Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedMatthew Cox: belief
17 Jan 2024 Lex Fridman Podcast #409 – Matthew Cox: FBI Most Wanted Con Man – $55 Million in Bank Fraud
“” I said, “You know what? I think we can. I’m going to have my lawyer call you back.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Matthew Cox
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 17 Jan 2024
- Publisher
- Lex Fridman Podcast
Transcript context
…You open this. I’m Gary now. Right. That’s exactly what it is. You kind of go over, boom, boom, boom, boom. You sit in your car for a minute, you put it down, you walk in. Well, what happens is it went up to 1.5 million, and I’m pulling money out of the bank, and then one day I got a phone call on Gary Sullivan’s cell phone. The guy, it’s a lawyer. They call up, he says, “Hey, I’m a lawyer with Washington Mutual. We have an issue.” I said, “What’s that?” He says, “We got a phone call from the title company.” One of the title companies that I was attempting to refinance one of the pieces of property with noticed that I… They’d been sent a document that showed that I had purchased the property, and I said I purchased it cash, and the documents said I purchased at cash. And they got that, and there was actually a mortgage on the property. And so somehow or another, they connected it and they called Washington Mutual and they said, “Look, there’s an issue. We have a fraudulent document here.” And he said, “So we went and we looked, and it turns out that we pulled public records and that there is a mortgage in front of us, several mortgages in front of us. So there’s like three or four mortgages in front of me, Washington Mutual. You owe us.” And it wasn’t that much. It was like it 100 grand, right? Like 95 or 100. And I said okay. And he said, “So there’s an issue here. You’ve got a few mortgages in front of us, and we’re supposed to be your first mortgage, and we’re not supposed to be two mortgages behind or three.” And I was like, “Okay, sounds like an error. Not a big deal. Have you contacted law enforcement?” He said, “No, I haven’t. I was hoping we could rectify this some other way. ” I said, “You know what? I think we can. I’m going to have my lawyer call you back. I’m going to go to his place right now. Give me about two hours.” No problem. I immediately run, jump in my car, head towards South Carolina, call my corporate lawyer, tell him, “Look, I need to talk to you. Here’s what’s going on.” I explain it to him. He doesn’t really understand. He says, “This sounds pretty complicated. My law partner is a criminal defense attorney. I’m going to set up a meeting right now with all of us.” Okay. explain it to him. He doesn’t really understand. He says, “This sounds pretty complicated. My law partner is a criminal defense attorney. I’m going to set up a meeting right now with all of us.” Okay. I get there 45 minutes later. I walk in the door, I sit down. He says, “What happened?” They said, “Gary, this doesn’t sound right. What happened?” I said, “Okay, so listen. Bought this house. I bought it cash. I then refinanced it,” I didn’t buy it cash, but I told him, “I bought it cash. I refinanced it like four or five times within a day or two of each other.” And they were like, “How is that even possible?” I was like, “Well, I went to different title companies,” and I explained how I do it. I said, “Washington Mutual just found out that they’re in second position or third position.” Or I said, “But they may be in fourth position.” You know they mail these things in so you never know. And he was like oh my God. He’s like, “What do you want to do?” I said, “I want you to contact them and agree for them to not contact the authorities provided I pay them off.” He goes, “Do you have the money?” I said, “I do have the money. I can go get the money right now.” He calls the lawyer. This is back when faxes, right? So they fax some documents back and forth. They do a couple emails back and forth, and they have a conversation. I remember the lawyer started arguing because he wanted to charge me like yield spread and fees and stuff, and I was like, “What are you talking about? I’ll pay it.” So it ends up being a little over 100,000. And I’m like, that’s it. So he’s like, okay. And so he says, “Okay, that sounds good.” And so he said, “Okay, all you have to do is go get the check.” And he said, “bring it to a Washington Mutual branch. Tell them to call.” I said, “I’m not going into a Washington Mutual branch, bro. I’ll bring you the check.” So he calls them back, he’s not doing that, right? Okay, I’ll bring it here. You guys take care. He said, “No problem.” Okay, hang up the phone, and he turns to me and he says, “Okay, well we have a problem.” He said, “We still have the problem of these other mortgages.” And I went, “Right?” I said, “They don’t know anything.” He said, “I know, but Gary,” he said, “what if they find out?” I said, “They find out that they’re like in second and third and fourth place?” He’s like, “Right.” I said, “I leave town.” So they both laugh. They go, “Gary, you can’t just leave town. They have a copy of your driver’s license. They have your social security number. They have your birth certificate. They’ll find you. It’s the FBI.” And I go, “You’re assuming I’m Gary Sullivan.”…
Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.