Episode One | Sneakers to Shackles: The Takedown of Ricky Foster

0:25 Hey, everyone, Welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite. I am your host, Jim Chapman, and today I am bringing you a story that, when I'm done, I can assure you this will be one of the most bizarre and sickening stories you have ever heard. It's also, for sure a story that is closer to home than any story I have ever told. I believe it happened right here in Denim Springs, Louisiana, and it centers around a guy by the name of Ricky Foster. Now, before we get into this one, I do have to say some legal ease. In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty.

1:08 So everything I'm about to tell you about are allegations alleged against Ricky Foster that are public and put out there. You can find that. We'll discuss some ways you can do that. But as I said, these are all allegations at this point. But we'll get into it, and we're going to talk about Ricky Foster, who on April first of this year, was arrested on ten counts of third degree rape, ten counts of extortion, and four counts of sexual battery. Now all of this stemmed from an initial investigation, if you will, that was launched by a guy named Jeremy Green. Jeremy Green is a multi millionaire CEO. He actually owns a company called Echo, along with other companies that will get into Foster. Ricky Foster attempted to hustle him into a deal to gain equity into Echo. This piss Jeremy Green off. Jeremy Green then decided I'm going to expose this guy for the liar that he is, and I'm not only going to do it personally, but I'm going to put it out there for the world to see. He launches a documentary put it on YouTube, initially called The Devilwares Dunks. Now. This documentary it garnered millions and millions of views that eventually led to the arrest of Foster and others which we're going to get into.

2:36 I'm going to cover it all. I'm going to give you the complete story as it stands today and go in depth regarding my personal experience with Ricky Foster. And this story really starts with Jeremy Green. As I told you, he is currently the CEO of Echo. Echo is an AI application. It's an app you can download and you can take this downloaded app and you can search for any movie on God's Green Earth. This completely free app. It doesn't cost you anything. It scours streaming services like Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, HBO Go, pretty much all of them anywhere, and it'll pull up whatever movie you are searching for right there through the app. Now, I can remember several years ago, I was sitting at home and I was wanting to watch Rocky two. I was in the movie for Rocky Too, Man, a great movie. I started searching it on Netflix. It wasn't there. I then went to another application I had.

3:39 It might have been HBO Go or something. Wasn't there. Could not find Rocky Too Well. An application like this, it would have took me two seconds to pull it up. I took about an hour and then realized I couldn't find it anywhere. I even tried like Amazon and all that. So a great idea, And this is the type of person that Jeremy Green is. He acts on those ideas. I just basically thought, man, I wish someone would have vent an application that would search this stuff. Some people have the idea, some people follow through with the idea. He does that, and that's why he has seen the success that he's seen now, this application Echo, it's backed by people you have heard of, Shack, Kevin, Hard, will Smith, among others. And Jeremy Green has one heck of a story in his own writing. This all plays a part in my story that I'm going to tell you today.

4:35 He was born in Maine. He grew up in the foster system, and at the young age of fifteen, he was actually sent to juvenile prison. However, Jeremy Green had talent and a lot of it in the singing realm. So after getting out of juvie, he pursues a music career. And back in the day, my Space was like the Facebook of the day, it was what Facebook is now. He was very big on my Space, so big in fact, that he became the top artist on MySpace. Now. This attracted a lot of attention from the music industry and even more notably a guy I've done a lot of episodes on in the past, Seawan Diddy Combs. Seawan Combs signs Jeremy Green to a million dollar contract with bad Boy Records, and back in those days, that's like two point five million these days. But what should have been that big break for Jeremy Green was not at all what it was cracked up to be. Why well, not for lack of talent, but for Diddy being well, Diddy the dude was a freak even in those days. So Jeremy talked about what happened on a podcast called Simplistic and you're not gonna believe this story. Check out this

6:06 clib No we'll go anywhere alone with. Puff called me up to his apartment one night at like twelve o'clock at night. Wow, I was a kid. I want to talk to you. And I got there and he was like, let me talk to the bathroom and I was like what, no, way, yeah, yeah, way, yeah way. He said, let me talk to you in the bathroom and I was like what. He's like, I want to show you something. I was like, what where's this going? And I like and bro, and by the way, he opened the door and look what you would imagine he'd over there like he had like silk pajamas on, no white so yes, yes, but open top fucking hair in the middle. You know what I mean? What the fuck opened the door? He said? What some I was like, you call me. He's like, oh, let me come in, let me talk to you. I thought CASTI was here, but it was like no one was there.

6:50 He coman. He's like, let me HOI out to you from me in the bathroom. I was like, what we go in the bathroom. I'm like, I don't know. It's it's a huge bathroom, so it's like it's not like a small enclosed, like uncomfortable space. Yeah, And Pap was like, let me see you singing the mirror. I just thought it was so weird. I was like I looked at him. I was like, what, well. You only sing in the mirror. I just thought it was like the weirdest thing, right. He's like, yeah, playboy, like you know, I kind of even know you go sing these panties off these girls. Let me see you sing in the mirror. And I was like. I'm not doing that, you know. And he was like, let me show you, like turn. He's like he looks at the manor and I was like, I want to see, like spready. He's like, let me see see my face see him like into it, And. I was like what the fuck?

7:32 Yeah, and then he like tried to rub my shoulders for a second and I like kind of slipped, like hit him on the slip and he tried to grab me. Who try to grop you? Try to grop you, my joh and I ran out of the apartment. So he assaulted you. That's like, that's like boy, that's technically baseline. He tried to grab me. Yeah, I ran out of the apartment. I never talked to him, a yein I like, I like literally went home into the hotel, packed my shit up and left to main and like left New York. Wow. Wow, And you were still under contract at that time though, right, Yeah, I asked you dropped wow and they did. Yeah. I pretty much threatened him, So yeah, he got the heck out of there. But this didn't stop Jeremy Green from seeing massive success not only through Echo but through other businesses. As a matter of fact, he has a company he owns called Samples, and Samples is located on Ventura Boulevard in the Sherman Oaks, California area, a retail location, and the primary focus of that retail location is sneaker culture. You may wonder what is sneaker culture. Well, that's the collecting, sometimes training, and sometimes selling of rare sneakers, especially dunks, which are really a legendary line of sneakers introduced by Nike way back in nineteen eighty five, and they are super collectible these days. And that's really where

9:05 this story kicks off, with Dunks in a specialized shoe similar to what we call around here the Crawfish. Now, the Crawfish was a twenty fourteen collaboration between Ruckus Skate Shop, which is located in Baton Rouge, and Nike, and Ruckus basically designed this shoe in collaboration with Nike that symbolized South Louisiana's unique Cajun culture. And this shoe is very collectible and there are a lot of fakes out there, and that's one of the problems with Dunks is a lot of people will fake. Those samples are also shoes that salespeople get, so they go around and they might be pitching a skate shop somewhere and they might have four samples of a particular shoe, let's use the Crawfish for example, and they'll say this is the shoe, walk around in it, try it out, and they're trying to sell these shoes to certain skate shops. And these samples are very rare. There's only so many of these that go around well, they're fated all the time. So I'm trying to paint a picture here of what the shoe culture is, because when this documentary was released, a lot of people didn't understand shoe culture and so they were a little confused as to how this relationship formed between Ricky Foster and Jeremy Green. So that's kind of a

10:37 version of that. So let's get into how he got into that relationship. As I understand it, the crew over at Samples, they had a video that they aired kind of like a YouTube short, and they were close to purchasing what is known as blue Tile Nike shoes, and a guy by the name of Ricky Foster. He reaches out to Jeremy Green on Instagram and he basically says, don't buy those shoes. They're fake. So they start talking Jeremy Green and Ricky Foster back and forth, and Ricky knew a lot about Nike shoes and dunks and sneakers and all those sorts of things, and so he was able to kind of carry on a conversation and he's laying it on Thick during these conversations. Eventually they set up some sort of call and Ricky's on the phone with other people, and within twenty minutes of jumping on this call, Ricky is saying things like, hey, I'm a millionaire, which, look, that may impress the local community that you live in, but it's like saying you're breathing oxygen to someone like Jeremy Green. Everyone around Jeremy Green, for the most part, are millionaires, including himself. And just a fun fact here, but I came across a clip a few days ago where Jeremy Green was talking to Elon Musk, and Elon

12:07 Musk at the time had offered Jeremy Green two hundred million dollars to buy Echo, which Green turned down flat. He felt like it was worth more, and he's probably right. So Elon is worth what eight hundred billion dollars right now. Some people say he's going to be the first trillionaire. And the reason I bring that up is if you think you're impressing Jeremy Green by saying you're a millionaire, you're not. He talks to people that are almost trillionaires, probably quite often. So Ricky goes on to tell Jeremy that he sold a trucking company and that he partnered with his cousin and it was for one hundred and fifty million dollars that he got when they sold this trucking company. Now, I'm gonna neglect to say a lot of the names that were said in the original in the original Devilwares Dunks podcast. And the reason I'm gonna do that is, I just don't think it's necessary to put people's names out there if they don't need to be.

13:17 There's nothing illegal about that. Unfortunately, when someone like Ricky comes along and he has family and things, they become public figures, just like Ricky is now a public figure. So I'm gonna try to avoid from saying names and protect the innocent if you will, as they say on TV. But I'll move on. He goes on from there, Ricky to say that his cousin they bought this trucking dealership initially because his cousin built a chip for NASCAR. He went on to say that his cousin sold that chip to NASCAR for millions of dollars, and through that boom, they partner up. They buy this trucking dealership, and then they end up selling it for one hundred and fifty million bucks. Made a ton of money, and now he's just living his best life, and he's investing in all these other companies. And that's when he says, Hey, I like what you're doing at Echo, and I want to invest in it. Now. Jeremy Green, he knows the game.

14:18 That's why I gave you kind of a setup with Jeremy Green. I told you his story before he got into Echo, and the reason I did that was I wanted you to know this guy's not only business savvy, he's super streetsmart. So you're not going to pull the wool over his eyes easily. But Ricky he was persistent. And look, I'm speaking from experience here and I'll get into that later, but what I can tell you now is that Ricky can be convincing. And he makes this offer to Jeremy. He tells him, look, I'm willing to drop like twelve million dollars to invest money to buy Echo.

15:00 Then up that at another point to fifteen million dollars. Now that is serious money, and certainly this gets Jeremy Green's attention. So let me just break down how this works in the real world. When you're dealing with companies like Echo or really any multimillion dollar company. It's not like investing in your brother in law's long care business. These cats right here, they're gonna do some serious due diligence. They are gonna look into your background, your finances, your overall history. They're probably gonna do a deep dive into your social media. Why because a major company is not gonna partner with someone who could potentially throw shade all over that company later on in life because they didn't know something about that person. Partnering with the wrong person can literally shut your business down if you're not careful.

16:04 So companies like Echo they're very cautious about that. Now, Ricky, one thing that he was good at was laying on and then covering his bases when it came to pulling a hustle on someone. He would go to so many lengths, y'all that if you are on the other side of that, you would be thinking, this guy has got to be telling me the truth, because no one would go to that length and be bullshitting you, no one. He would do things early on in this deal with Echo like speak to them on FaceTime while standing in front of his quote, twenty million dollar mansion, and then he would say, oh, check out my cars, and he would be on FaceTime and he would pan that camera and you would see exotic cars sitting everywhere, just so many things that you would have to go to extremes to fake. So during this deal process, Echo, they're doing everything correctly. They're checking Ricky's oil if you will, and Ricky is producing everything you could expect that he would produce, as far as paperwork if he were telling the truth. The house, the cars, everything seemed completely legit. So time comes for the rubber to meet the road and Ricky says, look, I'm loading up the private jet and me and my girlfriend are

17:34 coming with a bag full of money, and we're going to get this deal closed. So the boys for Echo, they do get the call and his girlfriend, Melissa, she was sick. Oh, big surprise the day he was supposed to leave. Fever and all that. He says, so he can't fly, so we're gonna have to reschedule it. And the boys at Echo, especially Jeremy Green, they're like, WT, I get it, I get it, your girlfriend sick, but you're gonna let that stop you from making a fifteen million dollars deal. And that became like a huge issue, and from there things really seem off when Ricky starts showing them the house again on FaceTime. Now, let's talk about intuition real quick. That's something we all have. Some people listen to it, some people don't. What I have found is that most of your ultra successful people almost always listen when something inside of them is telling them something is not right. And man, that intuition must have been pumping with Jeremy Green because he gets a genius idea.

18:50 While Ricky is painting through his twenty million dollar mansion on FaceTime, the front of it, Jeremy Green, he screenshots it. He then takes that screenshot and he sends it to a realtor friend of his, who just also happens to be Josh Altman. Now that's the same Josh Altman who is the star of the Bravo TV show Million Dollar Listing. And guess what. Guess what they find out within like hours of that Ricky Foster's twenty million dollar mansion it's actually a verbo. It's a rental like an Airbnb. Holy smokes.

19:35 It's at this point Jeremy Green realizes he is being hustled. Now, at this point, most people, like the vast majority of people, they would be backing off of this thing. They just wouldn't answer Ricky's calls or messages, and likely they would just chalk this up to a learning experien And honestly, that is how these hustlers like Ricky Foster get away with it so much. But not these guys, and not Jeremy Green. You mess with the wrong dude. And Ricky Foster wasted Jeremy Green's time and a significant portion of it.

20:21 And when you're Jeremy Green and you're worth millions and millions of dollars, you didn't only waste his time, you wasted his money. And he don't play. He was pissed. So Jeremy calls Ricky Foster himself and he confronts Ricky on this house be us. And Ricky initially sticks to his guns and he says, oh, I do own that house. Jeremy Green is basically telling him, look, we have done some due diligence and we've seen the deed and you do not in this house. And Ricky realizes that he was caught and he starts crying. Basically, he gets his girlfriend Melissa on the phone and she springs this story about how they are under a gag order and they can't speak about why they can't tell him their names are not on aded, but they really do own the property.

21:19 There's just all this shit going on behind the scenes that they can't talk about. But Jeremy Green knows what's up. And after some coaxing him, telling Ricky, look, you gotta tell us what's going on, Ricky says, all right, I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm an FBI protective custody And the boys at Echo are like, for what, and he says, well, I testified against a Louisiana senator in a corruption case. And of course I'm paraphrasing here, but he brings up this corruption case and he says his ex wife was trying to pay off these judges all over the state of Louisiana because they were going through this messy divorce. Just the most insane line of bullshit you would ever hear in your life. Say, look, long story short, Jeremy Green buys none of that, And honestly, the fact that he would not come clean that just pissed Jeremy off more so. Now it's a vendetta of sorts for Jeremy and he starts calling every single person that knew Ricky Foster, and I'm talking everybody from family to friends that he could get in touch with. They managed to get in touch with Ricky's son. Now, I didn't know Ricky son personally, but I saw him a lot of times. My children went to the same high school that Ricky Foster's kids went to, and I would

22:50 see his son as son was on the football team, and my three kids were in the band, and I would always go to the football games and I would see him there as he was walking through or as he was talking to Ricky Foster, and he appeared to be a very well rounded kid. Well, Jeremy Green calls Ricky's son and he asked him about everything that Ricky had told him. He said, Man, your dad's telling us he's an FBI custody Just every lie under the son that Ricky Foster had told Jeremy Green and his own son basically and not so many words. Said, Look, my dad is pretty much full of it, and he's been full of shit his whole life. He then tells the boys for Maco a story. He tells them his dad calls him and he says, hey, I need your help.

23:46 With this trucking dealership in Florida, which, y'all, there was a trucking dealership. That was one of the things Ricky, I guess, decided to tell the truth about. One did exist. There's a lot of fabrication with it, but one certainly existed. His kid goes up there to help his dad, Ricky with this trucking dealership. He's gonna do like title workshit like that. Now, at the time, I'm not exactly sure how old he was, but I believe he was the same age as my son at that time, so maybe twenty something like that, maybe even a little bit younger. But he goes up there and he only stays a total of two weeks. And this is in Tampa, Florida.

24:30 Why did he only stay two weeks. Well, he goes on to tell the boys at Echo that while he's there, he goes bar hopping one night with his dad. One of the things you want to do with your dad right now. In this home which is now determined to be a verbo, Ricky lived with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's daughter, which according to his son, was sixteen or seventeen at that time. So they go bar hopping and this guy goes up to Ricky's son inside of the bar and he says, hey, man, what's up with your dad? Why is he in the parking lot making out with his daughter? And he went on to say that was not the first time he had heard this either. He also told about a time where he was working at a bar himself the sun somewhere in Louisiana, I'm assuming, and people would walk up to him and basically report that his dad is making out with this underage girl.

25:33 And he said, I know she was seventeen at the time and not eighteen because we had to sneak her into the bar. She couldn't just walk through the front door because she wasn't old enough. Now, how humiliating was that for this kid? This was happening multiple times according to this kid. Then it gets shockingly worse. He said his dad also told him at one point that his girlfriend, Ricky's girlfriend, wanted to have sex with his son. Ricky tells his son this. He then pulls out his phone and he starts kind of like flipping through the pictures and showing his own son new pics of his girlfriend Melissa, allegedly.

26:24 I mean, how sick is that? So at this point, this whole investigation Echo launched just took a dramatic turn. And the boys at Echo, they really at this point felt like, look, we have got to get to the bottom of this because there's some seriously criminal shit going on here. It is not just Ricky being a liar and we're wanting to expose him personally. There may be some rape going on here and some other things. So it lit a fire under Jeremy Green so bad that he will wanted to expose everything about Ricky and he was not gonna stop until he did that. So the boys at Echo dig deeper, and they speak with a lot of friends, one of which, and when I say friends, I mean friends of Ricky's girlfriend's daughter. And one of those friends who was friends with his girlfriend's daughter, she would confirm Ricky snapchatting, for example, back and forth with his girlfriend's daughter for hours on end every freaking day.

27:34 And that's not normal, y'all, by anyone's standard, for a man in his mental late forties to snapchat a seventeen year old or sixteen year old girl, even a eighteen year old or nineteen year old, I think it's not normal, But certainly a minor. Now, it's important to mention that all of these phone conversations, everything during this investigation, they're being recorded, and this is all going to be a part of a YouTube documentary called The Devil Wears Dunks. Now, more on that in a bit. But Resa shired Echo has evidence to back up everything they're saying, and that's important.

28:20 Through friends of the daughter of Ricky's girlfriend, Jeremy is also told that the daughter actually was sleeping in the same bed with her mother and Ricky. And when Jeremy hears this, he can't believe it. I mean, it's shocking, to say the least. This sounds like a bad movie right now. This same friend also said Melissa, Ricky's girlfriend, had slept with someone her age, which when I say her age, seventeen eighteen years old, somewhere around there a young boy that age. Now that is her story. Obviously I have no direct knowledge, but it sure seems like Ricky and his girlfriend have the same sick kinks going on, if nothing else. So during this time the boys at Echo, they do speak to Ricky several more times. Now, in one conversation, Ricky fully admits to Line. He says he just wanted to be known as the man basically and that he was sorry and basically trying to manipulate these guys into feeling sorry for him. They asked him about his relationship with his girlfriend's daughter. They're like, man, we talked to all these friends of hers and they're saying, y'all got something going on. Even your own son is telling us you sleep in the bed with the with

29:52 the girlfriend's daughter and the girlfriend and he fully denies that, as you would expect he would do. Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today? Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you what happened in New York. It cannot be as crazy as the case I told you about yesterday in Louisiana. You know what, we should do a podcast about it, And with that we did. Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines that have dominated the week. We cover trending crimes from all over the country and even sprinkle in a few globally. Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to your podcasts, simply by searching Crime War Weekly or clicking the link in the description of this podcast. But these guys dang backing down and Ricky, he's feeling pressure and you can tell it in his voice during these phone conversations. Now, all of this, y'all, is a result of Ricky Foster messing with the dude. Keep that in mind. Had he not messed with Jeremy Green and Echo and Jeremy Green not being the person that he was, none of this would be public right now in my view. Now, any psychologist is going to tell you that when a narcissist, a master manipulator feels pressure, they are going to first

31:24 try to make you feel sorry for them, and if that doesn't work, the next step is they are going to try to scare you into shutting up. Now, Ricky, he's not dominant. Well he may be domenough, actually, but let's just say he knew that physically threatening Jeremy Green would go absolutely nowhere and that likely he would just end up with a good old fashioned ass weapon. So he went to the next tactic these narcissists use, and in one of those phone conversations with the boys at Echo, he actually tells them quote a love you dog. I just can't handle this pressure, but I love you dog, and he hangs up the phone in an effort to make them think he was going to off himself. Now, this actually scared him a little bit, because you never truly know what someone is capable of doing or what they will do when they're under that type of pressure.

32:24 Truth be told, they were more concerned about Ricky taking out his girlfriend and his girlfriend's daughter than anything else. But they do what you should do in that situation, and that is they contact the Denim Springs Police and they say, hey, we need a welfare check. This guy did not sound right, he hung up on us whatever, And police go over there and they conduct a welfare check on Ricky Foster's house. Now, long story showing on that one Ricky does nothing. And it's just what I told you. These type of people do that to scare you into backing off. It was Ricky's hope. I'm sure, and I'm speculating here, but I'm sure someone that thinks like him is thinking, well, if I scare them into thinking they're pressure in me so much, I'm gonna kill myself, that may back off. Well they didn't. So I got just one more crazy story that I'm gonna tell you on this podcast today, and this is one that if you watch the documentary this story was not in it.

33:27 But unless you saw this person's Facebook post, you're not familiar with this particular story, and it centers around a guy by the name of Brandon Browning. Now, if you're from Livingston Parish, you were at the very least familiar with the name. Brandon was a sheriff's deputy here in Livingston Parish. I think when he left he was a lieutenant, so high ranking in the department. He went on to real estate for a while, made a name for himself there, working with his wife build a heck of a real estate business. And then he went to work for parish government, and he served as the director of public Relations and the deputy Chief Administrator, And on top of that, he even had a podcast at one point going on for several years. So I say that to say this, he's far from stupid. In my conversations with Brandon over the years, I never took him as someone who could have the wool pulled over their eyes easily or be manipulated easily.

34:29 Quite the opposite, actually, so several years ago he tells me a story about his experience with Ricky Foster. Now I've never repeated it because I felt like it was his story to tell, and it's not really my business to put it out there. But I think it speaks to just how good at fooling people and manipulating people Ricky Foster is, and really how evil this sum bitch is. Now, shortly after the first few episodes of Devil Dunks was released, Brandon started talking about it publicly. He actually put out a post on Facebook. So I'm gonna read that post to you verbatim, just how it was written on March fourteenth of this year. You're not gonna believe this, So it starts. I've never told this story publicly before. Part of the reason is it sounds so far fetched that I figure people would not believe it. The other part is that it's a bit embarrassing to admit I put myself in my family in this situation. But here goes.

35:36 This is the very short version, even though it's still a long one. Several years ago, I had a podcast called The Livingston Parish Thread. One of the main purposes of it was simply highlighting things happening around the community. Around that time, a group caught my attention called the Dads of Denim. These guys would show up at Dinim Springs football games, flags, flying music, blasting, cooking, big bots, Apostoli, and Jumbali. They fed family, students and the football team for free. It wasn't just food either, it was energy, hype, music, pumping people gathering around Dad's doing something positive for their town.

36:17 I respected it, so I went out to one of the games, met them, had a great time, and eventually recorded a couple of podcast episodes with a few of the guys about what they were doing. Through that, I developed somewhat of a friendship with one of them, Ricky Foster. At the time, I was doing real estate full time, but I was also thinking about finishing out my law enforcement career. The real estate market had started shifting anyway, so I was already in a season figuring out if I was going to stick with it or pivot. Over time, Ricky started telling me about a business opportunity that had come his way. A family friend named Wesley had reached out to him about buying a semi truck dealership around Tampa, Florida, and Ricky was fiedired up about it. He would update me on it pretty regularly. He would tell me about Wesley calling him with the opportunity. He showed me documentation of the dealership purchase, and he even showed me paperwork outlining what the ownership percentage was going to be and what he was expected to make. The numbers were big.

37:21 From where I was sitting, it looked legit. It wasn't just taught. There were documents, details, and what appeared to be real movement behind it. As things progressed and he got settled in Florida, the conversation eventually shifted toward me. Ricky started saying they needed someone to come help lead the sales team and help manage the facility. He told me he respected my work ethic and that my marketing, communication and sales experience would fit well with what they were building. Then he told me this salary three hundred thousand dollars a year, plus a fifty thousand dollars bonus, just to help ease the stress of relocating and get the life on. Now, when someone throws a number like that at you, you don't just brush it off. You stop and you really think about it. At the time, my kids were homeschooled and my wife wasn't working outside the home, so we started thinking and praying through how something like that could work. I figured maybe I could run a place in Florida. The family could come stay for weeks at a time, and when they weren't there, I could fly home on the weekends. My wife and I prayed about it and eventually decided it might be a risk worth taking. But I'll never forget sitting in the kitchen table with her two nights before I left and telling her, I don't know why, but something about this just doesn't feel right. It was just a gut feeling, one of those quiet warnings you can't really explain looking back.

38:48 It was probably God trying to get my attention. Risk has a way of arguing with your instincts. It's like hearing a rattle in the engine of your truck just before a long drive. You know something might be wrong, but you also convince yourself it's probably nothing, because turning around means walking away from where you're trying to go. So I packed up my truck and I drove to Tampa. When I got there, Ricky told me to meet him at the house the company had purchased. It was a big, five bedroom home, and he told me he had been the only one living there, but When I walked inside, there was a woman in the house, and I knew she wasn't his wife. Ricky pulled me aside and told me he and his wife were getting a divorce and that the woman there was his girlfriend. Later I would learn that wasn't even true, but right away it created a problem because I had told my wife the living situation would just be me and him, and this was the first red flag. The next morning, we went to the dealership, and on the way there he told me something else that struck me as odd. He said they didn't want to upset the employees by bringing in an outsider, so for now I shouldn't mention anything about the job.

40:06 We would just tell people I was in town hanging out with him. It sounded strange, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. A couple of nights later, we went to dinner with his business partner, Wesley. During the dinner, I casually asked a question about the company health insurance. The moment I said it, Ricky immediately cut in and changed the subject. It happened so fast that it stuck with me. Later that night, we went back to the house and Ricky went to bed, but something in my gut was bothering me. So I looked up Wesley on Facebook and I sent him a message, and I asked a simple question, quote, Hey man, do you know why I'm here? He wrote back, and he said that Ricky had told him I was just visiting and that maybe someday in the future I might come to work with them. So I asked him another question, quote, do you know anything about me taking a job here for three hundred thousand dollars and a fifty thousand dollars by us? He replied pretty quickly, and he said, no, there's no job here for three hundred thousand dollars. We're not hiring anyone right now. I remember sitting there staring at my phone, thinking I had to be in some kind of twilight zone situation. I shut down my real estate business, giving business away, set aside the possibility of going back into law enforcement, and driven across several states for a job that apparently didn't even exist. So I

41:40 did the one thing that made sense. I packed up my truck that night and drove all the way back home from Tampa. And y'all, that is not a short drive from where we record out of and where Brandon Browning is from. You're talking about a thirteen hour or so trup. He goes on to say, long story short, the whole business deal fell through, and from what I understand, it was surrendered back to the original owners. It was all fake. There was never a job. That's part one of the story. The reason I'm telling it now is because recently some things have come to light about Ricky that made men realize the situation probably wasn't nearly as random as it seemed at the time. Now, that, for me, is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard. And I remember distinctly thinking when Brandon told me this story several years ago, why what do you do that? Where is the motive? How could he think Brandon was not going to figure this out? Why would you even put someone through that? It made absolutely zero sense to me?

42:52 Is I'm sure it made zero sense to Brandon. It's evil, honestly, And the fact is it sums up this song some bitch's life totally fake, nothing is real. But that is all about to catch up with Ricky Foster courtesy of the Boys of Echo, a local longtime marshal in a Livingston Pears, Sheriff's office detective with a knack for solving cases. If you think your mind is already blown, wait until you here next week's episode. It gets way worse and way more bizarre. Can't wait to bring you that couple of announcements before I get out of here today. Shout out to the states of Louisiana, Texas, in New York You're my top three listening states this past month. Also, thank you, thank you, thank you. We have eclipsed one million downloads in just the past six months on Exposed in Folks, we only release this podcast in audio form, so thank you for that. Thank you to all my Patreon supporters. Could not do this, absolutely could not do it without the support of each and every one of you, and I love you so much for supporting everything we do.

44:16 And until next time for Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman. Much love,