Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Ex-Police Officer Reveals Dark Side of Law Enforcement
Wed, 23 Apr 2025
Matt talks with former deputy Trent James who opens up about his insane story working for a corrupt police department.Trent's ChannelsConfessions of an ex Cop: https://youtube.com/@confessionsofanexcop?si=Y-wz9SMrgB2RP8Vt2FiredCops: https://youtube.com/@2FiredCops?si=DCAYtPJwEHoNVIwUFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What are the dark realities of law enforcement?
When you see a U-Haul coming out of the f***ing valley, out of Covolo, down onto the main highway 101, it's filled with f***ing weed, 900% of the time. Thousands of pounds of f***ing processed. You got two dudes that are from Mexico here illegally, and then they take it, they sell it, and the fear factor was so huge for these people. Now they're coming up, like, in other parts of the county.
Where I know U.S. attorneys that have been caught manufacturing evidence. fired and then rehired in another jurisdiction in a supervisor's position. So you were given a promotion. You've already framed people. If that's happening in a federal level, what's it like at a good old boys network of a small town sheriff's department?
They do a search warrant for the IP address, comes back to the lieutenant's house. That's weird. Let's do a search warrant to the internet provider. Okay, it's Comcast under the lieutenant's name. Okay, that's weird. Who lives in the lieutenant's house at the time? The lieutenant, his wife, 18 year old son. So let's do some common sense here.
It's more than likely gonna be the lieutenant or his son.
Hey, this is Matt Cox and I am here with Trent James. He is a former law enforcement officer and he's got a super interesting story and we're going to get into it right now. So check it out. Yeah.
So I'm 35 years old. Currently I was born in Harborford, West Wales. My mom was in the military, never met my dad. And she was a single mom for the vast majority of, or, you know, my, the earlier years during my childhood, we moved around a few times.
And I ended up in Mendocino county, California when I was about eight years old in Ukiah that in Mendocino county is very rural and it's part of the Emerald triangle along with Humboldt county and Trinity county. And that is basically those three counties are where the vast majority of the marijuana, the good marijuana is grown for the entire country. So, uh, I grew up there.
And very, I was a piece of shit growing up for sure. I was, I was not a good kid by any means. And through my teenage years, I was very, very angry. Um, got suspended a lot, uh, all the time and, um, switched at a couple of different schools, barely graduated high school.
I didn't give a shit about anything back then, you know, and when you're a teenager, kind of also, you think that, you know, what's best and you know, everything. I had a lot of run-ins with law enforcement during those years too. And I would say, you know, cuss them out to their face. I would say, fuck you, you know, pig and stuff like that. I hated cops.
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Chapter 2: How does corruption manifest in police departments?
And for whatever reason they liked me, I don't know, but that they, I, I still remember them. And actually I hated fucking cops back then, but I do remember our school resource officer to this day. And this was in like 2003 or four, um, Glenn Stark.
I still remember him, never saw him again after high school, but he was the only cop at the time that I did not cuss out to his face and say, you're a piece of shit. Cause you're a cop. Um, he took the time to talk to me and, uh, you know, I had respect for that guy. So anyway, I took a criminal justice class. It was very interesting to me. Um, and I was like 20 at the time. And so I.
said like, maybe I can, this is like, this is weird. Cause I was fucking hated cops. So I ended up going on a ride along with the local law enforcement agency where I was going to college. And I was like, holy fuck, this shit's actually pretty bad-ass. So I continued my education, got a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. And this was in like 2012, I think.
And back then it was hard as fuck to get hired. Like 2008 to 2000, even 13, because of the recession, they were laying off a lot of dudes. It was very competitive. And the whole reason I went to college,
Also was, you know, why I knew I needed a bachelor's degrees because I knew that my background was all fucked up and nobody was going to even look at me if I didn't have something positive in there. Because they look at time from the last time you fucked up and what you've done since then. You're going through a background check with these cop jobs. So went through in 2012.
I'm sorry, graduated 2012. And then shortly after that, I got hired as an adult probation officer initially back in Mendocino County. So I moved back there. And it was not what I wanted to do, but I was just happy to have a job in law enforcement. I was still super young. So I thought that like, I can segue into something else later and be an actual street cop.
So I did that for a short period of time, had a caseload of, well, initially I was writing pre-sentence investigations reports for dudes that were, you know, going through the court proceedings to see if they were gonna be eligible for probation. Then I had a caseload.
Was this federal?
No, this was a local, so adult probation, just County County probation. So, um, yeah, guys that would get, you know, felony is all felony level shit. So, uh, then I had a caseload. Uh, my first caseload was like 150 fucking dudes. And it was really weird for me because I hadn't been back to that County for fucking years at that point. Like I left for. I don't, it was a long time.
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Chapter 3: What was Trent James's experience as a police officer?
And that happens, you know, so if that's happening in a federal level, what's it like at a good old boys network of a small town sheriff's department? You know, like obviously it's, it's, it's much, much worse.
You're absolutely right. And you, you know, you, you do know, you have a lot of knowledge on that front too. And I want to, in a little bit, I want to talk about something else that I saw. You said it's totally applicable to a lot of these things too, that I saw in one of your videos, but yeah, Um, the thing of it is at the time when I started that channel, I'll get into that in a minute.
Like people are so, um, people in the outside world, like just that live every, any other place like Florida, even where I'm at now in Texas, actually, maybe not this place is fucked up too, but, um, Like they have a hard time. That county is so small that a lot of these people grew up together. It truly is. Everybody knows everybody.
And so the people that I was talking about on the YouTube channel, like for example, just the lieutenants, very brief. I didn't even hit on every supervisor there either. Their friends are everywhere in the community, families everywhere in the community. So they had this like people would say, oh, Trent, you're full of shit. You're making this up. And I'm like,
Because nobody wants to hear that shit. You don't want to hear your fucking uncle, your dad, your brother, your lifetime friend is a felon, pedophile, rapist, fucking crook, right? Nobody wants to hear that shit. So you're going to be like, this is impossible. I've never known him to be anything other than a great, solid, stand-up cop. It's like, yeah, dumb shit.
What do you think they're going to do to you? Sit you down and say, hey, man, just want to let you know I've been committing fucking crimes. Don't tell anybody.
no so that's not how that works right so you know people thought i was full of until all this stuff started to come to fruition that i was talking about but um like that rape thing i told you about full report man that still is i'm not gonna say where it is but it is in existence and a lot of these other things are fully documented right but um so anyway so i'm i'm hearing all these through all this throughout the years right and
These lieutenants that I'm discussing too, aside from the IA guy, nobody fucking like these guys. And there is a massive issue in law enforcement still to this day. I have friends that are cops across the fucking country, man. And in homeland security, fucking the FBI, Department of Justice, police department, sheriff's offices, like all kinds of shit, right?
Guys that used to be lieutenants and sergeants and stuff. I was a sergeant at one point. But it's an issue that plagues a lot of areas in the country. And since I started my other social media platforms, like I've had conversations with a shitload of cops that are experiencing the same things that I did. And it's basically what that means is a lot of corruption at the administrative level.
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Chapter 6: What happened in the child pornography case involving a lieutenant?
But I have powerful people saying you should be in charge. This is, it's a true tale of two cities, this whole story. So I put in, I'm like, this is great. So while they're investigating me criminally, they're investigating me also to be appointed.
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So that's all going on. So now we move forward into 2020 and I'm still lingering under internal affairs. I've been interviewed by some people under the Trump administration for an appointment. Right. So just can't believe it. And at this point, my wife is totally disgusted with the government to no end.
What a waste of money so far.
It's a shame. And I, what is it, proudly can say that the American taxpayers got their money out of me. I work my ass off every day. So now we're in 2020, this is the year I'm eligible to retire, to have 25 years in the Marshal Service. I came on June 95, I can retire June 2020.
So I think it was in February or March, February or March, I put in to retire, that I want to retire at the end of June 2020, because I just want out. Yeah. Well, while I put in to request that I can retire in June 2020, I am now hit with another proposed removal from everything that internal affairs did to me.
And of course, it's abuse of power, failure to supervise, lack of candor, misuse of my government vehicle, my phone, anything you can throw on there. So I have my lawyer again. We have to write up a rebuttal. I collect more letters than the first case. All my awards again, being part of the arrest with El Chapo and Nevison, great things.
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Chapter 8: Why do some police officers avoid accountability?
We're good?
Yeah.
All right. I'll wrap it. Well, one, I appreciate you coming out, making the drive. How far was the drive?
Um, it was like an hour and a half. It was almost, I think it was like 99 miles. But you don't think of it because I'm just down south, you know, in Sarasota. So, I'm like, oh, Tampa's an hour.
Yeah. No, and it's all, it's I-75.
But this is better anyway doing it. It's a better relationship talking like that, you know. And I'm all open. I mean, I'll... These are great. This is great for me, you know, for me and for you, you know, even if you had Q&A and talk about other thing. And look, I'm even open. I'm close by.
If you got talks you want to do to bounce things off as from a cop point to your point, be like, what do you think? You know, I'll debate with you on things or whatever, man. No problem.
I was just thinking it's funny this. No, never mind. I was going to say, this might be the public information officer for Okeechobee Sheriff's Department, because I'm actually supposed to interview the sheriff of Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office on a story I'm writing. So, I was going to say, they were going to call me today. I never get any phone calls during the day.
So, when it was ringing, I was like, that's probably the public, because he's calling me to schedule it.
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