The Man Behind the Badge joins us with special guest Eric Robinson

A lot of people want the wild FBI stories. We wanted the part that lingers after the story ends, what the work does to your nervous system, your faith, your marriage, and your view of other people. Former FBI agent Eric Robinson joins us with zero script and a ton of honesty about how you stay human when your job is to stare at the worst of human behaviour all week. 

Eric talks SWAT life and the “can’t turn it off” moments, including how a simple sound can kick your body into go mode. We get into his biggest long-haul financial fraud investigation, the surreal world of fake foreign bonds, and why calm curiosity beats chest-thumping when you need a confession. He also connects his years as a pastor to law enforcement, explaining how he sees justice as service, not ego. 

We go wider into real prevention: mass shooting warning signs, the fear of “looking foolish” that keeps people silent, and what intervention can look like when someone is suicidal or dangerous. We also talk teen prostitution and the manipulation tactics pimps use to control vulnerable kids. Eric closes by sharing his upcoming book, Irreverend: From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners with the FBI, built from cases, humour, and hard-earned after-action lessons. 

If you like grounded true crime, FBI stories, first responder mental health, and practical safety insight, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What part of this conversation hit you the hardest?

Transcript

Off Script With A Former Agent

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Howdy, y'all. Welcome to another episode of Contagious Smiles Unstoppable. Here with the lovely sexy Victoria, the Vixen, and her two golden retrievers. And today we have a very special guest, former FBI agent Eric Robinson, current author.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Too soon to be released.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Yes. Too soon to be released book. That's gonna be here in hopefully summer October-ish. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

This year.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Let's be safe. We'll say this year. Eric, thank you for coming on. I know you're super uber busy.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

I'm retired. I'm not super uber busy.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

We do things different here. We're off the script. We just go with the flow. But what we're gonna do different is I know you have been on so many interviews, but and they they go through and talk about everything that you've done, but I kind of want to talk about what this has done to you. Sure. What has this done all to you? So tell me, you have been a former FBI agent, you've seen it all. What has this done to you as a person now that you're no longer with the agency?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Well there there's things that you see as an agent that in some ways you know they're out there. Some things you find out that you did not know was out there. So it's a it's a peek into how society lives with the criminals. And so how it affected me was I had to be talking to myself and and talking to other like-minded friends. I had to remind myself that this is not humanity, these are criminals. We focus on criminals. So when you see the things that are disgusting and horrible, stomach-turning, disappointing, okay, that's this person. And despite the fact that it's that person every time, every week, and that's what we check into work to look into, that's not all of humanity. And so it's it's nice to, in the midst of an investigation, running into some of the victims or witnesses who are normal people to kind of cleanse that filth and say, okay, there's normal, decent people also involved in this, too.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Do you ever feel like you can't turn it off that you're still almost profiling people when you're having a conversation with them?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

I I don't know about profiling. I tried to always be open. So when people would talk to me, I I wanted to be curious. And so the idea of profiling means I have an understanding of who you are. So if I came into even when I had the evidence and I know you're guilty, and I've I can prove it, I'm about to prove it in court. I always wanted to be open to you tell me about you and let's see where this goes. And maybe that adjusts what I believe, and and maybe it doesn't. We come back to okay, I do know more about you. So as for the profiling, no, but I'll tell you this. I I the greatest thing I did in retiring is, and you could ask any agent, they would say, Yes, that's true, is I turned in my bureau phone, and just having that phone on me all the time, you know, texts at night, and informants calling, you know, I have an informant calling me on Easter a year ago, and he's like, Happy Easter, boss. I'm like, hey man, you're Muslim, you don't believe in this, and he goes, Ah, just be nice and say happy Easter back. I'm like, okay. And there was a the the sound for the SWAT call out, because I was on the SWAT team for 15 years. The notification for our SWAT call out on the phone was this clanging sound, meant to make sure you heard it, but there's that sound is similar in I think like a tide commercial. And I remember, you know, here we are, 8 30 at night, sitting in bed, watching TV, and that commercial goes off, and I just shoot up, and now I have a hard time going to sleep because thought I had to get dressed and run out and hit a door.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

And you're ramped and ready.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

I I experienced something similar when I was in the Air Force Eric when they would play Reverley, you know, at 4 30 in the morning. You you first heard that click over the intercom, and and your heart starts jumping. You get that adrenaline going because you know you know he's coming in yelling, and it's time for PT.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

And it's not a major thing, but it's your body going, time to go. And my body's telling me time to go, and it's not, it's time to go to bed. I I had uh I had Eric Church's creeping as my ringtone for for probably 20 years. And so, you know, I'm walking through the mall or something, and I hear Eric Church, and I'm like, I'm reaching for my back pocket, like, nope, you're fine, Eric. That's just that's just the radio now.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

So the the kind of piggyback off that, Eric, if you don't mind me, Victoria, I was law enforcement for 13 and a half years, and it it's it's very hard for me to turn off that vigilant, to turn off that you know, perception, that awareness. You know, everywhere we go, both my wife and I are armed, we carry everywhere. And you know, we one one of us, usually me, depending on my wife.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

You had to make the arm joke, really?

SPEAKER_03 5:26

No. No, we no, we we sit, we we sit with our back. And we watch people, even in even in the firehouse, you know, we watch people, we watch hands, and we watch waistbands, you know. Yeah, and we'll see a gun protruding, and you know, hey, this person has a gun, just be aware, you know. Yeah, so it it's something that's that's very hard for me to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Well, and and I feel like a lot of that isn't negative as long as it's not keeping you from enjoying yourself. Like you feel like you've got to be ready to go as opposed to being aware. Being aware is great, it's better than walking into a restaurant and being foolish. And and and and you didn't even have to finish your story. I knew your rest of your story, but that you sit with your back to the wall facing the door, and you know, anybody who's been in law enforcement knows that. And that's why when you know you and I go to Panera, I try to get in first so I can beat you to that spot.

Faith, Justice, And The FBI

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Exactly. Exactly. Now you also pastored a church.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah. Go ahead and go ahead and hide that one in the lead-in.

unknown 6:30

Right. Let's just go.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Was there ever a moment where your faith and your job directly collided?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

No, I felt like in the FBI we were always above board, looking to do what's right, proper. On the contrary, I felt that obviously what I did in the church was doing God's work, and then what I got to do in law enforcement was just a different side of God's work. I believe that God wants justice for people, and the church can only do so much in that regard. So this was, if done right, which I feel like we did, this was carrying out justice for people because the church can't bring people to that level. We can, you know, give support, even raise money. But if someone who harmed your children is still out there, then you don't have that with the FBI. I felt honored that I had one job that had a noble position, and I got to move to another career that also still had a noble position.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

What case still sticks with you today that you can kind of give us the vague overview of?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Oh, I don't have to give a vague overview. I can get right into it. The biggest case that I had dealt with a man named Mark Wittenmeyer who had stolen, by my estimation,$22 million from the people, largely from the Toledo, Ohio area. And the case sticks with me because I had worked it for four years.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And it began with him, if you recall, back in the 90s, we used to bundle our long distance minutes. So you get a phone call and somebody would say, How much are you paying for long distance? I can get you 12 cents a minute. And kids don't understand it because it's all free on your in your pocket. But he was a millionaire back in the mid and late 90s from doing legitimate work. Well, he moved on to other companies until he was working with MCI WorldCom and that went bust. And so he moved into starting up new ventures. And every company he had was legitimate, but whatever investment came in to promote the company, he just put it in his pocket and then come back and say, hey, you know, you win some, you lose. It's a risky venture. So he had taken that money over and over, lived a wonderful lifestyle, and people would continue to invest because the guy had a multiple Lamborghinis, he's got the beautiful house. Like he's clearly successful, but it was all their money. But by the time I started investing or investigating him, he had moved on and ruined all of his companies, and now was working in a world where he was trading in foreign bonds that were completely fraudulent. And I found this world online where these people try to sell each other these bonds representing them, and they were worth a hundred billion dollars, and so he was to get one just one percent of that commission, so making himself a billionaire immediately, and they were they were all junk, and many of them just had all the earmarks of this is ridiculous, like it's sponsored by some prince of Brunei. And then some of them had legitimacy because they'd be like a Mexican railroad bond from 1900, but they'd said, Oh, yeah, but now with inflation, this is worth a hundred billion dollars. And the whole world was that that atmosphere was crazy because I spoke with one person who said, Oh, yeah, I believe this is true. In fact, I had a client who owned a quad. And I said, What's a quad? And she said, Well, a bond worth a quadrillion dollars. And I'm like, I don't know if there's a quadrillion dollars in all of the world. Wow, not one person doesn't have a quadrillion dollar bond, so we ended up after so many years it took to finally this complex financial case to finally charge him. So that one sticks with me.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Now, you have been across the table from many, many dozens of people. Was there any monster that really got under your skin and got to you?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

No, I was able to set that aside. I'd worked plenty of cases against pedophiles, and a lot of folks would tell me, you know, cops, civilians, whomever, I don't know how you do that because I just want to put a bullet in his head. And I think, yeah, but these guys are pathetic. Most of them confess because they hate themselves and they're as ashamed as I don't have to tell them that they're awful. They know it. And I could set that aside because I know that the best case is not me reminding them that they're disgusting, it's me getting them to make a confession. And hopefully go beyond that and let us know if there are people that you know, victims that we don't know about that he's acted out on. So that was simple for me. I I can I used a lot of what I had learned or practiced as a pastor in working with people, and so it wasn't tough for me to see this as a human being. And if they wanted to turn it on and be an asshole, like, okay, I I can do that too. But until then, let's just I'm gonna talk to you and I'm gonna treat you kindly, and let's see where this goes. So I mean, the closest I got was one where I had arrested a gang member in Chicago and he got under my skin because he kept calling me short. You know, that was about it. But for the most part, these guys just they broke the law, and my purpose was to come and to now bring them to punishment. I didn't have to make it personal.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

So so I did four and a half years in jail, and I had to take care of the these pedophiles, and they're all in isolation.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Remember what they want to be called now.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Oh, what yeah, whatever. Maps.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Have you heard that? They want to be identified as maps. We had a pedophile come on, and he identified as a map, a minor attracted person.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Okay. So you know, my job as a correctional deputy was to take care of these inmates. The trustees would approach me and say, Officer Solomon, I'm getting tired of hearing these guys tell me how they lured these children into their whatever, home or vehicle and the things they've done to them. Now, these trustees are coming to me telling me this. And you know, you're a better man than I am, Eric. I tell you this right now, because one trust me, one trustee, while passing out the dinner trays, you know, the style dinner trays, said, Officer Solomon, I put a little something extra in his because I'm tired of him saying all the gross stuff he he has done to these children. And you know, I turned a blind eye. I I couldn't blame him. I'm a father of three.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

You know, but yeah, and that's a tough thing because no matter how much I interacted with bad people, if I ever, you know, whenever I was taking people into the jail, if I had a corrections officer who treated me kind of pissy, I'm like, hey man, I can take it. You you got to go here every day. And so there's a difference between me working up a case and like having a goal in front of me of getting confession and having to work among these people every single day. That that would be very, very difficult.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a whole different lifestyle inside the jail. And oh yeah, you know, and kind of had to conform to it as a deputy for 12 to 16 hours. You know, I think some of that some of that shit you can't leave. It's hard to leave at the jail, you know, or or or on the road when I was a cop. It's hard to leave it behind and not bring it across your threshold into your home, or vice versa, bring your home life into your work.

When A Suspect Explodes In Court

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Well, there's a balance because you can't be completely immune to it, because if you are and you just harden yourself, well, then how do you sh how are you a loving husband and father? So I mean you can't live that way, and also you can't let it break you because now you're useless to your family as well. So there's that balance of being able to accept it and properly judge it as that's horrible and not let it seep in any further. So I don't know what the rules are for that, but yeah, the the one significant interaction I remember having with COs is we had a bank robbery, and uh, I was a new agent, and the bank was robbed after there was a call into a school for a bomb threat. And I was like, isn't that the plot of diehard three? And it is, right? And and they caught the bank robber really quickly because it was a bomb threat in July. But anyway, um no school, no school. Um so we pick up the guy and we start transporting. It was a long drive, and I get a phone call from our switchboard, and it's the guy's attorney. They they've already learned that he'd been picked up from the from the police, and they said, Hey, I just want to make sure that you know he has auditory hallucinations, which made sense because he was acting very strange, like just chirping for no reason. And so all along the way, like he just was picking fights as if we were insulting him, and then we took him to the to the jail, to the lockup, and they had two guys who like together totaled like 13 feet tall and 600 pounds. Like these guys were big, and this dude was scrawny, and he just looked at the one and like started trying to wrestle him in the cuffs, and they took him down like a sack of potatoes. And the next day we're going again. I'm a new agent, we're getting ready to take him into his initial appearance, and he's meeting with pretrial services, which is you know, they're a neutral party, and it's a woman, and he's just saying disgusting things to her, and finally she's like, I can't do this. And as we're about to take him in, I go to my boss, I'm like, hey man, we're leaving him in cuffs, right? And he said, Yeah, we're leaving him in cuffs. And I said, I'll bet you 20 bucks this guy's gonna be held in contempt of court. So we take him in, he's in cuffs, you know, so-and-so on behalf of the government, and then he says, you know, I'm so-and-so on behalf of the defense. And and the criminal had been like really pleased to see, like this was a family friend, but he looked at this 70-year-old, like five foot tall guy and in handcuffs, he cocks his head back and comes down on the bridge of his nose and busts him up. So I ended up wrestling with him, got cut, had to get tetanus shot. And then right before, right before they sent him away, the judge says, I'm holding you in contempt. I'm like, Yeah, I win.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

20 bucks, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I had a bot, I had a bottle of Irish whiskey on my desk the next day.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Now tell me who was Eric Robinson on his last day with the with the agency versus who he was on his first day with the agency.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Oh my gosh. It's like, well, so I've been married. Uh I say this. I've I've been happily married 27 years. 33 total, but you know, you take some bad ones in there too. But uh the my wife knows I say that. The I I am glad to be married to my wife, but I have so much more confidence now as a man. Like if I was if I if I was 17 years old and I had the confidence I had now, oh, there'd be a lot of you know guys looking like me around the world. But I and that was the same in the FBI. I got in, I didn't know what I was doing. I'd never handled a gun before. I'm trying to figure out you know what just how the FBI works. And by the time I finished, I'm like, okay, I'm the senior guy, I'm the one that folks come to if they have some questions or help. And I was always going to them too, even to the very end. But you know, having that experience along the way does so much. I'd been there on SWAT. Guys would ask me, like, hey, what do you think you bring to the program? I'm like, I think I've been on a thousand ops with you guys. So if there's not much we haven't come across that I haven't seen, and the guys were like, Yeah, we have got some young guys on the team, and it helps having a sturdy presence. And I was glad to provide that. And at the same time, I'm still learning from the young guys.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah. So why FBI?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Um, I people keep asking me that, and I don't know. Do you not realize the FBI is super cool?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

I do know.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Okay, okay. So you're just you're just making sure that that's the reason.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Well, of course.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

I I had to leave the pulpit because I had stress-related headaches every day for two years straight, and I had to find a job with less stress. So you went into so I joined the FBI. Yeah. It just was less stress because when people came with problems in the church, I cared about it and I didn't find the mechanism to not burden myself with it. In law enforcement, if the bad guy got away, whatever, man, God or society will take care of him. Like, we'll we'll get it. And so the day I got accepted in the FBI, my headache stopped. That was definitely a cue that I'd done the right thing. But I remember, so I had a good friend who told like tells the story of, like, yeah, here's how I fashioned my schooling and my career and every step I did to get in the FBI because it was my dream job since I was 10. And I said, Oh, I kind of did it on a whim because I thought it would be cool, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

I get asked all the time. So I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you, what this is so like trivial, what TV show to you is the most relatable to the actual FBI?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Uh well, the wire. That was being the wire. Oh my gosh. Well, this is the greatest day of your life because you've you've got five seasons of television excellence ahead of you.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

What about the blacklist?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

No, no, no, no. No, I enjoyed the blacklist, it was fun.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

But so my youngest kid would watch reruns of criminal minds. And so she'd put it on and she'd say, You get five complaints and and that's it. And then you gotta shut up. And you know, I was I was done like three minutes in, like, oh Like, yeah, honey, they can't go into Canada to arrest somebody with guns. That's that's an international incident.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

No, I'm curious. People ask all the time, like, what cop show is really relatable to what y'all have done? And another reason I asked about the blacklist is I'm super excited because, you know, you watch the blacklist. I I love the blacklist.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Is you know, the FBI agent Aram Mushbai, he is co-hosting with me on Friday. And so yeah, I'm so super excited.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Well, that I mean that's great regardless. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Yeah. He's awesome. He's a total gentleman.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Well, I I used to say this when the the FBI sh academy show with Priyanka Chopra was on five, six years ago. People would say, Oh, is that realistic? I said, Well, I haven't seen it, but I see this hot chick getting out of the FBI pool, and I know it's not true because A, I didn't see a lot of hot chicks in the academy, and B, the pool is always closed.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

You would think she's hot. She's yeah, easy greasy.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

You would totally think she's hot. Nick Jonas's wife or Nick Nick or Joe.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

She's old, but she likes younger men, so you have no luck.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

You're welcome. Plus you're married now.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

That's right. So oh oh, there's that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Happily married this time.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

This time you're happily married.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

That's my third go-round, Eric. All right. Let's stick with this one. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Thank you. See? Thank you. See, so they can be payful. Now, this is your first marriage, right? Your first and only marriage.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

First and only 33 years.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

That's awesome. See, nine.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I was nine years old when I got married.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Because see, my husband always says on our shows that people in uniform, you know, for the majority, they cheat. And I never cheated. Now, him on the other hand, there's, you know, my daughter who will walk around somewhere, she'll she'll see a younger kid and she'll be like, hey, dad, is that yours? And like she asks him all the time because, you know, my daughter said he he worked for the UN at one point, making sure to keep up foreign relations. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Next subject.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Next subject. Indeed.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

It it, you know, I don't know what it was, but my dad, my dad was saying my sperm donor, right? We're kind of extremes right now. He always told me, son, when you put on that uniform, it will be thrown at you.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

But you have to have the power within to say no.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

And and I didn't have that power. I was I was you know in my twenties. I was too.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

And but that but that also sets the tone when you have someone in authority in your life saying, Hey, this is a in a sense acceptable and this is what's gonna happen, and you get those things modeled to you.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

When I was the the financial case I told you about investing investigating this guy, so he had a trophy wife. She was like the Heisman of Trophy Wives. And so Mark would, the subject would always tell people that I was banging his wife. So he knew I was investigating him because it was out in the open as a it was a financial case. So he was always telling people I was banging his wife, and then she divorced him, and then he married another woman, and then he started telling people I was banging her, and then she divorced him after two months and started dating, started dating a gal. And of course, I was doing it with her too. And I was just having sex with so many women without the enjoyment of it along the way. And before we went to trial, our prosecutor said, Hey, you know, he's brought this up before, so I have to ask you. And this guy, he's now a Supreme Court justice for the state of Michigan, very straight guy and brilliant, too. And he says, I have to ask you if you've had any relationship with any of these women. And I just said, Hey, a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell. And he just he could start getting pissed off.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

How does your wife handle? How did she handle it during the time that you were active?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

So she's so in the beginning, we were working in Chicago, I was there for eight years, and she was always nervous about me going out because this is new. And I wasn't on the SWAT team, but I was investigating gangs and drugs, and so she was always concerned. And I was like, honey, I'm not gonna get shot. I'm gonna get hit by a car just driving in Chicago. That's that's the most dangerous thing. And by the time I'd been in it for a number of years, and I was on the SWAT team, and I'd, you know, do these hits, and I'd say, Hey, next Tuesday, we've got an op in the morning. And she said, Okay. And I said, Well, you know, guy's pretty dangerous. Like he's got homicide conviction already. Said he won't go back to jail. And she's like, All right. And I was like, you know, you never know what'll happen to me. She was like, I put it in the calendar. What do you what more do you want? So it just completely completely changed.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

That's awesome. So what is your success? Uh suggestive tips for a successful marriage. You got 33 years, well 27 in there that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

No, I have a 33. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

What is your your successful tips there for a successful marriage?

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Well, I think starting out is understanding unspoken expectations. So, especially in the beginning, I think you're going to do this and you should, and then you don't, but that's what I that's the way we always did it in my family or in my last relationship. So unexpressed expectations are a setup for an argument. And otherwise, it is being open. So my wife and I practice this. Number one is whatever you say, I believe that you are on my side, you're not out to get me. Secondly, if I even disagree with this, I'm going to suspend that and treat this as if it's true. So I'm going to be curious from this now and follow on. And then from there, I'm going to ask probing questions to get to a point. So rather than a pose, where you tell me something I don't like and I go, oh yeah, and we're playing tennis, hitting our complaints back and forth. Instead, we're going to play catch. You throw me something I don't like, and I'm going to catch that, and I'm going to, I'm going to work with that first. And we're going to solve this as best we can. And now I'm going to say, okay, now you catch this.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

I have to ask, how has it been when your daughters have they come home with a boyfriend or a partner yet? And they're like, because we ask our daughter all the time, who are you more afraid of somebody you bring home meeting? And she's like, so what's it like when they bring home somebody for dad?

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Well, so my oldest is engaged, and they said, Oh, okay, at first you were scary, but I think I don't know. I think I'm I I'm quiet. I don't maybe I seem grumpy, but then like I immediately started engaging, talking about the walking dead. And okay, so now so now me and my oldest partner, now we're kicking it off. So I think it was a matter of me being open. And I I I didn't I never bought into that idea of like I'm here to scare the boys, like that that just makes things awkward.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Do you hear that? Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

I'm waiting.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

I'm waiting. You don't get off. I've got a hole in the backyard.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

But I'll tell you this back in my days when I was pastoring, you know, I was younger, and so one of one of the people in our church, their kids were teens, and they had a standard, both for the boy and the girl. So for the girl, if somebody wanted to ask her out, they had to go ask permission from the dad first. And that was an out in case she goes, Dad, I don't want to. So, like, you know, then you make it difficult or say no. And the boy had to show respect by going to the parents of the girl's house and say, Hey, I'd like to go out. Do you mind? And I think that establishes some you know maturity and ownership in what you're doing.

The Dumbest Criminal Interrogation

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Absolutely. I have to ask, do you have uh the dumbest criminal story that you want to share of somebody?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Oh my gosh, the dumbest.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Because you seem like you're so much fun and you add comedy into everything. And and so, like you just I can imagine you sitting across from someone going, Are you real?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Are you still oh you put it that way? Yeah. So this is a short one, but when I was working gangs in Chicago, I'd arrest this guy named Dorian, gang member named Dorian, and he went by doe. So this is me doing the interrogation. He's he's locked up, you know. We got got him in the cuffs, and I figured, okay, this is how you do the interrogation. I'm gonna start with things he can agree with, and we're gonna build from there. And so we had had an informant buy drugs off of him wearing a pinhole camera on a button, and so I print out a shot of his face, and I said, Let's start with this. Can you identify this person? Because that's gonna be me saying, Well, that person bought drugs off of our guy. So I slide it to him. I said, Can you identify this person? He goes, Nope. I said, Well, well, it's you, clearly. He goes, No, it ain't. And I and I so I take his wallet and I go, Look, over the shoulder in this photo, it says 2242. On your driver's license, you live at 2242 West 15th place. No, I don't. I go, the man in that photo is wearing a necklace that says dough. You are wearing that necklace right now. No, I ain't. I don't know where to go. No, I don't know where to go.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Right? You're like, I'm being pranked.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

That is the and that was the best defense you could ever have. I mean, better would just say, I don't want to talk, but he just like, yeah, I'll talk, and I'm just gonna make you angry.

Writing Irreverend And Telling The Truth

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Right. Wow, it's just really yeah, that's no. So I have to ask, your book is coming out. You have to tell us about the book. What is it about? What inspired you to write it? Will there be another?

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Uh, there may be another. So I was getting near retirement. I asked my wife, what should I do? She says, Why don't you write a book? And I thought, yeah, I always wanted to, but I I had failed to write down stories through the years, which I had thought, oh, this would be cool. I'm going to the FBI. Maybe I should write this stuff down. And she says, Well, you know, here, try, you know, see what happens. And I sat down and poof, like Taco Bell, you know. Too much, it's like too much fire sauce on that quesadilla. And, you know, the stories just started coming because agents sit around when we've got time, and I'm sure it's the same with cops. Like, you got downtime or you're waiting on an informant, and somebody just like, hey man, remember that time? And and we start telling stories. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm like, oh, let me start with this one. Scene opens with this. And so what I did is I took investigations I led or I was a part of, and I tell how that went. And I put humorous angles to it because I was doing a lot of crazy stuff. And then through that, it's all in the lens of what would let's let's consider this social experiment. What would happen if you took a Baptist pastor who's never handled a gun and you stuck him in the FBI for 24 years, you made him a part of a SWAT team? Let's see what would happen there. And then so it it it's it's that. It's these remarkable stories. I worked a couple of cases that were honored with the Attorney General's award, which is I think the highest in the FBI. Don't look it up, but I think so. And and so I got to do some crazy good things on the high level and then you know, small level, like rescuing teen prostitutes that nobody cares about or has heard of. And then after that, I put in an after-action review, which is looking back, what did we do right? What did we screw up? How did this happen? And what lessons do we learn? And then also, here's a couple other little silly stories that you know maybe round out the case too. So it's I think I think it's fun. And the feedback I've gotten from my copy editors and my beta testers and readers are like, hey, this is a this is a fun book.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Have you got a title yet that you can share?

SPEAKER_00 35:01

I do, and I can. It is called Irreverend, from Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners with the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

I like that. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

It's shirtless. It's shirtless for the women, because that's the that's the number one demographic. Because guys are gonna buy the book anyway.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

So shirtless for the women. I gotta I'll get a good pump going first, and then you know. So my actually the glamour shots and everything are coming up in about a week or so, and so we'll we'll see what fits for the cover. But the original title that I was working on, I just made it a chapter title instead is From Preacher to Breacher, because I knocked down doors.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Yeah, that's a good one, too, huh?

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Our daughter is wanting to do profiling, and there is in Atlanta there there is a serial killer exhibit, and my husband took her to that, and she was just enamored with all of it. She was like, So cool. Like, crazy, crazy. So she said, Mom, you have to ask him if he ever did anything with a serial killer. I have to know the story. I have to, have to, have to. So I have to ask before you know she disowns me.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Well, so yes and no. There was a man named James Worley in our area who killed a young girl, a young woman named Sierra Joggin. And I've worked with their institute a few times to help promote kids to know how to keep themselves safe. And this was maybe 10 years ago when it happened, that he had attacked her while she was riding her bike and then killed her. And there's a likelihood that he had killed others before, too. There was a police report of him kidnapping a prostitute and she got it away. So while we don't he's not listed as a serial killer, there's a good chance that James Worley had killed more than one person. So if that's something your daughter can look up and get some information on. The the Sierra Joggin Foundation is a wonderful group headed up by her family to keep her memory alive, but it's also to hopefully provide kids with knowledge of how to fight and flee if ever they're confronted.

unknown 37:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

If you could sit across from your younger self before you join the FBI, what would you warn yourself about and prepare yourself for?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

So my younger self would speak first and would say, damn, you you you're looking good for 56. How do you do it? For my younger self, I would tell me that you can go ahead and take that step into the FBI or or whatever else it is, because the two years that I went through the stress headaches, they were every single day, and they were for most of my waking hours. And I kept pushing through it because I was getting to do what I had wanted to do in church, and we were successful. And I didn't I didn't want to take that step into saying I got to move away from what I thought was my career. And then getting into the FBI, I would talk to myself early on and say, You're gonna have a good time. Remember these things. The younger agents who came in after me, I would say, take pictures. Where when you're sitting around, when you're doing something cool, take pictures. Not evidentiary, but like to remember, write stuff down. I found myself, especially later in my career, just pausing and just kind of trying to take things in to be present and remember this is awesome. I get to do this, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Yeah, absolutely. What are your thoughts on how we can make the generations now safer? Because when we were in school, what was the worst thing we had to worry about? Who was gonna get on the monkey bars if we were gonna get hit by dodgeball? You know, we go in when the street light comes on. We never had to worry about active shooters or anything of that nature.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Well, I I grew up, I grew up when there were serial killers all the time, so yeah, we didn't have the mass shooters. Uh it's tough because my kids grew up, went through the school where there were shootings, and I had cases on a couple people who would have been shooters, they would have killed people, and there's not much that we can do other than have people step forward and try to get intervention. So uh Gavin De Becker wrote a book called The Gift of Fear, and that's useful in a couple of ways. And one thing he says is we're often reluctant to step forward because we don't want to look foolish. So I'm concerned about some of your behaviors, maybe some things you've leaked out, how you might want to hurt people or harm yourself. But I don't want to be that guy who you know jumps the gun or makes you look bad or looks foolish. And people are afraid to take that step. And people need to then be the ones who will take that step and report, find help beyond, get the questions that maybe can unearth what's going on, but then bring in some professionals who can help out. And then from there it's it's difficult because a lot of the laws don't allow. I mean, even the red flag type things like it's it's it's hard to get guns away from people who might be a danger to themselves or others. So, and I understand the rights, you know, stepping on people's rights there, but you know, the opposite choice is we get a lot of people killed at once.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Do you have any idea why you think that the generation of our our kids is so much more violent?

SPEAKER_00 41:17

I I think it just has become an option. So now that you see that in a sense, starting with Columbine, that now people go, Oh, I didn't know that that was an option for me to have an outlet for my anger. I used to just, you know, throw rocks at dogs. Now I can, oh, we can go kill a lot of people and reset life or express myself in the greatest way possible. So now it's it's an option. And before that, I don't know that people, kids saw that as like, oh, okay, this is normative, something that people do when they're depressed, angry, bullied, suicidal is hey, we can go shoot a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah. Do you see that the parents are at fault for any of it? Because it seems like today everybody's like, here, here's a game controller, here, here's a phone. They're not babysitters. They're, you know, and they said, here, go do this. And people don't sit down as a family like they used to and have dinners and conversations and how's your days? And the video games we had younger is nothing in comparison to what they have now. I mean, I went downstairs and my husband's like playing some game where they're amputating, you know, people and stuff like that. And I'm like, really?

SPEAKER_00 42:37

That's a little, don't you think you don't know that's not necessary. I yeah, I think there's a lot that's there that contributes. And then you have cases like with Adam Lanza, where you know, obviously the parents are culpable because they're you know, giving a gun to someone. But I had I had a case on a kid who was very likely to be a mass shooter. He was referred to me by NCIS, said, Hey man, we gave this guy a separation, but he is homicidal and suicidal. And then he started buying guns, and I I got him put away for weapons under disability because he was institutionalized multiple times against his will, which that's on the form. And his father thanked me because he couldn't control him and he knew the same thing like my son is likely to kill people, and he had even hidden some of the guns that we found during the search warrant, hidden, because he trying desperately to keep his son from hurting people. So there's just times too where even parental involvement, like they're like, What can I do? Like, my kid's bigger than me now.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

Yeah. Yeah, we we we we kind of had a similar situation. But a little bit opposite. We moved in my elder biological father up here. I call him a sperm donor now because he he basically disowned me while he was here. So he's no longer my father. He's my biological donor. But anyway, at the kitchen table one night after he was very pissed off at us, he told us that he thought about suicide.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Well, he had also just overdosed the week before.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

So you know, I I I went to his recliner that he was at, him being former Atlanta police officer, pulled out a pistol in the recliner that he was sitting in in our home. And, you know, later on we found two more loaded pistols in our home that you know he did not have. And so, you know, he was he said, I'm in a very dark place. And I'm ending it all. And he was angry at us for taking away his uh his oxy, his his all his. He was popping pills left and right and just abusing them. And then when we could took control of them, you know, it changed his attitude towards his own son, you know. Yeah, especially my wife, who has three doctorates and thank you, insanely smart. Did I put that out there? You have three doctorates? Thank you. And and you've only and hit what are you up to 54 books now?

SPEAKER_01 45:17

It's about Eric.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

Published all three of 54 books.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

It's not about you, and it's not about me.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

You're his inspiration right now.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

You're there. You cut me off. I was telling my story about why I wrote, and it was because I've read all your books. See, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Okay, which is your favorite?

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Probably the third one.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Which was what again? What was it about?

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Prisoners of Azgaban.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

Now she would know that because she was right here in the bottom of her hand.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

The hardest part was so Michael, was the hardest part of you working in jail? The Dementors.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

I I would say it was it was hard not to bring it home. Um, not to bring it to the house I lived in with my second wife, who you know abused me uh psychological and verbally. But you know, you when you go into the jail, you I I came in hard because you you have to if you come in hard, you can soften up. You can't come in soft and try to toughen up. The the inmates will will eat you alive and run you out, you know, in no time.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Well, see, and then that's funny because that's the exact opposite of, and I wasn't working in a jail, but how I approach the criminals because I would come in soft because I'd go hard whenever. Like I can turn it on, that's easy. But if I came in, like for me, there was no question about who was in control because I just tore down your door. Me and 15 buddies have rifles pointed at you, I put handcuffs on you, I got a warrant that says I can take you to jail. I don't I don't need to like now be Mr. Tough Guy because there's no question. I am Mr. Tough Guy, I I have the power here. And so if you know guys were starting to push back on me, I'm like, I I can take it to a degree, right? But you're just trying to save face. And I know that's much different than being in the jail.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

So in the jail, when you walked into any any one pod, you were you were in there alone with at least at least 50 other inmates. Okay, anything from you know laid on their child support up to capital murder. And your tool belt is officer presence and OC spray. Okay, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

And other than that, you have your other officer in the control room, supposedly watching you on camera. They're not you've got a radio and a thump squad could be there within, I'd say, 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

But I mean 30 seconds, a lot can happen.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

That's all that's a lot of beating.

SPEAKER_03 47:49

You go to toe-to-toe with someone who's looking at you know, three counts of capital murder. Yeah, they don't care what happens. What's what what do they care if they stop an officer?

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Right. So so the precaution to not bring harm to you is like like a luggage padlock, those little tiny ones. Like it's just there, it's just there to keep the honest people from snooping. But if somebody wants to bring it, they can.

SPEAKER_03 48:13

Yeah.

Teen Victims, Pimps, And Control

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Yeah. Did you ever have a moment when you were working where it was really hard for you because you were going maybe up against a young kid that you knew had done wrong, but it was a child, it was a younger kid.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Well, uh, we worked with young kids mainly as the victims. So whether they they were the victims of sexual assault or they were the teenage prostitutes that were convinced we're trying to separate them from the love of their life because this is the only adult who's ever shown them love, but it's manipulation. Yeah, they but it's more than that. It's it's these pimps knew what to say. So it's it's it's easy because these girls needed something to fill in their life, and on top of that, these guys knew from experience what they're supposed to say and do, and they could get in very simple. So now we're ruining their life.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

So yeah, the uh I don't think there's gang initiation, you know, the younger guys trying to get in.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah, by the time we got involved, I mean, these were gang members who were further along, and so I hadn't been privileged to see anything about the initiations. There were some younger kids involved sometimes. We had one 16-year-old Latin king who was a driver for a dope deal in Chicago, and by the time we jumped out and pointed rifles at everybody, I was a newer agent. They go, Hey man, take this kid and you know, start interviewing and see what he knows. And when I asked him his name, he says, I need to use the bathroom. And I said, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get on with the name first. And he's like, I need to use the bathroom. And I said, I need you to give me your name. And he said, Do you have any napkins? So we we had made a young kid shit himself, so there was that.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

So I mean he's here's a hardened gangster out there ready to kill, but eh, when 12 guys jump out with rifles, then the body does what it does.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

You know, we talk a lot about on our show about uh narcissists, and you know, it sounds like you know, your your pimps here were grade A narcissists, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

They're very charismatic, they know what the the individual needs to hear, and they say it to lure them in and keep them. It's like getting their claws into their web.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Yeah, right. And and part of their culture is the promotion and the glorification of being able to control a young woman. Or, yeah, I mean, it could be an adult woman too, but being being able to do that shows how much more of your man's and it's it's different than any type of manosphere that we see now online. I mean, this was very specific to how you are great based on how large your stable is, whether you're able to control girls with violence or not. It's pretty gross.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

So if anyone wanted to find where you are or learn more about you, where do we go? Because I want to make sure we have everything in the notes as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

I'm in my basement right now, so you can definitely find me there.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

I wouldn't want to try to find them.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

No, yeah, online. Oh, okay. So you can find me on Instagram at underscore Eric underscore Robinson, which I was amazed wasn't taken.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Right?

SPEAKER_00 51:43

And yeah. And and on LinkedIn, it's my name, Eric Robinson. And I I don't know how LinkedIn works, but if you search FBI with it too, I'm sure you'll find me and you'll see this lovely face. No shirtless.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

No shirtless, not yet.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

Oh are you doing video now?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

I guess it's just audio, but we're seeing his face.

SPEAKER_03 52:04

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yes. Well, I want to thank you so much for letting us see the man behind the badge. And well, he has his shirt on, so we don't get to.

SPEAKER_03 52:14

His wife's not there.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Oh, stop it. Oh my gosh. Seriously, you could take us out since you brought us in. You do it so well. Go ahead. Thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate it. And I mean it. Stand by for just a second.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Yeah, we'll get those links for you. And we'll help promote your book when it does come out.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

Absolutely. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Absolutely. And we'd love to have you back again.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

I'm around, and we'll have a good time, just like this one.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Thank y'all for listening to Unstoppable with Victoria, our special guest Eric Robinson, and me. Just me. The redneck. Right. Just me. I'm like the dogs down here. I'm just here.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

No, they're obedient.

SPEAKER_03 52:59

Really?

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

And with that, y'all, good night.