Retired FBI Special Agent Jerri Williams

00:07
Brent Hinson
We all have a story to tell. Hello, and welcome to another edition of between the Lines with Virtual Academy, where a podcast going beyond the bads to allow members of law enforcement, public safety, and first response place to tell their stories and talk about the cases that have impacted their lives. I’m your co host, Bren Henson, and today we have the pleasure of welcoming a guest who served as a special agent in the FBI for 26 years. She’s not only an accomplished author writing crime fiction books, but she’s also a fellow podcaster, where she interviews her former bureau colleagues and they talk about some of the most intriguing and high profile cases they’ve been involved in. And, you know, I try to do a little short tease of our guests before I do their full introduction after I bring in our host. But Mike Warren, there’s so much to mention about our guests today.

01:00
Brent Hinson
I’m having a hard time not listing every major accomplishment because her work is.

01:05
Michael Warren
Quite impressive, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m really excited about the day because last week here in Michigan, we did one of our live training events, and the co speaker on that particular day happened to be a former guest of our guest today on her podcast, Kyle Vowwinkle. And one of the reasons why he actually came over the night of the class, and we sat out on our back porch and spent some time talking, and it was so enlightening to me because oftentimes, Brent, we think we know something that turns out not to be true.

01:42
Brent Hinson
My wife reminds me of that.

01:43
Michael Warren
All the yes, I’m reminded pretty dag on often. You know, it’s one of those things I enjoy getting the story straight because only when we have the story straight can we make true judgments about what’s going on. And my conversation with Kyle straightened out some things for me, and I’m hoping that we’re going to have the same thing today.

02:04
Brent Hinson
I think that’ll probably be true just based one of her books, which we’ll talk about, just debunking some of those myths, which was really enlightening, which I kind of knew based on our conversations with Gary Nesner and Calvon Winkle, but it’s just enlightening to read some of the things that she put.

02:22
Michael Warren
I’m excited about today. Know the old saying goes, what’s really problematic is when what you know isn’t so. And so what I’m looking for today is finding out what isn’t so. So why don’t you go and introduce our guest and let’s bring her on here.

02:37
Brent Hinson
Well, as I mentioned earlier, our guest today is a retired FBI Special Agent. But her definition of retirement differs from most because she’s now using the experiences she’s encountered during her time in the Bureau and the expertise from her storied career to provide firsthand insight about specific cases on her podcast, FBI Retired Case File Review, which she’s been doing this for a while, long before us. It started way back in 2016, and you can hear episodes on her website as well as all the popular podcast providers. Now, in addition to writing fiction books, she’s also authored the book FBI Myths and Misconceptions a Manual for Armchair Detectives, which is perfect for fans of true crime. I’ve merely scratched the surface of all of her career accolades. We are incredibly fortunate to welcome Jerry Williams to the podcast. Thank you so much for taking time to join us today.

03:36
Brent Hinson
Looking forward to the conversation.

03:38
Jerri Williams
So am I. This is so great. I get to go on different podcasts, but it’s even more special when it’s a podcast that highlights and showcases law enforcement and first responders, because that’s what I do. That’s what I’m interested in showcasing myself. So this is going to be great.

03:58
Michael Warren
Is it okay if I call you Jerry?

04:00
Jerri Williams
Oh, please. Yeah.

04:01
Michael Warren
I always have to ask permission. We had my mom on the podcast recently, and I was reminded by my very Southern mom about proper protocols. So we’re going to make sure. So if you’re okay with it, Jerry, I listened to your podcast, and you and I, I found out that we have some similarities in the way in which we conduct our interviews. But I typically ask our guests, what was it that drew them to this profession to begin with? What was the draw?

04:28
Jerri Williams
Well, I majored in psychology in college, and the first job that I got right out of college was aftercare counselor, also known as a juvenile probation officer. But I got the kids that were sent away to placement centers, group homes, reform schools, and so it was called aftercare because I helped them transition back into the community after they served their time away. And this was in Virginia, and I did that for three years. And I loved it. But it was emotionally draining because I had just graduated from college myself. I was 232-422-2324 years old. And it was just heartbreaking. I mean, the kids were constantly in trouble, and you think about juvenile probation, but they’re doing the same things that adults were doing. They were doing the home invasions and the break ins and the assaults and almost every girl that was on my caseload.

05:32
Jerri Williams
And we know now that we could call it sexual abuse because they were so young, but they were sex workers, having been convinced to do that by their quote unquote boyfriends. And it was a tough job, especially with me being so young and not having the benefits of being a parent myself and being asked to parent, in a sense, these kids that’s a long way of saying the way that I got into actual law enforcement, because that was a quasi law enforcement job. Absolutely. I mean, these kids were incarcerated and had been adjudicated and all of that stuff. But I got into the FBI because I saw a newsletter that said that the FBI was looking for more women and for minorities. Now, this is back in 1982, so over 40, 41 years ago, I’m old.

06:28
Michael Warren
I was listening to another podcast earlier this morning. They were talking about how there was this guy that he had done this fraud. He was doing classic wine bottles, these old wines, and he would mix them. But the thing is, they said this wine that was like 40 or 50 years ago. And I was thinking to myself, but the wine was 50 years ago. It was thinking made in the 70s. That’s ridiculous because I was born in the 70s. You know what I mean? I guess I’m classic. I’m not old. I’m classic, right?

07:02
Jerri Williams
Well, then I’m old because I graduated from college in the was just on vacation.

07:08
Brent Hinson
I saw a coffee mug and it said something that happened 20 years ago. You think it was in the 1970s and it was the 90s. It makes me feel old now.

07:19
Michael Warren
So you brought it up and actually a couple of things I wanted to kind of expound on there. Number one was the juvenile work. When you go back to President Obama, when he put forth the President’s Task Force on Policing in the 21st Century, and this group went out to find out what we could do to improve law enforcement in the nation. And one of the things that they found was that we need to do a better job in the juvenile side of things and in probation and parole. But yet those tend to be some of the most underfunded parts of the criminal justice system. And you were talking about helping kids transition back into the community, especially when we’re talking about juveniles. They’re going to be coming back into the community, and we as society have to do a better job of preparing them for that.

08:09
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. And I think the thing that I know more than anything else is that these kids are coming from an environment where they really don’t have much of a chance unless somebody comes in and helps them. Because many of the kids on my caseloads, their parents had been in the system, had been on the caseloads of the older probation officers who were working with me. And so what chance did some of these kids have if that’s the environment they’re living in, where people are going in and out of prison, in and out of jail, who are believing that the only way they can get anything in life is to take it or to steal it? It’s sad, but they didn’t have much of a chance, and you tried your best to steer them. And there were some great stories, some success stories, where maybe one of the kids in the family that you’re working with, because we did a lot of family therapy, makes it out and gets to college and becomes an attorney.

09:19
Jerri Williams
And I’ve seen those stories. I know those stories to be true. But the rest of the know, they just learn from their parents and you.

09:28
Michael Warren
Couldn’T be any more correct. I just finished reading Colin Powell’s book at work for me and I’ve read his autobiography. And he came from a neighborhood that wasn’t the best and he went to school with kids that perhaps were making some bad life choices. But the reason why, by and large he made it out, if you want to call it making it out was because of the example and the expectations that his parents had for him.

09:54
Jerri Williams
Right. And so if your parents don’t have any expectations for you, then you’re lost. Unless somebody on the outside, a teacher or probation officer reaches in and lifts you up.

10:08
Michael Warren
Absolutely. And unfortunately it requires that intervention. So my wife is a police officer. She actually serves as a middle school SRO at my former agency. And one of the things that I didn’t consider because I’m not that bright during COVID was when we started locking things down and we started doing this school in the similar way we’re doing this recording right here. She says, what about the kids where school is their safe place? Where home isn’t a safe place to be? This is where kids come. They get good food. They can let their guard down. Man, I tell you what. As society, I don’t know what the answer is but it’s not what we’re doing right now.

10:51
Jerri Williams
Right? And not only food and being able to let their guard down, just attention. Just somebody who cares, somebody who’s going to listen to them. Somebody who’s going to take the time to ask them how they’re feeling. I think that’s why I never had a kid that was on my caseload that didn’t show up. They showed up when they were supposed to because this is their time for someone to ask them questions, to show they care about them. And again, I’ve established that relationship with them because while they were away I sometimes may be the only person from the community that even went to visit them. And sometimes not sometimes, but whenever I went to these different and this is Virginia. You know how wide Virginia is. And there were reform schools and placement centers and group homes all over that these kids could be sent to.

11:42
Jerri Williams
When I went when I had to travel to go to these places to check on the kids that were from Newport News I usually drove a van and took their parents with me, took their relatives with me because that may be the only chance of them to see them because they didn’t have vehicles or couldn’t find the time to go. And when I begged them or offered to take them then hopefully many of them did take that up. Yeah. So I was their connection. So when they got back to the community, they enjoyed me. They enjoyed spending time with me we.

12:19
Brent Hinson
Have a superintendent in town who often gets criticized because he doesn’t cancel school when there’s icy roads until the very last minute. But I read an interview with him where he said, I do that because if I cancel school, there’s a number of kids that aren’t going to eat that day. And I did not take that into consideration until I heard him say that it was astounding yeah, but so.

12:44
Michael Warren
Know Jerry going back to Cal Bowinkle for a second. We’ve had him on the podcast here a couple times, and then he also did a course for us last week. The course was built around the case study of that Alabama incident where the guy went on the school bus, killed the school bus driver, and kidnapped the kid. One of the things he said last week that really resonated with me was the mom never came to the scene, that an agent had to be assigned to her and kind of served as the liaison with her. And I’m thinking to myself, as a parent, as a citizen, my goodness, how could you not make that scene? And you just kind of alluded to it that you had to beg the parents in many cases to come visit their own kids when they were away. And we wonder why kids end up in the system.

13:31
Jerri Williams
Yeah, it’s sad. And we might get into this, but when we talk about incarceration and the high levels of incarceration and why that is, we’ve got to start way back in the early ages of these kids. Just show some compassion. I mean, I had been in so many homes, even as an agent, but definitely as a juvenile probation officer, that were dark, no sunlight was coming in, the windows were closed. It was stuffy. And the only light was the light of the TV. And then every kid in that home and the mother in that home, and it usually was the mother. All they’re doing is watching that TV all day long, and there’s no communication. And it’s just so sad to go into a home and see that there’s a baby that I love babies, so I’m drawn to pick up the baby as I’m trying to conduct my interview and investigation, and there’s no interaction from the baby.

14:42
Jerri Williams
The baby’s not cooing. The baby’s not talking to me. It’s just the saddest thing. And, yeah, we need to start way earlier than we start when we talk about prevention.

14:52
Michael Warren
Well, Jerry, you and I are going down a rabbit hole, but it’s a rabbit hole that’s become very dear to me over the past few months as I’ve been doing some research on things, and there is a big push in American society to increase the representation of certain populations in our college ranks. And I am all for it because education provides opportunities and options to people. The problem is that intervention needs to take place way earlier than freshman year of college. It needs to start in kindergarten so that people are properly prepared for college when they get there. And that’s where we’re going to start getting the better results. We tend to wait until things are almost impossible to get back on track, and then there’s this massive intervention. It’s so sad. The wasted potential.

15:41
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. I love that word potential, because we know that at the beginning, all of us have the same potential. It’s just a matter of those opportunities and that intervention. And it’s just so sad that there are segments of our population that are not going to see those opportunities and are not going to be able to reach their potential.

16:07
Michael Warren
So I went to high school in Southwest Virginia, and my dad still lives down in that area, the state there. There’s a song, me and Brent and Aaron on the podcast here. We love a lot of music, and there’s this one called Small Town, and it know, too often in small towns you’re told not to dream too much or reach too high. If everything goes right, you can end up where your parents were. And in so many cities and in so many parts of the country that’s the aspiration. And if the parents are, as you pointed out, incarcerated, they’re already in the system, then. Now we have this generational thing, and it’s going to take a lot of effort. It’s going to have to be intentional, but I think we can break it. We just have to be willing to make the investment. As a country, yes.

16:57
Jerri Williams
As a country, yes. Absolutely.

16:59
Michael Warren
I can imagine how draining that had to be for somebody coming out of college who probably is full of all types of ideas on how I can change and impact the world. That has to be incredibly tiring for you. So I can understand the desire to change careers, but you came into the FBI and you said it, that they were looking to hire more females and more minorities. And I know you love the bureau. I don’t think there’s a bigger champion of the FBI than perhaps you, but they haven’t always had a good reputation when it comes to their treatment or inclusion of females and minorities. So you kind of were a trendsetter. I mean, you were part of the wave that really changed the face and the composition of the FBI.

17:47
Jerri Williams
Yeah. And I do think I have to say that from that beginning, from in the late seventy s and the eighty s, when the FBI really was campaigning and recruiting to get more women and more minorities into the Bureau, they’ve continued to do so. Whatever they’re doing, though, hasn’t worked that well. So when I came in, 5.8% of the workforce were women. And so that meant with that number being 400 and something at the time, and we had 57 offices, I think at the time we had 57 offices. That means that there was just a sprinkle of women here and there in all the offices. And so even ten years after the FBI had started to hire women, there were still very few women in the different offices. But when it came to black women, I think I was number 22 or 23, having been hired at the time.

18:54
Jerri Williams
And so I rarely saw anybody who looked like me. And one of my first offices was Sacramento. I was the only black employee in the entire office. Yeah. And so, yeah, there were times during that period because of the aggressive things that the FBI was doing, to try to get more women and minorities. There was a time that I felt that resistance. And you hear about it now when people talk about the need for diversity, that there’s some kinds of resistance and the assumption that just because you’re recruiting somebody, that you reached out for somebody, that person is not qualified. And I certainly knew that I was qualified, that I belong there. And it was really kind of I wasn’t funny at the time, but when I look back at it now, some of the male agents who might have questioned whether or not I was qualified came through at a time into the bureau when there wasn’t even testing.

20:03
Jerri Williams
I mean, they came in, and they got a job as a clerk and that worked around the office, and some point, the head of the office sent them down to Quantico. And so they didn’t have any prior law experience. They might have been clerking while they went to college, and so their only work experience was as a clerk at the FBI. And I wish I had thought about that at the time. You’re questioning my qualifications exactly.

20:33
Brent Hinson
Was there a specific incident or case, or was it just a matter of time where you gained the respect and they started to see you just as an equal of you’re in the Bureau with me?

20:45
Jerri Williams
I had to admit that came when I started to feel less like an imposter, when I realized that I belonged there, and that the things that were being said and being done and the way I was being treated was unacceptable. And the funny thing is, and I’ve told this story a number of times is that I was thinking of quitting about four years in because I was broken. I couldn’t seem to get my footing. Things were being said. I was moved around. I just couldn’t find my place in the FBI in that time period. In 1986, four years after I had been in, one of the agents that I went through training school with, jerry Dove was killed in the Miami shootout. And I don’t know, it was devastating. And I had talked to him off and on. We were the jerry’s in class. I was in Sacramento.

21:50
Jerri Williams
He was in San Diego. My sister and I went down. We had some drinks with him, and when he went to transfer to Know, I talked to Know a few times and then I was walking through the squad area and they said that there was a shootout in Know. I thought, well, who and that two agents were killed. And I thought to myself, please don’t say Jerry Dove. And they said Jerry Dove. And I was devastated to the point of it being like, why am I so know? And it was because I was thinking about quitting. And I couldn’t quit at that point because he had made the ultimate sacrifice for the Bureau. And so I stayed. And at the same time period, shortly after, the special agent in charge of the Philadelphia office, because I’m in Philadelphia at this time comes to me and he wants me to be the applicant coordinator, which is the person who manages the agent hiring program.

22:52
Jerri Williams
And I thought to myself, what is this about? I’ve only been in four years. That’s a job that usually agents get when they’re in 20 years. And it’s almost like they’re phasing themselves out so that they can go to these career fairs to find another job.

23:08
Michael Warren
They’re not looking for applicants, they’re looking for applications.

23:11
Jerri Williams
Exactly. So it was like, oh, here we go again. Me feeling like a know. That’s what I had been feeling my first four years, that I was being asked to travel around the country to Detroit and Phoenix and Dallas to do recruiting and I hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t I’d been moved around so much from squad to squad and assignment to assignment that I hadn’t made enough arrest or I didn’t feel like I had and I hadn’t done a lot of investigations and now you’re going to pull me away from the field work to do this? But when the Sac asks you to do something, you just say okay. And so I did that. And during the three years that I did that assignment, I recruited myself in telling recruits who were and who the FBI is and what we do. I recruited myself. And then after three years of doing it, I just begged them, please let me go back to investigations.

24:24
Jerri Williams
And once I got back onto a squad, I mean, you couldn’t stop me.

24:29
Brent Hinson
You could not daily affirmation that you’re telling someone else and then it’s coming back to you.

24:34
Jerri Williams
Yeah, absolutely. And after that point you couldn’t stop was, you know, a go getter a self starter mean. That’s why I did so well in that recruitment job. Our numbers were never below number two. There was New York office that had lots of people doing the job and there was Philadelphia and Philadelphia was right behind New York as far as bringing recruits into the FBI and going down to the FBI academy. And I took that same work ethic that I had always know, whether it was growing up or in college or whatever or as a probation officer. And I put it into that job. And then when I got back into investigations into my cases and you couldn’t stop me, I was on fire.

25:23
Michael Warren
And I think that’s a good life lesson for anybody who happens to be listening. But I’m going to say, especially for the younger listeners that whatever task you’re given, there is importance in the task even if it’s maybe not what you want or what you aspire. Give it your due diligence, do your best there because it’s very difficult. Let’s be very frank here. If you already have people in your organization that question why you’re there to begin with, whether or not you’re qualified for the position, if you don’t do well, then you’ve given credence to their argument. This is an opportunity for you to go out and show that you belong.

26:01
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. And I felt that. And we talk about opportunities and options. Those are present also in your job and in your occupation. You’re always looking for that opportunity to show people what you got, to show people what you can handle. Again, the first four years where I just felt like I was banging my head against whether it’s a glass ceiling or just a wall, I got that, whatever it was that just shook me. And again, I think it had a lot to do with Jerry Dove’s death. I went to his funeral. I was there and I had met his mother, of course, at graduation. I was there and I saw the devastation that she was going through. Just having that opportunity to take a look at what I wanted to do in the FBI. That has always been a motivator for me to remember. Not just Jerry but all of the agents, all of the law enforcement officers who know made that ultimate sacrifice and to make sure that I do the profession justice.

27:12
Michael Warren
The legacy that they have established is a very high standard. I think we as a profession we need to be reminded of that regularly so that we do perform in a way that honors their sacrifice.

27:26
Jerri Williams
Absolutely beautiful.

27:28
Michael Warren
So as I’m reading some of the stuff about your history, I am going to have to be honest with you. It talks about the investigation of a Ponzi scheme, those types of investigations. And I think maybe that’s one of the things that people don’t understand about the FBI. And so I’m retired local law enforcement. Most of our investigations don’t have the complexity or length of time that are associated with some of the investigations that you perhaps have. How does somebody I would guess that you’re very detail oriented based upon your history. Okay? How do you stick with the grind over a period of months or even years in some cases to see the case successfully through prosecution? How do you maintain that get up and go day after day?

28:18
Jerri Williams
I don’t know what it is about me, but I love fraud cases and I know, there are agents and police detectives that would rather stick a needle in their eye than to have to go through paper, boxes of paper, which now, I guess a lot of it now is also just files on computers. They would hate that. But I always enjoyed it. I was searching for gold. I was searching for treasure, just trying to find those documents that would prove that a crime had been committed. Because that’s one thing that people had to wrap their head around, that I think fraud and corruption type cases are some of the most difficult and complex cases that law enforcement can work. Because before you can even start working on whether or not you can find out who did this crime, prove that person did the crime, you got to prove that it was a crime.

29:16
Michael Warren
Absolutely.

29:17
Jerri Williams
Was it just a misunderstanding? Is it just a legal issue? Right?

29:23
Michael Warren
Was it a civil matter? Was it something that was unethical but doesn’t rise to the level of a crime so that oftentimes can take a.

29:31
Jerri Williams
And you know, I’ve worked cases where I really thought that I had something and at the know, you can still be charged federally in a civil matter. And I had one case like that where it was a company in Philadelphia that made this is not going to sound sexy, but I love this case, but they made cardboard for cardboard boxes. And what they were doing was making you pay for a weight of a box that you weren’t getting what you paid for. And it was intentional. Can’t even think of the terms now. I used to remember all the technical terms of weight and et cetera, but were able to get a cooperating witness that talked about the amount of pulp and cardboard that they put into the pulping machines to create these boxes and that they did it intentionally shortchanged everyone. We were able to get that, but weren’t able to prove that the people who did it because the bosses told them to.

30:35
Michael Warren
That’s a different type of protection of society, though, right? You’re still protecting the society with that type of investigation. You may not be throwing your body in front of a bullet, but there’s still protection that’s provided.

30:47
Brent Hinson
Well, let me ask this question here. While that is extremely important and it’s a crime and it’s wrong, wouldn’t your resources better used in things, murders and that type of thing? That’s just a layperson question that I’m asking here because that stuff’s going on and there’s tons of cases that still need to be solved. So while the importance of that, it’s a crime and it needs to be taken care of. You see the parallel that I’m trying to draw here.

31:14
Jerri Williams
Corruption is the foundation for crime. Being unethical, being corrupt, willing to cheat people. That’s the foundation of all crime. I mean, most murders occur because somebody is trying to get. Something of value from someone else.

31:36
Brent Hinson
It’s a foundational thing. It’s at the ground level.

31:39
Jerri Williams
So if we ignore that, sure, okay, then what is going to happen to our society? And so, yeah, when you learn about somebody is cheating at the end. I wasn’t able to criminally charge anyone, but the company paid a $6 million fine when we took it civilly.

32:01
Michael Warren
Jerry to tell me if I’m drawing a good parallel here. I served several years assigned as a DEA task force officer. First of all, you got to learn the federal language when you go down there, right? So it’s a big change. But one of the things that they talked about was you had the illicit side investigation, but you also had the diversion side, which were the DA investigations involving those doctors and pharmacists and things like that. And to be very honest, there wasn’t as many resources devoted to that side of the house as there was to the illicit side. And to me at the time, it made a lot of sense that the problem is more over here on the hard stuff. Until we got into the opioid opiate.

32:42
Jerri Williams
I knew you were going to say.

32:43
Michael Warren
That perhaps had we have done a better job on that other side up front that we wouldn’t be in the problems that we have right now.

32:51
Jerri Williams
And all of the ramifications of the opioid epidemic involved violence and death and murder and people home invasions and thefts in order to feed their habit. And so that’s just a wonderful example of the foundation of those corrupt doctors giving out the pills to anybody who wanted them. If we had been able to get a hold of that, just think of how much would have been able to prevent some of these more violent crimes. The normal stuff that law enforcement handles. We would have been able to get a handle on all of that if we had been able to deal more with the corruption at the beginning.

33:37
Brent Hinson
It’s interesting that it kind of dovetails back into what we’re talking about with youth, of getting in at the front end of things.

33:43
Jerri Williams
And that’s easy to talk about. But that takes manpower and then it takes resources. And sometimes you only have enough manpower and resources to look at and to deal with what’s right in front of your face at the time. I don’t know.

33:58
Michael Warren
And you talk about resources and perhaps that’s one of those myths about the FBI that people need to understand is that while the FBI does have a tremendous amount of resources available, those are finite. And so that’s why they have established thresholds in a lot of types of investigations. And you get people all the time. They get pissed off at the local detective or the state detective, well, I’m just going to go the FBI. And it’s like, listen, more power to you. But understand when you talk about those types of investigations, you do have to set those things because as Brent pointed out, that there are times where those resources have to be allocated elsewhere.

34:41
Jerri Williams
Yeah, I just had a conversation with a listener and I get a lot of emails and social media comments from listeners about fraud cases because I do feel that I’m got a lot of expertise. I worked those cases for I was one particular squad for eleven years, on the economic crime squad for eleven years, and then went over to our Cherry Hill office out of Philadelphia and still worked at for another three years. So altogether at least 14 years just doing economic crime, your Ponzi schemes, your embezzlements, your advanced fee schemes, your business to business telemarketing frauds, that’s what I did. So I have a lot of expertise and knowledge about when the FBI investigates fraud, corruption type and corporate corruption type cases. And so when I do hear from somebody that tells me about a fraud or something or scam that happened to know, it’s so sad to be able to have to say to them, please file this complaint with the FBI.

35:46
Jerri Williams
But they probably will not be able to take your case because again, we only have so many agents know manpower and resources, again, like you said are finite, and there are not going to be enough people to handle your particular case. The dollar value does not meet the threshold.

36:09
Michael Warren
There was a statement that I found on your website, and I don’t remember it exactly, but I thought it was incredibly telling about the importance of investigating these economic crimes. With a gun you can steal $100, but with a lie you can steal a million. And when you start looking at it.

36:28
Jerri Williams
I’m going to have to trademark that because I made that up.

36:32
Michael Warren
It’s incredibly powerful. Also talking about because one of the things that you received an award for was an economic investigation. In fact, you were interviewed on the show American Greed, and I love the title, and some people are so much better at this than I am when Greed and Giving collide. So what was that case about that you were interviewed there?

36:55
Jerri Williams
Yeah, that was a Ponzi scheme, the $350,000,000 Ponzi scheme, and it was an absolutely unbelievable case to work because this was a man, the subject was a man who had been known through in the Philadelphia area as a person doing good deeds. He was helping nonprofits learn how to use their money wisely and how to get funding not only from government sources and grants, but also from philanthropists and donors. And at some point something happened and he got caught up in the power of helping people find money and get money, that he started this thing where if you give him money, he will hold on to it to prove that you don’t need it for your capital growth, that this is for other acts of good. And he will have anonymous donor, match your funding and send it to you. And this was like, we’re not talking about a little bit of money.

38:00
Jerri Williams
You send him 500,000, you let him keep it for six months, he’ll send you a million. That’s what it was. And it grew outside the Philadelphia. It grew to mostly Christian organizations throughout the country. And so this was a charity Ponzi scheme. You can’t even say those two words in the same breath. And he goes, 350,000,000. And that was one of my crime novels. It’s called Greedy Givers that I took that case that I worked on and I fictionalized it and created this case as a way for me to try to answer how this man did that, how he went wrong. It was a fascinating case, and I think I did a good job in writing the book and trying to tell that story in a fictionalized way.

38:49
Michael Warren
But, you know, Jerry, you talk about the suspect was a guy who was known for doing good deeds, but sometimes something changed. But his victims were organizations that were known for doing good things. And when you talk about limited resources, there are resources that were given to him that no longer could be used for perhaps one of those programs where we can do that intervention with a kid early in life, and now that’s something that’s no longer available. Nobody was shot, but it certainly had impact, and somebody may have paid a price later down the line because of that activity.

39:23
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. And I’m so glad we keep coming back in the circle of life, circle of crime, that this ethics and corruption and greed are all the foundation for every other crime that is done. It is the foundation where somebody a home invasion or a carjacking, it’s all about greed. And so all levels of that, you have got to monitor and to investigate. Because if our leaders, if our corporate leaders, people in the community, whether they be politicians or heads of company, if we allow them on that bigger scale, which is going to have even more of an impact, we’re talking millions, we’re not talking about hundreds. If we allow them to get a pass, then that’s all going to trickle down and things are going to be even worse and wilder than you can imagine.

40:22
Brent Hinson
I mentioned that you’re a fellow podcaster, and you’ve been doing this longer than a lot of folks. I know there’s been a podcasting Boon, as of late, but your podcast is called FBI Retired Case Fire Review. And I noticed in your 50th episode, you dedicated an entire episode to the myths around the FBI, and then you did it again in your 100th episode. And I’m just assuming maybe that was the catalyst for you writing your book. Would I correct in saying that?

40:52
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. I had done those two episodes basically because I realized that what most people know about the FBI, they get from books, TV, and movies. The same thing with law enforcement in general. They think they know everything because they watched a TV show. And in the 50th and 100th episodes of the podcast, we talked about it. And then I was talking to somebody, an entertainment attorney, and he was the one who said to me, why don’t you have a book about this? This would be a great book. And I had already written at that time the two crime novels. And I thought, yeah, I could do this. And I think the audiobook is even better because the audiobook is interspersed with me talking and then actual audio clips from the podcast. And so I really enjoyed writing that book and doing that because and this is the same thing, basically, that you’re trying to do on your podcast.

41:50
Jerri Williams
It’s so important for us and law enforcement to tell our stories.

41:56
Brent Hinson
Humanize yes, absolutely.

41:58
Jerri Williams
It is just so important. And there’s a saying in writing and crime writing and writing novels, which is show, don’t tell. And so you can sit there and be on the news and lecture somebody about what law enforcement does and how important it is. But when you can show it by sharing a story, by talking about the sacrifices and the dedication and the things that were done to get a particular case accomplished, successful, then that’s when you’re actually showing somebody, you’re not lecturing them. And it means so much. And so in looking at these misconceptions and these cliches and allowing the different agents to come on and show the reality of what it is to investigate a know to be an FBI agent means so much more to the listener than reading about it in the news or someplace where it doesn’t hit them emotionally.

43:02
Brent Hinson
One of my favorite things you sent us in advance, you sent us a copy of the book that we got to read through. And one of my favorite things in the book is you kind of break down all these different pop culture TV shows and movies, and then you go through and you kind of dissect, okay, this doesn’t hit the mark. And this isn’t quite right, but one that I found that you actually thought was really quite well done was the Netflix series Mindhunter, which I love. That was a great series.

43:30
Jerri Williams
Yeah. And that goes back to my number one cliche, which probably sometimes I go between number one and number two. But number one was that FBI profilers hunt down serial killers. And the reality is that a profiler is a consultant. That person is going to come in to talk to agents and detectives and investigators in a situation where a case appears to be unsolvable. And they’re going to go through all you’re talking about paper, looking at paper, but they’re going to go through the entire file and try to figure out what they can find out that will help the investigator solve this case, give them an idea what this person may look like, where they may work, where they may frequent. Just give them as much information as possible. Sometimes they may go to the scene. Sometimes they may meet with all the officers on site.

44:28
Jerri Williams
But in most cases it’s a consultation. And I think they did a good job in mindhunter of showing it that way. They were showing you how they developed the profiles. And then in season two, when they were doing the Atlanta murders, they were working with the case agent who was in charge of the investigation to help him identify from victims, from witnesses who the murderer might be.

44:56
Michael Warren
People, the naysayers, you always have naysayers. They well, you know, look how when they’re wrong, what’s important to remember is in many of these cases they have zero to start with. Law enforcement has zero to start with. And this gives you a direction that you can get. And I’m showing Jerry, I know our listeners can’t see it. One of my favorite books that I’ve had for a long time is Mindhunter by John Douglas, a fantastic read. I actually got to go to a course that he put on. I found it fascinating. Brent told you his favorite part of the book. I got to tell you mine. One of your myths that you had was that the FBI can wiretap anybody anytime. The reason why that one hit home to me so much was when I was with DEA, our case, we ended up doing Title Three S, which are the wiretaps on 26 different phone numbers over the course of the investigation.

45:48
Michael Warren
And when people, they’re like, oh, that’s so cool. You get to listen in and stuff like that. I said, okay, let’s do away with the cool part first. Okay. Number one in the Eastern District of Michigan, the affidavit for the Title Three was usually around 100 pages long, and that had to be done on a monthly basis. And then you add on to that. The Eastern District of Michigan, they wanted a 15 day report showing what had been done. So that was another 50 pages just to be able to listen. And Jerry, if I never hear this again, it’ll be too soon because the software that was in use at the know, if you’re listening in on a phone conversation on Title Three, and there’s something that’s not related to criminal know, they’re talking about the family you’re supposed to mute. Yep, that software. Then you said the word minimize.

46:38
Michael Warren
And you sit there and listen. You pop back in. It’s like, just hang up the phone. If we’re not going to talk about something good, I don’t want to minimize, minimize. So you know exactly what I’m talking.

46:50
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. I’ve sat on many a wire myself.

46:53
Michael Warren
It’s funny, in movies and in TV, they always show the wiretap room as this elaborate, comfortable place or a van. Yeah, it was a closet. It was a closet. And there was nothing worse than getting the shift on, night shift sitting there go, oh my goodness, this is never going to end. But you couldn’t walk away because you walked away. What’s going to happen? That phone call was going to come in.

47:18
Jerri Williams
And you bring up a great point, because I’ve been talking about working fraud investigations for the majority of my career, but I need to make sure people understand that as an agent, you are a body. And so if they need someone to do a drug raid or to do a organized crime surveillance or to do a foreign counter intelligence survey, if they need a body, you go. So I have done my share of banging indoors in Camden, New Jersey for drug raids. I have done my share of high level interrogations and interviews because again, there are not a lot of black females. And if they felt that being a person of color and a woman was vital or would work in this particular situation, then I got called and I went. So I have done everything that you could possibly think of that the FBI is involved in.

48:21
Jerri Williams
I have done it, but I have spent my time and I’ve learned and I’ve been trained, and I have the expertise and know frauds and scams. But I’ve done a lot in the FBI.

48:34
Michael Warren
Would you agree with me that one of the things that the FBI provides that a lot of local agencies can’t simply because of their resources, it allows people oftentimes to work in their area? Passion. It seems like you’re passionate about economic investigations, that finding the people that are causing this harm. Perhaps you get that in that agency that you maybe don’t get in some other smaller agencies.

48:58
Jerri Williams
I think that’s absolutely true. I mean, that’s the great thing about the FBI. It’s hundreds of violations that we work. And of course, again, I’ve said this before. You’re a body when you first get there. So you may be assigned to I was assigned to work fraud cases almost immediately. First, it was government fraud, which I hate it because there was no true victim. The victim was the government, and that’s a big victim. But there was no passion. I wasn’t able to talk to somebody. I wasn’t able to feel the loss that they had suffered. But I worked government fraud initially in Sacramento, and when I first got to Philadelphia, and then later on, I was put on this economic crime squad. When you talk about the charity Ponzi scheme, I was talking know heads of company that were in tears, that were crying because they were so embarrassed that they had been caught up in this Ponzi scheme and that they had lost the institution or the nonprofit that they were hoping to give to donate to.

50:01
Jerri Williams
And they had lost money. And so you can’t help but feel how important those cases are when you’re talking to people who have suffered such a loss. There is nothing worse than talking to an elderly couple who have been scammed out of their life savings. Absolutely. You know, you’re doing good work. You know you’re doing valuable law enforcement investigations when you can help somebody at least get a portion of their money back, which, of course, is not the goal of our case. The goal is to have somebody suffer the consequences of their illegal actions. But if we can get some money back or just help somebody know that they’re not alone, that they’re not the only victim, that they weren’t stupid, they were taken advantage of in a way professional by a professional. Yes.

50:52
Michael Warren
I love what you said just towards the beginning, that corruption is the basis, it’s the foundation for all these other things. And I think one of the things that illustrates it best recently is all the COVID fraud. If we talk about a time in our American history where I think maybe not since the Great Depression have we seen economic impact at this broad of a scale than we did then, these investigations. I mean, the number I subscribe to the DOJ press release section, so I get several emails a day. I cannot believe the breadth and the depth of the fraud that went on. And it’s still being uncovered, and it’s still being investigated. Thank goodness it’s still being prosecuted. But I’m like you, I think I would struggle with that type of investigation, not because it’s not a righteous investigation, but because it’s hard to identify with the victim when the victim is the government.

51:51
Jerri Williams
Yes, somebody has to work those cases, god bless them, somebody has to work those cases. But being able to interact and feel that I’m helping somebody, I am a very and this is a positive thing, I think, but I think I’m a maternal person. I’m a caring person. I could be tough. Think about your mother.

52:16
Michael Warren
Scared to death of mine. She was.

52:19
Jerri Williams
When you say maternal, that doesn’t mean soft, it doesn’t mean gentle. It just means caring, and that you come in and you can take charge. I need that interaction with victims. I need that interaction with subjects to be able to talk to people and to get an understanding of who they are and try to make things better and to work things out. And I’m going to go back to podcasting. That’s why I love what I do so much. And I’ve been doing this now for seven and a half years, and I’m close to 300 episodes. It’s because I’m retired now. I’m not involved. Quasi retired. Somebody said the other day I’m a failure at retirement. I think somebody said that on your podcast. One of the podcast episodes I was listening to. I’m a big failure at retirement because not only am I writing books, I’m podcasting.

53:19
Jerri Williams
I’m blogging about the FBI and books, TV and movies. And now I got this new job that I’ve been doing for the last couple of years of TV consulting, which right now I’m not doing because the industry is at a standstill.

53:33
Brent Hinson
Well, you bring up a good point. I wanted to mention one more thing from your book, which I found interesting. You wrote that most script writers have never met an FBI agent, which I thought, that can’t be true. Somebody’s got to consult with somebody in order to get these things right. That’s crazy.

53:53
Jerri Williams
There are many shows on TV that just somebody wrote. Well, just like my fellow novelists, sometimes you just write a book and you base it on what you think you learn, what you think you know, and what you know comes from other books, TV shows and movies. I do think that when a TV producer or script writer goes out of their way to get a consultant, that will make that show even better. But they don’t necessarily have to listen to what we have to say, because for them, and I agree with this, for the most part, the story is the most important thing. Entertaining is the most important thing. You hope they try to get it right. But I think of the show Chicago PD, which I do not watch, but it’s one of my husband’s favorite shows. One day I was watching it. He had it on.

54:46
Jerri Williams
I wasn’t watching it, but it was on. And I could just see it was like, well, the head of the organization of the task force or whatever was like the most corrupt person, and he was doing things that were just illegal. And I thought, we’ve got all these people watching this show, and this is what they think the policing is. And it’s that’s a problem. It’s a huge problem.

55:11
Brent Hinson
Yeah. Gary Nezner said something similar. He said, you know, the overall nucleus of Waco was correct, but there’s a lot of things they took poetic license with, that kind of thing.

55:24
Jerri Williams
Yes, and that happens all the time. I had to go back and brag a little bit because you mentioned you held up your book with John Douglas. I’ve had him on the podcast.

55:35
Michael Warren
Incredibly fascinating guy. His mind works in a way that I won’t say is scary, but it’s much different than mine.

55:43
Jerri Williams
Yeah, I was able to have a conversation with him. The whole interview was arranged through a publicist, and she told me I had, like a half an hour with him. And I thought to myself, my podcasts are long like yours, because that’s how long it takes to get the whole story out. And I thought, well, that’s just not enough. And so I’m talking to him and I say to him, I know we’re near the end. Can we keep talking? And he was like, sure. We ended up talking, like, for an hour and a half.

56:12
Brent Hinson
It’s always the PR people that do yes.

56:15
Jerri Williams
Well, I’ll ignore them from now you know, was able to really get into a great conversation with him. I’ve had Gary Nesner on twice myself. I try to tell a variety of stories from the FBI, and I think that if I were just to talk about murder and missing persons, I probably and the podcast does well. I’m going to be hitting 10 million downloads by the end of the year. So the podcast is doing well for it just being me. I don’t have all of these producers.

56:52
Brent Hinson
We just give our titles on this podcast.

56:56
Michael Warren
It’s a blessing and a curse. I’m just going to throw it out there.

56:59
Jerri Williams
Yeah, there’s nobody here but me. And I don’t know where we were going, but I’m going to go back to my original of why I’m doing this because I just started putting ads on my show last yeah, just at the end of last year. I wasn’t doing this at all to make money, even though I could have monetized years ago, because it was more of a mission to show everyone who the FBI is and what the FBI does. I started the show in 2016. To be honest, I just was trying to sell books. I thought if I start a podcast by the time my book comes out six, nine months later, I’ll have potential readers. But then in 2016, we had the political, we had the campaign, the election. We had the election and the issues that came up with that. And as I could see people not understanding who the FBI was, it became this mission that I had to tell these stories.

57:57
Jerri Williams
And again, I don’t have any politics on my shows. I am nonpartisan. I have my own views. I do not express them on my show because I truly want people with all thoughts and ideas and opinions to listen. Again, because I want to show you I don’t want to tell you who the FBI is. I want to show you the work that we do. And so it’s become a mission for me to do this. At one point when I was doing it weekly, and I did it weekly for the first, like, four years, I realized I can’t keep this. It was like when I was a juvenile probation officer. I cannot keep this pace up anymore. I can’t do this all. So now I do it every other week. But it is so important to tell our stories in law enforcement and for first responders first, it preserves institutional knowledge.

58:53
Jerri Williams
As you have a law enforcement officer or first responder and the law enforcement officers tell their story, they are sharing techniques and knowledge and expertise that somebody who’s in law enforcement today may be able to use that they didn’t think of. And so again, number one reason is to preserve that institutional knowledge that could be in a file someplace that nobody would ever learn about. If you don’t come out and share your story. Another reason to share your story is to help with the positive perception of law enforcement. This is what you hear. This is the truth. Maybe what you hear is truth. But look at all this other stuff that law enforcement, the positive, the good stuff that law enforcement does. And so you want to make sure that you can contribute to the positive perception. And then the last thing is your own personal legacy.

59:51
Jerri Williams
There are so many people in law enforcement who their own families have no idea what they do every day. They don’t share. They don’t talk.

01:00:00
Michael Warren
Jerry a last plug here for your podcast. One of my favorite episodes recently has been the one on the labor union. Okay, spoiler alert. Okay, just going to say spoiler alert here. At the end, I thought one of the best things was, hey, you know what they found out after all this corruption, after all this stuff was going on, was that if they would have just gone about it legitimately, they could have made much more money. It’s like mic drop, walk away. Because it’s like, hey, dummies, all that stuff you went to go. It’s amazing to me. But we go back and we’ll wrap things up here. But we go back too often people continue doing the things that they grew up with, what they were exposed to. And I think that probably was the case here. You’ve got these generations in these labor rackets that’s the way they’ve always done business, even to their own detriment.

01:00:58
Michael Warren
And we have to do better in society.

01:01:00
Jerri Williams
Absolutely. I have to tell you, sometimes people ask me what my favorite episode? My favorite episode has not been posted yet. All my children. I have three kids and they were adopted as infants. My son, right from the nursery. And I have been begging and begging a former colleague to come on and do a case review about his adoption fraud case. And I’m telling you, I was in tears the entire time that he reviewed that case. And so that will be coming up soon. That really showcases the work that law enforcement does. It really showcases how important it is for fraud cases and corruption cases and greed cases to be investigated. And if you can listen to that episode, the agent was Darren Workmeister. And again, it probably will have been posted by the time this is posted. If you have any question about why working fraud and scam cases is important, listen to that episode.

01:02:08
Jerri Williams
Make sure you have a box of.

01:02:09
Michael Warren
Tissues nearby you’ve listened to us in because Brent and I, we are criers. But as we wrap it up, what’s your website address? People want to go and find out more about your books and about your podcast.

01:02:23
Jerri Williams
Yes, it’s jerrywilliams.com very easy. Jerri williams.com and I have everything there. You can listen to the podcast. You can find out where you can buy my. Books. You can read my blog, where I break down TV shows and movies about the FBI and use them as teachable moments. Everything’s there.

01:02:45
Michael Warren
Jerrywilliams.com, for our listeners, I can’t recommend highly enough for you going and visiting there. You’re going to be entertained. You’re probably going to be appalled, to be very honest with you, with some of the investigations that have had to be undertaken because of the acts of people who well, they’re not very good. And now we find out that there’s going to be at least one episode where you’re going to cry. But I promise you, there’s many episodes where you’ll cry. I promise you, though, it will not be a waste of your time. Jerry, we can’t thank you enough for being with us today. Thank you for your service, thank you for what you have done in the past. But I also want to personally say thank you for what you’re continuing to do, because your message is valuable, and I can’t think of a time where it’s been any more needed than right now.

01:03:33
Michael Warren
So thank you.

01:03:34
Jerri Williams
Thank you.

01:03:35
Brent Hinson
And I just want to reiterate the website, Jerrywilliams.com, and I want to mention your books, because I think those are important too. Your crime fiction books, pay to play greedy givers. You can check those out, put them in the show notes. Folks can get those. And also the book we talked about earlier, FBI Myths and Misconceptions a Manual for Armchaired Detectives. You’ll definitely want to check it out. Jerry, it’s been a pleasure, a lot of fun. You’re a joy to have on.

01:04:02
Jerri Williams
Thank you. It was my pleasure to be here. This was great.