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Byrd pled guilty in November 2016. Unusually, the plea agreement did not include a requirement that Byrd coop- erate with the government in its continuing investigation. To the contrary, Josh received a voicemail from Byrd that said “You need to come see me immediately. . . . It’s a lot of information that I have that is exculpatory to your client.” Of course Josh needed to interview a witness claiming to have exculpatory evidence, and with the consent of Byrd’s lawyer, Josh arranged to meet with Byrd in the Maricopa County jail, where he was awaiting trial on state charges in Arizona. Josh brought a trained investigator to witness the interview; he also brought a two-page document con- taining fifty-three separately numbered exculpatory factual statements that Ken believed Byrd would confirm to be true. Josh expected the interview to be private. He did not know that shortly before the September 2017 interview, Byrd had decided he wanted the benefits of becoming a coop- erator in the government’s investigation of Ken. With the aid of “magic” eyeglasses that the government supplied to Byrd for the meeting with Josh, the government surrepti- tiously videotaped the entire interview. Byrd clearly knew “which side of his bread was buttered,” and he knew the government would be watching. Yet nothing Byrd said that day implicated Ken in any wrong- doing. After some initial questions and conversation, Josh turned to his two-page list of exculpatory statements. Byrd suggested that he would just read the list and respond to each numbered statement, so Josh handed the two-page document across the table to Byrd. When he made it to the end of the list, Byrd had confirmed as true each statement that he had read. The meeting lasted a total of about three hours, so there was additional discussion, in- cluding things Byrd wanted to talk about, such as money he claimed to be owed from a casino investment Ken supposedly knew about. When Josh and the investigator left that day, promising to return the next, Byrd had said nothing incriminating about Ken. When Josh and the investigator returned the next day, Josh asked Byrd to sign the two-page document. Byrd agreed, but then “flipped.” Trout played from the videotape: “Now, the information I gave you yesterday . . . is the information if called to testify, I will testify to. Understand? . . . \[BUT\] Here’s the real situation, all right? The real of the situation is this. Ken knew my whole business operation, period, from A to Z. . . . Ken knew that LOC was used to launder money. Ken knew I was still involved in drugs. I paid Ken millions of dollars in cash. . . . So what I’m saying is that I’m going to be the good soldier like I’m supposed to be, but I need Ken to put his nuts on the line for me and make sure I get my fucking money.” In another video clip that Trout showed, Byrd asked Josh to destroy evidence. “Now, Ken keeps a chart of all my investments, all the players that’s involved, the how’s and the where’s. He needs to make sure all of that vanishes off his laptop.” SUMMER 2023 JOURNAL 50