*BREAKING* - EDP445 ARRESTED & CHARGED! | Insider REACTS

Hello again, Mike clumb back so soon Julian. Thanks for having me back. Of course, man. Of course, this is a it's cool that you're doing this also last minute because obviously this is going down right now and and to get out here so quickly after we after we did the last podcast it made sense to expand upon it, but essentially we already put out a three hour plus episode with you where we discussed your full documentary investigation if you will in to EDP 445 and and his alleged but very clearly did happen offenses and his predatory nature. So we had a chance to talk about all that and now we are sitting here right after he has now been arrested by is it the Kern County Prosecutors Office? - Kern County, well he lives in Vegas and but he is charged in Kern County. Okay, so how does that actually work jurisdictionally? So Vegas, a restaurant, and then sends it back to Kern. - Yeah, I think something like that, I mean, the warrant goes out in Kern and then they would I think alert where he lives and bring him back. - Now you would put it at the end of your documentary on based on the fact that you spent two years with him and we were putting together all this agreed two footage that he had that you had found out that they were reopening some sort of investigation into him, didn't know where that was gonna go. Now it's gone somewhere obviously and he appears to be getting charged with a bunch of stuff. How does it feel to make something and it's now resulted in very real world actions? - I mean, it's kind of unbelievable. I mean, it's about three or four days, maybe five days after the documentary went live, the news hit that there was an investigation being reopened. I think the Bakersfield News reported on it and that alone was shocking. 'Cause when you make things, you sit in your room or you sit against a computer for two, three years, I mean, in this case it was two and a half years and you sort of just get lost a little bit in what this is and I think whenever you're making something you have this vision of who's watching it and when I'm making like a buggy documentary or the EDP documentary, I'm imagining like a 26 year old dude just bullshitting with his friends watching a piece of content about someone that they know of. I don't imagine like the United States government sitting around and watching my plum documentaries, right? And so I was just making at the time, just like trying to make something interesting and artistic and even the recreations, whether I was like a, having him go in a prison jumpsuit or reenacting the Bakersfield police department and all these things. I was just trying to make something interesting and entertaining and there were people throughout the process of like dude, this is gonna get seen by a lot of people in terms of like a people that might be interested in sort of reopening this. And I just was, I'm just kind of a skeptic, I guess, as you probably see for our last episode. And so I was like, wow, it's a YouTube video and I had been talking to Chris Hansen and so many other people and the consistency was like the way the investigation was handled, it's not prosecutable, it's not prosecutable. There's 40,000 criminal cases a year in Kern County. In my head, it's like is EDP 445, the YouTuber from five, six years ago at this point, really, you know, there's been what, almost 200,000 cases tried between now and then. - Still a big name though. - It is, and he did something very long. - Absolutely. And I think the process of the investigation being reopened and just kind of how I saw the flow of attention, you do open your eyes to the fact that the government and the law, while we do have a law that's written down, it's enforced by people with emotions and personalities. And if you do things and you create certain things on the internet, whether it's a TikTok or Instagram post or in this case a YouTube documentary, it can cause people to feel ways and want to interpret the law differently. And so certainly was really unbelievable. And you know, I didn't wake up like in 2023 and say, "Oh, let's go make this documentary and this is what's gonna happen." And really I just found a guy that was willing to tell me his views and it just happened to be that those views could be, he will have his day in court. I mean, they'll be able to be judged on whether or not what he did was criminal. And certainly him telling me the stuff that he did, heightened people's interest in it. - Yeah. Now, did you get anyone reaching out to you who, you know, I guess on the law enforcement side or even the prosecution side who was investigating, did you get anyone to reach out to you and point to something very specific that was the basis of them getting to reopening this? Meaning like they saw this part of your documentary, whatever that was and that was the thing that said, "Oh, now that even though we messed up that past investigation which we should probably talk about again, you know, we could maybe find a loop here and be able to find new charges. Was there any one thing?" - Yeah, certainly, I think that probably the overall documentary, one of the big critiques of the documentary, it was very sensational. It was, I mean, you have slow motion footage and smoke and green lighting. I mean, it's, it's, people compared it ironically to like an Avengers or a Marvel movie. And I think that like to the extent that that criticism exists, I thought it was, when you look at it now, it's like the sensationalism and the comedy and all of the aspects that made it potentially uncomfortable at times for certain types of viewers really brought enough attention generally that people are just talking about it. And it, there was a risk to doing that because certainly opened me up to criticism or whatever, but it heightened the awareness to all types of people, young people, middle age, you know, people, you know, with kids showing their parents, sending it to, sending it around just because it's such a shocking sort of film. With that though, the Chris Hansen, Chris Hansen has a certain brand that he bridges the gap between journalism, entertainer, content creator, and like a law enforcement agent, right? He's not a law enforcement agent. He's a journalist. But I think people in law enforcement almost see him as one of them, right? And as someone that, you know, it's the, you know, Chris Hansen associate, you know, like he has some ability to enact the law, which is just kind of like, you know, it's true though. It's just branding and content, especially back when it was a monoculture and just how famous people get back then. And so when Chris sat down with EDP, it's a whole, you know, different level of, okay, we got to like look at this because it's Chris Hansen. And so I think the investigation was opened. They said this publicly due to the documentary and the public conversation. But the Chris Hansen interview, even more specifically was something that, you know, now someone in law enforcement can seriously say, okay, Chris Hansen is a part of this versus, you know, I had EDP sit down with Buggy2988. Nobody gives a shit. - Right. - It's like, oh, you know, and so they don't, it's, which again, from a, from an actual law standpoint, it doesn't fucking matter if he's talking to some, you know, any, whoever it is. - Yeah, I'm just rolling, you got it. - Yeah. - You're saying words, but it kind of then leads to the fact that like the law is, it's a lot of optics and how things look rather than what, you know, what things are. - 100%. - And so if EDP sitting out with Chris Hansen and saying these things, well, oh, this is, he's admitting to an authority figure. If he's sitting down and talking to, you know, some YouTube commentator that has like kind of edgy videos on the internet, it's like, okay, well, this is just some internet shit. - Right, right. Now, before I ask the question on what the specifics of Hansen's interrogation included that led to this, the initial investigation in 2021, where the sting happened, where Alex Rosen did it, what were the specifics again as to why they couldn't press charges? - This isn't the thing. The end of the day, if anyone wants to give me credit, it like the end of the day, Alex cold raven and Alex Rosen did the work. - Yeah. - And to the extent that EDP is charged, prosecuted, it's due to cold raven and Alex Rosen. I did not run a sting on EDP. I did not actually reveal any new information. I mean, I revealed that he was like dating an AI girlfriend and that was probably, that was really the breaking news. But all of the things that he will be charged and he's charged for were the case in 2021. And what's interesting is, EDP admitted to everything in 2021 on the same day. in a 40 minute video that Moist critical did a video on. They got 22 million views. If you look at the Google trends of EDP 4.5, the documentary is a big spike, but it's not as big. This was a bigger situation in 2021 due to, people like critical and other creators that were covering it and just how crazy of a situation it was. And so EDP said the same things to Chris Hansen. That he did to Alex Rosen. And so that's my question now. He said it again in a new setting, which I would assume allows you to then use that as fresh new evidence of, quote unquote, admission maybe to open an investigation. But when he said it to Alex Rosen, what was it like they did something wrong in for entrapment purposes? No, it's the exact same. It doesn't matter because it's not a legal to sit down and like, you don't get charged for having a conversation with Chris Hansen, right? That's right. Because nothing in my documentary that is illegal, right? No, I know, but to the extent that he's charged, it's all of the things that they did in 2021 actually were chargeable. It's just that the optics at the time, there was not enough pressure to the right types of people to actually have a reason to force it through. Because was there something else going on there that I don't know about in what way? Like why they wouldn't, 'cause that's not how I understood it. This would be my opinion. Okay. And I have some sort of insider knowledge and I won't throw any individuals under the bus. But in 2021, EDP was caught. He was interviewed for 40 minutes on the scene by Alex Rosen and admitted to everything, all the things that he did. Sexier with a 13-year-old, every single thing. And at that point, it was uploaded on a YouTube channel called Chat Goldstein, which was Alex Rosen, sort of like fake name or whatever. The Chat Goldstein channel, I believe, was this kind of like, you know, I like Alex to some extent. And it was like this very sort of anti-Semitic, I would say sort of picture and very edgy presentation. It was, you know, and clearly trying to kind of establish himself as an edgy sort of provocative person. And so you have Alex Rosen, who then immediately after that, there's all these sort of things that start to come out about him of just edgy sort of racist comments and the use of the N word and just different things. And so it's not like people in the moment are so excited to see him as this like investigative hero. Right. Despite the fact that his work was objectively uncovered, felony, you know, what could be said as felony behavior. I had thought maybe I was mixing it up and I was off on this. I had thought that there was something wrong with like the order of business with which they sent the messages. It wasn't ideal, but it comes down to, I believe the only difference in this case between what Chris Hansen did and what Alex did in terms of the interviewing process is that when the interview in 2021 came out, it looked like a social media drama, right? And there are people I know that were part of the investigation of that that claimed, we just thought that this was like, two guys fucking around with the camera on so YouTube shit, right? And when you watch the video, those vibes are clearly there, right? Alex is making my 600 pound life jokes. He's kind of doing like a row session. EDP is like this, you know, is this a parody, right? Like if you're a, if you're the current county, you know, person, and you got so much time to sort of evaluate what something is and sort of get a vibe check. And you see this little clip and it's, you know, and then you click into the guy and he's got kind of all this, these scandals emerging and you got, it's just like, what, what number one? Like there's people getting slaughtered and murdered and, and, and, and, and child rape. I mean, there's tons of crazy stuff going on in current county. It's like, do we have the bandwidth to allocate to this thing that is kind of this internet spectacle, right? And I, and also at the time, no one, to the example of like, why is PEP not getting arrested? No one was really like focusing on any of the individuals, right? Like there was no, I don't think anyone in 2021 or 2022 or 2023 could have said who the current county DA or the current county sheriff is. There was not anyone's videos. And I don't blame anyone because by the time Alex put out his videos, he was banned. Alex got banned on YouTube pretty quickly because of all the crazy stuff he was doing. Um, and, uh, sketchy characters on the other end, you're saying. My point is is that no one had a platform that was trying to point towards a specific government official. That was connected to this type of high profiles sort of scandal, right? And so while people were crying out, they're crying out almost at YouTube. I mean, YouTube was the ultimate authority in this to at least ban his EDP's channel. But nobody knew or was sort of focusing that kind of a, hey, how do we do something? Well, like there are elected officials, ultimately, that decide at the at the principal level what to do with these type of vigilante cases. And every county across the United States handled it differently. A lot of it just comes down to the personal opinions of the DA. And do they think that is this the type of thing that they want to try? And in the case of 2021, no one was putting any pressure on the DA. And it looks like a social media situation. And that's not to say, to be clear, I'm throwing some shots at Alex and Alex and I, you know, worked quite a bit in the documentary together. He's the him and cold raven are the ones that did this. They uncovered the activity. I mean, there would be no documentary. There would be no charges without Alex Rosen period. And so, um, but at the same time, I think, um, there's a reason people take Chris Hansen there to the extent that it's a little boring to kind of be a little corporate and professional and shake hands and not say, you know, crazy shit every time something happens on Twitter. And while it's a little boring, there are advantages because when you do something and you say something, it holds a little bit more weight. So Hansen makes it entertaining though, even like the, the boring lines, like when he comes in, it's our farming way. And he's, he's almost in a league on unreplicatable leads, right? And it would be hard to create at Chris Hansen today. And so I don't fault, you know, skater Jean and, and, and, and people that are doing what they're doing. But, uh, yeah, it was, it's, uh, it was really interesting to see. All right. What really materially changed between 21 and 2026. And I think what it was is that my documentary was, well, to the extent it was sensational. Yes, but it was a film that was uploaded publicly for free that had a packaging and presentation that while there are parts that you could say, oh, this is a little goofy. This is funny. There's a lot of parts like this is, this is a serious thing like I, you know, and it's going to create conversation. And it's going to get people to feel something. And when you watch the first one, it was just a raw audio clip in 2021. It was just like a raw interview. It doesn't make you angrier. It, it might if you're really listening, but there's not a sensational, emotional driving aspect to it. It's a raw clip, right? Yeah. You made a work of art and, and I appreciate that. And, but that I think it's, it was crazy to me to see, wow, that actually changes the, the, the court of how the law responds. If you make something art like create like with, if you pick the right music, yes, that makes people go, wow, I feel something. Feel it. The law might say, hey, you know what? Nothing changed factually, but there's, there's people that are feeling something here. And now we have to do something. Now, the other thing I think that was a big component was just my, my, uh, interest in my request into the DA and the sheriff's department to do an interview. The DA today is the same DA that was in 2021. Yeah. And the sheriff. Okay. I, the sheriff, I believe might have just resigned or retired. Okay. But, um, yeah, same DA in 2021, as it is, as it is now. And she declined your request, I reach out to the PR had them and it's how you go through those things. They said, hey, we don't do projects like this, whatever that means. And honestly, I don't blame them. You look, go look at my other work. You got fucking Boogie 2988, you know, sitting down and, you know, whatever I don't, I'm not shocked, but, at the same time, if they really knew game, they would know, hey, this, this, this EDP thing, while it's, like, it's not maybe significant comparative to a lot of the crimes that are going on in Kern County from a, just from an actual impact, but from a perceived public interest, this is probably one of the biggest Kern County events ever. I mean, Kern County is kind of a random spot in California. It's a little like wild, wild west. How far away from LA is it our, yeah, you know, and there's, they've certainly had some big, there's crimes that have happened and true crime things, but nothing that taps into this kind of global social media interest. And so they didn't participate. Um, I don't think it would have helped or hurt if they did. I think it ultimately would have, but they, because they didn't get on camera and say, hey, you know what, this is why we didn't try it. We don't work with vigilantes. This is what, what the danger of that is. And while that's what he done could have been, you know, we're going to take this opportunity to help educate the viewers of this as to how to do this more properly in the future. They didn't do that. And so because they didn't say anything, it kind of implied that they either don't care. They're, you know, it does, it leaves the viewer up to make a assumption as to why they didn't do something. Now Chris Hansen and other people were claiming that it wasn't handled properly. And you know what, it still may not have been handled properly. But now there's enough public interest that, hey, you know what, it wasn't handled properly, but fuck it. We're still going to go after it because we're people and we, we feel, you know, we, we, we feel slighted. Right. Yeah. What's the DA's name again? Cynthia Zimmer. Okay. Now five years later, after the initial thing is still obviously the DA. And now with this arrest going down, it's her office that will be overseeing the prosecution. So she doesn't participate in the documentary. She does, you know, there's not some sort of like public, hey, this is how we would want it done to be able to make sure we can do something. But now the pressure of it led to the investigation being open. And now they found enough whatever that is to bring these charges. We're going to find out more about us, the news fully breaks and, you know, she's going to be putting the team together to prosecute this guy. Is there any lack of confidence that you've heard about from like the community that like the lady who passed this up the first time is now going to be in charge of doing it the second time? Well, it's also new and, you know, this all just happened. So I don't know. But there's, you know, she's had a lot of heat for a lot of things. I mean, one of the things I, when I ended up calling them and then I couldn't get in touch with the current county DA or the sheriff to do an interview. And so that's when I introduced Chris Hansen, right? Which to me is a little bit, it's a little tongue in cheek because it's like, you know, it's funny because in many people's eyes, like it's probably worse to be confronted by Chris Hansen than the DA, right? And, um, and it was so, yeah, and just so over the top and sort of like, you know, angelic intro of, you know, the original predator catcher. Like the dark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's genius. God. Thank you. Sorry. Um, and so, um, I think, um, honestly, and this, when I showed their photos, one of the reasons I showed the photos was because the sheriff had this funny hat. He had a, this funny, flat, brimmed hat. And I was just looking through the photos and I'm like, huh, that just looked, there's just something about this guy's flat, brimmed hat, right? And I was going to say like, um, hey, I couldn't get comment. I was like, what do I, what visuals do I show here? I was thinking like, do I kind of like, you know, fill me sort of doing more things or whatever to kind of transition to Chris? And I saw the guy's flat, brimmed hat, Donnie Youngblood is his name, which sounds like a fake. Donnie Youngblood. Yes. It's just a cool name. That is a really hard. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be a sheriff if your name's Donnie Youngblood. Sheriff Donnie Youngblood. Yeah. And so he had this, he had this funny hat. And, um, I was like, oh, that's, that's kind of like a, you know, and then I was like, and Cynthia Zimmer had her photo just smiling, you know, and I was like her election campaign photo. And these would, I, like, I think that to the extent, because a lot of people had a lot of negative things to say about everyone in the documentary. It brought everybody down a notch or two, whether it's Alex, whether it's Jitian, Skiier, Me, like, you know, everything and everyone that everybody did was imperfect and whatever, right? You're just like the Elmo Fire meme just, yeah, yeah, literally. It was just kind of like this, you know, hey, if, you know, we're all going down to gather. And the reason I ultimately ended up including those photos was because it kind of gave a visual to say, hey, you know what? From a literal legal standpoint, I, like, Alex can't do anything. You can't arrest somebody. I mean, you, all you can do is ultimately what he did do, which is turn the evidence into the police and he did do that. I have proof of that. I've seen it. And the email exchanges where he was interfacing and submitting the chat log. So it's not like he was just completely fucking making content. Did you have exchanges where they ended up giving him the reasons that they're not fun? It was just they got some and Alex kept trying to follow up. And I think a lot of times it's just if there's no public pressure and this, this opened my eyes to I, and I, in my last episode, you could tell I'm, I'm sort of a believe her in government and authority, you know, and, and, and, but through the process of doing this, you know, which I'm sure will go over very well with your, your fan base. I'm sure they'll love you're like, not my eyes are opened. Yeah. Billionaires are great people. We love billionaires. I think don't you think about the billionaires sometimes? You know, they're billionaires are people too. I do, I do not. Yeah. For the record, fuck billionaires, you know, I don't give a shit about billionaires. Okay. But anyways, um, it opened my eyes to the extent that if there is no public pressure and that it's, it's a gray area of crime, right? There's so much going on in any county in your place that you kind of have to go for the big fish, the big stuff that's like really can get clear cut, you know, prosecuted, prosecuted, or you got to go for the stuff that like people really care about because people vote to elect Cynthia Zimmer. She's an elected official, right? And so ultimately she's going to be judged all, yes, on like, you know, the amount of prosecutions and all types of other statistics that I'm not really attuned into, but though she's going to be judged on the public sentiment of what she did or did not do. And if there's something that maybe scientifically doesn't matter, but subjectively personally matters to people due to its optics or due to its, you know, whatever, um, you know, they'll be likely to kind of, so I think that's what ultimately happened in 2021 that the emails were, yeah, Alex was emailing them and it's just like, hey, listen, nobody's putting pressure on the DA here because nobody even knows who the DA is for out of that video, right? So yeah, it just opened my eyes to kind of how much, you know, public pressure actually, while I can feel a little cringe, oh, call this and say this and leave them this voicemail, I kind of used to kind of scoff at that is like, all right, let these people do their jobs. I think there are areas where that can become inappropriate or wasting, you know, kind of if it's completely just sort of, you know, a meaningless thing, yeah, it's such an extent. But certainly if you make a, if you go on Facebook and you make posts and you tag people and they're got a lot of these people also, Cynthia Zimmer, for example, so it's not like a massive social media person, right? She's a district attorney. She might have on Instagram a few thousand followers. And so after the documentary, on her Instagram, it was just flooded, now flooded. There was enough people that saw her photo that went to look her up, that went to Instagram off the seven million views. And she had like a few thousand followers, I believe, and her and her posts were like personal in nature. And like the top comment, which maybe only had like 30 likes, was like, oh, hey, this YouTube video is going to cause you to not get reelected, which like, if you get 30 likes on a thumbs up, 30 thumbs up on a comment, you're not giving a shit, right? Right. But if you're just a kind of a random government official, that's a huge deal. Hell yeah. And your kids are seeing it, their, your family, like it's a part, you're in your office. The other thing that was ice, ice, ice, ice, scoff at the local news all the time. I just don't understand who watches news or who watches TV at all, right? I did the news, the baker's field news, I did this little, you know, a few stations, and I did a little interview and interview, I don't like, I like a little, it was a good interview. And that was a big reason why the case got reopened, because if you think about the local news, who watches it? It's the, it's the Facebook moms, the boomers. And then it's probably playing on the TV at the, at the, at the DA's office. It's, it symbolizes what are the voters care, who are the hardcore voters and what do they care about? And so once those people are talking, it becomes more real. And it's crazy, 10 million views on YouTube about something, oh, well, that's some YouTube shit. Fucking. 7,000 concurrent viewers of some morning show, in like fucking the middle of nowhere, it just feels more substantial, and they have a deeper connection. So it also opened my eyes to the value of the public-private connection, particularly of local media. And if Turkey Tom makes a video and gets five million views talking about something, it's very easy to just say like who gives a shit if you're like a government official, but if you get literally a few thousand thumbs up or a thousand thumbs up on a Facebook post locally, it disproportionately means a lot more. - Yeah, and I do also think, I completely agree with that point because it's also something very visceral. It's that you're talking about child abuse and people are like, "We don't want that here." And I fully understand that. And then to go back to your original point before the local news part of like, yes, when you get a Chris Hanson involved who's like the guy from the original monoculture on this, who is now asking the questions directly, it adds another layer to it, yes, but also like, he got answers. And that segment is one of the most, like, I assume you were in there, like behind the cameras when that was happening. Were you at all shocked at like, how brutally honest for lack of a better way of putting it, EDP was with Chris Hanson? I mean, at that point, I had, I'm so used to the level of honesty. And in those moments, you're so locked in. And so you're not thinking about, you're just like, is it in focus or we roll? I'm like, I, I mean, the amount of times I've not been record. I mean, I'm a really disorganized producer. So I'm, I mean, you know, you can tell me, I'm like, I'm losing memory cards. I forget batteries. I'm, oh wait, hold on. I drive the best by, come back. I mean, like, yeah, do we start? So in my head, like when I'm, a lot of these times when I'm filming stuff, I'm just like, I'm so OCD about every other detail. And then you kind of watch it back later. And you're like, oh, oh, okay. And then when you start to cut it up together in a way that gets the punchy stuff together. And, but yeah, I think that, the fact that he was, you know, whatever it was three years later, four or five years later, still taking that perspective. It's also crazy 'cause it's like, it doesn't make it more or less illegal. Right. And so you're also judging the criminal criminality based upon his personal perspective, which is odd, you know? Like, wait, so you're telling me this is less illegal if the guy's apologetic later and more illegal if he's like, you know, dumbing. Which, the thing that got me thinking, let's say I drove 120 miles down the road here, right? That's a crime. That's a pretty-- - 120 miles an hour. - 120 miles an hour, right? That's a crime for whatever, at least I'm just, I don't know, is that-- - I gotta introduce you to the swim team, they'll tell you about that. - Great. - It's bad, right? Not something you want to do. Don't do that. And if I didn't get caught, you know, when I was talking about this on the podcast, like, hey, I was in a rush and I went on, I'm probably not gonna get a call from the fucking New York or whatever. If I come out like, bro, you should have seen me. Fuck, fuck New York, man. I'm going 120 in this bitch and then I make a TikTok. I'm like, I'm laughing and I'm doing a fucking press run on how bad I am for going 120. - Those guys have been in here. - Oh, who's that? - Those literal guys have been in here. - Oh, the people brag, the swim team. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh, actually, I had no idea what you're talking about. - Yeah, yeah. - You're giving a reference that is closer to home. - You are literally giving a reference very close to home, but keep going, you're stuck. - Point being, if I, it realized like, that actually, it's crazy enough in this court of law, your, your intent and your like, to the extent that you are sorrowful for your actions, actually change, which makes sense on a personal level. Like, you know, if you inadvertently hit me as I walked in here, like you were just swinging your arm and then you're super apologetic. It's like, I empathize and I understand like, oh, okay, dude, it's a misunderstanding. If you're acting, if you're like bragging about it after like, I'm going to personally feel way differently. I'm like, well, what the fuck? But when you think about the law, you kind of, you see this as this kind of like, at least I do, or I did and still to some extent do it. You see it as this sort of like a, a math equation, right? If you do this, this happens and then this happens, right? But it's not that. If you do this, but you kind of like, handle yourself a certain way, you might be fine, right? But if you do this and you handle yourself like in with like, sort of, you know, you gravitate, then it might not be fine. And I think that even goes on like it when you get pulled over for speeding, you know, if you're, you know, sweet and, you know, you're pretty and, you know, whatever. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, you know, versus, you know, you're just like, you're not giving a fuck, you smell. You know, there's, there's, everything is up to a little bit of personal perspective of, does this person deserve this? Yes, it also is a level of like in society, we have an order of what is the worst types of things. So you look like murder, rape, stuff like that. Child abuse, obviously they're at the top of the list of the more visceral the type of crime. The more likely we are to react to it, even at a lower decibel volume, which made it all the more crazy that when Chris Hansen is literally asking the guy like, you were there. Tough sex with a 13 year old girl and, and he sits there, he goes, yeah, pretty much. And like the body language was insane. And he's like being a grad, he's like drinking the water. I'm just watching. I'm like, this is crazy. Yeah, like even the, you know, these guys admit what they were doing. Oh, these are the spirits. They were, they were speeding on the highway. They were, you, can you see which one's me? I think I do see you. Yeah. So that, yeah, they got it. Okay. I had no idea where your tie would, no idea what you're talking about. But that, like, there's a reason that they have masks on. Yes, they're sure. And a VDP would have been wearing a mask. Now, granted, people would have known by his shape or whatever and voice other things. But certainly they know why they're wearing masks because they are probably bragging about what they're doing and they know that that's stupid. And I had to change their voice in there. They had a cochleague or something. Yeah. And so I think it's possible, which is blows my mind. But if EDP would have sat in that Chris Hanson interview and been apologetic and like, Ben very clear about and really, even if he didn't believe it, virtue signaled to the extent that he, you know, understands how painful this could have been to someone and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's possible that there would be no investigation. There's also not a lawyer in the world. I mean, I'm glad he did it because no, it's out there. But like, there's not a lawyer in the world that if he were his lawyer would not have been screaming at him to never walk into that room. Let alone do this documentary with you. Certainly, but I think we, I'm glad we live in a world that lawyers are, don't control. Like, because life would be sure. I mean, life is just more fun when you do things that lawyers would say not to do. I'm not saying, I mean, I can go both ways, but I think that, you know, I appreciate the PR on this one. The PR on last one would have gone a good way. I do think, I don't know what the comments are, but I do want to clarify a few things from last time. I think that child sex abuse is horrible, right? Nobody wants more child sex abuse. I mean, if they do that's a very, very, very, very niche population. And I think that anything I said in the last one and any sort of credence I was giving to say, hey, you know, what percent of billionaires are pedophiles or this or that, it's not to excuse or to minimize the pain and the damage that child sex abuse or any sex abuse does to people. And so I can understand and if you're trying to have a sort of a probabilistic academic discussion, it can feel very cold and detached from the pain. And I really hope people understand that while this documentary was in, there was a large entertainment component of it. A lot of the decisions and even my perspective wasn't formed that this is incredibly, like this topic is painful for people because it's a destructive activity. I mean, when you rape a child or you harm someone sexually as a minor, it transforms their life arguably. And, you know, some people would say, like, just as bad as murder. I mean, or even sometimes in some essence worse. And I understand that. And I think that any sort of distinction we were trying to draw, or I was trying to draw was to say, hey, you know what, how do we more effectively end child sex abuse? It's not to say, hey, child sex abuse is okay. Let's not talk about it as much or let's normalize anything. Let me, let me, let me step in here. There were really important conversations, uncomfortable conversations that were had in that podcast that have to be had. And if people don't like that by a dog, I don't know what to tell you. We live in a real world where this is a problem and normal people like you and I. I would like to minimize, get rid of that problem if we can, and you have to look at that in a realistic lens as difficult as that is sometimes. The idea that people would assume the guy who just successfully made one, maybe the most visceral documentary about a child predator that I personally have ever seen, that is now, as we're sitting here, resulting in him actually maybe going to see justice. The idea that someone would then say, that guy, Mike Clum, is actually a dude who doesn't think this is that big deal or something is fucking crazy. They're doing insane, heavy lifting to try to make that assumption. But what they can do, and the internet always does this with everyone, including me all the time, if you read my comment section, it's like they twist words and be like, how could you possibly make, because they don't want to hear the uncomfortable things? I like to lean into that. As someone who talks about this topic a lot, and is very passionate about it, and is passionate about people like that seeing justice, like whether it's ADP or fucking Jeffrey Epstein, all the people around them. Like, I understand that has to be talked about this way, so it's a shame when you have to feel like every single thing has to be clarified or pre-qualified or whatever. Unfortunately, it is such a taboo, not taboo. It is such a visceral to use that word again. - It's actually touching, yes. - Yeah, I mean, it can't have, it's very hard to have a conversation about it. - Exactly. - And not feel something intensely, especially if you've gone through that. And I haven't gone through that, and I'm fortunate. But I could only understand people that are listening that have or have family have it. It's gonna be hard to kind of, you know, like, rationally. - Logic. - Logically go through that, and I understand that. - Yeah, so, but yeah, but it was really interesting, and I enjoyed a lot of it, and I think that it's funny because I think I was on some other podcast, and I was mentioning how, you know, access to therapy or some access to therapy for people that are attracted to minors would not probably be a bad thing. Like finding some way where more people that were attracted to minors could be in therapy and curb that. And you're getting comments like, you know, check this guy's hard drive. It's like, what am I supposed to just say? Like, am I just supposed to say? - Let him live out there. - You know, like, I mean, it's any sort of nuance that you try to draw, but I understand the internet, and, you know, but I actually, I think that it plays a part in the discussion for people to feel very strongly, and I don't think that they should stop, not feel strongly about it. I just think that it's good to kind of look at things in a range of perspectives. - Now, with this documentary though, and then the case getting reopened, it puts you in a strange position, because to be clear, you're a different, you're a different lane of journalism than say, Chris Hansen, who has literally made a career out of working hand in hand with law enforcement to do stings and catch people who are doing this stuff. In your case, you were doing an artistic piece to try to understand inside the mind of a person who's doing these things and putting it out there for people to see this, understand that it exists, and then do with that what they will. But an investigation gets reopened. You happen to spend two years with the guy capturing a lot of stuff. You put out a publicly available hour and a half plus documentary that law enforcement could see, was there any strange, I don't know, journalistic like Chinese walls that were difficult for you to face while the investigation was going on where maybe there were questions coming in that you're like, I don't know if I should be involved in that or I wanna stay out of this. - No, I mean, I think that I was pretty rational with it to the extent that I knew that if anyone really took the time to watch the interview Alex gave in 2021 that EDP has said the same things for five or six years. Mine just were very cinematic. And so it doesn't, I'm like, yeah, look at whatever you want, look at, I mean, but if anyone that was being a rational viewer of enforcement of law, the documentary doesn't necessarily add any, it just is more emotionally charging. So I, it was, you know, it's difficult 'cause you, I mean, U.S. citizen and I wanna, you know, I believe in our government and I want the country to still, you know, I want justice to be served appropriately and, you know, I wanna be part of that process and part of society in that way positively. At the same time, you know, like, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a spy. Now, maybe I am, maybe, you know, I've seen some speculation on another one in here. - Yeah, don't do that to me, yeah. - But come on. - I, I guess it was just one of those things. I'm just like, hey, listen, what I'm not gonna not cooperate, you know, like, and I just think that, yeah, it was, you're obviously thinking about like, hey, our future subject's gonna wanna talk to me, but it is what it is. I think that this is important enough of a thing regardless that I would never sort of like, you know, hide from the government. - I think there are some journalistic outlets that will wait for a subpoena or not really be as sort of, you know, forthcoming and whatever, but the film was all out there. I mean, right, and it wasn't edited or directed in some way where I'm feeding lines and things like that. So I just think it brought attention to the source material, which was Alex's work in 2021. - Was law enforcement talking with Chris too because he was involved in this? - Yeah, Chris, Alex, myself, perhaps others, but I mean, it was really, it's the stuff that happened in current, which was what that was the Bakersfield 2021. And I think Chris, kind of was an X-Factor component, but it was, I think it allows internally, 'cause yeah, I think these guys are all to center out in an office. And like, they're probably trying to justify why this thing should be brought. And it's like, well, if they can say, hey, like, hey, here's this other file, we got Chris Hansen, and so I think having him involved in the investigation gave it an internal legitimacy that allowed them to probably, maybe even feel comfortable taking it on. And did he get involved with this actual, like, take down in it, 'cause they had to do a sting or something like that, that's already happened. - No, and there's no, really, it was just a warrant and an arrest. And so Chris, to the extent, he was just doing journalism to the extent that he was, you know, filming anything. But, yeah, Chris, really, in terms of the EDP thing, Chris did some journalism on it after it came out. He had interviewed Alex and done a few kind of stories. And then I hit him up and basically he was a co-host like a component of a scene of my film. - Sure. - And so it is crazy to think that ultimately, what was a YouTube video? And me just like, oh, what would be interesting to see EDP with? And Chris Hansen, like, oh shit, I mean, hit him up. And he agreed and like, that created this thing that now the government is gonna say, hey, now this is something. So, yeah, pretty, pretty wild. - How often was law enforcement reaching out to you throughout, I guess this was a few months or something like that, were they working on this? - Yeah, it was actually just probably five days after the documentary came out and it was public. I mean, I think EDP knew, it was a new wave of story around the documentary. Oh, it opened it up. And I think the sentiment for everybody was, okay, that's good, but they're just trying to cover their ass, say they're open up, they're gonna not do anything. And that was my thought too, because like, think about how many times to EDP's Teflon, he is, whether you like it or not. He got caught in 2021 in the most famous sting operation other thing, other than maybe like the Jeff Socle pizza catch, which has 70 million views or 60 something million views. But that one had 20 million and probably maybe, I mean, EDP's more famous than Jeff Socle. And so it's the most famous, so in my head is like, he survived that. Then he survived one of the biggest prank guys like on the internet, in internet history, Jideon, going after him again. And then he's gotten, he's just, he's Teflon. You can't get this guy. And it's not, it's not to him some cred of his own, like he's some mafia boss. It's just that people going after him are kind of, you know, early stage in their careers and just sort of, you know, doing things that are necessarily by the book. And it is crazy. I know, I hear exactly what you're saying when you say it. I'm like, there's just no way. And it's also EDP, from YouTube scandal, this is probably like the most legendary thing that's happened on one of the most crazy things that's happened on YouTube. And the consistent, the consistent, come back, he would make a TikTok. And then like, there's so many little arcs to this thing that it almost doesn't feel real that EDP getting arrest. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it just doesn't feel real because like it, probably because we're so long, so many people wanted it. And it's like, and like by the time that they're reopening, it's like, yeah, I'd like to get excited. But like, how many times did people think he was gonna get arrested? - Yeah, and he, but he wasn't tough on him because of, like, like any smarts or anything from him. He was literally retarded the whole way. - The luck of it all. He's not some mafia, you know, kingpin. If he was, he probably wouldn't even be in the situation in the first place. He'd just be doing everything to talk to you. - 100%. - So I just think that when they was open, reopen, it was kind of like, hey, you know, they deemed it not prosecutorial last time. Nothing's materially changed. They just need to do something to get people's off their back and nothing's gonna happen. But slowly but surely, obviously, it came together and I think there was just enough public pressure. - I honestly think, and really again, it's cold raven and Alex Rosen and Chris Hanson. But if I don't know if I didn't put the photo of Cynthia Zimmer in the documentary, I don't know if it's what happened. Because that changes the whole dynamic. Because now it's not a story about an internet youth thing. It's, you know, internet drama. It's a personal liability to the district attorney. Because now her face is associated with seven million age-restricted views, hundreds of millions of like social media reuploads. - Oh, yeah. - And I mean, and that's a different set of facts than just a documentary about something that happened in some county that people don't really know. You know, because most people don't have the time to go, oh, let me go look up what county this happened. Let me go look up the DA. Like this, you know, and getting it out there, it wasn't, I really wasn't trying to like, 'cause I didn't go in the film like, call her now and say, 'cause I don't think that's my responsibility and I'm not trying to, you know, do that type of work and there's other people that can. But it was subtle enough that I, you know, I think that it got enough awareness that allowed people to say, you know, I'm frustrated. Let me contact who could actually make a difference here versus just bitching at, you know, everybody else. - When's the last time you talked to EDP? - It was, I believe, about a month or two ago, a month and a half. - So the investigations was open at that point, right? - Yeah. I just, you can't do that. You can't say things, you know. - You, what do you mean by that? - All right, tell 'em. - Oh no, and he knew the investigation was open. - Right, yeah. - Did you guys talk about that? - Oh, very passing. I think after the documentary, it was clear that our relationship was not gonna be the same, you know? - I can though, like he had it. You told him what the title was, or the title was gonna be fucking horrible from the first meeting in the Wendy's. - Yeah. - He filmed everything. - He knew what he was fucking saying, like what did he expect? - Honestly, you could say the same thing about me. I did not expect this to reopen a case. I just didn't. I was, when you have Chris Hansen sitting there telling you, hey, the reason that this is not get prosecuted because the way it was invented, you kind of, it's like, yeah. It's not, it's not prosecutable. Alex, Messager and Fertz, this and this. To me, nothing changed. I just, and it's just that, honestly, I think, fucking the fucking spinning circle, dramatic lights and just the spectacle and craziness and shareability. I just think it like created a situation that they'd never seen. Like who drops a feature-length fucking cinematic, dramatized documentary on YouTube for free that just creates a ton of social media. It's a new thing that they have to deal with. It's not a typical media strategy that they have to defend. So I think it just created this environment that they know what to do because it was just so fucking, I mean, think about it. He's dressed up in a prison jumpsuit, pretending to be in the Baker's Field jail, whatever. And then it shows that he's not, right? And like, to me, that was just a artistic direction. It's like, hey, listen, I want to show how you feel about this, Bryant, 'cause that's how he felt. He felt that he was, he got free and fuck people that want him put away. I'm like, hey, how do we bring that to life? - And he agrees to do that. That's what's crazy. - Yeah. But in my head, I wasn't thinking, I mean, but then you look back, it's like, yeah, you know what? Imagine if someone was making it like, they dressed up as you, they're almost in some way mocking being on you, that's gonna make you wake up. And I think that if you're the Baker's Field, or a Kern County, or whatever, you're like, wait a second. This guy is dressing up to pretend to be in my jail, and then talking about, it's like, what the fuck is this? And, you know, I got, it wasn't my intention necessarily. I wasn't, I guess I also would say it wasn't, I wasn't, I was agnostic to what happened, right? - I know that you look at it. - It's clear that like, oh shit, this, imagine you're an employee or you're that person that's, you know, that's almost doing, that's doing a victory dance on the home court as the enemy player, right? I mean, it's a pretty intense way to manage, which I think for Bryant, EDP, that's how he's always, I think the thing is, that's really how he felt. And so, while you can criticize me for the dramatization, that is how he felt, and me bringing to life how he felt is ultimately what allowed Kern County to say, if this is how you feel, and this is, we can experience this, as well as these other people, like, maybe we should look into it, right? And so, I don't credit myself for like, you know, reopen the case as much as I just shine the light on how he actually felt, and created moments, whether even when he was shooting the chat logs, we were just out shooting guns, like, 'cause he's into guns. And that's nice. Yeah. Brothers into guns, that's so awesome. Yeah. That, you know, he didn't give a fuck. He wanted to flick off the camera and say, fuck you, and he thought the chat logs were fucking bullshit that they printed off the chat logs. And so, all of those things made sense in a way of expressing how he felt, and it created a lot of frustration towards me for a period, but it's like, hey, I'm not, I didn't create this guy's brain. That's right, I'm just showing you the brain. Documenting it. And so, I think it creates a lot of interesting discussion on if this was a highly academic film that I interviewed, it was all just experts, and maybe I slightly showed EDP, but it was not, you know, there was no jerking off of reenactment. It was this very academic. Maybe it went on fucking PBS or, you know, fucking Hulu picked it up or something. Would this have happened? Maybe not. Yeah, maybe not. Because it's like, it's expected. It's kind of like, okay, this is informative and educational, you know, and, but honestly, I fucked that. I want to, I want to tell something that's more an experience. And whether that experience is something that's a feel good one or not, it is the honest experience that ultimately, I think in looking back was the right approach to take. Even if it wasn't your intention going into it now that you have made it, it has come out, it resulted in an investigation, and as of this moment, it has resulted in some new charges, and he's going to have to answer for them in court, assuming that that does not end up going well for him. Do you look at this like you've been able to do some sort of public service for getting this guy to see some sort of justice potentially? Well, I'm just a random fucking guy that makes YouTube videos, ultimately, and just, you know, tries to have fun and make interesting stuff. You know, as much as they didn't do what they did in the, there's people that work at Kern County that are making average wages, fucking slave-in-a-way, filing paperwork. It's really the, I'm not part of the government. I'm not probably self-lit. I like to hype a little bit too much to go work for the police department and to work as an investigator. So as much as I maybe kind of gave a little ol'oop, it's the people, it's the police officers, it's the government employees that weren't perfect, but they're ultimately the ones that are taking these jobs that are, that are thankless, and they're doing the work, right? That's humble of you to say, but to dunk the ball, the ball has to arrive there. Sure, and you did throw that ball there. Yeah, and but Alex and Cole Raven and Alex, and even Moise Critical, if not, I mean, let's not forget, this is the biggest, I would argue one of the most influential YouTube creators of all time, he took this public interest, a personal interest in the EDP story and has made so many videos about EDP, the biggest one having over 20 million views, which is bigger than my documentary times two or three, right? And he was a huge part in bringing a global YouTube awareness. So there's so many people that were part of this. I would even credit, Skeeter and JDion to part of, and Kayla, despite the imperfection of that whole situation, If none of them told their story to how imperfect their catch was, that catch didn't happen. How much more interesting is the documentary and, and if they didn't, and if they didn't agree to interview and Caleb didn't say her side and Gideon, you know, defend himself and, and, and skater sort of, you know, say some things that maybe weren't popular, everything that everyone did, whether it was EDP's friend or whether it was, uh, EDP's therapist or whether it was the pedophile that agreed to be in the documentary or, or, or the experts. The guy at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that they all helped get more attention to it for better or for worse. Even the actor, the guy that redirected EDP. I mean, I couldn't find a guy like that. Half of the memes and the funniness and the sort of the, the visceral feeling was the fact that someone was playing this guy and, and then you add in all the people that reacted to it and, and commented on it and, uh, even provided interviews, whether it's Oombaville or Caleb Hammer or just, just Chris Chan. I mean, uh, everyone was, it was, this was a YouTube community project. Yes. Um, I, I was, I was sort of orchestrating it, um, it was a YouTube community project that ultimately, um, gave enough public interest sentiment for actual people that do, you know, don't get paid a lot of money to prosecute things to, to have enough interest to kind of go make it happen. So I would understand if I was a police officer investigator, documentary guy that did a sting operate, you know, then you can give, like I'm on the shit, right? But I'm not. I, I, I, I got, uh, a little lucky that a guy was willing to talk to me in a way that happened to also be of highly, high interest to, to, uh, to prosecutors. Well, I'm glad you did it and I'm glad that it looks like it's headed somewhere that, you know, would take a guy like that off the street. That's just me looking at it from the outside. I just, the, it's, oh, that one has always bothered me. The fact that he's never seen some sort of justice. So it was nice to be able to come in and do a second part with this as this actually breaks. Thanks for flying in to do this. But we did this a little differently in the sense that I'm kind of deferring to you on what is happening because it isn't ongoing investigation and all that. And I know you don't want to interfere with anything. So was there anything else that we didn't talk about that you feel like people should know about this right now? Or do we need to see more developed publicly? Well, um, I'd like to think we live in a country of law and order to some extent for, for some people, for a lot of people. And so, um, EDP is, is innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. And so I think that if anything, uh, it's, it's good in that, um, he will have the opportunity to defend himself and explain why he thinks, uh, he's innocent. If he, that's the route he decides to go. And I'm appreciative that we live in a country that that's the case. But, um, certainly a lot of the facts, uh, don't look very good in that regard. And so we'll see what happens. But it is a long process. You know, like, bail and, you know, I'm not a legal expert. So this is, this is going to be a long journey. The EDP story for better for worse is kind of just beginning in a way. Um, you know, and by the time this is might be all said and done, it's going to be a 10, 15 year long YouTube from, from, from what happened in 2020, 2021. This is going to go. If he lasts that long to be honest with you, he's not, he's not looking to good health wise. Yeah. So, uh, the one other thing I did want to mention. So this is a big public moment, uh, rain, who was the beneficiary of all of the revenue from the EDP, uh, film that I did. Um, we just given how big of a public moment this is. We have partnered again. And I'll, I'll provide you a link to maybe throw somewhere in here. Of course. We're going to try to raise $50,000 for rain. Uh, we're going to do 25,000. And I'm committing to match dollar for dollar, uh, up to the first 25,000. So if you use the link that's in this and it'll be out there, um, if you get 25,000, I'll, I'll throw up another 25,000 and we try to, you know, in addition to, can you tell people what rain is? Who aren't? Yeah. Rain is the largest nonprofit, uh, for victims of child, uh, of sex abuse, uh, in, in general throughout the United States. Uh, they have a national hotline that tons of people use to report, uh, on crimes or, or things that they're going through. Uh, they do a lot of other community advocacy. So they're, the, the, the, the nonprofit that felt the most legitimate and, uh, effective at actually utilizing funds to reduce, uh, sex crimes. So I think that the first wave of the documentary is, I, hey, this is entertaining. Let's benefit, you know, things. Now it's, hey, this is entertaining. And it sort of led to at least somewhat of a conclusion, but I think it's important to remember that to the extent that you felt strongly about the EDP film, that's just one thing. I mean, there are unbelievable amounts of child sex abuse going on and to the extent that you care about it. Yes, post, comment, do things, but certainly putting your money where your mouth is, is, is helpful and important, uh, to actually solve the problem. So, uh, dollar for dollar up to the first 25,000 and, uh, the link is in below and, or, or you can just go to rain directly, but if you use the link, I can know how much I got to, but let's use that link. We're going to put that right down below in the description so you guys can get that and you and I will collab this on YouTube. So everyone go subscribe to Mike's channel as well, where you can see both of his documentaries, the bogey 2988, as well as the one we've been talking about the dark, the sick mind of EDP. Excellent, excellent stuff, man, pretty wild that it's translated to the real world now. Thank you again, though, so much for coming into the world. Thank you, dude. Yeah. Alright, everybody else you know what it is. Give it a thought. I get back to me. Peace.