How Trauma Makes People Easier to Exploit

Why People Stay

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Have you ever wondered why smart, capable people stay in dangerous situations longer than others think they should? Hello and welcome, welcome back. My name is Tiffany. I'm your host of True Crime Connections. And tonight we're talking with a former FBI agent who spent 24 years working with victims of exploitation, violence, and trauma. And what he learned might completely change how you see survival. So please welcome Eric Robinson. I want to thank you so much for being here. This is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Well, I hope so. I'm gonna live up to it as best I can.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

My first question is how the hell do you go from a priest to the FBI?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I have filled out the application and they brought me on. My training and my studies were in Islam to reach out to Muslim people as a missionary. So my application was in process and then 9-11 hit, and I assumed that the FBI looked at me and said, we have an al-Qaeda problem. This guy might know how to talk to them, whether looking into criminals, terrorists, or recruiting informants. So they took a chance on me. And then as soon as I got in the FBI, they put me on a drug squad and I worked criminal violations for 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

So maybe not exactly what they thought they were hiring you for, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Well, the guys who hire aren't talking to the folks at the division where I go to, and they're they needed bodies on the drug squad, so they put me on a drug squad, which was exciting. It was fun. We were doing wiretaps constantly, so I got to learn right off the bat what writing affidavits, doing surveillance, getting into houses immediately. So that was good for me.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Right. You worked a lot with teens and prostitutes and people in professionally in my work. Yes. Yes. Yeah, let's put that out there, yes, right? So what are some of the misconceptions that people have about this?

Toledo Trafficking Reality

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, so in 2000, I think 2012, I was reassigned to work the violent crimes against children task force in Toledo, Ohio, which is on the Cleveland division. And in 2005, I believe it was, there was a massive sting at a truck stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And out of that sting, they saw a disproportionate number of teenage prostitutes and pimps from the Toledo, Ohio area. So because of that, they set up a task force and start putting bodies to it and effort to it. And by the time I came on, they'd been running, doing really well, had good task force officers. Our mandate was to find the pimps and bring indictments against them, but also part of what we're doing was looking for those teenagers who were involved in sex work industry. And by targeting them, then we could get to the men that were exploiting them. So there were a lot of misconceptions about Toledo because of that. That people would say, wow, there's people being trafficked everywhere. There started being rumors and stories about girls getting kidnapped from the mall or stuck with a needle and pulled into a van. None of that being true, what I saw were teenagers who came from broken homes with adults in their life who were useless, abusive, addicted, and now they were fleeing that. And then the difference between you and me and these men who encountered them, we would seek to help them. They would say, Great, this is a wonderful money source and would exploit them.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

And it's so unfortunate because it does a lot of it, it starts in childhood. So if you grow up in dysfunction, and God forbid, if you are sexually molested by your father or something like that, like now sex is not an intimate thing. It's been stained. It doesn't mean anything anymore.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Well, the way I put it, and I I apologize for being crass, but if you can imagine what it might take for you to decide today, I'm going to now start having sex with strange men who I can tell you are disgusting across the board. That threshold that you would have to step over is significant. And you're not doing that unless you are already broken. And so you've you're through the threshold, or you're so desperate and or you're so desperate that this is the only way you have you don't have education, you don't have employable abilities that are going to help you enough to get by. Here are young girls who are saying, This is all I've got is my body, and at this point I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

They call it the oldest profession ever. So I mean, it's just it's it's a sad turn, especially you got then the girls are addicted to drugs, they can't get off the drugs, then they're doing it to get the money for it. It's just this vicious cycle.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah, we would see more of the older, and older is not old, but the many of the older sex workers were the ones who had now to numb their pains and the things they're going through or getting into the drugs, and then they're being manipulated with the drugs that way. I don't there weren't many of the young girls who were who are into that. And again, my I'm coming from limited experience. It's not like I met all of the girls, even in our area, who are doing this, but many of them were just looking for an opportunity to try to make a living, maybe have something nice in their life, too.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Who doesn't want that?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah. And that's what we would use working along with Guardian Ad Lights who are their legal representation in court to the minors, with social workers, with people at juvenile detention, giving us that tip that hey, this this young girl came in. Shh, we take her property, she has the newest iPhone, you know, she shouldn't be able to afford that. Or I saw an older man dropping her off, picking her up, waiting around. And now we're seeing, okay, these are signs that she may be engaged in sex work. And now we're gonna try to intervene, interview her, maybe even keep her name around so that we would do a sting to draw her out and then catch the guy who is exploiting her.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

The Pibs, they're they're smart in a sense, they're always refround, but not always visual. How hard is it really? Did you find it to capture these schmucks?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Well, we're going schmucks, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Where are they popped out? And I was thinking, I'm like, I haven't heard that name in I don't know how long. Yeah, we're rolling with it.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

What's interesting, getting to know this world. There I was a pastor, and I interacted with people who are down and out, but now I'm I'm not just talking closely with teenage girls who are involved in sex work, but I'm also talking to and being integrated with a completely new world with the pimps. And they were part of a mindset. So when you say they're smart, because this is their world and they can focus on that. And maybe they can't do math or know how to cook, but this they're intelligent on. And so that world, they're learning from others of what it takes to manipulate. They're being influenced by that culture, which says, here's how you treat a woman, here's how you use them, this is how you gain clout in this community, which is what they care about. That other pimps or men look at them and say, Oh, look at him. He's got a stable that's this big and he can control them this way or that way. And that was their glamour.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

I think it's safe to say greed is like the number one reason for why they do this.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, it is, and also the glory of being that man who's in control of women. So, yeah, the greed's there. They you got the cream team, cash rules, everything around me. They're glorifying, making money, showing it off. But also, many of them, some we would see that these guys were targets for a long time. And it was difficult to just charge them with promoting prostitution because that's a simple charge. It's not gonna get them off. We're looking to see if they're trafficking underage girls, and you'd have some that were smart that like they wouldn't play around with that, they wouldn't touch the younger girls. They might groom them and then turning 18, now we're gonna take you on. But I mean, it could be anybody. I had a case on one pimp who was a woman and was a prostitute herself, but she also recruited young girls, taught them how to do what they did, and then benefited financially from them too.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

So she a madam.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

No, I mean, I think that's classier.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

I don't know. I feel like I just I probably heard it on like TV or something, like they would call them madams or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

I I didn't call her that. I mean, she was interesting because so we got this story of a 15-year-old girl who had been prostituted by her. The prosecutors say, Yeah, her testimony is not that good, so we're you know, it's not enough to charge. I then worked up a case where I found an 18-year-old that she had groomed and then prostituted her. And the prosecutors say, 18, doesn't matter. And then I went back as I'm going through photos, I would see the these photos being taken, and the background was the same as her background in the hotel. She had a distinct thigh tattoo. I look her up and I find her, and this is years after she had gotten out, and she was maybe 21, and she says, Yeah, I was 17 at the time. So I got her. Now I got her on a bad testimony for a 15-year-old, grooming an 18-year-old when she was younger, and then we've got a 17-year-old, and the prosecutors still say, No, we're not interested. 17's almost 18, and we're still back to the bad testimony. And there was a lot of frustration going on with trying to solve this problem.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

I would want to shoot them with my gun. Like, I it pisses me off. The justice system is a whole that's a whole nother story that we could freaking talk about, whole nother episode. But they just don't seem to take this shit seriously.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah, and the prosecutors really were well intended. We would just have a difference. They were reluctant to take any case that might go to trial because that would eat up their time, and there weren't enough federal prosecutors. So if this one's tied up in court, then they're down a body. And I experienced this from the other side where I'm trying to get a search warrant written for something else, and I can't get a hold of my prosecutor because they're in court. So I came to understand that, but then there's righteous cases where you say, gotta take a swing anyway, and this is one of them. The at one point during our investigation, one of the girls had said, the 15-year-old had said, Yeah, I was told and instructed how to treat the Johns when they come in, because the pimp said, sit at the top of the stairs. When the cable man comes over, the cable man, I'm going to trade service for service, and I'm going to show you how it's done. And this is how you're going to learn on the job training. And I'll tell you, like, I went through, I found cable routes, I went back and got work logs, and I found the guy that I believe to be the one who was there. And so I left my business card and my partner, Laura and I meet him at a McDonald's. You know, he calls and says, What's this about? I said, Let's meet in person. We meet, and he brings along with him his father-in-law, the father of his wife. And I said, I don't know if you want him here. And he says, No, I want to stay. And so I said, Hey, this is what you did. You engaged with the prostitute. I'd like information about it. And he stonewalled me. And while I was on a mission trip years prior in Turkey, I went to the bazaar and they're exchanging stuff. And I learned this practice that you just walk away. So this guy kept stonewalling and lying. And so I turned to Laura and I said, okay, let's go. And so what that left him with was he's not in control of the situation. He doesn't know if we're going to bust down his door and arrest him someday. And he immediately called me back and then made a full confession. It confirmed the 15-year-old story, but the prosecutor still said, not interested.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Oh, God. So frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, you're making me angry. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

That's my job. Sorry. What are

Warning Signs and Trauma Cases

SPEAKER_02 13:46

the warning signs that people often miss when people are being manipulated or controlled?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Well, it's hard. It's going to be hard to see that. It's some of the things where, as I mentioned, some of the indicators where if you're talking about the younger girls, how are they dressing? How are they acting? Are they out of a routine that may other girls their age will be engaging in, going to school, doing the normal things, or are they spending their time with this man? You're not able to reach them because they're away. Back in our day, we had backpage and we could scan backpage to see who's putting their advertisements up. I don't even know how they advertise anymore or how they get that, but seeing some of those things, jewelry or possessions that a 15, 16-year-old shouldn't be able to afford, especially if they're a foster kid. And then I always emphasize being a safe place, non-judgmental, safe person that someone could talk to, where if they tell you they're doing this, you're not telling them they're disgusting and terrible. And telling them they need to leave isn't going to help either because I've been slapped, I've been spit on, I've been cursed at by these teenage girls because I'm separating them from the only adult they've ever had in their life who's loved them as they see it. And trying to them right, right, and like they're getting affection, they're getting bombed, but they've never gotten that. They've only gotten cursed at or abused by family member. And so now I'm taking away their soulmate, and it's not until much later that they realize what they you've got to get that fish out of water because the fish doesn't know it's wet. They're in this and they don't get what abuse is, and they may only see it later. So if you confront them, they're not gonna get it. It won't make sense and it'll be a threat to them.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

It's kind of like when you're in an abusive relationship or a toxic relationship, you don't really see all the red flags that we make all these lovely excuses for until you're out of it. And then you're like, holy shit. Is that why you think people stay in harmful situations way longer than people think they should?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah. What was tough, yes. What was tough for me, now going back to the prosecutors, if you allow me to get angry again, they would bring up the defense. And I get that they're trying to go through what the defense will be, but they would say, well, why didn't she just leave? And it I explain that doesn't matter. If you're gonna put her on the stand and the defense asks that, it's it's irrelevant. What is relevant is what this man did because it meets the standard of trafficking. Even if she did it willingly, and every time you asked, she said, I wanted to be with him, it does not matter. A child cannot assent to that. And that was also a bit of frustration, too. And when we worked with adults who are being trafficked, now we have a more difficult standard because we have to show force, fraud, or coercion. And that was uh just consistently set aside because that force or coercion, they'd say, Oh, but they stayed or they didn't leave. And again, I think you can speak to that. It it doesn't matter. The threat there, so you're gonna be now a single woman, maybe you have a kid, no place to live, no income. You're not going to leave because that is seemingly more threatening than the abuse that you're in.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Right. It's survival.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, people will stay in what is what they think is comfort. It might be uncomfortable, but it's what is unknown is much more uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Right, right. It's scary to people, and they're like, I'd rather stay here where I know I'm gonna get fed and I have a bed to sleep in, but they don't realize that healing and a whole new life is on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

And well, he does this nice for me. And when he's not drunk, he's often kind, and you set aside those because you just want to cling to the positives and hope that happens more often.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

That's back to the excuses that we all make. Right. Is there any case that like permanently changed the way that you looked at drama?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yes, many along the way, but one was really eye-opening to me. We had a I had a case that came to me. We refer to these as traveler cases. So they would be men who travel to assault a minor. And I had a case come to me from the local PD. The parents had gotten their 13-year-old son's iPad, noticed he had the app kick, and there are messages there from an adult and they were inappropriate. They take it in and the child made something of an admission that yes, he had sexual contact with this man. So because it was interstate, they said, hey, let's just take it to the FBI. The case was like going already. I had a lot of the information, but I interviewed the 13-year-old boy who looked like he was twelve 10. And I'm interviewing him with the parents there, and he was remarkably untraumatized. Like he was laughing, he was fine, he told the story, but he also went to a school for the arts, and so he was like showing me dance moves that he was learning, which is not what I would expect. Like I would think there's crying, there's difficulty, he's unwilling to say stuff, but he seemed fine. We work up the case, search warrant, uh travel to the next state, I get a team there to assist, and we go to interview the assailant who is 27, and he told his story and he said that he loved the kid. And I thought maybe he did. And my job is to not act in disgust. My job is to get a confession because that's going to be the most punishment. So it's not to yell at him, it is to be open and to speak to him in a way that what he's saying is normalized. That of course you did. I can understand that. And we had set up for him to get a polygraph, and my polygrapher kept kept nosing in on my interview, and I was like, dude, stop. Like you're gonna scare him away. I'm getting him, I'm slowly getting him open up, and my polygrapher was there just hitting facts, and so eventually he said, I don't want to talk anymore. They uh drive him back to the FBI office, and the polygrapher takes him while I finish up with the search with the search team. In the meantime, the polygrapher got him to sit for the polygraph. I don't know how he did it, and the guy made confessions beyond what the kid had admitted to. And part of all of this, what came out was traumatizing, I think, more to the parents, because they learned that on one occasion the man had traveled, was about an hour and a half drive, and had met the young boy while he stayed up late, was watching movies in the basement, and he had assaulted him in their house while they were sleeping. And that was difficult for them. I mean, what can you do? You gotta go to bed, it's and it's midnight, but just knowing that your home has been violated that way was very difficult for them. And then, much like we were talking about, as the boy got separated from this mesmerizing world of a man who's taken him to the zoo and to parties, and they're having fun together, and yet he's fulfilling these terrible. Terrible lusts now as a kid is separating. Now he's getting angry. Now he's seeing how he was used and how it's wholly inappropriate. And it but it took that that separation and others adding into his reflection for him to see, yeah, 27-year-old shouldn't be with a 13-year-old. That's not right.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Oh, for sure. I think the separation is huge for any kind of trauma-related incident, because then that's really where it all comes together.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah. And if you have, and again, as we talk, when you try to convince someone who's still in that water that you're wet, they'll deny it. They don't understand it. Now, when they have a little bit of time and separation, now you can start speaking to them these truths. And without being in that midst, now they have an opportunity to take in what good people are saying.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Right. Which I'm sure is a complete mindfuck. I mean, to have one way of thinking, like, oh, this guy cares about me. You're so young, so impressionable. And then for the light switch to actually come on and be like, you're literally just like a pawn in his game, like complete mindfuck.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah. And when we would encounter these sexual offenders, the pedophiles, it was I've heard from so many people, even cops, to say, I don't even know how you deal with them. I just want to put a bullet in their head. And they'd be referred to as monsters. But in order for me to do my job well, I couldn't think of them as monsters. They've done monstrous acts, but I have to find something that connects me to them where we can associate. So as this man says, I loved him, I've got to be able to identify with that and without repulsion and say, Yeah, I can understand loving someone. I could, I can see how that is a connection for you. Because if I come in with this disdain and disgust, now they're going to be judged eventually by a jury, but that's not in their mind in the moment of arrest. What's in their mind is how you and I interact. And so if I say you're disgusting, they're being judged. If I say I understand that, now this is a conversation that feels safe. And even though they really know they shouldn't be telling me things, that's something that can draw them out into making an admission of just having a conversation and now things are coming out.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Well, right. It makes them feel more comfortable. Like I've seen a lot of like murder interrogations where they'll be like, I bet it was an accident. You didn't mean to do it. She was cheating and you were mad, and you probably just grabbed whatever was next to you. I get it. I get it. If my wife was cheating, I'd be mad. But you kind of gotta tell them, I get it, because then they'll be like, Well, yeah, yeah, that's what I did.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah, and and there's and so I've dealt with some of the pedophiles who you don't need to tell them they're disgusting, they already feel that way, they feel shame already. So, and then I've felt I've dealt with some like this man who are very intelligent too, and they know, and so you got to be careful of how hard you come in with, like, yeah, I get it. I I've seen little boys, and sometimes I'm aroused too. And they're like, No, you're not. Yeah, like you're playing a game here. So there you have to feel out the guy. Hopefully, you get to know them from how you've done your research and get a sense of what you can, what buttons you can press and how you can ease into this. This guy was very smart. I've dealt with other dude. I I had one offender who had kidnapped a 15-year-old girl, and he thought he was the most brilliant man who ever lived. And that guy was, I mean, it was it was a we saved the girl, got her out, but I mean, it was a a chess match with him to to finally break him, and that was admittedly kind of fun.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

You're like, check mate, bitch. Have many of the pedophiles and stuff that you've dealt with, have they told you they were victims themselves of this?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

No, we usually don't get into that, although that's an interesting tact to use to say, I understand were you harmed yourself, but you can almost guarantee that's the case. Those who offend have almost always been assaulted. Those who assault are assaulted aren't always later pedophiles, but they often get locked into that age where their first sexual experience happened when they're eight. So now they have a a desire for someone in that range.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

I never thought of it that way, but like the age, like, okay, so this is how old I was, so that's why I kind of like zero in on these ages.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah. I don't, it's not gonna be a thought process. It is just gonna be, I mean, why do you like tall men? I don't know. I just do. Is it because they make you feel safer? Not necessarily. I just like how that looks. I like, you know, women with blonde hair. You know, there's there's things that just attract and it's there. And for them, it can often be because that's when their that's when their sexual awakening in some ways was. And so it stunts them from growing out of that.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

I just feel like if people would be more honest and open with themselves and then seek the help they have, we could totally change like this freaking world around. Like people need to deal with their trauma.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah. And then this there's some who deny it, are ashamed of it, don't have the access to help, and now they're bound to do this. I had we had one teenage prostitute that we were trying to find. And in order to get to her, we set up a sting on an adult prostitute who is assisting her in prostituting, which is literally sex trafficking. Our intention was not to charge her, though, it was to, hey, come, you got to help us, or you're gonna get charged. So we set up the sting, and she was maybe 22 and maybe 100 pounds. And we set up the sting, make the arrest, and I've got her in handcuffs, and now I'm trying to win her over. I asked her, I was like, hey, you hungry? Because I am, let's go get a sub. And so while we're sitting there on the bumper of my Tahoe, and I've taken the cuffs off and we're talking, she says to me, My father has molested me since I was two. Do you think that's why I do what I do? And so she had some awareness of it, but it's that indicator that you had mentioned first of she's already broken. So what's the point of trying to fix it? Just embrace it and use your body for money.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

It's the easier way. Having to face your demons in your past, it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yeah. And but for a young woman like her, where is she gonna get that? Does she even know? I mean for me, it's so much like okay, this person is overweight. Don't they understand how food works? No, they they may not. Here's a woman who was broken since a young age, probably had no opportunities to learn other than just getting through high school if she did. And so she may not even be aware. It to you and I, it seems obvious. And for her, she can get as far as trying to ask somebody who might know. Hey, you you're in this, you you've been around prostitutes. She was actually asking me, Do you think that's why I prostitute? She doesn't know, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:19

But it sounds like she was starting to get kind of hindsight, like, oh shit, maybe this is why. I mean, look at Maxwell. Was she everything she

Victims Become Recruiters

SPEAKER_02 30:28

was doing with Epstein? But at first, she was a victim herself, and then turned into his counterpart.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, and took advantage of all that goes on there. We'd see that too with in the prostitution rings, the the pimp would have a more seasoned sex worker with him, and now she was the bottom bitch. She was the one who would now mentor and teach the new workers coming in how you're supposed to work. And it's a horrible practice. Like you you went, why are you not telling this woman to run? Going back to she's in that water, she doesn't understand. She's been abused, she's being abusive.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

I always wondered that you know what happened to you, and you're probably fucked up from it. So why are you now doing it to other people to screw them up? It's just it blows my mind. Blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Right. And then we would get what is a great advantage to us. We would have 40-year-old woman who had been a prostitute, somehow got her shit together and figured life better. And now she's got a foundation and she's got a little money coming in to help. And she's got four or five beds, and she has groups where they people can meet and come in and talk about their problems. And that's now someone we can hand these girls off to to say, look, maybe you don't trust me because I'm a cop. I'm trying to take away your welfare and your earnings. Maybe you'll listen to somebody who's been there and instead of harming them, now it's somebody can help.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Oh, yeah, definitely. There's another side of it. And I think that's starting to happen more and more. I've had quite a few people on my show that were trafficked,

How Trafficking Really Works

SPEAKER_02 32:18

and now their mission is to help women get out of it and help recover these teens and these kids. And they said it's not what people think. And you had mentioned something earlier about they get shot and then they're thrown in a van. It's kind of how a lot of society thinks it works. No, and it's not.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Liam Liam Neeson's daughter is not pulled out from under a bed. It is if you were to say, like if you were, if you got into this, how would it happen? And you would say, Oh, broken home, abuse, needing to pay rent or eat food. What do I have? No skills. I have this. And that is almost always the way that it goes. It can be that the pimps see girls they can target and groom, but they're groomable largely because they're already broken and they know how to manipulate that. So not it's not that certain women are immune to this, it is that certain women are much more susceptible.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Right. The scary thing is most of the time it's somebody you know that is getting you into it. I had one girl, it was her babysitter. Like parents had no idea when they would go to work, the babysitter was pimping her out. It's just crazy. It's a lot of times it's someone you know, sometimes it's your own parent. And that's like, how do you find help for that at that point? Because they're the people who are supposed to keep you safe.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Yeah. That's a principle that I think the public misunderstands, just in terminology. So when you talk about trafficking, you think, oh, I'm taking you and I'm yeah, I mean, you think of traffic, but you could never leave your house and be trafficked. It could be a spouse, it could be a parent, significant other. It could be that someone near you is manipulating you and coercing you to now engage in sex work in your house. So it doesn't have to be I am taking you forcibly somewhere else. It's just the influence.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

They're introducing you to all this stuff that you normally would not have been introduced to. Yeah. It's just so sad. If any survivors are listening right now, what is something that you would want them to know? What advice would you have for them?

SPEAKER_00 34:49

I love hearing you say that you've got survivors who's now their mission to help. So I would say, A, be selfish first and get yourself straight so that you're not going to burn out or harm your own psyche further. And once you feel or have somebody evaluate you to say, yeah, yeah, you got it together. Now you're strong, to add to this by bringing in that experience and help and be a mouthpiece that, like oddly enough, these victims are going to honor, they're going to respect. They're not going to listen to cops, they're not going to listen to chaplains, but they'll listen to somebody who says, Oh, yeah, yeah. I used to do that. I used to do worse. But here's how I found better. So yeah, there's much that they can add. And in the FBI, we worked best when we were coordinating with those entities, the governmental entities, the social workers, the at Guardian Ad L items, and such, and then had the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations that we could then pass these girls off to. Because I remember the first thing we did where we thought there was going to be an underage girl prostituting. We target her, call her in, get her, arrest the pimp, and then I go, oh hell, what do we do now? That part was easy. What what do we do with the girl? We can't we don't we don't want to put her in jail in juvie because we don't want to harm the victim. If we send her back to the foster home, she's just gonna run away. The pimp, she's gonna run to a different one. She probably knows another one who's ready to pick her up. And so sometimes we would have to put them in juvie because we they just have to be in a safe place. But if we had somewhere safe where they could go, now the process can start to get them out of it.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Right. Then you can have like your therapy sessions and try to fix what has already been branded in their brain. Yeah. Have you ever had to arrest a priest?

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah.

Interrogating a Pastor

SPEAKER_00 37:08

I uh I had a buddy who took over the task force after I left. I started working national security, and my friend Alex took over. And he had a case on a ring of pastors who were involved in sex trafficking. And he had asked me, probably because of my background as a pastor, hey, can you do the interrogation, the arrest and interrogation of this pastor? And so I did the background on him. He's got his sermons on YouTube where like his brow is sweating and he's dancing all over. And I tell people I swore I saw a pair of panties come out of the crowd, wiping his brow with them. And so we get in the house, we put him in handcuffs, and I'm sitting at a table with him. And I had this whenever you do a post-arrest interrogation, if you're any good, which I think I was, I tried at least do this, you're doing your studies. Like you're going over the case so that I can talk to you straight without saying, excuse me, let me look this up, so that I can show you I'm confident I know my stuff. So I'm studying this, I'm studying his background, his personality, interviews. But on this one, I've got a very literal come to Jesus speech where I've got I've got Bible verses about repentance, getting right with God. I've got it all together, and I'm gonna mix that in with the evidence. And so I start with talking about, hey, I was a pastor, and I'm giving him some verses and how he needs to be right. And the guy goes, Hey man, I'll talk, but I don't want to bring Jesus into this. And that was a fascinating look into how he lived his life because this is the man who preaches on Sundays, man of God, this is the man who has sex with a 15-year-old. And he's not bringing Jesus into this because he wasn't. And so I, you know, now I had to switch gears, and now I'm just going on the evidence alone and walking him through hey, when did you first meet this girl? When did you how did you engage with a victim? And every time I ask him a question, he would go. And it would be like 10-15 seconds, and that's really awkward. So silence is awkward. And one thing I had learned is as the interviewer, I want to fill that silence. So I I would say, How did you meet the first meet the victim? And he'd do that pause. And I want to say, Was it at church? Did you get introduced here? I want to give him answers. I want to I don't feel comfortable, and so I want to pull out of that discomfort. But as I was an agent, I realized, oh my gosh, if that's uncomfortable for me, that's gotta be hell for him. I'm gonna let him sit in that. And so I'd ask him the questions, and he would like he's just trying to think. And humans don't like to lie unless you're a sociopath and you don't care. And so he's trying to think, how do I tell something of the truth so I feel okay with it? Because the mind wants to do that, but not tell them, you know, not make a full confession. And it was a long interrogation. And we got through, we finally got to a point. While we were interrogating him, we had another team at the church in his office cutting up his carpet because he had left evidence the carpet. So he got charged, his wife got charged because she learned of this and had confronted him, but did not report it. And she worked for a children's board for the city, and so she was a mandatory reporter. So as we went to trial, his confession, as much as he did, was definitely damning. He was offered, I think it was a 12-year plea deal, and he said, I'll take my chances, and that was a mistake because he got life in prison.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Good. That's where it belongs. Yeah, good. What did she get?

SPEAKER_00 41:33

I think she got three years. It might have been less than that. So I mean, heinous cover-up, but also she wasn't the one carrying it out. And I had one other case where we had a mandatory reporter. It it was a financial case, but one of the uh people involved was a pastor. And while we had indicted him and he was awaiting trial, during that time, he a woman in his church came to him and said, My son assaulted his sister. And so he and two other grown-up men, adult men, tortured the boy and then took him out into the desert and told him to dig his own grave to spare him straight. Excuse me. And uh, there was a uh corrections officer in his church, and she did not report it either.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

I could not imagine being taken out into a field and being told to dig your own grave.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

I I think he was like 14. You think of how traumatizing that is, but also as just a boy, and uh he got like two years for that, which is so light. So this pastor, what was interesting in the financial aspect, he was pretending to trade in these fake foreign bonds that he claimed to own, and money was moving through this foundation that he had created, which was called the Ananias World Fund. And this is where my pastor's super skills came in. Because I know the most well-known Ananias in the Bible comes from Acts chapter five. You know this, but I'm gonna tell this for your audience. I'm I know you're familiar with this.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

So in Acts chapter five, young church and people are bringing their money to the church to collect so they can give to people in need. And Ananias and his wife Sapphira come to Peter, and Peter goes, Hey, they said, Hey, we sold our land and his here's some money. And he goes, Is this is this all of it? And they go, Yep. But it wasn't. And so God struck them dead for lying about money. And the pastor created a foundation based on that story of a man who lied about money. Which was two on the nose.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Right. Wow. People are ballsy.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

I I don't think he expected a former pastor FBI agent to catch him.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Oh, I'm sure he did it. A lot of times these pastors are just moved to another church. Everything is swept under the rug by the elders and it's on to the next one. Yeah. Eventually, we've gotta hold these people accountable. It's the only way to stop all of this.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yeah, no, I agree. I did what I could.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Roll right. Do more.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

I'm out. I'm out. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Yeah. Is there anything you miss about the job?

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Oh, all the time. I miss the people. I miss so I miss the action. I miss the importance of being an FBI agent because you're that guy. But I also don't miss it because I was on the SWAT team for 15 years, and that was amazing. The best people I met are in the FBI. The best people in the FBI were my SWAT teammates. And yet I'd be getting up at one in the morning to drive across the state for a hit, trying to stay awake, just sick the rest of the day because of how early I get up. And I miss doing those hits. But also, it's okay that I'm not. So the alarm on my bureau phone that indicated we're having a SWAT call out was this clanging sound. And I'm two weeks into retirement and I'm just sitting in bed, relaxing, watching TV. And there's this damn Tide commercial, I think it is, that has that same clang. And I shot up and I'm fumbling at the nightstand. And then I, oh, I don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

It was like a trigger.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Oh man, you know, and I had Eric Church's creeping as my ringtone for my bureau phone for like 15 years. You know, the open oh, the opening to it. And I'm in the grocery store and that's playing, and I'm like reaching. I always had my phone in my left back pocket, I'm reaching for it. Like, huh, I don't do that anymore. I don't have to worry about who's calling me on a Saturday to tell me I gotta come in and do something. So right I I miss such great people though.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Oh, I'm sure. I mean, uh, it's supposed to be the best of the best, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yes, that there's some duds. After we get off air, I'll name them for you. But but otherwise, just dedicated people, very competent, skilled. We're going in regularly, knowing we might be opposed violently by these criminals,

Flow Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 46:45

and yet here's men and women supporting each other, watching our exposed sides, and doing it with just a very high level of professionalism, too. So there's something that's uh where you're hitting your flow, as Mihai Chick Sent Mihai says, like when you're doing what you do well with a bit of strain to it, and you're succeeding, that's flow. And uh, you know, you're hitting that flow where like I'm very good at this, we're under pressure, and yet I'm succeeding, and you get that glow about man, this feels good to do what I do and to do it well.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Sounds like you thrive under pressure.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

I I feel like I did, and the Bureau trained me for it. So, especially on the SWAT team, when we're regularly going through these practices, we're carrying out missions in in real time, and I'm seeing the guys next to me. I feel capable. The guys next to me are at least as capable, and as we go through, then any stress or fear just goes away. And I can focus on the task and just think, what's my assignment? And do I have the tools necessary to carry it out? And then it's just smooth.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Laser focus.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Laser focus.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

I love that. Was there anything else that you wanted to add? I love this.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Well, if folks are interested in some of these stories and many others, I have

Book Plug and Farewell

SPEAKER_00 48:14

written a book to be published in the fall. So I went from about a dozen years in Christian ministry. I left the pulpit of the Baptist church. My last sermon was Easter 2002. The next Sunday I was in Quantico, Virginia to go to the FBI Academy. The Sunday after that, I preached in the chapel in the FBI Academy because they didn't have a chaplain and they needed somebody to fill in. So I got eased into it that way. But I've written the story of what it's like to have a Baptist pastor spend 24 years in the FBI, a guy who's never handled a gun, but becomes a firearms instructor and SWAT operator. And I tell many of these stories of some remarkable ones, some fun ones, and the things that just any agent gets to do ends up being often a fantastic story if told well. And so I tell many of those stories of the young girls we encountered, the pimps we arrested, terrorists I interrogated, mass shooters we stopped, worked a couple cases that won the attorney general's award. So they were big deal cases. And all through that, I was just a passer coming out of Western New York. And so the book's called Irreverend from Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Love that. And you said it's not out yet.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Not out yet. Right now, the FBI is still looking at it. They've taken too long, but they're still reviewing it to make sure I'm not sharing state secrets. And then when it comes out, actually, my wife's company, Weaving Influence, will be publishing it. I will be their third book that they publish. They've been marketing authors for 14 years. And then recently they go, Well, why are we pushing people off to hybrid publishers? We can do this. So everything together, doing the typeset, the print, and the cover. And I will show you what the cover looks like. Here we go. This is what the cover will look like.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Ooh, I like it.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Well, you get professional photographers, they can make you look good.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Make you look pretty.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Caught my good side.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

There you go. So do you have a website people can bookmark or I I do.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Tiffany, are you ready for this? Hold on. It's preacher to breacher.com.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

I love it. I love it. All right. I'm gonna add that in the show notes so anyone can bookmark it. They can keep an eye out for your book. And when your book comes out, make sure you give me the link and I will add that to the episode even later on, and I'll help you help you promote it.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Absolutely. And if you want to, I've got more stories of pimps and such. And not so much the survivors and the victims, but some of the pimp stories are kind of fun too.

SPEAKER_02 51:15

Yeah. I mean, maybe we can do this again.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

All right, it was such a pleasure. I really enjoyed talking to you. And I hope somebody out there was able to take something out of this.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Hopefully so. And I appreciate you promoting the theme that you do and have people on who've been through this that can speak up. Maybe I'm a little bit of a palate cleanser from some of the tough stories, but those are the very important ones. Mine's just fun.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

You did important work.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

So I did do important work, but the things that some of the victims that you have on, those are really the things that I hope people can learn and grow from.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Absolutely. That's that's why I do what I do. Try and change the world one episode at a time.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

All right, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Thank you.