the infiltration case ends and then my true uh identity, like who they thought to be jay bird Davis turns out to be jay Dobyns, the Gunrunner debt collector turns out to be an A. T. F. Agent so that the angels issued contracts on me, they were farmed out to the Aryan brotherhood, they were farmed

out to the M. S. 13 18th street,

picked one up here in Los Angeles.

Mhm. I want to start just by saying how how much of an honor this is for me man, like uh we're full disclosure, we're meeting for real the first time today. Um It's a it's a it's a joy for me and um I'm so grateful that you would do this. I read your book years ago years ago and um I was utterly blown away and and and fascinated um in my opinion, um you're nothing short of a hero. You exemplify courage, strength, um your wild man, I I I learned so much strangely about my whole acting process by the way that uh you approached your work. Um I do it uh you know, my work is putting on makeup and saying lines for a living and I operate under the umbrella of safety, you put yourself out there in um uh such an insane way in your life. Um and I just I have so much respect for you and I'm so glad that I get the chance to actually kind of meet you and look you in the eye. So so thank you man, thank you, thank you for coming bro.

Like so when you compare like uh like acting too, you know, and like your process. So I've been uh like I've been in a couple of films, right? Acting playing a cop right, is much harder to do as an actor than it is to do operationally on the street. When you're, when you're acting, you you have a script to follow, you have a director there, who's who's orchestrating things. You're surrounded by a crew and it steals all your spontaneity. Like if I'm if I'm out on the street, I can take it and I can control the situation. However I want by what I say by what I do um by my actions, you don't have the freedom for that as an actor.

So like when I've had some acting spots like small, right, nothing uh to be uh of significance, I thought it was super hard. Like you have to deliver a line and you have to like honor the writer's words and the director's instructions and all the people looking, I thought it was way

hard. But I imagine with so many of the so many of the undercover agents that you've worked with over the years, I'm sure you mean there's something that sets you apart correct, like your ability to improvise your ability to go deeper, your ability. I mean, we're just talking about mel chancy and I want to get into like a proper introduction, all that, but we're just talking about mel chancy and I, one of the things that really struck me is uh you know, when you were in new york, you were there, I think like a convention or you were there with like a bunch of other A. T. F agents and you were like, I want to go over to the Hells Angels clubhouse, like I want to just go over there because you're so sort of deeply,

you know, in this guy and in this guy's soul in this guy's shoes and you know, the other agents were like you out of your fucking mind, but you made your connections, you called your people in Arizona that got you in and that's where you met mel who's a friend of both of ours, um you know, sort of legendary Hells Angel, but you know, you wanting to do that, you you having both the urge to do that knowing that it might help your case or it might just be, that's where you wanted to be. Maybe you felt more comfortable with those guys than you did with the agents at that time. I doubt that that's a common thing for undercover operatives.

I think what is common is there's all these different elements and personalities. The one common factor amongst all the guys that are great is their audacious that there's there's some that have various levels of risk assessment, various levels of courage, various looks, various experiences, understanding of the tradecraft, all those things, but every one of the great ones is just audacious. They

just, they

they just have, they just have the balls to um, you know, uh, not be afraid to fail. Be afraid to not try is worse than failing. It's like Jordan's says, man, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so, so take your shot. And, and if, and if risk, if, if, if a risk because is a factor in it, you know, then you're probably not going to be very good at it because everything you do is a risk. Everything you do is risky. There's no guarantees.

And would you just like quickly, I just, I mean, just, you know, with who I, I just want people to have an idea kind of who you are, like, you're, you're going to see very quickly. Um, this, this is not my day job, you know, this is not going to be uh, this is definitely not uh walter Cronkite. It's definitely not David Letterman, but I wanted to, you know, you

with all that,

I'll dumb it down from there, appreciate it, brother. I think, you know, for me, I just think it's really important that people know, uh, look, you know, kind of who you are and where you're from because to me, I feel like, you know, like the books that you've written and um, what you've done law enforcement in this in this country and sort of your struggles within law enforcement with the very bureau that you gave so much to. I feel like there's also so much more to you that I don't know, and I'm fascinated to find out.

But I mean, you infiltrated the Hells Angels and brought probably the biggest case in the history of that organization against them, um, a two year process, uh, that is really, in my opinion, unlike anything that has ever really been done in law enforcement before. Um, one thing in your book and your book just resonated with me in so many different ways and I've read it now multiple times in my life. You know, you start off by saying very specifically, you did not grow up, you didn't get beat up, you didn't grow up struggling for food. You did not tell me a little bit about how you grow up and tell me a little bit about your sort of first encounters with violence. Um, because you're a guy who has encountered violence and sort of like walked into the face of violence, uh, with a level of courage that I don't think it's like sort of anybody else that we've had

here before. You know, when I was a kid, I was the heavyweight champion of Sissies.

And like,

it's, so

you also got an NFL contract and played four years of Division One football and total fucking badass on the athletic field. But yeah,

so I'll tell you like I'm, I'm a kid. I'm like eight years old, there's a neighborhood bully who's beating the dog crap out of me in my front yard, he's bigger than me, stronger than me, he's got me pinned down, I'm on my back just smacking the crap out of me. And I hear the screen door open on our house and I'm like my like my dad's here, my my heroes here, he's coming to the rescue, right? And I hear I can't see him, but I hear my dad behind me saying keep hitting him and I'm like, wait a minute man keep hitting them and and the the bully like kind of like is confused and my dad's like keep hitting him, hit him, like you hit him before I came out and the kids starts smacking me again and my dad's like jerry,

you're gonna fight back, are you gonna do something? You're just gonna lay there and take a beating and I'm like dad, he's too big, he's too strong, right? So the guy takes a few more blows, gets up and the kid runs off, he's like freaked out like, you know someone's father is watching him kick his son's ass, right? I remember my dad came over and he picked me up and my nose was bleeding and he's like you have to learn to fight back because if you don't you're gonna be a victim for the rest of your life, There's always someone bigger and stronger out there than you, you have to fight back no matter what, like that was like, like almost as an eight year old,

like I was turned, I was like, you know, and my dad like was my hero is my hero, He's the best man I've ever known, the best man I ever hope to know. Um like all these lessons in life that like, that was hard for him, you know? And he picked me up and he ruffled my hair and he's like, let's go in and get some ice on that lip, you know? And like for a dad man,

that's hard, like, hard

to do anybody that's that's got a kid, like, like now putting myself in in my dad's shoes at that point, I'm like, that was really hard for him, but that was like a, like a teaching moment, like, hey, I'm trying to I'm trying to raise like a good man

and you and and did that, did that change things the next time that something, was it a cute, was that changes something? Getting knighted

and changed in a, in a kind of in a bad way in that when I uh when I did punch back and when I did learn to fight back,

got carried away.

I kind of liked it. I liked being on the other side of it and that's just as dangerous being uh like a bully is a bully, good guys side or bad

guy side? Of course, of course, And so it was was there anything your old man did to kind of curb that in you. Like, did he ever see that side of you? Did he ever, did he ever ask you to pull back on that or get you to see

yourself in a different way? I I think that um what he saw and what he enjoyed is like when I became involved in sports, the recklessness that that creates, that's how you play sports, especially when you're an underachiever, especially when you're undersized and under speed and, and under strength. Like how do you make up, how do you compete against those people that have all these physical like gifts that you don't have, your just your reckless,

describe yourself as a receiver, you know, the, the way that you describe yourself in, in, in, in the book? Um I'd like to say on a much sort of smaller level, not even closer, it's exactly, I used to describe myself as a receiver as being sort of an underachiever, not the fastest, not the strongest, but that's actually a position that I think is usually sort of goes hand in hand with the glory or the fast guy, you're burning them deep, but you know, the kind of receiver,

I love crack back blocks. I loved short yard receptions, I love dragging people over to get that first down. I love hitting people as that position. Can you sort of describe

yourself as a football player exactly that I tried to make up for my shortcomings by just playing wild, playing reckless trying to be fearless. Um I was never the guy who ran down the sidelines and and caught the ball over his shoulder and scored a touchdown and got a date

with the prom queen,

right? I was the guy who like ran the slant to get the first down so the other cat could catch the touchdown and date the prom queen. But I was, I was super proud of that. I knew what my role was. It was not to be the star, it was not to be uh like the glory guy. My role was very defined and very specific and I embraced it and that's how I stayed on the

field. And how do you feel like you you, you carried that, you know, you're a star player in, in in high school that took you to university, Arizona, I played you know division one college football, you know, got got got looks from the NFL I mean how did how did the mentality of football, I know you're, you're coaching today. How how did like how did football sort of shape you for your career and how did, what lessons did you learn from

it? It's just it's such a, I don't think there's any sport that teaches you life's lessons as well as football. Um and all the things that come with it and not just the sport, not just the tactics and the techniques of it, but the teamwork of it and and the coordination that it takes and like knowing your role and and understanding your hierarchy um in the process that that's and that's life, that's you know football like like acting or producing a film like an undercover operation, maintaining just a relationship, a personal relationship, running a family, a small business, a big business, we all have the same process this and maybe we don't even really if you haven't thought about it, we don't really understand it to be like the people that are truly successful in life, the highest achievers are the best problem solvers. So whatever is in front of you identify whatever that objective is, what's the mission,

what's the goal then the next step is communication with the people around you. Open transparent communication, we're exchanging ideas when you do that, you build trust because because now you're part of a team and then with all those things in line now you can go solve whatever problem X. Is whether it's in your relationship, whether it's boy girl stuff, whether it's managing kids or a wife or a husband making a movie run an undercover operation, small business, big business is like our process is the same. Like if you don't think about it, like all of us spend our entire day solving problems and the people that are are super high achievers are really good at

it, and and and and, you know, you're talking to you

the

way that you're sort of able to put that now is coming from a place of just being an enormously high achiever yourself, and looking back on this sort of unparalleled career, but I I'm really interested in the guy, like before you went into the A. T. F. Before you decided to become an undercover operative. You know, there's a level, like you use the word recklessness, right? Like, I I like to think of that. Um it's what attracts me again in a much different sort of way. It's to the acting, look man, there's no words for the life that you you've lived. And I guess I'm really interested, you know, in this guy who decides to make a life of being an undercover operative in the most dangerous of situations, where were you sort of like with violence and recklessness at that point in your

life? Well, you know, I'll tell you, uh the honest truth is I'm very much a common man who's been placed in uncommon situations and then just done the best I could in that situation, um found some success at times and failed and made mistakes a lot of times to um you know what if and if we don't talk about the mistakes and if we don't talk about the failures, then then there's then what I say doesn't have credibility. If all we do is like tell hero stories and pat myself on the back and try to uh, like build upon some myth, then it's all counterfeit.

But but what makes it, I mean, what what were you hungry for? You know, this decision to go into the A. T. F. And go into this world and wanting to be into like, what was it about that that was, you know, drawing

you in the, the intrigue of it? The challenge, uh, like the kind of the one on one challenge. The competition of it, undercover work, you're in competition. It's a competition of you versus either the suspect, you're working on, the group, you're working on, you're competing with them and they're competing against you. Um, the criminal community is uniquely paranoid and they have to be because that's how they stay out of prison. They don't trust you. They don't like strangers.

And so there's a competition there. You're like, I'm trying to sell myself. It's it's it's Jordan Belfort, It's it's Wolf of Wall Street's sell me this pen. Well, I'm the pen. Like, I'm selling you, like, trust me, believe you don't know me, you don't have any experience with me, You didn't grow up with me, sell me your drugs, sell me your guns, sell me your bombs involve me in your home invasion scheme, hire me to do the murder you want done selling

me and building that credibility, it's all about building that is basically your code of armor, right? Like, that is how you do that. And it is admitting your failures. Is that part of building your credibility is being eggs exactly who you are. I mean, I really want to talk about, you know, how you work with sea ice and how you, how you sort of like build this, this this this roll. But um, you know, look, man,

I mean, you're one of your first outings out there. You you you got shot, right? And and uh can you take us through that story? And I know you don't want to just tell hero stories, but it's a crazy fucking story.

So, and I'm gonna tie this to uh to your to your HBO show. Right now there's a there's a tie in here, right? Um until we own the City. Um I got hired on a monday 1987 I was a failed athlete. I'd like, I I had always planned on playing in the NFL. Um and then I never had a plan B. I never planned for anything other than that, because that's what I was going to do. Well, you know, it turns out like, dude, you ain't good enough to play in the NFL, right?

So you like, so now your left, like, a lot of young people now, what? Right? So at the time, this is mid eighties Miami Vice was popular. And as an audience, we had never seen a cop show like that. We had seen all the procedurals, detectives responding reactively to crime scenes doing interviews, Patrolman, right? And then all of a sudden Sonny Crockett shows up on the scene and got the Hugo boss on. He's riding a Lambo around South Beach,

right? And he's he's going into these mansions and he's meeting with these glamorous kingpins and there's a ton of cocaine out on some barge in the harbor. And he's got these like stripper models bringing the mojitos, right? And I'm like, man, like that seems

pretty cool, right?

So the reality of it is what I found the reality is that that Lamborghini was like a beatdown monte Carlo, right? And Hugo boss suit was like cut off Camoes and a wife beater t shirt and flip flops. The kingpin that that sonny Crockett was dealing with was some like broke dick dude who didn't have two nickels to rub together that was sitting at the end of the bar with his plumber's crack hanging out right? The ton of cocaine. It was an eight ball that was so step down with baby laxative, you'd ship before you get high off of it, right? And then the stripper models that like you see on tv that are like running with these cats, they're like straight skanks with like three teeth in their head and tits like sweat socks with rocks in the toes. And so when I when I experienced it and it was so much different than what Hollywood

had sold me on. I

loved it every day man every day. I loved it. It wasn't glamorous undercover work is a nasty dirty, bloody vomit covered scab of a life. And when I realized that I still loved it man.

And

what was it that you loved? I loved the challenge of the competition of it. I loved how dirty it was. I didn't have to be the guy with the gold chains and the rolex and all the and all the, you know, driving the Ferrari like I didn't care. I'd show up like on a bicycle for deals, ride ride a bike because that's that's how some of those cats

roll. How early in the career was that that that that first event where

you got wounded that? Well, so like I get hired on a monday, right? So I actually was out here in Los Angeles got sworn in and I told my supervisors I want to work undercover, I came to work undercover. So supervisor digs in his desk and he hands me a cassette tape and some headphones and all it said on it was marty, right? So I plug it in and I'm listening what it was was the audio recording of a Baltimore city Baltimore police department narcotics officer named marcellus Ward, marty Ward

who

Marty in December of 1984 was in an undercover deal with a heroin dealer and was shot like five or six times point blank in a drug dealer's apartment

and marty in

Baltimore in Baltimore and marty dies on tape, marty like marty dies with his boys trying to rescue him, you hear him die right? So

the guy shot him left and then you hear his backup unit come

in trying to save it and it is dude, I'll send you the recording. It's it it's it's it's hard, it's hard to listen to right? So I come out, I'm listening to tape my my boss is like, hey man, you still want to work undercover. I'm like yeah man, this dude's a freaking hero, like I'm not, I'm not gonna die doing it, but right, so four days later I get I get hired, I want to work undercover. They make me listen to the marty tape. They're trying to like,

hey dude, you need to know what you're getting into, right? four days later I get taken hostage and shot um The bullet went in my back, it went in between my

can you can you just, how did you get, how did you get taken

hostage? So actually it's there's there's so many stories and back stories to everything,

right? So

so like I'm brand new and like I haven't been to the academy, I don't have any training. Um I wasn't a street guy, right? So I'm like on the outer tertiary like most distant perimeter of this arrest operation. The suspect shows up, he shows up on a motorcycle, gets off his motorcycle parks in front of his house, starts walking in whom all the units, all the all the surveillance units start swooping in on him to um to make the arrest. Well he takes off, he takes off running and so I'm like I'm in so far in the distance, like I'm supposed to just be staying out of the out of the work. I see the cat running while I start running. So like I was I wasn't fast enough to play in the NFL. I was slow

to NFL but

I was freaking

yeah,

I was Hussein bolt for in cop land, right? So I start like I'm passing dudes and chasing, we're running through the neighborhood and he's serpentine and zig zagging and I lose the dude, he vanishes, he knows where he's at, I don't know where he's at. Um short time later. Like we're just kind of searching, creeping for the dude

and you still do you still have your guys

around you or they're like we're all spread

out distance,

right? So everybody's like, you know there's like no one's really nearby or close um and the dude was hiding man and he popped up and drew down on me and I like I had my gun and he was like motherfucker, I will fucking kill you where you stand, right? And I'm like, you know, I don't remember seeing this episode of Miami Vice right? The dude gets behind me, puts the

gun to my head and and he puts his gun to your head, right? He says, I'll kill you. Where you said, has anybody ever said that to you in your life? That anybody drawn a gun on you before

in your life? So

now there's a gun at your head. What are you, what are you feeling

man? Like I didn't have uh like those types of life experiences to refer back to like, okay, what do I do now? But there, but there is a sports element to it. There is a like a football element to it. Things are breaking bad, There's chaos, There's panic, man, you're losing the game, You don't help yourself by becoming hysterical. You find your you find your zen, you find a sense of calm and you try to like let your computer run. You know,

I mean, have you ever seen anyone else with that little experience go to that place? I mean, I mean, I imagine like you were specifically wired that way, both, you know, from football, you know the blood that your your mom and dad put in you, you know, I mean not most people, most people get a gun to their head like

that.

And I mean they're pissing their pants, right? They're not getting tactical, you got you took a breath and got tactical and again, it's not hero worship, nothing like that. I'm just wondering what is going through your head. I mean a gun was once put put, you know, put to my head once in, in in Russia and and I knew and I felt like I was this like I immediately turned into a buck, I was literally like you, I'm here for you, I'll do whatever you want. I'm just wondering what went through your because I I look I know this story, I want you to tell the rest of the story, but like how do you go tactical at

that point? Um because

I mean you didn't have a ton of training

right now. I had no training, but I think it's uh it's it's an inherent survival instinct, like like panic is gonna get me nowhere, man is gonna get me shot. Like right now um in in any kind of situation like those life and death situations, if you're talking, if you're communicating, you're alive, you're still

in the game.

Keep like keep thinking, keep planning.

So what happens next?

So the dude, uh he's got the gun to my head and I talked about this old, like, like I thought I was coming out of the job to this Lamborghini right? Like this old Monte Carlo, right that we used to show up there, he stuffs me in the front seat of the Monte Carlo. He gets behind me and he's got the gun to my head. Um and he's like saying like, go like get me out of here, right? Like, like he like, he wanted to use me as his vehicle to escape the situation. Well now the other agents are starting to close in, right? So I'm thinking like,

you know what man, this this probably has got a bad ending, but like, I'm not gonna drive this dude away from here with all these other agents, all these other armed agents, I'm not going to drive this dude away from here and and have him Kicked me out and execute me in the ditch 20

miles down the road. You knew that that was what

was, Yeah, I was like, if this is going down, it's going

down and were you playing the audio? I mean in your head, I mean, did you go back to the, to the Baltimore undercover agent?

Absolutely. Right. I'd only heard that tape a couple of days before, right? So it was like that, that story was super fresh in my mind and, and, and marty's demise and, and right, So I'm sitting there and I'm sitting behind the wheel and I see a telephone pole, like 30 yards up in front. The first thing I thought is like, I'm gonna buckle my seat belt and I'm gonna run us into that telephone pole as hard as I can get this car going as fast as I can get it going and that's, that's gonna at least give me a chance, right? So I'm going to buckle my seat belt and the keys are in the ignition of the, of the car.

And I'm like, okay, plan B man. I pulled the keys out and I dropped him to the floorboard and he's screaming at me like, let's go, let's go, let's, you know, he's he's uh he's messed up. Um and I reach forward to grab the keys and when I, he tried to ride forward with me and the gun came off my head, the gun actually moved to my back. He's trying to stay with me and ride me right? And he's holding the gun on my back and then everything breaks bad. He fires around, um hits me in the back,

goes through my lung, narrowly misses my heart, exits my chest. Um and then that inspires like literally Uh this lead and glass storm like that, that you could only imagine in a movie, right? It was like, it was five or 10 seconds I think like 20 or 25 rounds were fired into the car, right into the, into the compartment we were in. Um So I brought this because I, because I knew that story would come up, right? So that whole right there, that's where the bullet went in my back,

right?

And this hole right here, that hole right there is where it came out of my came out of my chest, right? So like I said, got hired on a monday. Like this goes down four days later on a thursday with the feds john we get paid every two weeks, hadn't even gotten a paycheck yet man.

I

didn't get if I come from this one, this was on the house man. This was like a test drive. Like, hey man, can I try, can I come back tomorrow? Right. And there was like, I mean I'm laying in the dirt and dog crap of this trailer park and there's blood coming out of my chest, like you're holding your thumb over the end of a garden hose just squirting out. And then they dragged the suspect out of the back of the car because he, I mean they ventilated this dude man, um his eyes are rolled back, he's already got the death rattle going. And so they pushed me now into the backseat of this car and I'm like, and I'm I'm in bad shape myself.

And so the same card that the shooting took place in, we take off for the hospital. Um and so like, and my boss was driving who was like a good experienced like old school cop and he's driving and hauling gas and he's looking over his shoulder into the back seat like hang on hang, he's called everybody bubba, hang on bubba, hang on bubba stay with me Bubba and then he's driving and driving and driving And he's like, man, do you know your way, do you know the way to the hospital

because we were down

and I'm like, I got blood gushing out of my chest and like, glasses all in me, right? And I'm like, like, like my ears are bleeding and like, so, but you know what? Um it has a really, it has a really happy ending. It has a good ending. Actually. The trauma surgeon that that operated on me is a guy named Dr Richard Carmona. Um and he was this young, like, super hotshot trauma surgeon, right? So he patches me up, he saves my life. Dr Carmona ultimately becomes the surgeon general of the United States under

President Bush. Um

and is just is a is a remarkable, amazing man, amazing life's experiences. Um So like, like what's the chance that this all goes down and then I land in the

hands of the trauma

surgeon on the planet, right? There's that

like, man, there's

always a silver

lining. And then, and then the decision, I mean, just because I I I gotta ask was there any doubt? I mean, was there was there any, like, I don't know if this is for me? Like, what? Like, I mean, you you you jump right back in

well, so I'm in the hospital and I'm and I'm recovering And like the the ambulance chaser attorneys are lining up. Like, it's like, like trying to return something at home depot, like, Hey, take a number man, I'm now serving number 17, right? They were all taking their turn and they were coming in saying did you haven't been trained that the government, the agency has assumed a huge amount of liability for allowing this to happen to you. How much money do you want? And I'm like like I mean I grew up in a blue collar house man. My dad was a carpenter and my mom was a house cleaner. Um there like you ever seen $5 million dollars and I'm like No how about $10 million? You know what that looks like? I can get you money. That's generational money. Like you'll never have to work another day in your life. Neither will your kids or their kids

if you're smart with this I didn't

um like like your family will be taken care of forever. And all I could think of was like like get out like there's no there's no cop who ever took a badge and a gun thinking that they were going to get rich thinking that they were gonna you take it for other reasons. And And so the money, the money set like now at 60 I'm thinking like man, you know what, 35 years ago man, I could have done a lot of money with a lot with that money over 30

five years right?

But at the time I was like man, like all I wanted to do was get back to work.

I understand the honor in that and I I understand but what was driving you Like if you could, if you could whittle it down to one thing, like what was, what was the desire to get back to work? What was the desire because I mean you still need to learn this trade and you basically have suffered at this point. Pretty much the worst. I mean I would imagine losing a partner or losing somebody would be right. But, but I mean, you know you, you, you kind of face the ultimate. What was it that was driving you to get into that? I mean was it this oath that you took? Was it you really want to catch bad guys? You talked about Miami

but like what was it failure? I'd failed. Did

you look at that day as a failure you did? So

um, the fact that I was brand new, um, that like by my own mistakes, by my own errors in judgment, by my own inability to assess risk. I had, I had created the situation. No one asked me to come off the perimeter and chase this cat down right. So I felt like I was embarrassed, I was um beyond embarrassed. I was humiliated. Like I was the, I was the joke at the water cooler. Hey man, did you hear about this dude in Tucson? It was on the job four days and he almost got smoked freaking had a through and through. Like it was humiliating

how how common is it for uh an undercover agent or, or you know, whatever it was that you were doing at that point? I think there's like a real misconception about sort of the dangers that are out. I mean how common is it for for an officer like that to get shot?

Um Well in today's world versus like 1987, it was very uncommon in today's world every day. We're reading about some cop getting shot and and not like on, it's on a drug deal, we're talking about dudes getting sniped, getting ambushed, right, getting getting squared off

on traffic. So it's almost like the patrolman, it's like the most dangerous job now, it's,

it's never been harder to be a cop than it is right now.

So when you go back in then, is there a new commitment to training? I mean is that sort of like, is that what the next stage of your life is? Is it just like train your ass off?

I knew I could do it, but um like, so like my, my previous plan A was to play professional football play in the NFL right, fail didn't make it didn't achieve it, go to plan b right off the bat fail. I'm like, man, like I gotta break this cycle,

99.9% of people would say, Hey Fuck Man, I played four years, you know, University of Arizona, I got, you know, NFL looks like that doesn't sound like a failure to me, but, but but but what about you made it look that way just because your mindset was, I'm going

all the way with this. Yeah. And I think that like, just my personality is I'm, I'm self critical. Um I

do you think you need to be self critical in order to be successful?

I personally do. Um I am very rarely pleased or satisfied with anything I accomplished and I always find the mistake or the flaw or the error. Um is that good or bad man? I don't know. I'll tell you that like I think we both know people that uh achieve on a marginal level and they'll tell you how amazing and how fabulous they are and they'll pat themselves on the back. Um

and some of them actually seem pretty happy sometimes. I'm like, man, maybe

I ought to just do that man, they're

enjoying the weekends while I'm working, you know what I mean? There with their kids and fucking living life, you know? Yeah, I I get it, I get it. And so so You know, I just want to go, I mean, I know then you know, the next 20 years of your life are dedicated to this. You don't just sort of unparalleled undercover career. And obviously, you know, most of the notoriety it goes to what you did with the hells angels, but I mean there were so many criminals that and so many criminal,

you know, enterprises that you infiltrated and I guess I'm wondering like, you know, we talked a little bit about like building credibility and I'm really, I'm really, really interested in that. Like how you do that and how you did that. And so basically because I know when you kind of came onto the angels task, you, you know, you weren't really a motorcycle gang guy, right? Like you were basically, you have this role, right? You were like a hit man.

Like, like what was I was not the right choice?

Why is that

when the, when the opportunity came to work the Hells Angels case? The case agent approached me and said, hey, I want you to lead this undercover operation. And my first response was, I can name 10 guys off the top of my head who will serve this role for you better than I will. Um, they were guys who, that was what they focused on, that's what their expertise was. They were um, they, they had built themselves and and their experience towards that.

I hadn't meaning they had spent the bulk

of their career sort of in

the outlaw biker communities. They already had connections in those

communities. What

were, what was your, where were you at at that point? Like what

was your guy was like, and I recycled this cover story over and over. I was just this white trash peckerwood debt collector, Gunrunner quasi hitman at times. Um, and like I could recycle that over and over and over again. I could play that and make it, I could sell it. I don't care if you're a white collar guy on wall Street or if you were pushing everything you own in a shopping cart. Like I could find a way to make that fit and sell it to what you needed in the criminal

world.

Like uh like, well, first of all, like, and, and, and you know this from like, probably from your early days when you had to audition for films, right? When you had to go read, when you're trying to get started, you get one chance at a first impression and you better hit it now if you don't make a good first impression, are you dead in the water? Probably not. But now you've put yourself behind the eight ball man. Now you got to recover just get back to even,

can you think of a time where you feel like you didn't make a good first

impression? Um I didn't make a good first impression probably with my wife, Right? Put myself behind the eight ball and had to make a comeback.

That's all of our stories

out there. If you've got your eyes set on something,

you will keep going straight up bro straight up. But, but I, I guess what I'm wondering is like this, this character, jaybird David? Like is that who he was like, was he a specific guy? Like how well did you know this guy that you

were playing? There's, in my experience, there's three types of like undercover operators that like are the high end guys. Um I'm not talking about like drive through the park and put your hand out and some kids gonna drop a crack rock like, like, like to anybody, right? There's um there's the actors who like put on a costume, whatever that role is and they inherit that persona and they're acting through it. Then there's, but

that's mostly used for like sort of street level. I'm doing this today to achieve this today, not building a persona in order. If I meet this guy, he tells this guy, then you get to meet that guy, you're finally going to get to your target, which is a much

different level. So there's there's people that just like they almost put on a costume and inherit that they start acting in that role. Then there's like the hustler who we all know who's just like, like a used car salesman. He sell anybody anything man. He's the guy that can sell ice to Eskimos and he's just, and he's always on the hustle, Right? And then there's like somewhere in between. There is just the natural and I like I consider myself and that what you see is what you get. Um I didn't, I didn't pretend to be something, I wasn't um I didn't communicate with people I was working on or against any different than I'm talking to you like and you might like me or you might not like me, but like, but I'm not acting and I'm not pretending to be something, I'm not, this is just who I am.

So the key and undercover work is like what value can you bring to whoever it is that you're targeting? If if like for the Hells Angels, there's a million dudes who have Harleys that are sitting at the bar at the, at the end of the bar with long hair and earrings and tattoos who would cut off an arm to wear a Hells Angels patch? They're not interested in those dudes because there's a million of those guys. What's your value? What do you bring to the table? Can you make money, Can you earn? Can you enforce uh can you intimidate? You know, like, like, like what level of violence are you comfortable with? All those things that come into play that ended up like in the Hells Angels example of trying to make myself valuable to them? Was

the focus on the Hells Angels at that time? Was that because of the big shootout with the Mongols? Is that sort of like what is that? What kind of sparked that? That major interest? Or was there as there always

been, There was two main events that really inspired that case, like really getting steam. Uh the Hells Angels, Mongols riot at the Harrah's Casino in Laughlin um and uh the Hells Angels in Mesa had murdered uh a woman, an innocent woman, they

yeah

they basically recruited her off the street to come to a party, the party got out of hand, she mouthed off in the wrong place at the wrong time and you don't talk sh it on these dudes in their clubhouse and you don't insult you, don't insult them. Um She took a beating in the Mesa clubhouse, they beat her down um and then they stuffed her in the trunk of a car and drove her from Mesa out to Apache junction Arizona, which is further east um and cut her head off. Um so that body was recovered and that there was a tie to the Hells Angels then with the riot then it was like look like we gotta do something, The riot was super inspiring because it took place in a public venue. So like gang on gang violence and when they keep it within their world, like how much can you contain that can control that these guys are gonna fight man, they're going to get it on, but when it spills into the public, when it spills into a venue where there's common man citizen there, it's it's hard to ignore. And

so for you, I mean and you got to know very well a lot of the people involved in both of those situations and I guess you know when we go back into building credibility and and and you and your team, you know, you guys, you guys, uh, you know, kind of join the ranks of this, this nomad biker gang and then when you finally make this approach to the angels, you know, when you talk about building these credibility and building this, I mean, you guys have this whole, you know, you guys were your own motorcycle club, like, how do you go about building that? What are the tools that you need to

do that? Yeah, well, like I said, like, we couldn't just show up and be like, uh, the common man, average joe coming off the street, like, you don't knock on these dudes front door and ask for an application doesn't work that way. Right? So my cover story, I used the cover story. I always used, um, I was a gunrunner, I could make that make sense to him. How

do you make that make sense

to him? I, uh, I obtain guns in Arizona cross them into the border in Mexico where they're worth 10 times as much where the cartels will pay 10 times as much for that gun. It's reverse drug trafficking, right? It's, it's, it's absolutely absolutely makes sense to them. Like, yeah, that, you know, that was easy. Um, I used my debt collector role. Like,

I've always got money. I've always got jobs. I've always got work. I've got money in my pocket. I'm not a guy that you're going to have to float. Um, and then that like the culmination of that, like the violence aspect to it. Like I started getting solicited to do murders because like I never sold myself as a hit man. I never told one of those dudes like, hey man, I killed, I'm a contract killer, I kill people for money, they assume based on my persona, how I carried myself,

my cover story. And then the experience they had with me, like this guy, someone, you know, you get approached for it like, hey, I'm gonna take this dude out, you

know, and you also, you have to do a lot of work with criminal informants and, and, and, and I just, I'm just wondering a big part of what you do. I guess what I'm trying to get at a big part of what you do I imagine is you got to get close to people and you gotta form like real honest genuine relationships with them And you know, this guy pops, I know you guys got like enormously close and I'm just, I'm just wondering, you know, you probably had to get close really close with people who repulsed you and who you were disgusted by. And I imagine you also got close with people that you genuinely liked and cared for and you genuinely saw like a level of decency and whether they're criminal or not. I'm wondering if you can give me sort of like an example

of both of those Yeah, you're so you're presenting this false persona of who you are to people and, and right off the bat, you're lying to them. Um but you can never undercover out of the human factor. Um so you're, you're actually, you have people targeted and, and for various reasons, but they're ultimately, they're still human beings and so like in the hells Angels case, for example, every second of every day wasn't spent in some kind of criminal activity with these guys, so they would be, you know, running their scheme or doing whatever they're doing and you see that and you become a witness to that, but you're also spending downtime with them social time with

their

living room, holding their babies, eating with them, sleeping at their house, have their sleeping at your house shooting pool with them drinking beer with them. Like just, and you see like these redeeming qualities in their personalities, um just guys that like you run around with and you're like, man, like, I like this guy and you know what? If someone came in here and busted a bottle on the back of my head, this dude would be throwing down for me right? Like, like you build those kind of relationships. Um the problem is, is God does not build us to inherently plan on betraying someone and an undercover work,

you know, from the very beginning, like I'm going to try to make a good first impression, I'm going to try to gain your trust. I'm gonna gain your loyalty ultimately, In some cases, I'm gonna gain your love and no one in the back of your head. And as I'm building this man, I am gonna, it's gonna be a bad day for you

man, ultimately,

I because I am going

to betray you. Yeah. And and and and I find it so interesting, you you talked about how you are sort of like this Pit bull dog and you're you're sort of superior who is kind of running the show, had to kind of hold you back a little bit. And I'm wondering, it's like, how do you, how did you manage to have, I mean, you have so many things going at once, right? Like you have this burning desire to take these guys down, but at the same time, you're also getting in some cases extraordinarily close with them and finding things that you bond with things that you respect about them. Sometimes you love some of these guys, but at the same time,

you're also trying to maintain your own real love for, for for for for your family and preserving them the job and the oath that you took. And and and I can only imagine, I mean, obviously that that sounds fucking insanely stressful, whatever. But I mean, I'm just wondering like, how do you how do you maintain the real you do you maintain the real you, is it compartmentalization? Like, how does that work?

Well we've hit on this topic a couple of times. Uh I failed at that. Um that's probably my, my biggest regret, my biggest humiliation or embarrassment is that I was in this undercover role for, for so long for such an extended period of time, like, well before and and beyond the Hells Angels case that jay bird Davis, the Gunrunner debt collector hitman stopped becoming what I did for a living and it started becoming who I was

but wasn't but but but that was necessary correct in order to accomplish what

you accomplished well, and, and, and that was at least that was my, my defense to myself and to my wife, I was like, you know what? People that treat this as a gimmick, people that treat what I do as a hobby, end up dead, right? I have to be all in. I 100% because I'm gonna get killed if I'm not, I had an argument with my wife at one point I came home, I've been away from the house for an extended period of time. I walk in like, like jay bird Davis walks into my house,

right? And she's like, you cannot be gone and come here and treat me and our kids and talk to us like we're street people and I was like, I'm not a light switch, I can't turn this on and off. And she's like, well when you come to this house, you better install a dimmer and dial that attitude down or

don't come back.

And I was like, I was super pissed off about that. I was like, don't, you know, I'm saving the world, don't you know, I'm doing all these amazing things and like, and you're gonna give me ship for it. She was exactly right. She was 100% justified.

But you know, it's, it's such a, I guess, uh, because I know how committed you are to your family, I see your relationship and I just in two seconds and I, I uh and what you said about like chasing that eight ball and making up for lost time, it's such a, it's such a, I think a meditation on fatherhood to begin with, because I just know through your book, you know, you talked about all these kids that you would sort of come upon in the field, you would go into these houses where people are doing meth and they're they're fucking right in front of their kids, they're selling drugs in front of the kids, There's violence right in front of these kids and you're seeing these these young girls that are being tossed around, you're thinking of your own daughter and like, you know, I really believe, look man for me

in

this world, first and foremost, I'm a dad, I'm a father and I'm a husband that is my primary, that is, that is my, my north star, right? And there's times where I have to say, you know, and but the bottom line is, and I think this is true for guys who are locked up. I think this is true for guys who are overseas. I think it's true for guys who for whatever reason they walked away, they walked away. I feel like that love that that that bond is always there and you always have a relationship with it and your north star is how healthy that relationship is. And there's always a way and I guess it seems to me like it was always present. Your son gave you that rock, you kept that rock with you. You know like what like

I brought it, you tell that

story, that's who you are. I mean it's like clear and I guess like what lessons on fatherhood did this whole chapter in your life teach you?

It's it's it's gonna sound my answers are gonna sound like like kind of pathetic almost or like like I'm seeking compassion or sympathy and I'm not because all the decisions I made, I made, no one made them for me. I own all of them. But it keeps coming back to this element of failure or perceived failure. Like you talked about like above all you're grounded in your wife and your kids, right? Like I lost that man. They weren't the most important thing to me um like I think inherently like I'm selfish. That's a very unflattering thing to say about yourself. I made decisions for me about me. What was good for me, what I wanted to do and I didn't think about my wife and I didn't think about my kids. You're like along for the ride. And I, and I settled that in my head because I was giving them, I was providing them a comfortable life.

They had a nice house, they had food, they had clothes, they went to good schools. You know, my wife had a, had a good car to drive. They didn't have to worry about money. Like I balance that by saying like, you're like, I'm giving you a comfortable life, but I wasn't giving them presence, I wasn't giving them, I wasn't there, right? I was like,

I was buying my family, I was, I was paying for my family by giving them things and I thought like, like somehow that was like love or that was a real relationship and that's, I mean, that's, you know, like we're talking to an audience, like, I don't like, I don't know the people out there, it's a pretty humiliating thing to say about yourself, but like we said earlier, if I don't if if I'm not if I don't come clean, like I'm counterfeit then.

Yeah, I mean, and, and also you can't do nothing about nothing until you admit that it's there. I mean, you'll never address a problem unless you look at it, right?

Well, you're like, literally when you're like, I was constantly pushing the envelope and I did everything as hard and as fast and as long as I could, and then when the operation was done, like then the fun time came and I partied as hard and as fast and as long as I could and I like I pushed, I pushed the envelope every day on everything and and my relationships and so, you know, like I retired eight years ago and like the saying like it's better to burn out than fade away. I did both, I burned out and faded away. I spent so much time on my couch now, I've been re upholstered twice.

What is your relationship with the kids like

now it's it's really good. Um and my relationship with Gwen

is really good.

Um but I'll tell you what of no credit to me, I did every single thing I could direct that. Um There was countless times where I should have came home and all my clothes should have been in the front yard and the locks should have been changed. I made a million mistakes with Gwen and my kids and I'm blessed that they've given me a million and one second chances to

fix it. Beautiful.

Um And so I'm trying to take that one chance and trying to like see if I can finally, like on the back half of my life, maybe get it right because I spent the first half of my life getting everything

wrong, and when you, when you say that, you know, you were like pushing the envelope in all areas again, do you feel like that was necessary in order to, you know, especially when you were, is that the rock? It is, wow, wow, Can you tell

the story of that rock? So during the course, like, so my kids never knew me as anything other than an undercover agent. They were born into it. Like, Gwen had a chance, man, she knew what I was doing before we got married. So like, like she had the opportunity to say no, the kids never had an opportunity to say no, right? So like, well before the Hells Angels case through the Hells Angels case, I'd be gone for extended period of time, you know,

smoking and joking, come home. Um and I did the bare minimum. I had to, to keep my family functioning. I'd mow the grass, pay the bills, had the kids on the head, have a cup of coffee with Gwen, couldn't wait to get back out because I loved being in

gangster land. That's

where I thrived. I just loved um like the risk of it, the challenge of it, how dynamic it was, how dangerous it was. Um like pushing the envelope right all the time. So every time I'd come home and then get ready to leave my son who was little at a time, like 8, 10 run out in the yard and say, dad don't leave yet. Like I got something for you and he'd come and he'd bring me a rock out of the yard and hundreds of times I had these rocks. I, I kept, I kept Jackie's rocks. I kept one in my pocket at all times. I had them in the saddlebags, my motorcycle,

my undercover car, my undercover house, these good luck charms, right? This kid was giving me these good luck charms. Um, I started handing them out to my partners on the task force. I was like, I don't know Like what kind of blessing or charm this kid is putting, but like the violence is swirling around us, eight or 10 murders took place during that case. Like all around us, friends of mine, people that I was working on, I was like, like,

please hang on to this rock, right? So the last big operation, we're getting ready to kind of wrap the case up and we're gonna go fake this murder, right? And I'm getting ready to leave. And I tell Jackie like I'm almost done and don't leave yet. Dad don't leave yet. And he brings me this rock, right? And, and and it's this rock, it's the one the one that I keep with me and he says, I've been saving this one for you. It's special. It's shaped like a heart.

And so like I'm a 40 year old dad and I'm trying to comfort like this 10 year old boy and I said all the things that I have been neglecting with you, I'm gonna fix, I'm gonna get done with this and I'm gonna come home and we're gonna play catch and we're going to ride bikes and we're gonna wrestle and we go swimming, go to the movies, right? And I said, it's all because of your rocks dude, these good luck charms and I'm like, they work so good. I've been giving them to all my partners and this little boy standing on my driveway and tears start running down his cheeks. He's standing there, no shirt, no shoes. And he's like, those were not good luck charms and you shouldn't have given them to anybody. They were just for you.

They were only for you dad. And so like, I'm like trying to figure out like for years I thought he'd been giving me good luck charms and he's like, that's for you to put in your pocket and every time you think someone's gonna hurt you, you could put your hand in there and touch it. And that would be like me being there to help you fight

him.

And that was like, that was the worst day and the best day of my life, the worst day is that a 10 year old boy had to teach his 40 year old father what my job was the best day was that my 10 year old son taught me what my job was. Um, and so then I put a huge amount of battle damage on my family. That's what

I did to my kids

all because what? Because I wanted to be Donnie Brasco part two for what? And then you leave, No one cares, no one remembers you, no one remembers the cases that you know, you like, you, you, you retire and the next day, like the people on your task force are arguing over the stapler on your desk. Who gets it. That's how, that's how important you are.

And then, you know, ultimately this, this, this, this cases like brought against these guys. There's gotta be some feeling of like deep satisfaction. There's gotta like, what, what is

that what? So, uh, so I, I go through this dispute with my agency after the, after the case, right? And I felt like, uh, the threats that we had faced at me and my family face that weren't addressed. I felt super betrayed by that, right? Um, and I was upset by it and then like the light bulb went off one day and my head cleared and I'm like, dude, like that was your Karma man, you had it coming,

you betrayed your family, you betrayed your wife and your kids for this job. Think about all the people over 27 years that you had investigated that you won their love and you betrayed them. Like how you, how does that feel man, how you like that And you know when it happened to me, I didn't like it very much.

And, and, and, and so once again you looked at this like again, what many would look at is this like massive achievement or whatever? But you looked in your life, you looked at the parts that didn't work. You looked at the parts that were a failure. How can I correct this? First of all these people that you won the love of and you betrayed them that these, these criminals that you ended up bringing down or whatever that is. Can you talk about somebody specific that you felt really bad about that, that, that, that, that, that you came to love that, that, that ultimately you brought down,

you know, like, like I can kind of squeeze that into one story, right? So we let go, We spent two years with these guys and made hundreds of them Right? And indicted 55 people, 16 of them on Rico. We indicted the guys that had beheaded Cynthia Garcia. Um, so I'm briefing the swat team, I'm briefing the raid team for the, for the takedown and in the process, I'm talking about the different characters that they're going to be hunting and where they're going to be.

And so,

and so in it, I'm like, hey, when you hit jojo right? Like man, like the dudes are pretty decent dude, right? Like, like, like look, I know you got to take him down, but like, like, like this dude easy right now jimmy when you hear his house beat his

fucking balls off,

right? Because he's a fucking asshole.

And what can you,

can

you describe that line? Like, what is it why

what

made him an assault?

What made you legit? Well, probably no different than probably some of them felt about me. It's like you put a group of people together and there's some people you click with those other people you don't. So um the people that I disliked probably had, I'm sure had people that absolutely adored them, the people that I liked probably had archenemies. Um it was just like the chemistry that I had with certain people, whether it be good or bad was my chemistry.

I guess the reason why I ask is, you know, there's there's a lot of folks that I've become really close within, some folks that we've had on the show, who who who has spent a lot of time in law enforcement, not in the capacity that that that that you have for these prolonged undercover, these these huge operations that you've been on. But one thing that I hear over and over again from from from from folks and law enforcement, especially when we start to talk about, you know, this kind of anti police movement that's kind of taken over the country recently and and and and all of the videos that we're seeing about police brutality and how it's like changing the course of policing. And one thing that I hear from from a lot of great cops and guys I really respect is you can't make it personal, like it's business, you can't make it personal when you start making it personal. That's bad. But I think like, in your case,

what's so fucking astounding to me is like, making it personal is kind of everything for you, right? Like, you've gotta, like, making it personal is also like your armor, like, you're

Not getting these mother,

No 1's getting close to Hells Angels clubhouses, you're going to new york city, you're making a few phone calls, you're in their fucking an A T. F. Agent, you're in there. Like, I talked to mel chancy today because we're talking to today is one of the most feared hells angels in history. Mr 1 87 and he was just like, wow, what you were able to do was like fucking unprecedented. And he said, by the way, he's like, they would have never been able to do it to us. He's like,

he's like, you're able to talk the talk walk the walk, you always had money on you, you would say you were gonna do something, you're gonna do it when violence came up, you through hands, you were like down to like you, and, and he said that, like, look, man, like you said, you guys fucking killed a Mongol and you showed pictures of it, like you know what Mel said is I guess in the hells Angels in order to even think about getting patched in, it's gotta be you gotta know somebody for five years, you know, they said what you did was unprecedented. I imagine it's because you were able to form these personal relationships and I guess what I'm so you know, you had to

make this personal correct? Absolutely. It's it's gotta be personal, it's gotta be important to you. Um but on the other side of that, so operationally it's very personal, right? But then at some point these people that you've grown to at least like right are sitting on the sidewalk in front of their house with their hands cuffed behind their back, right? You have created, I've created the very worst day ever in that person's life and I'm responsible for it and there I am standing in front of them. Um then the personal side comes off. I never mocked anybody over the course of my career. I never said like I got you see, how does that feel? I tricked you, you fell for it,

you bought it. Not one time. I was the dude who was like, dude man, you know what today is a freaking terrible day for you man, but like it can be a great day, like you can, like maybe this is what you needed mel chancy, right? No better example, maybe this is what you needed to get right, like man, like, so they're sitting there and they're piste off and they hate me, right? They want to just rip my throat out like,

dude, can I get you a cigarette man, putting a cigarette in their mouth and, and and moving it in and out of their mouth so they can take a drive. Do you need some water? Let me get you a bottle of water. Those small little elements of humanity and compassion. Like I've had people that I that I've arrested that said, you know what man, I didn't like you, but you always treated me good, you always treated me like, and I think that's the key for any of us man treat people the way

you want to be treated in anything right? And I feel like that's like these great, you know, these these great cops that I've gotten to know and love over the years, it's like they all have what you're talking about. It's like empathy man, It's like, hey man, therefore the grace of God go out man. Like I could be in that situation and there is this fine line and there's at the end of the day, man, we're all playing the cards that were dealt, there was less just sort of forces separating us say you're on this side, you're on this side. I mean the way that you were able to ultimately get these guys off the street at a time in their life where they were causing horrible, horrible fucking things the way you were doing it was to be able to say, hey man, I

opened my heart up to you. Well, you know, we're both friends with mel chancy, like, I cannot think of a better example, Dude was the most dangerous cat on the planet meant and legit and feared like, by everyone, and and he earned that, like, like that wasn't just because he was bigger than everybody, or like, like he l mel earned his reputation. Um and then he has a downturn, he gets caught up in it, right? And he realized uh like probably through that downturn that God had a bigger plan from him and that he could not fulfill that plan,

living in a steel cage and eating bologna sandwiches and lime jell o for the rest of his life. He had to escape that. And I look at like, what he's doing with his life and how he's changing the world, and how he's inspiring people towards God. Like how do you not

love that? How do you not, like he talks about you, he like, loves you, You know, he loves the guy, he loves Bayless, you know, like he loves, you know, and and and and and I guess with that, you know, like what does it say about criminality in general? You know, something else in your book that that really hit me man was you know you you know I think it was about that pops but it was about like C. I.

S. In general criminal informants and that you said that you know you're really going to folks and you're offering them a chance to do something different like to to to have a different kind of purpose. And then a lot of these guys either haven't had that opportunity or they're they're they're caught up in what can you say sort of about criminal informants in general and then what can you say sort of about criminality and folks playing the cards that look I think we both know there's some folks that are just deranged and there's some folks that are just kind of led by a little bit evil whatever that is. But what can you say about sort of the common criminal and is there is there another path? Is there another path? And just sort of like targeting them, taking them out, incarcerating them? Like what do you think about that?

Well I I think that a lot of times they end up in the situations they are because they're so desperate, they can't even hope for hope anymore. Like hope has escaped them. Hope isn't anything that factors in anymore. Um And when you're hopeless what do you care? You're gonna do whatever it is you do you know like now a lot of them are looking for a sense of belonging to something there's something missing in their life and that in that social aspect of life um like just like taking it down to street gangs, like a lot of these uh these gang members don't have fathers at home, that gang is their father, that gang provides them that that grounding that a dad does. Um there's hells angels that like for different reasons they wanted to belong to a family and now if you if you love that world and the family that is inviting you in is a family that carries with it intimidation and power and respect and now by putting that patch on your back like like joe nobody all of a sudden you walk in a bar and people are moving out of your way, People want to buy you drinks, people want to give you drugs, girls wanna hang on you when without that patch you're invisible man, that's that's pretty powerful, like it's it's it's not, it doesn't matter if I agree with it or not, I understand it like like who, like who doesn't want that right? And that's the that's the that

some guys can get it

dude dude, like straight up rock stars in their world, like the way they're treated and the way they're admired. Um No doubt,

yep, yep. And you know you alluded to it a little bit before but I just you know I Want to just talk briefly about like kind of the betrayal that you felt from the from the agency in general and like kind of walk us through that your home was burned down correct. And and um you know the hells angels and then through m. s. 13 and Aryan brotherhood like you had green lights on you and and hits. I mean what the funk is that like

man I mean what it like uh the worst part of of that entire event was that I had brought that world down

on my family.

Um And and the code was broken and it like like it wasn't just about me anymore, it was like hurting me. There was there was comments made to me like dude like we know how to hurt you and it ain't putting a hole in you, it ain't shooting you dude it's freaking hurting your family. Like like any of us like any like

how are those messages delivered to you

so many different ways? Like like I had first hand face to face conversations. Um The infiltration case ends and then my true uh identity like who they thought to be jay bird. Davis turns out to be jay Dobyns instead of the the gunrunner debt collector turns out to be an A. T. F. Agent. Um So that the angels issued contracts on me, they were farmed out to the Aryan brotherhood, they were farmed out to the M. S. 13 18th street picked one up here in Los Angeles um Other uh side people came in in like like like lone wolves who wanted to make their bones? Um There was a letter intercepted out of the prison by the guy that beheaded Cynthia Garcia that I helped locked up that said like why are you guys trying to like like shoot or stab this dude stick him with an AIDS contaminated needle man. He's gonna go down and like we won't be held accountable for it. Same letter said you want to make this dude pay, you really want to hurt him, kidnapped his wife and videotape her being gang raped and show it to him. You want to hurt him. That's how you heard him threats to kidnap my kids off the bus.

Like what does that do

to you man? Well the

first emotion when you when you see something

like that uh it's it's uh it's it's pretty dangerous right? Because like I think all of us know like like how to solve that. Um And my frustration was when those threats started coming out that um like I never one time said well the threats were proven to be credible and valid and reliable threats. They were accurate threats but like my agency didn't want to investigate them. They were just there was too many. There were two massive, they came to me and said dude you're on your own. Where would you like us to start, would you like us to start with the hells angels with the contracts? You want us to go the M. S. 13. How about if we start working on the A. B. S. Maybe we'll go talk to 18th street. What about where do you want us to start? Like dude you're on your own it's too big. We can't handle it

even though you're you're at this 0.1 of the most distinguished A. T. F. Agents of all time. What do you mean you're on your own? Like I I don't

that's that was that's how blunt it was put to me like you're on your own to solve this. So I'm sitting there I'm like okay like I don't really have any resources. I don't have the ability to go hide there's no witness security for law enforcement.

And how are you how are you living your day to day? What when when you know when you hear like are you are you constant looking over your shoulder? I mean what

what what's the mindset looking over my shoulder paranoid like wanting help, begging for help, expecting help feeling like I'd earned or deserved help and not having it come.

What does this do with you and your wife? Like where

you guys that you're

aware of the threats?

Yeah and and like like why like why she stuck it out? I've I don't know because it would have been really easy for her to cut and run really easy for her to and you know like like so the agency doesn't, that doesn't react and like, so I get in a dispute with them like, hey man you need to give me some help here, right? Um, so they doubled down on me and they unmask all my cover documents. They they took all like, like my address had been hidden, my my driver's registration, all those things have been, they made that all open source information that was now public record. Three months after that my house gets burned down and then no one comes to investigate the arson and then I find out behind uh behind closed doors. Dude, you are the target of the arson. I'm like what what?

Wait what? They're like dude, they've rented office space, they've tasked, they've manned a task force and they're recording your calls, they're gonna try to pin this arson on you. So like when I talk about like we talked about earlier about the feelings of betrayal and like how I spent my life betraying people and how I felt like during the way I did my job, I betrayed my family. Like like I almost felt like like I had it coming, I felt like dude you created this karma, like how do you

like it again? That same thing you're looking at something you did, you're looking at your own failure, you're, you're, you're framing this because the only thing that you can change is sort of like making it your part but but this is,

you know, And so the thing is though, it's it sounds like I have this like like this bitterness about it. I don't I love a T. F. I love the agents out there with their boots on the ground who are doing it the right way. I ran in to a perfect storm of power, corruption and arrogance and incompetence in a little window that all took care of each other that all protected each other. And the trippy thing is the same people that were that were doing this to me at the exact same time are the people that were running a TFS operation fast and furious and running thousands of assault weapons to the cartels which would have never been discovered had brian terry, the border patrol agent not been murdered with one of the guns that A T. F. Sent to the cartels. That doesn't happen. Operation fast and furious never gets known about right same cats doing it at the same time. They were um that they had insulated themselves. And I guess it's the saying uh

can you just explain fast and furious for two people that don't don't know

about it? Yeah. Operation fast and furious was this corrupt gunrunning investigation where A. T. F. Which is uh tasked with uh preventing firearms trafficking in some kind of skewed like uh twisted plan was allowing thousands of assault weapons to go directly to the cartels and they were like they were using it for like statistical reasons. They were counting guns in Mexico. And they were like bodies were stacking up in Mexico and they were using those dead bodies to justify like how we need more gun control laws here to prevent guns going into Mexico because of all the death and violence that was being created when they were the ones

that were created. It was funny who was profiting off of it? Who?

You

know what? But but because because of that, but but because of fast and furious sort of getting outed that that ultimately outed the guys that were sort of fuckinwith

you. Yeah, but you know what, like none of them paid, none of them paid for what they did to me, none of them paid for fast and furious. Actually, some of them got promoted. Um but for the people that make the rules, there are no rules. They can do whatever they want and they do and they know they can and they know they can get away with it.

And and and do you feel, I mean, I was I was talking to mel about this

earlier. I mean, do

you feel like those threats are still out there for you?

I well, I'll say this, I don't live my life in fear. I live my life with concern. Um if I put myself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong combination of people, I could have a problem. But do I think that they're hunting me? No, like I don't, like, I don't hide, I'm not looking for a

problem.

I don't hide. Um I live my life with concern. Um, but like I'm, you know, if if I get confronted with a problem, I will walk away. If you give me the opportunity, I will run away. But if you corner me, like we're all going to the hospital, like all of us are like, I always felt like I've got God's hand on one shoulder and a pistol on my hip and between all of us will figure it out and that's not cocky. I'm not looking for a fight, I don't want to fight, I don't want to fight these dudes, I can't beat these guys. I've shown I can't beat them. Yeah.

It's funny because you know when I, when I don't know, it's funny, but you know what, you know when I was talking to mel about it, you know the way he said is that, you know, honestly like now looking at your case and what you're able to do, you know, cause I know George Christie a little bit too and, and, and uh you know, I'm dealing with the thing up in my little town where I live. Um uh woman that's really close with us, helps helps raise my kids raise my kids since they were little um you know her, her oldest, her oldest son when he was 14 got linked up with a little gang out of santa Paula,

I live in a little town called ojai California And uh he uh he's 14 years old, didn't really grow up with a dad, a little bit of abuse. Um he got linked up with the gang only a couple of months, but he got into it with a bigger kid um who was in sort of an offshoot kind of a gang that was connected with the angels down in ventura. And the kid was bigger, he was older, they got into a fight at the party, they both went outside, they agreed to have a fight, both of them pulled out knives, 14 year old ended up killing the 16 year old um but he got sentenced to 36 to life, no priors, no nothing as a minor. Um but you know the angels really uh you know to this woman that I'm very close with surrounded her house every night, revving their engines, scared or intimidated or threatened her uh and um you know I really care about this woman and you know like I've tried to do sort of what I what I can do

to help um those dudes have their phds and violence and intimidation, they know how to scare,

you know how to scare you, you know and and and when I talk to mel about you know this situation, you know the way he puts it Um And I don't know if you've heard this before, but I just found it interesting. It's like look man, you got him like like for him he's like at this point everybody looks at what you did as like you were just you won like you duped him like they fucked up like you know like you you beat him and you were who you said you were you had your ship tight and and now there's like sort of like an honor and that there's like you know and like hey look man, if someone is threatening me or my family, that's not going to necessarily make me sleep well at night. But I just I wonder what you thought of that when

I even counted. I've got uh relationships on various levels with with uh current and Ex Hells Angels. Um And I've had you know like pretty dangerous guy saying like look dude, I don't like you, I don't like the way you did this but um you're you're pretty damn good at it man and we understand that we do what we do and there's guys out there that do what you do, you were better than us um Like like no one gets a trophy for it, no one gets a trophy for winning right? Um Ultimately they want um After two years of pain and suffering and blood and violence and all this stuff and then all the aftermath and all my battle with a with a T. F. The Hells Angels are stronger today than they were when I started on them, they didn't get weaker. They got better. They got smarter. You know, I've had complaints with my no angel book. People are saying, dude,

like okay, good story, good cop story, right? Interesting. You inspired people to become hell's angels with that. People like saw the other side of it, the glamour on the dark side of it. Like you like that's a recruiting tool for them. And I'm like, okay, okay, it's because it's all about choices. Like, like for all of us, right?

Everyone's sitting here, look at yourself and say choices you made earlier in your life, The ones you made obviously put you on a path, like you're successful and you're famous and you're a movie star, you could have made a choice that exact same day that

had you locked up

choices and like when you're a young kid and you don't have life's experiences behind you and you're confronted with those life choices, man, you can't get it wrong because when you do, it's unrecoverable, what

are you most proud of?

Like, what are you most proud of? I'm proud of my family and I'm and I'm proud of them for them. Um I'm proud of them. Uh They really truly showed me what love is because they just they stuck by me and then like I gave them no reason to. I gave them. There's, there's absolutely no reason why they should be in my life. And even if they were remote uh removed from my life, there's really no reason for them to even have any communication with me. That's how much battle damage I put on them and there they are

man every

day. There

they are, that's beautiful man. And and and and right now with this, you know, this sort of like anti cop movement in this country. Like what, what's your take on that? Well,

I mean you look like we're one day removed from, we're filming one day removed from the view of all the shooting in texas were a week removed from buffalo from the supermarket shooting in buffalo. Um, so there's all these arguments out there of uh, you know, like, like more gun laws gun control, right? Um like I think we need to do something different. If I knew the solution I would offer it. But I know what the answer is not. I don't know what the answer is. I know what it's not. The answer is not to take money away from the police to have less police. That is not the answer we need to give. Like the exact opposite of defund the police over fund the police, get better,

get more cops, get better cops, train them better. Every expert out there and I'm not an expert, Every expert out there says like dude, train train, train them, train them to deescalate, train them. Like, all the things that

the shortcomings are

right. Um, don't take money away from him. Don't try to weaken them. It weakens all of us,

man. Do you have any opinion? Do you have any opinion? You know, with, with, with, with what happened? Uh, you know yesterday, I mean, do you do you, I mean look man, like your perspective on like illegal guns. I mean, that's like, that's what you did man.

I mean like what, what do you think about that? What's your take on guns? What's your take on how easy it is to get them? Like, you know, I know you said, I mean like, are you a big gun guy? Do you still carry?

Like what? But I wouldn't consider myself a gun guy or a gun expert by any means. Um, I do believe this. There's 350 million guns in the United States. Um, if if I am a criminal or if I have a violent mindset and I'm willing to go out and murder someone, which is the ultimate sin, The ultimate crime. Do I care what the gun law says about my ability to get it? Like we both know and like, like we're in an affluent area here, right? We both know in 10 minutes, we could get our hands on a gun without knowing anybody in this neighborhood, just going around and starting to shake some hands in 10 minutes, we'd have a gun if you really wanted it, right? And that's like that's not uh that's not like an undercover guy talking that or that's not a guy who's experienced in in that world and and the techniques,

that's anybody, anybody, anybody, you know when I bring my gun with me, every time I come to the city I live out in the country, every time I come to the city I always bring bring it with me. That is so different from like how I was when I was growing up, like I grew up in a city that was the murder capital of the country. Um you know like like Nicole tell you, you know, we grew up in an environment where like you know where we grew up it was like pretty safe, you know? But you went a block to the left, you block to the right and there was there's kids getting shot at school, there was just shootings all the time and it was and so I was growing up, you know, to to really like hate guns.

I to despise them. And if you had a problem with somebody, you settled with your hands like that's what you did. I just feel like for me, you know now this kind of front row ticket that I get in different cities to law enforcement and getting to know these people from the shows that I do in the relationships that I get to make, It doesn't seem to be like that anymore. Everyone's shooting

each other? The gun is the great equalizer. When you were kids, you'd slug it out, right? The best fighter or the biggest guy or the strongest guy wins. Doesn't work like that anymore. The skinniest, most punky, most wimpy, most coward can win because the gun is the great equalizer.

So is the answer then. So is the answer than more guns are more people in schools like what do you like? What do you think?

It's just like, it's, it's such a societal question. You look at like you just look at the world like, like and the, and the gun, the gun argument part of it. You look at like the issues on the border. You look at the war in Ukraine, you look at the abortion, uh, issues are all back on fire. Well, not that they've never been, not on

fire, but it's

prevalent again. Um, gas prices, the economy and as a society we're freaking given to Fox about what's going on with johnny Depp and Amber heard like really?

So right now, I mean like you're, you coach, you coach football, you're coaching high school football. You know, you're in a position right now where like you're shaping young men's lives and hearts in a way. I mean, some of the people have the biggest effect on my life with my high school football coaches and I'm just wondering like, you know, what are you seeing sort of like in the young men that you coach? What, what are you seeing in that high school environment? What are you seeing? That encourages you? What are you seeing that? Like disappoints you?

Um, how does, what happened yesterday in texas? How does it, you know, how does it play upon sort of like your role as a coach and mentor

for these young men? Well, um, my kids are out of school, but like, I know that, that you have still have younger kids, like how terrorizing to have kids going to school now and not knowing if like when you send them off or when you put them on the school bus, whether you get to see them at the end of the day. And like, it's not like some kind of dream sequence, uh, uh, illusion or imagination, it's real. I think there's, I think I read a stat where there's been 30 school shootings this year,

we're at the end of May when we're at a point where you have as good a chance of getting shot going to school as you do doing a drug deal, tell you what, there wasn't, there wasn't 1926 drug murders yesterday. I mean, maybe there was, but between, uh, 2nd and and

5th or sixth grade,

it's insane. It's, you know what, to be honest with you. I mean, I spent like my entire professional life trying to make an impact on that. Um and it it's like the the entirety of it has caused me to question everything I ever stood for and everything I ever believed in. Um and it's it's it's I don't want to give up, but like there's days when I just want off the merry go round. I just went off the merry go round like like I did nothing. I accomplished nothing. I changed nothing. Um and like like I just I

don't know, I think that um you know, I imagine like, you know, it's all about what can we do today and like who can we influence today and what can we, you know? Uh I don't know. I I mean it is I mean there's there's no like easy way to, you know, talk about kind of, you know what happened yesterday and and and I can't imagine what these what these folks are going through. And I just uh

I don't think if if you haven't, if you haven't lost a kid or lost a kid in those circumstances, all you can do is is empathize with it and show compassion for it because you can't say like, oh man, I know how that feels actually. You know what you don't if you haven't gone through it, you have no idea what if I have no idea what that feels like. No idea. All I can do is try to be compassionate for it empathetic towards it. I have no idea what that feels like.

Yeah and not pretend like we got the answers you know?

No. Yeah I was uh at columbine High school about six hours after the that was the first not the first school shooting but the first big one, right? And I can honestly say my D. N. A. Was altered that day like walking around that crime scene. Um I went from being a pretty happy joyful person to being a really angry like I just I wanted to just go like rage and fight and like lock people up and like take guns off the street and and and stand in between like the good and innocent people in the communities and the predators who wanted to ruin that form. I like it really set that home. I really like began to take a lot of pride in the responsibility in that. Um But like my my my D. N. A. Changed that day and it wasn't like there's there's dead bodies of these kids in the school in the cafeteria in the library and there's and I mean it was a mess and I'll tell you what what burned on me and I and I still can't get that vision out of my head. There were backpacks. There were book bags scattered all over that campus. Like and you'd think that like you'd be focused on the body of a kid.

You know or the or the the bloodstains and and the carnage there. Like I don't like my brain somehow has kind of erased that but I can't get rid of all those book bags, all those backpacks scattered everywhere. Kids were shucking their their belongings and like kids who went to school that day to like enjoy their friends, go to class, go to their after school activities, go to sports, ended up like running for their lives and dying there that day and I was like so so angry with that. Like I was gonna like I'm gonna do something about this or die trying.

Um Man I uh this was like truly awesome bro, like I admire you so much man. And um I think beyond also me not even all these incredible the life that you're living in the life that you leave but uh you're just like super humble man and and honest and direct and I uh I don't know I'm a better guy for knowing you man, I really really appreciate you, you're doing it. And um I got just undying limitless respect

for you bro, I think for all of us for like what you do for all of us here on your crew, for me like like like just try to change the world for the better like I said like like maybe it's just one

person, maybe

it's one moment

in one person's day,

all those events have made me more spiritual, I lost everything, I lost my reputation like any any thought I had of leaving a legacy. Um I was bankrupted by my by my fight against the government, I had destroyed my family relationships, I'd lost friends, friends had turned their back on me, I lost everything and then I realized after everything is gone, like God was still there, like like he was still there man. Like in spite of all my mistakes and all the things I screwed up, he was still there and I learned I learned one really important thing if the only time you're talking to God is when you're in trouble, you're in trouble, you know? Um So so the great thing, the best thing and why I wouldn't change anything because all of that brought me closer to God, God doesn't come in and rescue you from all your suffering.

He uses that suffering to pull you closer to him, like you have to go through that and he's like saying like like are you gonna come to me, are you gonna turn to me, are you gonna have faith? Are you gonna believe? Are you going to keep trying to do things your way? J because check it out, dude, they don't work out good on your plan. Follow my plan. I had to learn that the hard way. Um you know, information is not does not necessarily equal knowledge. Knowledge does not necessarily equal wisdom. And for me like wisdom was always something that came to me right after I needed it. Thank you.

Right on, man, thank you for having me. Thank you guys, too. Thanks for taking Mhm.