Aaron and Chris Mosey are two successful California entrepreneurs who had a history of developing entertainment content, previously, directing and producing several feature films. But when they got a PPP loan back during the 2008 financial crisis, that s when the trouble started.
00:00:17.980I know what it is to be the subject of a trial presided over by a hostile and hateful judge who essentially will not allow you to mount any defense whatsoever.
00:00:30.000I know what it is to have a judge who won't even allow you to enter exhibits of evidence that would have proved that you're an innocent, even though under the law, it's the government's job to prove you're guilty.
00:00:42.100You're not required to prove your innocence.
00:00:45.880But the case of Aaron and Chris Mosey is so stunning, so overreaching, so outrageous that I wanted to bring Chris Mosey on the show today to talk about it.
00:01:00.600The Moseys are successful California entrepreneurs.
00:01:04.960They had a history of developing entertainment content previously, directing and producing several feature films, all of which made money.
00:01:12.320But when they got a PPP loan back during the COVID-19 crisis, that's when the trouble started.
00:01:22.940Chris Mosey, welcome to the Stone Zone.
00:01:28.320So give us a kind of a quick synopsis of what went down in this epic prosecution of you and your wife.
00:01:38.280If you were sentenced to 36 months of imprisonment while your wife, Erin, was sentenced to 27 months of imprisonment, she is still incarcerated.
00:01:47.620The charges in the end were allegedly wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy for receiving a PPP loan to fund an entertainment project in Hawaii where you live.
00:02:08.280This all stemmed because we had a project called Ohana that basically was a fictional character in a non-fiction world of Hawaii in the 1990s dealing with the mob and the corrupt federal government over there.
00:02:23.640So that's, I don't know if that's how it all stemmed from it, but we, you know, during COVID when it all happened, we were like everybody else, didn't know what was going on, was following directions by any and everybody.
00:02:39.960And, you know, at that time I was reaching out to our local banks and they're like, we're not doing this program yet.
00:03:37.600It wasn't, wasn't part of his narrative.
00:03:39.860So the loan originator urged, advised you that it was proper to use payroll projections for the loan, which is what you did.
00:03:48.960You had done it previously when applying for an SBA loan.
00:03:52.640Ultimately, it was determined that the loan originator's guidance was incorrect.
00:03:57.580It would seem to me that agreeing to pay back the loan should have solved this issue.
00:04:03.800But for some reason, the U.S. attorney and a federal district judge, they seem to me to be looking more for a scalp rather than than true justice.
00:04:17.520So, yeah, I mean, through this whole process, we, you know, we once we learned that the information was incorrect, we said, OK, like, let's you've already seized the majority of it.
00:04:34.280Because when we first got the loan, I'm like, I do not want any of this money in my normal account.
00:04:41.400So we use we put what we were told we're allowed to pay ourselves and everything else went into a specific account, specific account for Ohana.
00:04:50.560And, you know, that right there is their money laundering charge.
00:04:56.240And but once once we found out that the advice from the loan originator originator was not proper, we said, OK, what can we do?
00:05:57.940We're your average family that got targeted.
00:06:01.560And I think there's a lot of them out there that just don't have a voice.
00:06:05.560And so we're very thankful you're giving us a voice.
00:06:09.060I mean, the case against you and your wife, Erin, seems plagued with prosecutorial abuse from the start.
00:06:15.340Federal agents seized all your accessible assets prematurely in May of twenty twenty one.
00:06:21.740But that's nearly a year before any charges were filed against you in May of twenty twenty two, violating a requirement to file charges within 90 days or return the seized assets.
00:06:34.280This include placing a what's called a Liz pendens, a public notice that a particular property has a claim against it on your family home that had been purchased three years well before the covid-19 pandemic even occurred as part of the plan to squeeze you and coerce you into entering a plea agreement.
00:06:57.200And I still find the entire thing incredible because you were bled dry.
00:07:05.260You had already paid back virtually all of the PPP loan, yet they decided to destroy you financially anyway when the matter could have been civilly quite easily settled simply by paying them back.
00:07:21.280You operated on the basis of bad advice, but they had no interest in that.
00:07:27.240In fact, as I understand it, the plea deal banned any negotiation that would have prevented you from arguing for a reduced sentence.
00:07:41.100Yet they insisted that despite the fact that you were first time nonviolent, non drug, drug related offenders that you had to do serious time ripping your wife now, who's still behind bars, away from two young children.
00:08:05.540And the whole the problem with the house is when we got served our target letter, we had over a million dollars in equity in that house and we couldn't pull any cash out for legal assistance.
00:08:16.880So we got stuck with the Hawaiian court appointed attorneys, which aren't aren't court appointed.
00:08:23.620Like they are literally it's a panel of attorneys and you look any of them up and they're literally their main focus is personal injury.
00:08:30.260So they they had no idea what they were doing.
00:08:34.680And any time we would push them to like, hey, look at like what you just said about the assets being seized ahead of time.
00:08:43.340Instead of actually doing anything, they just went to the court and has to be removed.
00:08:48.420That went on for almost two years until my father in law saw this.
00:08:53.160And luckily, he had a little bit of money saved up.
00:08:55.640So we finally were able to hire a private attorney.
00:09:00.160But at that time, that's when the government was saying, if you don't take this plea, we're going to file charges against my mom, who's 77 and has had no issues with our business at all.
00:09:13.280Just to bring in the family aspect to get us to plea.
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00:09:50.160Precisely what they did to General Flynn, threatening to charge his son if he did not a plea to take a plea or former upstate New York Congressman Chris Collins, who they charged with insider trading.
00:10:04.200Despite the fact that there's no evidence that he conducted any inside trading, but they threatened to indict his young son if he did not plead guilty.
00:10:14.300The most stunning thing about your case is learning that the U.S. attorney used the money you paid back to turn around and try to buy your family home in the foreclosure sale.
00:10:24.820In fact, they actually sent agents to go bid on it.
00:10:27.840So they forced a foreclosure instead of allowing a normal sale, which would have allowed you to keep some equity.
00:10:34.960On top of that, as I understand it, the government hasn't applied the money that you paid back towards restitution, even though the court transcript clearly states that that is what the money would be used for.
00:10:47.460So in other words, they double dipped, they stole your home, and they got to keep your money.
00:10:53.000This is a cautionary tale because what happened to you and your wife, Erin, can happen to any American.
00:11:03.900And it was just out of dumb luck that we found out about the foreclosure sale because I just remember I was talking to my best friend on the phone right after I told him what our sentence was.
00:11:14.700And so we were basically crying together on the phone.
00:11:16.900I've known him since seventh grade, and he's a very successful mortgage broker.
00:11:23.160And he said, well, let me see if I can just buy your house for you at the sale.
00:11:29.900And I'm like, they're doing it in 12 days.
00:11:31.860The sale was scheduled for 12 days after our sentencing.
00:11:34.840So he has his guy that's been doing this for 30 years, buying foreclosed sales at the auction.
00:11:42.220You know, he had a certain amount he was going to be able to spend, and it went over that.
00:11:46.340But I have the text message, and I think I sent you a copy of it.
00:11:49.380Like, the guy said it was unusual because federal agents were at the auction bidding, and they didn't win.
00:11:57.520The house ended up going back to the mortgage lender.
00:12:00.020But, I mean, I would have never known that unless he would have offered to purchase it.
00:12:07.000And, yeah, the restitution is a battle.
00:12:13.280I just got off the phone with my attorney, and he's going to be writing a letter to the D.C. office about having that put in from the forfeiture to restitution.
00:12:48.620When she first had to surrender, the judge was cruel and made her surrender to the—wouldn't let her get designated to her camp.
00:13:00.620She had to surrender to the marshal services in Fresno.
00:13:04.780We live in San Luis Obispo, California, so it's an hour-and-a-half drive, and I took her there.
00:13:09.500And the marshals didn't even understand why she was there.
00:13:12.240They didn't know what to do with her, so they put her in county jail in Fresno for almost three weeks.
00:13:19.680It was the toughest thing she's ever been through, and it's one of the toughest things I've ever had to hear on the other end of a phone as her husband.
00:13:27.240She is fine now in her camp in Victorville.
00:13:33.960Obviously, it's not ideal, but she's just kind of keeping her head down and praying every day that, well, we can get the truth out there,
00:13:42.660and somebody with some power and some common sense can actually see what happened to us.
00:13:50.180Obviously, the conditions aren't great, but you know what?
00:13:54.380She said most of the guards and everyone there is friendly and understanding of the majority of the people.
00:14:00.600So she doesn't have bad, bad things to say about where she is,
00:14:04.720but obviously this woman has never had a parking ticket since I've known her.
00:14:09.020So to even be anywhere near a federal facility is ridiculous.
00:14:14.340So, Chris, have you thought about setting up a GoFundMe or a website where people can keep track of your case and maybe offer support?