and this van would come around to the side, like a little mini van, but it would be like a, a lady with her two kids. Right. And so,
They followed us all the way to this place and then they parked there. I'm like, what's up? So I started walking and they just tires peel and take off. It's like this, uh, some mulling a lady with two kids in the car. And so I'm starting to get more paranoid. It's definitely not the police. No, that was definitely not the police, but we're being followed. And so I like what? So I, one time on the freeway, I feel like, uh, I'm like,
Man, this is crazy. So I'm on the main freeway there in Phoenix and everybody's going, anybody who knows Phoenix, they're doing 80 if they're doing anything. And I slow down to like 40 miles an hour on the freeway in the center lane. And the two cars that I thought were following me wouldn't pass me. And I'm like, this is odd. This is really odd. And there's a big SUV and I don't know what the person was driving it. So then I take off and I'm doing 95.
And the guy's right on my tail. And then a police car comes flashing his lights, and I think he's pulling me over. And then he gets in front of the car and me, and they pulled him over. I'm like, this is odd. I don't understand this. And so that went on for about three months. And later to come and find out they had a GPS on my car.
So I don't know if they have some kind of – they take their CIs to follow people when they're doing this but I don't know. It was just – or maybe he made some bad deals. My buddy made some bad deals and they were following us. I don't know but it was – odd things were happening though. Like I had a Garmin that you would put a cell phone chip into for location and so
But I never used it. It was in my drawer. So I come home one day and I had this girl living with me. She was pregnant, not my kid. And so I come and I sit sitting out on the couch. And then I pull out the chip, the SIM card that was in it. And it was a different SIM card. Okay. And so, yeah, just odd. I don't know, just really strange things.
I'm coming to find out I had several people confidential informants on my on my case so I don't know how many people told you know the FBI what and so yeah I don't know odd things maybe they're trying to keep track of me my Bluetooth I had a Sony Bluetooth speaker that was I'd come home and it would be on and connected to some other phone or some other Bluetooth and they were friends
This girl staying with me was friends with the neighbor next door. So I don't know if the FBI was over there listening to me or trying on the speaker. I don't know. You know, I don't know what kind of tactics they do, but it was just started getting very insane. And then almost 90 days after they put the words on for the GPS on my car, which I found this out later, but they came and raided me and I had bars on my windows on my, the screen door was a barred screen door.
and bars on the windows and it's right when the sun comes up that's when they get you you know right when the sun comes up and I wake up I'm sick I can't see straight and like like I'll be right there oh it's working door right now I'm like hold on I gotta get so close I'd be right there and I had a dough ball in the house and you know I'm sick because I overslept and I'm banging I put on shorts and I'm like trying to wipe the
The powdery stuff off the counter and I had a gram of dope and I couldn't, you know, I had no time to do it. I couldn't smoke it or shoot it, so I put it in the only other place I could get away with hiding it for a while, you know? And so they came and they had that bar that comes through, this long bar trying to pull down the blinds to see me and I come out with the pants on and shirt and shoes, no socks, and they put me on the ground and cuffed me and
And the girl that was with me, she was there and they just let her go. You know, just let her go. So I, I think there was quite a few things going on there, but you know, people keeping an eye on me to make sure I wasn't running off or that kind of thing. So, but then the only thing I like about all of this is they, they referenced me to James Bond in the,
In the news thing, and they call me the Golden Eye Bandit because I wear these silver rimmed glasses. So the news thing, I'll send you the clip. I think I sent you the YouTube video too in one of the first texts, but I'll send it again. Yeah, maybe it was a link or something. Yeah, it's a link to the ABC news there.
I didn't see it. It was a news clip of them talking about you, right? Yeah, it's like Bond, James Bond. There's a new Goldeneye in town. Right. Yeah, so they had me blasted. Goldeneye banned it all. They put it on that national syndicated news list all over the country and everything. So it was a matter of time before they got me, but I didn't really care.
I didn't care so much. No, I'm just saying I didn't care so much that I got arrested. Like I was just dying. Like I've just spent, you know, like at this point I'm just white, you know? Right. You were going to say? Obviously. So what did they say when they grab you? They get you, they bring you in the little room, the FBI agents come in and sit down. Yeah. So they, they take me to some building right across from the main justice center, federal justice center there in Phoenix.
and they're fingerprinting me and they don't really tell me, they didn't say why I was being arrested and I didn't ask, you know, which is an obvious sign of guilt, right? What are you doing here? And, um, and so he asked me a few questions and then he was lawyered up. You know, I said, I want an attorney. He, um, he asked me about my cell phone number and then he asked me, um, if I had ever been in this part of town or something like that. And I just said, you know what, I think I should get an attorney and I just lawyered up and
I'm
Benches, you know, and I'm just falling over on all the people there. They got caught crossing the border and everything else. I mean, I was just out of it. And I got a rain that day and sent straight off to Florence, which is the big prison town. Basically they have state there. They have the core civic for the feds. I think they have a, if you're like a probation violation person, you might have another little area there for a federal and right.
Yeah, that started my whole prison experience. Well, what happened? What did they offer you? I mean, did they, did you say I'm just a child? I don't know what you're talking about. Like at what point did somebody come up and say, Hey, this is why they arrested you. This is what you're looking at. I realized then it was for the banks after that, you know, like, cause then they, uh, that initial parents before the judge, uh, you know, they said four counts of bank robbery. And, um, so I had a public defender and, you know,
Looking over the discovery and you know seeing my picture like this up at the camera and you know I mean I knew I was had so I didn't fight my case and it took a year to get through the whole process not even trying to fight my case because I figured you know everybody someone there has that big giant book that says the federal sentencing beat the feds or something like that or
Busted by the feds. Busted by the feds. That's it. It's like this big and the two things I got out of it is one, they win 95 to 98% of their cases and two, if you take it to the box, you're screwed and you lose. You're screwed. And so, um, and I had no one else on my case. Like it wasn't like I could, you know, I mean, I guess I could have snitched, I could have snitched on the driver, but what good have that done? You know what I mean? It's like, at this point I figured out like, um,
You know, unless you're... I was gonna say, and all you've done is hand people a note. Like, you didn't have a god, so that would have been a problem. No, no weapon. Yeah, no weapon at all, and my notes were nice, and, you know, polite, and I... You didn't hand them a harshly worded, it was a harshly worded note? No. No, it was like, it was like, thank you! You know, it was basically, I put the 150s and 20s on the counter, removed the bands, spread them open, because I didn't want a GPS chip, you know.
And then the first one I left a note, the other ones I realized I should take the note because the first one, I remember he pulled it back because they wanted to keep it as evidence for DNA and those kinds of things. So the other ones, I took the notes, but they had the shot down with the camera on them. So it took me, they kept delaying the final sensing and that type of thing.
I'm just like, look, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't want this to be a problem, but I was a, I had no prior criminal record on anything like the, that charges for my kid, you know, being in a juvenile never showed up. I had, um, I had another incident when I was in Cleveland, where I, my wife worked for a bank and we split up and I was, we had two separate bank accounts. So I was depositing money here and withdrawing it over here and back and forth and back and forth.
The next thing you know, you're about six grand overdrawn. Right. Yeah, so I had three felony charges on that and I ended up attempting to pass a bad check misdemeanor. I paid the money back, released that day, no probation, attempting to pass a bad check misdemeanor and that was it. So they didn't do anything with that on my criminal history.
So I basically had nothing on my criminal history, but I was still a 38 on the list. Because I think bank robbery is like a 32 or 34, something like that. Just with or without a gun. A gun is just an enhancement. But they counted each one. Each bank was another one point enhancement from the first. So I was looking at five to six years, I think, was my column.
But some things started happening there. When I look back at my experience in prison, to me, prison saved my life. I don't know how to explain it. I've always been kind of a spiritual person, not really a big religion person, but I've always researched other ways of thinking and following. So when I was there at Flores, I'm watching this movie, Battleship, I think.
Chris Pine's end or something like that. And then in the beginning, he was talking to him about, what is it? I'm not going to think of it. The book, The Odyssey. And you know, the old Greek book, The Odyssey, and the travels through everywhere and all the Greek mythology and all that. And like, I want to read that book. I would love to read that book. And two days later, it comes on the book cart. Like, who gets Homer's Odyssey on the book cart?
I'm like, I'm like, this is fucking cool. This is way cool. It is a sign. And so I'm thinking like, this is like a complete synchronicity. Like I knew about it, but I'd never experienced it before. I'm like, this is a complete synchronicity. And then I get Celestine prophecies come in on the book cart when I, and that's all about synchronicities and those kinds of things in life that everything leads you to the next thing. There's really not any coincidences, so to speak.
And so I'm like, man, this is super cool. So now two things have happened. I'm like, I want to keep on this pursuit. And so I'm like, I want to read something else. And this book came in called Scientific Christian. It was written back in like 1870s, and it's a very theosophy kind of book, the whole manifestation, but from a very God-centered kind of way. And so I read through that.
And then I found another one when I was finished with that book, it'd be like the next time the book cart comes that week, there was one was about this stick and it's called The Power of Mind by Ernest Holmes. And it just blew me away. The whole process of changing your thinking and you know that what you think about you bring about, you know, like I've been through some cognitive behavioral therapy kind of things, you know, where you create, you know, you create your core and what are your values and those kinds of things.
Your thoughts become words and then they become actions. I started to really develop that sense and so by the time I'm getting ready to finally go for my sentencing, my attorney asked me, he's like, the FBI really want to talk to you. I'm like, what? I'm getting six years, I go talk to the FBI, I got nothing to tell them and what
What am I going to do? At the worst case, I get one year off and then I go in and everybody knows I'm a snitch. That was my thought process anyway. I'm like, no, I don't have anything to talk to them about. He goes, just talk to them, just talk to them. They delayed my sentencing one more time and I went in and I'm like, okay, what? He goes, first of all, is there any money left?
You know, did you hide any money? Is there any money left? I'm like, no, I only got like 20 grand out of the four banks. So and so I'm like, no, he's like, I go with what he goes. How did you pick your banks? And so I explained to them that they used to have a web page, an FBI most wanted web page for bank robbers. And so you could look up on there all the banks and you could sort it out by state and then by city.
and then you could sort out by weapon or they got away and it would say it would read and how long ago so it's kind of like a sorting protocol for bank robberies right in the area over a given the best thanks to Rob paid that's what I use them for because I'm like well this makes sense they're rough three months ago two three months ago they went in without a weapon and they got away with the undisclosed amount of cash so that tells me there's no guard there no no security
They don't have door locks where they lock you in the bank and they all run in the back or anything like that. And so I did that and then so I explained that to them like, ah, interesting. And then I use Google Maps, you know, like I, I just, the first one, I already had a plan to get out walking, but the rest of my eyes, you Google Maps. Like I looked for banks by a little construction site or, you know, those kinds of things as I drive by, but places that the bank wasn't,
There were obstacles around there so they couldn't see where I came in from or they couldn't see where I left when I went out. They didn't have any other photos of me other than just in the bank and leaving the bank. That's it. No photos of buildings around me or anything like that. I shared that with them but I was so nervous because you get those 513 whatever, 513B, I don't know what it is that basically says you cooperated.
Yeah, that's it. 5K1. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, this is going to give me one of those and, and I'm like, ah, and then everybody's going to think that I had someone else in my case and then they're going to know. So they, um, when they were, when I was getting my sense scene, they paused the stenographer and they paused the recording of the court case.
for them to say I cooperated on I was very cooperative with them and and so forth and I ended up getting 28 months nice so I'd already done a year in the 28 months and maybe I would have gotten maybe I would have gotten that anyway you know I don't know but it just like everybody was so nice to me like I don't understand like even in prison every everybody was just so nice to me even in prison
Like I think the harshest, I almost got in a fight with my, uh, my celly. Well, he almost whooped my ass over some little spat, you know, but he's six foot four Missouri boy, you know, and he was working on that 400, 400, 400, you know, squat deadlift and bench press. Yeah. Big arms like this. And my room was, uh, well, you know, so I mean, I'll go to that later. So I got, uh, 28 months already did a year and then you do the, uh,
Everybody goes to Colorado and then I ended up going to Latuna in El Paso for, um, I did, uh, I only did like nine months there, nine months in Latuna. Uh, it was in low medium, just a real fucked up place. Yeah. That's what I heard. Yeah. They, all the guards that can't make it in other places, can't figure out how to get along with the guards or the, the inmates there. They go there. That's their shit place.
It's just a messed up place. I'm just smiling because I think about the first thing I remember. The first thing someone said to me when I got to Florence was, that's not our table, bro. There was only two people and they're pods, right? So they're like these triangle pods and you got those stainless steel tables with four stools around and then you got the four TVs and
There was only two guys, two white guys sitting at a table and so I go and I sit at this table over here. He's like, that's not our table, bro. Like I wasn't sitting at the white table. Right. So yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. You need some characters, man. It's just, Florence was crazy. I got, I was watching one of your interviews and it was, they were talking about like when you have a, when you have somebody you think like, please don't, I can't stand that person. This person drives me nuts.
That's exactly who you get put with. When you start thinking about it, even if it's in a negative way, that's what happens. This guy, he was completely just tweaked, even though he was sober. He's walking around and you know how they are. Oh man, I can't believe it. Can you believe it? My wife slept with my three sons. Can you believe it? I love that bitch, but I love her. Pacing, walking around pacing the whole time, all night, all day.
And then one time I said something, I'm like, well, dude, why do you, why do you even write into her now anymore? But then I'm at, you know, cause I'm intruding on his thing there now and he looks at me. You think you want to get involved in this? You want to get involved in this? Like, you know, like, okay, no, no, you're right. Yeah. There's a lot of mental, a lot of mental, uh, issues going on in prison. Yeah. Like I had never, other than a few drug tanks,
and one night in a holding cell for the check thing, I'd never been, you know, in any kind of facility or anything. So I like, I had no prison sense. I had no idea what, you know, like I used to joke with my friend, like, I'm like, uh, cause I would go to Walmart when I was drinking a lot and still the big, the big bottle, like every two days, still big bottle. I did that for about six months without getting caught. And then, um,
It's like, dude, you're going to go to jail. I'm like, I don't go to jail. Like, cause all these things that had happened to me in my whole life, I'd never. Yeah. You get away with it. I kept getting away with it. Yeah. I mean the juvie thing. Yes. I mean that was, but then I went to a, you know, I went to a placement. I didn't even do like, and then the churches got dismissed. I'm like, I don't go to jail. Well, he was right. I just went straight to prison, you know? Yeah. Oh, did you get halfway house? Yeah. Three months, halfway house. And, um,
Phoenix. Halfway house was, I'd almost rather have done my three months still in Latuna than to go to the halfway house because I don't know where, you were in a camp, I couldn't go to a camp. No, I was in a medium. I went to a medium for three years, then I went to a low for like nine years and then I went, I did seven months in a halfway house.
I would have rather been in the prison than prison. But I needed a halfway house. I needed to get a job. I had to save money. After 13 years, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's no money. So, you know, but the problem, like you said, the problem is the halfway house, it's so overly intrusive. It's just much, much worse. It's a much worse place than the prison. Yeah. And where I was in El Paso, they had
I wouldn't say that everybody sticks with their own race, you know how that is, you know? Right. And then the ones that aren't allowed to sit at anybody's table, they all stick together, you know? Right. But the people I came across in El Paso, many of them are, and they get funded by the federal prison system to keep taking hormones to complete their transition. And so because they're in that transition phase, any kind of
Any kind of violence against them is a hate crime, a federal hate crime. And so they're almost a protected class there in El Paso. And just everything blew me away. Anywhere. Anywhere in the federal system. Yeah. And I'm not saying there's wrong with people taking hormones or anything like that. I'm just saying it wasn't what I thought. I thought, man, because they're just walking around.
I mean, mine, I taught the real estate class, you know, and I wrote stories for people, but, you know, nobody, it's not like anybody paid me for the story, but I spent my time writing stories. I spent my time doing the real estate class and then, you know,
People would send me
If they wanted a certificate, if they didn't want to go to the class, then I said, great, give me like half coffee and two creamers. So I always had hung the coffee and creamer. Worst case scenarios, my mom would send me money, but I also like I optioned a couple of guys, life rights to their stories. So that, I also got a couple of book deals.
So that also paid me. You know, I got some advances. So I had a little bit, little chunks of money. Let's face it. You get a check for $3,500 in prison. You're going to be okay for a while. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I don't think a lot of people, I don't think a lot of people understand too. Like, um, I don't know states the same way or not, but feds, you pretty much have to pay for everything. Like if you want toothpaste and let you want those little clears and the toothbrush that lasts like a day and a bar soap, but everything else like shampoo and everything else you have to pay for.
And my job paid me $15 a month there. So, you know, that's like two honey buns. What was that? Yeah, I had one job paid like 23 or $26. Did that for a while. And then I had another job that paid like 80 or 90 when I was a GED tutor. But for the most part, yeah, the jobs. Yeah. And the ones you had to have a lot of time to get the ones where you, you know, they had the prisoners making the Homeland Security trucks, putting all the enhancement on.
Unicor, yeah. They got paid very well, you know, but $14. My parents didn't even know where I was. They knew I got arrested, but they had no idea where I was. I didn't ask them for money, so I never had anything coming in on my books. You just can't survive on $14 a month. There's just no way. You know, not if you want to eat anything decent once in a while because, you know, everybody's cooking food and we didn't have microwaves. We had 204.
Which is water at 204 degrees just under boiling. So, yeah, yeah. Microwave. Yeah, no microwaves. But my celly, he made it. What's that? You could make coffee with it. You can make coffee or you could take, you know, something and put it in there and heat it up for a while. Like wrap it in cellophane, like a trash bag and heat it up. Do people have stingers? Yeah, stingers.
This cell, the way it was where I was at is they had two parts to La Tura. So they had, it looks like it was an old Catholic mission that got converted over. And so they built a new pod area, which is kind of like where it was in Florence with the different pods and regular cells. And then they had one area where it was two long hallways. And then you had gates at the end of each hallway
and then the CO's little area there and the main exit out in a bathroom on the inside, but there were no doors on the rooms. So anybody just come walking by could peek in or whatever and there were four-man rooms. So same size rooms, but four-man rooms. So you can imagine, you had about this much between the two bugs and about maybe four feet to walk
It's amazing how well everybody has their locker memorized. If one little thing is moved, they know.
Like someone's been in my locker. You know, like they know, like the toothpaste has turned sideways or something, you know, like, or the cop, the cops would come and search the lockers. Yeah, they would search. And so we didn't have doors. Um, so we weren't even allowed to have buckets in our room, like, cause people would get stingers. They would make them out of, uh, like coils out of, uh, like vacuum machines or, you know, uh, and then, so my celly had a sting. He used to make real cheesecakes, like with an actual,
Yogurt kind of uh, he had a kicker he would make and he would let the ye the yeast grow into like real actual cheese and then drain it out and Oh, they're made. Um, you guys are amazing in there. They you gotta admit they come up with some amazing stuff Like the the creamer cheesecakes were all right. Everybody sold those with my celly. Yeah, the real cheesecakes So that was my house. I made I made I took his leftover cheese and made like these brownie balls and
You sell like 10 of them for a tuna or something like that, but yeah. So halfway house. Yeah, I got a job right out of halfway house and I went to halfway house. You have to get a job. So at this point I'm feeling good. You know, like I remember when I first got to El Paso, my celly looked at me and he said, and I'll never forget this. Like if he was out there somewhere, bro, thank you. He said, is this what you're going to do with the rest of your time here? Just lay around.
Just wasted away. He goes, you know what you do here is going to be exactly what you do when you get out of here. I'm like, all right. So that started the process. You get up every day. You make your bed. You get into that routine of starting to take care of yourself. And actually, for the first time, started to feel a little self-respect and some goodness about myself. I've always been kind of this insecure.
I was changing oil and washing cars and send them through the car wash.
I did that for about a year and just got my life together. My credit was fine by then, so I got a car loan and had a car and started dating. I dated this girl for about three years and that went to crap. But stayed clean and I just kept with the process of taking care of myself. I went and registered with the VA for some PTSD classes.
There's a lot of help out there if one needs it and wants it. I think you have to be flexible because nothing's going to be tailor-made to every specific person, but I had issues from the military and things like that, and every time I turned, they were there for me. I went to Fed, Federal Probation Court. Well, Federal Probation, but it was Fed Court for Feds, and Phoenix was the first one to do that.
They have it for state, like a lot of vet courts and state, but there's not many federal. And so for doing my two years of probation, they knocked off a year. I don't know if they do that in other programs, but you go there and the judge and everybody pledges allegiance to the flag and you have the judge there, you have your probation officer, you have a VA representative, you have the district attorney that's there and you have another person and you have just
people there that want to help you get on your feet. And so the judge is absolutely amazing, Judge Silver. And she starts off and she's basically like, so what do you need, Scott? Tell me how it's going. What can we do for you? Tell me what you need. And let's see if we can get you keep you going. You know, and so it was just my whole experience with everything in that in the system is just for what it was, you know, I mean, for being in prison and that kind of thing. Like I had
To me, it was like going to a rehab that I just couldn't leave. I didn't have any problems with anybody. I never got in a fight. I never had to run away from a fight. I just never had a problem. It was just the same way with probation. I'm just very grateful for that. I think a lot of people come out and they F the police and this and that. Everything I got arrested for, I did.
There wasn't one thing that I got nailed on me that I didn't deserve to have nailed on me, you know? How did you end up in Mexico? So I got out, my probation ended in November of 2020. So I got out in 2018, my probation in 2020 and I just started watching YouTubes and I was like, you know, I have no money, basically, you know, no money.
Everybody told me I needed to file a claim with the VA for my first disability and so I started that process and I just started watching YouTube and like they gave me a certain rating and then eventually got upped because I realized I guess I am a little nuts but and so I was watching and just I'm like shit so my girlfriend I broke up and I went on one last tear
Through Las Vegas, which I don't even want to get into that. That was horrible. But I'm like, you know what? I guess I got to go. I got to go. Like just be somewhere I can be myself and nobody around me. And I went and I applied for a one day passport. I went down the passport agency and they told me no. They go, we can't give you a passport today. I'm like, what? And so they had never released me in this system.
From being off federal probation or anything like that. So they had to get an email back from DC or something like I got my probation out, you know, my probation officers. They text her or whatever. And so I went back the next day. They gave me my passport and I was gone the next day and came down here. But I love it here, man. It's just it's so calm. The area I'm at is. Like there's no crime here. Right, you know, is
In Mexico, there's not a lot of crime in Mexico anyway, except bad people doing things to bad people, in that sense. But here, if you hear about a house getting broken into, that's odd. It's considered the third or fourth safest city in the world, basically. It's safer than Amsterdam and I think only one other place like maybe British Columbia is on the other top two or three. The other night we went and I was having dinner.
And I left a little change, you know, a little thing with my cards and change because you get all these pesos and everything here. And I left it on the table and I forgot. And I come back like 20 minutes later and it's sitting right there. All the money's in it. No one even touches it. No one even touches it to turn it in. They just leave it. I mean, they're just, it's just an honest, kind place. You know, I don't get mail. I don't get telemarketing calls. I don't get nothing. Like I just,
Take my money and I don't leave the house a lot. So I take my money and I go and I swim in the pool, which is in the area. I'm like a 750 square foot apartments, um, two bedroom and I pay with utilities and everything like 450 a month. Yeah. So yeah, it's amazing. You should come visit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I basically just go to the beach and hang out at the pool. Um, my girlfriend, she,
I still have moments where I just go and I could disappear for a month just in my house. So she'll come and get me and take me shopping and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I love it. And so I think that one of the reasons I wanted to come and tell this, I don't think my story is so extravagant or I didn't do so many horrific things. I think it would make a great book or anything.
I've started over so many times, Matthew. I've gone from nothing so many times in my life to back up, to back down, to back up, and to back down, and then to come out of prison. The girl I dated when I got out, before we went on the first date, I told her, I said, look, I robbed four banks. You have a 15-year-old daughter
We had talked on the phone a little bit. I said, but you have a 15 year old daughter, you're going to invite me into your home. I think you should know this before I come into your house. You know what I mean? And meet your daughter, you know, like, I mean, it just seems like the right thing to do. And like, we talked and she didn't beat my probation officer. I still chat with my probation officer now. Like, you know, just the process I went through in Florence and the process of changing the way you think and
Making it a part of a part of who you are not just It's easy to say like I hear these people on YouTube or wherever talking about I would just manifest a thousand dollars do this over here and you know if I think about wanting a car so much like I Can say I manifested coming to Mexico because I put three years into thinking about it into a plan To get here, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, you know I didn't know how I was gonna do each little step along the way but I
It became my focus, it became my purpose, and I never had a purpose before for anything. I think I heard you talk about it on one of your other interviews about having that purpose is the big motivator to keeping you moving in the right direction. If my purpose is doing drugs, I'm going to go on that route, but if I keep another purpose... Yeah, definitely. I'm sorry, I was going to say you can...
You know, basically, I think it's like you could withstand, you know, anything if you have a purpose, you know, right? Here we go. There's Yeah, there's a well, there's that book that purpose driven life. And then there's a book by Victor Frenkel. He was a Jewish guy in the concentration camps and it's called the man's search for meaning and and he just talks about making yourself almost to the point where you're transparent and everything is your purpose.
If I want $1,000 from you, that's an ego-centered kind of thing. If I pray to find $100 on the ground, I'm really praying for someone to lose $100 too, right? That's a very selfish motivation, but if I want to do something that can enlighten or help or motivate other people to just bring a smile to their face, and that's my purpose, then good things will come to me.
You know what I mean? Because it's not an ego. It's not an ego thing. It's a soul thing, you know? I don't know if that makes sense or not. Okay. Yeah. I feel like we've so thoroughly investigated this matter. Thank you. Thank you. Ta-da! I'm grateful. That's what turned out of it. I'm grateful in a good place, man. I'm very happy.
I have things I'm trying to do. There's a thing here that's legal in Mexico called Ibogaine, and it's phenomenal results. And they take people, they go on a three-day treatment. You can go in addicted to heroin right then. You don't go through withdrawals. If you're an alcoholic, you won't go through the DTEs or anything like that. You come out and you might have a follow-up in two, three months and maybe one or two every couple of years.
But completely kicks the habit. Completely. Alcohol, heroin. So I'm in the process of trying to work out some things for veterans to come down here to Mexico and just kind of have a calm way of living. And it's legal here in Mexico. It's not in the United States because there's no money in it because it's made out of a natural source, kind of like kratom. So I'm hoping that works out.
Yeah, the drug and alcohol companies can't or the rehab companies can't figure out how to monetize it. Yeah, there's no way to monetize it. Yeah, because you don't need to keep them there 30 days. Like someone could come and they have treatment centers here in Mexico already. Someone could come and spend three or four days here and go back, not addicted and not have the cravings and not have the urges and and find a sense of the wholeness. You know, like when I talked about just felt like I had no soul.
You find a sense of wholeness in you and it kind of takes away that need to medicate. Yeah, that's not going to take root here. No, no. I just want to say one other thing real quick. Anybody else that might see this or whatever, if you see this, and I know I destroyed a lot of lives in this process of getting here. I mean, I really did. My parents and other people, people I stole from and that kind of thing. I'm very sorry. I apologize.
I appreciate you contacting me and coming on and I appreciate you doing the
It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home. A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead.
Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts.
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"text": " podcast and enter promo code SPACE80. It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home. A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name David Minor the fourth and we talked to him."
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"text": " Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jean Chatsky. You may know me as the host of the Her Money podcast or the financial editor of NBC's Today Show for 25 years."
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"text": " Today I'd personally like to invite you to join my women led investing club. It's called investing fix with two X's. We walk through current market trends, teach investing fundamentals and build a real portfolio together. Plus your first month is absolutely free. So come check us out at investing fix.com. We'd love to have you. One day his friend comes up to me and says, your roommate said he was going to do this."
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"text": " I wasn't looking to get rich off of the banks. I was just looking to not get sick."
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"text": " Hey, this is Matt Cox and I'm going to be doing an interview with Scott Martinez. Scott is a former heroin addict and bank robber. He's got an interesting story that I think you guys will find fascinating. Scott, what's going on? Talk to me. We've gone back and forth on text. We talked a little bit."
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"text": " Tell me what's going on. How did this whole life story, how did this start? I was born in Northern California. The most I can really remember was just my mom and me all the time. I didn't really know my real father. Vinny knows him out there, it'd be great. He was a biker, I guess, and we always lived in this kind of chaos environment."
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"text": " I was born in Scott Green. I've had several through different marriages, different names and that kind of thing. I used to see my mom go through some physical abuse and I was gaslighted at a young age and those kinds of things. I just never felt like I fit in anywhere. Growing up,"
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"text": " Probably the first crime I committed was stealing my mom's cigarettes and going behind the A&W to smoke a few when I was like six years old. And then I went to a private school and I was a chatty, popular kid, but always doing stupid things, you know, and like grabbing the phone and payphone and dialing zero and yelling fire. When I was in first grade and the police saw the fire truck show up and all kinds of crazy things. And as life progressed, I just that"
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"text": " That sense of soullessness kind of where you just feel like you're this person in life but you're not there. There is no real reality. They would tell me we're going to Magic Mountain when I was a kid and bringing three of my friends and I would just sit there very stoic and no smile, no emotion. Somewhere around 12, 13, I started running away from home and those kind of things."
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"text": " I ended up robbing my next door neighbor's house with some friends that basketball went over. Why'd you go ahead? Why were you running away from home? I mean, was, are you saying it was a, was it abusive? No, my mom. Yeah. No, my mom, my mom's a great person. Like she always treated me well. She's phenomenal person. Now she does a lot of good for other people. And my stepfather now, Tony, he's a, he's a great man too. Like there was never really any issues."
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"text": " With them, I had progressed to the point where I couldn't attach to people. There was just this blockage of emotion in me. That might be a common theme with that sense of feeling lost at an age. I was an only child and spent a lot of time with my grandparents and around adults. My mom couldn't have any more children after me."
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"text": " They decided to take on foster children and that just kind of threw me for a big loop because here we were finally in a stable relationship with my stepfather and her and they're doing great and he's taking care of her the way you know a husband should and these new kids come in and I just you know I don't know just uh that's always been my fighter you know and I've always just been the the flight there instead of the fire right and so most of my time"
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"text": " I go down to my friends and I take his bike and I remember my girlfriend at the time is all the way up in Santa Barbara."
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"text": " And I lived in Redondo Beach. So it's about 180 miles, something like that. So I stole this little BMX bike and I'm like, I'm going to go see this girl. She's all the way up at Santa Barbara with her mom. And I'm like in seventh, eighth grade and I'm just pedaling away through Malibu and the hills and stop at the store and grab some nuts and come back out. And man, it took like two days, slept on the beach in Oxnard and ended up going to Santa's Village in Santa Barbara. And I get there."
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"text": " And then I see her with her mom as they're getting in the car to head back and I like, what are you doing? Like, I just had to come here and see you. I had, um, in high school, I started, um, drinking and smuggling weed and doing a little coke and I was about 15 and I thought, you know, this doesn't make sense back to back in those days in the eighties, you could buy an eight ball for 300, you know, when it was a hundred bucks a gram, like it doesn't make sense to"
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"text": " I spent all that when I could just sell the $300 worth and get my little gram for free. Of course, the friends all take advantage, don't pay. I ran away and the Armenians came through bricks through my window and my parents' house. It just got real chaotic. I had robbed the neighbors. I saw their window cracked."
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"text": " So we did that and I was living in this abandoned house. We pawned the things off and I'm living in this abandoned house and I remember my ex-girlfriend had a code on their alarm and I'm like, ah, I think I'll go in there and, you know, just take a little bit and get out. Well, I found this big box of credit cards back in the day, you know, like JCPenney's and whatever. So this guy was staying with this abandoned house and like, dude, let's get some tickets."
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"text": " and we'll go to Miami and then we're going to do this right. I'm 16, you know, so we're going to do this right. Miami vice it. And so we ended up getting the tickets and I'm sitting at LAX and it's about 20, 30 minutes before they start boarding. He and I are sitting at LAX and two police officers come up and they're like, uh, Scott, I'm like, yes, he's like, uh, we need you to come with us. And so,"
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"text": " I'm like, what? And the other guy is, what? And so how did they know you were there? We go back and well, I found out later they got an anonymous tip that I had sold some credit cards and I was bought a plane ticket. So they got an anonymous tip and I'm sitting in the thing in there and they're like, okay, so how did you get the tickets? Do you know these people? Well, we have to verify with them. And I just, you know, I just said,"
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"text": " I took the credit cards. I bought the ticket. This guy over here has no idea what's going on other than we're going to Miami. He was 18 already. So, and you know, I, you know, I responsible. So I ended up going through the process there. I spent probably about eight, nine months at a central juvenile hall, which is just completely chaotic, you know, and I had a"
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"text": " I had this Judge, Judge Dorn and everybody's like, Oh man, if you get Judge Dorn, you're screwed. And so I ended up going to this place called Kirby, which was like a closed placement. So you're with other kids and you finish your high school and you get counseling and those kinds of things. Your parents kind of come on the weekend and that kind of stuff. But I was there about six months. And so right when I turned 18, so about a year and a half total,"
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"text": " Then when I turned 18, right after that I was released. I had credit card fraud. I had breaking and entering on two places. I probably had five or six felonies all listed in that whole mess before I'm 18. I got out after I'm 18. I think that was around September or so."
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"text": " I had a friend who had just gotten out of the Navy and I'm thinking like, I'm going to enlist in the Navy because every time you see the Navy guys, they're always partying. They're always hanging out, having a good time in the bars with the girls, you know, so I'm going to join the Navy and I go down to the recruiter and talk to him and he does a few things and he's like, well, Mr. Martinez, I'm sorry, but we can't, we can't take you. You have all these charges."
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"text": " I'm like, oh, should I go? But I was a juvenile, he goes. It doesn't matter. It's pulling up in the system. So we called the public defender who had represented me, and he's now in private practice at this time. And so we get a court date and go in front of the judge. I tell him what I'm trying to do. And good old Judge Dorn, he goes, you know, Mr. Martinez, I think this is a good thing for you. You want to serve your country? Slams it down. He says, all those charges are dismissed. Just completely dismissed as if I had never been found guilty. Nice."
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"text": " Yeah, it was just, he did me such a huge solid, you know, and we go back to the recruiter and I'm in there and he's like, where are you just in here? He goes, I can't take you. I can't take you. I go, look it up. And so he punches in. He's like, well, Mr. Martinez, welcome, welcome. So I take the, I take the as bad and I squirt pretty high on it. And it's the test for the military."
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"text": " I couldn't do was nuke nuclear, like thank God. And, um, but they wanted me, I signed up to be a cryptological technician with like the highest clerics thinking you could ever get, you know, I was going to decode secret messages that work on the machines and sitting in some little room with two other people on some NSA building, you know? Right. Yeah. Like I'm the worst, the worst one you ever want. And so I'm in my, I, so I went into the Navy and, um,"
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"text": " Bootcamp was very horrible, had some bad experiences in the Navy, but I'm going there and they're interviewing me to go to this CT school and my high school diploma says graduated from Los Angeles Department of Probation. So, you know, it's like, well, why did you graduate from there? I ran away a few times. So that never ended up happening out. So I ended up doing some other things in the Navy and just"
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"text": " Drinking my whole way through and I went from E1 to E2 to E3 to E2 to E3 to E2, E3, E4. Yeah. Yeah. In about five years yet. Are these for charges or for being written up or? Yeah. Yeah. Not criminal charges. No, I went to Captain's Mass twice. So I was in Plattsburgh, New York and we're walking along and I find this money order on the ground for a hundred bucks."
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"text": " No name written out on it, no nothing. And the receipt part's on the back, the carbon and everything. I'm like, well, I'm just going to write it. I was married. I got married at 19. I can talk about that after, but I was married. And so I just write my wife's name on there to me and go in and cash it. Well, it turns out it was either the commander or the executive commander of the whole entire base there in Plattsburgh, New York. His wife had dropped it. So they were able to search it. And next thing you know, I'm getting called in"
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"text": " And so I'm sure in a legal world, I did nothing wrong, but you know, when you're supposed to be of the highest ethical standards, you tell them I was definitely that my wife wrote me a bad money order. You need to talk to my wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish I wish I was that kind of person. Well, like just. OK, just."
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"text": " It's like even even even when I was at the airport, you know, and I'm just like I automatically have always taken the rap like With houses that we broke into there were three other ones of us that were in there Like I just always just ate it, you know, I'm figured I'm caught I'm already busted, you know, so Why why throw other people into the mix? but I was upset about that and I had to do base restriction and Horrible. Yeah, and so and then I"
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"text": " Another time we were flying in Tampa and we landed and so we have 12 hours before your next flight where you have to stay sober so we had to do a lot of repairs on the plane and a lot of communications equipment and those kind of things and so we go and I'm only 18, 19 at the time and so I think I heard when you said on one of your interviews you talked about you went into the bank and threw lamination over an ID to change something."
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"text": " Yeah, we could do that with our military ID. I'd outline a number with tape, and then I'd put another piece of tape over it and rip it off, and the transparency of that number would stick on the sticky part of the tape. And then I laid it over my 1969. And so, I got so shit-faced that night, and I'm swimming in the wrong hotel pool at a holiday in naked"
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"text": " It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home."
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"text": " A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts."
},
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"text": " naked and hopped a big juniper tree over the eight-foot cinder block before they caught me. And then I made the jump to the tree and just slid down and that was about it. So we're in the back of the police car and the ops like, so what's your name? And I'm like, Martinez, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just give him my social security number. E3, United States Navy. That's it. Like I'm a prisoner of war or something. You know, just stupid, stupid."
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"text": " And they pull in the, you know, they park the police car always and they go to the locker room, put in their guns. Well, they took me out before one of them had put in their weapon and he starts to take it out and I grabbed for the weapon. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm like half blacked out. I grabbed for the weapon. They pull me back. And, and, um, what's going on YouTube, R. Dan here, federal prison time consulting. Hope you guys are all having a great day."
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"text": " If you're seeing and hearing this right now, that means you're watching Matt Cox on Inside True Crime. At the end of Matt's video, there will be a link in the description where you can book a free consultation with yours truly, R. Dap Dan, where we can discuss things that could potentially mitigate your circumstances to receive the best possible outcome at sentencing or even after you started your prison sentence. Prior to sentencing, we can focus on things like your personal narrative, your character reference letters,"
},
{
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"start_time": 1155.879,
"text": " Prepping you properly for the pre-sentence interview, which is going to determine a lot of what type of sentence you receive. If you've already been sentenced, we can also focus on the residential drug abuse program, how you can knock off one year off of your sentence. Also, we have the First Step Act, where you can earn FSA credits while serving your sentence. For every 30 days that you program through the FSA, you can actually knock an additional 15 days off per month."
},
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"end_time": 1208.114,
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"start_time": 1178.968,
"text": " These are huge benefits and the only way you're going to find out more is by clicking on the link, booking your free consultation today. Alright guys, see you soon at the end of the video. Peace. I'm out of here. Back to you, Matt. It took me about eight hours or so to wake up in the cell because we were drinking B-52s and Bloody Marys and so much to get it all in before our 12-hour window closed. And that's pretty serious. That kind of thing could have put me away for"
},
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"text": " Who knows how long, you know, at that point. And so I missed my flight, which was pretty bad because we were a specialty crew. So to miss my flight was pretty horrific in the Navy's eyes. And so, but they came and they got me out and no charges, no charges pressed on me or nothing. And I went in front of the captain again and that was pretty much it. I lost my clearance, lost my wings, lost everything."
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"text": " So you, you were, the last we talked, you had caught naked in the pool, missed your flight back in front of it. Yeah. Grabbed the pop gun in the, in the holding area and yeah. You're nuts. I don't know what I was getting. Uh, back in front of the captain. Yeah. Cause I was Navy. So it was the second time around. I had a, they were familiar with me when I first checked into the base because I was there for training."
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"index": 44,
"start_time": 1269.019,
"text": " at the same base and the same unit I was in. And so I was in training, I was dating this girl out in town and she had given me a calling card to call her when I was out in California because I was stationed in Maryland. And so I met another girl. And then so when I left California, I was calling this girl with that calling card. And, you know, this is back in the 80s. So, you know, it was a buck a minute on AT&T and, you know, so a racket. Yeah, yeah. What a racket they had."
},
{
"end_time": 1324.838,
"index": 45,
"start_time": 1298.643,
"text": " I was sitting on an airplane flying to a boot camp in Orlando, and this guy's got his laptop open. And I said, so what are you doing? What do you do? And he says, well, I'm a finance manager. And he goes, I'm just reviewing some stock things. I go, you got any good picks? And he said, yeah. He goes, MCI. So MCI had started as a multi-level marketing through Amway, and then they went"
},
{
"end_time": 1354.787,
"index": 46,
"start_time": 1325.162,
"text": " So you were back at the base? Back at the base. Restriction. I mean I had to stay on base so my wife's home alone and you know they sent me through this alcohol class and"
},
{
"end_time": 1385.247,
"index": 47,
"start_time": 1355.265,
"text": " They said, well, you're just an abuser and not an alcoholic, but just a binger. So I did this little thing, but I ended up getting out at E4, which I was the same rank as everybody that I was in training with that didn't get busted twice. I managed to pass the test the first time around. I felt good about that and I ended up getting an honorable discharge."
},
{
"end_time": 1413.78,
"index": 48,
"start_time": 1385.845,
"text": " Well, you got for this, for that, that issue, they asked you to leave or you just? No, I finished out my time there. I finished out my time in the service and so, but I just, I couldn't fly anymore. I couldn't do what our unit was doing and those kinds of things anymore. So I had lost my Clarence, everything. So I pretty much everywhere and everybody that I knew I was isolated from because I"
},
{
"end_time": 1442.432,
"index": 49,
"start_time": 1414.804,
"text": " I got out of the service in 1994 and I grew up in California, originally Northern California. I was born in the hospital of my last name, Martinez California. So we're living in Southern California now and got my real estate license. My parents sold real estate. I was familiar with that because"
},
{
"end_time": 1470.162,
"index": 50,
"start_time": 1442.824,
"text": " My dad would give me a stack of flyers like this and pay me $0.25 an hour and I'd put a few on the doors and throw the rest in the dumpster and come home until the trash day and then all the flyers went out all over the floor, all over the ground and the street and people are calling them, this is where Tina is, get your flyers off my lawn. If I've done it wrong, I've been caught for it. I don't know"
},
{
"end_time": 1500.179,
"index": 51,
"start_time": 1470.486,
"text": " Do you know people like that that just whatever they do they end up getting caught? Like the dumbest things that just Yeah, I definitely Like you think I would learn by now, but I am my second ex-wife said I suffered from hot stove syndrome that Every time I touch the hot stove and burn myself. I just believe the next time it's not gonna be hot and right that seems to be that somewhat of the truth but I am so I was married and"
},
{
"end_time": 1530.657,
"index": 52,
"start_time": 1500.708,
"text": " Tried doing the real estate. Those things didn't really work out well. We traveled quite a bit, California, Oregon. I was licensed, real estate license in California, Oregon and had my license in Maryland when I was their station there. But the market in that time was just horrible. They were laying off engineers and everything. So I ended up moving out to Cleveland, Ohio and lived there for a while. Got divorced."
},
{
"end_time": 1558.797,
"index": 53,
"start_time": 1530.828,
"text": " Just drinking constantly. And odd jobs here and there. And I had a lot of PTSD from childhood and from the service. So it's difficult for me to, like I get brilliant ideas, but to follow through on them is, uh, it's tough to stay with, you know, everybody has, everybody has that book syrup or something. It's like, everybody has three,"
},
{
"end_time": 1584.462,
"index": 54,
"start_time": 1559.514,
"text": " I think my favorite that I came up with is endangered species animal crackers. I thought you can't hunt them but you can eat them. I thought that would be great. Get Sierra Club to come and sponsor the spotted owl and talk about it a little bit and then you could have the spotted owl and dip it in some peanut butter and"
},
{
"end_time": 1615.299,
"index": 55,
"start_time": 1585.811,
"text": " We've got to make that phone call to the animal cracker people. I looked it up a couple years ago and someone's doing it now. You could partner with National Geographic. They could sell it to zoos. I thought it would just be great. We're giving a portion of the profit, a very small portion, to the Sierra Club or Greenpeace."
},
{
"end_time": 1644.411,
"index": 56,
"start_time": 1615.725,
"text": " Yeah, yeah, like have little clubs and baby seals there as an animal cracker and you can just eat them away. Yeah, so I got divorced in Cleveland. And then living there for a while and got remarried again. And I was just desperate, you know, like clinging on to anything, you know, I was living on my own barely paying rent. And I lived in this little artsy neighborhood where"
},
{
"end_time": 1673.916,
"index": 57,
"start_time": 1645.435,
"text": " people would come and it was like Michael Simon's first restaurant there I know if you know him he's on a show called the chew but he has a restaurant there called Lola's and he got his start there and so but surrounded by it is all projects you know so people come in on the weekends and go to the art galleries and eat at the restaurants and we call them tourists you know and I used to love to go there in the beginning and watch the local people watch the locals and then after a few years you realize you're the one being people watched"
},
{
"end_time": 1703.336,
"index": 58,
"start_time": 1674.394,
"text": " I got pulled over a few times for drinking and wrecked a few cars and never got any kind of trouble with alcohol, no DUIs, nothing like that. And my second wife worked for the Department of Justice and so I got pulled over one time doing 95 on the freeway and at 60 and went and so we're"
},
{
"end_time": 1731.101,
"index": 59,
"start_time": 1703.78,
"text": " on the way back to the police station and I said, so what's the bond on this? And he goes, well, it's a hundred bucks. I'm like, you know, my ATM is right by the police station. Can you just take me through? And he took me through. I pulled out my hundred bucks and yeah, you're like, I released the, I released the cup and I did the ATMs. I'm in the backseat at the ATM and I go there, I bought myself out and you gave it to him and said, let's go."
},
{
"end_time": 1752.961,
"index": 60,
"start_time": 1731.408,
"text": " I ended up getting what's called a physical control. I don't know if they have"
},
{
"end_time": 1783.285,
"index": 61,
"start_time": 1753.763,
"text": " So basically, I was in physical control of the vehicle, but not driving, but doing 95 reckless driving on the freeway. So I didn't get a DUI at all. And I've been fortunate that way my whole life, like the Judge Dorn incident. And when I was in Cleveland, I would meet some people and like, if anybody talked crap to me or whatever, and we're about to go outside and have a fight, they're just like, no, no, no, we got this."
},
{
"end_time": 1813.985,
"index": 62,
"start_time": 1784.121,
"text": " And so it's kind of a pattern in my life. I don't know, like there's felt like there's always something there looking out for me in some way, like grabbing the cop's gun and not getting, you know, five years for that. And, um, and you can say one time we're playing pool and this guy comes up and he's talking crap and, and I start to walk outside, we're going to go outside. And, uh, this other guy is like boots. He says, no, no, we got this. Um, and,"
},
{
"end_time": 1844.172,
"index": 63,
"start_time": 1814.838,
"text": " I'm like, I'm going to come with you. He's like, no, no, no, you don't want to come out here. And so about a half hour later, you hear the ambulance is coming and they beat the shit out of that guy. But like I've never had to do anything like that. Like I've probably been in two fights my whole life and that's in including prison, you know, which is crazy. So I am. So I left Cleveland and drinking real bad and went on a driving hiatus and ended up in Las Vegas."
},
{
"end_time": 1874.48,
"index": 64,
"start_time": 1844.855,
"text": " I had a little money from schooling I was going to get for the VA Veterans Administration and so I ended up in Vegas. I was heading back to Ohio but I got as far as Vegas and just lost it all there and I'm homeless at this point. I come out to Phoenix from Vegas and I met a girl from, I knew her back from Ohio and she was super to me and everything. When I got out there I was just a wreck."
},
{
"end_time": 1903.592,
"index": 65,
"start_time": 1874.684,
"text": " You know, and I get out to Phoenix and I'm homeless and I don't know if you've ever seen the homeless situation out there. They got an area where it's just 10 city and they would lock you up in this area at night because they have like a shelter, but the shelter is always overfilled with people. But if you stay there, you could get meals and you know, the VA system was there inside the center and"
},
{
"end_time": 1934.019,
"index": 66,
"start_time": 1904.582,
"text": " I just couldn't do it anymore. So I started talking to some people and the VA gave me my own apartment because I was homeless and my record, my discharge anyway with the military would be honorably discharged. And they gave me my own apartment and my neighbor, he would, I'd see him and he'd be kind of nodded out and happy or whatever. And I asked somebody and they said he shot heroin. And I said, like, ah, I want to do that, you know, like, and, um,"
},
{
"end_time": 1958.882,
"index": 67,
"start_time": 1934.804,
"text": " Man, that first time, Matthew, it's like a calm came over me that all of those feelings that I had or lack of feelings inside of me just went away. It was for the first time I felt normal, if that makes any kind of sense. The problem with that is after three, four more hours, you're not feeling so normal anymore."
},
{
"end_time": 1985.316,
"index": 68,
"start_time": 1959.582,
"text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Now what to do with your unwanted bills? Ever seen an origami version of the Miami Bull?"
},
{
"end_time": 2012.858,
"index": 69,
"start_time": 1985.776,
"text": " Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Rankings based on root, metric, true, square, apartheid, or 1H2025, your results may vary. Must provide a post-paid consumer mobile bill dated within the past 45 days. Bill must be in the same name as the person who made the deal. Additional terms apply. Drink or anything. And so I was managing that way, holding signs and asking for money."
},
{
"end_time": 2042.125,
"index": 70,
"start_time": 2013.66,
"text": " I was never one to steal from people. I couldn't go rob a beauty salon or something like that. If somebody came to me and wanted something, I would get it for them and bring it back and not take from that. I'd expect them to do the right thing. Like I said, when I was holding the signs, all the people with fancy cars would roll out. I'd just say, homeless vet, please help."
},
{
"end_time": 2068.951,
"index": 71,
"start_time": 2042.568,
"text": " and all the fancy car people and most of them would roll up the windows and you know very just you know that face and the people that would give me money were you know the the people that look like they didn't have any money the hispanic lady with three kids in the back seat would give me 20 bucks and i just like i can't do this this is horrible like what you know it makes you reflect on yourself like what kind of person am i you know like you can tell this lady doesn't"
},
{
"end_time": 2098.797,
"index": 72,
"start_time": 2069.565,
"text": " seem like she has that much money to feed her kids or anything, you know, and here she's given to me to support my drug habit. And I've been pretty isolated from my parents, so I never asked them for money and that kind of thing. So I met a guy and he's staying in my apartment. He's a heroin addict also. So one day his friend comes up to me and says, hey man, your roommate said he was going to do this, go to this bank and walk in."
},
{
"end_time": 2128.319,
"index": 73,
"start_time": 2099.309,
"text": " What did you do? You wrote a note?"
},
{
"end_time": 2159.104,
"index": 74,
"start_time": 2129.462,
"text": " I wrote a note and I had long hair. I'm kind of growing it long now, but I had long hair before that, about down to here. And so I cut my hair and I threw on the little Irish, you know, golfer Irish hat and I had a long sleeve shirt on and pants, but like I went and got the elastic, like grandma pants, you know? And so underneath my long sleeve shirt was a short sleeve t-shirt and underneath my pants were shorts."
},
{
"end_time": 2190.486,
"index": 75,
"start_time": 2160.503,
"text": " And I stashed a backpack in this underground garage. Um, and so when I, so I went into the bank and I wrote a note, I put it on the counter and he's just looking at me and I see his hand go like this. I'm like, don't you press that button? Don't you press that button? And he goes like this, just right in my face. Like, there you go. Stick it, you know, press the button. And I was so nervous, like, uh,"
},
{
"end_time": 2217.381,
"index": 76,
"start_time": 2191.51,
"text": " Like it's just pure adrenaline at that time because I, you know, I got the discovery back and I never even put the glasses down over my face. I'm staring at the camera like, you know, when they get the discovery. And so you didn't get any money. No, I got about three grand. He gave me the money and hit the button and hit the button. And so he gave me the money and"
},
{
"end_time": 2247.619,
"index": 77,
"start_time": 2217.773,
"text": " So I went down into the garage, did the little switcheroo, threw the stuff in the backpack and I had a little black bag like this and threw stuff in the backpack, walked through the parking garage, came up an elevator that was on another side and took another walkway and up another elevator to street level and then went across and then I got on the light rail there in Phoenix and as I'm coming across the police are pulling into the bank and I'm just like, and so"
},
{
"end_time": 2275.265,
"index": 78,
"start_time": 2247.995,
"text": " That was the first. That was a U.S. bank there on Central. No weapon or nothing. I was very polite in my notes. I said, good morning. I think the first one I put, this is a burglary. This is a burglary. I said a few things and like, thank you, and gave them the note."
},
{
"end_time": 2305.35,
"index": 79,
"start_time": 2276.305,
"text": " But you know, I think I've watched a few of the videos like you don't really get very much when you go in and do the teller like with a note or unless you're doing some giant takeover. Yeah, unless you go after the cash. Yeah. And if you go into the, a lot of these guys will tell you if you go into the cash drawer, like someone, they'll have a main drawer with 10,000, but usually those have per year and all kinds of problems. I got, I got one of those, like my, my third bank. Yeah. Cause I got like, uh,"
},
{
"end_time": 2335.06,
"index": 80,
"start_time": 2305.759,
"text": " Right. And so then I went and"
},
{
"end_time": 2361.544,
"index": 81,
"start_time": 2336.015,
"text": " Trying to think which was next. That's the one with the head teller, way on the north side of town. I had a driver for that, but he didn't know what was going on. I just said, look, you're going to go here and you're going to park right here and I'll be back in a few minutes. Then I got back in the car and I'm like, go, go, go, go. I got the main teller in that one."
},
{
"end_time": 2392.022,
"index": 82,
"start_time": 2364.411,
"text": " He figured out what was going on, you know, so obviously now one person knows and then my roommates know and you know, that's never good. And so, and so by the time I did another one right next to the first one on central and they had one of those machines where almost like a printer machine, but it's a little small ATM machine. And so I go in there and she gives me a thousand dollars. I'm like, what the fuck is this? She didn't even open a drawer or nothing."
},
{
"end_time": 2420.384,
"index": 83,
"start_time": 2392.517,
"text": " She goes, I have to print it from the machine unless they go back into the vault and that's going to take some time. And then she goes, if you want to wait five minutes, I can print out another thousand kind of like a drop drawer at a, you know, like circle K or seven 11, something like that. They have those drop drawers and I'm like, ah, so that was like a thousand bucks out of that. That's rough. My average, you know, but uh, but after that second one we got robbed. Um,"
},
{
"end_time": 2449.94,
"index": 84,
"start_time": 2420.776,
"text": " Cause my roommate was real sloppy. He would get all Xanaxed out and have these periods of heroin Xanax, three day blackouts. And so he had people come into her house and late at night cause he was selling and we got robbed and he's getting pistol whipped and I jumped and come trying to do a Superman and ran right into a fist. And, and, and so I had about four grand in those, you know, those Russian maternity dolls, like the one inside the other, inside the other, inside the other."
},
{
"end_time": 2478.814,
"index": 85,
"start_time": 2450.555,
"text": " So I'd rolled all the cash and put it in that it was on my dresser and I think the guy knew I had money. I think it was a setup like someone knew told him I had money or something because he was going through the whole house. He's looking under the mattress unless he was just looking for dope money, but we weren't those kind of dealer people, you know, and he picks that thing up and he puts it down. He moves it over and you couldn't find anything. You know, so he just stole my phone on my TV, but it's you know, that's the"
},
{
"end_time": 2508.217,
"index": 86,
"start_time": 2479.377,
"text": " I'm lucky we didn't get shot because a guy was getting pissed, my buddy was getting pistol whipped and I grabbed the guy with the knife and just, uh, crazy, crazy things, you know, but that's what happens when you're, when you're living that life, you know? And, uh, so I, I did the third one and then they, um, they started putting me on the news. Those bastards. Those bastards. Yeah. Do you have the clip? I don't know if you have the clip or not. Um,"
},
{
"end_time": 2536.971,
"index": 87,
"start_time": 2508.831,
"text": " Did I send it to you? The YouTube clip? I don't think so. Yeah, send it to me for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up, they started putting me on the news and they, I come home and my roommate said, dude, you were just on the news. You're just on the news. I'm like, ah, shit. And so I did, um, one more bank after that. And then I decided, you know what? This is it. I bought a Lincoln. Like, uh, this is 2016. So I bought it like a 2004 Lincoln."
},
{
"end_time": 2566.971,
"index": 88,
"start_time": 2537.466,
"text": " limo editions, special edition windows tinted and I'm like, you know, this is cool. I got money now. I'm driving my dealer around. I'm so I'm getting hooked up. I'm getting hooked up, you know, like every day. I don't have to worry about money to do my habit, you know, cause I, I wasn't looking to get rich off of the banks. I was just looking to not get sick. Right. And so like I'm hooked up. I got, I'm driving my dealer around, making deliveries for him, going here, going there."
},
{
"end_time": 2596.271,
"index": 89,
"start_time": 2568.131,
"text": " And so, some crazy things started happening. Like, I feel like we're being followed. He's like, no. No, you know, he's selling meth, so everybody out there, huh? Well, who would follow us? Yeah, right? You've only robbed three bags. Right, right. And I'm driving around with him with, you know, a couple ounces of heroin and meth and then shotgun in the back. And like, who would follow us?"
},
{
"end_time": 2621.954,
"index": 90,
"start_time": 2596.852,
"text": " Look at all heroin now driving the Lincoln. My excuse was, that was called livery service in Arizona. My justification for it, if I ever got pulled over, I had nothing in the front. It was all in the back and I don't know what he brought in the car. It wasn't me."
},
{
"end_time": 2649.531,
"index": 91,
"start_time": 2622.483,
"text": " So I just figured that was the, you know, that was a safe way to go about it. I was like, man, I feel like I'm being followed. And, uh, this was about, um, September, uh, 2016 and like I would park, we park somewhere and this van would come around to the side, like a little mini van, but it would be like a, a lady with her two kids. Right. And so,"
},
{
"end_time": 2679.548,
"index": 92,
"start_time": 2649.855,
"text": " They followed us all the way to this place and then they parked there. I'm like, what's up? So I started walking and they just tires peel and take off. It's like this, uh, some mulling a lady with two kids in the car. And so I'm starting to get more paranoid. It's definitely not the police. No, that was definitely not the police, but we're being followed. And so I like what? So I, one time on the freeway, I feel like, uh, I'm like,"
},
{
"end_time": 2709.753,
"index": 93,
"start_time": 2679.804,
"text": " Man, this is crazy. So I'm on the main freeway there in Phoenix and everybody's going, anybody who knows Phoenix, they're doing 80 if they're doing anything. And I slow down to like 40 miles an hour on the freeway in the center lane. And the two cars that I thought were following me wouldn't pass me. And I'm like, this is odd. This is really odd. And there's a big SUV and I don't know what the person was driving it. So then I take off and I'm doing 95."
},
{
"end_time": 2737.568,
"index": 94,
"start_time": 2710.725,
"text": " And the guy's right on my tail. And then a police car comes flashing his lights, and I think he's pulling me over. And then he gets in front of the car and me, and they pulled him over. I'm like, this is odd. I don't understand this. And so that went on for about three months. And later to come and find out they had a GPS on my car."
},
{
"end_time": 2766.544,
"index": 95,
"start_time": 2738.746,
"text": " So I don't know if they have some kind of – they take their CIs to follow people when they're doing this but I don't know. It was just – or maybe he made some bad deals. My buddy made some bad deals and they were following us. I don't know but it was – odd things were happening though. Like I had a Garmin that you would put a cell phone chip into for location and so"
},
{
"end_time": 2795.742,
"index": 96,
"start_time": 2767.159,
"text": " But I never used it. It was in my drawer. So I come home one day and I had this girl living with me. She was pregnant, not my kid. And so I come and I sit sitting out on the couch. And then I pull out the chip, the SIM card that was in it. And it was a different SIM card. Okay. And so, yeah, just odd. I don't know, just really strange things."
},
{
"end_time": 2826.442,
"index": 97,
"start_time": 2796.459,
"text": " I'm coming to find out I had several people confidential informants on my on my case so I don't know how many people told you know the FBI what and so yeah I don't know odd things maybe they're trying to keep track of me my Bluetooth I had a Sony Bluetooth speaker that was I'd come home and it would be on and connected to some other phone or some other Bluetooth and they were friends"
},
{
"end_time": 2856.425,
"index": 98,
"start_time": 2826.834,
"text": " This girl staying with me was friends with the neighbor next door. So I don't know if the FBI was over there listening to me or trying on the speaker. I don't know. You know, I don't know what kind of tactics they do, but it was just started getting very insane. And then almost 90 days after they put the words on for the GPS on my car, which I found this out later, but they came and raided me and I had bars on my windows on my, the screen door was a barred screen door."
},
{
"end_time": 2887.056,
"index": 99,
"start_time": 2857.176,
"text": " and bars on the windows and it's right when the sun comes up that's when they get you you know right when the sun comes up and I wake up I'm sick I can't see straight and like like I'll be right there oh it's working door right now I'm like hold on I gotta get so close I'd be right there and I had a dough ball in the house and you know I'm sick because I overslept and I'm banging I put on shorts and I'm like trying to wipe the"
},
{
"end_time": 2917.551,
"index": 100,
"start_time": 2887.756,
"text": " The powdery stuff off the counter and I had a gram of dope and I couldn't, you know, I had no time to do it. I couldn't smoke it or shoot it, so I put it in the only other place I could get away with hiding it for a while, you know? And so they came and they had that bar that comes through, this long bar trying to pull down the blinds to see me and I come out with the pants on and shirt and shoes, no socks, and they put me on the ground and cuffed me and"
},
{
"end_time": 2944.48,
"index": 101,
"start_time": 2918.439,
"text": " And the girl that was with me, she was there and they just let her go. You know, just let her go. So I, I think there was quite a few things going on there, but you know, people keeping an eye on me to make sure I wasn't running off or that kind of thing. So, but then the only thing I like about all of this is they, they referenced me to James Bond in the,"
},
{
"end_time": 2974.002,
"index": 102,
"start_time": 2946.732,
"text": " In the news thing, and they call me the Golden Eye Bandit because I wear these silver rimmed glasses. So the news thing, I'll send you the clip. I think I sent you the YouTube video too in one of the first texts, but I'll send it again. Yeah, maybe it was a link or something. Yeah, it's a link to the ABC news there."
},
{
"end_time": 3002.227,
"index": 103,
"start_time": 2974.445,
"text": " I didn't see it. It was a news clip of them talking about you, right? Yeah, it's like Bond, James Bond. There's a new Goldeneye in town. Right. Yeah, so they had me blasted. Goldeneye banned it all. They put it on that national syndicated news list all over the country and everything. So it was a matter of time before they got me, but I didn't really care."
},
{
"end_time": 3031.8,
"index": 104,
"start_time": 3003.968,
"text": " I didn't care so much. No, I'm just saying I didn't care so much that I got arrested. Like I was just dying. Like I've just spent, you know, like at this point I'm just white, you know? Right. You were going to say? Obviously. So what did they say when they grab you? They get you, they bring you in the little room, the FBI agents come in and sit down. Yeah. So they, they take me to some building right across from the main justice center, federal justice center there in Phoenix."
},
{
"end_time": 3060.93,
"index": 105,
"start_time": 3032.176,
"text": " and they're fingerprinting me and they don't really tell me, they didn't say why I was being arrested and I didn't ask, you know, which is an obvious sign of guilt, right? What are you doing here? And, um, and so he asked me a few questions and then he was lawyered up. You know, I said, I want an attorney. He, um, he asked me about my cell phone number and then he asked me, um, if I had ever been in this part of town or something like that. And I just said, you know what, I think I should get an attorney and I just lawyered up and"
},
{
"end_time": 3091.749,
"index": 106,
"start_time": 3061.749,
"text": " I'm"
},
{
"end_time": 3120.469,
"index": 107,
"start_time": 3091.937,
"text": " Benches, you know, and I'm just falling over on all the people there. They got caught crossing the border and everything else. I mean, I was just out of it. And I got a rain that day and sent straight off to Florence, which is the big prison town. Basically they have state there. They have the core civic for the feds. I think they have a, if you're like a probation violation person, you might have another little area there for a federal and right."
},
{
"end_time": 3150.657,
"index": 108,
"start_time": 3121.425,
"text": " Yeah, that started my whole prison experience. Well, what happened? What did they offer you? I mean, did they, did you say I'm just a child? I don't know what you're talking about. Like at what point did somebody come up and say, Hey, this is why they arrested you. This is what you're looking at. I realized then it was for the banks after that, you know, like, cause then they, uh, that initial parents before the judge, uh, you know, they said four counts of bank robbery. And, um, so I had a public defender and, you know,"
},
{
"end_time": 3180.265,
"index": 109,
"start_time": 3151.118,
"text": " Looking over the discovery and you know seeing my picture like this up at the camera and you know I mean I knew I was had so I didn't fight my case and it took a year to get through the whole process not even trying to fight my case because I figured you know everybody someone there has that big giant book that says the federal sentencing beat the feds or something like that or"
},
{
"end_time": 3209.599,
"index": 110,
"start_time": 3180.435,
"text": " Busted by the feds. Busted by the feds. That's it. It's like this big and the two things I got out of it is one, they win 95 to 98% of their cases and two, if you take it to the box, you're screwed and you lose. You're screwed. And so, um, and I had no one else on my case. Like it wasn't like I could, you know, I mean, I guess I could have snitched, I could have snitched on the driver, but what good have that done? You know what I mean? It's like, at this point I figured out like, um,"
},
{
"end_time": 3239.906,
"index": 111,
"start_time": 3210.23,
"text": " You know, unless you're... I was gonna say, and all you've done is hand people a note. Like, you didn't have a god, so that would have been a problem. No, no weapon. Yeah, no weapon at all, and my notes were nice, and, you know, polite, and I... You didn't hand them a harshly worded, it was a harshly worded note? No. No, it was like, it was like, thank you! You know, it was basically, I put the 150s and 20s on the counter, removed the bands, spread them open, because I didn't want a GPS chip, you know."
},
{
"end_time": 3269.804,
"index": 112,
"start_time": 3240.111,
"text": " And then the first one I left a note, the other ones I realized I should take the note because the first one, I remember he pulled it back because they wanted to keep it as evidence for DNA and those kinds of things. So the other ones, I took the notes, but they had the shot down with the camera on them. So it took me, they kept delaying the final sensing and that type of thing."
},
{
"end_time": 3297.995,
"index": 113,
"start_time": 3270.043,
"text": " I'm just like, look, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't want this to be a problem, but I was a, I had no prior criminal record on anything like the, that charges for my kid, you know, being in a juvenile never showed up. I had, um, I had another incident when I was in Cleveland, where I, my wife worked for a bank and we split up and I was, we had two separate bank accounts. So I was depositing money here and withdrawing it over here and back and forth and back and forth."
},
{
"end_time": 3326.288,
"index": 114,
"start_time": 3298.695,
"text": " The next thing you know, you're about six grand overdrawn. Right. Yeah, so I had three felony charges on that and I ended up attempting to pass a bad check misdemeanor. I paid the money back, released that day, no probation, attempting to pass a bad check misdemeanor and that was it. So they didn't do anything with that on my criminal history."
},
{
"end_time": 3356.92,
"index": 115,
"start_time": 3327.278,
"text": " So I basically had nothing on my criminal history, but I was still a 38 on the list. Because I think bank robbery is like a 32 or 34, something like that. Just with or without a gun. A gun is just an enhancement. But they counted each one. Each bank was another one point enhancement from the first. So I was looking at five to six years, I think, was my column."
},
{
"end_time": 3387.193,
"index": 116,
"start_time": 3358.387,
"text": " But some things started happening there. When I look back at my experience in prison, to me, prison saved my life. I don't know how to explain it. I've always been kind of a spiritual person, not really a big religion person, but I've always researched other ways of thinking and following. So when I was there at Flores, I'm watching this movie, Battleship, I think."
},
{
"end_time": 3417.91,
"index": 117,
"start_time": 3388.422,
"text": " Chris Pine's end or something like that. And then in the beginning, he was talking to him about, what is it? I'm not going to think of it. The book, The Odyssey. And you know, the old Greek book, The Odyssey, and the travels through everywhere and all the Greek mythology and all that. And like, I want to read that book. I would love to read that book. And two days later, it comes on the book cart. Like, who gets Homer's Odyssey on the book cart?"
},
{
"end_time": 3446.681,
"index": 118,
"start_time": 3418.575,
"text": " I'm like, I'm like, this is fucking cool. This is way cool. It is a sign. And so I'm thinking like, this is like a complete synchronicity. Like I knew about it, but I'd never experienced it before. I'm like, this is a complete synchronicity. And then I get Celestine prophecies come in on the book cart when I, and that's all about synchronicities and those kinds of things in life that everything leads you to the next thing. There's really not any coincidences, so to speak."
},
{
"end_time": 3473.592,
"index": 119,
"start_time": 3447.773,
"text": " And so I'm like, man, this is super cool. So now two things have happened. I'm like, I want to keep on this pursuit. And so I'm like, I want to read something else. And this book came in called Scientific Christian. It was written back in like 1870s, and it's a very theosophy kind of book, the whole manifestation, but from a very God-centered kind of way. And so I read through that."
},
{
"end_time": 3503.848,
"index": 120,
"start_time": 3474.343,
"text": " And then I found another one when I was finished with that book, it'd be like the next time the book cart comes that week, there was one was about this stick and it's called The Power of Mind by Ernest Holmes. And it just blew me away. The whole process of changing your thinking and you know that what you think about you bring about, you know, like I've been through some cognitive behavioral therapy kind of things, you know, where you create, you know, you create your core and what are your values and those kinds of things."
},
{
"end_time": 3530.265,
"index": 121,
"start_time": 3504.633,
"text": " Your thoughts become words and then they become actions. I started to really develop that sense and so by the time I'm getting ready to finally go for my sentencing, my attorney asked me, he's like, the FBI really want to talk to you. I'm like, what? I'm getting six years, I go talk to the FBI, I got nothing to tell them and what"
},
{
"end_time": 3555.35,
"index": 122,
"start_time": 3530.759,
"text": " What am I going to do? At the worst case, I get one year off and then I go in and everybody knows I'm a snitch. That was my thought process anyway. I'm like, no, I don't have anything to talk to them about. He goes, just talk to them, just talk to them. They delayed my sentencing one more time and I went in and I'm like, okay, what? He goes, first of all, is there any money left?"
},
{
"end_time": 3584.599,
"index": 123,
"start_time": 3556.237,
"text": " You know, did you hide any money? Is there any money left? I'm like, no, I only got like 20 grand out of the four banks. So and so I'm like, no, he's like, I go with what he goes. How did you pick your banks? And so I explained to them that they used to have a web page, an FBI most wanted web page for bank robbers. And so you could look up on there all the banks and you could sort it out by state and then by city."
},
{
"end_time": 3613.063,
"index": 124,
"start_time": 3584.906,
"text": " and then you could sort out by weapon or they got away and it would say it would read and how long ago so it's kind of like a sorting protocol for bank robberies right in the area over a given the best thanks to Rob paid that's what I use them for because I'm like well this makes sense they're rough three months ago two three months ago they went in without a weapon and they got away with the undisclosed amount of cash so that tells me there's no guard there no no security"
},
{
"end_time": 3639.548,
"index": 125,
"start_time": 3613.473,
"text": " They don't have door locks where they lock you in the bank and they all run in the back or anything like that. And so I did that and then so I explained that to them like, ah, interesting. And then I use Google Maps, you know, like I, I just, the first one, I already had a plan to get out walking, but the rest of my eyes, you Google Maps. Like I looked for banks by a little construction site or, you know, those kinds of things as I drive by, but places that the bank wasn't,"
},
{
"end_time": 3668.933,
"index": 126,
"start_time": 3641.22,
"text": " There were obstacles around there so they couldn't see where I came in from or they couldn't see where I left when I went out. They didn't have any other photos of me other than just in the bank and leaving the bank. That's it. No photos of buildings around me or anything like that. I shared that with them but I was so nervous because you get those 513 whatever, 513B, I don't know what it is that basically says you cooperated."
},
{
"end_time": 3696.442,
"index": 127,
"start_time": 3670.896,
"text": " Yeah, that's it. 5K1. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, this is going to give me one of those and, and I'm like, ah, and then everybody's going to think that I had someone else in my case and then they're going to know. So they, um, when they were, when I was getting my sense scene, they paused the stenographer and they paused the recording of the court case."
},
{
"end_time": 3726.732,
"index": 128,
"start_time": 3697.056,
"text": " for them to say I cooperated on I was very cooperative with them and and so forth and I ended up getting 28 months nice so I'd already done a year in the 28 months and maybe I would have gotten maybe I would have gotten that anyway you know I don't know but it just like everybody was so nice to me like I don't understand like even in prison every everybody was just so nice to me even in prison"
},
{
"end_time": 3755.503,
"index": 129,
"start_time": 3727.176,
"text": " Like I think the harshest, I almost got in a fight with my, uh, my celly. Well, he almost whooped my ass over some little spat, you know, but he's six foot four Missouri boy, you know, and he was working on that 400, 400, 400, you know, squat deadlift and bench press. Yeah. Big arms like this. And my room was, uh, well, you know, so I mean, I'll go to that later. So I got, uh, 28 months already did a year and then you do the, uh,"
},
{
"end_time": 3786.032,
"index": 130,
"start_time": 3756.084,
"text": " Everybody goes to Colorado and then I ended up going to Latuna in El Paso for, um, I did, uh, I only did like nine months there, nine months in Latuna. Uh, it was in low medium, just a real fucked up place. Yeah. That's what I heard. Yeah. They, all the guards that can't make it in other places, can't figure out how to get along with the guards or the, the inmates there. They go there. That's their shit place."
},
{
"end_time": 3815.572,
"index": 131,
"start_time": 3786.852,
"text": " It's just a messed up place. I'm just smiling because I think about the first thing I remember. The first thing someone said to me when I got to Florence was, that's not our table, bro. There was only two people and they're pods, right? So they're like these triangle pods and you got those stainless steel tables with four stools around and then you got the four TVs and"
},
{
"end_time": 3842.91,
"index": 132,
"start_time": 3815.862,
"text": " There was only two guys, two white guys sitting at a table and so I go and I sit at this table over here. He's like, that's not our table, bro. Like I wasn't sitting at the white table. Right. So yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. You need some characters, man. It's just, Florence was crazy. I got, I was watching one of your interviews and it was, they were talking about like when you have a, when you have somebody you think like, please don't, I can't stand that person. This person drives me nuts."
},
{
"end_time": 3869.787,
"index": 133,
"start_time": 3843.695,
"text": " That's exactly who you get put with. When you start thinking about it, even if it's in a negative way, that's what happens. This guy, he was completely just tweaked, even though he was sober. He's walking around and you know how they are. Oh man, I can't believe it. Can you believe it? My wife slept with my three sons. Can you believe it? I love that bitch, but I love her. Pacing, walking around pacing the whole time, all night, all day."
},
{
"end_time": 3897.995,
"index": 134,
"start_time": 3870.469,
"text": " And then one time I said something, I'm like, well, dude, why do you, why do you even write into her now anymore? But then I'm at, you know, cause I'm intruding on his thing there now and he looks at me. You think you want to get involved in this? You want to get involved in this? Like, you know, like, okay, no, no, you're right. Yeah. There's a lot of mental, a lot of mental, uh, issues going on in prison. Yeah. Like I had never, other than a few drug tanks,"
},
{
"end_time": 3925.742,
"index": 135,
"start_time": 3898.217,
"text": " and one night in a holding cell for the check thing, I'd never been, you know, in any kind of facility or anything. So I like, I had no prison sense. I had no idea what, you know, like I used to joke with my friend, like, I'm like, uh, cause I would go to Walmart when I was drinking a lot and still the big, the big bottle, like every two days, still big bottle. I did that for about six months without getting caught. And then, um,"
},
{
"end_time": 3955.947,
"index": 136,
"start_time": 3926.323,
"text": " It's like, dude, you're going to go to jail. I'm like, I don't go to jail. Like, cause all these things that had happened to me in my whole life, I'd never. Yeah. You get away with it. I kept getting away with it. Yeah. I mean the juvie thing. Yes. I mean that was, but then I went to a, you know, I went to a placement. I didn't even do like, and then the churches got dismissed. I'm like, I don't go to jail. Well, he was right. I just went straight to prison, you know? Yeah. Oh, did you get halfway house? Yeah. Three months, halfway house. And, um,"
},
{
"end_time": 3982.756,
"index": 137,
"start_time": 3956.305,
"text": " Phoenix. Halfway house was, I'd almost rather have done my three months still in Latuna than to go to the halfway house because I don't know where, you were in a camp, I couldn't go to a camp. No, I was in a medium. I went to a medium for three years, then I went to a low for like nine years and then I went, I did seven months in a halfway house."
},
{
"end_time": 4013.558,
"index": 138,
"start_time": 3983.592,
"text": " I would have rather been in the prison than prison. But I needed a halfway house. I needed to get a job. I had to save money. After 13 years, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's no money. So, you know, but the problem, like you said, the problem is the halfway house, it's so overly intrusive. It's just much, much worse. It's a much worse place than the prison. Yeah. And where I was in El Paso, they had"
},
{
"end_time": 4042.739,
"index": 139,
"start_time": 4015.026,
"text": " I wouldn't say that everybody sticks with their own race, you know how that is, you know? Right. And then the ones that aren't allowed to sit at anybody's table, they all stick together, you know? Right. But the people I came across in El Paso, many of them are, and they get funded by the federal prison system to keep taking hormones to complete their transition. And so because they're in that transition phase, any kind of"
},
{
"end_time": 4070.742,
"index": 140,
"start_time": 4043.66,
"text": " Any kind of violence against them is a hate crime, a federal hate crime. And so they're almost a protected class there in El Paso. And just everything blew me away. Anywhere. Anywhere in the federal system. Yeah. And I'm not saying there's wrong with people taking hormones or anything like that. I'm just saying it wasn't what I thought. I thought, man, because they're just walking around."
},
{
"end_time": 4099.838,
"index": 141,
"start_time": 4071.493,
"text": " I mean, mine, I taught the real estate class, you know, and I wrote stories for people, but, you know, nobody, it's not like anybody paid me for the story, but I spent my time writing stories. I spent my time doing the real estate class and then, you know,"
},
{
"end_time": 4123.66,
"index": 142,
"start_time": 4100.981,
"text": " People would send me"
},
{
"end_time": 4145.862,
"index": 143,
"start_time": 4125.162,
"text": " If they wanted a certificate, if they didn't want to go to the class, then I said, great, give me like half coffee and two creamers. So I always had hung the coffee and creamer. Worst case scenarios, my mom would send me money, but I also like I optioned a couple of guys, life rights to their stories. So that, I also got a couple of book deals."
},
{
"end_time": 4176.203,
"index": 144,
"start_time": 4146.374,
"text": " So that also paid me. You know, I got some advances. So I had a little bit, little chunks of money. Let's face it. You get a check for $3,500 in prison. You're going to be okay for a while. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I don't think a lot of people, I don't think a lot of people understand too. Like, um, I don't know states the same way or not, but feds, you pretty much have to pay for everything. Like if you want toothpaste and let you want those little clears and the toothbrush that lasts like a day and a bar soap, but everything else like shampoo and everything else you have to pay for."
},
{
"end_time": 4205.725,
"index": 145,
"start_time": 4176.766,
"text": " And my job paid me $15 a month there. So, you know, that's like two honey buns. What was that? Yeah, I had one job paid like 23 or $26. Did that for a while. And then I had another job that paid like 80 or 90 when I was a GED tutor. But for the most part, yeah, the jobs. Yeah. And the ones you had to have a lot of time to get the ones where you, you know, they had the prisoners making the Homeland Security trucks, putting all the enhancement on."
},
{
"end_time": 4235.708,
"index": 146,
"start_time": 4206.561,
"text": " Unicor, yeah. They got paid very well, you know, but $14. My parents didn't even know where I was. They knew I got arrested, but they had no idea where I was. I didn't ask them for money, so I never had anything coming in on my books. You just can't survive on $14 a month. There's just no way. You know, not if you want to eat anything decent once in a while because, you know, everybody's cooking food and we didn't have microwaves. We had 204."
},
{
"end_time": 4263.78,
"index": 147,
"start_time": 4236.834,
"text": " Which is water at 204 degrees just under boiling. So, yeah, yeah. Microwave. Yeah, no microwaves. But my celly, he made it. What's that? You could make coffee with it. You can make coffee or you could take, you know, something and put it in there and heat it up for a while. Like wrap it in cellophane, like a trash bag and heat it up. Do people have stingers? Yeah, stingers."
},
{
"end_time": 4291.118,
"index": 148,
"start_time": 4264.735,
"text": " This cell, the way it was where I was at is they had two parts to La Tura. So they had, it looks like it was an old Catholic mission that got converted over. And so they built a new pod area, which is kind of like where it was in Florence with the different pods and regular cells. And then they had one area where it was two long hallways. And then you had gates at the end of each hallway"
},
{
"end_time": 4318.268,
"index": 149,
"start_time": 4291.578,
"text": " and then the CO's little area there and the main exit out in a bathroom on the inside, but there were no doors on the rooms. So anybody just come walking by could peek in or whatever and there were four-man rooms. So same size rooms, but four-man rooms. So you can imagine, you had about this much between the two bugs and about maybe four feet to walk"
},
{
"end_time": 4347.824,
"index": 150,
"start_time": 4318.575,
"text": " It's amazing how well everybody has their locker memorized. If one little thing is moved, they know."
},
{
"end_time": 4378.285,
"index": 151,
"start_time": 4348.609,
"text": " Like someone's been in my locker. You know, like they know, like the toothpaste has turned sideways or something, you know, like, or the cop, the cops would come and search the lockers. Yeah, they would search. And so we didn't have doors. Um, so we weren't even allowed to have buckets in our room, like, cause people would get stingers. They would make them out of, uh, like coils out of, uh, like vacuum machines or, you know, uh, and then, so my celly had a sting. He used to make real cheesecakes, like with an actual,"
},
{
"end_time": 4406.186,
"index": 152,
"start_time": 4378.951,
"text": " Yogurt kind of uh, he had a kicker he would make and he would let the ye the yeast grow into like real actual cheese and then drain it out and Oh, they're made. Um, you guys are amazing in there. They you gotta admit they come up with some amazing stuff Like the the creamer cheesecakes were all right. Everybody sold those with my celly. Yeah, the real cheesecakes So that was my house. I made I made I took his leftover cheese and made like these brownie balls and"
},
{
"end_time": 4435.811,
"index": 153,
"start_time": 4406.766,
"text": " You sell like 10 of them for a tuna or something like that, but yeah. So halfway house. Yeah, I got a job right out of halfway house and I went to halfway house. You have to get a job. So at this point I'm feeling good. You know, like I remember when I first got to El Paso, my celly looked at me and he said, and I'll never forget this. Like if he was out there somewhere, bro, thank you. He said, is this what you're going to do with the rest of your time here? Just lay around."
},
{
"end_time": 4463.899,
"index": 154,
"start_time": 4436.049,
"text": " Just wasted away. He goes, you know what you do here is going to be exactly what you do when you get out of here. I'm like, all right. So that started the process. You get up every day. You make your bed. You get into that routine of starting to take care of yourself. And actually, for the first time, started to feel a little self-respect and some goodness about myself. I've always been kind of this insecure."
},
{
"end_time": 4494.36,
"index": 155,
"start_time": 4464.804,
"text": " I was changing oil and washing cars and send them through the car wash."
},
{
"end_time": 4523.148,
"index": 156,
"start_time": 4494.599,
"text": " I did that for about a year and just got my life together. My credit was fine by then, so I got a car loan and had a car and started dating. I dated this girl for about three years and that went to crap. But stayed clean and I just kept with the process of taking care of myself. I went and registered with the VA for some PTSD classes."
},
{
"end_time": 4552.261,
"index": 157,
"start_time": 4523.729,
"text": " There's a lot of help out there if one needs it and wants it. I think you have to be flexible because nothing's going to be tailor-made to every specific person, but I had issues from the military and things like that, and every time I turned, they were there for me. I went to Fed, Federal Probation Court. Well, Federal Probation, but it was Fed Court for Feds, and Phoenix was the first one to do that."
},
{
"end_time": 4581.032,
"index": 158,
"start_time": 4552.961,
"text": " They have it for state, like a lot of vet courts and state, but there's not many federal. And so for doing my two years of probation, they knocked off a year. I don't know if they do that in other programs, but you go there and the judge and everybody pledges allegiance to the flag and you have the judge there, you have your probation officer, you have a VA representative, you have the district attorney that's there and you have another person and you have just"
},
{
"end_time": 4608.404,
"index": 159,
"start_time": 4581.459,
"text": " people there that want to help you get on your feet. And so the judge is absolutely amazing, Judge Silver. And she starts off and she's basically like, so what do you need, Scott? Tell me how it's going. What can we do for you? Tell me what you need. And let's see if we can get you keep you going. You know, and so it was just my whole experience with everything in that in the system is just for what it was, you know, I mean, for being in prison and that kind of thing. Like I had"
},
{
"end_time": 4639.889,
"index": 160,
"start_time": 4610.674,
"text": " To me, it was like going to a rehab that I just couldn't leave. I didn't have any problems with anybody. I never got in a fight. I never had to run away from a fight. I just never had a problem. It was just the same way with probation. I'm just very grateful for that. I think a lot of people come out and they F the police and this and that. Everything I got arrested for, I did."
},
{
"end_time": 4669.633,
"index": 161,
"start_time": 4640.452,
"text": " There wasn't one thing that I got nailed on me that I didn't deserve to have nailed on me, you know? How did you end up in Mexico? So I got out, my probation ended in November of 2020. So I got out in 2018, my probation in 2020 and I just started watching YouTubes and I was like, you know, I have no money, basically, you know, no money."
},
{
"end_time": 4698.456,
"index": 162,
"start_time": 4671.084,
"text": " Everybody told me I needed to file a claim with the VA for my first disability and so I started that process and I just started watching YouTube and like they gave me a certain rating and then eventually got upped because I realized I guess I am a little nuts but and so I was watching and just I'm like shit so my girlfriend I broke up and I went on one last tear"
},
{
"end_time": 4723.763,
"index": 163,
"start_time": 4698.933,
"text": " Through Las Vegas, which I don't even want to get into that. That was horrible. But I'm like, you know what? I guess I got to go. I got to go. Like just be somewhere I can be myself and nobody around me. And I went and I applied for a one day passport. I went down the passport agency and they told me no. They go, we can't give you a passport today. I'm like, what? And so they had never released me in this system."
},
{
"end_time": 4752.858,
"index": 164,
"start_time": 4724.565,
"text": " From being off federal probation or anything like that. So they had to get an email back from DC or something like I got my probation out, you know, my probation officers. They text her or whatever. And so I went back the next day. They gave me my passport and I was gone the next day and came down here. But I love it here, man. It's just it's so calm. The area I'm at is. Like there's no crime here. Right, you know, is"
},
{
"end_time": 4782.875,
"index": 165,
"start_time": 4753.626,
"text": " In Mexico, there's not a lot of crime in Mexico anyway, except bad people doing things to bad people, in that sense. But here, if you hear about a house getting broken into, that's odd. It's considered the third or fourth safest city in the world, basically. It's safer than Amsterdam and I think only one other place like maybe British Columbia is on the other top two or three. The other night we went and I was having dinner."
},
{
"end_time": 4812.022,
"index": 166,
"start_time": 4783.643,
"text": " And I left a little change, you know, a little thing with my cards and change because you get all these pesos and everything here. And I left it on the table and I forgot. And I come back like 20 minutes later and it's sitting right there. All the money's in it. No one even touches it. No one even touches it to turn it in. They just leave it. I mean, they're just, it's just an honest, kind place. You know, I don't get mail. I don't get telemarketing calls. I don't get nothing. Like I just,"
},
{
"end_time": 4838.797,
"index": 167,
"start_time": 4812.892,
"text": " Take my money and I don't leave the house a lot. So I take my money and I go and I swim in the pool, which is in the area. I'm like a 750 square foot apartments, um, two bedroom and I pay with utilities and everything like 450 a month. Yeah. So yeah, it's amazing. You should come visit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I basically just go to the beach and hang out at the pool. Um, my girlfriend, she,"
},
{
"end_time": 4866.186,
"index": 168,
"start_time": 4839.292,
"text": " I still have moments where I just go and I could disappear for a month just in my house. So she'll come and get me and take me shopping and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I love it. And so I think that one of the reasons I wanted to come and tell this, I don't think my story is so extravagant or I didn't do so many horrific things. I think it would make a great book or anything."
},
{
"end_time": 4892.5,
"index": 169,
"start_time": 4866.749,
"text": " I've started over so many times, Matthew. I've gone from nothing so many times in my life to back up, to back down, to back up, and to back down, and then to come out of prison. The girl I dated when I got out, before we went on the first date, I told her, I said, look, I robbed four banks. You have a 15-year-old daughter"
},
{
"end_time": 4922.568,
"index": 170,
"start_time": 4893.217,
"text": " We had talked on the phone a little bit. I said, but you have a 15 year old daughter, you're going to invite me into your home. I think you should know this before I come into your house. You know what I mean? And meet your daughter, you know, like, I mean, it just seems like the right thing to do. And like, we talked and she didn't beat my probation officer. I still chat with my probation officer now. Like, you know, just the process I went through in Florence and the process of changing the way you think and"
},
{
"end_time": 4952.125,
"index": 171,
"start_time": 4924.172,
"text": " Making it a part of a part of who you are not just It's easy to say like I hear these people on YouTube or wherever talking about I would just manifest a thousand dollars do this over here and you know if I think about wanting a car so much like I Can say I manifested coming to Mexico because I put three years into thinking about it into a plan To get here, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, you know I didn't know how I was gonna do each little step along the way but I"
},
{
"end_time": 4979.514,
"index": 172,
"start_time": 4952.278,
"text": " It became my focus, it became my purpose, and I never had a purpose before for anything. I think I heard you talk about it on one of your other interviews about having that purpose is the big motivator to keeping you moving in the right direction. If my purpose is doing drugs, I'm going to go on that route, but if I keep another purpose... Yeah, definitely. I'm sorry, I was going to say you can..."
},
{
"end_time": 5010.043,
"index": 173,
"start_time": 4980.06,
"text": " You know, basically, I think it's like you could withstand, you know, anything if you have a purpose, you know, right? Here we go. There's Yeah, there's a well, there's that book that purpose driven life. And then there's a book by Victor Frenkel. He was a Jewish guy in the concentration camps and it's called the man's search for meaning and and he just talks about making yourself almost to the point where you're transparent and everything is your purpose."
},
{
"end_time": 5039.411,
"index": 174,
"start_time": 5011.084,
"text": " If I want $1,000 from you, that's an ego-centered kind of thing. If I pray to find $100 on the ground, I'm really praying for someone to lose $100 too, right? That's a very selfish motivation, but if I want to do something that can enlighten or help or motivate other people to just bring a smile to their face, and that's my purpose, then good things will come to me."
},
{
"end_time": 5066.613,
"index": 175,
"start_time": 5039.65,
"text": " You know what I mean? Because it's not an ego. It's not an ego thing. It's a soul thing, you know? I don't know if that makes sense or not. Okay. Yeah. I feel like we've so thoroughly investigated this matter. Thank you. Thank you. Ta-da! I'm grateful. That's what turned out of it. I'm grateful in a good place, man. I'm very happy."
},
{
"end_time": 5096.527,
"index": 176,
"start_time": 5067.415,
"text": " I have things I'm trying to do. There's a thing here that's legal in Mexico called Ibogaine, and it's phenomenal results. And they take people, they go on a three-day treatment. You can go in addicted to heroin right then. You don't go through withdrawals. If you're an alcoholic, you won't go through the DTEs or anything like that. You come out and you might have a follow-up in two, three months and maybe one or two every couple of years."
},
{
"end_time": 5124.462,
"index": 177,
"start_time": 5096.886,
"text": " But completely kicks the habit. Completely. Alcohol, heroin. So I'm in the process of trying to work out some things for veterans to come down here to Mexico and just kind of have a calm way of living. And it's legal here in Mexico. It's not in the United States because there's no money in it because it's made out of a natural source, kind of like kratom. So I'm hoping that works out."
},
{
"end_time": 5154.019,
"index": 178,
"start_time": 5125.964,
"text": " Yeah, the drug and alcohol companies can't or the rehab companies can't figure out how to monetize it. Yeah, there's no way to monetize it. Yeah, because you don't need to keep them there 30 days. Like someone could come and they have treatment centers here in Mexico already. Someone could come and spend three or four days here and go back, not addicted and not have the cravings and not have the urges and and find a sense of the wholeness. You know, like when I talked about just felt like I had no soul."
},
{
"end_time": 5184.326,
"index": 179,
"start_time": 5154.514,
"text": " You find a sense of wholeness in you and it kind of takes away that need to medicate. Yeah, that's not going to take root here. No, no. I just want to say one other thing real quick. Anybody else that might see this or whatever, if you see this, and I know I destroyed a lot of lives in this process of getting here. I mean, I really did. My parents and other people, people I stole from and that kind of thing. I'm very sorry. I apologize."
},
{
"end_time": 5205.742,
"index": 180,
"start_time": 5185.077,
"text": " I appreciate you contacting me and coming on and I appreciate you doing the"
},
{
"end_time": 5236.015,
"index": 181,
"start_time": 5206.34,
"text": " It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home. A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead."
},
{
"end_time": 5252.09,
"index": 182,
"start_time": 5236.442,
"text": " Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts."
}
]
}No transcript available.