Ex-Cop Sentenced to 20 Years—Then Forced to Fight for His Life in Prison

I said, "Drop the gun, drop the gun." And she never says a word. She tried to go like this, and we're 11 feet apart, pointing guns at each other. Not far out as I was trying to do, a far out of three-round birch. And he said, "They hit and they'll still indict." For what? He said, "For murder." They come back like five hours later. They come out and they found me guilty. It is an absolute miracle I was not murdered in prison or worse. This is utterly annihilated by family. What is life-like for a convicted cop serving time in a maximum security Texas prison? My guest today can answer that for you. Kent McGowan is a former Houston sheriff who served 20 years in prison for shooting a suspect who pointed a gun at him while he was executing a search warrant. It was, by all accounts, a clean shoot. But for personal and political purposes, a vindictive Harris County prosecutor and a cabal of corrupt sheriffs were able to convict McGowan of first-degree murder. In this incredible interview, you'll get to see how hopelessly corrupt the justice system is. And especially in Texas, top to bottom, from the police department to the prosecutor's office, to the prison guards who would beat up McGowan just for maintaining his innocence. Kent has written a remarkable book about his experience called "Reasonable Doubt," which goes in depth and exposes just how evil, violent, and unjust the state of Texas is. If you guys hate the system, this is the interview for you. It's Kent McGowan right here on the connect with Johnny Mitchell. I think people that come from more civilized states, like me, who did time in Oregon, who saw all of these rehabilitation programs that the staff was trying to implement. You have guards that have empathy. You have a structure that really follows the rules. They can't believe that the archaicness and the backwardness of prisons in the South. - But no air conditioning. - With no air conditioning. - And in the winter, the short-winders we have, water leaks in, they don't turn on the heaters. They just have these little portable heater-looking things. You can't, you know, they don't even turn them on. But man, water's pouring. You're wet and cold all winter, and for nine months you're sweating your ass off of this. - Sweating your ass off of this. And people must die of heat exhaust every year. - Yeah, when I got into it with them, it was in 2013. Man, they're having an image dying from the heat wave. - Yeah. - And they put me in a corner in a corner cell, if you will. So I had the sun basically all day. And I was on this little short Hispanic guy, who was pretty much a comedian. He had no money, no fan, anything. They wouldn't give us a fan. And I had a guard come here and one night said, man, this is crazy. They had a little laser thing there to shoot. There's 111 degrees and they're 11 o'clock at night. It's so hot you're sleeping on, 'cause the whole buildings are concrete and steel, right? So it's like a convection oven. They don't cool off when the sun goes down. And laying on a bench or on your bunk, you're on a plastic mat and it's thick. And just rolling over, you're like Velcro, too. You're just stuck to it. I would wet a t-shirt, sleep on my sides, have more air, a little wet t-shirt roll up between my knees, keep my legs run apart. - And they must be cool, man. - Killing themselves every day. Just why, okay, I got life in prison. I got some crazy sentence. Probably for something I didn't even do, right? And I got to live like this nine months a year for the next 50, 60 years. I'm just gonna get it over with. - Yeah, there's no, yeah, Texas, it's not a rehabilitative state. It's on, I call it like the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. I call it Texas Department of Criminal Non-Justice. They literally warehouse you in there. They, you know, I'm all down for the punishme for bad guys whatever, but as bad as some guys are, they're human beings. You know, you can't have a dog pound out of your conditioner, but you can have 165,000 inmates in there, right? You know, feeding them, you know, slop, you know, spinners or whatever they drag off, beans every meal. Which I literally have, like you see on movies, man, rocks and bugs in the food. They just feed you just cold slop, it's crazy. Then they do lockdowns. They literally feed you two pieces of, I mean, like literally have mold, stale, moldy bread. It's not peanut butter, they call it peanut butter. It's like lard with something in it. And I mean, it's literally this thick. That's a needle for a week, two weeks, no showers and heat. It's a, you know, usually locked in the cell with an idiot. But yeah, but it's a, which might be the most torturous part. It's the half to buddy buddy up with a guy who's literally making you dumber as he's talking to you. You feel your, your soul and your brain cells leave you. Especially locked in there with some pervert, you know, you don't want to, you know, jerk off lots of advantage. You ain't doing that here. Did you ever have to like smash somebody out? I got one physical confrontation in there. Okay. And it was, are we going here? Are you going to tell the story where we're going? Yeah, we're going already, but I just find it fascinated because you were like an upstanding cop. You were a, I mean, you look like you sell insurance or you do, I've had the same, like the neighbor next door. I mean, I've had the same haircut since I was two. And I only had one physical confrontation was in there. And it was this guy, man. His face is almost up. He would tell me he shot heroin one side of his neck and met in the other at the same time. I believe this guy. Black rotted teeth. And man, he would just pull out his piece, dance run the hallway in front of the garage, call him the inward and whatever. The staffs despise that dude and all the inmates did. And it was, I asked him one time, man. I said, you're too stupid to commit a crime. How do you want to imprison him? So, man, for illegal oyster harvesting. And I say, yeah, I said, is that the law? I mean, this guy was an idiot. And he said, yeah, man, he said, I didn't know. He said, this guy had an oyster boat. He was running Trinity Bay. And they're illegally oyster harvesting oysters. The water's contaminated up near the river. And he told that guy, he told me to give him $100 a day and all I'd be able to drink. Because I got to do stand on the boat. If you get a ticket, you take the ticket and I'll pay for it. Well, your third ticket line is a felony, you know? That's got a history of being an idiot and going to jail. And he was not old. He was like maybe 32 at the time. But he, they popped up as a felony and they gave him the maximum 10 years. And he winds up on a unit and a rocherin with me, man. And then it was Christmas Eve or Christmas day. And he was like, there was a Hispanic guy. He remembers his name was Lemone, I mean, Lima, Illinois. And I'd never seen this guy before. Never paid attention. It was like him and this idiot guy, who we'll call John. And a couple of inmates and me. Well, the city guy kept on and on. It's kind of the child on the mountain off. And the guy was like, dude, I don't even know you. This Hispanic guy was twice as size. That's this white guy was small. And then he's popping off eating. They dismiss you by rows, right? So we're going out and you go in the hallway and you took a right to go to the housing area and took a left to go to the pill window. We'll see this Lemone guy take a left. We'll see John got to take a left too, right? So it's taken a ride in a hardest commotion. I'll turn around. This John guy's a Lemone guy's back and he's hitting him. We had a razor blade in his hand. I don't know, I had a razor blade, you know? And there's just two female Nigerian guards saying they're doing, they always, I've seen nothing. Watching this, they're everybody's in an uproar. And the fights I come in toward me and I'm seeing this Lemone guy who I'd never seen before. I mean, he was his porn blood. So I think the guys got, he's popper him some good. I know his neck was cut, but the fights coming toward me, I'm looking at these guards, they're doing nothing. They're not saying, they're not saying stop, nothing. As they came up to me and this is like maybe 30 seconds by telling it to me. So grab his John guy and reverse armborne, a slanderm, straight flat on his back. You know, she said that Lemone. We're in front of the affirmerine, it was all glass windows. And all the nurses are looking at us. Now, slam that Lemone on. I mean, the John guy down, showed Lemone toward the infirmary. So John guy springs up on me. And he came to me and I was crying about a throat. And he's like a Scooby-Doo cartoon. He's doing this trying to hit me. And I say, I'm telling you, man, you know. And so, no one's doing things. So I popped him in the forehead, knocked him about down again, and then all these guards come running in there. And you see the guy's life. Yeah, then they take him in the infirmary and they shove me in the infirmary. You know, because they don't do that. And when I see this guy's bleeding, and that guy took a raise when he tried to cut his throat, they send this John guy to the nut house for like a week. And then when they let him out, I was in a dorm at this point. And the guy, really good guy in a bunk next to me, been that bunk for five years. They can say, pack your stuff up. So I was like, oh man, 'cause he was a good dude. And then they bring this John guy and put him in the bunk right next to me. This is intentionally, 'cause I had a lawsuit going on that unit against a bunch of people, but the warden and a major, and they're both Nigerians. And then this guy was on her own for like two weeks. And I said, I'm gonna go with this guy, man. I'm gonna go with this guy. So I came in one night from my singing college classes and he tried to trip me. And so I went in my bunk. He falls me over there, running his head. And there was a big bright light behind me so I could see a shadow in my bunk, right? And so looking at the shadow, watching it, and trying to turn my back on him, I figured he was gonna come at me on the back, right? And I see him lean up. So I turn around and I'd watch him. So I knew he was right-handed. I was ready to catch this wing. He leans forward and spits in my face with black rotted teeth. In my entire life, that's the only time I've ever been in condition black. I mean, I've absolutely reserved him. And he was a somewhat smaller dude. Well, I smarter than me. I grabbed him on the neck, bring the day room with the TV, the TV breaks. I haven't been over backwards on this table. There's two female Nigerian guards and they're hiring me to let him go. At this point, I'm calming down, you know? I said, oh, can't cuff him. I'm gonna let him go, you know? I'm arguing with these guards and he bites me on the thumb which led to a big infested mess. But he, yeah, so I finally just wanted to, I know it hits my not leaving marks. So he accidentally went unconscious for whatever reason at the time. I said, now can you handcuff him now? So I went down to the infirmary and because they knew how these lawsuits go into these people, you know, and I didn't put up their crown. And so the nurses weren't doing anything. So I picked up a large middle, what we call it was they hang IVs on. I wanted to bash out the window in where the medicine was, I'm prodiging a prox on whatever. And in a story, they put me in SAG, they're in a locked studio for 11 days. After I started, why didn't Scott locked up and SAG? - Yeah, well, and he tried to kill somebody and slit a dude's throat. - 'Cause if you fear, there are certain elements and I know everything with a text of penal system. Other states, I don't know. If you're totally psychotic like that or there's a few other elements in there, you do what you want. Because TDCs, they're out, they're attitude is that. There's nothing we can do with them. What do you mean to do? They do nothing to people like that, you know? - So you were also saying off camera that there's a lot of suicides in TDC, TDC. - There's all the ledge suicides. - Right. - In the Texas prison system, but what is that usually? - Well, you see it now, daily is going on. These are the guards. I was locked up in a, I spent a lot of time and they called here ad SAG, administrative segregation, solitary confinement. 'Cause they would talk, pull and stunt or whatever. And actually if I just needed a vacation from the dorms or the wings or whatever, I had the days in the hole. I'd go down, I'd get to sergeant or captain with tenants. Hey, man, that guy read that tabloid trash book or recognize me from the street or something. Why? So they'd put me in SAG for three or four days. I said in a commissary, I could read, hang out, doing a one-on-one cell, you know? But I was about to one day and there was this, it was a young white guy. I remember him hollering about his girlfriend and left him. These guards kept pulling on to him to shut up and he was just losing it back there, man. And then they came and he'd held his guy down to beat him and I strangled him or beating on him and he dies. I mean, they don't care that I saw this. I mean, they don't care, I'll get to that in a second. But anyway, they'd string the guy up with a sheet and they'd burn off. And another one comes back about 30 minutes later. 'Cause there's no cameras back there. It's about 30 minutes later, it goes, "Oh, we got one hanging in here." And I'm like, "What?" - They strung the guy up. - Yeah, I didn't leave. And one of the guys who was involved in this walked by doing his rounds like 30 minutes later. Oh, he's, we got a hangar in here. You know, I was like, "Man." So I wrote that up and they tried to cover it up. So I wrote a statement and I was talking to OIG. TDC has their own police force. It's the Office of Inspector General. They're a bunch of crew up buffoons. Absolute clown show. All they are is prison guards who go to like these little community colleges and get their police certifications very minimal. Well, they're not gonna throw their, they're gonna fall charges on their beer drinking buddies and their fish and pals, the prison guards. You know, it's most of our previous prison guards. So you file basically a statement saying, "Well, I was a murder, I don't do anything." - Right, OIG called me down about another issue that I had going with him. You know, I was talking to this OIG investigator. And Dan, I said, "Hey." And another, I saw it too, in order to statement, I had both statements more popular. I said, "Hey, you know the guy that's supposed "to hung himself, I'll split the other day." - Yeah, yeah, I said, "Hey, got, what'd you read these?" That dude knew, he looked at those, looked up at me like this and looking at him. He was all take care of this. Never to know the word about it. And they do nothing, that happens all the time. When you go to prison, particularly in Texas, if you like my family, no one of my families have been to jail, no tickets to nothing, right? Well, TDC, if you start getting word out, 'cause I was in there nine years before we had phones. Texas was the last penal institution of not having phones. The last ones I get him, I should say. And I was in nine years, nine years without phones. But they tell, they'll tell your family, he can't handle these gone crazy in here. He's on drugs, he's an habitual liar. - And they seize your mail? Like if you want a letter out? - Yeah, just tell the truth. - Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes. - Yeah, when I was in there, I was sitting in the letters out and they weren't making it, you know, my family. And then finally, my dad contacted US Postal Service, their devil inspector general, I think. In under federal law, they have, once that mail's delivered to that, the prison unit front gate is delivered to that address. It's up to the prison guards to let you have your mail. And if you send a letter out, it's not US Postal property, if you will, until the Postal Service picks up that bag in the front of the prison unit. Under the federal law, wolf versus McDonald, that protects your legal mail, legal mail, media mail, and special mail is like to a senator or whatever. That didn't stop them, man. That federal lawsuit is going, it costs me a lawsuit. I got the federal judge in Houston, administrator judge, sit in order for some more information for me. And you have 30 days respond to a federal order, right? And I got it, it was like 38 days past due when I get the letter, you know? They get it all the time. - What is it about the culture of Texas, which is one of the worst that I've ever seen, you know, uneducated, proud to be stupid and racist and ugly, it's an ugly people physically and spiritually, although they portend to be this like, you know, have these Christian values, what is it that makes it so lawless within the government? - It's been, it's like what about the culture makes the people, the administrators that run the police and the-- - There's no accountability. There's absolutely no accountability. They do whatever they want. There's nobody, there's people that watch over this stuff, you know? And it's just changing now, you know? - But it's interesting. - But what's interesting, there's no accountability. Nobody says, hey Warden, well have you had three suicides on your unit? You know, it's guys are young 20s that, you know, they had an issue with these guards and they wound up, three guys wound up hanging in a three day time period. There's, and when you're in prison, you try to make a plan, your family's complaining, you got a text of Rangers, what we did. Every county I was at, we talked to the police, the sheriff's of the DA. The most types of prisons are on it, they're in these, you know, these ass-backward redneck Yehu counties. When you got the prison, a captain at the prison, you know, his brother was a sheriff. You know, his nephew's the constable, his uncle's the DA. There's no getting out of it, you know? And if you do reach out to the feds or Texas Rangers, which it a number of times, they call the Texas Rangers, you know, say what they would call down to, you know, Steven Cena, you know, where it was one time. And then TDC goes, well R-O-I-G handles that, so I'll call O-I-G. And he's Office of Inspector General Recharge. They, we got this, this is our previous, we got this, we're investigating this, they do nothing. They do nothing, man. He had, it's like Mexico operates that same way, like these tiny little towns and they're living in like the 19th century. What's interesting though is that you were part of the government and you were held accountable, but probably too much. That's what the ironic thing about this whole, this whole situation is that you are a cop. And, you know, this is the most law enforcement loving state in the union, you know? How many cops have killed unarmed people and have not even spent a day and barely even got questioned about it, right? And especially back then, your shooting happened in 1992 when there was no cameras. And more racism, more prejudice, I gotta think, within the law enforcement, within the police in cities and Texas. That's what makes this so unusual. So tell us about that shoot. Where were you working? And yeah, what happened that got you this murder brief? To address one really quickly, one thing said, the BWC, body-worn cameras. They went and got away with this. If my situation happened nowadays, or even without body-worn cameras, they can get away with they did. Shelf them paperwork and what they did. But yeah, just, what happened on this? I was working, I worked with the city of Houston PD for number years after the military. And then I wound up, I left there in the good terms despite the tabloid trash, I don't wish he's. I took a commission at the sheriff's apartment while I was going to college. And what is the structure for 14 months? Then went out on patrol and filled in position in District one, which is Northwest Hairs County. And just in the scope of my daily duties, I ran across this 19 year old kid, he wanted to be in my informant. And it was a, it was about a burger ring and there was automatic weapons showing up, drive buys, whatever. And it was a, it was some gang bleed over into the county for that of the city. And this my informant called me one night on, I'm a beeper, no phone, five beepers back then. He called me on my pager and I called him back. And he said, hey, these guys, I'm while it's ringing, they burgerized, they hit a house last night, burgerized at home. And they've got a gun. That's what kind of gun they steal. And he said, it was a pistol. And I got, we wanted a tenant. And he, this guy's a great guy, Marine. He's a PhD, college professional. This is, police and this policeman, you know. But doing a twin, we had a sergeant that we didn't like and he was this worthless. So I had to go to a porcelain tenant and I ran everything by him, he authorized it. And my lieutenant said, yeah, go ahead and do a bill by bus. And we'll do the bigger fish thing, get these guys, which would have led to bigger things involved. As his burglary. Yeah, when it was some gang members, rural gang members out of Houston went in these suburbs and they were getting these little yuppie gang member who wanted to be 16, 17, 18 year olds. And they said, hey, look, here's the deal, man, y'all hit these expensive homes up here. And all we want is semi-automatic rifles, AR-15s, many 14s, whatever. And y'all keep whatever else. And then, that's the automatic weapon. are coming from. They were given the little one-to-be gang bygones and the county were given to the rural gang members out of Houston. They're converting them to full auto, putting the big lasers they used to have on them, and asylum terms. And that's what was coming back in the county where the shootings were involved. - And these are like black gangs? - Yeah, the ones out of Houston were. And these young guys that the county, they weren't. I don't think there was one I never saw one. - They're just little young white guys, man. They got sucked into the early 90s when rap was going in for sure, got these gang members, got to hold them and got this crazy ball rolling, man. But they've been going on for a number of months. And yeah, but anyway, they sucked the buy bust. So I was working in Planklose. I was in a record, driving a record. And they had like four or five of the patrol units on the back of the building. This happened over off of 1960s, a major thoroughfare through North Airs County. And it was at nightclub parking lot. So there were many witnesses. But they, I see the buy bust go down. I get the bust signal. My guys come in the, you know, the takedown team. I'm always the rest of the informant. And it was the informant. And then the suspect is, okay, if he's first names. So he's just, okay, the one whose mother I wanted to shooting 48 hours after this. His name was Jason. And then another guy who lied about this the whole time. He was, the other guy was with him, was named Keith. But he lied to us that night. 'Cause I didn't have a descriptor on this guy. But other people in the street tell me, he's got named Keith, who drove this red bread as the one bringing automatic weapons. He was like 17, 18. And they would have held that guy from us to this day. If he got on a grand jury and never gotten died it. But anyway, they, we take them all down, you know? And on that scene, I'm standing outside and playing clothes. And I was a patrol car back door, but I was talking to this Jason kid, his mother I wanted to shooting. And he had an accident with criminal history. And saying criminal history for his age. And I'm actually, they brought in the trial to testify as the shackles at both times. He was in Angola, president of Louisiana. And they brought him in. But I see his car pulled up. And somebody with Joe Pesch movie. This big heavy said guy gets out black silk suit, black hair combed back. Red counter. I forget to say, I was running a red shirt. Look, big red collar in a tie. And gold tie and love horn pendant. And this female gets out. Who wanted to pull him? I want him shooting 48 hours over this. But they get out. I remember him with my partner, Scott, brother, partner, Scott. And I said, man, there's so much pissed off parents. When she goes up to one patrol car, she's clearly intoxicated. And the guy was with her was kind of standing back. And she goes to the one, the step in this patrol car who I'd never remember until he came across the statement about six months ago. This is how that woman knew my name. He went up, she went up there and said, this is an effing set up. She just blasted her mind. This is an effing set up. My son wouldn't do this and that and whatever. And he goes, I'm not in charge of scenes. Deputy McGowan scene. After 34 years, we find a document that on just a few months ago, his statement and some documents you got to. So that's how she knew my name. But she went at the minimum of four other deputies. And one of them was, I was 27, like, 5, 11, 18, five of them this time. Big, big wider mustache. But she goes up to this other deputy and Tommy, he was like 67 years old, 64, 300 pounds at least. And another deputy, tall skinny red head guy, like nothing like me, calling them all McGowan. Well, 48 hours prior to the shooting, she had no idea who it was, clearly. And then those four deputies kept saying, I'm not a decimal gallon. So she goes up to Scott, my partner standing next to me, he was an uniform. Start calling him McGowan, now I'm a three feet firmer. Finally I stand up and I said, who are you? And she was, that's my son in the car. This is an effing set up and I said, and this is the first time I ever spoke to this woman. I said, and we're the only times we decided to rush out her. I said, you need to get your ass out of here. You're going to go jail for interfering. Well, the guy was with her new, not to screw with us, right? So he grabbed her, get out of here, you know? They get their black, there's black Lincoln town car. And then she bailes out about five minutes later and she had the, one of the first cell phones, the big brick ones with the black rubber antenna. She comes running up to me and she said, hey, I got a car, I got Captain Sohn's on the phone. It's like one 30 on Saturday night Sunday morning. I went 30 in the morning. The suspect's mother had the captain of your police or sheriff's unit on the phone. Yeah, well, he used to be a captain at that district. And then I knew he was, I didn't like, he wanted my chain of command. And I'm in the middle of arrest scene. I said, look, I don't, he's not my chain of command anymore. I said, he has my beeper number. He can call him in the wall, I'll tell him what's going on. And he get your ass out of here. So drag her out. And then we take everybody down to the substation, you know? And then what's the deal with the informant? I say, when we get down there, you know, let's, when we ask you how medical say you have asthma, so we can pull you up to the side. Well, I was in there, my lieutenant, the good guy, I was sitting there and he's across the desk. I'm writing a report. You know, if they didn't have computers then, we're delivered to hand wrote written. It's a sheriff's part we did. HPD had computers. But we're in the port and our phone rings. You know, he answers, say, Lieutenant Sohn's so, you know, a district going to command. And he's like, all right, he hangs up. I said, what the hell is that? He goes, that was that crazy ass woman from the scene. Well, she's the reason how. So she calls back. And then he's like Roland's eyes making goofy faces and me and he goes, all right, well, I'll take your care of it. I said, what the hell she called for? He said she was telling him that, that, and all these people were down there and witness it, well, they witnessed it not happen 'cause it didn't. She was telling him that at that, at the arrest scene that I was making comments to her, you know, hey, are you divorced yet? Well, you know, nothing about this woman. You know, she had sex or shapely legs stuff. We laughed it off, you know? By an hour later, she shows up at a substation and it's now it's like, like three in the morning. Blast it out of her mind. Screaming a holler in and so my lieutenant, two deputies went there and said, you need to get trash out of here. Sober up, you know, you're gonna be able to jail and you can call him like six hours, whatever. And so she goes home and that morning, she started going, they used to have long distance bills, right? She's going through long distance bills and she's just randomly calling numbers. She doesn't know because they found, they figured out the who the informant was. And my informant at the time failed. He was 19, she was 43, her husband was 56. He forgot to tell me that he was been banging this woman. His best friend's mom and he'd been living there. He forgot to inform me that aspect of it. And so we don't find that out for a while later. But anyway, she's randomly calling his numbers and she calls my informant's aunt a parent in clean. Hey, we know he's an informant. Watch TV, inform her she's gonna get killed, snitches, die, blah, blah, blah. And so she winds up talking to my informant's mother here in Austin. And so she calls my informant, he calls me, you know, panic and like four and afternoon by this time. Now it's all right, I'll come in early. So in the work early, call the DA's office, talk to the day working intake. She see I'll take charge of felony retaliation. It's all right. So she off at midnight. So what I'm gonna have to report everything ready to go. It was like two in the morning, I get to the DA's office downtown Houston. Spoto prosecutor there who has since lied about this, since then. But he reads my report. So clearly, stuff he was alleging in tabloid trash documentaries. He's always lying because he said that any day is gonna read your report for he writes up a warrant, right? So we went over it and then he types up the warrant and I signed it and then it's like four in the morning. And I said, it'll just, 'cause that judge is on call of 21st. He wouldn't call a judge. I say they've already pulled a gun on the informant. They threatened to kill him and he ruined this warrant. - So you're trying to get a warrant to go to the house? - To pick her up, yeah. - Of this woman, the suspect's mother, because she's threatening the family of your informant. - Yeah, well, you're directly in the informant. - Oh, okay. - And so they, so I need the warrant there. I never take possession of the warrant. There's never been any argument with that. I bought my day shift deputy or relief. And I said, hey, Tommy, I said, hey, go pick up the warrant running. He says, I got it, man. So I go home and go to sleep about 10 o'clock in the morning. My beeper goes off to the day's office. I call it's Tommy, my relief, the day shift deputy to relieve me. And he said, hey, I'm down here, the prosecutor. She's pissed off. And the judge went signing, 'cause I said, my name had been literally whited out and whited out these to have, which they used to do them back then. So anyway, I sort of sleep with that. Well, he says the prosecutor was talking. So she's on my ass. Why didn't you run this fucking warrant last night? You should take care of this. You need to talk to your coworker. You know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't get signed. So jump ahead. I'll come in to work early that next night. Go to the day's office, get the warrant, and take the judge in his house. And it's like midnight. Judge signs the warrant, swear it out. I go back to the substation and go in there and with a sergeant who not to get into a block and not possibly say as much negative stuff about the guy needs to be said, at least worth this coward. But walk in there and I can cuss on here, right? Yeah. I walk in there and he rinks out of my hand. He goes, go run the warrant. I saw Johnny some deputies go with me, man. He goes, take Mike and Todd, one of these last names, great guys, to this day, to the healthy back me up. Our stories are never wayward. Guys run the warrant with me. I told a sergeant, I said, "Hey, man." I said, "You need to go with us." There's drugs, automatic weapons, burglary ring, trying to kill him with formage. You got free asking about there. And this sergeant had issues over his cowardice. And when I'm bringing this up, is this is the first sentence in the book. And sergeant says, "Wood, you some kind of fucking pussy. "Take this other deputies, go run the, "go run the fucking warrant." And I said, and me trying to get this sergeant to go, we all hated him. And he was worthless. And he was buddies with the homicide attorney. He sets me up later. But he wouldn't go. He was literally too scared to go. And while I wanted to get him to go with me to run and murder, to run a warrant and murder somebody, bring a sergeant to my despise and vice versa. Right. And so I told him, I said, "Hey, man, you need to get more deputies out here besides the three of us go run this warrant, you know, then again, so what do you some kind of fucking pussy take Todd and Mike and real one the fucking warrant?" So while I just went out there, so I didn't know these people, I didn't even know the guys were with me. We ate together a couple of times, breakfast like four in the morning, and now I'm trying to get more deputies, I don't know, to go with him and you go commit this, you know, go with me, commit me, go with him, witness me, commit a murder, it sounds like he's your real sense, right? So I actually, I said, "Well, never, man, so these two guys, you know, they get that more walking out." And I stopped and went out, and I actually picked up the phone and tried calling the suspect, because I didn't know about her mental illness and I was threatening to kill people whenever, I didn't know anything about this woman, you know. I figured being, you know, in a wealthy neighborhood, I had a lawyer, because there are sons of a crore criminal at that point. So I actually called, which I swore for an organized crime and I've worked narcotics. I've kicked a lot of doors. And I think it started off with a Breonna Taylor shooting by this no knock warrant. This is why you don't knock on the door. The one time I did it, look what happens. Actually, this is why you do knock on the door before you do not, this is why you should do dynamic entry. I'm a firm believer in that. Just bustin' in there. Well, that's not how we did it. I tried calling her, I called her twice, we had a tape, there was two, where she wouldn't answer. She didn't answer machines back then. I was gonna tell her, if you get what it's called, I know a rest bond. You get your bonds and go pay the bond, you want to spend a day in jail or whatever. And I figured, you know, it's just being a wealthy, you know, lady in a nice neighborhood. She's just made some stupid ridiculous threats. Right. And so, I was gonna tell her to get your luring from Turner Sofant, or go get a bond and I don't have to go to jail. Why would I do that if I wasn't going murder, right? Right. Like I said, we have the tapes, you know, for that. So, when we go out there, I briefed the two guys with me and they worked a different part of the district. So they weren't familiar with that craziness going on this woman. But we go out there and we knew she'd call 911 before many times and she would open, let me preface this as we're going up to the house. I briefed these guys and it's going on. And I don't know this about this woman at the time because I just went out there. But in one stretch, she called 911 34 nights in a row before I got, I got one out there on April 3rd of '92, a little bit more to remember. And the deputy did, that I relieved, who got moved and then fired over this. All these allegations I made toward this woman was him and we've talked to him, you know. But she would call 911 and deputy would get there and she'd open door nothing on or thong or nighty, you know. And she had this thing for police, obviously. And actually, she was married to a police chief, someone pulled out town in Louisiana and she tried to murder him. And that's how her and her kid fled to Houston, which is that. But yeah, so she should pull that stunt. So then they put out a, the no deputies could go there, but we're all one men units. So either, you know, I had to have two deputies respond to any call to the residents. This I'll have before I got out there. And then the sergeant started going out there and the tennis sergeant, then that captain goes out there and he admitted to federal trial, not to the trial, but to a standalone parking line. He even banged that woman for 10 years. Right. The captain of your 10 years or your unit and for the Houston, Harris County sheriff. That's why she had his home phone number. She could call him at 1.30 in the morning, and he's in bed with his wife, right? All this has come out and the documents will be two in a minute. But anyway, back of actual scene, we get up there, so we go up there and say, just kick in the door. It's a nice house. We got there and Todd, the other deputies with me. He goes up the front door with me and I'll send another deputy to the back door to secure the back, right? Swing up there, start knocking on the door, you know, after four or five minutes, he comes the door. Yeah, yeah, slurred. She wasn't four drugs at the time. That's probably autopsy. Blast it ever mind. But she came up to the door and she screamed and holler and I want to see some ideas. Who are, you know, and the deputy said, I'm deputy so and so, you need open the door. I might open the door. I want to see some ID. He said, well, we can't slide it under the door. You have to open the door. You know, where do you know this subterfuge, if you will, try to get open the door. There she calls 911s, give me, she calls, she calls the sheriff's parent first asking for my lieutenant. So I'm like, what, you know, and in the sheriff's dispatcher saying, well, not on the shift, you need call back during duty hours, whatever, she calls them, I think twice, and she calls 911. And she's saying we're trying to break in her house. And when she's hollering the phone, that deputy was with Todd, he said, Mr. Eddie, you need open the door. This is deputy, Todd, and deputy, we got a sheriff's office where she hears my name, right? She starts hard on these tapes or on this tabway trash. She's screaming on the phone, hollering, and I know this has been recorded, right? Obviously, you know, and so, I'm going to come in and murder while it's being recorded by the police, but nonetheless. But she says my name and we look at each other, what the hell? So I said, man, this is out of control, and we went through a little over 15 minutes. So I walked, I told Todd, I said, I'm going to talk, bump the sergeant, that idiot sergeant radio, get permission to force this door, which we didn't need to have permission. We had a warrant. And I think it's policy now after this situation. But I go back to the, I walk over to the driveway and I bump that sergeant, I say, take tack eight, the back channel, and it's not recorded. And I say, hey, man, we've been under 15 minutes. She don't have fees to open, she's been open the door, doing some force entry or not. You know? I forget this guy, man, he says, a fucking felony warning, kick the fucking door. So, man, what a dick, man. And why would I go get that sergeant's permit? Where if he just said no, my whole murder scheme would have been out the window, you know? You go again. So I go to the front, and I was pretty good-sized dude there, Todd's wavering me, still. I told Todd, I say, he was real, said to kick the door, and it was these two very large, expensive looking, like, French cut glass in it, and all the other doors open outward. So Todd kicked the door and it wasn't budget. I say, there's no sense in, you know, turning up this expensive door, going around the back and Mike and I'll kick the back. You stay up here. So I ran back with him, and we knocked on the door for a few minutes, nothing. With this point, Todd, up at the front door, sees a suspect moving through the glass, the shadow, if you will, while he was dark in the house. But he could see her moving toward us, so he always asks the list, no, she's coming to you. And he's coming around, I told him Mike, that deputy, I said, kick the door. We kicked him one stuff, and he did a second time, the alarm goes off in the house. And so to say, if I'm watching a movie or whatever, a house alarm goes off, it's still a trigger if you will. I'm just like, I don't care if you get that sound. But he says, it's not coming down, so he did it again, so he did a third time, little door frame crashed in. And the interior of the house was absolutely destroyed at this point, because the suspect that is shot, she was 46, 43, and her husband was 56. He had left her for their teenage and legal alien made and had a kid with her. You can't make this stuff. Quality people. Quality human beings. Yeah. But anyway, so he was out, he was a little bit worse somewhere. Right. So anyway, the door goes in, because it was all trash, you know, it was dark, with her flashlight. And Mike tripped and fell over the trash in a little utility room. So doing what I was all trained to do, and I trained people, I jumped up, put me number on a stick. With that front door to the goddamn, when Todd kicked it, he would have probably shot her. He would have been the first one in it. And if the lawyer wouldn't have tripped, you know, and fallen, they had to protect him. I wouldn't over him. If he wouldn't have fallen that, he would have probably shot the suspect, you know. If I devise this plan, I'm gonna mess with the genius. All right. So what happened? Anyway. So we get in, I clear everything. I looked to the right, a large living room. There's a door on an open door, which I said in the bedroom, so I see the suspect clear it from right to left. She wouldn't go on in it, but she'd be lying in it, which is a big issue. Oh, why'd you run straight to the bedroom? Well, yeah, if you see the suspect, you're not gonna go make a search for us to out, you know. So I came in the door, the door opened back like that, and I leaned in. I see the suspect, you're going in the right hand, and you're right elbow on her hip. And I tell her to have my flashlight up, have my block, and I said, I said, drop the gun, drop the gun. And she never says a word. She trying to go like this, and we're 11 feet apart, pointing guns at each other. I told her the third time, you know, because the weapon was indexed, it went on the trigger at this point. You do literally slow down, everything slows down, and tunnel vision, you know. So she didn't have her finger on the trigger? Not this point. Okay. And then, yeah, because, can I see that? I said, okay, like I hadn't just wanted to go, you know, but don't wait so much like he's with her hands. Because already at this point, most cops all over the country in any state would have shot her and be completely just a friend. And Todd statements, and in a recent interview with the FBI guy on tape at the minute, he said in the video, he said, the only thing I saw McGowan do that night wrong, he should have shot her when he first leaned in there, and she had the gun pointed at him. And he goes, out of pleasure, three times on the chest. That's him. He found a real awful, awful dude. Good guy, man. But you know, I told her twice, as she dropped the gun, dropped the gun, when she comes up with the gun. And if they're still not on the trigger, I told her to drop the gun, I'm going to shoot you. Because you know, the house alarm's going on, everybody's calling. The third time I said, drop the gun, I'm going to shoot you, and she said, put her finger on the trigger. And I fired, as I was training to do, I fired at three around birch, and hit her in the chest. Yeah. Yeah, right. The proof, or at least, nothing else she's pointing at me because there was a bullet with a bullet skid across the armors she's wearing, and it struck her right in the center. And I was fired as hard as fast as I could, you know, and had a custom bullet block. But the first round stuck her right in it right here, and then she kind of moved in bullet two, falling one, stuck her in the right arm. They went through exit to here and went into the chest, but it was a non-lethal wound. And then as I was backing up in that third round, we still had the cable converter boxes on top of the TV back in the day. But he hit that, deformed the bullet, and it literally ricocheted at sliding. And she already fell into that one, and she's going down, and it's trucker across here across the face, non-feet one. But she pretty much killed her instantly from right. - Whenever I read the chase shot. - Yeah. - Okay. - I know he saw it. And was that the first time you ever discharge your weapon? - That's somebody, yeah. - Wow. - Yeah. - Wow. - Didn't close many, many times. - But it was just, you know, the, what's the other thing? And we're not far from there. She didn't have the gun. There was more to plot again. But you have to understand, this suspect escalated this at every possible level. She stepped it up, stepped it up, stepped it up, stepped it up. She had to make her threats. You know, she would answer the phone, you know, trying to call her. She's just, like a normal open the door, you know. And then grabbed the gun, then ran, then pointed at me. They don't put it down, you know. And then put her fear on her and try to fire it. The suspect escalated this. She had every opportunity to stop this from happening. You know, and she forced the situation. - Right, that's why this is so crazy. It seems so out of, out of the ordinary that you would get charged for murder. - A cop, a sheriff, first to remurder. First to remurder, so they said you premeditated it. - Right. The loophole, yeah, fantastic, yes. The loophole that they, if you will, that they got me, they said they said that lied to get the warrant. I mean, there was no, there was no contention that she had the firearm. - Right. - You know, there's two guys that were with me. You know, after, you know, put it out of the fire, the fire shots, I know Mike's behind me. I don't know Todd's behind him. And then my immediate motion was, do it to the warrant. My immediate motion, emotion was anger. I mean, it's just split second. And they made a big issue 'cause I did look at Mike right next to me and I was like, fuck. You know, I told her, man, I told her, I told her, you know. What trial, they're like, it was like, we weren't even friends. I mean, we ran calls together. We never socialized off dude or anything. But they made it look like it was like a wink, wink, and I, hey, you heard me, right bro? You got me on this, right? But nothing like that, man. Fear of fucking panic. Chaos. - Okay, and they said you lied to get the most search warrant. Like you said, that you made it up, that she had threatened your C.I. Did you have any proof to the contrary? Did you know I had the witness statements? I called his mother. When I talked to the first prosecutor, the night to get the warrant, she was here in Austin. I found the mother and her son can remember address. So I called Austin PD. They kind of knew what they found her. And she called me. And I specifically asked her, same question. I always asked somebody in a situation. I said, do you think her name was Susan White? And it's pretty funny. And I asked the mother. I said, if you're spoken of Susan White, she goes, yeah, she goes, I've talked to her. And my son hanged out there. And he goes, she goes, I think she's fucking crazy. And these are just like motorcycle method people. But she said, and I said, do you think the Susan White has the ability to bring any kind of injured death your son or have it done? She goes, yes, I do. You know, and I said, I'm going to get a warrant. I'm going to pick her up. And she goes, that's a great relief. I've told my son, and he's like, get out of here. Under what charge were it? So you got this warrant? Filney retaliation. Yeah. She just threatened a witness or an informant. Right. In a criminal investigation. So how soon after the shooting, did you get arrested? The shooting was October, I mean, I'm sorry. August 25th, '92. And immediately, my lawyers, my union lawyers came out there, and it was at the crime scene, there was a, they won't get to that aspect of the warrant. There was no videos, no pictures, no, they did nothing. The crime scene investigators showed up that night. He'd been like the commissary guy in the jail. It says, who you knew back then? How you going to be a crime scene investigator? Oh, yeah, man. No pick did nothing, you know? And so done that's been a lot of trial. But immediately, someone's going on with the, they take your weapon after you get involved in the shooting, that's just SOP ballistic. So you get called three nights later to pick up my weapon. It was a same crime scene investigator, you know? And something came out to suspect this weapon 'cause it was a chrome-plated pistol. And about the fingerprints, it was a her fingerprints were on the gun. Orn't? Right, or a chrome-plated. 'Cause there's latent prints, or ones up like dust or whatever. Right. You can have the patent, paint, dust, you can see there, like on glass, you can see a thumbprint. So what do you mean a princess or my fingerprints are on there? 'Cause after shooting, we approached her, I reached in, the gun was under her right hand, under her right knee. And Todd, the other deputy, he was on top. We didn't know she was, she landed a water pistol. She was moving, we didn't know she was not dead. And we both see the gun under her right hand. I reached my pinky. So I told the crime scene guy, three nights later, I said, "Well, my fingerprints are on the gun." Now, so how do you explain that? And he said, "Well, she was so high on some drugs that she wasn't a secreting enough mean-o-ass as leaf fingerprints. I don't have nothing to do with fingerprints." That's how he explained, "Well, my prints are on there." Well, you're just all jacked up on adrenaline, dead, you know? If you're only adrenaline, you're jacked up, you're sweating, you know, sweaty palms on them. So I called my lawyer, the next day, "Hey, something's up, man." He just went down there from there. And a grain during a police shooting, average maybe four to six hours. You know the tear story, I'm cool. And mind dry, I don't know for six weeks. They brought my wife there, threatened to put her in jail and she didn't testify, which they can't make your wife testify against you. Can't make anybody's testify. And then they were bringing in, nobody had to do the shooting, you know? And I was divorced for a period and back then, this is the 80s and the 90s. It was this culture, which probably still is. They brought girlfriends I'd had, you know, and they were like calling me, "What do they want to talk to me about?" I don't know what to do with that shooting. They brought people out of the rest in five, six, eight, nine years before. Can we, people are arrested, but since it's a jail, but in prison, a lot. But, so, I got in died on October 28th of '92. And before I would not have testified, I would not have testified. And then a few days after I testified, I get a call from a patrol bureau major, a good guy, my major, or the patrol bureau. And he kind of wished to be able to say, "Can you hear me?" And I was like, "My house, I'm saying." And he goes, "Hey, you need to come in internal affairs." And he was bringing a lawyer. All right, so I call him a union lawyer. He was a retired Houston PD Sergeant and a great guy. I called him, he said, "Hey, look, man, they're probably going to, because this is a right-of-the-election time when the sheriff in the DA, I was just going to ask you that, what the whole. - They said they're choosing of each other being cropped. It was a big, I guess, sucked in that political mess too. - Oh, okay, that, 'cause that's got a huge, local politics is a huge part to play and how much you get sentenced if you're a defendant, if you get charged or not with a crime. So that's what was happening. Basically, there was a corruption scandal going on amongst the politicians. You said politicians or DAs? - DAs are both. - They are politicians. - Right, DAs that were running for. - All right, for district attorney. - Yeah, the district attorney at that point, he's passed now Johnny Holmes. He was hard-ass, man. And then the sheriff, he's passed on, so I can say his name. Johnny Cleveland, they despise each other. They're always accusing each other of being cropped, toward each other. - Right. - It's like in the shooting, for election time, you have it, man. So it's like making an example of him. - Yeah, the DA was apparently trying to make this sheriff look bad. - I see. - But anyway, so I call my lawyer, you know? He said, "Hey, they're gonna give you one, two, three days, "fishing days, we used to call it. "We each want you back, don't worry, sorry." So I go pick him up at his office. We go into the internal affairs office, at the detective bureau. It was in a separate building from central. Now walk in there, and my lawyer's behind me, and that major is at the internal affairs capital sitting in his desk, ID captain here, homicide captain there. It's all detective. The old heavy said, "We've got never seen since before." And major said, "Hey, you have to see Miguel, "honestly answering." And he goes, "I don't know how to tell you this, man." I was like, "What?" And he said, "They ain't gonna steal and diamond take." For what? He said, "For murder." I literally felt like I was struck across the chest with a baseball bat, literally. - Wow. - I didn't say anything. I, what do you know what I'm saying? You know, 'cause despite all this taboo chest bullshit, whenever documentaries, other books, whatever. I didn't pack more reputation. My, my, my record speaks for itself. Chief of police accommodations, life saving mail, civil service accommodations, all above average. And all that was shot down right then. And my question was, "What's this gonna do to my family?" You know. But when he said that, my attorney jumped on it, and he said behind me, "You're not handcuffed. "You're not handcuffed." No, no, no, no. I don't forget this old deputy, this whole detective. He said, "Let me take something out." He was up in your 46 years, man. He said, "I've done 42 years in internal affairs "and homicide, hundreds of shootings." 100 police shootings. This is the cleanest fucking shooter I've ever seen. He said, "You got a warrant signed by a judge. "Two deputies are with you." She didn't really know or witness the whole thing. The suspects gun, where she purchased illegally, they found in the box, they received the ATF form 4473, where she lied, just she's a convicted felon drug addict, psychiatric, internet of mental institutions, escaped out of mental institutions. - You did the world a favor. - Well then, I can't say it. - We're all thinking it, though. - Well also, her own son, little turd, he testified that his mother bought the gun to quote, "Blow Ron's fucking head off." That was her husband's name. She bought the gun to murder her husband. - Wow. - So he was in the ramp off with the-- - Yeah, and his detective told me-- - Teenage nanny. - Right, Roger that. And in the detective, Sarah told me, he's the one who got the statement from the son, about the murder. - Wow. - The morning of the shooting, back up just a split second, they muttered, "In my head, a good captain, my captain." and my lieutenant, they call the son and say, hey, your mother's deceased. But after the shot you're fired, the two of the deputies go upstairs and clear the house. And the son was supposed to be no bonded on his charges. Why he was there, we still don't know. But they bring him out. And I'm a little bashed, look to him. It kind of smirks, right? And then, but it also tabloid trash. And they're saying that when he came down handcuffed, just poor little boy and his underwear. And he came down handcuffed and we were laughing. And I was smirking and about his mother. There was no laughing or smirking. What do you mean tabloid trash? What are you talking about? Documentaries, books. Here in the papers, there's an biography history, ID channel, and crazy tabloid trash books. It's all just bullshit, 'cause all this stirred up are at the same elections and all the stuff. I just got sucked in this crazy storm, if you will. It's incredibly unlucky, man. Yeah, but when they arrest me at that point in the detective bureau, they don't handcuff me. And we get in like five or six cool cars as playing closed cars and we drive down to the central jail. Well, I didn't go through booking. I go into the ID captain's office. He's an old god, never seen before. I'm sitting there like this, you know? And they brought the fingerprint thing in the camera. And then I kept looking at his, you know something around? And he said, "You and I made history in Texas." I said, "What's that?" He said, "We're the first police officers. "There we in dial in line of duty shooting." Which now it's like a twice a week thing. And I said, "Well, how to work out for you?" And he goes, "36 years ago, I'm still here. "He don't work out, don't worry, man. "We know what's going on." A little of the way we know it's coming. So, yeah. You said people are getting cops getting died at all the time now for shootings? Yeah. Because of cameras, because of body cams. Well, reverse, the body cameras are saving officers. He says, "Always people clamoring and hollering for body cameras, what about the dumbasses?" That's the worst thing the bad guys could get are body-worn cameras. Well, I think it keeps more situations on it. That's what I feel like. What tones down a lot of people, I'm sure. But on justified shootings, which are, 'cause the taste culture, as you all know, is far different, was 30, 40 years ago. This country's out of control on both sides, you know? And I've gone from, I was brought up in a good Christian home conservative panel. Yeah, Republican. Man, I'm neither side nowadays, possibly. I can't serve myself a conservative, libertarian, constitutionalist. I kind of do too, and look at, you know, you're doing a thing. You've got a good old boy and a Yankee kind of agreeing on all the same issues. So that makes me sick to watch social media. Yeah, I mean, if you're talking about, like, Republican Democrat, you're a brainwashed loser. It's us versus them. It's us versus the people that give all our money to Israel and have flat cameras in every corner and want to make it illegal to speak out. I mean, that's the enemy. So, I'm basically talking. I'm sitting here in the liberal city of Austin with a Yankee and agreeing with you, man. Of course. My dad are all of his grief, if you heard me say it. No, that's not true. You know, you can't blame them. It's like I try not to blame the boomers, even though they have access to all the information we have now, but like your father read newspapers that were owned by three companies. And could only talk about things within a certain parameter. So now you really have no excuse, 'cause it's all out there. All the information's out there. There are no more secrets. You know, three million Epstein documents that they just fuck you. We're not gonna release them, but yet you have to go to prison. 'Cause you're a civilian, you're a peasant. So you can go to prison, but not for me. I can break the law all I want. That's right. So this only leads to violence. If you can't vote your way out of it and we're extremely close to that. And that's what I fear coming up is that the electoral process won't work. That they'll just say, hey, you know what? Where they're gonna steal these elections blatantly and there's nothing you could do about it. And by the way, we're building data centers that are gonna, and the flock cameras are gonna give your information to the data centers. And if you try to make a move, try to buy a gun to defend yourself from the cops, we're just gonna come kill you. There is no more, it's either democracy works or it's gonna be violence, and we're extremely close to that. - It's teed aren't toward violence, that's true. - And there's no cops should go to prison for unjustified shoots. I really believe that. - I believe that. Like, I think there should be an even higher standard because you're the people that we're entrusting. Just like how politicians need to be locked up immediately for insider trading, for treason, again, like merging our military with Israel's. I mean, these people need to be probably executed 'cause we're giving you the power. You worry we're the vulnerable ones, right? You work for us, but this is one of the situations where any reasonable person would be like, what the, this is the one? This is the cop that you're gonna lynch. It's crazy, I'm sorry it happened. So you get arrested, you bond it out for nine years. - Yeah, I just wild. - They wanted my bond to virtually be 100,000. And the judge went up, I wound up in the right judges in the 232nd District Court in Houston. He was retired, I wanted retired. He was a veteran, a POW and more or two, older guy. My bond, they won a 100,000 dollars, the judge said 10,000. There's a foot in jail, I went home. You know, I got my lawyers and I kept my union lawyers. They're a good guys, ma'am, they're just, dude, they're lied to, they're previously, they're previously prosecutors in the DA's office. So there's lied to you. But I mean, they're just good dudes who are outgunned way over their heads, way over their heads. Who do you think the main characters were pushing to try to get you like railroaded to get picked? - I know exactly where they were. - You don't have to say names, right? But who were they within the-- - There was a, there was a, when I heard on the Sheriff's Park, I heard it was an instructor in another deputy. He came from another agency also. And it was like, I think I ate of us. But he just took a dislike to us because he was just a loudmouth, slavently bully, everybody despises guy, very corrupt. And he was in this affection of the Sheriff's Park in time that was well known for corruption. - We said corruption, what do you mean? - To setting people up, screwing over officers, you know, taking kickbacks, you know, - Shakes from criminals. - Yeah, from criminals, yeah. And I mean, this kind of set me up. We got, and how we got as internal affairs files crazy. But man, some of the stuff he did, a deputy, one of the calls he responded to, this is his character. A deputy got drunk in a apartment complex where he lived. Somehow he goes in his house. They try to rape this girl in there. Well, the mom calls 911. So this guy set me up. We can use his first name, right? John. John, this one, he's on patrol. John shows up, he gets a call, he gets there and sees, oh no, this deputy. So this, we're gonna, I'll take care of this. He's just trying to get him out of there. He's got a file charges guy. That's the first three felony. You know the life sentence. You break into a house with a tent to commit a felony, particularly sexual assault. - This was a cop. - Yeah, he's a drunk off-duty, a deputy, yeah. And so the mother, the mother gets arguing in John, he tries to punch his mother and knocks her out. This is the mother of the sexual assault victim in the burdery victim, right? He's just trying to get his buddy the deputy out of there. And so we have the complete file on this. And so the mother calls internal affairs. And you know what happened to him? Nothing. They cleared it and found it. And another particular call stood out. It was, there was a lady on the, she was at a bus stop, some kind of disturbance. She's won't be called the police. And she had an infant in her hands. And I know that the extreme details, but she was getting loud or something. And so Denon decides to arrest the complainant, the victim of the crime. We had a little like four, six month old baby in arms. And he yanks the baby out and the baby hits the ground, beats up the mom and arrest the mother. Of course, goes internal affairs. You know what happened to him? Nothing. Nothing. How was that possible? How are there not the federal dig, man? - Enditements coming down on the house. - Because if you try to complain on something like that, and like, he was so well connected with this one major that was running this. Because in Texas, you have the sheriff. They have the chief deputy, second command. They have majors that are over like patrol, bureau, detective bureau, you know, investigations, whatever. And there's this major. And he had this click of Kabul, if you look at what? - Right. - Of just his assholes, man. Like I was telling you, pre-interviewed, last night I get a call after I was in another podcast. An narcotic sergeant from the sheriff's department called me. And right after my deal happened, they went after him. Because he bucked up to him. They wrote up a bogus war and tried to get him to sign it and run it and you wouldn't do it. He was like 10 years in prison. But during the, let's worry, I get indicted, I go back home, we struck the legal thing. And at this point, man, I had, because the suspect was from Louisiana, and I lived in a different county. I lived about an hour and a half out of Houston. There was crawl fish and her mailbox. At breaklines, cut 'em on a truck, tires cut. - By who? - House a shot up. This was happening out there. And so, but on the other hand, I could get my mail, and there'd be a videotape or a file in there. People are trying to help me. - You know, awesome. But during that time period, this prosecutor, we'll call him in, that's his name. Let's go this way. He had his fixation on my wife. And he would stalk us all the time. and shoot! He was managing a restaurant, he'd come in there and drink, change folks, staring at her, I called the sheriff by getting her strainer word against him. This is just got crazier and crazier, man. And then they'd go to my kids' schools, they'd wait over in private school, try to talk to the kids. They're like in second, third, fourth grade, you know? And I didn't listen to phone number. My brother was in law enforcement, and the DA was giving them their numbers, you know? And then it's got crazier. Finally, I got so out of hand, a lot of dangerous stuff was happening. My judge called me into his office, my lord. And he said, "I have concern about junior-wise safety." And he goes, "I have grave, this is a good judge." And he said, "I have grave concern with your children's safety." And I'm getting what's going on, that's the, yeah, exactly. - Now why are you, you're being harassed by cops? - Why, why did they-- - They're better private, because they don't worry that you're gonna expose them. Like you're the one that's being railroaded, so-- - Also, we had officers helping us out, you know, giving us stuff. But there were private detectives, investigators got involved, because my family, my dad is on the old company, whatever, they saw money. And the family, the suspect, they had not had anything to do with her for more than a year as for other witnesses, 'cause they're like, "We've had it with her, man." She was drug addict, criminal. Now her son's a complete lunatic. And then she was suicidal, homicidal. But they, and it was crazy. The judge said, "You have, you have royalties out of state." You know, and I said, "Yeah, sure." I said, "But can we go to Montana?" He was out here where you go. You've always been to here, as long as you, I'm, you're gonna come back with hearing us, yes sir. Some of my wife and I, we, a common mom and dad, and we only had three kids at this point. So the kids went and stayed in my parents' ranch. And then my wife, I drive all the way to Montana, we get up there, find a place to live. We're gone like 10 days, you know, 2400 miles, remember? We're coming back, we stopped in a, butementana, it's just a little pine lodge in or something, spend the night. We're gonna get up like four to explore and start back. It's like a three or 40 drive. Which, he's gonna take a shower. So I go to get his pamper or something to eat in the room. And I come back and I see three medicine boat county sheriff units, sheriff's cars pulling out. Hey, what happened? So I'll go to my room and the doors kicked down. My wife's completely hysterical, soaking wet, nothing but a towel around her. And it's been like five minutes to calm down. What, what the hell happened? When she called her sister in Houston and the DA had an illegal trap and trace on her phone. And she told her, not we're high and the judge told us to go, you know, and my bond's been lived across the street from me. So that's my bond. I was under no restrictions. I could do whatever I want. - Right. - The bond. But, well, this prosecutor, Ed, and the DM investigator, Steve, who was buddies with the homicide lieutenants, let me out. They called that sheriff's apartment. There's a bunch of redneck deputies up there, you know, a big city, DA's call me. I told him that I was a convicted murderer and I'd kidnapped my wife to take her to Montana and murder her in bury their mountains. So, that didn't go well. So she's hysterical, man. - She's as Christ. - All of this is well documented, plenty of witnesses, especially since we went to this epi agent for last three years investigating this. But, did you call the feds at any point while you're getting, 'cause that's what I would have done. I wouldn't have started getting the epi agent. - Actually, my Lord's what's happening. - Actually, my Lord's what's the epi about the shooting itself. They said, hey, we're not getting, whatever his count is gonna do, we know it was a clean shoot. They said, we're not getting involved in any, don't worry about us coming after him for anything. But, my wife is so upset that I couldn't, I'm gonna drive home, border, you know. So, I put her on a plane far back to Houston. She doesn't have to plane in Houston, and how did I know this? We don't know. But, the prosecutor is when we asked Ed, and Steve and John, the homicide guy and the DM investigator, they were waiting at their port. White substance off the plane, a mom and sister are there to get her, you know. And they go, tell them why you have to go with us. She didn't know she didn't have to go, you know. And so, they take her downtown. They're all upset, you know. And he's showing, the prosecutor's showing her all topsy pictures of the suspect, and this is what he's gonna murder you. We know it's his type, you know. He's like, this is what he's gonna do to you. You know, you need to test five for us trying to turn around, you know, he does it dirty, man. So, he come back to Houston, so that situation went down, and then I finally got a job, I had six jobs in the year, and every time I get a job, the day this prosecutor would call whoever I was working for. So, I'm pretty sure I can get a job, you know. But they, I got jobs, Joseph, I had no idea how to do. I just told myself into it. But they, they, that prosecutor would call these companies, they, he's a psycho, you know, convicted murder, you know. No one convicted of anything. I could be in fire. So, I started being an entrepreneur. So, I was entrepreneur for like eight or nine years. But in other events that happened on that, I was, I had a job, and I was, I was in Birmingham, Alabama, and this is like a few days for Christmas, and I'd call home every night, you know, checking my wife and kids. Call home, she was a sterical. He was in the house, he was in the house with him. Ed, the prosecutor, 'cause he stalked us all the time. We'd be in a restaurant, binning in over there each time back then. We'd be eating on the fan, and he'd be sitting in his old truck, waving and stuff, taking pictures of us. He stalked us incessantly. Were you allowed to have a gun? Negative. Well, yeah. Yeah, back then would. Did you, you could be under indictment, and you can't purchase a firearm, transfer a firearm, sell a firearm, but you can't leave the state with a firearm. But you can have one in your house. Yeah. Okay, so your wife could have one or something. Yeah, okay. That's crazy, man. Yeah, that is, I didn't carry gun back then. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, this is a psycho. But we're not in those boots right there, partner. Yeah, Roger that. But when I was in Birmingham, Alabama and I called, it's a few days for Christmas, right? She's a sterkel. Who is in the house? Ed was in the house. What? And yeah, and she told me, he knocked on the door. She said he had been hiding in the bush. It was a Christmas, so he'd get stuck early. She took my, and he was stalking her. He took my, she took my children to her sister's kids, their cousin's birthday party, the same neighborhood. She comes in and parks and goes in, and she said he had been hiding in the bushes. She said one in five seconds, so he's banging on the door. And I always told her, keep the door locked, use the people. She didn't let this one even. Well, she almost door, and he was like six, three, bulgeyied, patchy hair, patchy beard. 1,000% of rapists. Yeah, he saw three corneas, like that dude straight up, baby-raper man. But it's creepy. If you're a male, if you're a male, the one thing you don't want to be called is a creepy. By the way, these are the kind of people, local cops. These are the people that license plate readers, companies, like flock, flock cameras. These are the people who are getting literally all of our information. These are the people that are getting that, that are watching us 24 hours a day. I know your kids are going to school. Exactly. Really playing. Well, they have flock cameras across the street from playgrounds. These are, I mean, I fucking hate cops. You're a good guy. Thank you. Yeah, you're not a cop, bro. You're a fucking crook. You're a target, bro. You just came off a 20 former officer. You know, I tell people, you know, it's like, oh, you should've placed me on, I'm legally retired, you know, 'cause I was retired due to legal issues. After the show. I'm legally retired, please, officer. Did any of you, did any part of you think about running? I mean, nine years on, by the way. Yeah, we said here in a second. But let me just back up real quick. When he broke into the house and all that, he was telling her that, and here's how we got him. He told my wife that he'd been living with a woman for 17 years and she left him. And he had a seven-chill daughter who recently died. There's no way we would've known that, you know? And he's not spent Christmas with his wife. And then he tells my wife that he can make a range with swiping me in jail for Christmas and he can come spend Christmas with a wife and kids. Oh, hell no. So I'm calling my lawyer. He said, get your ass back down here. That's my way. They go down, talk to the judge. Judge calls Ed, prosecutor in there. He did nine whole thing, of course. Call that night. And then we finally get to the original first cell phones. There's only a change of cell phone numbers. He'd get them, 'cause he could subpoena this stuff. But yeah, so anyway, after first trial I got 15. Judge said, no one put in your prison. Yeah, I got so, you didn't think about running. Like, did you, did you really? At one point, I was about to haul ass. Where would you have gone? Mexico, one at four hours away. Hell yeah. Now, I'll tell you when this happened. So anyway, it was just that, that appellate was just absolute insanity. It was all yours. We won four out of four appeals. Okay, so you go to trial what year? February of '94. Did they offer you a plea deal? No. I wouldn't have told it. In my second trial, they called my attorney, wrote for the trial, and said they'd give me, they found silver 20. Okay, so in exactly what I told him, I see him telling me to fuck himself, that I'm not, I'm not plead guilty to class the misdemeanor littering for leaving the brass lane in the floor from the rounds fired. Right. My lord says exactly what I told him. Um, okay, so you go and you got a jury trial? Both times correct. Okay. Um, did you feel like you got, so the first trial is a hung jury? No, the first trial. Four deers when he picked a jury and had all male juries are for one white female. And you know, you always ask the, the both sides, do you know anybody in the defense of prosecution, do you know the judge or anything about, you have family or police officers? Well, this, the only female, not only she's lying about being, when we have her form, when we, I'll get to the papers here, documents. She not relied, she didn't say she was an attorney, she's for the DA's office, for that frickin prosecutor, Ed, she worked with the DA's office, she's on my jury. Wow. But during the trial, it was just a joke that Steve, the DM investigator, he got caught flagrantly aggravated perjury, man. It was, I had no chance, none, because I did nothing wrong. So they, they're what like arguing on the ballistics forensics. It was a character assassination. And I don't know what you did before this, but, but like in your podcast business, there's probably popular thousands of you guys. as you know, y'all are the big guys, but that's why guys that just don't like you, 'cause they just don't have to weigh you smirk or where you're watching or whatever. - That's actually most of my fans that don't like me. - Other podcasters don't like me. - Don't worry, 'cause I know some of your buddies that don't podcast because their fans don't like me. - All right, so in the comments. - But they're a lot of positive comments, actually. But they, a lot of thousands of police officers I knew. I dealt with all of your friends of police officers. I had family of police officers. And that's just part of the culture, you know? And then they found five. Four of them I just had personal issues with. Out of thousands, so you know? The fifth one was one of my partners is at the scene where I rested. The suspects of the mom showed up. Scott, very guy, man. He wanted a committing suicide over this. After my shooting, 'cause he was a renegade man, that dude, he was out there. His dad was like a 40 year veteran there, and he was a good guy, but he's kind of rowdy. Well, after my shooting, there's a chase, going on a main thoroughfare through North Hairstack, to our district. And it takes a way of the hospitals. You don't like your sheriff's, like the county, then you have the city police from the city, then the hospitals are divided into precincts. And the hospitals out, it was precinct four. For the hospitals, but it's district one for us, North-West Hairst County. These hospitals are chasing a role in soul and some gang bangers in it. And Scott sees the chase, we jump in, then get on the radio. He said, "Hey, I'm a system of precinct four," you know, a pursuit or whatever. They bad guys crack up, they break their car, and they get out, everybody starts shooting at each other. Well, somehow, because they're consoles, the bad guys get away. Well, the next day they find that role in stolen, well, they did 14 year old gang bangers, the 45 caliber bulletin bike was hit. It brings point mal, we had sort of guns point mal after the gangs took over it. And so, of course, who investigates that? The guys that set me up, right? The day's up. So they're talking always, and my friend Scott, in every tone of radio, I got a chase, a fire shot, and nothing. I think it was kind of a renegade. But very likely, well, very cares about the guy. But anyway, so they, the console center, hey, none of us have 45s. So some console said, "Well, there was a deputy there, "which was Scott." He carried a 45. So these prosecutors go talk to Scott. So here's a deal, man, he tests five against McGowan. Well, again, we're gonna ditch him and murder him, charge him for shooting that camp, right? So on a sudden, he, as they call it, now gets ghosting, he went blank once. One talked to my lawyers, me, nothing. We can fair why. Did he actually shoot that kid? Yeah, we're by shooting at each other. Okay, but it would have been justified. It was, they were shooting at the cops. Well, yeah, I think he was shot in the back of the head, which doesn't matter, but even if Scott knew, these prosecutors had, the guys want to me have a history of jamming up police officers. Their goal in life was to do this to officers. That was, they're just sort of, you know, some fascinating. This is the weirdest corruption. Yeah, this is the weirdest corruption I've ever heard. 'Cause normally we're used to like, okay, these dirty prosecutors are setting up innocent people or they're over prosecuting criminals, right? Given them charges that they don't deserve, hiding evidence. I mean, how many times have I heard that in Texas? Oh, hey, they just, they just electrocuted a guy to death, turns out the prosecutor had evidence of what he's tolerated him during trial. They, of course, never suffer any consequences. But these cops, these prosecutors, rather, their business is putting cases on cops. That was their death. But it's not like helping the, it's not like justified. This is not like, they're not heroes, you know what I mean? As I was telling you before the interview, this friend of mine, Marcus, the last name, he's got three, 40 year sentences in a 10. He got 10 years first. They jamming him in a 10 year sentence and sitting in prison, and I ran into him in prison. And sitting in prison, he got his case overturned, going on a large, it's family, how money for a lawyer, he got it overturned. So he comes back to, you know, let him go. Oh no, we're going to indict you. They indict him because his ex-wife was pissed off at him and talked to a little, like, four-year-old girl in his sand where he touched me three times. They indict him three times and give him 40 years for all that just because his ex-wife. And now the ex-wife and the daughter, now they're saying, my mom was pissed off, didn't really happen. You know what Texas says? I'm going to give shit. Just Texas does. Especially like a domestic violence. And Texas says, you and your girlfriend get in a fight. Or you have an argument. And she's pissed off and she calls, you know, she's, hey, Johnny slapped me. Well, you're going to jail. I mean, there's no, you just go jail as Texas. And so you're in jail for three weeks and she goes, you know, I was just pissed off. Man, he didn't hit me. So there's a teller, okay, here's what we're going to do. Either you committed perjury on your statement. Or you're going to commit perjury now. So you're going to go to jail either way. And so what are you going to do, you know? I guess I'm not going to jail. Sorry, Johnny, it's in jail for three years. They do that all the time. That's crazy. So somebody comes forward to admit to being, to lying to cops, to get somebody put in prison. And they're like, it's, well, you're going to have to go to prison. Yeah, because you're lying to me now committing perjury. If you want to statement saying that you're committing perjury. I mean, look at me to perjury. To be fair, I think people that do that should go to prison. Like I even in Oregon, when I was locked up, I met so many people that were like, yeah, she said I hit her. And I didn't, and now I lost 10 years of my life. If you lie on people to go to prison, if you lie on people, and they get sent to prison, and then it turns out that you lied, you should have to go to prison. But yeah, the way they do it is, it seems like in Texas, they want to make sure that you don't come forward and be honest. Like they want your ass sitting there. They don't want cases overturned. They don't want, they don't want to be problems. They want you in there. Yeah, if you go to prison in Texas, your chances of getting a, we didn't appeal or slim and none. Yeah, because in Texas, guilt and innocence plays, well, let me take this. Right, wrong, law, order, you know, honor, guilt, innocence. That plays no part on the prison or jail. I tell you right now, if they want to, they're good, they want to, they're gonna fuck you, man. Okay, so you're, they'll put you in prison. A new friend, all it took was the word of a four-year-old girl to get him put in prison for 40 years. Yeah, now she's like 25, 26. How are they doing this? You have to go to trial. These just jurors that are, I mean, look, the people of Texas have, they've, they've put Ted Cruz in power for 20 years. So you can't, these are obviously Creetans. These are subhuman fucking brain dead idiots down here. But they just, the jury just believes these people? Yeah, let me tell you how they do this. In Texas, the grand juries, I think they've changed along the fears just recently within the last three four years. Back to the end, you have this old judge. Most judges are all white guys, right? They pick the jurors, the grand jurors. So it's their neighbor, you know, their cousins, wise people are retired. She's got a bunch of old white people in her jury, just like my jury, my grand jury. And I went in there, man, it was ridiculous. 'Cause I went and testified, you know? And actually, pictures of me and their test find are illegally leaked out. But they, at the end, they still, there's anybody having, they, when I was testifying, the prosecutor gives me a little raven, 25-hour manic with pink grips on it. Oh, it says, we need you to position how you were standing. This isn't, this isn't the weapon she had. Well, this doesn't matter. I said, what does matter? You look like a little pink toy with pink grips on it, you know? But after, after I testified, the prosecutors, they said, Dean, the grand jurors have a question for Depp and McGon. It's all white guy. He was like, round the end, they're like a big ill-shaped table, staring at me all the time, right? He goes, that's some questions. I said, yeah. He goes, why don't you shoot the gun out of her hand? And I said, why don't you go watch the stupid movies? I said, hey, that's not even technically legal. Why don't you, why don't you, he said, what? He said, why don't you shoot the gun out of her hand? He pointed at me. I said, well, she's like this pointing at me, and if I were to miss the gun, I would hit her anyway. And she wasn't gonna shoot. She could have flinched and shot, you know, and shot us. Because that's split second. Before I pulled that trigger, we shot through my head and that's literally split second. Well, she's gonna gun me down and take out Todd and Mike. 'Cause everybody had wives and kids and all. That was, that was in my, that split second. I'm about to fire. You know, my lawyers never went after, they did self-defense, of course. They never went after defense with a third party. That's also a defense prosecution. I was protecting these guys. No matter what, I was protecting these guys. You know? They never went after suicide by cop. 'Cause back then, that was just kind of a little something, maybe some happens and that. But that was a big, huge thing. Okay, so. That was definitely suicide by cop. So you blew, for sure. So you blew trial. You lost your first trial. Okay. Okay. That's, I mean, I just. Yeah, when they. What are your lawyers doing, man? Well, why don't they let everybody go to law school? I have a picture being on the front page of Houston Chronicle. One lawyer, he's like, he started crying. Great, your name is Clint. He got assassinated, actually. On April 3rd, 2017. Not assassinated, yeah. But he, wow. My other lawyer literally peed to the garbage can. You know, I hear my parents cry on what everyone's like. But I knew, because we knew the law that if you had 15 or less, you wouldn't murder, you could stay on bond. Small bonds, but it was already there. What do you mean, 15 or less? If up until, when this happened to me, if you had no matter what your charge was, if you had 15 or less years sentenced to prison, you could stay on a pillow bond. But how did it go? So that was your sentence? Yeah, it was 15 years. They gave me a day, love, other. It actually, if I had gone to prison, then back then, I'd have probably done three or four years. I was gonna say, so in hindsight, that was a mistake staying out so long. Because if you just, yeah. If you'd just gone in right away, you know, you, you stay out of trouble in prison. Yeah, you would have been out there. - Now, well, I was facing a life sentence both, and we were taking a gamble of life sentence to both trials, I could've got a life, or 99, right? 'Cause a murder is five to 99 on a life, right? But they, yeah, and then the judge called me up there and he was like, you know, he was like, he called me up there and he said, "Mr. Gallon," he said, "You need to get a good lawyer, you need to get a good appeal, you get to take care of an appeal." And I remember, I don't know why I said this. I said, "Who do you recommend?" He said, "ethically, I can't recommend an after a lawyer is no to call." So we walked out on the payphone, no cell phones. It's not a Friday afternoon, and a hard to best appeal where you can get. - Okay, so you actually filed an appeal while you were still out on bond. - Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, we appealed it. We appealed it, and it was on my birthday, things fall on a birthday, whatever, but it was exactly, 'cause my trial was in February, my birthday's April, first of all April. On my birthday, three years later, we win the appeal. The Court of Appeals in Houston, the 14th Court of Appeals, overturned the case. - Based off of what? - What was the main argument? - Well, we had four, you know, a Brady violation is. That's basically the illegally wealth they cheated, got caught. - Yeah. - We had 42 Brady violations, but what we had, the judge threw it for us on purpose for a pillow reasons. When the stake goes first, and they didn't want to do an opening argument. So we're all like kind of, "Well, why don't they not do that?" And so they put on our case in chief, which was ridiculous. And then they, actually they put on our case in chief, it was like three, four days. My lawyer's calling like 10, 30 at night. They said, "Hey, we're gonna just, "we're gonna not do anything." So what do you mean? You had to fit me. He said they never put me on the scene during their case in chief, which technically they did. So if we were in there and they said, "We rest." They would have been a director verdict, not guilty. I said, "No, I don't want to get on a loophole. "If I don't know what's coming, hell, yeah." But I said, "We're gonna, we gotta fit me. "We gotta clear me on this, man." - So that just goes to show you how innocent you were because it's so hard to win an appeal. As you said, especially in Texas. And the fact that you won, within four years, four appeals. Okay, so the first appeal, you get the conviction overturn. - Correct. - Then what happens? - I never went to jail. I get the conviction overturn and the thing we did 'cause during the trial, the prosecution waved the right to an opening argument. So when the defense goes after they do their case in chief, my lawyers would do an opening argument. And the prosecutors, they objected. Well, we didn't do an opening, they don't have a right to. Which you have a federal and statutory constitutional right for an opening argument, this is part of trial. And so they, and then my lawyer is objected and my and the judge overruled our objection. So my lawyer, one of my lawyers here, and they're both on both sides like this, they don't say anything, they don't say anything. You know, what? And that's, you only need one to get over time. We had all this other stuff we stored away. - Okay, so I don't wanna get mired in the details 'cause we gotta keep it moving. But so you win the first appeal. - And then the state appealed it to the court of criminal appeals here in Austin. We won that. And then, and then the state appealed it back to the 14th court of appeals on a harmless error analysis. At that point, which changed the state and federal law in my case did. At that point, that's the same. We fucked up the prosecution. But it wasn't so bad that the jury would have found him not guilty, that it's the harmless error analysis. We won that. And then they, they, they, they appealed that, if you will, to a hearing and block. But all 11 judges on the entire appellate courts here. And they all ruled our favor again. And then they hit, we're not gonna retry. We knew, as soon as they did it, we're gonna retry you. And so at that point, I made the worst mistake in my life, hiring a lawyer hired. - Okay, so they kept, who is it the same dirty prosecutors the whole time that keep retrying you? How is that legal? If you're winning appeals, isn't it double jeopardy? Like, how can they keep retrying you? - Well, if your case is over, excuse me, because you don't have a final conviction until you lose all your appeals, right? So during that time, I wasn't convicted felon. You know, I've been found guilty. So there's, there's no, that's not double jeopardy 'cause it's just a weird law down here. - Okay, so it's like, would it be like getting a hung jury? - If you get a hung jury, they can retry you. - Really, so the appeal is effectively the same thing, right? Like it leaves you open. - Yeah, someone, yeah. - So it's not adjudicated, just the verdict from the original trial has been overturned. - Right, and they try you again. - I see. - And so what the fuck, so all these years have gone on it. And they have such a hard, not enough years. I was on a pellet bond longer than anybody, and probably now in the city of Texas. They just kept on their own. And this whole period of crazy stuff, my wife and my kids is crazy, man. But yeah, so then it gets to, we won all four. There's nothing else they could do, but recharge me or, or, cut me loose. - Yeah. - So I mean, we're gonna recharge you. So that's not made the biggest mistake in my life, iron the floor that hard. And then, I won't say his name here because, but I have it many other podcasts. - Well, sure, you can say that. - Dan Cogdale. - Dan Cogdale? - He was a lawyer, he was a lawyer for Ken Paxson, the attorney general. - We Ken Paxson. - Also another shining individual. - Fantastic, guys. Sterling, stand up people. - Absolutely. - Pedophile. - Yeah. - You people in Texas vote for these guys. I mean, you deserve all the fucking, I hate this state. I'm moving back to California, as soon as my lease is up. - I'm about to harness myself. - Yeah, anyways. - But anyway, I go in there. I had a very wealthy uncle and he said, I go talk to the top five lawyers in state, and they were done in three, I'll cut the check. And so the first one went to is my pellet lawyer, brilliant lawyer. But he wanted a million dollars cash up front, non-refundable retainer and he said, it's gonna run a lot more now and you're gonna have to pay it. We couldn't argue with him 'cause he won everything. - Yeah. - You know, he's like a PhD, the only kindergarten's gonna come to the DA and him. - Right. - He can work. So I'm gonna kind of walk to that one. What you should have done, 'cause it would have been less money I would never have gone to prison for the captain. Because all the Brady violations, they couldn't have tried me again. I was gonna say, like the jury or the grand jury would have looked at all the appeals that you guys wanted and just been like, this is bullshit, right? - Well, a hardest lawyer and we paid him 300 grand of front. And then he told me that that was his office building and all this stuff is lying. Well, we find out, I had him for 11 months and we hired him, I wanted to try, hired him in March of 2001. And whether to meet with him, lie to his ass off, but everything. And he was this big loudmouth brash. And we found out he had not practiced in a full year 'cause he knocked up some titty dance, exotic dancer. He gets her knocked up, he gives her a million bucks to take his kid, and he tells me this. That's what he's telling me. So we pay him, he said, "Hey, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday "between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. beer ball office "and I live like an hour from there." And we're in a special case, never did it. Never did it, man. I started headed down there and Secretary would page me. And we wanted to be the phones, hey, can you meet Dan at Crabbs? He was friends with Johnny Crabbs in the restaurants. And I love it, the senior actor, dude. That's all I do, it's got a Crabbs. But like the third time I go down there, I think this isn't a book, some issues are made about it. I go down there in his law partner and I in Cogdale, we got a Crabbs, we're coming back. He pulls off his little, it was literally a trailer when he's Japanese jackshacks. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. He pulls this parking lot, I think they're tied, but yeah, we're never really on that. Yeah, but anyway, we pulled in and said, "What are we doing, man?" He goes, "What are you gonna get a hand job?" I think he's kidding, right? And this is before Better Call Saul, dude. Yeah, and this is when we handed him 300 grand, right? It makes a lot more money after it. But they, oh, you gotta see his, I'm not pitching him, I just see his Instagram. Like 2.7 million followers, I see that on his boil. But anyway, I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" No, we do this every day for a month, we're gonna get a hand job. Oh, this is showing my money, you know? My family's money. And so we didn't go in, 'cause, you know, they realized that I don't want to tell a bullshit. And so for all these months, nothing. He was doing nothing, learning nothing. And then where were there one time where, the original trial was set for like a week before Thanksgiving, the week after Thanksgiving. And we're still discussing trial day one time. He goes, "Hey, here's what we're gonna do, man." I think he's bullshit, hey, he's dead serious. I would do, sitting in his office and then he would drink bourbon and smoked cigars and we'd go to the province. So we're sitting out there and he said, "Who's gonna do, when you go in, we're gonna pick the jury." He said, "I want you to look." 'Cause in my younger days, I was a dashing lad, you know? And he's Mr. GQ, he thought. He goes, "I do this all the time." He said, "Don't stare at him or smile, but just, you know, kind of make eye contact with some of the jurors." I'm like, "What?" And he said, "Hey, 'cause I do this all the time." He was inevitably doing a trial. One, two, three of these female jurors, they'll give me a cause. Hey, you go out and whatever. I'll give you a yes vote. You know, I'm not guilty. So I'm just looking at him. I said, "That's your fucking trial strategy? That's gonna be me out of this." 'Cause they had to do it all the time. We're sure we're time. - And you're already 300 grand in. - Yeah. - Between me, my family and me, in four of the very high profile cases, you had at the same time, four of us had spoken. 11 months later, and so we didn't go to trial Thanksgiving. We were all playing at family flying in. He just sounds like a day ahead of time. We're gonna put it off. And I was just getting the fucking thing over with, man. You know? So my second trial started in February of '94. 11 days prior to trial, kids were at school. And I said, "They're talking about life." You know, and I said, "But he's not doing shit." And my wife's like, "You gotta go talk to your family. You gotta tell him what's going on." Man, you gotta ignore the lawyer. And then the phone rings will pick it up is Jeff, Cardinals and Biscuits, and he said, uh, Hey, man, he talked to you and hang up look my wife some fuck to win a prison man So I dropped down the other office meet Jeff and go on sort of short We have a couple long stars. She's burger couple marbles. He looks me because you're fucked you want a prison man I just told Michelle that what what the hell is he doing? He said look he goes that's not Dan's office the phone's about to cut off If you don't have money to pay the the phone the secretary's hadn't paid in two months He goes yo's me 136 grand He's done nothing on your case 11 days part of trial, right? So I said in the four of us who talked had given Danny 11 million dollars just us forward because he had these drug cartels and one of these The guys that weren't drug cartels are mafia. He represents. Yeah, these are the just high profile guys And we're giving him 11 million dollars. Not that investigator What the fuck are you doing 11 million dollars in 11 months? You see Started up on his nose and blew all hookers. Wow like that's a lot of dope and horrors, right? Yeah, so I hauled Estles office we had a confrontation. So go to trial blah blah blah. So you went to trial even with him Yeah, I love it. They wouldn't do it. I had 11 days right yeah, you know So we go and he he did not he talked to one witness in 11 months That was my confidence to inform it who story flips depending who he's speaking with he met with my CI Sunday evening. I think it was on Um, uh, what say Patrick's tear something He made him on a Sunday evening at a restaurant public restaurant less than an hour on the Sunday night for my trial started Monday morning And then yeah, it's not one document. He's so blasted on and you know what Dan If you don't sue me, let's bring this out man Let's just get it on you know, that's what I say people that's what you think is the sweet. I don't care You know when all these other people what I mean on the lies they've done that he's been sued for fraud I mean like deep frothing as clients Or disbar or some for any consequences. Yeah, I'll get I'll get that in a second. Mm-hmm, but he um I'm literally he didn't know the witnesses want to stand. I literally have a legal pad and I'm right now This is Mary Smith or whatever and the questions to ask him and he gets pissed off me and then could do anything You look at me make me look bad. It's funny. I'm my fucking life Dan and the two deputies that were with me who did this very day Go to guns with me, man. I mean never stories were To this very day they backed me up. Okay. Our stories are never wavered. We don't even like friends. Now we are since I got out But Dan said hey, don't talk to any witnesses, right? So of course Todd and I might get off the elevator. I'll shake you any appreciate man Ten years later, right? So he already go and they said we don't know. So what do you mean? I know he's never even spoken to your lawyer It's a dance. What's up? I said you'd never even talk to these guys, Dan They guys you stood there and witnessed it while I had their statements The mail was ten years ago. I would have said go to the DA. Let's make a deal Well, I tell you what happened. So we got a trial the trials of joke. It's ridiculous. So anyway uh At the end And Dan told me what to loss with this judge they arguing from the jurors the prosecutor the DM investigators were lying up there They called them lying But anyway, and they bought people in out of rest that even know who the hell they were People talk shit about me because I did nothing wrong. So there's this they had to do something to jam me up Blisks from forensics. They had to get the character assassination But when that judge says anybody have anything else to say, you know, and I started I was gonna get up and say what he's He's on cool. Everybody knows he's blasted on cocaine Because at the end of the trial you have Closing arguments and so we had like a 15-minute break And uh, we told my running Right we went into lunch. That's coming back. My brother is a law enforcement officer We're walking by down street. There's my truck. My family's like ten sets behind this. I see my truck I stopped my brother grazing because Don't think about it man. I was like fucked because I knew I was done I said fucking mean I can be mixed going six hours. See if everybody tells you going on And I was I was about to run You know if you ever get changed or getting jammed up something didn't run It's easier to fight it when you're outside Being where we go in there and then uh, what do you mean? Do you think like if you fled to Mexico and you were on the lamb for a couple of years You could have made a deal in abstentia Yeah, you could have had somebody make a deal with the DA just be like, okay, he'll turn himself in for five years. Can you do that? I don't know why I say run I'll tell you absolutely if you're going to press something you didn't do would you rather be out living in Alize or somewhere on the beach. Yeah, I'm sitting in this godforsaken shithole Texas prison penal system run You know totally I totally agree. Don't try to be a hero Yeah, so yeah, we go back with like another hour thing Then we're gonna break for closing arguments. So Dan tells me a lawyer. He said hey you and Jeff the investigator go with me He had a townhouse near downtown I get choked up thinking about this I get so angry. I'm in the front pastor see a dance truck and Jeff sitting behind the Dan driving We were dance townhouse. I start to get out and there was no weight here What? So Dan goes in and and and Jeff investigator tap my shorties. You know what he's doing. Why see they're fucking he pulling coke, man He's exactly and he came out. I looked at him. I say you need to get that show for your nose. He literally had coke on his nose like you see and you know It's like a joke. It's like yeah, totally so we go in there man. He's pouring sweat screaming hall and open arguments running around like in the idiot So blah blah blah Jurgos out. This is like on Friday and they come back like five hours later They come and they found me guilty And I hear you know I hear my mother just wail Blimey my dad's loving And so she revoked my bond of course. It was my it was Easter my anniversary my birthday. I'll film the same weekend So this man we can in jail here's counting Joe come back Monday. They give me 20 years, you know And so I knew everybody could have got up to 99 because it's first time I remember Well after because it I could told you cogdale said he hadn't practiced in a year right so this is big trial to get him back going Well, he burns off. He called a press conference and burns off because we lost So Alan dance partner. He's just helping us now Dan Allen went up to the jury They said how how did you find him guilty? They said because it was like a two-week trial and they said we don't know what happened She said in the jersey for the first week. We thought that McGowan those two guys are with him That we've been broken his house and gunned down a little house while he's laying in bed because we know he's a policeman of the until after the first week You know where he said it again. Yeah, that's what the jury told Alan Todd those co-counsel They said that they didn't even know what was going on Like with the actual events. Yeah, they said until the end of the first week we're all under the impression these three guys have been broken house and just What are you shot this woman? God? How how yeah, and how is this It's legal. How is that? I mean, this is crazy. Oh, it's better. And then the jury said uh they said uh And then Alan said well You you can you find him guilty so he didn't testify. We he goes. He doesn't have to testify Now argue my lord. You need to put me on stand if you're ever charged with sex crime or any kind of homicide or be murder or voluntary Messlor you got to your story dude. Yeah, you don't tell your story. So must you want to tell that story? That's where they fought the favor and you're gonna get fucked That's where they fucked up with uh the kid from Dallas that just got hammered the guy that uh the black kid Carmelo You know, he he definitely overreacted. He he shouldn't have had a knife. He he deserves to be imprisoned But they completely fucked up not letting him on the stand you got to yourself. You got to you Because then you could describe the circumstances your mindset right exactly. Yeah Know it around around them, but the jury said that and then Alan said oh white You gave him 20 years didn't even know what happened and they said we gave him five years He said no, I was in there. You gave him 20 and a jury told him with the prosecutors illegally She said with the prosecutor investigator came here and told us because who his family isn't him being a policeman He would have an easy and prison which I sure that I made it exponentially more dangerous and difficult to me Than any other inmate. I guarantee you that right And they said when he only had a quarter of his time Because I was under the old law Well, yeah, I was eligible I got a 20 so it's eligible at five years. Yeah being eligible for parole and get parole Just totally different things. Yeah, so they they gave you a medium Upward departure because they assumed that you would be out in a few years. Five years. Yeah They said they said we don't know what happened and whatever happened out there. We figured that five years would be enough You know, as juries are the grand jurors are picked by the judges. You're getting indicted You're getting indicted ham sandwich. Yeah literally And in these jurors not just things. I mean, they're You know nothing is wrong with them, but I mean you have a plumber and a milkman and you know who have a secretary wouldn't know A competent lawyer has to walk them through the law what happened in facts. Yeah Yeah, and see and in the are still myself defense claim Which damn would not go after the defense with third party to you guys with me or the the suicide by cop Which party got me out of this which that's what it was But the judge on law illegally or unlawfully actually there's a difference Allow the jury decide the law. They're they're the tire of facts not of law. That's a judge's job Well, she let the judge let the jury Decide the the law and self-defense. What's there wrong? You get into federal and I know in Texas and federal on no other states It's against the law to it's against the law to resist arrest even if that arrest is unlawful Like say your producer was at 127 Smith Street and you give it street. Yeah, you know, yeah, probably the F street But uh and you live two doors down Well, we're getting a warrant for your rest. It's my messes up somewhere. It comes to his house So please show up banging on his door He had nothing to do with it. We're at the wrong house But he can't get in a gun fight with us. You can start shooting at us because you don't get arrested and one of my writ lawyers was very, he was very astute when he made a comment about that. said, you know, if you don't want to appeal, people are going to get it right. It was killing police officers in this country. Just technically, if you're racial profiling or whatever, and you pull over a car for a nodal of gin, then that's an unlawful detention. You just pull more, 'cause, yeah, you have to have that protocol. You always find it, you know what I mean. And you want somebody that pops a police officer. Well, you know, he, I wasn't, it was an unlawful stop, but I was defending him. He had a gun, I was defending myself, right? That's the precedent they laid out. Right. You know? So now you've got 20, you've got to go to 20, and you're in. I mean, I think you said you went to like 20 different units, 20 different prisons. They jammed me up, dude. They fucking crazy. And I see like comments, people. He had a decent protective custody. I wasn't ever in protective custody. I was my first three days. And I get there, 'cause I knew my cousin was a deputy, I trained all these people. Everybody's worked in the jail there. So I basically will straight to prison. I get to it at night, and a captain, a big old guy comes and talks to me and he said, man, what the fuck, man? You have to go to a bird unit, hunts, well, that's your, what's the word? The intake? Yeah, the intake. Exactly, that's the intake unit. And so you have to go there. So they put me on a safekeeping wing for my first three nights. I had, I knew nothing about prison, right? Man, I'd seen movies, Shawshank Redemption. That's the most true one. But man, the sexist prisons, you think so? Man, dude, they put me, that prison was built like in 1871 or something over Red Brick. I'm gonna scream in a holler in 24/7. And this was, luckily it was the weather, it was in a march, so it went either hot or cold. They bring me on the third floor, the one of the old ragged ass steel stairwell, barely scream in a holler. Well, clearly I was the only Caucasian on that wing. Clearly the only heterosexual in the wing, and clearly the only sane person, and actually no doubt only personal IQ over 70. It's now where you wanna be down. Well, back to the day, the boxers, I mean, the prison boxers had a flying them, right? So all these guys, they were not like me. They been over with their boxers spread, you know, but cheeks, and you know, and I was like, fuck this man. I thought that show was going for 20 years there. Yeah. Hell no. Hell no, man. We're the next morning, get the shower, and they're shot down and running, very small. You know, I'm like, you know, God, not like them. They're all looking at me doing their business. I was like, oh, hell no. Fuck this, I should have run. I said, yeah, I should have run. I said, well, I should have shoved my brother and jumped in with truck and hauled ass, man. Yeah, yeah, you should have. So, and then your appeal throughout these 20 years, you went in in 2001, you got out in '21. Correct. Your appeals didn't shut down. Shut down, shut down. Even though you won four of them. Well, one reason they had in my case is '90s. Correct. The judge that I had, the judge that had in my trial, she's in the court criminal appeals her in Austin. So, I wouldn't help with my pellet case, you know. Right, she's the one I overturned her own. Which she was still a judge. When you find a ribs corpus, they have 15 days respond. She waited, it took three years, 150 days for the respond. Her response was, I'm not responding to this. Even the DA's office with my writ lawyer, it's my, my appeals got lost out of a writ lawyer. Family didn't. He didn't get along. He's a, he was a police hater man. He had saved me 'cause I was a police. He flat told me that. But I think he tried to help me, but nonetheless. How many, how many appeals? We had a direct appeal to the court of appeals Houston. And he thought it's called a PDR petition for discretionary view at the court of criminal appeals here in Austin. They're the highest criminal court in the state. And you kept getting denied parole. Yeah, yeah. I waited with five years, I came on my first, for five years I set 'em a bunk. Played just, you know, I didn't, they had most ridiculous stupid policies and rules and it's just like, this is a fucking nightmare man. Yeah. And so I said that for five years, right thousands of books, you know. And then came for parole. My family hired this big parole offer off parole attorney from here in Austin. They never waste your money on parole lawyers. He was a good guy, but it's a scam. It's not a good man. So coming for parole the first time and then I got a five, I got a two year set off. I mean, you don't come out for two more years, right? But in Texas, say you come up for parole Southtober first, is there a five year mark? They may not seed like April or May. They may take six, seven, eight months to get an answer. Well, that time's not clocked in, right? So if you get two years, now you're looking at waiting for an answer for a year, then two years after that, you're looking at three years. So in my dad and my brother, older brother came to me to set off, I was, man, pissed, dude. After five years of sweat mass offering books, not saying talking to anybody. And some brothers like, man, we'll put money on your commissary. We'll send you books. You got two years, two years. I was like, man, so the way they're two years, didn't know they set off. I said, fuck, what is that? Under what guys are they denying your parole? Well, Texas, they have, I think they have five, like one D, they're like one ABCD tubes. And two D's is a general catch all. The nature of your crime. They throw that one out at most everybody. Yeah. Yeah, I was convicted of shooting somebody. Yeah. But I saw pro, you know, Texas in like other states, you know, I go in front of a board like five or seven people, right? I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry. I'll remore for, I didn't do this, man. The only time you get to see your voters is if you have a very high profile case, or you have a lot of political on both sides or whatever, which I had both, you know. Same with third time up. I saw Linda Zika, her reputation was impeccable. The rest of pro people were idiot retarded people. But she was really nice, man. She called and talked to me in after I've been seven years. And she said, I told him, she said, look, I don't happen. She said, but look, she goes, I don't submit to peer pressure or public pressure, political pressure. Well, my boss, my boss is boss. Her boss, boss, boss gave me the first set off. She said, look, I let a man out of her murder to take some range or fade a lot of heat. She said, well, I'm telling you now, you're in your family to figure something out, you're not getting pulled out. They're never gonna let you pull out of here. So I'm like, okay, well, you know, I've got 13 years left, you know? And so this is the good old boy system. Exactly. Working its way from the prosecutor in Harris County all the way to the Texas board of parole. And she told me they all know each other and they're all like, fuck this guy, fuck this guy, fuck this guy. Yeah, I'll tell you what, let me tell you what happens in parole. And she told me, she's doing a good parole. And she told me, she said, I can't get into watching your file, but there's no way to protest your parole. You have someone on the inside pulling strings, making calls. So coming from parole again, another to yourself, parole again, a three or so off. With this point, this whole case where I was barely glanced on this one, a church ministry reached out to my family in California. So that's the wealthy family members and shook them down for 300 grand for a yes vote. I don't know nothing about this. This is a kind of crazy prison story. I'm laying there on my bunk and it's like on Saturday night in the gym, 115 degrees. They're having like a church ministry thing, or rally or whatever you thought. Two guards come again, man. I'm going to go down to the gym for what? So I want to talk to you. So I go to the gym and there are just these guys on the stage and like a partition on the back of it. And as guys up there, these like we're surveying guys, clearly ex-convicts. I mean, these guys are big, huge African-American guys, prison-tatted. And they're like this prison minister, right? So he's on the speaker, he's, or he made me gown in here and I'll say the guy goes, it's you and I'll say, yeah. What the hell? So I go out there and he goes, hey, so many of you to talk to you back here. She goes by the petitioner, just little, little, little, African-American lady in a wheelchair. And I think she was straight up. She was like in her 80s. And she's in wheelchair and she goes, it's so nice to meet you. Your aunt and uncle's so-and-so are the sweetest people. And I'm like, weren't in the fuck. And then she said, give me off a pray for you. And I'm like, okay, you know, so she, you know, bless this man and his family and his aunt and uncle. They provided our ministry with new buildings and fund our revivals or whatever and bought a fleet of cars. And I'm like, what the hell? And so anyway, she finishes that and say, we'll hear around a thing to talk to the, get you an image, right? So these little dudes come to me and say, hey, look, man, we're gonna get the final check. We got to, we're gonna get you out of here. We know we're doing we this all the time. So I'm like, okay, yeah, right on brother, you know, that's what the, so me like, hold on to the phone. I call my dad and I said, hey, did aunt and uncle's so-and-so did they donate to a church or something now? - Yes, don't send 'cause they listen to your phone calls. Don't say another word. I said, come visit me as we can. And so he tells me, I mean, you can all go to prison for that. Man, that's, so your aunt and uncle paid a church group that had connections with the scam, man. - Okay. - Oh, and a legitimate deal. - Okay, so it was a total scam. - Yeah, it was a total scam. - And those people came to the prison that you were in? - Yeah, these guys were hooked up with this old lady. She's somewhat well known. She died here a few years ago. Which they wrote a book about her. She was the first female to ever be allowed to go on a Texas death road, a minister of people whenever. - And she's part of this. - I don't think she was in the scam. - Oh, okay. - I mean, she just had these convict, clearly ex-condos, that they're pulling this hustle. And all she thought was we're getting donations, 'cause she wanna tell me that feels, if she didn't tell you a legit, right? - So the convicts were like, yeah, we're connected just in our years within the debts, is bored of parole. We know a guy and you pay us 300 grand or whatever it was. - And we do, yes, we don't need you out there. We know people in the promo, right? - This might be the most corrupt nature on earth. - Family members from California, we had my trial. So my dad called him. They said that they just saw a corrupt, it was down there through Californians, you know? And they just said that we just thought that's how things got moved down there. Things happened down there, you know? That was another thing. 300 grand. And then the board commissioner that was involved with them, I came up for parole. I was up for parole then, right? They gave me a three-year set off. And I fell to a loophole. The most I could give me was a two-year because of a weird law. They made three-year set off just to jam me up. So I did a law, right? So I started to raise the hell about this. So that dragged on, getting a lawsuit over that. Well then in 2014, I'm back when you're on March 13th of 2013, my mom and dad were terminally ill. I lost all appeals. And I was out of hope. That's a fuck, man. I get eight years, my parents are dying. And so I wrote a hillmail, I had a prison typewriter, which I literally burned up. It's mentioned several times in my typings in that book. But I said, "Hellmary, letter to "I miss this guy's name," because he said, "Every time, Ray Hunt, he's the executive director of the "Use From Police Officers Union." And I went to the academy with his brother 40 years ago. And then a similar to Ray Hunt, and his dad, he's going now, but his dad had been not trying to ranch hunting us. That's a very short letter. I said, "Hey, what's your academy, "your brother?" I met your dad a couple of times and came hunting at the ranch. Paragraph one. Paragraph two was, "I'm still one of you. I'm one of the good guys. I'm your "brother and blue. I'm in trouble. I need help." And then that second paragraph, I sent to the "Texture Rangers." I was completely out of hope. And there's all kind of crazy shit going on, man. They're sending game members of shit after me, but I can take some action. Who is sending the gang members after you? These guys are connections, man. I'll take some crazy prison stories, man. Okay, tell us. Tell us. Well, and again, I got an lawsuit to these people. Let me jump into these letters real quick. All right. Then we jump to it, come back to it. But the Ray Hunt and texture Rangers responded. But yeah, when I was jamming on prison, it was freaking insane, dude. The tabloid trash book they were written about me. Prison guards would bring them in. Those books weren't supposed to be coming in there because of a security issue, right? And his prison guards would bring them in. I want me to autograph them. Do you think I would write that book about myself? You think I would never do it. They'd tell his prisoners. So, man, I, like, well into my small beginnings in there, I worked for the sheriff's department, right? But I worked for HPD first. But my name was HPD for 19 years, four months and four days. Told you I was in, which was HPD. I was your handle. And I give them up for me into unit, which is pretty cool because I would, they kept a lot of people away from me, you know? So any clear, man, no one's touching me here because I don't, first of all, I got into a guard. I don't like to write here, man. No, it's for their hands on my guard roommate. Can I write a book on that, man? Did you ever have a knife on you? No, I never had a shank. But you were just ready to fuck somebody up. I had people, I had people that wouldn't want to get to me, prisoner people. Right. Because when I got in there, you don't have to gain any of the creeps in the blood. Then the Tongue Blast started up. Yeah. And it's all right. And so when I got into with a deal with an issue with the one, I got a jaw dislocation by a major, you know, assistant warden on me. That lit in the criminal charge against them and all that. What happened? It's gotten involved. There was a just crazy story. If you're in here, I'll make it short. When I was on the pack unit and I was soda, they moved, the guy, the guy had been a button next to me, a good guy, man. And they moved him out. And he put this big old dude in there next to me, right? And we're both night shift SSI. So there's guys like, they clean up mop water right now, which I refuse to do. I never did liquor for those people. I didn't sleep for those people. They didn't try to send you to the fields or anything like that. They went to me in the fields because go out there, they had to come Aggies, the big tools they use. They're afraid to send me out or something like that. I actually had a warden telling me that you'll never go in the fields. I saw one going anyway. But see, I had an ace in the hole. I had my background. And all I say is, hey, man, that dude over there, I know him from the street, man. And I did run a few people I put in jail. Wow. Into prison. But they looked at the image that was cool, most of y'all with it. Yeah. They think it's like I came to the dark side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did up. Yeah. But number of years in, I got in that major in them. It was a money laundering situation. This major was involved. It was some inmates. FBI got involved, a secret service gun involved. Wow. They leaked out the OIG TDC's idiot police. That's why I wanted to be not done a bus to John or shoulder over from this major. He fucked the punch you beat you up. It handcuffed me slamming the wall cup of times, hard as he could. And the guards all hated him. And many years later, this idiot retires and comes back to that same unit is the parole officer of the unit. Even though guards here wrote letters parole said this is not a good idea because he would just fuck over everybody. He didn't like me. Yeah. There is no solution for the cancer of government. It needs to be eliminated. And scaled down to the smallest possible because you can't, you know, it rewards the biggest fuck-ups and the biggest retards and the most corrupt people and the most evil people. That's and there is no prison. Prison is the epitome. Total is the paragon of that. Because you to get promoted as a guard, you're the biggest idiot in there. Or if your uncle's the warden, there's no like this guy knows you shit now, you know. And these guards wind up expanding into being parole officers or OIG retards. Crazy. And all I do, they don't police this. They protect their own people. They don't police it. Yeah. It's ridiculous. As you say, there's no oversight. There's no consequences. What's there is when the rangers got involved, they got involved over all this stuff. And they had two investigations going, they had one going against TDC, OIG, the parole board over the three thousand three hundred grand shake down. Then another one going over the the Sheriff's Department of the D.A.'s office. I got put in prison. Well, the rangers came on a Tuesday and said I'm going to come back Thursday and I was up for parole at this point. And I said, all right, with a parole, the unit parole officer, she calls me to her office and I never seen her before. And she was like, every unit has one like they, where are you going if you get out, which you're not getting out, but just in case you don't want her. And she literally tells me like, get up. She goes, hey, you're going to come back tomorrow. That's what you need so much. She goes, man, I got terrible ADHD. She goes, I'm going to remember this conversation tomorrow coming because I don't have time to write this down right now. I'm like, these people are charging me now. All right. But anyway, when the rangers were there, they don't choose. They were about Thursday. So Thursday, guards come and say, hey, you got to, you got to visit her. And I'm sorry. So I figured it's the ranger. Cool dude. So they take me to law I bring. We always just spent the major's office really pissed off the major when he's his office. But they, it's this pro officer who was involved in the 300,000 shake now. He wasn't even in that region. He goes to the region where I am, gets my file. He worked in a whole separate part of Texas. He, I guess, assigns himself to my case and be a talk guy. It comes in her. I said, who are you? He said, I'm so and so. And I knew him by the next time I was in a lawsuit with him, right? I say, what do you want? He goes, I get your profile. I said, really nice. It's beer. He goes, you know, I get your, your case is up to me. You know what? He goes, you got a fucking chance. Good luck, man. All right. Now go fuck yourself. You know. And so rangers come by 30 minutes later. I'm telling us rangers. He goes, you got to be shitting me. He goes, this major, the bus of your short and jaw were investigating. Now he's a pull-offs on this unit. Yeah. And the parole commissioner for this reason, not even this reason that we're investigating came and told you to, you know, you're fucked on parole. Yeah. He goes, what do you think your chances getting out of our own parole? I said slim and none and slim just rode out of town, man. But yeah, but finally, how got out to get to the prison stuff. It was, it was crazy stuff. I got to talk to you any good time. I don't have time. You did day for day. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have good time in Texas. Right. So you're going to get parole, which you probably do your time or you're going to do your time. So you got out how much time did you do total? 19 years, four months and four days. Wow. Well, I came up for parole. Well, my sir, the HPD followed me through. And then for many years, I didn't find it's like three years after it was following. I was undercover FBI agent. And they're watching the guards. Well, so I just let these rumors float because they, they move inmates and they said you were that's the rumor in prison that you were. And I didn't start that room. I didn't know it so much. So I said, yeah, I was at the unit three years ago. That's we all knew your FBI agent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Damn. I'm burned, you know. Yeah. Because that kept the guards base for somewhat because they move inmates and guards constantly, especially because of my security issues. It bounced me all over. But I was the huge unit where if they cannot control you, that's where you go, is the huge unit. And I was passing through one night there because of a high ranking Texas politician was involved to move me. There's going to get death threats. Now, especially going on a private gene, it must stop the Hughes overnight. I had jammed it there for eight months. But the warden there. But the Hughes at the time, he was the warden from the pack. You know, I got my job busted, right? The US marshals came to get me off there, except a federal lawsuit. That marshals had, they're going to kill him on there. Wow. But that warden put me in a, call me out and he locked me up and say, all the time, that'd be an asshole, just because it's like a vacation, get there by yourself. But they, they'd move you at count time, because it count, they have to freeze the unit, right? Everybody gets, go to your cell, they get my counted. They rolled this door right before count time. And this guy was like, African-American guy, pretty 6'5, big sum of bitch, man. And he shut the door and he goes, he goes, you got more the fucking law man out of here's counting, ain't you? The warden told them, I was like, oh, fuck this, man. So I'm stuck in like 20 minutes, right? Listen to his bullshit. And then the door rolled, not, I need an unloaded stuff, a little cart, right back to say a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Then he said that same ward man, he pissed at that again. He just, he just, for nine months, eight months, I was eight or nine months. Hey, put me in this one wing, eight building for everybody out there, he's been the huge unit. It's not just for homosexuals. This is for freaking crazy homosexuals. And most of them like little Hispanic guy, but he's, he's sticked me in there, right? And I've had a thing, I just had a bottom row bottom bunk, it's restrictions. I wouldn't, I always supplement bottom, - Get a bottom. - Bottom road, bottom road. - Sorry. - Yeah, bottom bunk. - Bottom road. restriction because of the heat. Anyway, I was smart. I was prisoning. I mean, I did so at the all the time. That's how I got smart. But they put me there with those crazed gay dudes because I went on restriction, right? So I get to get there to roll a door and go to commissary. And they were in there that they're all like little like Honduras or something. I don't tell it. But they'd fight those guards there viciously. They stayed in there. Don't tell me they let them out because they'd roll one door at a time, two of them come out and get their trays and sit there. Yeah. But they then they'd be hard on me every time. We hate you. You're ugly. Why are you in here? It's really all the time. But when I was going to go to commissary. Hey, man, could you give me some minsticks? Okay. Give me a few, man. Yeah. Anyway, Lee, we hate you. Don't ever come in here again when you're ugly. They always told me that. It's a good impression of my feelings. Oh, I was just strapped over that. Yeah, because I thought they would see you as like a bear. Yeah. You know, that's I know what a bear is. But you know, well, they're maybe I know what a bear is. I think they'd be otters. But it was a. Yeah, I was in there. What about now? So what have you done the last four or four and five, a little over five years and two days have been out. Yeah. When I got out, when I finally got out, I was central private unit and went to that prison entrepreneurship program. But the day I got out, oh, the time I got out of my 10th time up and I'm going to say her name. She's great. Tracey Long is a pro commissioner. And she gave me a year set off the year before and it had like a year left. And because of COVID, they couldn't come in. And so the major comes and gets me say, hey, Pearls talked to you. You know, and this thing about private units like when Biden was a big thing was trying to get rid of private prisons. Private prisons are a place to go. They got to be privatized. I don't care people paying money. Do you look at what you go through? I don't care if I'm a craze, you know, if I was a murderer. Interesting. Not animals. I'm telling you private units, MTC. I see, I've talked to guys that have said private prisons was some of the most violent because the staff is so under-trained, they're the most corrupt. But I don't know, maybe not. I mean, this was in, I think he was in Ohio. This is so, yeah, I was culture shock when I got there. No Nigerians. This thing, when they started flooding TDC when Nigerians, they were vicious, vile individuals, man. And they hated all the time. They hated the black inmates, more than they hated us. They just despised and they were vicious. But anyway, when I went with Tracey Long, I go to the major's office. He was a great guy, man. Kenneth was his name. And he sits me in his desk, you know, and he said to the computer screen and he said, he said, she'll be on here in a minute. I'm like, all right, you know, and they pops up and there's this lady, your mom or whatever, you know. And she called me Kent, which is my, my name is Joseph Kenton. My dad was in my camp, never going, she called me Kent. So I was like, yeah, can I call? And I was ready to lay my spiel out to him. I didn't do this. I got a year, you know, I didn't do this. They made her for a year. You know, I didn't do it, you know. I didn't get it out. She says, she goes, can you hear me? I said, yes, ma'am, can you hear me? I had a stupid look on my face. And she goes, yeah, I said, I don't suck a techno invasal. I never talked to a computer before. You know, she kind of laughed a little. I guess you haven't. I said, no. And he made her off the bat, dude. She said, uh, off the bat, she said, uh, I can't get in good conscience. Let you sit here for 20 years. She said, I know what's happened to you. I know he wound up prison. I know what's going on in her with you. I'm gonna give you an FI1, which is an immediate release and get you out here immediately. And I was like, trying to cry. And I have to say, I'll thank you. And I said, I said, you know, you give me a year say, I don't take two votes. She goes, and both don't get me a settle fleshers. And the other guy was a retired sheriff. These sheriff had a little bit county, Texas. And she goes, don't worry. You know, calls been made. We're going to get you out of here. And then she looked when she goes, she goes, you know what? You've been denied parole for 15 years and waiting for this is your 10th time up. And I said, I have my suspicions. And she said her names. I'm going to say her names. I don't care. I don't care. I didn't see me. Y'all can leap it out. She said, is John Denholm? Danes, John Denholm, Steve Clapper. Denholm is a homestead lieutenant. Clapper is a DMS here. She said, the name is John Denholm. Steve Clapper from there with you. I said, those guys just sent me up. You know, she said, they've been calling her for 15 years. Wow. Telling us that, and she even told me then that no ways ever protest her parole. And I've had other people telling that to you. So much behind the scene is doing this. And she said, she said Clapper Denholm, Clapper Denholm, Clapper and Denholm have been calling her for 15 years. Tell us, you had contracts out there. I'm killed. If we let you out of here, that you're going to kill them. You know, you don't murder them. I said, well, that would be understandable. And I'm going to do it. Of course, you know, see something gets you out of here immediately. You know, it's still to 86 days because they kept calling. And I got out of the poll. I just told me, it's Clapper Denholm guy calling us. You know, psychos. So where are they now, Clapper and Denholm? Are they still on the floor? So they still, as far as I know, he's been fired from job to job. And last side, he was a reserve at Liberty County and then in North of Houston. And when I got out, Denholm is dead. He was a DM investigator. The prosecutor, we have no idea. Dead or alive. There's actually no record of him anywhere. And then Denholm sent me up him and Sergeant Dave, that my sergeant, they're Ohio buddies. They fled to Ohio when I got out. They thought that I was not going to live to prison. And I tell you, it is an absolute miracle. I was not murdered in prison or worse. Yeah, I'm telling you, man. But they, and I survived it, man, mentally and physically. I would never institutionalized the only work institutionalized that was I called the Chowhall because we did the military in the police. Yeah. So do you have any lawsuits now? They're coming. Okay. Well, these me to hear some of your time's running is the guy, much at Houston PD guys picked me up. You know, I told about my mom and my dad, my son. There were three people who wanted when I got out to be here. Covid hadn't seen the sun in 17 months, you know, but I walked out and I was I was living from a mom and dad my son because you know, when you're in there, man, you got to bury that stuff. It'll kill you. Yeah. You got to worry about surviving and getting out for the people who are still out there. And so, you know, I was looking around. They weren't there. And I see these HPD news there. Hey, man, you know, they brought clothes. I'm putting on lace-ups, you know, belt button up shirt. What the hell, man. For culture shock, dude. Yeah. And she don't walk down. They got me. Got me phone. They said, don't look up your shelf. You're Lord. They had eight and a half months on parole. Do not do not get these bad guys any reason. Jammy up. So next day, real quick, I had to go to my parole officer. She saw the same thing because they had me on an income monitor. I couldn't learn. I was under house arrest, basically. And the parole commissioner said no restrictions at all. But the parole lady said, look, man, because I was assigned a supervisor and a parole officer to him. She said, we don't think you're going to do some stupid dangers. Just God forbid something happens to you. It's going off the chain of command. I said, you can deal with that. You can chain me to a tree and throw a water bird every once a day. I don't care. Let me hell out of here, you know. But I was out about a year and then I get this FBI agent, Michael Taiman, retired at 26-year veteran, special agent, FBI. He's police officer before that. And it's like everybody else, the ranger, they're about to say, man, we thought you're full of shit. You know, we got your letters or, you know, we thought you're full of shit. They also said the same thing, man. We started reading these documents. We started talking to witnesses that are now these people are threatened back then. You know, law enforcement guys, your career is over if you talk. So he did a three investigation. We got a videotape of homicide detective and a federal agent was involved. The two guys are women to shooting and a bunch of people. Like I told you yesterday, man, after I did a podcast, man, at a narcotic sergeant of Harris County, got 10-year sentence from these same guys. There's a bunch of, there's at least six of them that we know at seven after talking to this guy yesterday. But is there a federal ongoing investigation? Yeah, they did that. And as soon as, as soon as that investigation was over, Jerry Langton through a mutual friend together with the book contacted me. That's like 15 months. No lawyer would touch me. And then I knew the book was about two months out. And I called, I called a lawyer. I can't discuss the individual's name right now. We're going to do it. It's going to, when they comes out with this, it's going to drop a new crowd in the middle of it and they find out who's lawyer is. But I just, I call that lawyer and left the message and they called back to get in my office, man. They said, I'm going to, you're, Laura told me she, I'm the only person that's just going to take your case. So you should get in the office and get you out of this. So what are you trying to get on the state level? Just man, trying to get money per day. You were incarcerated? Well, yeah. And Texas, you have to get full and generated by the state. The state never does that. Right. They don't say, man, we fucked up. Here's three million dollars. Never hell knew. But and people asking that, you know, what are you trying to get out of this, whatever? You know, once you let this go, you know, and in the book, right hunt for the policing, and he aptly told Jerry to put in the book, he said, people, people like, can't, who have been, you know, unlawfully put in prison, they feel such a deep sense of being wronged. They can't, they can't get over it. And I say that, I'll get through this. My family will get through this. I'll never get over it. Now, this is utterly annihilated my family, socially, professionally, financially, and otherwise. I think the stress killed my mom and dad and my son are really dead. But the four reasons I do this is number one is, there's much do justice needs to come to my family, be a compensation or whatever. Something, you know, something in the state saying, man, we don't happen. We did this to something. Yeah. You know, and number two, my mom and dad's deathbed, they may, they died 11 months apart. They made me promise them, they said, you'll, you'll fight this to it. You clear your name and the family's name. And number three, my kids, now my grandkids, they grew up with a stigma. You know, documentaries, whatever, your dad, your grand is a rogue, murder and psycho cop going rogue and all the stuff. That's the third reason. And the fourth reason, these guys who've done this to my family and me, they've done this to a lot of other people, man. Right. Not just police officers, civilians, you know, I actually documented stuff, they've sent innocent men twice on death row just to make names themselves. This has been dictiveness and malicious. - Is there, I'll ask you again, is there an FBI criminal investigation ongoing right now? - Yeah, after the retarded FBI guy did his, the book came out, and I got this lawyer. So all that's in route, yeah, we're taking to the FBI. There's clearly, the texturator told me, they said you clearly have some legitimate criminal complaints here. - Okay. - And the retarded FBI agent, of course, he knows that stuff. - Okay. - So we're in the process of getting a package together to take to the FBI and then civil suits, absolutely. - Okay. - Against state. - Against state, and then do you sue those individuals as well, or do you, do you sue them? - Yeah, you can't sue under federal, I think I'm under, I think Article 11 of the Constitution, you can't sue a state, but you can sue individuals, but you can sue a municipality, a county, the federal government. - Right. - So, but like if this worked down, the county would have to pay me back pay for 30, 40 years, we'll see you in order, right? - That'd be sweet. - Yeah. - Then you can have those guys killed, bro. - Okay, let's-- - I wouldn't do that, but, you know, I wouldn't be sassy when we did. - Hey, right? - Okay, reasonable doubts by Joseph Kent McGowan and Jerry Langton. Go get it. Go get it. Where can they get the book? - It's all over Amazon and Barnes and Noble, easy to say. - Kent, I am so sorry that happened to you. I really am, but I admire your strength and, and glad you're home. - It's so annoying. - And yeah, go get your justice, man, because people are sick of this shit, they're sick of it. Look, if you live in Texas, I'm sorry, this is one of the shittiest places on earth. - I'm leaving soon. - Yeah. - I'm a lifelong Texan. I'm out of here, man. - Yeah, yeah. There needs to be a political revolution. Just like there is happening in Florida right now with James Fishback that needs to happen here. You know, and the first thing you got to do is get that fucking Zionist out of office. - Love that. - That fucking fat cunt. - I tell you this. I got, I kind of have a handle on Facebook, other stuff, I could learn how to take talking stuff, man. I'm telling you, if there's anybody out there listening to this or watching this, whatever, reach out to me, man. I'll talk to you. I'll talk to people all the time. I've been a pretty well-known activist and I'm good against this, innocent people in prison. It's a crazy phenomenon. - Yeah. - If it doesn't happen to you or one of your loved ones or your buddy, whatever, I don't get shit about this. Yeah, wait till it happens. Because they can happen to me and my family, we can't have anybody. I'm telling you, man. - Well, you were telling me off camera. Oh, no, actually. You describing your buddy, the cop whose girlfriend's got her four-year-old daughter to put him in prison for 40 years or so. - 340-year sentences in a 10, yeah. - I mean, that happens, you don't believe it until you're around the people that it actually happened to. And you're like, oh, this does happen in America. This supposedly freest country on earth happens all the time. - All the time. - I would watch what I was locked up. The people say, "All your buddies in prison is innocent." Hell, no, man. The bad guys brag. They brag all the time. But I'd watch the visitations where you know. Someone would go to visitation. They could be like, man, I hold this. You know that. Pull something out. You know what I mean? We see a guy coming tears in his eyes. He's like me. Screaming all the time. I mean, I got jammed up. You see that dude coming from, I don't care what race-creator color to come here from visitation. He's like, oh, he's innocent, man. Because the only thing that could make this worse for me is if I had done something stupid, little only legal, for what this has done to my family, I wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't have put it into myself. If I had done something, I couldn't bear to see what my family's gone through. If it was because of me, I couldn't deal with it, man. There's no way. - Well, thanks for your work. And thanks for coming on here. - Well, I appreciate the invite. - Yeah, and the link to your book will be in the description in the comment. I encourage you to just keep doing what you're doing and speaking out, and, yeah. - And I don't know if it's cool or not, young editor or whatever, but I have enormous legal fees. I have a gift send go. - Oh, okay. - If anybody's. You have to give send goes, like a. - Okay. - Yeah, we'll put the link in there, too. - Yeah. - And just put Kim McGowan to go to first responders. - Okay. - First responders. - Awesome. - That's usually legal fees, man. - Man, I hope you get that money back, bro. - I will. - It'll be worth it because in the lawsuits. - Yeah. - We talked about Cogdale and these people soon, because her more winemies in life were Cogdale with Aperna Down. But she. - Yeah. - Issues with them. She said, "We're suing all these motherfuckers." - That's it, man. - You're talking all, man. - Your only crime was looking like John Goodman and the big Lebowski. - Go on, now, that's just some funny, you know what I'm saying about that before? No, for those stuff before. - What was it? Oh, Ted Cruz. - Yeah. - You're talking Ted Cruz. - I don't like Ted Cruz. - I'm just speaking out. - Yeah, Ted Cruz. I heard Ted Cruz. John came out back in '85, whenever. My mother-in-law went and saw it. And that's why I have my military haircut, a lot of stuff, man. She can't even call my wife her daughter and say, "Just, just movie." She's just like this guy. - This is my fantastic snows, whenever. She was like, "She looks just like Tom Cruise." She's just like, "Dad's hilarious." Yeah. - I'll tell you this. - Oh, you do have those eyes, dude. - I've got a. We had the funding for through a very well-known dude. She needed an interview. I'll tell you when we get off this. But he, for a two-hour documentary. And then he told me that they got funding now for a six-part, two-hour bio-epic. And I was like, "That's great, man." I didn't know I'd do what a bio-epic was. I'm so getting. - Yeah. - So did Google it when I got this. - Wow. All right, you guys. We're getting out of here. Make sure to check out his book and go donate if you can find it in your heart to help with his man's legal fees. Camp McGowan, thanks again. - Thank you. - Appreciate it, guys. - Thank you, man. - I'll thank you. I'll tell the store. - You got it, sir. - Take care. (upbeat music)