Is she threatened to sell Graceland to
the highest bidder if the Presley family
didn't pay $2.8 million in a settlement?
>> Hello, Matt Cox. Hello. [laughter] It's
so good to see you. Good. Hey, at first
right off the top, thank you so much for
having me on again. It's always It's
always fun to come see you. We love
having you. Our guests love you. Yeah,
well, good. Well, it's it's it's mutual.
I I read all the comments and I'm also
happy that they say nice things about us
and and and kind of an unusual day here
though for us. Kind of
different than our normal uh day because
the suits are here.
>> Mhm. You and I both do some work for a
company called Home Title Lock and we
invited them to sit in on the show today
and so they're they're observing us
right now. So, hopefully we can still
keep our chemistry together with our
corporate paymasters keeping an eye on
us.
>> [laughter]
>> Exactly. That's what I'm I'm going for.
I want I also want to mention something
real quick.
>> Yeah. How was
How was the Hard Rock last night? Uh
thank you for opening old wounds. I had
a very bad night at the poker table. I
had a lovely night going to dinner with
you and Colby and and our friends. And
so and that was great. And then I got
back to the hotel and I thought, you
know what, it's p.m. I don't have
to be up. Our call time's not a.m.
till for the [ __ ] show. Why don't I just
wander on down to the poker room? And
man, oh man, it would have been better
if I had been mugged in the lobby
walking to the poker room because it was
a bloodbath. But thank you for thank you
for asking.
>> You have no idea how much that upsets
me.
>> [laughter]
>> Right, cuz
not only are you not paying me,
>> [laughter]
>> but the Hard Rock is not paying me. I
reached out for the Hard Rock to see if
they wanted to sponsor me and pay for my
hotel room here in exchange for plugs on
the Matt Cox show. Radio silence. Radio
They're not interested. That's how I
feel about Ghost
Ghost energy drinks. Yeah, they're not
interested. Um so, I feel like I'm going
to take some mercy on you today. Okay.
Okay, cuz normally what we do and we're
going to still do it is I'm going to do
12 crime stories and your job is to
guess the sentence that was received by
the criminals after I tell the story.
Right. Like we normally do, right? And
with you and if you're within a 20%
variance, then you get a point. And your
goal is to get greater than 50% of the
you know of the answer answers right.
And you have a pretty bad track record.
I'm going to be honest with you about
this. So,
today I'm going to be throwing you some
softballs because all of the questions
today are going to involve mortgage
fraud and home theft and house theft and
things like that because you, Matt Cox,
whether you realize it or not, are the
most famous mortgage defrauder in the
entire US.
It's yeah, it's uh
It's not exactly what my mom was hoping
for, but yeah. Yeah, [laughter] good
good times.
>> Yeah, so these these are going to be
we're going to be telling stories about
your people. Nice.
>> Right. Okay. These are going to be
stories that are going to be so you'll
be able to finish my sentences as I
describe these crimes because much of
this stuff is what you did. And and we
all know that you spent some time in
prison and I'm sorry for that.
Yeah. I I feel horrible.
>> As a former FBI agent, I feel terrible
that that someone like you had [snorts]
to spend time in prison.
But
also, should we disclose that you're
playing you're playing hurt today?
Oh, that I'm I'm I am hurt today.
>> You're sick.
>> I'm sick. You're sick.
>> Which everybody's upset with me for
being here. Sick but
>> you're you're you're probably going to
put me in an early grave cuz I'm an
older fellow
with lots of lots of comorbi
comorbidities. Comorbidities. Aren't
Wait, I don't even know what that means.
We'll have to look that up. Aren't you
the same age as me roughly?
>> age as you. So,
>> I'm I'm 56. I'm 55. Oh, okay. We're off
by a few months.
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the canary in
the coal mine though. If you die from
this thing, I know that I'm doomed. I'm
good. I'm going to be fine. Okay. Want
to do our first story? Yes, let's let's
do it.
>> Okay, our first story takes place in
Washington, D.C.
The subject is a guy a 68-year-old guy.
His name's Jeffrey Young Bey.
Y O U N G {dash} B E Y and that B E Y
suffix at the end of his name, we're
going to talk about that after a few
stories because it is significant. Okay?
Jeffrey Young Bey. But we'll call him
Jeff. Okay?
What Jeff did is he identified a
property in Washington, D.C. Probably
not a good property, but it was owned
free and clear by an elderly homeowner.
Mhm. Okay. So, what he does is then he
prepares a fraudulent property deed.
Now, a deed is a mechanism to as you
know to transfer the ownership, the
title of the property from one person to
another. It's simply put.
And so he forges signatures of the true
owners of the home on it. He takes a
fake notary stamp and notarizes it.
Makes it look perfect. The deed looks
legitimate. Then he walks into the
Washington, D.C. Recorder of Deeds,
which is a government office in pretty
much every county and every city in the
US has that. That's how they keep track
of who owns what what plot of land.
And what he does is he transfers that
property from these true homeowners to a
fake corporation that he set up. So far,
so good?
>> Yeah. Okay. I know I know the scam well.
>> familiar with this.
>> [laughter]
>> Reality so far is he's on track.
>> Right. So, then he goes to a mortgage
broker
uh because what's he going to try and
do? He'll try and I refinance it or
borrow money against it?
>> Exactly. He he applies for a large loan
against the value of that home.
And he gets $360,000.
Nice. You know what he does with the
money?
Spends it on
hookers and blow. Buys himself a BMW.
So, okay. That was smart. Smart like
that's not going to lead directly to
him.
>> He's a Beamer guy.
>> Yeah. You ever owned a BMW?
>> I've owned a few BMWs.
>> Nice car. Yeah. Nice car. I've never had
a BMW. I'm kind of a more of a Lexus
guy. Thanks for asking.
>> [laughter]
>> Maybe they'll sponsor me.
Make up for that poker loss. Um so, then
he finds another property in D.C.
Dilapidated house.
Does it again. Forges the names of the
two owners using a fake notary stamp,
records the deed, etc. This time he goes
out and gets a construction loan on the
house with the idea that he's going to
fix it up.
Lender gives him $500,000
against the value of that house. You
know what he did with that money?
Um
another BMW?
>> BMW, Matt Cox. You know the type. I
mean, how much are these BMWs? I have no
idea. I mean, I'm sure he's spending on
other stuff, too.
>> Right. But then what he does is he flips
the house and sells the home
to a real estate investor, an unwitting
real estate investor for $42,000.
And that real estate investor must have
thought he got the greatest deal in the
world to get a property in Washington,
D.C. for $42,000.
Okay?
>> Um
So, the real estate investor does what
real estate investors do and he goes out
and starts renovating the home.
And then the homeowner is like, "Hi,
guys. What are you doing here?" They
come home. They go to the property. I
don't know exactly what if they were
living there or not. They see hard hat
guys swinging hammers. They're like,
"What are you doing?" They're like,
"We're renovating the home." They're
like, "Well, this is my house." They're
like, "Well, it's not your house. It's
our boss's house. He's the real estate
investor."
The whole thing unravels.
>> Right. Right. FBI gets in the mix.
Jeff gets arrested.
He um
one count of conspiracy to commit mail
fraud and bank fraud, two counts of bank
fraud, two counts of mail fraud, two
counts of money laundering, five counts
of aggravated identity theft. They just
throw the book at him.
Okay.
>> He He takes the case to trial. What an
idiot. Not good. Right?
Other thing I want you to know about him
is he has a history of legal problems.
Okay, so his criminal history category
is going to be through the roof. He's
got a
I looked at his rap sheet. It goes back
to the 1980s. Bad checks, theft,
attempted um
forcible sex stuff. I'm not going to use
the word cuz it's YouTube. False
imprisonment, assault and battery. Used
to dine and dash. One of these guys will
go to a restaurant, have a good meal,
maybe a filet mignon, maybe a a tower
filled with
with seafood. He'd eat and then the
waiter look waiter looks the other way,
this guy's off in the wind. Not an
honorable guy.
Uh forgery, perjury. Used to make
telephone threats.
He's got all these convictions, all
these arrests. He's not very good at
this.
>> No. Well, And he's taken the money and
he's purchasing something that's titled.
Like it's a direct like if he's wiring
the money from
the fraudulent funds that he got to buy
a BMW that's titled in his name. I mean,
Exactly. You know, it's just directly
leading back to him.
>> Right. And I've been on the
investigating agent side of this.
They're going to seize his BMW. But that
doesn't go toward minimizing the fraud
loss. That just goes toward minimizing
the restitution that's due at the end as
you know.
>> Yeah. So, given all those factors, Well,
so what's the total loss?
>> Okay, well, we could do the math here.
So, he gets the first $360,000 loan.
Uh then he gets a $500,000 loan. So,
let's call that $860,000. Then he sells
it for $42,000 to an unwitting real
estate investor. So, what are we up to
now? That looks like about 900,000.
Um call it 900,000. But again, criminal
history through the roof.
Um
and he went to trial and lost. I don't
even I don't even think the jury waited
around for the free lunch.
Um Matt Cox, how much time is this guy
going to do? I'm going to say 180
months. 180 months.
>> years.
>> That is 15 years. And I have to be
within 20%. You have to be in 20 You
have to be within 20% of the actual
sentence.
>> Yes. Right? And since you and I are
under the gun and math deficient, Colby
has a calculator standing at the ready
to compute this thing. Now, he does. Am
I right, sir?
I do now.
Here we go. All right. No, but I want to
ask you are you sure about that answer
because oftentimes you guess one thing
and then you waver and then you guess
yourself and then you don't believe in
yourself. And so I want to know how
confident you are in your
your guess.
>> Well, I don't want to go off of
my case. I'm going to go off of somebody
else's. I have a buddy named
Isaac Allen who for roughly $100,000,
his criminal history was off the chart
though. I mean, he was off the chart.
He's like criminal history was or seven
or something. I mean, it should have
been 12, you know.
>> Right.
It only goes all up so much.
>> Mhm.
For like $100,000, he got like 15 years.
Okay. So, I'm thinking
this guy deserves at least 15 years. His
is off the charts. Same thing with Oh,
aggravated identity theft adds 2 years
to it.
>> thing, isn't it?
>> 17 So, let's add 2 years to Let's say
instead of 15 years, 17 years.
>> I like that you're thinking this
through, man.
>> even think I didn't even think about
aggravated. So, aggravated identity
theft, for those that don't know, who
aren't fraudsters, they ta- if you
>> Or investigators. If you steal someone's
identity in the course of your crime,
they charge they can charge you with
aggravated identity theft and that adds
an additional 24 months to whatever your
normal sentence is. So, if your sentence
is 10 years, now it's 12. Right. Cuz I
got two extra years for
My sentence was 24 years
and 4 months, and I ended up getting 26
years and 4 months because of the extra
2 years.
>> Sure. Sure. Yeah. And so, given that
reality, 17. 17 years is your guess.
>> Yes. 17 years in prison, breaking rocks
in the hot sun for a non-violent crime.
>> history's off the charts. And he went to
trial. He's an idiot. Okay.
You're not swaying me.
>> I'm not trying to sway you. I just want
to understand what your answer is. Had I
not asked you, you would not have come
to this new conclusion. I'm giving doing
you favors. You're sick, buddy. I'm
trying to help you out here. 17. 17.
>> hospice nurse. Yeah. Yeah, you're you're
always looking out for me. Um the FBI's
FBI's always been so good to me. Um
[laughter] Uh
7- 7- 17 years. 17 years?
>> Final answer?
>> Yes. All right. The correct answer is
138 months, 11.5 years. [ __ ] [ __ ]
You you missed it by a country mile.
Really unfair. Okay. Either way, I I I
missed Okay, that's fine.
>> Yeah. Still, he he got a
Poor Zach. Zach's judge hated him.
Really did not like him.
Sorry. No problem. They Everybody says
that. All my agent The agents hated me
or the the US attorney hated My judge
didn't like me. Everyone always says
that.
It's always personal. It has nothing to
do with their own uh No. their own what
they did. That's that's your
competition. Whenever he gets out of
prison, that's going to be your
competition, Tom, for favorite guest.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's Zach. Everybody
loves Zach. Yeah, I see him in the I see
everyone's like, "Where's Zach? We love
We miss Zach." in the comments. And but
it's okay. There's There's room for us
all. Listen, talk about a career
criminal, too. Like, you can't He can't
He can't even say, "No, man, I'm trying
to change." Stop it. You
Since we got I got out of prison, we
both got out within a month or two, he's
been back to prison twice. Did you know
him in prison? Oh, yeah. That's all I
Oh, you know, you met him in prison.
Okay. It's funny. I remember one time we
were walking the track. We were at the
medium.
And he And I had that point I had 26
year sentence. He had 15.
And we're walking. He said, "You know,
it was so weird." He said,
"I had a dream the other night." He
said, "And you were trying to call me
from prison, and I kept hit trying to
hit the five to get the call to go
through." Mhm. He said it wouldn't go
through. He said it was just weird. And
I went, "I don't like the fact that
you're having a dream and I'm still in
prison." [laughter]
And he looked at me and he said, "Well,
let's face it, bro." He said, "You got
26 years." He goes,
"You're going to be in prison when I get
out."
>> And look who's I got a few months before
he did.
>> Look who's a famous YouTuber and look
who's still in his orange jumpsuit.
>> [snorts]
>> Get in. We're stealing homes.
We're not like those other home
criminals that steal your stuff. We
steal your hard-earned home equity.
We find your property online from the
public record. Got it. Create a deed
transfer that makes us the homeowners.
Got it. Then borrow tons of cash against
your equity, and you won't know till the
foreclosure notice hits months later.
You might already be a victim. Check
your title status now at
hometitlelock.com.
Ever been to Philadelphia? I don't feel
like I know I don't think so. Yeah. City
of Brotherly Love.
Philadelphia. Have I been to
Philadelphia? I don't think so. It's
where they filmed the Rocky movies.
In fact, there's a statue of Rocky
Balboa there.
Philadelphia. I feel like I should have
I I should know this. Anyway, maybe.
I'm not sure Listen, I was I was
educated in the South. I'm not really
even sure where Philadelphia is. But I I
probably Maybe.
>> of New York City, north of Baltimore.
>> Okay.
>> [laughter]
>> Basically.
Um
Okay, there's a fellow named in Philly
>> Wait, I have been because I had a
Philadelphia cheese I did go to
Philadelphia. I've been to And I
remember I met
>> it with the cheese whiz?
I don't know what the cheese whiz, but I
There was a You get cheese whiz on it.
There was a kid that that met me, he was
a fan, and brought me to some famous
cheesecake Yeah, probably Gino's or
Yeah, something. There's There's like
two of them across the street from each
other and Philly's a lovely city. A
horrible memory. Worst sports fans in
all of professional sports. So, like,
they're all the type who will like throw
a bottle at the back of your head if
you're cheering for the other team. But
It's not very nice. But outside the
stadiums, delightful people. City of
Brotherly Love.
You know
who's from Philadelphia? Mack Angelo
Tillman, age 52.
He He had a scam in the past. This is a
little bit of history on him. In 2007
and 2008, he ran a scam where he created
fake businesses
and then opened up American Express
merchant accounts
under names like Nelson's Concrete,
Joseph Tailoring, Jay's Hardwood Floor.
And then he started getting credit card
numbers online and just busting it out.
Got 72,000 bucks.
He got 8 months for that, which isn't
really the story, but I want you to know
kind of his background.
>> He's He's a career fraudster.
>> Got it.
You and I are kind of mortgage experts
because of our both being on opposite
sides of the law in the world of
mortgage fraud. But I'm going to assume
I want to ask your listeners to,
you know, I want to walk your listeners
through kind of how a foreclosure and
things like that work. When a homeowner
stops making mortgage payments
or stops paying property taxes, what
happens is the lender or the city that
they were paying property taxes actually
sues to foreclose on the property. It's
a court action.
And if the lender or the city who should
have been receiving the property taxes
wins that judgment in court, the court
orders the property to be sold at a
sheriff's sale to recover the un- the
unpaid balance. Yes. Right?
And so, what happens is the highest
bidder, which is often the bank itself,
will get the title to the property and
um
And so, any any balance exceeding the
amount due in either the mortgage or due
to the city of Philadelphia in the story
we're about to tell, um
it goes to the homeowner or their heirs.
Right.
>> Right. So, they're forcing the I Let's
say I owe 10,000 bucks in property
taxes. And I say, "I'm not paying my
property taxes anymore." My county's
going to come in, foreclose my property,
they're going to sell it, and then
they're going to get their 10 grand, but
the rest of the money from that sale is
going to go to me cuz I was the
homeowner. Make sense? Yeah, yeah. No, I
I get it. Same thing with the even if
it's not the taxes, if it's let's say a
first mortgage lien, Bank of America or
whatever. So, let's say the bank
forecloses. Yeah. You owe the bank
$100,000.
Let's say there ends up being kind of a
bidding war between the parties trying
to buy. They end up getting it to
$120,000. Well, then the Bank of America
gets their 100,000, and the extra 20,000
is supposed to go to
the
any outstanding liens that are still on
the property, but if there's anything
left over, it's supposed to go to the
heirs. Or the home Or the homeowner.
>> yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if he or her homeowner
or his heir. All right. So, let's get
back to Mack Angelo Tillman.
He identified properties in Philadelphia
that had substantial unpaid property tax
bills. Okay? And in some cases, they
were owned by people who were dead and
these things are in the pipeline for a
sheriff's sale.
And so, what he did is he got he he
obtained notary stamp. He created deeds
to transfer the ownership of these
properties
and fake notary stamps to transfer the
titles,
and sometimes he actually went to
notaries and like lied to them.
And so, he's transferring the title of
these
at-risk, I guess, properties to himself
and entities under his control.
Um he had some straw buyers, too, like
homeless people and things like that.
Despicable.
Don't get me started.
Um
He paid one notary $50 to illegitimately
notarize deeds.
Um
Anyway, he transfers 11 different
properties to himself and straw buyers.
Then he begins selling some of those
homes and um
And he had And he had property he owned
some of those homes before he could
actually sell them.
The numbers in this case don't make a
ton of sense to me. So, there's there's
11 properties in Philadelphia, but he
got caught in progress before he could
unload all the homes.
>> Okay.
I've been on the other side of this
thing investigating, and computing the
fraud loss on a mortgage fraud case is
difficult because you because the person
gets the defendant gets credit for the
value of the home that ends up getting
sold at a foreclosure and and uh
and all that. So, it's the net loss.
Right? In this case, what they decided
to do
was you know, they they bust Mack Angelo
Tillman. He goes to trial representing
himself. Always a good idea.
Right? Being your own lawyer, right? You
know, people who represent themselves.
>> Of course, I've I've I've seen it work
out many times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's
it's great. It's great. I I'm kidding.
Don't represent yourself. It's a bad
idea. Yeah.
Um so, but the the law And he gets found
guilty. So, what we have here is there's
two victims. The city of Philadelphia,
who were who were being kind of ripped
off from their property taxes that they
were supposed to be getting by this
thing.
>> Okay. Then we have 11 homeowners who
who, you know, either lost their homes
or were in danger of losing their homes.
The losses, though, are kind of low. So,
we have a $150,000 loss to the city of
Philadelphia cuz the government is using
the fraud loss of the unpaid property
taxes as that.
>> Right. After the dust settled and the
smoke cleared, um it with the values of
the homes eventually being restored to
the homeowners after a long legal fight
that they had to do on their own,
um $30,000 is their loss.
Okay.
>> Okay. So, the net the aggregate loss of
these two things is a hundred and eighty
thousand dollars. But then you have Mac
Angelo kind of orchestrating this giant
scheme, going to trial, losing, probably
irritating the hell out of the trial
judge representing himself. Cuz the
judges don't like that.
Right? So given all that, and there's a
lot of moving parts here,
how much time you going to give Mac
Angelo Tillman, Matt Cox?
Um
But he has a a
prior criminal history. I'm going to
assume Yes, right. Remember cuz back in
2000 2000 2007 2008 he ran this bust out
scheme with the credit cards. Right. So
that's another factor. You know, it's
funny at the I wouldn't the homeowners
I kind of felt because these homes were
behind on their taxes, that's why he
targeted them thinking to himself
nobody's taking care of these
properties. Nobody
Cuz if
if the homeowner was interested in the
property, they would have just gone
ahead and sold it themselves. So he
probably thought
these things are three years behind on
their taxes. Nobody's doing anything.
Nobody's paying the taxes and nobody
sold them.
>> He's rationalizing this as a victimless
crime? W- Well, or that you don't have
to worry about the homeowner cuz if they
were involved in this whole thing, they
would have sold it. Like they probably
just thought ah that that the probably
not even worth it. Like I'm not going to
go through try and sell this thing
and pay off the taxes cuz I'm barely
going to get any money if it if any
money at all. So so the but the fact
that they then showed up later
to fight it out in court It wouldn't
surprise me that the first time they
heard about this is when the FBI was
knocking on their door.
These probably these people probably
have a mailbox filled with foreclosure
notices from the city who are taking
action cuz the back property taxes. And
so
um I mean I've notified plenty of
[snorts] people that they were victims
of fraud that they had no idea they were
victims of. Okay. So
maybe they had no idea that
>> Maybe not the most sympathetic victims
or or victims who Yeah or yeah or they
had an asset that they really didn't
give a damn about.
>> Right. So
one
The dollar amount of the loss for
sentencing guidelines purposes is a
hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
>> Yeah.
Criminal history category Brazilian cuz
he's got this fraud conviction federal
fraud conviction. He goes to trial,
loses, represents himself. Put that in
the Matt Cox calculator.
S-
72 months?
72 months?
W- Tell me how you came up with that
number. This [snorts] is
um
Cuz I don't I don't think he's
you know, it sounds to me like he's
committed fraud but he's not off the
chart. He's probably somewhere in the
middle. He did
>> Yeah.
I mean he he probably would have only
been a few years.
Right. If he taken a plea, it probably
would have been like two years or
something like that. But he didn't. He
went. He represented himself. It only
irritates the judge when you do that. I
I would say
six to seven years. Okay. So 72 months?
Let's go with 72 months.
>> You going to stand firm on that one?
God, this really bothers me. Um I am
going to stand firm on that cuz he went
to trial and I think that the judge will
make him he will have to
pay a
penalty for that. Matt Cox, you know
what the correct answer is?
>> The correct answer is 72 months. No. Are
you serious?
>> Yeah, is Colby holding up a No, [snorts]
I did not I did not [laughter] see this.
I did not I feel like I should get
double points for that.
>> For getting it right? That's head on
that's that's I hit that.
>> 72 months? I'm proud of you.
>> nail on the head.
>> Mhm. So you were a pretty prolific con
artist in your day.
>> That's what the US attorney said. Yeah.
Do you um
Do you get along with other con artists?
Do you when you were in prison and you
met a a person who was a another
prolific con artist kind of going for
the gold medal
held by Matt Cox? Did you look at that
person as a a twerp [snorts] and and
someone that you didn't like? Or did you
have a kindred spirit with them? Did you
bond with them? It depended. This is
what's funny.
It all depended on
you know, cuz the government will call
everybody like a con man or a fraudster
con man. Like everybody is like that.
And it depended on the sophistication of
the the scam. Okay.
I've met some guys that just talking
with them, I realized what they did, how
it worked. I was kind of impressed. I
was like, "Wow, that's super cool." And
then I was like, "Wow, I'm impressed by
this person." There are other people
that were just
blatant liars. Yeah. Like yeah, did you
steal they they got three or four
million dollars but they were just such
scoundrels and just complete blatant
liars. It was like, "Okay, but you're
just a liar." Like you there's no
there's no skill between lying to
people. You're just lying to people to
get them to give you money and then
telling them that you've invested the
money and but it's all just blatant lies
as opposed to
there are other guys that I would
>> Yeah, exactly. Like you see some
finesse. Some thought into it.
>> Right. Some backstopping of their
stories.
>> Yeah, of course they set up this, you
know, websites. They set up they they
had they had storefronts. They had they
had a whole thing set up. You would it
would
it would withstand scrutiny. And I was
always shocked by that. I was always
like, you know, there was some
psychology behind it as opposed to
somebody who's just lying. You give me a
hundred thousand dollars and I'll get
you back a hundred fifty within a year.
You know, it's like, "Okay, well you're
just a blatant liar." Like that. Anybody
could do that. See you like you want to
see like
Paul Newman Robert Redford in The Sting.
Not some guy who kicks a lady down the
stairs for her welfare check so he could
forge
Exactly.
>> Both the fraudsters but two different
ends of the spectrum.
I want to tell you about a guy and I'm
pretty curious to know I think you're
going to find him
to be your [snorts] your kind of guy.
Unbelievable. His name's James Henley.
35-year-old guy from Greenwood, Indiana.
Prolific con artist, I think
objectively.
His prior felony convictions, which keep
in the back of your head when you're
guessing a sentence for financial crimes
including theft, forgery, and fraud. So
this ain't his first rodeo.
He implemented four schemes in this case
that I'm going to tell you about as
quickly as I can.
During COVID, he filed 120 unemployment
insurance applications in 10 different
states.
Uh once the applications were approved,
he used 65 unemployment insurance debit
cards to make purchases at retailers and
withdraw cash at the ATM.
The states paid him a total of 1.1
million dollars in this COVID
unemployment insurance thing.
And
he the money that he was taking out in
the ATM used it to buy a Chevy Camaro.
See? I knew you'd like this guy.
Scheme two.
Same guy.
His buddy buys a home in Indianapolis
using a mortgage loan from a bank. And
Henley files a fraudulent document with
the county.
Um a satisfaction of mortgage document.
Okay, you know what that is. It's it's a
document that you're filing with the
county to say remove the lien from Bank
of America whoever the bank is I've
heard of it. because it's been paid off.
Yeah.
This sounds familiar, huh?
Um
Brilliant, by the way. I like where his
head's at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This the
apple doesn't fall far from the tree
here. This guy this kid could be your
your son. Um
So the satisfaction of mortgage takes
the mortgage off the books creating the
illusion that the mortgage the loan on
this property has been paid off when it
had not been paid off.
Uh your boy James then files a deed
naming himself a joint owner of the
home.
And then they sell the property for
255,000 dollars pocketing all the
proceeds.
Okay.
>> Nice. Yeah. This is a It's scheme number
two.
>> This is Yeah, I was going to say this is
a this is my scheme. Got it.
Then James hits Indianapolis.
He steals five homes in Indianapolis by
filing fraudulent deeds with the county
recorder's office. Um
Through the filings, he claims that the
homeowners had sold their homes to his
fake businesses. But in reality, he had
never even spoken to these homeowners.
Uh unbeknownst to the victims, he files
these fraudulent liens then sells the
homes for significantly less than their
market value. Cuz I think that's the
trick. If you're going to sell a house
that you steal, you do it at like a fire
sale price and just try to fire it
through the title companies and
whatever. So if you're running your
calculator, he gets 260,000 dollars in
profits from scheme number three.
Uh one property one homeowner it was he
stole their their childhood home. Like
it was like a sad story that came out of
the sentencing.
Uh scheme four, he purchases a couple
vehicles, a Dodge Durango for 71,000, a
Chevy Silverado for 54,000 using auto
loans from a credit union. Here's the
thing, Matt Cox. He had an attorney that
he did not like evidently. He looked at
one of the attorney's checks that
somehow he had and he looks at the
routing number and the account number at
the bottom. He provided that routing
number and that account number to the
credit unions who gave him the loans for
these cars and they began doing auto
debits of the attorney's account to pay
his monthly car payments. The attorney
had his did not have his eye on the ball
and ends up paying 98,000 dollars toward
the purchase of these two vehicles.
Whoa. Okay.
>> Yeah. So those are the four schemes this
guy did. I want to first know
from you. You respect this guy as a con
man? Like
you kind of as a kindred spirit Kind of
it's it's you know what it reminds me
of? It
once again
Isaac Allen Zach.
Uh [snorts] it's like some parts of the
scheme are brilliant and then there's
other parts of the scheme that he's
doing that are just
just stupid. Like
My buddy Zach ran a whole credit card
scam. He was making tons of money and
then he would go check into a hotel and
use one of the stolen credit cards
to get a hotel room where he was going
to stay for the next five days. Like,
"What are you doing? You're making a
hundred thousand dollars a month. Pay
for your hotel room. Like don't don't
have
don't have this scam lead directly to
where you are." And this you're buying
vehicles and
having the payments debited from an
account that you have to assume at some
point
the person's going to realize, "Hey,
there's all these payments going
through." The authorities have to can
look into it very easily and say, "Hey,
these vehicles are all titled in this
guy's name. Do you know who that is? You
ever seen this picture before?" Oh,
yeah, that's Jimmy.
>> You'd be amazed how many people get
caught for crimes because of the dumb
mistakes they do on little things. I
mean, I always say you know, I the when
I was an FBI agent I used to talk about
people who get arrested for jaywalking
on their way out of the bank robbery.
You know, it's
you don't you pay attention to the
little things that are going to trip you
up. The stuff in in then you may get
away with the big stuff. I talked to a
law enforcement guy the other day
and he said uh
that they used to say
focus on the misdemeanors, the felonies
will take care of themselves.
It's like you know, you can Yeah. you
arrest some guy for you pull over the
vehicle that has a broken tail light or
does something minor and then you search
the vehicle and there's a body in the
trunk. You know what I'm saying? It's
like normal people fix their tail
lights. Normal people don't have their
titles or their tags expire. Like these
are these are legal things that lead to
big things.
>> Yeah, it's an interesting perspective.
It's kind of like that broken windows
theory of law enforcement, right? You
deal with the broken windows and the
people who are hopping the subway trains
yeah, like for free and and that's going
to help kind of rise the tide and make
the city a place where law is enforced
and the city's going to get cleaned up
that way.
Uh the other thing that just struck me
about James Henley's crime is how easy
it was for him to steal these houses and
you know and I know this but your
viewers may not that no one is watching
the store at the county clerk's offices.
>> Right. They uh
uh they're just their their job is not
to investigate the validity of these
deeds transferring property ownership
from one person to another. Their job is
just to record those deeds in the public
record and that's the weak link in the
chain that allows home theft to occur.
What what what's so funny is that that's
the thing that most people feel the most
secure about and that's really just a
couple pieces of paper and a fake notary
stamp. Like anybody can do it. Like it's
a joke.
>> exactly. You can go to your office
supply store, get a notary stamp, order
it online and but people are like, "Oh
my god, it's been notarized. It's got to
be good."
>> Oh, yeah. Right. So, anyway, so we got
James Henley. Because the it's getting a
notary stamp is it's a lock and
key. It's exactly.
It's not like you can go to a site and
pay $12 with your debit card.
Exactly. At the end of the day, it's a
rubber stamp.
So, we got James Henley.
Prolific con artist, long criminal
history.
$1.1 million stolen in his COVID
unemployment scam.
Uh 225,000 in a a home title theft scam
basically or a satisfaction of mortgage
scam really. Then he steals five homes.
That's another 260,000 bucks.
And then we got two cars totaling about
$120,000 in value that he was able to
steal by uh
tricking an attorney into paying for
them.
How much time you going to give this
guy?
I think he played guilty.
I mean, I didn't hear
aggravated identity theft. Doesn't sound
to me like he went to trial. He played
guilty. Mhm.
Assuming he played guilty in a timely
manner. I think it was straight up
fraud. I don't think he I don't think he
stole anyone's identity. Okay. So,
5 years?
5 years? 60 months? This guy's a menace.
I just described four really
>> Yes, but I think that that's a crime
spree.
So, I don't see that as being I mean,
those may be enhancements on the
overall.
I don't see that
I I mean, I I think 5 years. I think 60
months.
60 months?
See, you know
>> No, I'm just asking. This guy you you
still don't seem [clears throat]
bothered at all [snorts] by this fellow
and uh I mean, he's a scumbag.
>> he ran four different I would argue
fairly complex schemes.
I mean, I I hear you but
>> got a criminal history. He convictions
for financial crimes including theft,
forgery, and fraud.
>> What is it? A few million? It was a few
million dollars though, right? I mean,
we could add it up again but yeah, 1
million plus 225,000 plus 260,000 plus
>> It's a couple million. All right. So, 5
years? I can't stand I'm trying to help
you, man. You're sick today. I'm I'm
>> I can't stand I don't I don't I can't
stand
it.
>> trust you anymore. You don't I I the
Supreme Court said that FBI agents are
allowed to lie to their subjects in
order to gain
uh um a confession. And thank heavens we
can cuz we don't want an even playing
[snorts] field between criminals and FBI
agents. Yeah, I want We want the
government to have an advantage so we
can put criminals in prison.
I'm going to say 84 months but I'm going
to be very upset if you've moved me off
of 60. 84 months, how many years is
that?
Uh it's 7 years. 7 years. So, you're up
to 7 years now. We're we are five now,
you said seven.
Yes. Because I bullied you into it?
>> Yes.
>> So, if the answer's 5 years, you're
going to be super upset if
>> Yes.
The answer, however,
is 10 years. Okay. Well, I made it,
right?
>> No, you did not.
>> Why? Because 20% of 10 years
>> Oh, did I say seven? Oh, man. Wait a
minute. Come on. Do some math. No. 20%
of 10 is eight. Right? You can do the
math.
>> The system is outdated and archaic and
vulnerable to title fraud. A growing
scam the FBI now calls house stealing.
Scammers could now easily download
[music] and forge one document, apply
one fake notary stamp, and then file it
with the recorder. Just like that, the
property has been taken out of your
[music] name. Then they borrow against
your home using your equity. Find out if
you're already a victim. Go to
hometitlelock.com
now. I was talking earlier about the
idea that the person at the county
clerk's office is not really paying that
close of attention to what is being
filed. Again, their job is to record the
deeds, not to not to look at the
validity of the deeds transferring
property and that's what allows these
home title thefts to occur. Yeah, I
mean, I think they're they're they're
paying attention. They're just that it's
actually against I think I believe it's
against the law for them to look in as
long as all of the boxes are checked,
they're not really allowed to look into
it. Now, Texas just passed some
legislation kind of holding them
accountable and so and I I actually did
some consulting with the Texas state
legislature on the the the the law and
it's a good law and
Texas is going to be stepping up and
forcing their recorders of deeds to get
some fraud anti-fraud training and do
some mandated reporting if they suspect
something's wrong. Kind of like the
banks do suspicious activity reports but
Nobody ever asked me to to to chime in
on laws.
>> I wasn't paid for it. I was just Oh,
yeah. Forget that.
>> [laughter]
>> Exactly. So, I want to tell a story
about someone who worked for the
recorder of deeds in Cook County, which
is where in Illinois which where I'm
from from Chicago. Okay. Okay. Um
I don't have a ton of details about how
this came to be but a bad guy got caught
doing something bad by the FBI and and
they're always given a chance to
cooperate. Is there anything you want to
tell me about somebody else?
Do I?
>> [laughter]
>> Do I? I have a story to tell you about
59-year-old Regina Taylor, the
cooperating witness said.
She takes bribes and she works at the
Cook County Recorder of Deeds. And if
you need to get something filed or
backdated or anything, she will ram that
right through for you in exchange for a
bribe.
They said, "All right, that sounds good.
Can you introduce somebody to her?" And
they go, "Yeah." So, they sent an
undercover FBI agent from Chicago,
former colleague of mine.
And
and what he did is he said, "Listen, I
got a problem here.
I have this quick claim deed. My mom
died and I want to transfer her property
to my name. And using this quick claim
deed, which would do exactly that, can
you do that and predate it?
So, it makes it look like this was filed
18 months ago back when mom was alive."
Right. You know what Regina said?
No problem. She said, "I am shocked you
would ask me. I am a government
employee. I took an oath of office." No,
she didn't say that at all. She said,
"I'll be happy to do that." For how much
bribe? Let's start with I'm how much
money do you think she would charge in a
bribe for that?
I don't think these people are all that
bright. Probably a couple hundred bucks.
Yeah. $200? Nice. Nice. You got that
right.
And so
then they she helps him to prepare a
fraudulent quick claim deed, backdated
it by 18 months transferring ownership
from this guy's dead mother the
undercover's dead mother to
to the undercover agent. I'm assuming
that the story he told was that he was
trying to keep the property out of the
hands of siblings or other heirs. That's
the only reason why you would do this
cuz otherwise it would just already wash
out in probate if this person was the
legitimate heir.
Um and so she gets arrested.
And then she pleads guilty.
And [snorts] she has no criminal history
for taking a $200 bribe. And she loses
her job at the Cook County Recorder of
Deeds.
How much time you going to give Regina
Taylor?
I don't know. 36 months
uh
uh
paper probation. Okay. 37 Yeah. No no
time in prison at all but No, she has no
criminal history. She is in a position
of trust.
Uh but there's no real dollar amount
connected to it unless the FBI tried to
say, "Oh, the property's worth half a
million so she's out half a million
dollars." Actually, but she doesn't know
any of that. So, I don't know. Something
small but
Slap on the wrist.
>> Yeah, 36 months. Don't do it again,
Regina. Yeah. Don't take bribes in your
official government position, Regina.
We're just going to let you walk.
I mean, that the first time I got in
trouble, I got 30 actually got a little
bit more than 36 months. But yeah, but
basically 3 years. No dollar loss and it
was wire fraud. Okay.
You were really upset the last episode
we did when people [snorts]
working for the government were like
spying
for the Russians and the Chinese and
stuff like that. But this doesn't seem
to bother you at all. The county worker
would be happy to take a bribe take a
bribe. I mean, it's not espionage. I
mean, it's it's it I mean, I said she a
position of trust which I'm assuming
takes her from
from 24 months paper to 30 earth
to 36. Let's say 36. Okay. So you're
saying you think she should go to jail?
I don't think anything. I'm just here to
facilitate the conversation.
36 36 months probation.
Matt Cox, I think my paper may be
see-through. She got one day in prison
and 3 years supervised release. You hit
it on the head.
>> Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I
can't see.
>> [laughter]
>> I'm telling you.
But [snorts] keep in mind that's that's
almost the exact same thing that I got.
Yeah. In all the newspapers it says it
says that I got
I got 3 years probation the first time I
got in trouble. It was actually 42
months.
>> Right. Uh so it was 3 and 1/2 years. And
it was the same thing. There was no and
I got an enhancement for a position of
trust
which was I was a licensed mortgage
broker. Yeah. And it doesn't really
matter whether it's a bank fraud charge
or it's a wire fraud or it's a mail
fraud. They're all basically kind of the
same. So I I assume she's going to get
roughly what I got.
>> Yeah. We're good. You got it right. And
it's a great job. It's a great job. See,
that's why I'm throwing you these
softballs today. Uh so to get build up
your self-esteem.
Right? What's the score?
>> You're always looking out for me. Two
out of four? Two out of four. Well, I
mean, you know,
what is 20% of 1 day? Yeah. I I wasn't
going to I wasn't going to litigate
that. If he if he was in the ballpark,
I'll we'll we'll give him that one.
>> out of four. So we're talking about home
title theft a lot today. And there are
people out there who are geniuses like
yourself who successfully did home title
theft.
And then there's other there's a
subculture though who's really really
into filing deeds and liens and things
like that. They're called sovereign
citizens. I love these guys. These guys
are the best.
>> you tell me a little bit about what you
know about sovereign citizens? I'll
share what I know and I want to give a
little background that's going to kind
of lead into the next couple stories.
The quick version of my understanding of
sovereign citizens is that they believe
that they are
sovereign from they they can they can
register themselves as being sovereign
from the United States. So they're their
own country.
>> Yes. And their own corporation. Mhm. And
they can kind of like incorporate
themselves and therefore the laws of
whatever country they're in do not apply
to them. So they don't need a driver's
license and they don't have to abide by
all the laws and they'll get pulled over
for driving a vehicle and the cop will
say, "Can I have your driver's license?"
Well, "I'm not driving. I'm traveling."
>> Right.
>> And they have all these They're also
very hung up on maritime law. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. Like that seems to be a thing.
>> Yeah. And And so they'll get in front of
the judge and they'll they'll argue that
the judge has you know, the some federal
judge or state judge, "You have no
jurisdiction over me. I'm a sovereign
citizen and none of this applies to me."
And it's like, "Come on. Stop." And I
used to joke the whole time I would talk
to these guys. Like they wouldn't pay
for their taxes. They wouldn't do all
these things.
And I would sit there and say, you know,
they they always went back to some like
the federal income tax was never
ratified by the Constitution in in 1903.
They never ratified it and therefore
they don't can't force me to and they
they found a loophole. Some loophole.
And I used to always say, "You know what
the funny thing about that is,
you guys may be absolutely right, but
the country you live within has
all the prisons, all the fences, all the
guns, all the guards. And you're you can
complain the whole time you're here, but
you're going to do your 3 years for not
paying your taxes." Right. They're
Common law would say this.
>> Yeah.
So silly. So silly.
>> Have you ever heard of the Moorish M M O
O R Moors, the Moorish sovereign citizen
movement?
>> No. Okay. Because because this is
America, black people have to have their
own sovereign citizen movement.
>> Of course. It's a given. It's a given.
It's called the They call themselves the
Moors. Oh. Okay. And so little bit
little history lesson, kind of fun.
Um
in 1913
in Newark, New Jersey, the Moorish
Science Temple of America was
established by a guy named Noble Drew
Ali.
And what he recommended is that people
who who and it's basically it's
basically a sovereign citizens movement
saying that that they are the
descendants of the ancient Moors, the
Moor tribe. And and therefore they had a
distinct nationality that was separate
and apart from being an American or
being a black person. They are Moors.
Okay. And what they recommended is that
if you were adopting this philosophy
that you need to add the suffix Bay, B E
Y, to your like slave name. Okay.
>> And and that will be your
your or sometimes L, E L, to your your
legal name. And so when we did our very
first story this episode, the bad guy
was named Jeffrey M. Young-Bey because
he was a Moorish sovereign citizen.
Okay.
Um what happened over time the Moorish
Science teachings
uh I hate to call it a cult cuz it's not
really a a faith, but kind of a
white-collar cult where people, you
know, it's a a set of very mistaken
beliefs.
Um merges with the sovereign citizen
common law movement and with all these
crazy pseudo-legal ideas. And so they
claim that they're not subject to laws
or taxation. They they correct their
names with the Bay or the L. And um they
reject their slave names. They assert
divine or ancient national status over
regarding
citing Moorish law.
And they believe that they um that they
have entirely separate standing here
independent of the US government.
I have investigated a lot of Moorish
sovereign citizens which is how I became
good friends by partnering up with the
woman who arrested you.
Um Special Agent Peacock. Really? Mhm.
Yeah. I like Special Agent Peacock. She
She was always very nice. She was very
professional.
>> She's a great agent. I enjoyed working
with her. We put some I didn't enjoy
working with her, but
We put some of these folks in prison
together.
We had we had a different experience.
Yeah, I know. I know it, but it's just
in the the Venn diagrams of our lives,
she's where we overlap. Nice. I didn't
know that.
>> Good person. Good agent.
>> Have you mentioned that me before?
>> Several times. You always act surprised.
>> [laughter]
>> Well, I'm old. I forget things. All
right.
Richard Lewis Mifflin, age 45 of
Richmond, Virginia, legally changed his
name to Ali Mif-Bay, B E Y, right?
Uh when he adopted the Moorish sovereign
citizen worldview.
As an aside, it was always interesting
to me when cases were being pitched to
me in the suspicious activity reports
coming from banks, all I really needed
to do was it once I saw the B E Y, I was
like, "Oh, it's a Moorish sovereign
citizen case. There's something
interesting here."
Anyway, he engaged in a scheme to
fraudulently transfer title and
ownership of seven different real estate
properties from the legitimate owners to
himself.
He formed some DBAs to do this.
Bay and Bay Associates.
Morocco at Virginia Trust.
Morocco Empire Land of the Moors Trust.
And the Virginia Republic.
Right?
>> So So he's just preparing deeds and
transferring the deed to his own name or
to one of these corporations.
>> Right. Right. Which which which are all
like just steaming with Moorish ideology
in the names, right?
>> is just these are just homeowners or
some guy living in his house and minding
his own business. They just
>> Okay. We'll get there. Pluck some in
We'll get there, yeah. Uh the properties
were generally in foreclosure or
pre-foreclosure. Um I think you I think
they often choose to stressed properties
to commit this do this to because based
on your theory that we talked about
earlier that the homeowners may just
have their eye off the ball.
>> Yeah, kind of cuz they've kind of thrown
their hands up They're almost walking
away from the property. Yeah, but
um
and so yeah, so he he was forging
signatures of legitimate owners onto the
property and to on these fraudulent
deeds which transfer ownership of the
property into these DBAs that he
created. Um then he what he did, he
started renting out the houses. He
became a landlord with these houses.
He's a yeah. Even though money has no
value. He changes he changed the locks.
And he And you know what he does? He
plants a flag in the front of each of
these properties, the Moorish flag
letting the government know that
this is an independent republic.
>> This is sovereign territory right here.
Don't step over. Exactly. Don't you step
on my land, state of Virginia. You're
off you're in my nation now. Okay,
you're in my Moorish nation. Um I'm sure
that went over well. Yeah. Yeah. So So
he did that a bunch.
>> I always wonder how these guys like, you
know, they're always talking about how
like money has no value. It's like,
"Well, how are you paying your rent?
Well, what were you collecting from your
tenants?" Right. Well, they were paying
me in US dollars. Well, well, has no no
value though. Why were you even
accepting it?
He ran a second scheme also. Um
he attempted to purchase foreclosed
properties at auction using fraudulent
money orders
uh backed by and redeemed by the US
Treasury. And that's what Peacock and I
were doing, Agent Peacock, is that we
were we were catching They were creating
fake IRS checks and trying to pay for
stuff with that.
>> That sounds like
Chris uh Marrero. I was a which is a
sovereign citizen I met in
>> Okay. Yeah. Super entertaining guy. They
love to try to cuz they believe that
there is a secret government account
that the government establishes for you
when you're born that if you write the
special things on this check, you can
write checks from the US Treasury to
draw upon your secret account in the
money. It's this bizarre subculture that
and they believe it. They will argue
this till they're blue in the face. They
love arguing about this stuff.
Definitely. Definitely. Or the black
card. They
they Chris had took it a step further
that you could actually get a black card
issued to your your What is the name of
there's a name of your
CUSIP number.
>> Yeah. Yeah. CUSIP. C U S I P. They've
got a It's a CUSIP number that's
assigned to you. And if you you get the
black card, you get the CUSIP number and
you can you just could use the card, use
it, and use it, and you can buy whatever
you want. I'm like, and everybody
can do this? Absolutely.
>> A CUSIP number is a real thing, but it's
it's it's the way that the securities
[snorts]
um it's the way they keep track of
stuff. Like a a a
the common stock for Microsoft has a
CUSIP number. The common stock for AT&T
has a CUSIP number. It's basically a
serial number for a stock that's
publicly traded. But they believe that
humans have a CUSIP number that they can
draw upon their secret accounts. Yeah,
he would argue and argue and argue. Go
ahead. Richard Lewis Mifflin our again
our friend Ali Bey
uh
he would go to these foreclosure
auctions and try to buy properties using
these these fake money orders, these
fake drawing on the Treasury. And
finally, the law firm that was handling
the foreclosure sale sends him a letter
prohibiting him like basically you can't
come back here to our auctions. You keep
doing this, winning these auctions, and
then paying for the property with a a
counterfeit check basically.
And um in the response, he mails a
letter to the law firm demanding that
the firm stop having auctions and that
that and then he begins filing liens on
the property of the law firm.
Also to retaliatory liens. We'll talk
about that in a little bit.
So, real pest, real nuisance, charged
with all sorts of fraud stuff. He
created $250,000 worth of fake money
orders drawing on the US Treasury to buy
these properties at the auction. I think
that was really the heart of the
government's case against him. And I
think he actually pled guilty, which is
unusual cuz most of the Moorish
sovereign citizens are thrilled to go to
trial and represent themselves. Yeah,
what it is.
Um
>> How much time you going to give this
guy, Mr. Bey? 3 years. 3 years, 36
months?
>> months. Yeah, because I don't think that
the uh judge would is going to find this
funny at all. I don't think the
government's going to find it funny.
I don't think anybody's going to have
any sympathy. I don't think they're
giving him the low end of the
guidelines.
I don't think uh or that even if they
did, they're going to jack it up so
high. I think it's 3 years. 3 years.
Okay. The um
I won't belabor this cuz we're
The correct answer is 48 months.
Come on, how close am I? Come on.
>> 48 * 0.8
Oh, that's not I can't That's I'm going
to
>> 48 * 0.8 is 38 months. Oh, you missed it
by 2 months, buddy.
You missed it by 2 months. I know this
really upsetting you. That's I'm not
playing against that high. I should have
gone higher. I'm not playing against
you.
>> Yeah, see I suggested I told I told
Thomas like, you know, maybe we should
do the scoring system like points, like
point for Matt, point for Tom. And he's
like, no. He's like, I'm just here to
facilitate this. That's all I'm doing is
I'm here to facilitate the conversation.
I I'm you know, when you go on Jeopardy,
you are not playing against the host.
He's not trying to talk you out of your
answers.
What am I at? Uh 205. All right, come
on.
>> No, no, no, you were on the cusp. You're
on the cusp of winning this thing. I
believe in you. We're talking a little
bit about home title theft and the
Moorish sovereign citizens. But another
thing that they do because one thing
they're good at is understanding kind of
the files and records systems of county
clerks and real estate is if there's
someone they don't like, a judge, cop,
FBI agent, they'll file a lien against
their house. Right. Basically tying your
house up so you can't sell it. Basically
saying, you owe me 600 gazillion
dollars. Here's a lien on your property.
And man oh man, it's a headache to get
those liens off your property. Varies
from county to county, but it's still
it's no fun.
So, let's talk about Timothy Germaine
Pate. He also went by the name Akhenaten
Ali,
age 43 of Augusta, Georgia, Moorish
sovereign citizen, not subject to US
law.
Okay.
What Tim does is Tim files tax returns
from 2016 to 2018 falsely claiming that
he was owed more than $7 million in tax
refunds. Right. Do you know what the IRS
did? They They
They
didn't pay it. They did not pay it
because it's nonsense. And you can't
just file a tax return in crayon and the
government and hope that the
government's going to give you it.
This drove him so This made him so
angry. This [snorts] made him so angry.
So, he goes he files a federal civil
case against the IRS commissioner
saying, "Give me my money."
And uh he attempted to have the court He
said he he asked the judge to have the
US Marshals arrest the IRS commissioner.
I'm sure he did.
>> rejected it and said, "Absolutely."
Right.
And so then then he's standing in court,
he threatens out loud to file liens
against the property of the federal
judge assigned to his case, other
officials at the US Treasury Department,
and the IRS unless he was paid these
millions of dollars from the IRS that he
wanted.
The uh the judge was unbowed by his
threats and and everyone else just kind
of went to go carry on their duties. And
you know what Pate did then?
He filed the liens.
>> the liens. He filed the liens. He filed
liens ranging from $15 million to $33
million
against the US magistrate judge in
Augusta,
the former US Treasury Secretary, the
IRS commissioner, the Treasury Inspector
General, among others. He's out there
filing these liens, gumming up their
property.
He also targets additional federal
officials with bogus liens.
Uh he went after a federal bankruptcy
judge in Augusta. He went after the US
bankruptcy clerk of courts,
the US magistrate judge, liens ranging
from 15 million to 100 million. He then
filed involuntary bankruptcy petitions
against five federal officials
uh to put these other people into
bankruptcy without their now knowledge.
Just an absolute nightmare. Nightmare.
Okay.
Now, there is a federal law against
filing retaliatory liens against
government officials.
>> I I know a guy in federal prison that
got charged with that while in federal
prison for filing a lien against the his
judge in his case. Well, did he get
extra time for that? Yeah, he got like 3
years. Yeah, okay. Well, given that
>> they were bringing him back to release
him.
>> [laughter]
>> Like one day he's on the pack out, he
has to get on a bus, and he's thinking,
"I'm going home." No, you've been
re-indicted. Right. Well, my former fed
colleagues went out and arrested Timothy
Germaine Pate charging him with 15
counts of filing retaliatory liens
against federal officials and five
counts of making false bankruptcy
declarations.
This guy's a menace. Yeah.
Uh
no [snorts] economic loss though other
than the red tape and the and the
nightmare that he causes these federal
officials to try to get these liens
released from their properties.
How much time you going to give Tim
Pate?
Did he plead guilty? Um
>> know.
>> [snorts]
>> No, he went to trial, represented
himself,
and lost.
I'm going to go with like 8 years. No,
let's go 7 years.
What is that? 84 months? 84 months.
Okay.
84 months is your guess? There's no
dollar loss. And I but I see him racking
up the enhance enhancement after
enhancement for all the just the
insanity that he's in the problems he's
causing. Yeah, he caused a lot of
problems to a lot of people in positions
of power and and they didn't take nicely
to it.
And so you said 8 years?
>> Yeah. No, I said 84 months. That's 70
That's 7 years, right?
>> 7 years, okay. Yeah, in that
neighborhood. He actually received the
longest federal sentence ever handed out
for a retaliatory lien
case, 25 years. Oh my god. Can you
imagine? I can't I I I mean
He made a nuisance of himself and the
courts I think wanted to send a
statement.
Yeah, he's [snorts] he's probably still
causing them problems inside.
>> Oh, I'm sure. These guys love to file
and stuff. So, you and I both do
business with HomeTitleLock, and they
have a service that they provide which
will monitor your home title. They'll
notify you if something changes on your
home title, if a lien gets filed, or
someone files a deed to transfer
ownership, and then they'll cover all
the costs and expenses associated with
restoring your home back into your good
name.
>> Right. I think there's an opportunity
for them to not only sell this to people
who are trying to protect their home
title, which for most people and the
equity in their homes, which for most
people is the largest asset they own,
but to sell this service, HomeTitleLock
service, this monitoring service to law
enforcement officers, government
officials, IRS agents, judges,
prosecutors, lawyers, because when these
liens get filed, it is a nightmare. It
varies from county to county, but it's
really tough to get it released from
you. So, I think it's an untapped market
for HomeTitleLock. And uh
and I'd love to encourage them to kind
of try to sell to those people as well
because that's who I that
you know. Have you ever had anything
filed against you?
>> I have not, and it's been nothing short
of a miracle cuz I've investigated so
many sovereign citizens. But I know
people who have, and it's it's a it's a
pain in the neck, and it's scary, you
know? It's like this is the house that
you and your family live in, and now
it's got a lien on it, and so you can't
go out and get yourself a home equity
line of credit. If you transfer And
sometimes you won't even know there's a
lien on it.
>> Yeah, or you go to sell sell the house,
and suddenly it shows up. You didn't
even know it was there. Right, you go to
the title company, and it's all gummed
up. And so
yeah, people I need to monitor the
titles in their homes for against liens
as well as title transfers. That's I
guess that's my point. Either do it
yourself or hire a company like
HomeTitleLock to do it because it's I've
talked to people who've had this done to
them, and it's a nightmare. Personal
question for you, Matt Cox. Yes, sir.
When you went through your legal
troubles,
did your family kind of stand by you and
go to court with you? And did you have
like family in the courtroom you know,
as you were kind of going through the
court process to kind of I don't know,
be supportive or send a message to the
courts that you
aren't alone? Uh yeah, my my my yes.
Yes. Guys are yes. Good. Yeah, cuz I see
that a lot. And sometimes I see people
who don't have family there in the
courtroom, and it just feels sad to me.
Like a
white-collar crime case that I'll
investigate, and you know, someone
embezzles, you know, half million bucks
or whatever. That was a very typical
case for me. And just kind of going
through that whole court process knowing
that they have a husband, a father, a
mother, and there's just no one there
for them in court. It always sort of
bummed me out. And like, you know,
did they ask their families not to come?
Are they embarrassed? Is the Have the
families forsaken them? It's It was just
interesting to me cuz I never really get
to find out once they have an attorney.
It's not like I can call them up or
anything like that, but I just thought
it was sad.
So, there was a guy in Chicago
um named Davon Phillips. He was
investigated and prosecuted in Chicago
with trafficking um we'll we'll say
narcotics. Okay.
>> Um the one that begins with C, which we
probably can't say on YouTube. Um
Wow. They blow up. powder Yeah,
what powder? Yeah.
But the story is really about his
sister, Sharon Phillips. And uh
she was kind of infected with this
sovereign citizen mind virus um and so
she also adopted the name River Tally
Bay, B E Y.
But she's in this case sitting through
her brother's trial. Right? Kind of
being there for him on his drug case.
Kind of being that that that comfortable
face in the audience for him.
Um but she was seething with anger the
whole time because she doesn't believe
the courts have any jurisdiction over
her brother. Right?
I If she's a Moorish sovereign citizen,
by extension, he's also a Moor, right?
And so she begins filing crazy [snorts]
legal briefs with the US District Court
in Chicago where I used to live
explaining to the courts again, she's
not even the defendant. She's just some
the defendant's sister explaining to the
courts how the US government has no
jurisdiction over her little brother
because he's a sovereign citizen.
Okay. Right? And um
there's no indication that her brother,
Davon, was a fan of any of this hogwash.
Right? He's not like He's not co-signing
any of this stuff.
And so eventually, she became such a
nuisance, she gets banned from the
courthouse.
You know, court's open to the public,
but not to you right
um Sharon.
You still have to be well-behaved.
>> Right. Do you think that made Sharon
happy or sad? I don't think that
Sharon's putting up with any of this.
Sharon was furious, Matt Cox. Um her
brother was found guilty and sentenced
to 6 years in prison.
And Sharon snapped.
And then she began filing liens against
the homes of the US attorney, friend of
mine, the federal case agent, someone I
probably know,
uh the federal court clerk, four federal
judges in Chicago who were directly or
peripherally involved in her brother's
case.
When you file a lien, you need to put a
value of that lien down when you're you
know, tying up someone's house with this
nonsense. And the value of the liens was
collectively $100 billion.
Makes sense.
>> Yeah. So, the FBI opens a case on
Sharon, uh does a search warrant of her
home, and finds copies of the lien
paperwork that she played that she
filed.
And then she writes apology letters to
all the people she filed liens on saying
that she was sorry and she made a
serious mistake.
>> [laughter]
>> I'm so sorry, US attorney.
>> My bad.
But all of these these public officials
need to go through the expense and red
tape of getting these liens removed by
the county. And um
and of course Sharon gets charged with
filing retaliatory liens.
Uh she goes to trial. Uh to her credit,
she had two attorneys.
And they had to move the venue of the
case to southern Illinois because she
had
>> filed so many liens and stuff.
>> no, there wasn't a judge left or you
know, the the the clerk works for the
courts. Ev- everybody involved in the
case in Chicago in the court system
either it was a victim or was one degree
of separation away from the victim.
So, she goes down uh she goes to She
actually has an attorney to her credit.
Um
jury finds her guilty of filing
retaliatory liens. I know you will find
that But she didn't plead guilty. She
actually went to trial.
>> to trial. She wrote the letters. She
already admitted it.
>> That's what we call a confession in my
business.
Um at the sentencing, her lawyer is
saying, "Just give her probation."
They is saying He's saying, "The case
against my client is absurd. It's akin
to someone trying to pass Monopoly money
and then being charged with
counterfeiting." That was the defense's
argument. That That's That's poor
argument because you know, these people
are their their titles are still screwed
up.
>> what the government said. The government
got in there and said, "This isn't This
isn't nothing. This is paper terrorism."
Those are the words they used.
>> Yeah.
I don't know which way the judge or I do
know which way the judge saw it. You
don't know which way the judge saw it.
How much is the judge going to sentence
this lady to for filing a hundred
billion dollars in liens
>> [laughter]
>> against against these these hard-working
public servants? Yeah, I don't think the
I don't think the hundred billion
changes anything. You don't look at the
federal guidelines to get the hundred
billion dollars.
Um [snorts] but but I would say
she went to trial. Mhm.
I I I'd say uh 60
>> they call it.
60 months. 60 months? That's 5 years,
Matt Cox. 60 months.
>> the last guy got 25 years.
>> but but that that doesn't throw you off
the scent.
>> No, I think she's just she was
She did go to trial. What an idiot. Uh
60 months. 60 months? That's 5 years.
>> 72 months. I'm going 72 months.
72 months.
>> 72 months is 6 years.
>> Yeah.
Okay.
Are we sticking with that? Yes. Well,
again, I mean, I'm just asking cuz you
were at 5 months and it took nothing to
get you off into 6 months.
And so I If we sit around, maybe you'll
get it up to 25 years.
>> I was at 5 years again.
6 Yeah, I think 6 years. 6 years? You
want to hold steady with that? Yes. All
right. The correct answer, her sentence
in US District Court was 7 years. Oh!
Is that within 20%?
>> It's got to be. 7 * .8 is 5.6. You got
it. You're good. You're good.
>> [sighs]
>> Aren't you glad I nudged you up? You
didn't. You were trying to get me to go
to like 20 years or something. You're
not helping me.
>> at five You were at five. I knew that
was going to be a disaster and was going
to hurt your self-esteem.
It was uh [snorts] I asked you if you
were sure and you went up to six and
then you won it. I'm on team Matt Cox.
>> Not true.
I'm here for you.
>> trust the government.
>> I'm here. I'm not the government.
>> So, did Chris Morero
did he go to trial? Sorry. Did Chris
Morero go to trial, the sovereign
citizen? Chris Morero went to trial.
Chris Morero
worked for a guy that they were filing
some kind of tax
Like they were saying like if you have a
mortgage, it creates some kind of a
document, which I'm sure you've heard
this this ridiculousness.
That that
creates something that you can now file
on your taxes and get a a refund.
So, these guys are going
they're calling people and saying,
"Look, I can file an not an extension,
but I can I I can file this uh
I forget what they called it, but
they could file something and they could
get you a refund from the government and
and so they were people were saying,
"Okay." And they'd get them these
refunds because
typically the IRS just cuts a check.
They don't really do much. Like if you
if you file taxes and most of it checks
out and you say, "Hey, you owe me
$12,000."
>> of people make a lot of money filing
false tax returns. Correct. So, they're
getting these $40,000 tax returns,
$80,000, $100,000, $10,000. And they're
supposed to get like 20% of it or
something.
And some of these people are cutting
them checks. Well, one of these guys And
this is it's basically a phone room.
They're just calling people and getting
them to do this. And Morero was supposed
to be getting checks.
Uh or supposed to be getting uh a
portion of the refunds and they got some
refunds.
One of the guys got like $200,000
knowing like he he talked to these guys
and he gets a check from the IRS saying,
"Here's your $250,000 refund."
And he immediately says something's got
to be wrong with this. Like, "Well, what
did you sign all the paperwork for?"
But he got the 250 and then I think he
contacted the IRS said, "This is what
these guys have done." That started an
investigation. Morero was furious cuz he
never made any money. But the guys that
were running the operation
all got indicted including Morero.
They went to trial.
We're talking about like a 6-week trial.
It was ridiculous. They're all standing
up talking about the flag the fringe on
the flag and maritime [snorts] law and
sovereign citizenship.
Morero's name is mentioned like three
times the entire time.
Cuz he simply just one of the guys that
called made the just got the the initial
call.
He got 17 years. Yeah. I mean, the
courts do not mess around with these
people. They they do not they
you know. What How does he feel now? Now
that he's out, does has he changed his
worldview or is he just
No, no. He he
absolutely
uh believes in the sovereign citizen
sovereign citizenship.
But that the uh
he's just trying to get his black card.
And he's filing paperwork. He's still
all in. And uh he's one of these guys
that I'm like and he's telling me how
money doesn't mean anything. It's a
cult. And then I I'll say, "Well, what
are you paying your
what are you paying your rent in?" Mhm.
Well, I mean, I obviously I use I use
money. Okay. Um you know, but you know,
you you they can't do this. Well, you
just did like 12 years. Mhm.
>> You did 12 years
for something you're telling me that
they can't do. Like this this is You
know, it don't I mean, don't tell
themselves to the grave that the
government got it wrong when they locked
him up. And what's really funny about
that whole thing is that if
I mean, if you really listen to what
they're saying,
you never have to pay in taxes. There's
an inexhaustible money machine out there
that everybody should be able to buy
whatever they want. Like well, who would
work? Like that the whole system would
collapse if you're correct.
>> Yeah. They're even partially correct.
The entire system would would collapse.
Mhm. And in their minds, they're like,
"No, no, you don't understand.
They could just keep giving you money."
And you're like, "What do you You
obviously don't know how the
economy works. Like, it doesn't make
sense." But common law. Yeah, it's it's
>> Yeah. They they desperately want to It's
a leaderless cult. It's a you know, it's
like an urban legend that they buy into
and and it really is like a mind virus.
Again, I've talked to so many of these
people and it's not even worth trying to
deprogram them.
>> No, they're they're They'll run circles
around you with like quoting different
like weird, you know, Yeah. Well, you
have to understand that the Vatican has
to be involved. So, you get into that,
too.
>> It's insane. And what's so funny with
Chris is he is tied in it's almost every
conspiracy out there he's tied into
this. If you're all from from aliens
running the entire world to Jesus
uh uh you know, being the savior to it's
like, "Okay, how do you believe you
believe
Christianity and you believe in the
Anunnaki and you believe and like it's
it's just it's it's It's an all you can
eat buffet. for a good podcast.
>> It does. He's he's very entertaining.
The funniest thing about him
is unlike other sovereign citizens will
get upset and frustrated with you cuz
you don't you're not believing him.
He's jovial. He laughs about it. He
knows you think he's crazy. He knows so
he's funny about the whole thing.
>> Well, I think at some point they have to
make peace with that themselves.
So,
>> [laughter]
>> he's so much fun to talk to. Good.
Let's talk about another guy
uh a guy he's not actually not a
sovereign citizen.
Uh his name is David Goldsmith.
Uh in lives in a lived in Alaska.
But in 2003, he decided to adopt the
mountain man lifestyle.
Cool.
>> Goldsmith changed his name legally
to Trapper Kills Many.
First name Trapper, last name Kills
Many.
What's the TV show with the guy with the
beard and he's got like Grizzly Adams?
Grizzly Adams, yeah. He's a modern-day
Grizzly Adams.
Anyway, Trapper Kills Many had many
grievances with the government mostly
relating to social security that he felt
he was entitled to even though he was in
his 50s. Like, maybe he had a disability
or something like that. But he believed
that
and that um that they owed him a lot of
money in social security. And so he
begins and he's just frustrated because
the government doesn't see it that way.
They're not willing to give him uh
you know, 50 you know, all the money
that he wants when he's in his 50s.
So, he ends up filing liens claiming
against seven federal employees and um
and people with state state agencies and
people with the Social Security
Administration. I guess it was seven
employees in uh state, local, and uh
Social Security.
Uh for $950 million total. Um saying
that he was entitled to their assets
including their homes. You know, gummed
up their title on [snorts] their homes.
Um now again, as we discussed, the state
uh in this case Alaska is not in the
business of interpreting the legality of
these liens. Right. So, you can place
these liens on the property and there's
no one in the county clerk's office
who's going to stop you. Anyone can file
the public documents for $20. And now
later the debtor
can dispute the claim in a separate
filing, but they're bearing the legal
expenses of that unless you have like a
home title lock or something like that
to do it for you. So, the liens go on
the books
and for these public officials they have
to undo.
Now,
the US Department of Justice I think
showed some great restraint here, but
they got they were tired of his [ __ ]
And they sue him civilly, not
criminally, for filing false and
fraudulent financing documents designed
to harass, intimidate, annoy, punish,
and retaliate.
The courts rule against him against
Trapper Kills Many and basically getting
laying a restraining order on him
banning him from the courthouse. That
that's how they're going to do it. You
can't set foot inside the courthouse to
file these liens anymore. He violates
that restraining order. He goes into the
courthouse and they and so they get a
warrant for him for um
a state warrant for violating the
restraining order. Make sense? Right.
Okay. Do you have living with the bears
they can't find him or something?
>> to his cabin or house or whatever he's
living and he confronts the troopers and
he has a shotgun at his door.
He's eventually subdued and
and they they arrest him and he says,
"Listen, I never brandished the shotgun.
It was just there. I'm Trapper Kills
Many. I got shotguns everywhere. That's
that's my jam."
And but ultimately they he pleads guilty
to third-degree assault
and they had more serious charges like
attempted murder that they dropped. They
were probably a little trumped up on
>> Yeah.
After that conviction, he's like, "Maybe
Alaska is not for me."
So, he moves to New Mexico.
But then he starts it up again. He files
a $20 million lien in New Mexico naming
several individuals including Social
Security employees alleging that they
owed him money. Okay? Just again,
retaliatory lien after retaliatory lien
against these
low-level clerks at the Social Security
Administration who are rejecting his
claim that he is owed all this money.
And finally, the FBI steps in and
charges him federally with uh with
retaliat with false claims and
retaliatory liens.
And Trapper Kills Many pleads guilty.
So, he has all these incidents of this
and he continues to you know, harass
everybody and he had this weird kind of
confrontation with the Alaska State
Troopers that was an outgrowth of this.
But it all culminates in a sentencing
hearing. How much time do you give
Trapper Kills Many?
Do we know if he has a We know he's got
a history of this, but do we know if he
has a criminal record? I don't think he
has much of a criminal record other than
that that weird fight dispute that ended
up being a third-degree assault against
the Alaskan State Troopers who came to
his house to arrest him.
>> [snorts]
>> That's my impression at least. Um
There's no dollar loss. Well, there
might be. Well, I mean again, there's a
$950 million worth of liens, but that
doesn't really
>> really
That's hypothetical numbers. Just where
does he Where's he going to put his
decimal place?
Um
Let's see.
He pleads guilty. He probably played
guilty to 5 years. I'd say he's
60 months. 60 months for filing all
these false liens, being told to knock
it off, moving to another state, doing
it again,
retaliating against government
employees. Do you think that 5 years
that sounds right to you?
I mean, he's a mountain man, so they
kind of live by their own rules.
96 months.
That's what I'm going with. 96 months.
96 months?
That's an astronomical amount of time,
man. Oh, um will you stop?
>> [laughter]
>> I've already decided I'm losing this
whole thing, so Oh, really? That's the
spirit.
>> [laughter]
>> I don't know. There's no dollar amount.
There's no
>> Yeah.
This is purely a paper caper.
72 months. We're at 72 now. We're at 72.
How many years is 72 months? It's it's 6
years. 6 years? Yeah, I guess it is,
isn't it?
We're sticking with that? Yes. All
right. Well, I don't want to belabor
this.
The uh the federal sentence that Trapper
Kills Many had to do was 27 months.
>> [sighs and gasps]
>> I was off anyway. That's okay. So,
tw-
That's the thing is because there's it
doesn't fit neatly [snorts] into a
sentencing guidelines, it's really how
irritated is the judge.
And if I'm skeptical, I would say that
um
that when you file liens against judges
that that they take it up maybe a little
more seriously than filing liens against
the clerk at the Social Security
Administration. I
I'm just saying that a judge can have
implicit bias like that and evidently
they did.
What do you mean they didn't at all?
That barely he barely got any time at
all. I'm saying the judge gave him a
break for not messing [clears throat]
with the judges. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
>> [snorts]
>> You good for the next one? Yeah. All
right. Um
For the sake of your audience, What's a
HELOC?
>> what? I don't even really know to be
honest. I don't really even know
what these are. I I haven't seen
what I I'm not sure I haven't seen what
the sentences are. You keep the paper
folded over. We don't know if I'm really
close or not. 27 months. Okay, fine.
I have no interest in you not doing
well. I want your show to do well. I
want you to do well personally. I want
your self-esteem to go up. I'm I'm here
for you in this thing.
Not playing against you.
Explain to your audience what a HELOC
is. A home equity line of credit is like
a large credit card that is attached to
the equity in your house. Yeah. Yeah.
Perfect. You said it better than I ever
could.
You ever heard of something called a
shotgunning scheme? I I know it well. I
am feel like I'm one of the uh
founders of the shotgunning. Okay, good.
Well, this is a story about a
shotgunning scheme. Okay? A crime you
know a thing or two about, but we'll get
your audience up to speed.
Um
We have three jokers in this story, but
only two of which have [snorts] been
sentenced at this point. So, um
The Yorse Yotagri
I did a I did a Chad GPT search. I think
these people are of Colombian history.
Um
uh Colombian ancestry. I don't know
[snorts]
if they're US citizens or what. He lived
in a property in Freeport, New York.
And he was recruited into a scheme a
shotgunning scheme by a real estate
broker named Simon in the Bronx. Okay?
And so Yorse was convinced to use a
quick claim deed to make his buddy Jose,
these are our three characters, a
co-owner of his property.
Okay. Okay. So, Simon's the brains
behind the operation.
Um Yorse owns a property and he recruits
Jose into um to basically a quick claim
deed over Yohannes' own property
to Jose.
They go out and get a home $290,000 home
[snorts] equity line of credit on the
property in Jose's name cuz he's now the
owner of the property from the first
bank and they just split that money.
They don't make any payments on the
loan. Okay. Okay.
4 months later they create fake
documents
uh saying notifying the clerk of courts
that the HELOC is paid off like a
satisfaction [snorts] of mortgage for a
HELOC. Okay.
>> Okay. And then they go out and get a
second $250,000 HELOC on that property
from a new bank splitting the money
again.
And then the you we said that HELOCs
work like a credit card. It certainly
works as a line of credit but often what
you're doing is you're writing checks
against against it. Somehow and I don't
understand how this happened the bank
allows them to go overdrawn on their
HELOC $290,000.
>> Wow, okay. Right? So they get again just
to get do the math here. It's where 290
appear they get $290,000 HELOC then they
get a $250,000 HELOC and then they draw
an additional 290 on that second HELOC.
Okay. So the numbers are adding up. The
real estate itself does not have
sufficient equity to cover these loans,
right? So foreclosing it's but the banks
foreclose on the properties anyway.
So the banks then sell the property on a
foreclosure sale and all that. The
net loss to the bank including accrued
interest is $580,000.
Okay.
>> Okay. So that which is the FBI
investigates this thing along with the
US Federal Housing Finance Agency Office
of the Inspector General.
Um it's also important to know if I for
context that these three guys were much
part of a much larger shotgunning scheme
with $3.5 million
in fraudulent HELOCs in New Jersey and
New York all orchestrated by the Simon
character
but they but the two transactions that I
just told you about were the only ones
that they ended up pleading guilty to.
Okay. What happened with the other ones?
I think the evidence just it wasn't
there for the evidence just wasn't as
clear
for whatever reason.
>> This was the strongest case they brought
forth. And and and my guess is that it
probably had to do with the plea
negotiations cuz
uh all three of these guys pled guilty.
Okay.
>> Okay. And so you know sometimes during
the plea negotiations you say all right
we're going to focus on these
transactions the ones that the evidence
the best
that has the best evidence. We're going
to walk away from the other ones. You
want to [snorts] go to you want to take
it to trial we're going to supersede the
indictment and charge you with the whole
nine yards.
Um
so
we have Simon who pled guilty to
orchestrating and sharing the proceeds
and then we have Yohannes who was kind
of one of the stooges involved with kind
of making all this happen and Jose who
has not been sentenced yet so we're
going to leave Jose aside.
Uh I want to know from you how much time
is Simon the ringleader getting for the
shotgun planning or and then how much
time is Yohannes getting for um for his
part in this game?
I would say Simon's probably getting
4 years. Yohannes is probably getting 36
months. So 36 months and 4 years and 3
years respectively? Yeah. 4 years to the
ringleader Yes. 3 years to the um the
stooge. Again I want to
underscore with you that the economic
loss in this case is only the $580,000
the net loss after they received the
proceeds from the foreclosure sale.
Right but I think there's sophisticated
means. I think there's there's some
enhancements there.
Uh there's he's in charge of
he's the ringleader there's he's in
charge of multiple people. I I think
that's All right now I just want to make
sure you were going into your guess with
your eyes wide open.
>> [snorts]
>> Yes I am. And do you want to stay with
those?
>> Yes. Be what you said [snorts] 4 years
and 3 years respectively? Okay.
>> Well I did my best. The correct answers
are 2 years and 1 year. Oh come on. I
tried Half a million dollars I'd I'll do
a year for half a million most people
will
>> [snorts]
>> You may you may get your chance.
Most of the cases we talk about on your
show are handled federally but this
one's a local prosecution. But I think
it it's right where it needs to be as
far as understanding kind of the home
title theft um
crime. But you have to like put your put
yourself in the eyes of a local
prosecutor a local judge on this one,
okay?
Uh Rosalind Johnson of Huber Heights,
Ohio
she formed a business a DBA called Love
Has Homes. Nice.
>> Isn't that nice?
>> It's very yeah. Isn't that nice?
So Roz as we'll call her she used quick
claim deeds to transfer ownership of
three properties one in Dayton, one in
Centerville, one in Huber Heights all
into her DBA Love Has Homes. These the
three homeowners had no idea this
occurred. There's just somebody some
regular person just
she just took the house and just
transferred the transferred the title.
>> She forged their signatures of the
homeowners and in the county clerks
recorded their deeds like good little
sheep.
Right? And now now [snorts] her company
her DBA Love Has Homes again
again we talked about this with Home
Title Lock. The homeowners have no idea
this even occurs until months later when
the foreclosure notices start arriving
in their mail, right?
>> shows up to their house and tries to
move in.
>> Right exactly. So that's why good
viewers you need to keep track of your
own home title online or hire a company
like Home Title Lock to do it for you at
pennies pennies a day because this is so
much money that these people have tied
up in their homes. Let me walk you
through what she does that once she has
the property of these homes she sells
them but at fire sale prices, right?
Because she wants to just get these
things off the books as fast as possible
and and probably not get gummed up in
title companies and stuff like that. So
the Dayton property had a market value
of $134,000.
She sells it for 35,000 bucks. Okay.
Right? The Centerville property uh
estimated value $312,000.
She sells it for $200,000.
The Huber Heights property the third in
the trio estimated value was 135,000.
She sells it for 85,000, right? These
three homeowners are dealing with the
situation where literally someone is
getting ready to move in their houses
with a moving truck believing that they
bought the house fair and square
and uh and so these poor homeowners
going to have to spend a fortune to try
to get this thing remedied uh again
unless they have a Home Title Lock or
some company that's going to do it for
them. The but we're really focusing on
Rosalind, right? So Rosalind
I don't know how you're going to compute
the sentence on this. The it's either
the market value that she stole of the
houses 133 300 plus 300 for 12 plus 135
or the amount of money she actually got
which is probably a little more like
Over 400 400. A little over 300. Uh
285 plus 35
315 320. Okay. Right? Um locally
investigated though, right? FBI didn't
get involved with this one. The local
police handled it locally prosecuted.
Um
she pled guilty actually to charges of
forgery, grand theft, and
telecommunications fraud
in Montgomery County, Ohio.
The
How much time do you think the local
judge gave her?
Within 20%.
2 years.
What do you think? 2 years? I think 2
years. You think? I think I think
>> I know. You I don't have to guess. I
think 2 years. You think 2 years? Yeah.
Okay. I think the local that local uh
judges state judges are
used to seeing violent crimes more so
than something like this and to them
this probably isn't that serious.
>> It's possible that the judges own their
own home and kind of realize the horror
that the home owners are having to face
by having someone buy their house
without their knowledge and without
receiving any money.
Do you still think it's just 2 years?
>> 2 years. No big deal, huh? This crime
just a walk in the park.
2 years. 2 years that's your answer?
>> [snorts]
>> All right. Well I here's I'll tell you.
Um and Colby can figure out how he wants
to compute this because local sentences
are weird. She was sentenced to 3 to 4
and 1/2 years. They have a range but
we'll say 3 years because it's going to
get you closer but I'm not so sure it
doesn't necessarily get you there.
>> make it but I mean to the the low
sentences the percentage the low
sentencing the percentages get real
tight. You know what I mean? You're 1
year off but you're not 20%.
>> tyranny of small numbers, yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I give it to you. Wait what
do you mean you're going to give it to
him? He's a third off. 4 4 out of 11.
The answer the low end of the sentence
was 36 months. He guessed 24 months,
right? All right wasn't that your guess?
2 years?
>> Yeah 2 years 24 months, yeah.
The sentence was the sentence was 3 to
4. So he he it's a range. So his his
guess should be a range 2 to 3.
Uh I I know who I know who signs Colby's
paychecks. Oh.
You ever been to Graceland?
No I don't think so. Memphis, Tennessee
Elvis' home.
I have to tell you Been to Memphis. It's
a great tour. The Graceland tour is
fantastic.
Um we're going to tell a story about
Graceland.
We interviewed a guy who bought Elvis'
plane and turned it into like an RV or
something with the right right?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah I mean anything to do with
Elvis is ratings gold so expect this
you're going to be going through the
roof here. This woman named Lisa Janine
Findlay
and she falsely claimed that Elvis
Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley
who's deceased now. She was married to
Michael Jackson for a while. Remember
that?
>> Yeah. Weird, huh? Uh strange bedfellows.
Um anyway,
Lisa Finley is kind of confusing cuz
there's two Lisas. Lisa Finley claimed
that Lisa Presley borrowed $3.8 million.
Um
from a private lender and pledged
Graceland as collateral for the loan
before Lisa Marie Presley died in 2023,
right? So, none of this is true, but
this is what she's claiming.
And so,
um what Lisa Finley did is she
threatened to sell Graceland to the
highest bidder.
She's foreclosing upon Graceland
functionally if the Presley family
didn't pay $2.8 million in a settlement.
And so, Lisa poses as three different
people allegedly involved with this fake
lender that uh that doesn't that not
doesn't exist. She fabricates loan
documents and publishes a fraudulent
foreclosure notice in a Memphis
newspaper announcing the auction of
Graceland in May 2024.
Ballsy. Imagine the gall, right? Uh
um Elvis's granddaughter actually owns
the property right now. Her name is
Riley Keough. She's an actress, I guess.
Uh she catches wind of this and sues. A
judge halts the proposed auction, right?
That we're not going to auction off
Graceland, the judge says.
Um with an injunction. We're going to
pause this until we find out what's
going on here.
Lisa has a criminal history
uh attempting to pass bad checks.
And so, she begins doctoring creating
documents to make it look like this
entire scheme to steal Graceland was a
Nigerian identity theft scam. Like, I
had nothing to do with this. It was
Nigerians who were doing it.
>> Right. Like like blame the black man.
It's so sad.
>> I know.
The government sees right through that.
Lisa gets prosecuted federally for fraud
and identity theft relating to her
attempts to steal Graceland.
She uh pleads guilty to the fraud and
they drop the identity theft charge.
Got that? Uh-huh. Mhm. Okay. Now, the
defense defense argues that the
Presley estate did not suffer any loss
of money as a result of this attempt to
steal Graceland. Okay.
And uh the prosecutor's like, you still
can't steal Graceland.
>> Yeah.
And what I'm wondering is, what does the
judge say?
And I'm going to tell you.
Big hint.
Memphis judge. Right.
>> [laughter]
>> Memphis [clears throat] judge.
Um
>> She's trying to steal Graceland.
>> Yeah.
>> [snorts]
>> Um By foreclosing upon it
with a fake loan. And she's got a
criminal history. She does.
Passing bad checks. Uh it's not John
Dillinger. No, but still fraud.
>> a cover-up involved, right? Where
brazenness of it. There was a cover-up
where she's blaming Nigerians.
Who are good and honorable people.
Most of them.
Um I'm going to go with 6 years, 72
months.
>> 6 years, 72 months is your guess.
Wha- give me
I know you don't want to belabor this.
Give me one or two sentences about why
you come to that conclusion.
I I I I For a no loss fraud.
I I don't know. I was thinking I felt
like the fraud is the
two and a half million or three million
that she put on it. Like I feel like
that's where if I was doing the
sentencing guidelines, I'd say that's
what the potential loss was. Okay. Of
two two and a half million or whatever
it was, a couple million dollars, plus
>> [snorts]
>> she's cover she's not taking
responsibility.
She even though she pleads guilty,
she's trying to say it was somebody
else. She you know, there's all kinds of
little things that are she's filing the
paperwork. She's
got a criminal history. It's
sophisticated. It's it's Tell me where
you landed. Um
I what did I say? 6 years? Yeah, 6
years. 6 years. The correct answer
57 months. Come on, that's really close,
right? That's got to be close.
>> 57 * 1.
That's got to be 57 * 1.2.
68.
Uh which is Oh, I'm shy.
>> missed it. Just missed it.
>> Which is 5.7 5.7 years.
>> Yeah. Since Colby's giving it away, you
can give you that one, too. Stop.
I'm going to tell you
[cough and clears throat] the story of
Mazen El-Zoubi, Southern California boy,
>> [snorts]
>> real estate investor.
He fraudulently sold or attempted to
sell homes that did not belong to him.
Which is sort of the theme of our
episode.
>> Yeah, right?
And so, what here's what how he did it.
He forged deeds. Again, that's the
document that transfers ownership of a
property from one person to another.
That would make it appear as if the true
owners of a property had sold the home
to a sham investment company that he
controlled.
Reality, the true owners were entirely
unaware that he had done this.
>> Okay. Okay.
He then began to record the forged deeds
at the county recorder's office, make it
official. And what we we've talked about
this again and again and again, the
counties are not paying attention to the
validity of these things. They're not
allowed to pay attention. Their job is
to record the deed in the public record.
Um once the fraudulent documents were
recorded in the chain of title,
he would pose as the new owner.
Um and he had business his businesses
were like land investment 01 and stuff
like that, you know. And so,
he then immediately tries to sell the
properties
and working with co-conspirators
sometimes to set up bank accounts for
sham companies and whatnot. They assume
the identities of others in order to
keep the scheme going. So, there's some
identity theft happening here. Uh
setting up dummy email accounts,
obtaining fake driver's licenses. They
also forged the signatures and notary
stamps of real notaries to make them
look um make the fake documents look
legitimate when they filed these things.
And they forged the signatures of real
lawyers to prepare and file the
fraudulent court documents.
Um
and then their their goal then is to
sell these properties out from under
people. Stealing people's homes and
trying to sell them without the actual
homeowners knowing. FBI catches wind of
this. They send in an undercover agent
to pose as a prospective buyer
of one of these properties.
>> Okay. And um and El-Zoubi is pretending
during the conversation with the
undercover FBI agent to be an attorney
for the true owners or the sellers is
what he said. But it's El-Zoubi there.
And so,
the reason the FBI does undercover
assignments like that is to kind of just
lock in who the bad guys are.
>> Right.
>> I would often go undercover as a
prospective investor um in Ponzi
schemes, you know, and because I want to
record the sales pitch. And so, having
El-Zoubi there kind of trying to sell
someone a home that he did not
rightfully own, that he only owns on
paper due to his home title theft, was
fantastic evidence for the FBI. It's
fantastic.
Anyway, so he attempted to sell 15 homes
with more than $3.6 million collective
value
uh that never belonged to him. On 10
occasions, he was successful. So, he
successfully earned illicit proceeds of
$2.2
million in his home title theft scheme.
Wow. Okay. Meanwhile, the real
homeowners are left high and dry cuz the
government does not restore the home
back into their name. They got to they
got to bear the expense of lawyers and
stuff like that unless they have home
title lock or some company that's going
to bail them out.
>> Right. That's their problem.
>> Right. So, uh he's charged with fraud,
money laundering, and identity theft. He
pleads guilty.
Again, the attempted loss $3.6 million,
15 homes.
The actual loss $2.2 million.
How much time is the judge going to
sentence Mazen El-Zoubi to?
What do we know if he has a criminal
history? You know, I don't know, but I'm
going to assume that he has some
historic legal problems.
>> is this is extremely complicated. What
what he did was not that's not some guy
who's working at Walmart just decides to
come up with this Exactly. And the the
undercover um the judge got to view in
open court the undercover recording
where
>> a human action. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which
which always has an impact on the judge
to actually see it. So, it's not just a
paper caper to the judge.
I don't know. I still like maybe 5
years, 6 years.
5 6 years. Um
S-
Mhm.
72 months.
72 months is your guess? Yeah.
I have to tell you, Matt Cox.
Jesus. What?
The correct answer
>> Yeah. is 75 months.
You ended on a high note.
>> Yes. Well, I mean, yeah, kind of. Yeah.
Yeah. I lost the game, but that's fine.
Mhm. Well, you're feverous. You're
stuffed up. You're having a tough time
kind of making it through this episode.
[snorts]
I'm happy to carry you along for this
process. And uh
it's a good guess. Yeah. So, um
should we talk about Home Title Lock on
this episode? I mean, I mentioned them a
few times because they are the solution
to this problem, but should we kind of
do a
>> god you were here. Should we should we
do a conversation about what they do?
Does that make sense? Uh Sure. I mean,
they're sponsoring this episode, so we
should probably disclose that to your
your viewers.
Um but they're addressing a real crime
problem. I mean, again, I told 12
stories of people who are just running
roughshod over the transfer of homes and
liens on homes from one person to
another. And so, this isn't some
hypothetical crime that doesn't happen.
And you of all people know that because
you served a substantial portion of your
life doing this. Jesus.
You put it like that.
>> It's it's But my my point though is that
that that Home Title Lock is protecting
people from a real crime problem here,
right? And so, what they do is they have
million-dollar triple lock protection.
So, if you subscribe to Home Title Lock,
and I'm a subscriber, I own my house.
I'd be terrified if someone tried any of
this nonsense with me. They're going to
monitor your home 24/7. They're going to
notify you if anything should happen.
And if something should happen, they're
going to spend like a million dollars
with their US based restoration team to
get that home back into your name and
undo everything the bad guys do.
And it's going to make you sleep better
at night. Even if you never need it, you
like you hope you never need this,
right? But having it there is going to
make you sleep better at night the same
way that I sleep better at night knowing
that I got a smoke detector in my house
even though my house is unlikely to
spontaneously burst into flames. So,
that's what Home Title Lock does. I know
you work with them, I work with them and
all, they're good people and and I know
your viewers probably would want to at
least know what the product is since you
and I both endorse it.
Yeah, I think that the
I I'd say at least what
seven or eight out of these
crime stories that you've shown are just
the you know, you don't really talk
about the victims but these are just
people that are just sitting at their
sitting there in their Barca loungers
watching Netflix
who someone stole their house and they
don't even figure it out until
until
they're notified by the FBI or
somebody's foreclosing or they find So,
it's And again, I've seen this in
action. I mean, I've told the story here
in the past about the Demetrians, the
the fugitive couple that I failed to
catch who were stealing
who were stealing the equity from
people's homes that in
you know, and and good people lost their
homes as a result of this. And the
government are is very good at putting
people in orange jumpsuits in prisons.
They're not really good they're not
their job is not to restore your home
back into your your name if you are
victimized by this. That's on you and
lawyers aren't cheap. Yeah, it's like a
burglar a burglary, you know, they catch
the burglar and then they turn around
and go to
turn to the
law enforcement say, "Okay, well, what
about my broken door? What about all the
stuff that was broken in my house? And
what about all the stuff that was
stolen?"
>> the cop says, "I ain't a carpenter."
Yeah. [laughter]
Good luck with that.
>> Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, it's the
same it's the same thing. Yeah. So,
I want to thank Home Title Lock for
sponsoring this episode. Something a
little special and different for us.
Usually, we kind of give a a potpourri
of different types of cases, but I just
thought this was an important enough
issue that I wanted to bring this to
your listeners. Because you and I have
this business relationship with Home
Title Lock, I thought it'd be kind of
cool if we could see if we can get your
viewers to get a deal. And so, I talked
to Home Title Lock and they said that
they'd be willing to
any Matt Cox viewer who wants to try out
Home Title Lock for 30 days, they'll
just pay $1 for it. I have it on my home
because again, I'm terrified given my
history of kind of going after a lot of
people who do this type of stuff for a
living. And the customer service is
great. It's a fantastic product. I would
not be associated with them if I didn't
think it was a good product. So, they
could go to the description down below.
Colby's going to put it in there how
they can get that deal. Hey you guys, I
appreciate you watching. Do me a favor,
hit the subscribe button, hit the bell
so you get notified of videos just like
this. Also, all of those links for Home
Title Lock are going to be in the
description box so you go straight to
the description box, click on the link,
it'll shoot you right to
their website.
Form's really easy. You get 30 days for
$1. Definitely worth it. It's definitely
a deal.
Thank you very much.
See you. Be cool.
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