0:03

Hi,

0:03

Paul.

0:04

Hi, Yardley. How are you doing? Well, I'm doing

0:06

great. How are you? I've

0:06

so good. It's so great to have

0:08

you on small town dicks.

0:09

Oh, I am so happy to be here.

0:11

So we wanna know how

0:14

did we persuade you? To join us

0:16

here on small town dick.

0:17

Oh, it was it was a lot of arm twisting.

0:19

Not the truth. Well,

0:22

what has always impressed me about small town

0:24

dick is the professionalism. First,

0:27

you have your authenticity. You know,

0:29

Dan and Dave, myself. We come out

0:31

of real crime. We've had real experiences.

0:34

And so the audience, the listeners, are

0:36

getting from small town dicks, what

0:39

actually happens out there, not something

0:41

that's been glamorized. But also

0:43

you guys don't exploit the cases.

0:46

You're empathetic to the victims and this

0:48

is what I'm all about and I know

0:50

that people who know me from other

0:52

projects, they will truly see

0:54

that when they start listening to small

0:57

town dicks. That's an incredible

0:58

endorsement. Dan and Gabe,

1:00

telefind people about some Patreon,

1:03

where Paul Hull's also joins us

1:05

on quite a few nuggetty nuggets.

1:07

For just five bucks a month, you'll have

1:09

access to an assortment bonus episodes,

1:12

outtakes, listener questions, special

1:14

series.

1:14

Small town fam, you get everything Dave

1:17

said Ed, and your hard earned money goes

1:19

to support our incredible staff

1:21

behind the scenes to give you this podcast

1:23

that we all love. So please join

1:25

us at patreon dot com slashed

1:28

small town dips.

1:29

How much was that again?

1:30

It's only five dollars a month, Paul.

1:32

Just five dollars and you get all of that

1:35

content? Yes. That is a deal.

1:37

It's such a deal. Patreon dot

1:39

com slash small town dicks.

1:47

Hey, small town fam. We

1:49

have a fascinating, deeply personal

1:52

case for you today. For starters,

1:55

the first thing detective Matt said

1:57

about this case when he sat down with us

1:59

was it was the worst year of his

2:01

life. And as he offered up

2:03

details of going deep undercover, all

2:06

I could think was how this assignment he'd

2:08

taken on sounded like a season

2:10

of homeland or a Tom Clancy

2:12

novel, except that in Matt's

2:14

case, it was very very real.

2:17

And the potential for life threatening danger

2:19

hung in the air for him every minute

2:22

of every day for over

2:24

a year. And it was

2:26

not just the danger of Matt getting

2:28

found out, but the potential of

2:31

hundreds of people getting killed if

2:34

Matt's mission failed. So

2:36

we at small town dicks also wanted

2:38

to know what kind of toll

2:41

stress like that takes on a man.

2:43

And his family. This

2:45

is deep cover.

2:49

Hi

2:49

there. I'm Yardley. I'm Dan.

2:52

I'm Dave, and I'm Paul. And this

2:54

is Smart Town Gex. Dave and I

2:56

are identical twins and retired detectives

2:59

from Smart Town US and I'm a veteran

3:01

cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden

3:03

State killer using a revolutionary DNA

3:05

tool. Between the three of us, we've investigated

3:08

thousands of crimes from petty theft

3:10

to sexual assault, child abuse,

3:12

to murder. Each case we cover

3:14

is told by the detective who investigated it,

3:17

offering a rare, personal account of how

3:19

they saw the crime. Names, places,

3:21

and certain details have been changed to protect the

3:23

privacy of victims and their families.

3:25

And although we're aware that of our listeners

3:27

may be familiar with these cases. We ask

3:29

you to please join us in continuing to protect

3:31

the true identities of those involved out of

3:33

respect for what they've been

3:34

through. Thank you.

3:42

Today on Smart Handex, we

3:45

have the usual suspects. We

3:47

have detective Dave. Good morning,

3:49

Yardley. Good morning, David. So happy

3:51

to see you. We have detective Dan.

3:53

Hello, team. Hello, you?

3:56

We have the one and only Paul Holmes.

3:58

Hey. How's it going? Everybody's

3:59

at the table. We're excited.

4:02

And small town fan, we are so pleased to

4:04

welcome back to the podcast one of

4:06

our new fan favorites, detective

4:08

Matt. Good morning. Thanks for having

4:10

me back.

4:10

We're so happy to have you, and I have to say

4:13

we're here in South Florida were

4:15

actually meeting in person

4:17

for the very first time. Last time

4:19

that we had you on a podcast, we did

4:21

it over Zoom, of course. It was

4:23

the case we ended up calling politically

4:25

incorrect, but it's so much

4:27

better to sit down

4:29

with you in person. Definitely. So,

4:32

Matt, we're ready to hear

4:34

about the worst year of your life. So,

4:36

yes, this case pretty much took

4:39

everything out of me. It was very

4:41

trying and it was a twenty

4:43

four seven case for a little over a

4:45

year. I had to

4:46

be a different person. You know, I went into

4:48

undercover narcotics work. And

4:51

I was

4:51

young and everybody's like, oh, what do you wanna do?

4:53

I wanna do deep cover case. That's what everybody wants to do

4:56

now. See how deep you can go. It's becoming

4:57

a bit of a dying art anyway. It's not happening a

4:59

lot anymore. How come?

5:01

Social media. Is

5:02

that because basically with social media,

5:05

we don't have any privacy anymore.

5:07

You know, we're constantly photo

5:09

bombing

5:09

our lives. Throwing everything up

5:11

on every gram of every kind.

5:13

Exactly. Kind of CoverAF you'll

5:15

see now are people that will go and

5:17

with FBI. And you're traveling, you

5:19

know, to the other side of the country or to

5:21

another country altogether. And

5:24

you're there for two to three days and then you come home.

5:26

There's no getting embedded.

5:28

The case

5:29

we're gonna talk about, in

5:31

some

5:31

ways, I got very lucky because they

5:35

broke their own policies. I had to

5:37

convince them that, man, we're the

5:39

bestest of friends because if they follow

5:41

their policies to the tea, I'm

5:43

done. There's nothing I can do

5:45

to prevent them figuring out that, wait, he's not

5:47

who he says he is. You mean the criminals

5:49

broke their own codes basically

5:51

to bring you into their fold.

5:53

Yeah. Interesting. And

5:56

Matt, you were giving us a little background

5:58

about a case that I think is

5:59

important to share with the listener. So

6:02

you were asked to embed yourself with

6:04

a radical offshoot of a

6:06

legitimate environmental group because

6:09

you had some intelligence about a

6:11

plot to disrupt the Democratic National

6:13

Convention, which was being held

6:15

in your town. And for the

6:17

uninitiated people here live in the

6:19

states, those who didn't take

6:21

civics, these political

6:24

convention trains are held by both Republicans

6:26

and Democrats every four

6:28

years to pick their respective

6:30

presidential candidates and they're huge.

6:34

So, Matt, how did you first learn

6:36

about this group and its plan?

6:38

So,

6:38

I was working. I was on the DEA

6:40

task force. And

6:41

the and the DNC, the

6:44

Democratic National Convention, they plan that out

6:46

pretty much after one ends. They're already planning where the

6:48

next one's gonna be. Citi's bid

6:50

on it. So the Citi I was working for

6:52

they got the bid. And pretty

6:54

quickly after that, that's when,

6:57

hey, something bad is supposed to happen.

6:59

That fast. Yeah. So

7:01

a couple people came to me and said, hey,

7:03

would you be willing to at least see if you can

7:05

get in bed at somewhat and just see

7:07

what the mindset is and what the feeling is?

7:10

So

7:10

I went to their meetings. It was

7:12

a Ram meeting which is the Rainforest action

7:15

network and the Greenpeace

7:17

meeting. And became

7:19

close with people in the rainforest

7:21

action at work. So in the city, the

7:23

person who was running, took

7:25

a liking to me.

7:26

What's the name of this guy who's running

7:29

these groups?

7:29

Sam, and so he and I started

7:31

hanging out. And my backstory

7:34

was orphan, grew up, got

7:36

a trust fund, and was living

7:38

on a sailboat, but somehow you

7:40

approached Sam to where now you

7:42

guys are interacting. How does that

7:44

approach occur? So I go to

7:46

the meeting and these aren't big

7:48

meetings. Average meeting was like ten minutes

7:50

in this brick room. You

7:52

had the ring force action network there. You had

7:54

greenpeace in this building. And so everybody

7:56

kinda combined together. So, like, an

7:58

office building? Yeah. But warehouse style

8:00

almost. So, only ten to

8:02

fifteen people would be at a meeting at a time.

8:04

And, basically, I just went up to Sam,

8:07

hey, like what you talked about, kinda

8:09

get more information kind of thing. And

8:11

we went out and got beer and pizza

8:13

that night, talked some more first time

8:15

I'd ever had egg and pizza. Never

8:18

heard of that. It was a big thing they did,

8:20

and it was funny because they actually didn't taste that bad. I

8:22

kinda liked it. But as the case

8:25

grew on and emotions and all that got

8:27

involved. Now if I eat egg on pizza,

8:29

I'll immediately get sick. Their association.

8:31

Yeah. Exactly.

8:32

Fascinating. So you as

8:35

Matt starting to go undercover, was

8:37

anybody allowed to go to these meetings,

8:39

or was it weird to see a new face like

8:41

yours in that meeting? It

8:42

was definitely weird. I mean, they were a close knit

8:44

group, but MB was allowed to go. And

8:47

so I wasn't pushy at all.

8:49

Long story short, I kinda stood back in

8:51

the corner. Didn't approach

8:53

anybody, constantly had that

8:55

standoffish role. And this was during

8:57

occupy when occupy was very, very popular.

8:59

Occupy Wall Street, Yes. We had a

9:01

group in my city that was occupying an

9:03

area, and I just didn't know

9:05

really anything about protests just since the nineteen

9:07

sixties. Anything I'd just read in

9:09

book. So one of the things I did early on was

9:11

go to YouTube and start watching

9:13

every video about the beliefs,

9:15

about personality types and

9:17

all that. And most

9:19

of the people involved seem to

9:21

identify as a group, but they have trouble

9:23

socially, basically. So I was like, I I need to

9:25

fit the part, and so that's what I did.

9:27

To back in the corner. And then like I said, the

9:29

first meeting, I went up and talked to Sam and done in the

9:32

meeting. And he was very

9:34

much, oh, you gotta me, Billie. You gotta me, Billie. You're

9:36

gonna love Billie. And it was

9:38

because I had said I lived on the sailboat. And I

9:40

do have background sailing, so at least I knew what

9:42

I was talking about. So

9:45

Billy didn't get there for about a month. I think this

9:47

would have been in about August, I wanna

9:49

say. She say Billy didn't get there.

9:51

Billy's not local he's

9:53

coming in to help kind of

9:55

organize and drive this

9:57

planning. So he actually is

9:59

local. What I was

9:59

being told at the time was

10:02

that he was on a sailboat with kids

10:04

taking around the Caribbean. Did he

10:05

live on a sailboat too or this was

10:07

just a like a boone doggl where

10:09

he was on a boat with his family. More

10:11

of a boondaga, it wasn't his family. It was supposed

10:13

to be a group. I have a

10:15

feeling since learning a lot more about him later.

10:17

That's probably a cover story. That's not actually what he

10:19

was doing.

10:20

Cover stories, to cover other stories,

10:22

to cover stories. Yeah. So

10:24

is Billy regarded as kind of

10:26

like the leader for a local chapter, or is he

10:28

more of a national guy? He

10:30

would be a national guy. Basically,

10:32

there's the outside group,

10:34

the media group that everybody's on

10:36

TV, and then there's the underground.

10:39

And he would be part of the underground.

10:41

He was very, very extreme.

10:43

The first time we meet and

10:45

we hit it off, definitely in connection right

10:47

out the gate. I wanna say it was, like, two days

10:49

later, I go to his house and go to

10:51

his room and his

10:53

whole bedroom was nothing but

10:55

news clippings or drawings. Of

10:57

cops getting beaten or killed. Oh my

11:00

god. His entire room, his

11:02

hatred for police was I have

11:04

yet to ever say anything like it. He's

11:06

actually a really good artist but he

11:08

loved to draw police getting murdered. I'm

11:10

seeing a parallel here going

11:12

after, you know, the predator, the serial predator,

11:14

the fantasy motivated individual.

11:17

They can be very visual. They will do

11:20

drawing some of them just like BTK.

11:22

He would do drawings. There's

11:24

almost a violent fantasy, a

11:26

pathology with in Billy

11:28

that is being exhibited within his

11:30

room really his insight into what

11:32

his inner fantasies are. That

11:34

would make perfect sense and he

11:36

was very one minute, we

11:38

were just as close as could be,

11:40

and no joke we'd get together another

11:42

time. And he's making me put my

11:44

phone somewhere away from me and up searching me. You

11:46

never knew who you were gonna get

11:48

paranoid. Yeah. Very much so.

11:50

Is he probing you for

11:52

your ideology? Like,

11:55

when he brings you into his room and he's got all this

11:57

imagery and these articles on the wall

11:59

of police being beaten and killed,

12:01

he's doing that for a reason.

12:03

So, like, what do you say in a situation like that?

12:06

So, you know, you gotta think fast and you gotta say

12:08

something fast and he's watching your face. He wants

12:10

to see, how do you respond to that

12:12

stuff? And I think I says, I'm in, how to get

12:14

this collection together? And then, wow, you can

12:16

really draw. This is an awesome

12:18

job. Yeah. This doesn't bother me at all. I'm

12:20

interested in it. Pet the ego.

12:22

Exactly. Yeah.

12:24

Okay. So you start your deep

12:26

cover investigation by going to

12:28

this meeting of some

12:31

well known and legitimate environmental

12:33

groups, but it turns out that

12:35

they're just a gateway to

12:38

something much more radical. What's

12:40

the name of the group that Billy and Sam are

12:42

part of?

12:42

So there's a very

12:45

radical group called DGR, Deep Cream

12:47

Resistance. You can look them up

12:49

online. They believe legitimately that

12:51

we need to go back to when we invented the wheel

12:53

and nothing after that. In terms of

12:55

industrialization?

12:56

Correct. And they believe we need to

12:59

do that by any means necessary.

13:01

And that means bombing assassinations, they

13:03

have a book where they talk about it and how

13:05

to do it. You work in cells, teams of

13:07

four, sometimes up to six, and

13:09

one person communicates with another, but

13:11

then they don't know about any of the other cells. They

13:13

don't know who they are, so they can't rattle.

13:15

Just a very very dangerous group

13:17

with strong beliefs. And then

13:20

Billy was very pro gun, but

13:22

about week later, he had me go shooting with him to teach me

13:24

how to use a gun because he had a big farm

13:26

that he lived on. He had two houses, one in town, and

13:29

this other one was his parents, and this is a

13:31

huge farm. And he had me walk down to go put the

13:33

target on. That's one of those ones you're like, I didn't shot in the

13:35

back today.

13:35

Oh, you mean, Billy told

13:37

you to go down range and just

13:39

stick

13:39

the targets on the tree.

13:42

So now you have your back to this

13:44

crazy unpredictable

13:45

lunatic. Exactly. Oh

13:47

my god. Yeah. And law

13:49

enforcement and all of us have been trained in firearms and,

13:51

you know, safety is the first priority

13:54

when you're at the range. Anytime you're handling

13:56

a weapon and nobody

13:58

goes down range at all.

14:00

Everyone goes together

14:02

you go together down range, not just

14:04

one person. So, yeah, that

14:06

would set off big alarm bells in my

14:08

head. So

14:09

Billy says, let's go shooting, and you said

14:11

you guys did it out at his farm

14:13

versus the city residence. What's

14:15

it like? Are you in the woods? Are you in

14:17

an open field? Where are

14:19

you setting up these targets? Why you're wondering

14:21

if you're gonna get shot in the

14:22

back? So it is the woods.

14:25

It's actually he made almost his own

14:27

range. Because he had cut down a bunch of

14:29

trees and then cut some, like,

14:31

halfway down and put the targets on top

14:33

of the trees that were halfway down. It was

14:35

actually quite a lumberjack to be honest.

14:37

And it's funny, so

14:39

made me think of something. So when

14:41

my agency listens to this, This will be the first time

14:43

they find out. Because if I had mentioned this,

14:45

that I was putting up

14:47

targets, they had pulled me immediately out of the guy and

14:49

kicked out of the case. And rightfully so.

14:51

Because it

14:51

was too risky. Now you've crossed the line.

14:53

Oh,

14:53

yeah. You're walking

14:55

down to throw these

14:57

targets up. Their father who art and

14:59

haven't followed me that name. Do you feel eyes

15:01

like burning through your back? Did you ever,

15:03

like, look over your shoulder? Hey, is he looking at me

15:05

through a name point right now? Or is

15:07

he just reload magazines. You know how it is when

15:09

you get in that really bad spot that you don't even wanna

15:11

look back. Like, what's it what's it gonna do you?

15:13

Just walk and You don't even

15:15

wanna know it's gonna come. I'm not gonna feel

15:17

the same. Exactly. Hopefully,

15:20

it's a really good shot. I understand. So

15:24

again, you don't know is he testing you, so

15:26

that's just part of it. And I

15:28

was shocked not just from

15:30

Billy, but from many of the others, the

15:32

MANTA test you have to go through the vetting

15:34

process was unreal.

15:36

They would call me up two o'clock in

15:38

morning, three o'clock in morning. Come on. Let's go. And

15:40

we're going out and we're doing something.

15:41

And what sort of things would you do at three

15:43

AM? The bars are

15:44

closed? Right. Well, you go someone's house, go

15:46

drinking. We would there's a word

15:48

for it. I think it's wheat pasting.

15:50

I don't remember it. Basically,

15:52

you put, like, flyers or whatever

15:54

and you paste them on the stuff. Oh, like,

15:56

on telephone poles and stuff.

15:58

Yeah. So we would go around town to do

16:00

that. A lot of times, it was just going

16:02

over to Billy's house. Not the

16:04

farmhouse. The one in town. Yeah.

16:06

And sometimes they'd be sitting there doing

16:08

coke, sometimes just smoking weed,

16:10

So Billy is out of control. He's doing

16:13

drugs. Did he try to get you to do

16:15

drugs? Yes.

16:15

Oh, yeah. I know

16:16

undercover agents you're

16:18

not supposed to do that. So what do you

16:21

do? So

16:21

I had to get a story out early

16:23

on, and the story worked. I'm kinda surprised

16:26

it worked. But I told him that

16:28

I was out west for a little while. I met with a

16:30

shaman, and the shaman told me that I

16:32

cannot use drugs. Yeah. Are you

16:34

asking me to compromise my morals

16:36

and my commitment. Exactly.

16:38

I'm sure

16:38

Billy thought that story is so

16:40

unbelievable. It must be

16:42

true.

16:51

The

16:56

feds come to you

16:58

say, hey, we're worried about this group being

17:00

extreme and causing havoc

17:02

at the Democratic National Convention

17:04

in your town. You

17:07

start going to meetings, you meet

17:10

Sam. Sam's like, oh, hey, I

17:12

want you to meet the honcho, and

17:14

that's Billy. I

17:15

imagine it's difficult for Billy to just

17:17

go. You know what? Yeah. You're a brand

17:20

new face. Let's go hang out. That's

17:22

awkward. So you

17:24

have to massage that relationship and build

17:26

it. And I imagine that would take

17:28

weeks or months to get to

17:30

where he's inviting you over to the house and you guys are

17:32

going shooting and you guys are eating

17:35

and having beers with

17:37

the fellas. How long does it

17:39

actually take for you to get to a

17:41

meeting or a planning session where they

17:43

start actually talking about criminal stuff

17:45

and you're like, okay, there is

17:47

a need for me to be here and there's

17:49

need for me to stay embedded with this

17:51

group. So

17:52

Billy actually very

17:55

quickly was all about violence

17:57

and had no issue talking

17:59

about violence and the need for

18:01

it, whether it was killing people, derailing

18:04

trains. I remember New Year's Eve,

18:06

three months, four months in, we're together on New

18:08

Year's Eve at somebody's house.

18:10

He goes what we need

18:12

to do, we need to start bombing ATMs. That's where it's at.

18:14

We bomb ATMs when somebody triggers

18:16

something, they walk up to it.

18:18

And ATM explodes. That's gonna hurt

18:21

the banks more than anything else because

18:23

people are gonna be scared to go to the ATMs and

18:25

that'll cause the bank to go under. Because

18:27

of transaction fees? Not

18:29

getting the transaction fees? Not actually

18:31

having the machine blow up and kill the person. No.

18:33

But, like, people are gonna be scared to go

18:35

and the bank is gonna miss out on

18:37

transaction fees or whatever. I'm

18:39

joking about the transaction fees,

18:41

but Billy's missing the way banks

18:43

do business if he thinks blowing up an

18:45

ATM is going to make the bank go

18:47

under. Yeah. Do you

18:48

know if Billy had been successful

18:50

in the past about setting bombs that

18:52

actually killed or named people. Do you

18:54

know if he had killed anyone with his

18:56

bare hands? Anything like that? I

18:59

do not

18:59

not know of

19:00

him killing anybody or

19:03

completing any moms. I will say

19:05

Billy's idea with the ATMs that

19:07

happened in Australia. And the only person I've ever

19:09

heard talk about that idea was

19:12

Billy. The last man, no, he has to somehow be

19:14

behind it. Billy has his

19:16

fingers elsewhere? Yeah. Oh, gantry.

19:18

Because he he did. He would travel all time.

19:20

Just disappear. How old is

19:21

Billy? What do you look like? What's

19:24

his affect? Billy, now,

19:27

to be

19:27

in his early thirties. Oh, he's

19:30

young. Yes.

19:31

the

19:32

guinea Skinny,

19:33

long blonde hair because

19:35

they're very good looking.

19:36

Tall, short? Probably

19:39

about

19:39

five ten, 595 ten. Did

19:41

Billy have a family? Did he have a wife

19:43

and kids of his own? No.

19:44

He does not. Okay. So he was

19:46

a loader. Yes. Very much so.

19:48

Do you get any sense of what his background

19:51

is? So, Billy, went to

19:53

college. He's actually very,

19:55

very books mark. Common sense,

19:57

its ground level. But when it comes

19:59

to

19:59

book smart, he's through the roof. And he

20:02

went to a college actually in the

20:04

same state where the city was.

20:06

And he studied fertilizing

20:11

chemistry. And so he'd learned all

20:13

different ways to make bombs. Like, he would teach me, you know, you're

20:15

gonna use kerosene with this mixture because

20:17

we want a slow burn on this or, you know, if

20:19

you wanna do a really fast burn, we're just gonna

20:21

use straight gas I'm wondering how he

20:23

was radicalized. If you're a

20:26

champion for the environmental cause

20:29

and we all know that if you derail

20:31

a train, what a trains have,

20:33

they carry fuel, they carry hazardous

20:35

chemicals. So the

20:37

hypocrisy there of causing a

20:39

trained derailment and potentially an

20:42

environmental disaster seems to kinda go

20:44

against what you're trying to protect. And

20:46

we did talk about that that was the thing is that have

20:48

to have some casualties in order

20:50

for the bigger picture to succeed.

20:53

So while I was in the

20:55

city, we were targeting Bank of America. That's who we were

20:57

going after. Reason we were going after Bank

20:59

of America supposedly was because

21:01

they give out loans to coal companies

21:04

that destroy the mountains. So Bank of

21:06

America was having a shareholders meeting at

21:09

their headquarters. And rainforest

21:12

action network, Greenpeace, Alf,

21:14

which see if I remember what Alf

21:16

stood for. Animal liberation front,

21:19

and then you had first, you had elf,

21:21

which is Earth Liberation

21:24

Front, all these groups came. It was

21:26

a huge protest. Just to

21:28

protest Bank of America that interrupt the

21:30

shareholders meeting. And the

21:32

shareholders was in May. So this is

21:34

kind of down the road a little bit and I tell you how long taken

21:36

since August, I'm still working on

21:38

getting vetted in. I had an apartment that was

21:40

funded by the FBI that I lived

21:43

in. Twenty four seven and actually would sleep in the

21:45

living room running underneath the

21:47

window just because if anybody was gonna shoot up the

21:49

place, I forget to save the place I could be would be

21:51

right there because they would shoot over

21:53

me. Getting followed was

21:55

typical, so it was intense. So

21:57

the shareholders meeting, we had all these people come in

21:59

to town, and this was my vetting process. I

22:01

was gonna get arrested. What they do for these big

22:03

protests, are the people that are gonna get arrested,

22:06

are decided ahead of time, and you're

22:08

on an arrest team. Just

22:10

like law enforcement has the rest team that do the resting, where

22:13

this is getting arrested team.

22:15

And so I imagine

22:17

the instructions for a team

22:19

that's going to get arrested is

22:21

you're gonna be the agitators. You're

22:23

gonna do a lot of disruption, property

22:27

damage, confronting police

22:30

physically get yourself arrested,

22:32

do whatever it takes. Correct. And so we

22:34

had five or six meetings led

22:37

by Laura. Laura

22:37

was from the West Coast,

22:40

and actually it was kinda famous for

22:42

some of the stuff she did during

22:44

Katrina. She

22:46

did some protest and some violent

22:48

action during those times. And

22:50

does she work for

22:52

rainforest action network

22:53

or she's like an outside

22:55

higher. I don't know this

22:56

for sure, but I'd put a lot of mind down. She's

22:58

getting paid by multiple fronts. She's like

23:00

a consultant. Yes. A protest

23:03

consultant. Yeah. Laura

23:05

always wanted violence. That was where

23:07

her head was constantly at. She

23:10

had gone to prison for

23:12

prior violent acts. Her

23:15

pride for that was

23:17

insane. What was

23:17

Laura arrested for? She had done

23:20

some cocktails. Mallotov cocktail.

23:22

Yeah. And launched it at

23:24

police. Jesus. We

23:25

differentiate between protesters

23:28

and narrative wells. Yeah.

23:31

And Laura and Billy are narrative

23:33

wells. They're not protesting. This

23:35

is beyond that. They're trying to

23:37

hurt people. One of them said,

23:39

So they came in and they met with us and

23:41

basically, you're gonna get arrested. Whatever

23:44

it takes to get arrested you're gonna do. Even if

23:46

it's punching a cop, that's what you're gonna do.

23:48

So my contact obviously with

23:50

my agency is sporadic

23:53

and very little. And so all this is going

23:55

on and most of it is quick

23:57

text messages turned on to lead them.

23:59

And it was

24:00

decided so for

24:02

this protest, six o'clock in the morning,

24:04

we were going to take the street, the protesters. The ones

24:07

of us that were gonna get arrested, we're gonna be in the

24:09

front and block

24:11

the street. And, you know,

24:13

with the text messages with my agency. Alright.

24:15

That's when I can get arrested. There won't

24:17

be a lot of people. This will be

24:19

perfect. Last thing I need is for

24:21

my picture TO GO EVERYWHERE.

24:22

SO, MAT, YOU'RE AFRAID IF

24:25

YOUR FACE GETS ON THE NEWS THAT

24:27

SOMEBODY THAT YOU KNOW WHO DOESN'T KNOW YOUR UNDERCOVER

24:29

MIGHT DIM YOU

24:30

OUT. EXACTLY.

24:31

So you have these meetings, multiple

24:34

meetings. Laura's kind of

24:36

facilitating. This is A101

24:38

on how to get arrested at a

24:40

protest. And if plan a doesn't work, go to

24:42

plan BCD whatever.

24:44

Do you have to run that up the chain to

24:46

let your command staff know? Hey, by

24:49

the way, there is going to be some violence. It's gonna

24:51

happen during the shareholders

24:53

meeting, and they've got me out front and I'm

24:55

supposed to get arrested. So just giving you a

24:57

heads up. Yeah. My

24:59

handler and the handler is somebody

25:01

that while I'm undercover, they're in

25:03

a safety net. They're the ones who are in charge

25:05

of me. And

25:07

so this was the Intel unit that was operating

25:09

everything with the police department. My

25:11

specific hand was a good friend of mine.

25:14

So they we're handling everything like I

25:16

basically sent him a text, I have to get

25:18

arrested. This isn't an option type thing. This is part of

25:20

the vetting. And he made it

25:22

happen. And he did a great job. He

25:24

went directly to deputy chief and the

25:26

chief. They went and spoke to the

25:28

sheriff, and the sheriff was going

25:30

to himself. Do the computer to make

25:32

sure there's no problem that my real

25:34

identity doesn't come out then and that none of the

25:36

deputies even at the jail were going to know

25:38

who I was. Perfect. Exactly.

25:40

So your handler, he's on board

25:42

and he's talking to his command

25:45

staff, a select few people. Correct.

25:47

And you guys are trying to create a game

25:49

or they just know that you're gonna get

25:51

arrested. I'm assuming that you wanna

25:53

get arrested without having to

25:55

escalate. Like, let's get this done as fast

25:57

as possible. Correct. And I

25:59

thought that's what I had. So we're going

26:01

back and forth in Texas. Listen, six o'clock in the

26:03

morning. At this location, we are taking the

26:05

street to march to Bank of

26:07

America. Obviously, that's a crime. We're not allowed

26:09

to block traffic. We're gonna have hundreds of

26:11

people behind us. This is the perfect time to

26:13

arrest us. And the protesters are expecting us to

26:15

get arrested. They don't think that

26:17

we're gonna be allowed to do this. And so this will

26:19

give me my credibility. Everything will be great.

26:21

Perfect. That's what we're gonna do. So I'm sleeping

26:23

with the protesters at night, and I'm a

26:26

nervous wreck. All that's going through my holy shit. I'm

26:28

getting arrested tomorrow. Holy shit. I'm getting arrested

26:30

tomorrow. Is it the

26:30

first time you've been arrested? Yes.

26:32

So I was nervous. But

26:34

anyway, thirty nine, six o'clock in the morning

26:36

comes, and we're up and rolling. We

26:38

take the street immediately bike officers

26:40

cut us off and block us. Like, oh,

26:42

this is picture. Perfect. This is gonna go great.

26:45

So they have us blocked and

26:47

twenty minutes goes by. And they're

26:49

still stopping us, but nothing's happening. And so now

26:51

the beads of sweat are coming down my face and

26:53

I'm like, oh, come on. And know,

26:56

the other guys I'm getting arrested with, we're kinda all looking

26:59

around, like, what's going on?

27:01

What's gonna happen? What's an

27:03

ecoterrorist got to do around here to get

27:05

arrested right. And so

27:07

we're stopped thirty minutes. Just standing

27:09

there. I think they just want to see me sweat for a while.

27:11

And then all of a sudden, you see the bike

27:13

officers. Just go. They

27:14

leave. They leave. And we

27:16

take the street and march up to Bank of America.

27:18

So now I'm like, I hate people.

27:20

I hate everyone. And I did

27:23

have two people that were assigned to

27:25

arrest me. They were friends of mine. They knew who I

27:27

was, and they were gonna be the ones to arrest

27:29

me whenever it was time. Were

27:30

they among those bike officers?

27:32

No. Which was also a sign that something

27:35

was not right. So

27:37

we get to Bank of America, and it's

27:39

at a corner, and it's right

27:41

in the heart of the city. There's

27:43

over a thousand protesters. Like I've seen

27:45

the pavement, it's it's a huge protest. It's

27:47

got national attention. Everybody knew it was gonna happen.

27:50

know, you had ran green

27:52

peas, all the other organizations I

27:54

named, plus this was during the

27:56

mortgage crisis. So you had a bunch of those

27:58

getting involved in it too. So we're

28:00

sitting there

28:00

and I knew what was gonna happen. Eventually Laura

28:02

comes up and grabs those of us that are supposed

28:04

to get arrested and there's four of us. And

28:07

They had the protesters kinda form a wall around us

28:09

and dug down so we can talk. She

28:11

goes, alright, y'all are taking the building. You

28:13

had police officers lined up all

28:16

across. Your job is to get inside that building, get up

28:18

to a shareholders meeting. Commit burglary.

28:20

Correct. That was our job.

28:21

Why do you call it burglary?

28:23

It's unlawful entry with

28:25

the intent to commit a crime? Exactly. Yeah.

28:27

So I'm like, alright. I gotta find little

28:30

opening and then I can act,

28:32

you know, get through the line and get closing the

28:34

knife like I trip. Whatever I can do, not to try

28:36

to get beat up too bad. Buy

28:38

the cops, you mean? Yeah. Exactly. Because there are two people

28:40

that are supposed to arrest me. I see them and they're

28:43

nowhere near that area. And so

28:45

I have no way of communicating with one say, hey, I

28:47

gotta break through here. No. You raise your hand.

28:49

You go, hey, over

28:51

here. Yes. Get over here. I hate

28:53

you pigs. So

28:57

I found

28:57

an opening. And I was like, I'm going

29:00

for

29:00

it. Like an opening in the line of policeman?

29:02

Correct.

29:02

Okay. Retrospect. What I

29:04

should have done is looked at what officers

29:07

were near that. He shouldn't try to jump a

29:09

barricade when you have a young officer, big,

29:11

been working out, ready to get air

29:13

get his his thing on.

29:16

I didn't do that. I just saw the

29:18

oatmeal, so I go to lunch over

29:20

it. And he just has my body

29:22

and we're going to the crowd. So

29:24

I get arrested and

29:26

CNN is right there and they

29:28

have the camera in my face

29:30

and I'm like, this is bad. And of course, Rand

29:33

immediately has shirts. They

29:35

want me getting publicity that I'm

29:37

working for Rand. I got arrested

29:39

with Rand. So

29:41

that happens, and I have to sit

29:43

there and wait for the other ones to get arrested

29:46

and eventually end up downtown

29:48

with my friends. We're at the inside

29:50

the jail. And again, nobody of the jail

29:53

knows who I am. And the guy

29:55

that's photographed me says, you look just like

29:57

Charles Manson. I

29:59

won't get paid enough for this. You mean

30:01

the booking photo guy? Yeah.

30:03

And I was there for twelve hours in

30:05

the jail, and that was the

30:07

longest twelve hours of my life. I

30:10

sat there and I had no idea what I was coming

30:12

out to. One of the guys doing the

30:14

processing said, and we just saw you on

30:16

CNN. Oh, no. Because the whole time

30:18

I'm curious, am I coming out to the

30:20

SWAT team to get me out of the city?

30:21

Like has your cover been blown and

30:23

your agency's gonna remove you? Yeah.

30:26

Or has your cover been blown and now Rand

30:28

is gonna like, scuttle you away and

30:30

never

30:30

to be seen again. Exactly.

30:32

And I found out later

30:35

that my department, my handler had

30:37

actually gotten calls that, hey, do you know that

30:39

guy's an officer that got arrested?

30:41

So a couple other officers had

30:43

recognized me. And, of course, I didn't know. And

30:45

he's like, yeah, you you do

30:47

not talk about this kind of thing. Oh my

30:49

god. So Matt, what did you get

30:51

charged for? I got a

30:53

resisting charge she getting punches in on

30:55

anybody that you were like, you're

30:57

my old rival on patrol. I'm

30:59

going after you. Now they just got

31:01

me. Got it. So

31:02

actually have a question about these officers at

31:05

the jail who don't know your

31:07

undercover. Because

31:07

if they fingerprint you? Yeah. That's

31:09

what I was gonna say. Like,

31:11

what happens if you get fingerprinted

31:13

and identified while

31:15

you're undercover? Alright.

31:16

So another tangent.

31:19

Obviously, they had to switch my fingerprints to come up to my

31:21

UC name. They forgot to switch it

31:23

back after the case. I went

31:25

back to the DEA task force and, of course,

31:27

I had to fingerprinted and get my

31:29

security clearance again, and I get

31:31

called into the general supervisor's office.

31:35

And he's like, you came back as

31:37

a terrorist. Ballic son of a bitch. I

31:39

can't explain that. My

31:41

bad. I didn't know that was a problem.

31:45

So I had to write this long letter

31:47

and I had to have the major or the deputy

31:49

chief regulators saying, yes, this was all

31:51

preplanned. We're switching to fingerprints now.

31:53

This was a mistake. That's

31:55

a hell of an occupational hazard.

31:59

So getting back to you being released

32:01

from jail after you got arrested at

32:03

the protest what's the

32:05

situation when you get out?

32:06

So greenpeace

32:07

was nice enough to buy my

32:10

bail, and so I get out and I go straight

32:12

back to place where we had the

32:14

meetings. Like, that was our headquarters when

32:16

we were doing legit stuff. That's where we

32:18

would meet up. Was it,

32:19

like, in a basement sort of

32:21

sequestered So there was like a garage type area, I

32:24

would say, that was kinda offset.

32:26

That's when we had the large group that's where we're at.

32:28

So I get there after being arrested, and then it's

32:30

a standing ovation.

32:31

So, Matt, the point of the arrest is to gain

32:34

national attention. Yes.

32:35

The organization's ran greenpeace,

32:38

all the protesters They wanted the recognition.

32:40

They wanted to bring everything to

32:42

spotlight. So that was their purpose for the

32:44

rest. The purpose of me

32:46

being arrested this would be for the criminal side of

32:48

things was I needed to be vetted. But the

32:50

standing

32:50

ovation is you got arrested,

32:52

you brought national attention to the cause,

32:55

And then secretly for you, the

32:57

standing ovation is you didn't get made as

32:59

a cop? Correct. So

33:02

we're still Copacetic. Yeah.

33:04

Everything is good. But Matt's down for

33:06

the cause. If you think about, like, outlaw

33:09

motorcycle gangs, it's almost like you're getting

33:11

your colors. That's exactly what it

33:13

was. This protest, they're bringing

33:15

people in from out of the

33:17

state. Alright?

33:19

Over a thousand people there, everywhere

33:21

from California, New York,

33:23

and everywhere in between. And these people are

33:25

just funding these trips themselves,

33:27

or is this there's backers.

33:30

There's major backers in the whole thing.

33:32

Okay. They'll have buses. They

33:34

come and style. Do you know

33:35

where the pipeline of money came

33:38

from? I

33:38

do not. I have my guesses, but their guesses.

33:41

So this is so coordinated. You

33:43

know, that's what's shocking to me. It's how coordinated

33:45

these protests are. So

33:48

both for the shareholders and for the

33:50

DNC, another one of my

33:52

jobs was to find a place where we could

33:54

put large numbers of people to camp. There's

33:56

one place right by the railroad. That was

33:58

abandoned that we set up shop.

34:00

Logistics. Yeah. And then you have to find another

34:02

place for the underground. Because

34:04

underground can't stay at the same place

34:06

where the media is staying or what we refer

34:08

to is the media, the people that could be seen on

34:10

TV, that kind

34:12

of thing. So after this, you get bailed out. You get

34:14

properly fatted. Right? Exactly.

34:16

So that night we

34:18

get hammered. And when I say

34:20

we, me not so much, but

34:22

the people I'm with,

34:24

and just celebrate. Now, the

34:26

only issue being with everybody I

34:28

was good except for Billy. Billy and I, you know, everybody referred to

34:30

us as best friends. But to the

34:32

very day that I was done in

34:34

this case, his

34:36

switch was just on and off. You didn't know who you were gonna get. One

34:39

day, perfectly lax and we're talking

34:41

and we're good. And very next

34:43

day, strip search. You just

34:45

didn't know who you were gonna get with her. Maybe he just wanted to see naked. I'm not

34:48

em blaming.

35:05

So, Matt,

35:06

you've been arrested. There's a

35:08

little bit of lull in between the

35:10

next action, I'm guessing. You guys

35:13

do some planning. You've got kind of

35:15

two different camps. One for the media facing

35:17

folks. The other for the underground.

35:20

And I imagine that the plan would be, let's make a bigger

35:22

splash on this next one. So the

35:24

next one's a DNC, and this was,

35:26

you know, yeah, this is gonna be

35:30

big. And this is when slowly the preparations

35:32

start coming together, you're starting to get an

35:34

influx of people

35:36

into town, So one

35:38

of the guys I became friends with was with the Communist

35:40

Party. And he's part of this group with

35:42

anarchist. I don't know if you can

35:44

get more streamed an anarchist and communist, but the same goal

35:46

take everything down. Right? One side hates

35:48

government. The other one wants the government involved

35:51

in everything. Exactly. And

35:54

the communist started hanging with him

35:56

something. He started sleeping at my apartment sometimes.

35:58

And he had forgotten his computer one

35:59

time and asked to

36:02

use mine because he was doing feeds with Iran

36:04

to to propaganda. FBI

36:06

loved the fact because it was an FBI

36:08

computer. That he was

36:10

nice enough to go ahead and do that. Sign

36:12

in on their computer. Exactly.

36:16

So during this time period. more DGR

36:18

Deepgram resistance. We went to another part

36:20

of the state, had a meeting there,

36:24

did a lot of traveling, did some more shooting. Billy was

36:26

very big in that. Like, he would preach a lot

36:28

about that, that you need to know how to shoot

36:32

when they come to your property, you need to be able to take care of things. Was he

36:34

proficient? Yeah. He actually was. He

36:36

had some training, like, he knew how to

36:38

move with

36:40

a weapon. He knew how to move, he knew how to do quick

36:42

reloads, how many of these folks

36:44

are carrying weapons at

36:46

these protests? Very few.

36:48

He was one of the only ones that I know of.

36:50

Most of them did not like firearms. Now,

36:52

oddly enough, didn't like firearms for perfectly

36:54

fine with bombs. And

36:55

you've built some credibility with

36:57

this group. You're hanging out with

36:59

Billy when his switch is

37:01

turned to friendly. I imagine you're

37:03

kind of informally being promoted through this

37:06

organization to the point that now you're privy

37:08

to some of the more

37:10

high level strategic

37:13

planning sessions, what do

37:15

those meetings look like? So a

37:17

lot of

37:17

it was We're getting people from

37:19

this state. These people have confirmed, like, alright, we have twenty people from Indiana coming

37:22

in. We're gonna need to spot for them.

37:24

We have this

37:26

group from this grew from

37:28

Pennsylvania coming in, but they can't be seen. They cannot

37:30

be around this group. Because they don't

37:32

get along. No. Because they'll be

37:34

in the violent action. And I

37:37

say violent action, that's anything from throwing bricks, to just

37:40

throwing property damage, to

37:42

mouth off cocktails, to trying to

37:44

hurt

37:44

and destroy things. You would have

37:46

influx of people coming

37:47

down, staying for a couple of days, talking,

37:49

and then going back out. And then

37:51

we would do small

37:53

protest in our city. So between

37:55

the Bank of America shareholders

37:57

meeting and the

38:00

DNC Week, how much time is in between those two six

38:02

months? So you've proven yourself

38:04

at the Bank of America protests

38:07

and now you're in with the radical element aka

38:10

Billy for the coming DNC

38:12

protests. In six months,

38:14

that's a lot of time for planning. Correct.

38:17

That six months, I would have

38:20

at best a quick text to my

38:22

wife to be honest, I love you. I hope everything

38:24

is good. So

38:25

you're talking a little bit with your wife.

38:27

You also mentioned earlier that you're

38:30

texting a little bit with your handler in

38:32

your department. What happens

38:34

if Billy wants to look at your

38:37

phone?

38:37

So we use memes.

38:38

They would send me a meme and

38:40

then I reply back with a meme. Like a

38:42

code. And if it was

38:43

a happy meme, a joke, everything

38:45

is fine. If it was on

38:47

a serious level, then

38:50

they knew where something may be up. My

38:52

department would track my phone to know where

38:54

I was, the best I could.

38:56

That would be out. All hours of the

38:58

night. And then, you know, we try to

39:00

let them know, hey, if I'm at the

39:02

apartment, it's always assumed that I had people

39:04

there and I try to section. Now I did

39:06

get a cat during this time. A

39:08

cat. A cat. Yardly is excited. She's

39:10

like, cats. This was right after the shareholders

39:12

meeting. It was given to me. Which I was happy about

39:14

it first because I like cats and it's

39:16

sad because I I gave the cat

39:18

away to a good home after the

39:20

case. My plan originally was to keep

39:22

it, but Again, your mind plays trickling you in any

39:24

kind of memory of that. I was like, I can't do

39:26

it. Right. So fascinating.

39:28

What

39:28

a great little detail

39:30

the name of the cat I named it Anaka.

39:33

I was a Jack Johnson fan and so

39:35

that was music that I could listen to around

39:37

them. Even your music has to match up

39:39

with who you are. And so I

39:41

took banana pancakes and shortened it to Anakin,

39:43

named the cat after

39:46

that.

39:49

So you're embedded with these

39:51

people. Did you have to trick

39:53

out your apartment? Was it

39:55

squalor? Was it penny meat? What was your style as

39:57

this undercover fellow? So

39:59

actually because Billy and Sam

40:02

are both very

40:04

nice people, they took me to a

40:06

lot of yard sales to help me decorate because, again, my cover story being that just

40:08

came from a sailboat. You didn't have any

40:12

furniture. Exactly. So you

40:13

have various individuals

40:16

from all over the nation that are flowing

40:18

in during this planning

40:21

for the DNC. Are you

40:24

traveling at all during this time? So

40:26

I don't leave the state at all. I am

40:28

traveling inside the state. Matt, what

40:29

are they planning to do

40:31

at the DNC? Up

40:32

to this point, I'd heard about about an action being

40:35

taken and destroyed property and all that. Then all of

40:37

a sudden, there are three individuals

40:39

that come to town.

40:42

And I'm introduced to them

40:44

and they start getting close to me.

40:46

I was never told what organization

40:48

or anything there with. It was just

40:51

other environmental anarchist.

40:54

Hang out with

40:55

them. Then the conversation

40:58

started that we really need to do something

41:00

big at TNC. And

41:02

that's when talk about bombing

41:04

came up in that we would need a storage

41:06

unit, that we could get the stuff down here,

41:08

but we need a place to be able to

41:10

keep it. Does

41:10

that mean the ingredients for the explosive? Correct.

41:12

How big

41:12

are they going here? I don't know

41:14

for

41:14

sure, but basically according to them, it'd

41:16

be

41:16

a you hall full of stuff. Like,

41:20

info, nitrogen,

41:22

fuel oil, that kind

41:23

of bomb?

41:26

Yeah. substantial explosion. Oklahoma City.

41:29

Yeah. So I became the

41:31

one in charge

41:31

of getting a place

41:34

to start. Bondered for that. I'm a nice guy like that. Team

41:36

Claire? Oh, yeah. Between

41:38

FBI

41:38

and my sergeant, they

41:40

get a storage unit and,

41:43

you know, get it backstop. backstop means that

41:45

if they try to see, alright, this person rented

41:47

it. What's the relation? It

41:50

would come back to a neighbor kind of thing. So it makes sense as to how I got about it.

41:52

So come back to a neighbor of

41:54

yours. Yeah. In

41:55

the apartment complex.

41:57

And that will show Billy that you're doing your due

41:59

diligence

41:59

to keep this whole plot under

42:02

wraps. Yeah. So get

42:04

the

42:04

storage unit. Everything is good there. And

42:07

this is well ahead of time. So basically, I'm sitting on the same

42:09

for a while. And meanwhile, the

42:11

three individuals were down

42:14

permanently at So you have the storage unit. Do you have in

42:16

the storage unit at this moment? No. It's

42:18

empty. One of the things I asked

42:22

for from my agency in the FBI was

42:24

information they had on the outside? I

42:26

didn't wanna know. I believe they

42:28

may have had the storage unit wired up

42:30

and cameraed. don't

42:32

know. Who

42:32

did? Your agency? Or the FBI.

42:34

Or the FBI? Yeah. And you

42:37

have three folks who come

42:39

down and it's clear, like, they're gonna stay

42:41

embedded until the DNC happens.

42:44

Do they have, like, a team of ball

42:46

make that come into town and

42:48

then you guys start putting a bomb together?

42:50

So the way this

42:53

ends up, basically, I'm

42:55

passing the information that crew

42:56

coming down. And meanwhile,

42:58

the decision is made

43:00

that these people that we

43:02

know are here to commit violent acts

43:05

they are having the police around them at

43:07

all times marked, like noticeably

43:09

around them at all

43:11

times. Wait. What? The three bad people have police

43:13

around them all the time? Yes. And some other people

43:15

and they even did it to me so

43:17

that I wouldn't stand out. But

43:19

the goal was, they see police officers all

43:21

the time, then they're gonna think they can't get

43:23

away with anything. And it it actually ended up

43:26

working. So

43:26

though long story short,

43:28

they get waved off.

43:29

So when you say that there is

43:31

this constant police presence around

43:34

these individuals,

43:36

including yourself are these like marked units just kinda by?

43:38

They have undercover cops that are just posted

43:40

up on a corner being obvious that,

43:43

hey, we're watching. So combination there were other

43:45

undercover cops. I mean, that's the norm. It was

43:48

funny because I would see my friends. So

43:50

the police presence deterred the

43:51

people who were carrying

43:54

the bomb making materials from some place

43:56

out of state coming down to your

43:57

storage unit. Yeah. The people that were

43:59

already here talk to

44:02

them and to deter them from coming down. There's too much heat. Yeah.

44:04

Exactly. But you have three

44:06

people that are from out of

44:08

town and the

44:09

natural rhythm of life is

44:12

most people have very little

44:14

contact or exposure to the

44:16

police. All of a sudden, these

44:18

people

44:18

from out of town, the police

44:20

always seemed to be around they also happen

44:22

to be around other members of this

44:26

group. I imagine there would have been some rumors like,

44:28

is there a mole in this group? How do

44:30

we land on the police radar? We're

44:32

not even from here. Yes. were conversations

44:34

about that, which luckily I was a part of.

44:36

And I agreed that we definitely have someone

44:38

that's talking to the police. But

44:41

by this point, you know, you have an extra four

44:43

or five hundred people at

44:45

least in town. And so It

44:47

could be anyone. It could be anyone. So I just have

44:49

to make sure that I'm the person

44:51

that's trying to help you figure out who it is, and that was

44:53

an interesting game. Just to be one hundred percent

44:55

sure I'm

44:56

be one hundred percent sure tracking

44:58

here, You,

44:59

Matt, are the

45:01

mole? Correct. Right. But you're

45:03

like, look, I charged a

45:05

police line. I took

45:08

a beating. I got charged with resisting. You guys bailed me

45:10

out. I've been pulled over. I'm

45:12

trying whatever I can to build some

45:14

credit with you guys to let you know. I'm way

45:16

on board

45:18

with this. But this is a situation where

45:20

if the mole is

45:22

identified, what kind of

45:24

threat would

45:26

this group due to that

45:28

mole. I truly believe it'd be bad. If they

45:30

figured out this person is giving

45:32

information,

45:32

they're so irrational.

45:34

Potentially kill the

45:36

mole. Yeah. And so you couldn't just

45:38

misdirect and point somebody else out

45:40

and say that's gotta be the mole? No.

45:43

Absolutely not. Matt, when

45:43

you find out that the larger

45:46

plan is to bomb the

45:48

DNC, and you mentioned that they

45:50

work in cells

45:52

and they're modest operandi is nobody

45:54

knows everything except for maybe

45:56

one person, so nobody can ride on

45:58

anybody else. Is there a

46:00

concern of yours within this organization?

46:02

These environmental extremists that they're

46:04

also splintering information and

46:06

you don't have all of it? Oh, one

46:08

hundred

46:08

percent. And I still believe there was.

46:10

We had no evidence, but, you know, they're

46:12

not dumb about that kind of thing. So

46:14

definitely, but it's just like, you know,

46:18

we had people that were supposed to be making molotov cocktails at houses, and

46:20

that's why we'd have a marked unit go sit out at

46:22

that house. The people that were

46:24

making the

46:26

molotov cocktails tales had no idea that there was another group that was

46:28

playing on a bomb. I see.

46:30

And, Matt, you

46:30

actually brought us a video of yourself

46:33

undercover in and

46:36

our guest operation, and you're being interviewed

46:38

by a local news channel. Here's

46:42

a clip.

46:43

I don't volunteer

46:45

here with Rand Green, and

46:47

he's briefed it in numerous

46:49

other different organizations. Reason not

46:51

I'm out today is reasons. It's gotta

46:54

be held accountable for

46:55

their dirty politics, for their destruction

46:57

of the virus. And

46:59

for everything else

47:00

they do that is hurting the citizens in

47:02

this community, and nothing's being done

47:04

about it. So we want it to come to an

47:06

end.

47:06

Alright. Thank you, man.

47:09

You're pretty

47:12

good

47:12

at the delivery. You're convincing. I appreciate

47:14

that. But you're full of shit.

47:17

Right? Oh, completely. That was a lot of

47:19

YouTube videos watching and trying to learn what I'm supposed to be like. It's

47:22

interesting because

47:24

at

47:24

first, You didn't wanna go

47:26

on camera because the

47:29

potential for you being on

47:31

the news to blow your cover is

47:34

much greater than you

47:36

not going on the news. And Rand

47:38

was totally fine with that. But

47:40

now, for

47:42

whatever reason, They've changed their minds, and they do want you to go

47:44

on camera and talk to the

47:46

news. I'm guessing to test your

47:48

loyalty, how

47:50

good are you at pushing the cause, and

47:53

you poor Matt are in no position

47:55

to refuse

47:56

them. Is that fairly accurate?

47:59

Yeah. Very much so. And seeing you on

48:01

that video, I'm struck by how

48:04

much of your face we

48:06

can't see. beard

48:08

is so heavy. You're wearing those

48:11

wraparound glasses. It's pretty

48:13

great. You walk the line

48:16

really well. You're also wearing that grunge y old t

48:18

shirt. So my question

48:20

is, who dresses you for

48:22

the part of environmental terrorist?

48:25

Well, goodwill, got close from goodwill

48:27

or out of dumpsters

48:30

taken from there because that's what we

48:32

did. Why is that part of what

48:34

Rand did? So the

48:36

anarchist side of things is anything get for

48:38

free, you get for free. And I got

48:40

to be part of a lot of dumpster

48:42

diving during this case. And there

48:44

was a particular time I'm at

48:47

Sam's house and Sam

48:49

had gone dumpster diving a few hours earlier and

48:51

was able to find us some great eggs

48:53

to cook. You could smell these. That's how

48:55

bad it was. It was

48:58

awful. And then there was time I

49:00

was at one subject's

49:02

house and he is using his

49:04

hands to make hummus with the

49:06

chickpeas that he has in his garden.

49:08

Unfortunately, right next to him are

49:10

several needles

49:12

and little baggies of hair when and you can see the track marks all over

49:15

his arms. And he's sitting there just

49:17

squeezing those little chickpeas together and I'm

49:19

like, oh, I'm gonna die. Oh

49:21

my god. Gonna die. And this is why I

49:23

couldn't ever do undercover work.

49:26

UC work that even when we

49:28

serve a search warrant

49:30

on a math or a heroin house. They're the

49:32

most disgusting places on the

49:34

planet. You feel dirty the minute

49:35

you go in. You feel dirty

49:37

when you get home. Awful.

49:39

And you gotta live in this. Yeah.

49:41

Not at your apartment, but this is

49:43

your lifestyle. For the last month of the case,

49:45

I'd had enough.

49:48

Everybody's So I said, you know what? I'm not showering either. Like, for a whole month, I

49:50

went and didn't shower at all and the

49:52

nastiest I've ever been

49:52

in my toilet. When I finally got

49:55

out of the case, I

49:57

literally took a shower for probably over an hour. And

49:58

on that note, we

50:00

kind of

50:01

danced around the end of

50:04

how this plan kind of falls apart. Correct? Yeah. And

50:06

that's due to police presence, some

50:10

deterrent factors. I mean, there's

50:12

heat on lots of

50:14

folks who are pretty high up in this

50:16

organization so much

50:18

so that that organization waves off the next wave of people

50:20

who are coming in with the big,

50:22

bad bomb. That's correct. They tell them

50:24

and others not to even bother

50:26

showing up. That there's too much

50:28

police presence. And I think they were

50:30

told that there's a rat. Somebody's in

50:32

here giving everything out. Because anytime

50:34

any action was planned, all of a sudden

50:36

police were shot. So how

50:38

long after the DNC

50:40

planning stuff? How much longer

50:42

are you embedded with these guys before

50:45

you go back to your career. So I stuck

50:47

right up until DNC was over. Just

50:49

in case, they wanted to have that intelligence the

50:51

whole time. They meaning

50:54

the FBI, Yes. The

50:56

last day of the DNC is when

50:58

I've disappeared. And basically, the

51:00

FBI and the police department

51:02

started going around with my

51:04

wanted poster. That I was one of her domestic terrorism in another

51:06

state. And so, actually,

51:08

Billy was the first one to call

51:10

me. And I was like, bro, I

51:12

love you. And I'm gonna miss you,

51:14

but I think it's time for you to get back on your

51:16

sailboat and sail. Let me know

51:18

that I was wanted and I got

51:20

multiple phone calls after that saying, hey, you need to need

51:22

to go. But how perfect that

51:23

they feel like it's their

51:25

idea? Exactly.

51:26

And then I did a cryptic message on Facebook.

51:28

I think someone won't want to there's a nice scene

51:31

everyone then. Gonna be gone for a while. And I got all done.

51:33

We love you, man. Good luck. Take care. I

51:35

mean, you're acting for

51:37

months on end. Did

51:39

you get close, like, genuinely close

51:41

with anybody in this organization?

51:43

So there are a

51:46

couple

51:46

on weddings an unwinding as someone

51:48

who is around the

51:50

criminal act, but they're not partaking

51:52

in the criminal act themselves. There were

51:54

a couple like that. Obviously, not every protester is bad.

51:57

Not every protester has evil thoughts or

51:59

wants to do dumb things or

52:01

anything like that. And there were some

52:03

that had legitimate gripes. When the mortgage then crashed,

52:06

absolutely people had legitimate gripes. And so there were

52:08

people that I met with that

52:10

you're like, I really do feel bad

52:12

for this person. So, yeah,

52:14

there were some friendships that with because, I mean, you

52:16

are with these people twenty

52:18

four seven. Now I spent a lot of my time with Billy

52:20

and there's few other subjects. And

52:22

Billy was just an emotional roller coaster for me.

52:24

Like, I mean,

52:26

I was literally every single time,

52:28

scared to death. Is he gonna

52:29

snap today? Just all over the place, all the time.

52:31

And the drugs obviously didn't help that. That

52:33

just fueled him.

52:36

What kind of drugs he's building into? Cocaine and marijuana, but

52:38

the cocaine was what would stir

52:40

his brain pretty

52:41

good. Okay.

52:44

And Would you carry weapons? Would you carry a firearm at all

52:46

during this? No. I didn't have it gone with me the

52:48

entire time or any weapon at all.

52:50

Feel a little bit naked.

52:52

A lot. Yeah. And would you say that this

52:54

volatility that Billy exhibited has

52:56

a lot to do with why

53:00

you characterized this as one of the worst years of your life?

53:02

Yeah. Now with

53:03

this undercover

53:04

op that you did,

53:06

okay, the bomb is not gonna

53:10

happen. Right. Was Billy arrested, Sam arrested,

53:12

you know, how does this kind

53:14

of wrap up? So

53:16

the

53:17

decision was made it

53:19

was the right decision

53:20

at the time I was not happy about the decision.

53:22

But in the middle of the

53:24

DNC, Billy was arrested. What

53:27

is he being arrested for and

53:29

suspended driver's license? That's what he got

53:31

arrested on. A misdemeanor, and they

53:33

didn't give him bail. Just to pick him

53:36

off on that charge, no

53:38

bail, that must have raised a

53:40

lot of eyebrows in his organization.

53:42

Yeah. And that's why I wasn't happy about it at

53:44

the time. I understood the process. Like, they weren't on the streets, so

53:46

he couldn't do anything. You know, we had enough other

53:48

people we were paying attention to. And

53:50

this guy definitely

53:52

very capable of doing something bad. That was the rationale. It

53:54

just made my job harder than to not get

53:56

burned. Seemed like that was my daily job was

53:58

to make sure

53:59

that the fingers would

53:59

not come back on me. They obviously

54:02

couldn't hold him for very

54:04

long on a minor charge. They

54:06

had him in for over twenty four hours.

54:08

Knowing how it works,

54:10

that's very suspicious to me. I was the one who picked Billy up from

54:12

jail, and that was the first

54:14

thing Billy said is, you know,

54:16

this bullshit they helped

54:18

me because their word is gonna

54:20

do something. He has to recognize there's

54:22

some self inflicted here by being

54:24

so vocal, so present in this

54:26

movement that he would go, well, they were just looking for something

54:28

skinny. But, yeah, they hit me as

54:30

hard as they could for this

54:32

suspended license. And I think he

54:34

takes pride in some of that. He did

54:36

interviews after that. He actually got on

54:38

some national TV

54:40

interviews after the arrest. And

54:42

it it was definitely a moment of

54:44

pride. Yeah. How do

54:46

you eject from this situation?

54:48

How do you roll

54:50

back into normal life. So, not

54:51

easily, would be the

54:53

quick answer, but they sent around

54:55

the polling poster. There

54:58

is at three o'clock in

55:00

the morning, a group that goes to the department

55:02

that I was at that skips up

55:04

my personal belongings and gets those out.

55:06

So

55:06

from the FBI or something? Correct.

55:08

Yeah. How's that determination made?

55:10

Do they give you a heads up? Like,

55:12

hey, this thing's over at

55:14

ten o'clock tonight? You are bailing

55:17

out of this thing or are you telling them, hey, I got nothing left to

55:19

do here. Let's wrap this up. So I had

55:21

actually asked to come out a couple days earlier

55:23

and they said no. I

55:26

was pretty washed at that point. There was about a two week period. I just

55:28

did not sleep at all there at the end, and I

55:30

was spent. But they asked me to

55:32

hang in there, I did. And then all of a sudden,

55:34

I got That says, clean yourself

55:37

and go home. And when I say clean yourself,

55:39

that means you gotta make sure you don't have heat checks

55:41

and get to your house. What's a heat

55:43

check? Being fog like

55:45

this for the entire year and two months,

55:47

I was always getting followed. So I had to

55:49

make sure that nobody was following me to get to

55:52

my house. And that's

55:54

basically you'll drive down the dead end

55:56

street. See there's any cars. You pay a lot of

55:58

attention to rearview mirror where cars are back

56:00

there. Stop at several

56:02

gas stations. I always laughed at one and I even laughed at his

56:04

face because I pulled up

56:06

to a gas station and I

56:08

park at the front. He pulled up to a

56:10

gas pump.

56:12

Didn't undo anything. And I got out of my car, and I could tell her out

56:14

the gate that this was somebody following me. So I got

56:16

out like I'm going into the store. And

56:20

he gets out, starts to walk into the store with me and that quicker,

56:22

jump back to the car and see him get to the door

56:24

and then go back to the cars.

56:27

Settle. So, Matt, how do you end up shaking that

56:29

kind of heat as you call it?

56:32

So, actually,

56:32

proud of myself. I got

56:33

very good at it.

56:35

Like parking lots. Once you

56:38

establish there there and it comes down to waiting to

56:40

pull out in traffic in front of the

56:42

right time, cutting through some

56:44

streets, getting them lost, and get back out

56:46

that way. Gotta love yellow

56:48

lights. Yeah. Exactly. You just gotta time

56:50

everything out perfectly and your first objective

56:52

will sometimes get a few cars between you

56:54

and them. Then once you have the few

56:56

cars, then it's easier to do that dart

56:58

into a street and they're gonna miss you and

57:00

you can begun in a hurry. And then take us through

57:02

once Billy

57:02

basically says, dude, you've been made. You

57:04

gotta go. Get on your boat and sail

57:08

away. How long is it between that

57:10

moment and when you actually get home to your

57:12

wife and your son? It wasn't

57:14

long like two hours. Oh, it's

57:15

not like days? No.

57:18

I

57:18

didn't have any contact with the department or anything like Once I got to

57:21

my house, then I called the apartment and

57:23

talked to my handler and said,

57:26

alright. I'm home? What was the

57:27

reception like at home? Don't touch

57:29

me. But again,

57:32

I handshowered in a mug, so I was

57:34

filthy. It

57:36

was a very surreal moment. Like,

57:38

all your emotions hit pretty hard. When

57:40

I got home, like, oh my gosh, this

57:42

is actually over. We completed the

57:45

mission. And of course, I hadn't slept. And so I

57:48

went and

57:48

I showered forever. And then

57:50

my

57:51

wife and I went and picked up

57:53

my son from day care first

57:55

time seeing him and giving him a hug.

57:57

That was awesome. And my wife and I, you

57:59

know, we had to have that very

58:01

frank conversation where I was a single mom for

58:03

this amount of time. And I don't wanna say she moved

58:06

on. But she had to

58:08

compensate.

58:08

she had to assets

58:09

Yeah. And

58:10

is kinda getting to know each other all over again. It

58:13

would be ignorant for lack of

58:15

a better word to say that I

58:17

didn't change at all. These cases

58:19

don't play an impact on you that don't cause you problems. Thank goodness, we have

58:21

the relationship we do. I'd be

58:23

in real trouble.

58:26

Was there ever a time you were undercover

58:29

that you thought about

58:31

pulling the plug early? That

58:33

it just was too much. Like you missed your family too

58:36

much, you just thought

58:38

I can't do this anymore? So

58:40

though on so

58:41

many different fronts. Like, having

58:44

so little communication with my family,

58:46

especially with my kid. I remember my

58:48

kid never gets

58:50

All of a sudden my wife gets a call

58:52

from the day care that, you know, something's wrong. He's

58:54

kinda acting up and he's not himself

58:56

and he's

58:58

really sad. And then ends up they say, well, apparently, he really

59:00

misses his dad. And

59:02

my wife debated whether she was gonna

59:04

tell me this or not and

59:06

eventually did. And I came very

59:08

close than the Boomer plug. I'm walking away. I

59:10

said, nope, I can't do it. Not

59:12

worth it. Yeah.

59:14

And then about probably a month later, my wife calls me

59:16

and very brief because we couldn't talk.

59:18

Just like, I I love you. Your mom

59:20

has cancer. Oh

59:22

my god. That was the end of the conversation. Had this

59:24

case been anything else other than a

59:27

lot of people's safety I

59:29

would have bailed without it out. That was the only thing

59:31

that kept

59:34

me going.

59:37

Run

59:44

us through lake. What

59:47

happened with these folks? Was Billy the only one

59:50

that got arrested? Yes.

59:52

Anything else come out on Billy? Any

59:54

other charges that you know of? No.

59:57

And I can tell you he's still out with the movement. He's doing

59:59

his thing. So, obviously, it

1:00:02

was important to get Billy off the streets even

1:00:04

for twenty four hours on

1:00:06

a hold a suspended license, which is actually it's actually a

1:00:08

long time for a suspended license

1:00:10

to be held in jail.

1:00:12

But having him off

1:00:14

the streets interrupts everything

1:00:16

else that's going on in the periphery.

1:00:18

And, you know, you talk about

1:00:20

more serious charges for Billy.

1:00:22

Talking about committing a crime is not a crime. No bomb was made. You

1:00:25

need an act of furtherance, so they need

1:00:27

bomb making materials. They need other

1:00:29

things to be acted

1:00:32

upon in furtherance of

1:00:34

this potential threat for

1:00:36

it to actually rise to the

1:00:38

level of a crime. And some

1:00:39

people might say was the juice worth

1:00:42

to squeeze on this? You

1:00:44

basically just donated fourteen months of

1:00:46

your life, to your department, to

1:00:48

your community, and

1:00:50

to this radical organization,

1:00:52

all for a guy

1:00:54

getting arrested for dragging while suspended.

1:00:57

That's the very very narrow

1:00:59

way of looking at this,

1:01:01

you deterred a bombing that probably

1:01:03

would have killed dozens,

1:01:05

if not hundreds. Right. And I

1:01:07

got the middle of valor actually for this case. Very

1:01:09

nice.

1:01:09

Yeah. I wanted to ask, do

1:01:11

you have of

1:01:14

Billy's reaction if he ever found out you were in law enforcement?

1:01:17

So not Billy, but

1:01:19

one of Billy's drones, let's call

1:01:21

him, wrote a thing

1:01:23

that Well, if this undercover is

1:01:26

not a real person, then it's

1:01:28

okay to kill them because they don't

1:01:30

actually exist. Because you had a

1:01:32

fake identity. Correct. Bad

1:01:34

legal tax. Yeah. I'm

1:01:36

sure that, you know, Billy

1:01:38

and Sam they're very

1:01:40

convincing and they have

1:01:42

almost probably a word track of how

1:01:44

they motivate people to get

1:01:46

on board with them.

1:01:48

Billy, especially People were drawn to him. Like, very scared

1:01:50

people drawn to him left and right. Emotions are all

1:01:52

over the place, but people

1:01:54

get drawn in to

1:01:55

him very, very quickly. He

1:01:57

was good at getting people to do whatever he wanted them to do.

1:01:59

Would

1:01:59

you say he was charismatic? Oh, one

1:02:02

hundred percent.

1:02:02

When you look at every cult leader,

1:02:04

Jim Jones, David Karash, Nexium.

1:02:08

They all share the same

1:02:10

characteristics. They're charismatic. They're

1:02:12

convincing people are drawn to them.

1:02:14

I don't think it's coincidence. What's the

1:02:16

end

1:02:16

game if your goal with these

1:02:18

extreme groups is to

1:02:20

overthrow the government? Let's say you

1:02:22

succeed in overthrowing the government, then

1:02:25

what? Do they take over the government? Depending

1:02:27

on which

1:02:28

group you're talking to, the

1:02:30

environmental and

1:02:31

artists which are about

1:02:33

your most extreme their philosophy

1:02:35

is you live all small communities, no

1:02:38

centralized government.

1:02:38

Like no laws,

1:02:41

no agreed upon, abilities.

1:02:44

But at some point, someone at the

1:02:46

top is gonna say, okay, I'm in

1:02:49

charge and I'm making new

1:02:52

rules. New laws to supplant the old government rules.

1:02:54

And now they've begun to create the

1:02:56

same kind of structure they said they wanted

1:02:59

to eradicate. It's more like a tribal format. Like,

1:03:01

each tribe takes care of their

1:03:04

folks, tribe a few miles away,

1:03:06

they make their

1:03:08

own laws, Yes. However, they

1:03:10

wanna live. They don't believe in a a central leader. Okay.

1:03:12

Even as

1:03:13

somebody will eventually

1:03:16

install themselves, as

1:03:19

the central

1:03:19

leader. Yes. Okay. When I start hearing

1:03:21

about these groups and you have people

1:03:23

with maybe a life

1:03:26

philosophy that

1:03:28

they become attracted with the mission of these groups, but

1:03:30

then you have the extremes,

1:03:32

the underground that are willing

1:03:34

to go out and destroy

1:03:36

property and commit violence. Kinda wonder the people

1:03:39

that are drawn into those groups.

1:03:41

Maybe they just naturally

1:03:44

like the

1:03:46

violence. And here's an excuse for them to be able to go and do that.

1:03:48

Yeah. That wouldn't surprise me. Especially,

1:03:50

you're an artist and environmental artist.

1:03:53

They're ones that didn't fit in in school. They had a hard

1:03:56

time with friends that they were the outcast

1:03:58

big time. And so

1:04:00

I think there's at least

1:04:02

a possibility that the anger started young and then this

1:04:04

was a way to channel it and

1:04:07

justified their own head, well, I'm doing something good because I'm trying to protect the

1:04:10

environment. So it's okay to

1:04:12

be violent. Yeah. There's a million

1:04:14

different ways in which

1:04:16

people just fire their actions whether they're good or bad.

1:04:18

The one most overwhelming common

1:04:20

trait of active shooters and people

1:04:22

who commit

1:04:24

mass violence is they've all felt slighted by something in

1:04:26

society. That's the main

1:04:28

factor that unites all these people.

1:04:30

They felt

1:04:32

slighted by, you know, something at school or by society.

1:04:34

We've talked about incels. There's

1:04:36

been some form

1:04:37

of rejection. They feel.

1:04:39

Yeah.

1:04:39

And that's their motivation and their

1:04:42

justification for hurting people.

1:04:44

And it sounds like Billy's got

1:04:46

some of that. Yeah. Maybe to take

1:04:48

it on the other side of the

1:04:50

spectrum, Ted Kucinski, Unobama.

1:04:52

You know, he basically, in many ways,

1:04:54

is the same as an eco terrorists.

1:04:57

Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. And so he had

1:04:59

a philosophy, the manifesto.

1:05:02

He wrote all the way out. He's

1:05:04

using the

1:05:06

bombs. It's really, I think, the same psychology right there.

1:05:08

Yeah. It's a justification to be violent.

1:05:10

At the same time, Billy's

1:05:12

really Mine is,

1:05:13

I am one hundred percent right. Yeah. A

1:05:15

hundred percent buy in on his

1:05:17

part to his dogma.

1:05:20

Exactly. I am

1:05:20

curious as to, you know, Why

1:05:23

the DNC? Location because of where it was gonna be. It was gonna bring a

1:05:25

lot of attention to their cause.

1:05:27

Exactly. And it was In

1:05:30

the

1:05:30

same city as Bank of America, which was the main target.

1:05:32

Yes.

1:05:32

Would they have claimed credit

1:05:35

if they had successfully bombed

1:05:38

the DNC? It wouldn't have been credit to a specific

1:05:40

organization. It would have been

1:05:42

to

1:05:42

it would a man environmental environmental

1:05:45

and artist So even

1:05:46

though, Matt, we don't know exactly

1:05:48

where the money comes from, if

1:05:50

the donors are not on the ground with

1:05:52

you, like literally boots on the ground

1:05:55

with the organization. What's the end game for

1:05:57

them? Did you have any sense of that?

1:05:59

My belief

1:05:59

was it's coming from another country. And I

1:06:02

don't know if I have

1:06:04

enough to back that up, but the reason I say that

1:06:06

is it's a part of money. It's not

1:06:08

going just to environmental

1:06:10

anarchists. It's not going to

1:06:12

the communist. A

1:06:14

problem I everybody is taking from to cause discontent and disruption.

1:06:16

There are such different objectives even

1:06:18

within the groups, but yet the

1:06:21

flow of cash is there? Well,

1:06:23

so

1:06:23

you got, like, you've got greenpeace.

1:06:25

Greenpeace paid for your attorney when you

1:06:27

got arrested. Right? There's got to

1:06:29

be someone that knows how this

1:06:32

money gets funneled in different ways. How

1:06:34

it ends up at this

1:06:36

little bubble of the greater organization of the, you

1:06:38

know, the more fringe violent

1:06:40

stuff that we're talking about,

1:06:42

somebody knows how that money

1:06:44

gets there. Green piece when they're

1:06:46

doing my bail or my lawyer or things like that

1:06:48

or same with Rand. That money's a little more

1:06:50

open. I think that would be a lot easier to

1:06:52

trade. But there's also a nut part of Miami

1:06:54

and be larger. That you'll see coming with these small groups that

1:06:56

wanna do more radical things. Like,

1:06:58

you're gonna have this group who's

1:07:00

underground and they have to go to a separate

1:07:02

location, but

1:07:04

there's funding to get those people there, and it's not coming from one

1:07:06

group. Greenpeace isn't gonna put their name on that.

1:07:08

Nothing will be attached to that.

1:07:10

That money is ghost money. You

1:07:13

know, when you have that type of

1:07:16

nation sponsored activity

1:07:18

to so discontent, you could see where the money

1:07:20

could be flowing through many different people

1:07:23

it's going to be conflicting. That's why we're seeing this conflict.

1:07:26

Right? Yeah. Well, like, I'm sure the

1:07:28

CIA has done in other countries. Oh,

1:07:30

yeah. No. It's not like it's a one

1:07:32

way street. No. And especially

1:07:34

now with all the discontent that is in

1:07:36

the nation, they're going, oh, this is a way

1:07:38

we can continue just to blow this up.

1:07:40

Right. Let's throw

1:07:40

gasoline on that fire. I've

1:07:43

said this so many times on this but this kind of work that you do,

1:07:45

that kind of work that Dan and

1:07:47

Dave and Paul do.

1:07:50

It's just not natural. It's

1:07:52

like not sustainable without

1:07:54

it taking this massive

1:07:56

emotional

1:07:57

toll on you. I just think that you all are

1:07:59

made of different stuff.

1:07:59

I appreciate that. So without

1:08:02

prying too much, can you

1:08:04

tell us what's

1:08:06

the first step of

1:08:08

trying to re assimilate

1:08:11

back into your

1:08:14

everyday life? So

1:08:14

when this case was over, they had me see a therapist.

1:08:16

My wife went with me

1:08:18

once. She broke down immediately. That's

1:08:22

the other part and that's the hard part. And

1:08:24

honestly, the selfish side of me, because you

1:08:26

don't think when you're doing that, that this has

1:08:28

a huge effect on your family. And long

1:08:30

afterwards. Thank goodness everything has worked out the way it has. But my wife was a

1:08:33

large part of me

1:08:35

doing this podcast. That,

1:08:38

hey, it'd be really good for you to talk about

1:08:40

it. When I talk about with her,

1:08:42

I'll start shake, I'll start to sweat, you

1:08:44

know, you have the continued nightmares from it and

1:08:46

the paranoia, and that kind of thing. And, yeah,

1:08:48

it's not sustainable. It takes us

1:08:50

toll for sure. How long

1:08:53

after you came out

1:08:55

of your undercover role in this particular case, were

1:08:57

you able to finally see or speak to

1:08:59

your mom? It wasn't

1:09:01

long. It was within a week, but

1:09:03

to be honest, my wife had dealt with everything with that, by the time I was there,

1:09:05

things were looking good. And it didn't hit me probably

1:09:08

until after

1:09:10

I got out just how you get so focused and so minder and you block

1:09:12

everything out and then you kick yourself later. Like, what was

1:09:14

I even yeah. What was I thinking?

1:09:16

And then how long

1:09:18

before you're back at work?

1:09:21

So hats off

1:09:22

to the Intel unit, my hammer. So when I got

1:09:24

out, we had a meeting and

1:09:26

sit down meeting, a deep briefing.

1:09:30

And they said, alright. We'll see you in a month. Take a month to

1:09:32

try to recompose as we actually went

1:09:34

out to the shore. The family did?

1:09:37

Yeah. After

1:09:37

that month and you go

1:09:39

back to work, are you

1:09:41

doing routine arc work, undercover buys? What

1:09:43

are you doing? So,

1:09:45

yes, I went back to Doron regular dark stuff, Control Bias. I went and

1:09:47

at that time was Hyda,

1:09:52

which is high intensity

1:09:54

drug trafficking area. It was set up by Congress and basically it's to help

1:09:56

battle drugs kind of

1:09:58

thing. Most states haven't. Yeah.

1:10:02

Did you get job satisfaction going

1:10:04

back and doing that? So yes

1:10:06

and no. There's a part of

1:10:09

me that craves getting back

1:10:11

into that I think that's probably the reason I have trouble putting on blinders. What sort of

1:10:13

blinders do

1:10:13

you expect yourself to put

1:10:16

on?

1:10:16

Sticking

1:10:18

to just doing the simple part, like, just to control by

1:10:20

and not trying to see

1:10:22

any kind of bigger picture.

1:10:26

I find that interesting. I was the same way. So

1:10:28

when I first started in detectives, I

1:10:30

was a fraud and financial crimes

1:10:32

detective, and I worked with

1:10:34

a partner at the time. So I

1:10:37

would work the fraud financial crimes part of it, but

1:10:39

ninety percent of the cases that I worked

1:10:40

had a drug

1:10:43

component to them also. So

1:10:45

I would work that side of

1:10:47

the case also. And my

1:10:50

partner at the time, he would

1:10:52

say, that's not your job to work that

1:10:54

side of it. But for me, I couldn't do that. I was interested in the other side of it

1:10:56

also. So that's one of

1:10:58

the payoffs for me was TAKING

1:11:02

DOWN BOTH BRanches OF THAT Tree. Reporter: BUT ALSO YOU DON'T JUST WANT TO TREAT THE SYMPTOM, YOU WANT TO

1:11:04

GET

1:11:05

AT THE CAUSE

1:11:08

AND IF causes I'm drug

1:11:10

addicted and I need money, so I'm gonna steal it's not not connected. And that's

1:11:12

a long

1:11:12

branch. That branch goes

1:11:15

and goes and goes. I

1:11:19

knew a guy who with one agency was homicide investigator. A

1:11:21

lot of gang stuff in the West

1:11:23

End of Accounting. He ends up

1:11:25

going over to another agency, reads

1:11:27

out on Well, when he rolls up at

1:11:29

a homicide scene, he was starting to kick into investigative mode and his

1:11:32

superiors were

1:11:34

telling him stop. Stop it. Stop it. He couldn't help himself

1:11:36

because that is what he did. You

1:11:38

know, so I could see where

1:11:40

with Matt, you're

1:11:43

doing these controlled buys. But then

1:11:45

you're going, hold on here. I can embed

1:11:47

myself over here. I can actually take down

1:11:49

a huge trafficking

1:11:51

chain. Right. Yeah.

1:11:53

So interesting. Matt, thank you so

1:11:55

much for bringing that to us. I'm glad that you are whole, that you're

1:11:58

back with

1:11:59

your family, Well,

1:12:02

thank you very much. You saved God

1:12:04

knows how many lives. No. I

1:12:06

appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

1:12:09

Yeah. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

1:12:11

Thanks,

1:12:11

Matt. Smart Sandex,

1:12:18

is produced by Gary and Yardley Smith and

1:12:21

co produced by

1:12:22

detective Stan and Dave.

1:12:24

This episode was edited

1:12:26

by a soaring vision, Gary

1:12:29

Scott and me, Yardley Smith. Our associate producers are Aaron

1:12:31

Gayner and The Real Mix Smithy. Our

1:12:35

music is composed by John

1:12:38

Forrest,

1:12:38

our editors extraordinaire, our Logan Heftel, and soaring basin,

1:12:40

and our books

1:12:43

are cooked and cat rangled

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1:13:24

and merchandise that isn't available anywhere else.

1:13:26

Go to patreon dot com slash small town dicks podcast. That's right. Your

1:13:32

subscription off so makes

1:13:34

it possible for us to keep going to small towns the country. In search of the rare,

1:13:37

true crime

1:13:40

cases told as always,

1:13:42

by the detectives who investigated them. So thanks for listening small town fan. Nobody's

1:13:47

better than you.