From Combat to Community: A Prosecutor's Quest for Accountability in Local Government.

In this episode, the host interviews a former prosecutor and military veteran now running for the Board of Supervisors. The guest shares stories from his upbringing in Roanoke and Bedford, his Army and Navy service—including deployments in Germany, Central America, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay—and his transition to law and public service. He discusses memorable cases, challenges in military and legal roles, and his motivations for seeking local office, emphasizing community service, government accountability, and the importance of balanced development in his county. The conversation highlights perseverance, leadership, and dedication to public good.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
All right, I'm really excited to have Dirk Pageant I
worked with the one. He was a prosecutor in Bedford.
He's going to talk about a lot of interesting things,
to include his participation in the Gitmo trials that weren't
and all those different things. But more than anything, he
was a prosecutor, one of the best prosecutors I've ever

(00:28):
dealt with, especially when it came to drug cases. There's
a lot of knowledge. Now he's running for Board of Supervisors.
We'll do is just have him talk a little bit
about like where he's from, where he grew up. Just
give us a little history of who you are and
how he ended up in this chair that you're in.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Okay, well, one, thank you for bringing me here today,
talking to you a long time. I'm seeing you a while.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
I know we won't talk about the last time we
met a different day, but anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well, originally from Ronk City. My dad was a Bedford
County farmer, so he had a farming county. We lived
in the city, Ronk City. I was Ronk City Schools,
which set the pace for what I did the rest
of my life. There was a policeman called Eddie harmony.
One day he described me as a thug with a
law degree.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So that's that's remember, Eddie. Yeah, but yeah, so but
so you went to school there any brothers and sisters?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I got? Uh, had three brothers, one sister. One brother
still survives. One sister is she's still lives. She's in
South Carolina. Both the parents have deceased. Really at some
point in time we moved out to Bedford County. It
spent the majority of my youth on a farm, working

(01:42):
every day, working every day, winter, spring, summer.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
What kind of farm was it?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
It was a cattle farm.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Okay, you got how many cattle did y'all have any
given time?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
He had about thirty cattle.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
That's enough. So that's cool. So you're you grew up
in Bedford County. Did you go to a county schools?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
No, My mother insisted. She was quirky about the country. Okay,
And because we had moved when I was in high school,
she insisted I go attend, well, continue attend William Fleming.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
William Fleming is an inner city school, Okay, which looking
back is astonishing because that was a probably ran around
with the law of thugs, right, whereas I had them
on the Beffert County would have been a different environment.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
But when you talk about that, how did that impact
how you look at things now? Like being around people
that I mean, you've been a prosecutor, You've been a
prosecutor at both state federal level, but also a military
prosecutor and a defense attorney. Like, how like being around
that type of environment. I guess your body, your mind
and body aren't shocked about what you see as much

(02:47):
when you grow up in that kind of environment. Would
that be safe to.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Say or well it really prepared Looking back, I didn't
know what I was going through. But if you have
to go to Wayne Fleming, you have to go to
you have to be a little bit tougher. It's interested
to school. It's fights every day, trash talking every day,
and you learn not to be soft soft. And so

(03:15):
because right after before I went into I went to
the Army. Right after the high school, I think I
went twenty days after I graduated, I went in the
US Army. I had to go. My dad says, sat
me down in the kitchen table, says, asked me what
my plans are? I say, hey, true, I'm not quite sure.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I just want to survive tomorrow Williams. Yeah, that's my goal.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
And he said, well, let me help you out. I says,
you either getting a job, you're going to the military,
or you're going to college. Now you haven't put a
lot of time in your grades, so I guess you're
not going to college. So narrows attended to. Either way,
you're out of here after you graduate from high school.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
So tough love.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, so I had to ask permission to stay until
I went to the Army. On you twenty seventh, nineteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, all right, So where'd you go to boot camp?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Who? Camp? Fort Benning, Georgia on with the infantry?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
You actually were infantry too, infantry? Blue cord all the
way right, blue cord. It was a So you were
in Harmony Church then right? No, sand Hill, sand Hill,
that's right, oh sand Hill. Yeah. So nobody believes that
I went to boot camp there too, infantry, and nobody
believes how hot Georgia gets that you're walking on the

(04:30):
concrete and your boots are sticking into the concoct oh
into an asphalt. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I went in June, and you know they had black
flag days that you couldn't train it all. Couldn't train
it all because it's so hot. Yeah, it hit ninety
five one hundred degrees. We would do something, but the
thunderstorms would roll in, and I remember once unfortunately it
was tragic. Lightning hit one of the trees. We were

(04:54):
bivouacked in the woods, you know, on one of the ranges.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah FTX yeah, exercise.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yep, and the tree fell and it fell on you
guys in their tents. I mean, it was tragic. And
the drill stars were screaming at us to throw your
weapons down and run out into the fields and lay
on the ground.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
And nobody and if anybody has not been in the military,
you do not your gun your weapon. This is my weapon.
This is my gun. We won't go finish the rest
of it, but the bottom line is you don't separate
yourself from that firearm under any never never, And you
have them yelling at you and you're in a state
of confusion. Anyway, So what did y'all do?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
I kept my weapon with me, like this is a trick. Yeah,
and I went into the lay down and uh, you
know it's so they train you. And you know, subsequently
I went to rack. You know, I served overseas, but
you're so ingrained with that weapon.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, this doesn't separate from me the.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Worst nightmare I ever had ever. I woke up in
a panic. Okay, I dreamed I lost my weapon?

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Who was yelling at you everybody? Or I was just
looking for it.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I was frantic looking for that weapon, yeah, and tearing
things up. And I woke up. My wife looks at
me and says, you must have had a terrible dream.
I went over and did I lost my weapon?

Speaker 1 (06:17):
She was like, what what?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (06:19):
That is ignorant. I don't even know what you're talking about. What. Yeah,
so what you got more than one? Yeah? Yeah, Like
I said, I know, basic training it. When I finished,
I took a train from Columbus back here to Lynchburg,
and I just remember I woke up in like a
state of panic. I was like, they're still screwing with me.

(06:39):
There is a drill sardan somewhere. He's gonna pop out
of the seat in front of me and like put
me pe Temy or something like that. But it didn't happen.
But so you go. So what unit were you with
in Iraq?

Speaker 2 (06:51):
I was with the three sixties Civil Fairs unit. Okay,
I was a Navy jag officer at that time. I'd
switch service.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Okay, all right, Well let's back up a little bit
up ahead of you, which I do. But anyway, so
you're you go to basic training, where do you get it?
What was your first assignment?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
And the first sign was eighth Infantry Division and bomb
Hold of Germany. Okay, home of the infantry and it
was armored personnel carriers and so, uh.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
There's the one one eights. Is that what you're all
were in or not?

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
One eight Okay, that's right.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
And uh stayed there for my first tour duty in Germany,
which was a fantastic place to be stationed.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
I bet it was because you could drink at that point, right,
Oh I'm eighteen. Yeah, but I mean you're not in
the US where I mean, that's what they used to
do is all the time is like you're old enough
to die for your country, but not drink for your country.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, old man, when I was eighteen, I could drink, okay,
but that changed the law when I came out of
the military.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Because of you. That could have been yeah it maybe
all right, So Germany, you're in Germany, Germany.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
We had this little uh canteen they called it uh.
It was old German barracks, infantry barracks.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
They don't know how to make beer in Germany, did they?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
And so the beer was so strong, okay, so strong.
I got so used to drinking those kbs, and other
beers had cock brows. Those are the ones I remember kbs.
And when I got back finally to the States, I
could drink a case of beer no effect, right, tolerance

(08:21):
was so high for alcohol because of the German beer,
which is so heavy alcohol. You drank one man, You're
you're done, You're done. Yeah, So I could drink. I
could drink, you know, twelve pack.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
I wonder how draft. I wonder how I p A's
would compare like those no compars. But it's I mean,
it's closer than the water that the other beers have
water with a little beer.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I mean, the German beer was like it looked like
a cocola. It's that dark. And so when you get
used to that, when I came home, I was wild.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
I got out of the army.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
After you get out of the army.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Well, I left Germany and I went to the un
first Airborne Division for cameel Kentucky and we did operations
in Central America during the time of.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
The So, so you had deployments even before you got
out of the military, right, Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
So we went to Central America and that was during
the time they were training uh uh insurgents or whatever
you want to call them. And the hot issue then
was nick and Agua. Yes, and so I ran Contra
yep and h we we have vivid memories of those
black Hall helicopters. We rode out to the west, we

(09:32):
turned south, we turned east, no clue where're at? And
nap of the earth. You know, they're right there, right
over the top of the trees.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
And you get the backwards facing seat over on those
NAPA there are awful and your helmet we were on
the side. Oh, you got to lean outside and we
could tell.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And we were hauling it. And so we got down
i'd say at least twelve feet above the water and
you see porpoises jumping.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
So it would have been cool except you were on
a black Hawk.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
And uh, let me ask you this from being in
the military, what's another name for a black Hawk? Do
you remember the crash hawks?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, they used to crash all the time. Everybody wanted
to get on them for a while. Yeah, everybody went
from Yui's and they're like, I'm not getting on that
crash hawk.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
So well, you can always tell the turbine engine, you know,
you always tell the difference. I can tell the difference
between you and a black Hawk just by the sound
from a distance. And so we getting up of the earth.
I just remember I'm looking. I'm looking, and I'm looking like,
where are we gonna land? We gonna repel? I don't
I'm not sure how were gonna get in this jungle
and far off I see this little bald hill. How

(10:38):
went being go? And then we got guys screaming at
us prepare for hot landing.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Hot landing for people that don't understand, that means you're
taking fire more than like.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
You may be taking fire. And so we are coming
in hot Uh they go from travel formation into uh
what other formation they're gonna get in? They gonna get
out quick. So they're yelling at us.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Get your stuff and get ready to lock and load
disembark quickly.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, lock and load, dissembark, get off using a lot
of profanity, and get the you know what out of here? Yeah,
and uh we land, we get out the salt. Yeah,
I'm caring. I'm carrying them sixty machine gun?

Speaker 1 (11:21):
How many what was your load out like that?

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Uh god, it's so long ago, I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
But a ton of ton of ton of a ton
of weight with all those extras.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Oh, absolutely, you know that was the sixty to the
smallest guy.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, I hate that. And so uh I got a radio,
so I can't say it as much worse. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
So you know you have two assistants. You got one
guy carrying your tripod. You got the other guy parents
carrying other ammunition. I got my full load ammunition. So
you get off. We formed the perimeter off the top
of that bald hill. The helicopters waiting. We're waiting. We're waiting.
Helicopters are gone, they hear them, they go away. Nothing,

(11:58):
no hot, no a lot quiet, nothing, And we to
send it off the hill into the jungle. And if
you've ever been in the jungles of Central America.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I haven't, but I've heard it's not a lot of
room to move.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
If that's the ninth not the ninth level of hades,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
What is hot sticky, it's hot humidity.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
You got black palm, which is these spikes coming out
of these trees. The one guy just fell his head
went against the black palm, impaled, it went through it
his hand. In the jungle, you can get easy infection
because it's so which is a problem because it's supposed
to be a little stealth. Here we had a metavacuum out,
so that's probably here you go back to the hill,

(12:44):
but he did within an hour getting there. I remember
walking over an ant trail, an army of red ants.
They cut up path through the jungle, and I stepped
in him just to get a step step on the
ant had and continue walking down the trail. Look down.
They had crawled all over me. They were moving their

(13:06):
way up and you're like, oh boy, and these boys
don't play.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
They're biting.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
They're biting about that the huge So we had jungle fatigues,
which was the old o d green jungle fatigues. It
was cotton tott rips.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, the big pockets and everything loved them.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
And jungle boots and it's the way they dress back then.
Of course, the uniform. You have different iterations of uniform
since then and we were out there quite a while. Uh.
And then we met up with a fifth Special Forces
Group and was supposed to assist them in their training.
Really were just trying to added security. And there's two

(13:47):
comments out of that boy named Beaufort from Louisiana, big guy,
he was the other sixty gunner. And we're going through
a mangrel swamp, which is up to your waist nastiness. Uh,
trees are dead in the middle of the sun.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
So smacking your knees against them and everything shinned everything else.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
This this big snake come weaving through the water.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
They ate a snake.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
He panicked and let coast let loose with his sixty.
I don't think he even in it. He was so shocked.
So we Uh, I took the sixty away from him.
I said, give me that.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
We can't be going that.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
We took his weapons away from him, back of the line,
and so someone else took his sixty. I took his
forty five. And uh today not today, buddy you.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
So that was one of your military experiences. So you
get out of the army, you come back to Bedford, right.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Well, when I did, I came back initially private practice sought.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
So during that, how did you get your lawlet?

Speaker 2 (14:55):
H I went to I went to college. I'm sorry,
I went around college. I went to University of Richmond
my law degree. From there, I went into the United
States Navy.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Okay, so is that back. Did you get a GI bill?
Is that how you paid for it? Or did you
have to work?

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Then you had to Montgomery Montgomerys JAH bill which helped
you gave you a monthly stipend, not as.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Generous as it is now, right, yeah, but but it
helped up. So you get you Yeah, so you get
your you get your law degree. So when you come back,
what was your dad's conversation with you then? Like what
did you learn?

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well? I came back and he looked at me and
he says, uh, I remember the conversations like oh yesterday.
He looked at me and says, so you served three
years in the army. What are you gonna do now?
I said, well, I thought I'd get out of the army.
I'm going to college. My plan is I'm gonna go
two years Junior Western. I'm going to run in college
and then we go to law school. My guess is, well,

(15:53):
you can go back and live here.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Oh well, I mean it sounds like tough love. But
like when you see some of these kids that like
don't have a work ethic, like it forces you. You
still have that, you still have that safety net. Probably
he probably would never tell you that safety net was there,
but like you did know, like, hey, I can go
try this. But so you decided to go to law school.

(16:16):
You go to the University of Richmond. What's law school?
I mean, everything I've ever heard about law school and
taken your uh the uh exam? Did you take it
and run to Yeah, everything I heard about it's like
a nightmare, like trying to.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Well back in the old days, everything is softened. Okay,
and be honest with that, I'm blessed that I went
through proudly when it was challenging.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Okay, and uh.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
In Richmond law school, the first day you show up,
you've expected to read your assignments and uh before.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
You ever get to your first class.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, okay, And so when you speak you have to stand, okay,
and when you stand, uh, they go through the Socratic
method where they're just they don't tell you the answer.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
You have to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
And so that was three years of that after a while,
you get used to that and great school, great professors.
I was just talking about the bar exam. This morning.
I saw a young man who's starting his journey in
the practice of law, and we talked about the we
laughing about the bar exam. And my favorite story I

(17:27):
tell him that is I had studied a thing for weeks,
the worst test I ever took up my life, and
I'll never take another one ever. And so when I
got to the Wrongingan Civic Center to take it, I
remembered one of the questions is going to be about
One of the questions will be about the newest statute
that's enacted three years ago, because they wait three years

(17:48):
because it should be some judicial gloss, meaning some court rulings.
So I've been studying. I sat there in the parking
lot for two hours rereading everything. Then and I looked
at the statutes and on arbitration, so I read it.
I took the time to read it carefully again. Okay,

(18:11):
Then I uttered an oath through the book in the
back seat. I'm not studying anymore. I'm done.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, I can't. I'm either gonna do it or I'm
not gonna.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
I'm not so I came in, I relaxed. Back then,
you had to wear a suit and tie take the
bar exam, and people were nervous.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Did they make you all wear tennis shoes? That is
what I heard, is like now they wait and wear
tennis shoes. So it's not so loud, No, you gotta
wear but they had to. They still had to wear
suit and tie, shirt and tie.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Because we didn't wear tennis shoes.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
We wear whatever you would wear the court. Yeah, okay, all.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right, dress shoes.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
So one guy, and how many days is the bar exam?

Speaker 2 (18:51):
It's two days? Well in multiple choice one day essay
the first.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
And how long does it take you before you realize
you're going to get your UH law license? Like that,
whether you passed.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Or not, there was the rub Okay back then, okay,
if you got a small white envelope, you knew you
had passed the bar. A white one, a small white
envelope letter size. If you received a brown envelope, you
failed the bar and it contains your application for the
next bar.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
That's kind of ruthless. You didn't make it, but here's
your here's here's a time for you can come back
and take it again.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
So I was in the going through Navy training because
I decided going with the Navy be a JAG officer
for the Navy. And I was doing going through officer
training school and I called home. My wife was all excited.
Your letter came today, and I says, what is it?
She said, that's a small white envelope.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
And you're like, yes, I said, that's it. I passed
the bar, so you didn't even have it. She didn't
have to open it already knew because the colors enveload. Yeah,
that's really cool. So what is a let's talk about
your jag career, like, because I feel like I really
want to get into I think people will hear like, well,
I think I hear this. I think I've known this.
Like what was your experience as a JAG officer and

(20:10):
then ultimately what led you to go on Tonamo Bay.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Well, it started the Navy. Four years after that, I
came to Bedford County as a prosecutor. Okay, my experience
with Guantanamo Bay began after the war began. Okay, I'd
serve four years in the Navy. I went into the reserves.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Okay, all right, Well, so I don't jump ahead of you.
Let's talk about your time as a prosecutor. I remember
your time as prosecutor. There is no better friend to
have when you have a drug suspect and his attorney.
And I don't know if you remember your your slogan.
Do you remember it? Yes, ma'am. Your client can either
play ball or I'm gonna shove that bat up as

(20:52):
ass is that is that sound familiar?

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (20:56):
And And realistically that's how we got a ton of information.
And I feel like I know Sheriff Brown when he
was there, like he wanted to say, which he did
a phenomenal job. I can say that because I worked there,
But like I do think he did a really good job.
But if we wouldn't have had a prosecutor holding him
down like you were, it would have been a different story.
On these drug cases.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, a lot of times I was probably an apparition,
and that is I really hated them.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, okay, so but you had to know the case
and you knew it was almost like playing to me.
When y'all go into these agreements with attorneys back and forth.
It really it does have something to do with the
case that we bring you, but it also is how
you present it to the other attorney.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Well, the key was not to be afraid to fail.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yes, I mean I didn't want to lead you into that,
but like that is one of like one of the
things I think on this show that I love the
most is I want to bring people in here that
want to that want to work to failure, figure out
how that failure looks like. And then train passed it.
How much did you learn from and failing? If you
had a case you're like, all right, this I lost

(22:03):
this one, but this isn't gonna happen again. You learned
from it?

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Right? Well, fortunately in the Navy. In the four years
I was in the Navy before I came to Bedford County,
I was a prosecutor and defence Council prosecutor and assistant
the United States Attorney oh special assistant. So I prosecuted
federal court and a prosecuted. I became the senior prosecutor
on the Norfolk Navy Base. When homicides, robberies, drug cart

(22:29):
drug charges, you name it, I did it, even looting
and pillage of Kuwait City. I even prosecuted the armed
robbery of the USS saginawl.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
I wrote somebody robbed a ship.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Robbed a warship by gunpoint in Norfolk. In Norfolk, crawled
up the back of the ship in a ninja outfit,
went through the bowels of the ship, came up through
the conning tower, pulled out a silver plated three point
fifty seven put it the dispersing officer's face. Disbo told

(23:03):
him to open the safes. Now, usually back then sailors
were paid in cash.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Oh, I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
So there was probably twenty million dollars in.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Those safes back in what year?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Would that nineteen ninety two somewhere right there.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
That's insane.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
And so fortunately the Saginaw had been given word as
going to be delaying deployment. So the dispersing officer, afraid
they have all that money in the safe, send it
back except for thirty thousand dollars. So when he opened
the safe, he was enraged to find only thirty thousand

(23:42):
dollars in cash. So he tied him up, duct take
walked to the bridge of the I mean the quarter deck,
put his gun in the guard's faces, made him throw
their guns in the drink.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
And were those was that marines then at that point
or sailors.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
He walked off the the doc into a fog and
nobody knew who did it. Yeah, And I worked on
the investigation for wow months. Finally, finally I worked.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
At who worked it with the n c I S.
Is that who worked at ABI? FBI worked the case
all right? So that's how you got the cross one
of the ways you had to cross that.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
N c I S and FBI. Okay, And then we
finally figured that out. It was a lieutenant who had
discrimined lieutenant on the sagon Aw who had been shipped
out and came back and robbed the ship to get
a CEO in trouble.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
So it wasn't I mean, it was about the money,
but it really wasn't about the money. It was just
a little bit of both. Yeah. So how so they
how did that tie back? I mean, I know we
have a lot of technology to track stuff, but like
it's just leg work.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Leg work and FBI talk to everybody on that ship
and a chief looking at one of the agents and says, hey,
here's the name you need to.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Look at the chiefs are Isn't that no?

Speaker 2 (25:01):
And so uh, that was the case. I did with
Jack Rakowski and he was a great guy. He was
down there with me, and uh I was. I did
a pretty good job because we did a lot of
drug cases. And uh so when I came to Bedford County,
I had a healthy experience, which is a wonderful way
for a lord to pertain litigation experience before you got

(25:23):
in Savina world. And so when I came to Bedford County,
I'd gone through the trials where you made the stupid mistakes,
you know, and learn from.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
You were seasoned. You were somewhat seasoned, somewhat somewhat seasoned,
but you knew what it felt like to fail, and
you knew what you had to do to p Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
But you know, everything goes back because as a prosecutor
in Bedford County, I remember going to William Fleming and
uh uh I didn't fall for that stuff, you know,
telling me sad storys and give it somebody else, buddy,
I don't want to hear it. And so we did
have a good saying, you know us to play ball

(26:01):
with us.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Or showed the bat up your ass. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
So this is it. I had the best client in
the world, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and she never complained
about my services. How about how ruthless I want? Was anybody?

Speaker 1 (26:16):
She was like, go get them.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Go get the boy.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
And so it was like, how many.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Years were you were prosecutor in Bedford shoot?

Speaker 2 (26:24):
I came there in nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
I think any cases that you had in Bedford the
like stood out in your mind.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, it was the slut murder case. Did a lot
of murder cases, like everybody did, and slut murder case.
This lady in nineteen ninety six was shot in the
head by her husband. But when law enforcement showed up,
it was a suicide.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
I remember it was down towards the lake, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, okay, and Gary Farebeau was the deputy arrived on
the scene. What didn't know is they didn't communicate with
the EMTs. EMT showed up in Roy Sluter. Uh looked
at the EMTs and described it as a suicide. My
wife shot herself in their head, very flat effect. And Uh,

(27:13):
Bobby Chumley, I still remember his name, Bobby Chumley's MT.
And he searched the floor for the gun. There was
no gun, so he looked at it. He says, we
need to get out of here, and he says, where's
the gun at? And Roy Sluter says, I know where
the guns at. So Bobby Chumley says, I think maybe
we're gonna get out of here and wait for law enforcement.

(27:34):
Law enforcement shows up, they don't communicate, so they just
come into us. So Gary Fairbow comes in. There's the
gun right next to the body with white speckles all
over the body. And so Gary Ferbow has an engineering
degree from Virginia Tech. But for him, I don't know

(27:57):
if I could have wont that case. He like an engineer,
mathematically exact location of the body, the blood spatter, the gun,
everything on that diagram. And uh, I always suspected that
it was not a suicide.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
But how many years did it take before she was
before he was actually tried.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
For seven years later? It was a cold case, worked
Gary bad. Gary Bad worked.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
The case and out of y'all's office, right, Uh.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
No, And so we I went down with him North Carolina.
We're going to stake out get a statement from Roy,
and we had funny things happened when you're on a
I don't call it a steak out because I never
went on a steak out like you guys do.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
I mean it's sort of like it's like an ambush steakout.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah. So we wait for her to come back in
the trailer park and we watched this guy. We affectually
called him Earl. You know who this guy was. He
had bib overalls, you know, one strap undone.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Oh, you gotta keep it. You're having like flashbacks to
being back on the farm. Like.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
And so he's laying at his house. He's got this
four pinto okay, and we're board so watching this guy
work on his four pinto, Yeah, me and Gary bab
and so this guy he looks at us. He's looking
at us. He's looking at us. He's looking at us.
He can tell U's a law enforcement vehicle. Yeah, and
so he's working.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
On his undercover. Cars have lights in the back.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Undercover and so uh, he pushes on his brake, pedal,
gets out, runs rounds the back to see if the
light came.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
On you like that might be our guy.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
A oh you could see. You couldn't hear us because
we're in a car with air conditioning. I guess there
was two men in their heads going up and down, laughing.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Hysterically like the damn things don't work.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Finally he comes out with a mirror and he sets
it to the rear of the vehicle and then starts
look at my garage and putting on the brake pattle
to see if it worked. Some of the silly memories
you remember were a case.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
So anyway, finally get that, you finally get a statement
or no.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
No, he never, he never said anything. So I put
it together with all forensic evidence, and that is I
had the pathologist, I had a firearm expert. What was
noticeable was this, there was a white, chalky substance on
the trigger of the weapon. Okay, uh, there was white
substance all over the body. One day I look at

(30:32):
Tim Hayden. He was he was investigated at that time.
I said, I want to go to the crime scene
and I got to figure this out. So I went
to the crime scene. The owner's gracious let us in there,
and I went to the bedroom. The bed was in
the same position because there's a small house on the lake.
And I went in there and I said, Tim closed

(30:54):
the door, i'm'na staying here by myself a little while.
He said, what I said, I just need to think
of about it. So what I figured out was if
you look in position of the body and the way
that was laying. I finally figured out she wasn't standing
at all. No, she was sitting because you know how
you sit with your legs brace yourself when you see

(31:16):
And part of her right hand was blown out. This part,
the media part, well, she had put it up here,
the dev its wound to protect her from and shot.
And that's why the blood spatter was only eighteen inches
above the ground, because she was so low to the
ground to begin with. And so I figured that I

(31:37):
got out and I went, I got you, boy, I said,
there's only one less component. Where did the white speckles
come from on a body? So then I figured that out.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
What was that?

Speaker 2 (31:51):
That was the artificial ceiling.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Tiles, like those hanging ceilings.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
You know, the false ceilings. Yeah, it's made of that white,
chalky substance. What he had done is it's like I
told you, the gun was found. When Fairbeall got there,
he threw the gun back into the room. The gun
hit the ceiling on them. He came down to the body,
and the white speckles came from the ceiling tiles that
came down on the body.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
That was awesome.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
So I confiscated that ceiling tile.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
So it was still like that when you got there.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, I said, look up, they said there years later?
Was that seven years?

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Seven years later, you look up and there's still a gun.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
There's a dent from that homicide. So I said, Tim,
I want it.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
So I guess I always think about like funny ways
of describing things, but like if the walls could talk,
seven years later, the ceiling.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Spoke, the ceiling told the story.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
So he took that, and that was ceiling towle shown
to the jury along with.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
It.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Was all had no statements from Roy, It was all
put together.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
I don't think people realize how difficult it is to
prosecute somebody even a year or two later, much less
seven years later when he walked away from the scene,
because I think general public, for the most part, you
really have to convince him like, hey, this really did happen, Because,
like from my standpoint, they look at it and go, well,
why didn't they arrest them if it was that obvious?

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Uh, it wasn't. Because what they had done is they
accepted for face value with the guy I told them
and wrote it off.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
As a suicide.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Well, I kept it. My one prosecutor worked on it
that I worked on it. I worked on that thing forever.
Finally I looked at it common with attorney. I said,
I'm going to Diddy. And you know I already told
you how aggressive I am.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, he said he wasn't.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
I don't think so, I don't think. I don't think
you can win that case.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
You're like, I will try.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
I said, well, I'm going to indity. Okay, I've already
pard of the indictments. It's going to do the grand jury.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Good deal, and so so you get your true bill.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yep. He wasn't happy because he thought I indicted a loser.
And so it was a five day jury trial. Uh.
And on Friday, the jury came back on the same
day she was buried. It started. It's the trial started

(34:08):
on the anniversary of her death seven years later, and
it ended on the day of a burial. And seven
years later.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
And seven is supposed to be a religious number.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
It is. And so the jury came back with guilty
and my boss looked at me and says, you're not
going to win. And the chief investigator says, you're not
going to win. I says, you watch.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Me than you did. I did win. I just think
about like it with government in general, if there were
more people like you that are willing to take that risk.
I think that's the biggest thing in law enforcement right now,
is nobody wants to take a risk. It's it's terrifying
because they we want the public to like us, we
want them to embrace us. And sometimes you have to
do what's difficult, and sometimes you might be the only
person standing there saying no, we're going to do it

(34:57):
despite what everybody else says. I know in my heart
of hearts this is right. And even if I lose,
I've at least tried it.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Well, sometimes you got to stand alone. Yeah, and I've
stood alone a lot in my life.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
But I mean, but you're the type of person that
makes that, And that's why you're here. It's because, like
I want people on here that will talk about like
what it's like. I got a guy coming on later
that talked about like he took on the whole United
States government, and he was he was right, But if
he would not have stood up one single human as
big as the US government is, he stood up, and
if he hadn't stood up. Nobody would ever known what happened.

(35:31):
And like for you, I think that's a good segue
into like what happened at Guantanamo Bay. So you finish
your prosecution time you're in the reserve, then.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Reserves nine eleven happens, okay. And I was in court
in Chieving l Court and the or in Bedford Defer County,
and I just finished UV and ol Court came in.
The TV was on and watching and I watched the
second plane go into the building and shocking, shocking, I
can that can't be true. That's got to be an accident.

(36:02):
And two thousand and four I was called up, went
overseas with the.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
News and I was a JAG officer.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
As a JAG officer, and so they mobilized, they mobilized
me seme overseeas in two thousand and four and I
stayed mostly in quait.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
So just real quick, what does the JAG officer look
like in a in a deployment area? What is that?
What exactly is your responsibilities over there?

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Most of the time you're looking at somebody who's the
legal officer for the command and going through rules of
engagement about when you can shoot, when you can't shoot
escalational force. We were guarding the ports on my first tour,
and so they had a serious escalation issue about whether
the gunboats get you close or At that time the

(36:53):
War of Raq is now an occupation force and so
now you are about insurgents. And Ashwayba in Kuwait was
the only deep water port in the North Arabian Gulf.
The nag and so Alji was the guarded and I'm
the SGA. I work with the Kuwaiti authorities. It's kind
of cool. I went to the Kuwaiti embassy all the time.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
They don't have any money in Kuwait.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
They Oh, my god, the goal of your life should
become a Kuwaiti citizen.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay, so tell us what a Kwaiti citizen does.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
You don't have to work, okay. The government pays for
your house. They'll build you a new house. If you
get tired of your car, you park the car and
the side of the road and go pick out a
new one.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
People don't believe that. I know they don't because I
went to Dubai and it's the same way. Like the
only people working are people that don't live there, yeah,
or that aren't citizens.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
That if you're a third country national Yes, you're there,
and you are. I don't call them slave labor. But
you're the the peasants, peasants the modern days. You're the
one who washed in the cars, You're the one who
serving McDonald's. You're other one doing all this. You mean
you have people from the Philippines were here in Kuwait

(38:04):
and so.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Uh so you're liaison in between them and the United
States Navy.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, so we did that, and I thought, I'm done.
You know, I've done my service. And then go back.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
At that point, you've had what what two or three
deployments between the Army and that.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Yeah, at least that was the one for overseas. Come home.
I'm back to Bedford County. I've done my duty. I'm good.
Then they called me back up. This time I am
assigned to a US Army unit, the three sixtieth Civil
Affairs Unit, which took has taken a beating during the war.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Were they they weren't the prison were they.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
These guys working with the Iraqis to rebuild their economy.
You know, the law enforcement, the fire.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
From the military side, and.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
So the American military is brilliant. We disbanded the army
we disbanded the police and we sent them all home
with AK forty seven's.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
We did it in Afghan stand too. We trained, we trained,
we trained the Afghan National Army, we border police and
everything else. And the only thing that made any difference
for the government is, hey, we hit our magic number
of people. We don't have any way to pay him.
We have a tribal chief that's doing everything for us
and he's not paying his people. And then there you go, like,

(39:27):
why do we have a problem, same thing, yep, it is.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
And so that that tour of duty was a little
more exciting, a little more bloody. And so I was
signed to army units and I was stationed originally Camp
Slater in Baghdad. I traveled throughout Iraq.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Did y'all usually do heavy motor cade or did y'all
fly or combination?

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Combination? I'd go out with a mid team. I go
with a team military transition team. They're like company sized
element of Marines or army in it and they are
out in we call it Indian country.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yeah, so there, and that's why we talked. We had
a guy the other day that was on that was
in Afghanistan. And I always think it's kind of it's humorous,
but not really, especially with the number of people that
we lost. But like, the military doctrine is not that
much different than when we were playing Cowboys and Indians.
You know, you'd have a fort, you had a fortified area,
you went through Indian country, that's where you got hit

(40:27):
or if they massed and come out, would come after
the fort. But we're doing the same thing. So you
go out with these teams, and.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
These teams my job was to work with the local leaders, okay,
you know, to re establish law and order. And sometimes
it was hot. Yeah snipers, I mean hot only hot weather.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
But it was hot.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
It was hot. It was not hot body armor every
won twenty degrees.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
But it was a lot of negotiation. And people in
that part of the country are master negotiators to get
what they want, but they don't produce much.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
They are you got snipers, you got rockets, you got mortars.
I went out with small teams. Uh, there's only one
mos and the army that got more casualties than the infantry,
and that's the civil affairs.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, because they were going out there like negotiating and
you don't know what you're dealing with.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
We spent up there a large amount of times out
there with the Iraqis, and so sometimes I had to
get the militia units stop shooting each other, which was
a task in itself, negotiate with them. Then you had
to throw shoot at us. That's that's very important.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
I think people don't understand tribes like they don't like
the people in that part of the part of the world.
Look at things as like, I'm Sunny, you're Shia. We
can't like each other. It doesn't matter what part of
the city you're from or anything.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
They killed each other, yeah, and they would, uh, we
did that, we American Army. Sometimes I don't understand what's
going on. You know, we would raiate a mosque and
take their weapons, thinking it's against Americans. No, it's for
self defense. Because they we took their weapons out of
a mosque. Once a week later they came and killed

(42:01):
everyone in that mosque. They had no weapons.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
So it's just hard. I think it's just like a
blender over there because you don't know who's friendly and
it I really I think a lot of times it
depends on who wants what At that point in the day.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
My philosophy was there was no Friendlis.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah right, so walk inme aside me a one ton
of obey, tell us about it. So you get that back.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Get back. Before I'm even back from Iraq, I am
notified for the Navy. You are going to be you
have been selected for active duty status because I'm a
reservist called back active duty.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
That inactive reserve portion of your reserved. Yeah, I was,
I was.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
I was a drilling reservist. They call me back. I'm
active duty. I'm mobilized over a year. I'm in Iraq.
I come back. I wold have been notified. You're going
to be activated to full time active duty active duty status.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
What what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Says No, you're coming back as a regular Navy officer,
and you're going to be prosecuted in the off of
military commissions. I'm like, I couldn't know. You could always
get out of a deployment, and that's what they call
it deployment. It's already deployment. But I thought, how many
times in your life do you prosecute people for war crimes?

Speaker 1 (43:14):
So so that point, did you know what it was
exactly or just you hadn't got read in on it yet.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Just the scuttle butt. Okay, the mission. I knew the mission,
and when I showed up, prosecutors were flooded in. They
were really ramping up the military commissions until one point
we have fifty five prosecutors, and eventually I became one
of the team chiefs.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
So what the purpose of this? Just kind of discussed
what was the purpose? I mean, I know we have
younger people that don't even know what Gountanamo Bay is,
but you had a purpose of this. So these people
have been held as enemy combat combatants for a period
of time.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
From my Afghanistan and all over the world. They we
needed an internment facility. They were sent to the camps
that were created at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's not US soil. Therefore,
we're not going to try them in US courts. We're
going to try them by military commission.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
And so the military commission. A lot of that's more
along the lines of like legal, like legal, how they
were it's.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
The military trials, okay, And that is like Lincoln. The
people killed Abraham Lincoln were prosecuted by military commission, not
by trials.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
And I think, if I'm understanding right, one of the
biggest concerns I think the general public had and other people,
or at least that's what they fed is they don't
want to give these people a voice in our court
system to view their terrorist views.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Well, this was the problem, okay. And Ali Sufon, who
wrote a book, I guess that's a shout out for him,
black Flags.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
That's right, okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
He relays the story to me personally where it all began,
with what we're going to do with these people this
early invasion October of two thousand and one in Afghanistan,
they are now seizing Al Qaedas operatives who were basically
running like rats because we are annihilated them and a

(45:16):
lot of them fled south into Pakistan and lot were captured.
And Alexifon related story to me that he's with the
FBI and his idea is we're going to bring these
people to New York and they're gonna be prosecuted. Here
came the CIA. He says, oh, no, you're.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Not, and that and that is just tradecraft. They don't
want their methods or anything else to get out.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Well, they wanted the at this point, they wanted the intail.
This is way before that. They just wanted the intail.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
So they didn't want to like relocate these people and
not have an opportunity to interview them.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
They did not want them the lawyer up. They wanted
to take them. And so they got see one thirties
landing before the FBI did, and that's why they went
to Guantanamo Bay. Okay, all right, So they landed their
se one thirties, they loaded up the al Qaeda operatives,
those and other suspects, Afghans, whatever, and some of them

(46:15):
was sent directly to Guantanamo Bay. At that point, it
was the old internament camps that they had used before
X ray was the camp, and they put them in
the old camp. But quickly after that they established new
camps on the other side of the bay, and that's
where they started to stay, and they started to fill

(46:35):
up to keep them from American courts. Now, the decision
was made early on how they're going to be interrogated,
and the first target was Abu ze Beta, who only
gave a full statement to Ali Sufon the FBI agent.

(46:56):
I remember at that time, there's not many people in
FBI spoke Arabit and so at least ifall gave a
full confession. He says, Look, I'm telling you, I don't
I'm not al Kaeda. I supply al Kaeda.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
That was differentiating it.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, but which is suspicious.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeh, but.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
To say the least. But the CIA stepped in with
their new enhanced interrogation program. We'll take it from here.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
We got this, I hear something I like, I need more.
And so.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Detainees started to disappear, and they went to black sites
and I'm not at liberty tell you where.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
They're at, but I don't want to know.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
And so a lot of them, you know, that happened
two thousand and one, and by two thousand and three,
two thousand and six, they start to pop up at
Guantanamo Bay. Well, here lies the problem. They've gone through
enhancing prrogation techniques, which is waterboarding, other projects. I don't

(48:06):
even know if I can allowed it do it. That's
the one commonly known. There are other programs which we're
not going to talk about. And as a prosecutor for
many years now, how am I gonna get those statements
in evidence?

Speaker 1 (48:23):
There's no legal basis.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Yeah, So they sit down clean teams from the FBI
to try to give read them their rights and now
get the same statement from.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Them, which is a lot different, which is, well.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
We've already done this to them. Maybe maybe it's tainted anyway,
no matter what we do, so they don't talk to us.
Maybe there's a threat. So really, how clean is that?

Speaker 1 (48:48):
It's not It's not cleaner at all.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
But we were really gearing up to go, and I
became one of the team chiefs. I was a senior
team chief actually, and because I was the only one
really with prosecution experience, and so I had about twelve
attorneys under my command. I don't know about thirteen staff.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
So I think about like different case files that we have,
Like what does an average case file look like?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
This was the problem of the military. This is the
problem with the commissions. When it detainedee was caught in
questioned that several people may participate in the interviews. You
know how you work with FBI DEA other.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Words, rois reports of investigation.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, now, how many people make a report and something?

Speaker 1 (49:34):
I mean, if there's two of us in there, one
of us is making the report.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Well, see in our world, in the government, every agency
makes their own report. So they may glean a nugget here,
will make glean of a nugget here and that finds
a way in the reports. So you may get five
reports for the same detainee. So what we had to
do was search every agency to give us that report.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
You to get that, and it probably wasn't Some of
them were less than cooperative.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, and some of them, well I'll give that a minute.
My little boys at the agency, and so they would
we would cross pollinate. You know, the State Department may
send FBI report they got, so we're asking for all
the reports. It's a lot of duplication. So like one
file was Sawah. That guy came to Guantamo Bay. He

(50:23):
was one hundred and eighty five pounds. Within four years
he weighed four hundred pounds because he talked and his
only condition for talking was I want cheeseburgers.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
So literally, so is that another interrogation method.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
He gave for him, the hamburger, And so if you
brought him cheeseburgers, he'd talk talk talk, talk talk, And
so consequently some people, one doctor called that level of abuse.
So we just kept feeding to get information from him.
He got so fat he didn't have any clothes. He
wore sheet So the these techniques we were going through

(51:02):
these and these information would come on Sawa, I must
have got three hundred thousand documents. We had to use
a complex concordance program to shift through the programs, shift
the reports, identify reports, eliminate the duplicates. And it really
come down to three thousand documents.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
That's a lot to get in on a case.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Oh yeah, it's a ton.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I mean when you think about three thousand pages, I
mean how many bonders is that?

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yeah. Sawah was a Egyptian. He was he had traveled
from Bosnia.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
And where do where did he come out of? Or
you don't know or you can't say yes, yes answers yes.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
And so he was caught in Afghanistan. He was a
bomb maker. He was a trainer to teach al Qaeda
how to make bombs be more effective.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Yeah, and so they came in to duplicate their efforts
that they were already doing in iraqet.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Right, they had they had a training training camp in Afghanistan.
And so when he was captured, uh, he took on
quantamam play. He immediately started to cooperate and they bring
it in the components and they asked him to make
a trigger or triggering mechanism for a bomb. He did
it in the least ten minutes, and I hit it
on my shelf of my office and every time, every

(52:22):
day at three eight pm, thing went.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
No way. You're like pretty good.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
And they use case Cassio watches and I always see
Cassio watches on dorseboyn KaiA, So it's so accurate.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
By the minute. Yeah, they know when to be off
the ax right.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yep, And they watches and so he was. I prepared
prosecution for him, and but we didn't prosecute him for
a while because he was such a good USIC co operator.
The other one was I in als N fifty four,
which was Alkosi. These are all Kunya.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Kakuna is a name nom de ger.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
It's a war name, and it's not his real name.
But he went by Alkosei I in number fifty four.
He was Osama bin Lauden's treasure. He kept the money, so.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
He knew where all the bodies were, yeah, and all
the money to get the bodies.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
So I was they didn't know how to do it.
Those guys that those prosecutors didn't know how to do
plea agreements. A lot of them quite frankly.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Yeah, well rookies.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, well, I mean not really, that's why you got drafted,
not really seasoned professionals. Right, So I drafted the first
template for those who obtained guilty. Please, everything came from me.
That was my template. They used later.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
And and that you're talking about a template that they
would do for a plea deal, for a plea deal
to get the people in and out. Yeah, and so
you're the one that's responsible for getting the numbers so
low on Guantana. Yeah, so we had building after over there.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Well, they led him, they took a plea and uh,
I went to see Cosey part of it. He had
to cooperate with us.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
So it's substantial assistance. Yeah, in local correct. Yeah, this
is the interesting story.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
If you don't mind me telling you.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
I love I love stores.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
So so I went down to Guantanamo Bay and we
flew in. Uh, we always swallow part of Cuba to
land on the west side. Then we got to go
to the east side by a ferry. Beautiful water sharking peasant,
but he had to be a little on your toes,
but it's beautiful. You go fishing, great fishing, and uh,
you know the rest of his communist Cuba, and not

(54:48):
much there had McDonald's, No, that's there. But they had
the best curry. Uh, I've ever tasted my life. If
I could go back there, I'm going to that place,
get my curry.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
What was it orange or was it red curry or
what curry was?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
It was orange?

Speaker 1 (55:04):
It was good stuff, good stuff.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
So I went to the camps and I had this
is this is this is American, how Americans think, and
it's infuriating. And I don't mean anything bad about I
don't mean to be sexist. I don't, but this is
the reality of it. These guys are Islamic fundamentalists. They

(55:26):
do not talk to, nor would they look at a woman.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Women are evil to them. They serve one purpose, yes,
and that's to reproduce.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
I mean any anybody that says any different has not
spent any time over there.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Right, It's fundamental Islam. So I just happened. I was
in my uniform and and you have FBI agents and
it they picked a woman FBI agent to do the
interrogation and a woman to be the translator. And I said,
what do you what are you thinking? How about you

(56:01):
think you're gonna get out of this guy.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
So this was for the interview you were going to
do for his substantial system.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah, it's a brief, all right. And so I complained
to the FBI. I said, what are you doing? He said,
this is America. We go by our rules. I said, well,
good luck. So I said, imst I'm wis, sit back
and let you watch your magic. Now you know me,
I always been slightly sarcastic.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
I think that's called a smart ass.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
But yeah, and so I'm in my military uniform fatigues
in the Navy fatigues, and there was a marine sergeant there,
a lot of FBI and uh friends from the.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Agency making sure, making sure you to make sure we
don't get too.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
Far, and uh he's just monitoring things. And his name
will be unsaid. And so, uh, I just happened to
come in late m because I wanted to get me
a diet Mountain two you got you got that priorities?

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Well, I mean was that before after the curry?

Speaker 2 (56:58):
That was after the curry? Okay, so I gotta go
get dip out and there I just happened to come
in late in the chair that was left just happened
to be right, across from Alcosy, and the sergeant being
a Marine sergeant. You know, I'm an zero five Navy commander.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
He's gonna snap to it.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
I'm a senior officer.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
He's gonna show you the respect when you entered the room. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
So he he pulled the charge the chair up back
for me so I could sit down. I said, I
said thank you, sergeant. I sat down and I went, okay,
just keep going. And so for the next three days
I sat there nothing listening to these guys trying to
interrogate al Cocy. No ask a question, no, ask a

(57:46):
question no, which means yes. But he wouldn't elaborate on anything.
He would not look at the FBI agent, would not
look at the interpreter.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
He's definitely not gonna engage with him and give him
the information. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
He mean, he's answering the question, but he's not flushing
information out. Operating now during this time, anybody knows me,
they know I'm a cookie monster. I love cookies.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Now.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Cosey was diabetic, and a plate of cookies was placed
in front of him with bottles of water, and through
the eight hour interrogations each day, I kept looking at
that plate of cookies. He refused to eat them. I
got tired of it, so I reached over and I
took a cookie. I started eating a cookie. Now I'm

(58:34):
looking that's pretty good cookie. I don't want to know
that another cookie?

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Do you know what kind of was?

Speaker 2 (58:39):
It's just those crazy little cookies with a little speckles
on top, batom in the store cookies. Yeah, sure, cookies.
And so, being a sugarhound, that was, You're like, it's it.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
I'm going to sit here, I'm doing something.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Eat a cookie. And so I brought my dip mountain
dew and I'm listening, listening. I'm listening. I'm listening, and
he's watching me eat those cookies. And about the third day,
I take another cookie. He reach over and he takes
a cookie. He used to cookie. Okay, and this is

(59:18):
doing when I was talking to him. So finally on
the fourth day, I said, boys, you mind if I
have a try.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Because you were just you were just there watching.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Yeah, I'm not really supposed to participate. I'm just there watching.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
But this is not going well.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Yeah, you mind if I try? Sure? Sure, with contempt,
go ahead. We've been here for twenty four hours at
this point. Oh, we've been here three days, yeah, eight
hours a day. Yeah, I'm like, oh, for the love
of I can't take it anymore.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Right, So.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
I didn't know whether they get anything, but you give
me something to do. So I looked at him and
I sat down in the morning. Mm hmm. That stared
at him for a minute. Mhm. I said, this is
where this is going to go. Interpreter blah blah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Blah blah blah blah. Yeah, it's not dramatic, is it. Yeah,
but you can be angry and then you're looking at
the interpreter and like, can you get angry for I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Just staring at him. I said, I'm a soldier, you're
a soldier. I'm going to talk to you with respect,
and you're going to talk to me with respect. I said,
I understand where you're coming from. But now it's me
and you, and we'll go have a chat. No, I went,

(01:00:45):
I want to know how you came in contact.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Let me say this, that's dramatic.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
I want to know how you got in contact with us.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Uh, some of the law some one right, sue an Oh,
he told you and the way you went.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
The way he went, he babbled, and we talked back
and forth, interesting, fascinating. I said, who is the go between?
He told me. I said, what were you doing? He said, oh,
I handed the money. He said, oh, such a headache.

(01:01:27):
Green backs, the shackles, shuckles, the greenbacks.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
I think it was just just like explorer.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Me and him talked for eight hours. FBI was beside themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
This was our best person we had.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
We had the best interrogator in this Navy commander in him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
This angry dude, angry prosecutor just hammered it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
This smart ALEC came in here. We talked for hours
and then we got into subjects. I want to ask
you something. I started asking about another country, and then
everybody like.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Wait a minute, what I thought they were our friends.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
That's how I talked about this. I want to talk
about that. And then the agency perked up, and then
we got into depth about some things.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
So we're running short. So I do want to talk
about your board supervisors thing. Talk real quick about like
how many different UH security clearances you had to get
just to get into that room that day?

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
You ear do it? You gotta have five top secret clearances,
one with the CIA, one with the Tartan of Justice.
Department of Defense, State NSA, and State Department. And so
that's a white elephant. Nobody has that many top secret clearances.
And after that they make you very nervous. When I
left the Military Commissions, I asked them, you know, being.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
The smart, smart, smartest, that's your smart.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
I says, uh, so, boys, I have been access to
a lot of information, a lot of I've seen a
lot of underbelly that says.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Uh safe to safe to return to my home.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
As I was joking around with a guy who's reading me,
reading me out, yeah, he says, uh, I assure you
will be watching you the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
And I went and I thought I thought he was joking.
I want to move and he says, I'm completely serious. Okay,
he said, we're going to monitor what you do. What
you say, I don't doubt it. And he says, you
have seen things and gone places.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Most people should not be yet in black.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Yeah, that's why I used to see.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Did they have a wand and they flashed at you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Yeah? They should have. Yeah, he says, don't talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
It, so uh real quick, last five minutes. What I
want to talk about is you have this extremely interesting
service record. I mean just phenomenal service record, done a
lot of things people haven't seen. How is that going
to help you understand? You're running for Board of Supervisors
in Boda Tache County, right, How does how does all

(01:04:08):
that experience translate back to a local level. I think
one of the coolest things about what's going on now,
particularly in DC with Donald Trump, all the all the
things about making federal the federal government more accountable, and
one of the things that he has said I've seen
members of his staff. I think the guy that ran
for president that is now running for Ohio governor, Tommy Tuberville,

(01:04:29):
is now running for a governor in Alabama. It's getting
back to a local level, which is where you are
at right now. After all this amazing international national service.
How does that interpret back and how does that interpret
for you as a board of supervisor candidate in Bodatache
County because it's obviously still want to serve. Yeah, so
talk a little bit about what you want to do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Be honest with you, all is content with private practice, Okay.
And my wife looked at me and says, you don't
run for board of supervisors? And I says, why, why
should I do that again. I've done my service. I've
served my country absolutely. And she said, I cannot believe
a man he was always rallied around the flag will

(01:05:14):
not do it today.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
They know how to hit you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
It that that was too low.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
You hit me girl. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Taxes are out of control. You know, in four years
they've gone from sixty two million dollar dollar budget with
a population of thirty thirty two thousand people in that
county to now it's over one hundred million dollar budget.
The sheriff's office is understaff, underpaid, the worst paid in

(01:05:45):
the area. The parks looked like the slums. The schools
are falling apart.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
The developments look good, right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Yeah, the developers really are running the county. Local business
guys being snuffed out and the over regulated. They can't
grow their own businesses. The emphasis on developers and Daleville,
which is my district, has grown. I tell people it's
ten pounds of crap and a five pound bag, and

(01:06:15):
the differences. Delleville has water and so they have rapidly expanded,
the traffic as rapidly expanded. People are angry, what about
the taxes and two about the over development. I'm angry too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
You know, it's a beautiful county. It's a beautiful county
and some of the I mean you go further towards
what is it, it's not you go through Fincastle. What
is on the far Yeah, became an It's a beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Beautiful county. And what they want to do is develop
all the way up to the Fincastle businesses, subdivisions. You're
taking away what.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Botatade is the rural county within.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
I mean, we as places you can develop in Botai County.
I'm not anti development. There are places you can develop
Route eleven, other places you can develop in Bottak County
and help the county out. But when you are pouring
everything into one area. The problem in delviw is there
is one way to get out. Yeah, it's two twenty
under the interstate. Now you got other side roads, but

(01:07:13):
they're not readily accessible, so the traffic has gone to back.
It's terrible this point, it's terrible, and it's getting worse.
They're building new subdivisions, new businesses. You get other places
of the county to develop. Why only Dellville. I know
why because it's the water. But the developers are getting
free rain, getting what they want to do. And uh,

(01:07:36):
my wife, who knows I'm a little sassy boy and
I'm not a get along kind of guy. It's right,
it's right or wrong, and this is right. Ida said rights.
Right's wrong, wrong, and they're not doing the people right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
It doesn't matter who's doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Yeah, So the board of supervisors or like lap dogs
for these developers.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
And so you you have a primary coming up on
the June seventeenth, OK, and who's vote. I tell you
I'm going to ask for a personal favor at some
point because I know, you know her win some seers. Yeah,
probably one of the one of the more interesting people
I've read about. Looked at some of the stuff she's done.
She's supporting what you're doing, correct.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Yeah, I talked to her. She came to Bonnatyk County.
We talked, and she's a she's not endorsing me. She'll
endorse anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
Because it's a Republican primary, right, you don't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
She's not gonna pick out Republicans.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
But she's like she thinks like you think, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Because you know you have a county administrator makes two
hundred ninety two thousand a year, you know, and the
County administrator in Bedford County makes one hundred ninety five
thousand a year. The one in Ronic City makes two
hundred and fifty five thousand a year. Seriously, Yeah, and
it's slush funds for buddies, all their buddies. I never
seen so many people might have one hundred thousand dollars

(01:08:57):
salaries in Bona type county now, and meanwhile everything else
is deteriorating. The Lord bonatat Is, it's deteriorating, and they're
doing nothing about it. So you know, Uh, there's a
movie Midway when the war started. There's a famous line
in there is when well and when the chips get down,

(01:09:18):
they call in the sobs.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
And you're there so big. Well, like I said, I
appreciate you coming on. Phenomenal story. I probably want to
have you come back and just talk about the tribunals.
I think, well, I call them tribunals. I know you
have a military commissions, that's what they.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
I mean, there were there were war tribunals.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
But I think I think that would just be an
interesting show just to talk about all the different things
that you accomplished and just how that fits in. I
feel like we have a new war on tear with
the drug cartels. What is it that going to look
like if we start dealing with that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
I saw about writing a book is very interesting and
the politics that went into it, but particularly when the
President Obama came president, it's quite the story.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Well, like I said, I really appreciate just the friendship
that we've had, but more than that, I really appreciate
all your service.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
I appreciate your service. Thank what you did for the country,
what you did for Bedford County in law enforcement many
years too long.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
So no, thanks a lot. I appreciate, we enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
I enjoyed working with you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
No, I appreciate it.