From Con Man to True-Crime Creator: How Matt Cox Turned a Criminal Past Into a Media Career

TAMPA, Fla. — Matthew Cox spent years creating identities, forging documents and manipulating the mortgage industry. His crimes eventually made him a federal fugitive, cost financial institutions millions of dollars and resulted in a 26-year prison sentence.

Today, Cox makes his living talking about crime rather than committing it.

From a studio near the Florida State Fairgrounds, Cox hosts Inside True Crime, a long-form interview show built around conversations with former criminals, investigators and people who have experienced the darker corners of American life. The stories involve everything from bank robberies and fraud to drug trafficking, organized crime and prison.

It is an unusual second act for a man once pursued by federal authorities.

Cox's appeal as an interviewer comes partly from the fact that he understands the people sitting across from him. He spent 13 years in federal prison, and unlike many traditional true-crime hosts, he rarely approaches former criminals as outsiders to be studied.

He understands how they think.

That perspective has helped Inside True Crime find an audience that differs from the traditionally female-dominated true-crime market. Cox says roughly 90 percent of his audience is male, with viewers particularly interested in the mechanics of crimes, scams and prison life.

From Mortgage Broker to Fugitive

Cox's own story could easily be an episode of the show.

A University of South Florida graduate, he entered the subprime mortgage business during the late 1990s. What began with manipulating loan documents eventually escalated into an elaborate fraud operation involving forged driver's licenses, stolen identities, nonexistent borrowers and multiple mortgages taken against properties.

After a newspaper investigation exposed fraudulent transactions involving phantom buyers, Cox disappeared in 2003.

For nearly three years, he traveled through the South using false identities, altered his appearance and continued committing fraud. His run ended in 2006 when federal agents arrested him in Tennessee, where he was living under the name Joseph Carter.

A federal judge sentenced him to 26 years.

Prison, however, unexpectedly gave Cox his next career.

He began writing about other inmates, interviewing them in prison yards and studying police reports, court records and wiretap transcripts. He eventually produced books including Generation Oxy and BENT, establishing himself as a true-crime writer before leaving federal custody in 2019.

The Prison-to-Podcast Pipeline

Cox initially expected books and Hollywood projects to provide his post-prison career. Instead, YouTube changed everything.

After leaving custody, he contacted Tampa Bay podcaster Danny Jones and appeared on Jones' show. The interview attracted significant attention. Cox soon began recording his own videos using a small portion of his bedroom as a backdrop and a cellphone mounted on an inexpensive tripod.

Producer Colby Baker eventually joined him, leaving a $90,000-a-year job in 2021 to work on the fledgling channel. The gamble worked. Inside True Crime grew into a full-time business for both men.

Retired FBI agent Tom Simon, who has become a recurring personality alongside Cox, jokingly describes what has happened as the "prison-to-podcast pipeline." Simon initially had reservations about appearing with a convicted fraudster, but the two eventually became friends and collaborators.

Their relationship also captures what makes Cox's career unusual.

For years, federal agents investigated him. Now a former FBI agent sits beside him discussing criminal cases.

Crime Without the Lecture

Inside True Crime generally doesn't attempt to turn every interview into a morality lesson. Guests describe what they did, why they did it, how the schemes worked and what happened when everything collapsed.

Cox believes constantly interrupting those stories with declarations of remorse can make an interview less compelling. Redemption may eventually become part of the conversation, but the story comes first.

That approach can be controversial. True crime has always wrestled with the question of whether telling compelling stories about criminals risks glamorizing them.

Cox doesn't appear particularly troubled by that criticism. His position is essentially that prison itself provides the warning. Many of the people appearing on his show lost years or decades of their lives because of their decisions.

There is also an undeniable irony to Cox's success.

The same abilities that once helped him commit fraud — understanding people, recognizing weaknesses, constructing narratives and obsessing over details — now help him conduct interviews.

He once spent his time figuring out what made a lie believable.

Now he spends it figuring out what makes a true story impossible to stop watching.