Chapter 1
My Greatest Failure

For much of my life, I believed that the definition of success was financial freedom—not having to work for a living. There is some logic to this belief. If we're financially free, we've made it. If we don't have to work for a living, we're free to do all the things that we enjoy or whatever is most important to us.

As I got older, this belief became stronger and stronger. By the time I finished college and began my career as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, achieving financial freedom became a very high priority for me. In fact, I had a goal of achieving financial freedom by the time I turned 30.

With this goal of financial freedom in mind, I became very focused on money. I spent a lot of my spare time studying investment in stocks, bonds, futures, options, and real estate. I studied entrepreneurship and business and management. If I thought it could help me become financially free, I was interested.

Then came the conversation that changed the course of my life.

It was the fall of the year 2000, and I was on deployment with my unit, headed for the Middle East. On this fateful day, I was on liberty in Singapore, hanging out with a friend of mine who I hadn't seen since officer candidates' school. My friend, who we'll call “Bob,” was a finance officer. He was in charge of all the money we had on ship.

We were both talking about how although we liked being Marines, we weren't really enjoying our jobs, and we weren't really happy. Suddenly, Bob drastically changed the direction of the conversation. He said, “Well, one interesting thing about my job is the procurement of funds for deployment. You wouldn't believe how easy it was for me to procure the $4.5 million in cash that we have on the ship.” Of course, being focused on money, this caught my attention. I immediately asked, “Really? How easy was it?”

Bob explained the process. It sounded too easy.

Curious, I asked him, “Did you ever think about running off with the money?” He said of course the thought had crossed his mind, but he could never actually do something like that. I didn't think I could either, but I sure thought it would make a cool story—running off into the sunset with millions of dollars.

My first thought was, “Maybe I could write a bestselling novel about this, and that would be my ticket to financial freedom.” Over the next couple of weeks, I asked Bob a lot of questions as different ideas came to mind. I soon realized that I had enough information to write a really good book. In fact, I realized that I had enough information to actually live it.

Initially, I didn't seriously entertain the idea of actually trying to do something like that, so I just stuck to writing about it. But over the next four months, things started to change. I had a habit of focusing on what was wrong with my life, instead of appreciating all that was good. I also had a habit of looking for quick solutions to problems. I almost always sought the easy way out of unpleasant situations.

The more I dwelled on the problems in my life, the more appealing a quick and easy solution appeared to be. And because I was already so focused on money, I found lots of ways to rationalize why attempting to defraud the government wasn't such a bad idea. I told myself things like, “Well, you aren't taking anything from a person. This would be a victimless crime.”

Eventually, I convinced myself that I should at least find out if would be possible to arrange the delivery. Once I knew if it was possible, I would still be able to decide whether or not I wanted to go through with acquiring the money.

About a month later, in January of 2001, I took the steps needed to arrange the delivery. I forged two documents and faxed them to the Federal Reserve Bank. I followed up with a phone call to ensure receipt, impersonating a finance officer from another unit.

I was told that everything was in order, and that I simply needed to arrange the delivery with Brinks (the armored car company). I faxed the required document to the company, and followed up with a phone call to ensure receipt. The staff at Brinks also told me that everything was in order.

At that point, I had arranged the unauthorized delivery of $2.79 million from the Federal Reserve Bank of Los Angeles to Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.

A few days before the delivery was scheduled to take place, I called Brinks to confirm one last time. The person with whom I spoke informed me that he had forgotten about a new policy they had in place. He said that I would need to come to their office and sign a contract for the delivery. So, I had a nametag displaying the name of the officer I was impersonating made and sewn onto one of my uniforms, and went to the office wearing that uniform. I signed the contract—which promised the delivery of $2.79 million the next day—and took a copy with me.

Although this might sound like the script of some thrilling movie, the actual experience was terribly unpleasant. I was almost overcome by anxiety. With each subsequent act of dishonesty came an increasing amount of sickness in my stomach.

Once I had the contract from Brinks in my hand, reality finally hit me in the face. I said to myself, “What the heck are you doing, man?! You aren't a criminal! You don't even have a plan for picking up this money! Are you crazy?!” At that point, I abandoned the whole idea and shredded the contract with Brinks on my way home.

I knew that it wouldn't be long before someone figured out that this was all a hoax. Fear set in. Since I had been to Brazil a couple times and knew the language, I decided to go there and find out from a nice, safe distance whether or not I was in any trouble. I bought a one-way ticket, packed as though I was going on vacation, and went to the bank and withdrew all the cash I had, which was less than $5,000. I went to Walmart to pick up a suitcase and some warm-weather clothes.

After leaving the store, as I approached my Jeep, some girls pointed to a man standing by a parked car and said, “That guy is following you.” When I started to walk toward the man, he got in his car and sped away. Because I didn't think there was any way authorities could have been aware of what I had done—and because of the way the man drove off—I didn't think that he was with the authorities. But authorities were aware of what I had done. While I was signing the contract at Brinks, FBI agents had placed a tracking device on my Jeep, and it was actually an FBI agent who was following me at Walmart. As I was on my way to the airport the next morning, the FBI began following me again. When I was within a couple of miles of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, I was pulled over by unmarked cars, yanked out of my Jeep at gunpoint by an FBI takedown team, and arrested.

Although this sounds absolutely frightening, I actually felt better that day than I had felt in over a month. I told the FBI everything. It felt so good to finally tell the truth. After spending most of the day with the FBI, I was taken to the Federal Detention Center in San Diego. I spent about a week there before the Marine Corps took jurisdiction of my case and I was transferred to the base brig (a military prison) at Camp Pendleton.

Understandably, the Marine Corps was not happy with me. I had dishonored what is perhaps the most honorable organization on the planet. I was placed in a six-foot by nine-foot cell. During the nearly six months while I awaited my court-martial, I spent an average of 22 hours per day alone in that cell—essentially in solitary confinement.

This was the worst experience of my life. I probably went through every negative emotion humanly possible during this experience. But it was mostly anger—at myself. I remember thinking, “You idiot, what the heck were you thinking? You've thrown your whole life away.” I also quickly realized that my crime was not a victimless one, as I had assumed. I caused suffering for the Marines who had looked to me as their leader. I also caused suffering for my friends, for my peers, and for my leaders.

But the ones who suffered the most were probably my family. I shocked and embarrassed them. Even worse, I caused them a tremendous amount of worry and fear. I can't imagine what it must have been like for my parents to think of their son being in prison, or for my sister to think of her brother there. I hadn't considered any of these things while arranging the delivery, so I was absolutely furious at myself for being so selfish.

The worst day of all was the day my military lawyer came to visit me for the first time. He sat down outside my cell door. We had to talk to each other through a slot used to pass food into the cell, which measured about 3 inches high and 12 inches wide. I asked him, “How long do you think I could be here?” I'm not really sure I wanted to know the answer. He replied, “Matthew, the charges total up to 85 years. You could possibly spend 70 or 80 years in the brig.”

I went into a sort of shock. I spent the rest of the day in a daze. I was so mad and so depressed that for the first time in my life I actually had thoughts of suicide flashing through my mind. Although I never tried...