This week on Crime Roundup, Sheryl McCollum and Joshua Schiffer connect the dots between courtroom outcomes and the quiet ways the system keeps punishing people anyway. From post-verdict property battles to pretrial detention games and overlooked red-flags, they expose the slow grind of justice—and the real lives caught in its gears.
Highlights:
- (0:00) Sheryl checks in from the field—and the Georgia heat
- (1:35) Why hasn’t Karen Read gotten her SUV back?
- (4:50) Joshua explains bond procedures—and what’s broken
- (6:00) Diddy’s $50 million bond request: bold move or fair ask?
- (10:00) Overcharging and government missteps in Diddy’s case
- (13:30) Brian Kohberger’s seatbelt stop and what it might suggest
- (17:00) Planning, pride, and mistakes
- (21:15) What life inside prison looks like—and what Kohberger isn’t ready for
- (23:00) Cell doors, holding tanks, and the moment your body knows it’s locked in
- (24:20) Epstein resurfaces, verdict watch in an honor killing, and a birthday send-off
About the Hosts:
Joshua Schiffer is a veteran trial attorney and one of the Southeast’s most respected legal voices. He is a founding partner at ChancoSchiffer P.C., where he has litigated high-stakes criminal, civil rights, and personal injury cases for over two decades. Known for his bold courtroom presence and ability to clearly explain complex legal issues, Schiffer is a frequent media contributor and fearless advocate for accountability.
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnline, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nany Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department, She is the co-author of the textbook, Cold Case: Pathways to Justice and the founder of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a national nonprofit that unites universities, law enforcement, and students to work on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases.
🎧 Want more from Sheryl?
Catch her every Wednesday on Zone 7, where she doesn’t just talk cold cases—she works them. Sheryl brings firsthand insight from active investigations, joined by fellow forensic pros and criminal justice insiders who are in the trenches with her. Then on Mondays, tune in to Pathology with Dr. Pryia, where the physical evidence takes center stage—because every body tells a story.
📢 If you enjoyed this episode, follow Crime Roundup on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review to help others find the show. Have a case you’d like Sheryl and Joshua to cover? Email coldcase2004@gmail.com, or connect with the hosts on social media:
- Sheryl on X: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
- Joshua on X & Instagram: @lawyerschiff
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to Crime Round Up, y'all. I'm Cheryl mccollumn. Y'all.
I might sound a little different today because I am
out in the field where Josh of course is with
the speed up, having a nice cool drink in the
air conditioning. I'm out here just you know, working like
a dog in this Georgia heat while he's stipping on lemonade.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I am just fantastic. I'm gonna touch hot. Let's just
let's just rip that band aid off. It's a little
spicy for people that have my specific physical existence. This
is uh this warm.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm nicely air conditioned, so it is.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
It is something. It is something. I have a I
have a friend, she's got a buddy in Rhode Island,
and she called her and said, hey, how hot is
it down there? And my friend said, well, have you
ever been cremated?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's like a brick wall walking outside. And here's people
that don't know about the South. Every afternoon it gets
so hot that it squeezes a twenty or thirty minute
thundershower that just pops up and disappears.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
It's practically like clockwork.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
But then everything's damp and hot and moist and that's
your afternoon, every day.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Every day.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
It'll end soon, I promise.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yes, yes, listen, I got to talk to you about something.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, we've had quite a week here with some headlines
in the true crime universe.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Let's round this.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Up quite a week. But I've got a pet peeve.
I am one of those folks that if you are
found not guilty, you should walk out rite that minute,
free as a bird. You know how. Sometimes they'll say, oh,
you've got to go back through and get processed out
of the jail and all that. Oh I can't stand it,
(02:02):
but I gotta ask you, why has Karen Reid not
gotten her car back?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
We deal with this return of property issue somewhat reglar.
And remember, in most cases the property that gets taken
from people is contraband or other kind of deminimous things.
You've got maybe a beat up old cell phone or
something that you want back, and of course you get
(02:29):
it back, especially if there's been an acquittal. But remember
there's also the possibility of some crazy appeal happening some
out of time. Regardless, the state can make some sort
of request that hey, we're going to keep this, and
there could be forfeitures happening now. Why they create a
battle with this, I don't know. I would think that
(02:51):
the DA's office would want to get so far away
from Karen Reid and bury this embarrassing spectacle as quickly
as possible. I don't see them having a legitimate use
to retain something as large and expensive and difficult to
store as an suv. Now the phones and stuff like that,
(03:11):
maybe I can see a little bit more, but they
have dumps of all that give Karen back her stuff.
Needless to say, this isn't the first time I've ever
had this issue, not just in a case we're covering,
but in a case we have here in my office.
I've been fighting over a cell phone that was involved
(03:31):
in a case that was admittedly a sex related case
but got dismissed three years ago. And I believe that
the prosecutors kind of sour about it, and they're very
much ignoring me. And it's one of the things that
the client cares about but really doesn't care about. And
it's just frustrating and dumb to see easy requests get ignored,
(03:54):
Like so much of this world would be easier if
it just worked the way it was set up to
my example of that today is I'm supposed to be
turning a lady in. We know about the warrant. We
spoke to the detective. We told them to yeah, we'll
go turn them in. We've got a copy of the warrant.
But detectives can't set bonds. And the jail that this
(04:17):
woman's gonna go to is notorious, it is dangerous, it
is under federal monitoring.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It is the Fulton County Rice Street Jail.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
It's one of the worst places in America you can
get locked up in, and it's slow and inefficient. So
Josh says, hey, I'll just get the bond arranged in advance.
This is a never arrested before, middle aged, white collar case.
This should be easy, And in most jurisdictions it is.
You call prosecutors, you get through, you have a conversation,
(04:48):
you give them your clients info, they confirm it, You
figure out a bond, them out, You get the bond
set up, and then you do what's the slow walk
into the jail. Hey, here's my client, Please book them
take the finger prince, here's the bond, let's get him out.
Should be easy. Oh my lord, these organizations are so underfunded.
And I'll just be kind not well organized, and it
(05:13):
is just impossible at times to get the easiest stuff done.
And I'm a lawyer, I'm getting paid. I do this professionally.
If it's this dang hard, how is somebody who's not
shelling out big bucks for a lawyer supposed to facilitate
with what should be a fairly straightforward process.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I agree with you, and I was. I was shocked
for the same reason. I thought, they don't want anything
to do with her ever. Again, here's all your stuff,
get that car out of here.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Again.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, but you know, it seems like Karen Reid is
never going away, and it seems like Sean Combs is
never going away because Diddy has a new request. What
in the world is that about?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So he just to catch people up? Not that you
could have missed this one.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
So did?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
He gets locked up, huge search. They put him through
the federal ringer, which I don't care how much you
love or dislike someone, a federal prosecution just ain't fair.
There is nothing as intimidating in one sided as the
entirety of the federal government the United States, trying to
prosecute you and miraculously and due to some just let's
(06:24):
just say it, some self own errors by the federal government.
Did he was able to escape the most serious charges,
and he did get convicted of transporting women or sex
people across state lines for the purposes of sex or
imperial issues. But that's really not that kind of I
don't want to say serious, but it's not a crime
(06:47):
that very often requires a lot of prison time, especially
depending on the circumstances in the lack of a prior record.
So did he asked immediately upon winning most of his trial, Hey,
let me out, judge. I'll come back for sentencing. I
ain't going anywhere. I'm one of the most recognized celebrities
in the world, especially after getting NonStop twenty four hour
(07:11):
Walldwell news coverage for eight weeks of trial, six weeks
a trial judge declined. Judge said, nope, you've done this
time already. Let's wrap this up. And we all thought
that that was going to give the judge time to
get him sentenced, and we were expecting a relatively modest
sentence and still are considering how much mister Colmes was
(07:34):
put through in this process. And what recently happened is
he wrote the judge and said, hey, Judge, I'll put
up fifty million bucks and we've got to court date.
It's like a month away, so please let me out
of one of the worst pre trial holding facilities in
the nation. That it's one where people die. It's when
(07:55):
we've heard it is a disaster. Let's let him out.
And he's coming back. He ain't disappearing. And for whatever reason,
the judge gave this, the Feds a very short time
to respond, and I think the letter response is due tomorrow.
So Diddy's got his fingers crossed that the judge sees
(08:17):
some kindness, sees some grace and levity and says, all right,
mister Combs comes back for his sentencing. As my grandmother
would say, that's folding money. He ain't walking away from
fifty million, not when he has a recognizable face, not
when he has an entourage fifty hundred, two hundred people
deep that depend on him every day. Not when he
(08:39):
has all these kids and his mama and everybody else
that showed up and gave up lots of love for
Ditty during a unbelievably traumatic and wacky federal trial. You
know that the tabloid media is gonna have dogs on
him the moment he walks out of jail.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
He won't eat.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
He's probably the most watched man out there, So I
don't see the utility in keeping him despite the fact
that he committed some crimes and there was lots of
testimony about other stuff that would have been criminal had
it been prosecuted properly. And that's again what we're really seeing.
(09:20):
And now that sometimes elapsed and we've kind of calmed down,
we watched miss Maureen Comy get absolutely can by the
government and what for all intensive purposes is one hundred
percent political action, which I'm you know, leaves us our
taste in my mouth. How do we retain our best
prosecutors if they are going to be subject to political
(09:43):
whims in the way that apparently miss Komy has been.
But she was the lead prosecutor and is off the case.
I just want to see the system work efficiently when
it's something so high profile, and we'll be done. I
don't think he gets any real time. I think that
(10:06):
the judge is going to look at the fact that
he will have done about a year and he certainly
had a lot of negative externalities attached to him.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You know, we asked for bond over and over and
over and was denied, and now it looks like they're
still not trying to let him out. I almost felt
the opposite might be true, that this judge was already
sending a message of how serious he thought this was, you.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Know, And that's always out there. There are certainly judges
that take the failures of prosecutors to prove cases into
account when it comes to sentencing and sentencing. Even though
it's in the federal system, so there's guidelines, there's this
math equation that is on another level of complexity. The
(11:00):
judges still have enormous discretion, and this judge has the
right and ability, as an Article three judge who can
never basically be fired from the job got job for life,
to say, hey, I know that you only got popped
on these two and that the guidelines and the recommendations
and the mitigation suggests a sentence of X, Y and Z,
(11:21):
but having been exposed to the other behavior that was
associated with the charges you were convicted of, I want
to depart an upward manner, and there's a mechanism for
the judge to go well beyond what the Feds are
asking for even and he can sentence extensively.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
How that looks. I've spoken with judges and experienced this myself.
When you're in charge of someone getting out of jail
or being incarcerated prior to the system doing its job,
prior to a jury hearing the facts from the state,
and the state being given opportunity to do their job,
(12:03):
that's a heavy request. And you know it's easy when
you got a dead person or a shot person, or
you know, giant pile of bads to this, that and
the other. You say, no, there's a lot of likelihood
you're getting convicted on this. I've measured you on the
IALA and other bond factors. You're going to run, You're
going to intimidate people, You're going to commit additional crimes,
(12:26):
you don't have ties to the community. These are the
things that judges think about when deciding whether to set
bond or not. But when the jury comes back, it says, no,
don't hold him on those allegations. Don't hold him on
those accusations. Don't hold them on that now libelous statement
from the government that this person violated the law. Because
(12:46):
a jury came back and decided that they didn't. I
think that the court should and does take into account
over prosecutions when it comes to say in determination. And
that's a pretty clear example where the government swung hard.
(13:06):
They wanted life, and they failed and they dropped it.
And if I'm a judge, I'm gonna go hold on.
You told me how much you were going to win
this case, how he was dead to rights. You told
me all the awfulness that was gonna happen if he
got one second a free Jerry didn't buy it. So
how do I feel about keeping him locked up when
(13:28):
when he wasn't guilty of the bad stuff you accused
him of.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You know, it's just this whole week, it seems like
Karen Reid's never going away. Sean Combs is never going away,
And honey, now we have coburger. They have released yet
another video when he was stopped in the middle of
the night.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Like two years ago something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, but you know what when they first talked about
that ticket that he got for no seat belt, the
location and the time of day, I didn't have the video,
but here's what I said. I myself, sometimes if I'm
running like several errands, I'm just gonna pop it here
real quick. Then I've got to go, you know, to CBS.
(14:14):
Now I've got to go to launch a mat. Then
I got another liquor store or whatever it is. I
won't re engage that seat belt because it's two seconds
and I'm out again. It made me think he was
in out of that car stalking. He was getting his
you know, visual of how he could see into the home,
how he might could get a better field division from
(14:36):
another parking spot. That's what I literally thought, and that's
what I said on Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, and you make the absolutely incredible point that connects
with people because that's what I think most people are like,
and they go, hold on, we're religious in modern society
with putting on the seatbelt like it has been ingrained
in us. If it's not, I don't know where you've been.
But at the same time, like you're saying, everybody kind
of jumps in and jumps out if you're getting in
(15:03):
and out of the car and running a quick err
and this that and the other, and what it really does,
especially after hearing not necessarily from him, but the admission
and acceptance of guilt for these crimes, we now get
to say, all right, let's change the judgment, our own
personal judgment on the Brian Coburgers of the world, because
(15:25):
guess what, he's guilty. He no longer gets my theoretical
presumption of innocence. He admitted to committing some of the worst,
most violent, reprehensible, horrific crimes that are out there, and
he stole these children from their families and their communities
and does not deserve grace and lenity and consideration from society.
(15:48):
And I can say, now, dude's creep. Something was wrong.
Why didn't we figure this out a little bit earlier?
Was this guy really just existing in this this isolated universe?
Where come on, you can't tell me other people weren't like, Nope,
he's a little bit of a weird guy. Because we've
(16:09):
heard it, we've seen it, we've had other people due
to this investigation, and should something have been done? Man?
I wish something had But then I turn around at
the other side, and considering all the crazed phone calls,
I get how sensitive are we gonna be as a community,
as a nation with people and places and situations that
(16:31):
are a little bit out of place that send up
that red flag. Are we gonna wander through life going
all right? I have to be constantly vigilant and afraid
and on top, or are we gonna go guess what
creation has? These abnormalities, these horrific and I'm not gonna
(16:52):
call them a mistake, but these deviant existences. We've got
three hundred million people formed a million people in this country.
A couple of them are gonna be busted, and this
guy was busted. I suspect he has a strong connection
(17:13):
to one of the victims.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
I expect that he.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Has an active fantasy, pretend solo interior dialogue and life
that is way out of bounds when it comes to normalcy.
Because this is six stuff. This is the This is
right out of a horror novel of sneaking around and
(17:39):
killing college co eds with k bar knife and in
a way that is inherently not just vile, vicious cruel.
The broken teeth, the number of wounds. This was not
I'm sliding in like a ninja and doing an assessed No,
this was a flagrantly violent and loud encounter.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And you know to your point, because a lot of
people have asked me, do I think he's killed before
and my answer from day one has been no, because
he was so bad at it, meaning he used his
own car, he was called on tape, he got a
(18:25):
ticket that put him in that vicinity at an odd
time of day, alone with no seatbelt. He turned his
phone off, which only made him look more guilty. When
his phone wasn't on airplane mode, it hit he had
no alibi. I mean, it goes on and on much less,
leaving the sheath behind. I mean, these are mistakes you
(18:45):
and I work with a clientaile with a population, and
I've told people this and they always laugh, but it's
the truth. I dealt with an eight year old drug
dealer that knew not to use his own bike.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Oh smart, Oh my goodness, they're smart. Their mind to
care and cancer we'd have at you, guys would not
imagine the brilliance and American ethic of hard work and
hustle that.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
We see every day. Hustle, And it's why.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I feel so engendered with especially when they're coming out
of these situations with no opportunity, and I go, hey,
don't crack on that kid for selling dope. It's the
best way he's got to support his family. It's the
only thing he knows. And man, some of those guys
run a business that would put Walmart to shame how
efficient they are. It's the hubris that came into that
(19:41):
incompetency because he knew the tools that were gonna be
used to investigate him, and he just chose to not
care or to think that they weren't gonna apply to him,
or that he was too smart to get away. Because
it's like you're saying, if you're a suspect, they're gonna
run your phone. Your phone generates more information. I don't
care if he's a VPN, and like it's the absence
(20:04):
of information, like you're saying, CHERL becomes information. Your phone
was off during this one very specific time. Man.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
That tends to show you were involved and had knowledge
about it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Just does.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And it shows that Brian Coberger was either that incompetent
or that cocky and that it had such a superiority
complex that he was going to be able to commit
a huge scene, multi party murder with a knife and
(20:38):
be able to get away. Because I don't think for
a second this was a crime of opportunity or a
crime of patn No, this and this was thought about
this was a penultimate event that he had deep attachment to,
and just showing and seeing his incompetence does make me
(20:59):
get a little bit because he's going to be hanging
out with some people way better at being criminals.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Than he is. He's not ready, he's not ready for
what's coming. He's not ready for who's going to holler
at him from sale to sale, who's going to bump
into him, who's going to threaten him, who's going to
control his very existence? And again, it ain't the warden
(21:25):
h it is.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
And I know people are like, oh, it's too kind
for him to y'all go to a nice prison for
a minute, and it gives you the he be GBI's
and the first time you've ever had your movement restricted,
that's bad.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You know, Josh. I have given this example to people
that say that you selected your car, you bought it,
you wanted that specific vehicle. But if you have ever
broken down and had to sit in that car sick,
are you of that car pretty quick?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Dah? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And that is nothing compared to where he's sitting.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Literally, it go to a cell for twenty minutes. So
when you're a baby lawyer, you go practice law, and
sometimes it's in some uncomfortable spots. In Fulton County, every
baby lawyer that went through there set in those holding
cells on the first floor that are the big group
holding cells, and you're surrounded by inmates all talking, or
(22:31):
you're in the hallway there's yelling, screaming, clanking, and you're
sitting there trying to go do work, trying to represent somebody.
But you get put in that holding cell so that
you can get some quiet, and you are in your
twenties and you're a baby, excited lawyer out there practicing law,
and you get put into a cinder block room with
(22:53):
a metal door with a little glass reinforced wired windows
so they can see if you're dead or not. And
then they put a person in there and ask you, hey,
do you want them cuffed? And you know this is
your client, so you're trying to be gets so uncufforable
the moment that door closes, because it's not a light door.
(23:14):
We're not talking about something that just clicked. No, these
doors weigh three four, five, six hundred pounds when it closes,
when that big metal latch locks, that click that anybody
that has been in prison or jail knows. It shoots
a bolt of lightning straight to your core and you
(23:37):
know you're getting out.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
This is your job.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
You need to go home and cook dinner that night.
But that moment the door closes and you feel how
permanent it is. You can't bust out and you're in
there in that room with somebody knowing you're going to
get out. That's terrifying imagining that that door shuts and
I'm gonna stay there for ever.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Oh it's horrifu. It is absolutely horrifu.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Well, honey, how do we do that?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
That com gee?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, there's so much we can talk and talk
and talking to touch.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Epstein because that's blowing up yet again. Epstein's coming back
up into the university. We've got that honor killing that's
still on Verdict watch right. Uh, there is so much
going on we can talk about this orever.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
What does Nathan Grace say, job security? Honey?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Oh lord, yes, it's it is something.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Well, you need to go finish celebrating your birthday because
you need to celebrate all month. That's how it's done. Yeah,
a little bit happy happy birthday, and I love you
and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Absolutely love you too, Love you audience, thank you so
much for listening and we will see you next week
on the Crime Round It
Speaker 1 (25:09):
MHM
Welcome to Crime Round Up, y'all. I'm Cheryl mccollumn. Y'all.
I might sound a little different today because I am
out in the field where Josh of course is with
the speed up, having a nice cool drink in the
air conditioning. I'm out here just you know, working like
a dog in this Georgia heat while he's stipping on lemonade.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I am just fantastic. I'm gonna touch hot. Let's just
let's just rip that band aid off. It's a little
spicy for people that have my specific physical existence. This
is uh this warm.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm nicely air conditioned, so it is.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
It is something. It is something. I have a I
have a friend, she's got a buddy in Rhode Island,
and she called her and said, hey, how hot is
it down there? And my friend said, well, have you
ever been cremated?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's like a brick wall walking outside. And here's people
that don't know about the South. Every afternoon it gets
so hot that it squeezes a twenty or thirty minute
thundershower that just pops up and disappears.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
It's practically like clockwork.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
But then everything's damp and hot and moist and that's
your afternoon, every day.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Every day.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
It'll end soon, I promise.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yes, yes, listen, I got to talk to you about something.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, we've had quite a week here with some headlines
in the true crime universe.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Let's round this.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Up quite a week. But I've got a pet peeve.
I am one of those folks that if you are
found not guilty, you should walk out rite that minute,
free as a bird. You know how. Sometimes they'll say, oh,
you've got to go back through and get processed out
of the jail and all that. Oh I can't stand it,
(02:02):
but I gotta ask you, why has Karen Reid not
gotten her car back?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
We deal with this return of property issue somewhat reglar.
And remember, in most cases the property that gets taken
from people is contraband or other kind of deminimous things.
You've got maybe a beat up old cell phone or
something that you want back, and of course you get
(02:29):
it back, especially if there's been an acquittal. But remember
there's also the possibility of some crazy appeal happening some
out of time. Regardless, the state can make some sort
of request that hey, we're going to keep this, and
there could be forfeitures happening now. Why they create a
battle with this, I don't know. I would think that
(02:51):
the DA's office would want to get so far away
from Karen Reid and bury this embarrassing spectacle as quickly
as possible. I don't see them having a legitimate use
to retain something as large and expensive and difficult to
store as an suv. Now the phones and stuff like that,
(03:11):
maybe I can see a little bit more, but they
have dumps of all that give Karen back her stuff.
Needless to say, this isn't the first time I've ever
had this issue, not just in a case we're covering,
but in a case we have here in my office.
I've been fighting over a cell phone that was involved
(03:31):
in a case that was admittedly a sex related case
but got dismissed three years ago. And I believe that
the prosecutors kind of sour about it, and they're very
much ignoring me. And it's one of the things that
the client cares about but really doesn't care about. And
it's just frustrating and dumb to see easy requests get ignored,
(03:54):
Like so much of this world would be easier if
it just worked the way it was set up to
my example of that today is I'm supposed to be
turning a lady in. We know about the warrant. We
spoke to the detective. We told them to yeah, we'll
go turn them in. We've got a copy of the warrant.
But detectives can't set bonds. And the jail that this
(04:17):
woman's gonna go to is notorious, it is dangerous, it
is under federal monitoring.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It is the Fulton County Rice Street Jail.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
It's one of the worst places in America you can
get locked up in, and it's slow and inefficient. So
Josh says, hey, I'll just get the bond arranged in advance.
This is a never arrested before, middle aged, white collar case.
This should be easy, And in most jurisdictions it is.
You call prosecutors, you get through, you have a conversation,
(04:48):
you give them your clients info, they confirm it, You
figure out a bond, them out, You get the bond
set up, and then you do what's the slow walk
into the jail. Hey, here's my client, Please book them
take the finger prince, here's the bond, let's get him out.
Should be easy. Oh my lord, these organizations are so underfunded.
And I'll just be kind not well organized, and it
(05:13):
is just impossible at times to get the easiest stuff done.
And I'm a lawyer, I'm getting paid. I do this professionally.
If it's this dang hard, how is somebody who's not
shelling out big bucks for a lawyer supposed to facilitate
with what should be a fairly straightforward process.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I agree with you, and I was. I was shocked
for the same reason. I thought, they don't want anything
to do with her ever. Again, here's all your stuff,
get that car out of here.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Again.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, but you know, it seems like Karen Reid is
never going away, and it seems like Sean Combs is
never going away because Diddy has a new request. What
in the world is that about?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So he just to catch people up? Not that you
could have missed this one.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
So did?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
He gets locked up, huge search. They put him through
the federal ringer, which I don't care how much you
love or dislike someone, a federal prosecution just ain't fair.
There is nothing as intimidating in one sided as the
entirety of the federal government the United States, trying to
prosecute you and miraculously and due to some just let's
(06:24):
just say it, some self own errors by the federal government.
Did he was able to escape the most serious charges,
and he did get convicted of transporting women or sex
people across state lines for the purposes of sex or
imperial issues. But that's really not that kind of I
don't want to say serious, but it's not a crime
(06:47):
that very often requires a lot of prison time, especially
depending on the circumstances in the lack of a prior record.
So did he asked immediately upon winning most of his trial, Hey,
let me out, judge. I'll come back for sentencing. I
ain't going anywhere. I'm one of the most recognized celebrities
in the world, especially after getting NonStop twenty four hour
(07:11):
Walldwell news coverage for eight weeks of trial, six weeks
a trial judge declined. Judge said, nope, you've done this
time already. Let's wrap this up. And we all thought
that that was going to give the judge time to
get him sentenced, and we were expecting a relatively modest
sentence and still are considering how much mister Colmes was
(07:34):
put through in this process. And what recently happened is
he wrote the judge and said, hey, Judge, I'll put
up fifty million bucks and we've got to court date.
It's like a month away, so please let me out
of one of the worst pre trial holding facilities in
the nation. That it's one where people die. It's when
(07:55):
we've heard it is a disaster. Let's let him out.
And he's coming back. He ain't disappearing. And for whatever reason,
the judge gave this, the Feds a very short time
to respond, and I think the letter response is due tomorrow.
So Diddy's got his fingers crossed that the judge sees
(08:17):
some kindness, sees some grace and levity and says, all right,
mister Combs comes back for his sentencing. As my grandmother
would say, that's folding money. He ain't walking away from
fifty million, not when he has a recognizable face, not
when he has an entourage fifty hundred, two hundred people
deep that depend on him every day. Not when he
(08:39):
has all these kids and his mama and everybody else
that showed up and gave up lots of love for
Ditty during a unbelievably traumatic and wacky federal trial. You
know that the tabloid media is gonna have dogs on
him the moment he walks out of jail.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
He won't eat.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
He's probably the most watched man out there, So I
don't see the utility in keeping him despite the fact
that he committed some crimes and there was lots of
testimony about other stuff that would have been criminal had
it been prosecuted properly. And that's again what we're really seeing.
(09:20):
And now that sometimes elapsed and we've kind of calmed down,
we watched miss Maureen Comy get absolutely can by the
government and what for all intensive purposes is one hundred
percent political action, which I'm you know, leaves us our
taste in my mouth. How do we retain our best
prosecutors if they are going to be subject to political
(09:43):
whims in the way that apparently miss Komy has been.
But she was the lead prosecutor and is off the case.
I just want to see the system work efficiently when
it's something so high profile, and we'll be done. I
don't think he gets any real time. I think that
(10:06):
the judge is going to look at the fact that
he will have done about a year and he certainly
had a lot of negative externalities attached to him.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You know, we asked for bond over and over and
over and was denied, and now it looks like they're
still not trying to let him out. I almost felt
the opposite might be true, that this judge was already
sending a message of how serious he thought this was, you.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Know, And that's always out there. There are certainly judges
that take the failures of prosecutors to prove cases into
account when it comes to sentencing and sentencing. Even though
it's in the federal system, so there's guidelines, there's this
math equation that is on another level of complexity. The
(11:00):
judges still have enormous discretion, and this judge has the
right and ability, as an Article three judge who can
never basically be fired from the job got job for life,
to say, hey, I know that you only got popped
on these two and that the guidelines and the recommendations
and the mitigation suggests a sentence of X, Y and Z,
(11:21):
but having been exposed to the other behavior that was
associated with the charges you were convicted of, I want
to depart an upward manner, and there's a mechanism for
the judge to go well beyond what the Feds are
asking for even and he can sentence extensively.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
How that looks. I've spoken with judges and experienced this myself.
When you're in charge of someone getting out of jail
or being incarcerated prior to the system doing its job,
prior to a jury hearing the facts from the state,
and the state being given opportunity to do their job,
(12:03):
that's a heavy request. And you know it's easy when
you got a dead person or a shot person, or
you know, giant pile of bads to this, that and
the other. You say, no, there's a lot of likelihood
you're getting convicted on this. I've measured you on the
IALA and other bond factors. You're going to run, You're
going to intimidate people, You're going to commit additional crimes,
(12:26):
you don't have ties to the community. These are the
things that judges think about when deciding whether to set
bond or not. But when the jury comes back, it says, no,
don't hold him on those allegations. Don't hold him on
those accusations. Don't hold them on that now libelous statement
from the government that this person violated the law. Because
(12:46):
a jury came back and decided that they didn't. I
think that the court should and does take into account
over prosecutions when it comes to say in determination. And
that's a pretty clear example where the government swung hard.
(13:06):
They wanted life, and they failed and they dropped it.
And if I'm a judge, I'm gonna go hold on.
You told me how much you were going to win
this case, how he was dead to rights. You told
me all the awfulness that was gonna happen if he
got one second a free Jerry didn't buy it. So
how do I feel about keeping him locked up when
(13:28):
when he wasn't guilty of the bad stuff you accused
him of.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You know, it's just this whole week, it seems like
Karen Reid's never going away. Sean Combs is never going away,
And honey, now we have coburger. They have released yet
another video when he was stopped in the middle of
the night.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Like two years ago something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, but you know what when they first talked about
that ticket that he got for no seat belt, the
location and the time of day, I didn't have the video,
but here's what I said. I myself, sometimes if I'm
running like several errands, I'm just gonna pop it here
real quick. Then I've got to go, you know, to CBS.
(14:14):
Now I've got to go to launch a mat. Then
I got another liquor store or whatever it is. I
won't re engage that seat belt because it's two seconds
and I'm out again. It made me think he was
in out of that car stalking. He was getting his
you know, visual of how he could see into the home,
how he might could get a better field division from
(14:36):
another parking spot. That's what I literally thought, and that's
what I said on Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, and you make the absolutely incredible point that connects
with people because that's what I think most people are like,
and they go, hold on, we're religious in modern society
with putting on the seatbelt like it has been ingrained
in us. If it's not, I don't know where you've been.
But at the same time, like you're saying, everybody kind
of jumps in and jumps out if you're getting in
(15:03):
and out of the car and running a quick err
and this that and the other, and what it really does,
especially after hearing not necessarily from him, but the admission
and acceptance of guilt for these crimes, we now get
to say, all right, let's change the judgment, our own
personal judgment on the Brian Coburgers of the world, because
(15:25):
guess what, he's guilty. He no longer gets my theoretical
presumption of innocence. He admitted to committing some of the worst,
most violent, reprehensible, horrific crimes that are out there, and
he stole these children from their families and their communities
and does not deserve grace and lenity and consideration from society.
(15:48):
And I can say, now, dude's creep. Something was wrong.
Why didn't we figure this out a little bit earlier?
Was this guy really just existing in this this isolated universe?
Where come on, you can't tell me other people weren't like, Nope,
he's a little bit of a weird guy. Because we've
(16:09):
heard it, we've seen it, we've had other people due
to this investigation, and should something have been done? Man?
I wish something had But then I turn around at
the other side, and considering all the crazed phone calls,
I get how sensitive are we gonna be as a community,
as a nation with people and places and situations that
(16:31):
are a little bit out of place that send up
that red flag. Are we gonna wander through life going
all right? I have to be constantly vigilant and afraid
and on top, or are we gonna go guess what
creation has? These abnormalities, these horrific and I'm not gonna
(16:52):
call them a mistake, but these deviant existences. We've got
three hundred million people formed a million people in this country.
A couple of them are gonna be busted, and this
guy was busted. I suspect he has a strong connection
(17:13):
to one of the victims.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
I expect that he.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Has an active fantasy, pretend solo interior dialogue and life
that is way out of bounds when it comes to normalcy.
Because this is six stuff. This is the This is
right out of a horror novel of sneaking around and
(17:39):
killing college co eds with k bar knife and in
a way that is inherently not just vile, vicious cruel.
The broken teeth, the number of wounds. This was not
I'm sliding in like a ninja and doing an assessed No,
this was a flagrantly violent and loud encounter.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And you know to your point, because a lot of
people have asked me, do I think he's killed before
and my answer from day one has been no, because
he was so bad at it, meaning he used his
own car, he was called on tape, he got a
(18:25):
ticket that put him in that vicinity at an odd
time of day, alone with no seatbelt. He turned his
phone off, which only made him look more guilty. When
his phone wasn't on airplane mode, it hit he had
no alibi. I mean, it goes on and on much less,
leaving the sheath behind. I mean, these are mistakes you
(18:45):
and I work with a clientaile with a population, and
I've told people this and they always laugh, but it's
the truth. I dealt with an eight year old drug
dealer that knew not to use his own bike.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Oh smart, Oh my goodness, they're smart. Their mind to
care and cancer we'd have at you, guys would not
imagine the brilliance and American ethic of hard work and
hustle that.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
We see every day. Hustle, And it's why.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I feel so engendered with especially when they're coming out
of these situations with no opportunity, and I go, hey,
don't crack on that kid for selling dope. It's the
best way he's got to support his family. It's the
only thing he knows. And man, some of those guys
run a business that would put Walmart to shame how
efficient they are. It's the hubris that came into that
(19:41):
incompetency because he knew the tools that were gonna be
used to investigate him, and he just chose to not
care or to think that they weren't gonna apply to him,
or that he was too smart to get away. Because
it's like you're saying, if you're a suspect, they're gonna
run your phone. Your phone generates more information. I don't
care if he's a VPN, and like it's the absence
(20:04):
of information, like you're saying, CHERL becomes information. Your phone
was off during this one very specific time. Man.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
That tends to show you were involved and had knowledge
about it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Just does.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And it shows that Brian Coberger was either that incompetent
or that cocky and that it had such a superiority
complex that he was going to be able to commit
a huge scene, multi party murder with a knife and
(20:38):
be able to get away. Because I don't think for
a second this was a crime of opportunity or a
crime of patn No, this and this was thought about
this was a penultimate event that he had deep attachment to,
and just showing and seeing his incompetence does make me
(20:59):
get a little bit because he's going to be hanging
out with some people way better at being criminals.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Than he is. He's not ready, he's not ready for
what's coming. He's not ready for who's going to holler
at him from sale to sale, who's going to bump
into him, who's going to threaten him, who's going to
control his very existence? And again, it ain't the warden
(21:25):
h it is.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
And I know people are like, oh, it's too kind
for him to y'all go to a nice prison for
a minute, and it gives you the he be GBI's
and the first time you've ever had your movement restricted,
that's bad.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
You know, Josh. I have given this example to people
that say that you selected your car, you bought it,
you wanted that specific vehicle. But if you have ever
broken down and had to sit in that car sick,
are you of that car pretty quick?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Dah? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
And that is nothing compared to where he's sitting.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Literally, it go to a cell for twenty minutes. So
when you're a baby lawyer, you go practice law, and
sometimes it's in some uncomfortable spots. In Fulton County, every
baby lawyer that went through there set in those holding
cells on the first floor that are the big group
holding cells, and you're surrounded by inmates all talking, or
(22:31):
you're in the hallway there's yelling, screaming, clanking, and you're
sitting there trying to go do work, trying to represent somebody.
But you get put in that holding cell so that
you can get some quiet, and you are in your
twenties and you're a baby, excited lawyer out there practicing law,
and you get put into a cinder block room with
(22:53):
a metal door with a little glass reinforced wired windows
so they can see if you're dead or not. And
then they put a person in there and ask you, hey,
do you want them cuffed? And you know this is
your client, so you're trying to be gets so uncufforable
the moment that door closes, because it's not a light door.
(23:14):
We're not talking about something that just clicked. No, these
doors weigh three four, five, six hundred pounds when it closes,
when that big metal latch locks, that click that anybody
that has been in prison or jail knows. It shoots
a bolt of lightning straight to your core and you
(23:37):
know you're getting out.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
This is your job.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
You need to go home and cook dinner that night.
But that moment the door closes and you feel how
permanent it is. You can't bust out and you're in
there in that room with somebody knowing you're going to
get out. That's terrifying imagining that that door shuts and
I'm gonna stay there for ever.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Oh it's horrifu. It is absolutely horrifu.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Well, honey, how do we do that?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
That com gee?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, there's so much we can talk and talk
and talking to touch.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Epstein because that's blowing up yet again. Epstein's coming back
up into the university. We've got that honor killing that's
still on Verdict watch right. Uh, there is so much
going on we can talk about this orever.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
What does Nathan Grace say, job security? Honey?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Oh lord, yes, it's it is something.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Well, you need to go finish celebrating your birthday because
you need to celebrate all month. That's how it's done. Yeah,
a little bit happy happy birthday, and I love you
and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Absolutely love you too, Love you audience, thank you so
much for listening and we will see you next week
on the Crime Round It
Speaker 1 (25:09):
MHM
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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