Burning Teslas With Michael A. Gonzalez

Join me to hear the story of Michael A. Gonzalez, a serial Tesla thief. Why did he burn a Tesla? Well you’re going to have to join me to hear that and all about his drugs, guns, and baby mama drama. This is eCrimeBytes Season 2 Episode 15 Act 4: Burning Teslas With Michael A. Gonzalez – Act 4: Punishment.

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Transcript:

00:00:10:01 – 00:00:32:39
Keith
Hey, you crazy bastards! Welcome back to eCrimeBytes Season two Episode 15. This is Burning Teslas with Michael A. Gonzalez. Man, if you haven’t caught act one through three, you really need to go back and watch them. And if you’re on YouTube, I’ll put a little link here where you can go back to Act one. Check out all the background. If you are sticking with me and you haven’t seen them,

00:00:32:40 – 00:01:03:45
Keith
the real quick tour is this. Michael Gonzales figured out how to buy Teslas from Tesla by starting an ACH transfer. It’s basically a bank transfer to pay the remaining balance on several Teslas. We saw five different Teslas ranging from about $50000 to $150000, and they would deliver the cars with all the paperwork needed to title and register them or resell them to Michael Gonzales.

00:01:03:45 – 00:01:16:47
Keith
And then the check would bounce electronically and he would have the car and wouldn’t. The only thing he would pay was $2,500 down payment, and then he would sell these cars and make a whole shit ton of money. So

00:01:16:47 – 00:01:28:47
Keith
with that, that’s the Tesla side. There’s this whole running theme where he has this drug problem and he has he’s been using opiates and I believe we talked about cocaine at one point.

00:01:28:47 – 00:01:56:05
Keith
He’s been trying to physically harm or kill his baby mama. KC was her initials. He tried to hit her with a truck. He tried to go out and purchase a gun. A few different times and has been rejected for it. And one of them, he actually said, I’m not under investigation for anything important. And actually he was under investigation for trying to hurt his baby

00:01:56:05 – 00:02:16:51
Keith
mama, in my opinion, tried to kill her with trying to hit her with a truck. He didn’t tell him about that. And he still tried to get a gun and they figured it out and they charged him with it. So we have a lot of these crimes floating around and they all kind of come together at once and he’s going to be sentenced for all these different things at different periods of time.

00:02:16:51 – 00:02:26:33
Keith
And I’m going to kind of walk you through it in this act. So with that, the first thing that they did is they went into the sentencing for his firearm charge,

00:02:26:33 – 00:02:28:31
Keith
arguably probably the least

00:02:28:31 – 00:02:38:50
Keith
worst of his charges that he has against them, because this is the one where he lied on a form. He didn’t actually get a firearm in his hands, thankfully, because he may have used it.

00:02:38:57 – 00:03:00:03
Keith
He tried to hit her with a truck. He hit other vehicles trying to hit her with the truck. So thank God he didn’t get it. A firearm in his hand. He only got to lie on the form for it. So when he was sentenced a May 12th of 2021, he was already been in jail. We talked about these jailhouse calls where he said he had to get rid of a Tesla as well.

00:03:00:08 – 00:03:22:46
Keith
He’d already been in jail. They said time served. You’re good there. You’re going to be at three years of supervised release. Now, if you’ve watched any of our episodes, when we tell you about these supervised release, they have a lot of conditions. One of the main conditions there is you can’t use drugs, okay? I’ve never seen one where they allow them to use drugs.

00:03:22:51 – 00:03:33:22
Keith
Usually the first condition is you will not use any form of drug. Okay. Keep that in mind because Michael Gonzalez has been using drugs throughout this whole episode.

00:03:33:22 – 00:03:47:49
Keith
So a little later that year, August 26th of 2021, there is the Tesla indictment. So this firearm charges is a different thing. Now, the Tesla crimes, those start coming to light for him.

00:03:47:54 – 00:04:06:25
Keith
They charge him with five counts of possessing and selling a stolen vehicle because there’s five Teslas involved. And what they do is they attach each count to one of those Teslas, each one that I presented to you throughout this episode. And then they attach to the VIN number. So that’s just how it looks in the court documents.

00:04:06:25 – 00:04:09:28
Keith
At this point, Gonzales is arrested again.

00:04:09:28 – 00:04:31:20
Keith
Usually. Usually if a defendant doesn’t have a real big criminal background, if they’re not a flight risk, they’ll bond out. They’ll have to pay a certain amount of money and they’re allowed to be out. And if they’re if they don’t come back to court, then basically the court takes that money and then they go issue an arrest warrant and they get that person.

00:04:31:24 – 00:04:44:39
Keith
That wasn’t the case for Michael Gonzales. He was just detained upfront because this guy has been a whole world of shit since the beginning. I mean, he’s been trying to get guns. He’s been trying to hit people with cars. He’s been, you know, he’s Teslas. He’s just been in trouble from the beginning.

00:04:44:39 – 00:04:53:58
Keith
Now, when he was on pretrial release, he admitted to using cocaine.

00:04:54:03 – 00:05:04:59
Keith
I remember earlier, I said there’s probation conditions and you can’t use drugs and all that kind of stuff. Well, here he is on this case where they’re talking about

00:05:04:59 – 00:05:20:32
Keith
his freedom prior to trial. And somewhere along the line he goes, yeah, I use cocaine. Actually, I put it in my water bottle to stay awake. Well, that goes against his probation conditions.

00:05:20:32 – 00:05:32:13
Keith
It goes against conditions that they were considering for his trial release. And they just said, fuck it, you’re detained, man. You’re just going to be detained until trial. And this was March 18th of 2022.

00:05:32:13 – 00:05:48:51
Keith
I imagine time in the pokey probably made him think because September 29th of 2022, so a few months later that year, he pled guilty to all five counts, not one, not two, not three, all five counts.

00:05:48:51 – 00:06:08:49
Keith
And that’s pretty rare. Usually these cases I see a defendant will plead guilty to a subset of what they’re charged with. This one and some of the cases coming up, I’ll give you a little bit of a spoiler. You’ll see people pleading guilty, the whole shebang, which is, in my opinion, statistically anomalous.

00:06:08:49 – 00:06:17:17
Keith
I think it’s because he had all these other charges, like his firearm charge and there was aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and all that other stuff.

00:06:17:22 – 00:06:28:58
Keith
So sometimes defendants are released until sentencing, too, while they argue how much sentencing is going to be, because it could be probation, it could be jail time, who knows? Well,

00:06:28:58 – 00:06:39:48
Keith
not in the case of Michael Gonzalez, because in October 5th, 2022, they said, fucker, you’re staying in jail and you’re staying in jail because you have a prior criminal history.

00:06:39:53 – 00:06:54:09
Keith
You participate in crimes while out on probation or parole or supervision. You have a history of violence and use of weapons, and you have a history of alcohol and substance abuse. For all those reasons, you’re staying in jail until we sentence you.

00:06:54:09 – 00:07:05:30
Keith
And again, remember, all these things are going on simultaneously for him. So on January 24th of 2023, his firearm probation, remember I said he had three years for that.

00:07:05:30 – 00:07:29:35
Keith
He had time served, three years supervised release. Well, they said he used drugs, so that’s revoked as well. Unbelievable, right? I mean, it’s like he screws himself at every turn. So using drugs, he just screwed himself in his prior case so that supervised release, now he’s got to deal with that issue as well. And that’s different. Different to what he’s dealing with, with Tesla.

00:07:29:35 – 00:07:48:24
Keith
So in the firearm case, they decided, you know, you use drugs. We told you not to use and now you’re going to prison for six months just on that. And when you get out, you’re on another two years supervised release where he’s going to have to stay off drugs. Now, do you think he’s going to stay off drugs? I don’t know.

00:07:48:24 – 00:08:11:33
Keith
If he gets sleepy, he might put some cocaine in a water bottle, start drinking it. You never know with Michael A. Gonzalez. So then we get back to the Tesla sentencing on October 12th of 2023. So this is just a few weeks ago from when I recorded this. They put him in prison for forty eight months. So four years on each count concurrent.

00:08:11:33 – 00:08:15:55
Keith
So it means he serves all five counts concurrently. So four years total.

00:08:15:55 – 00:08:42:35
Keith
He is forced probably for everybody’s benefit here to be in the Fed, the Bureau of Prisons, 500 hour residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. If that’s not available for any reason, he has to participate in a nonresident substance abuse program. So they’re basically saying you have to get into some substance abuse program.

00:08:42:35 – 00:08:49:52
Keith
We don’t care where it is, but you have to get in one because this drug problem, it makes you you keep coming back because of it.

00:08:49:52 – 00:09:06:31
Keith
For the Tesla sentencing, he’s on a three year supervised release. Now do you think he’s going to stay off drugs? I don’t know. Hope he does. But if he uses drugs again, he can land himself back in prison, even if he serves out that four years.

00:09:06:31 – 00:09:27:00
Keith
So if he serves out that four years and then drinks cocaine on year five, he would have to go back because that would be a violation. So hopefully he will stay clean in those three years. And again, they go in there and they say, hey, when you’re released, you have to go through substance abuse treatment, yada, yada, yada, just like they did in the other conditions.

00:09:27:00 – 00:09:44:49
Keith
Now, for his Tesla sentencing, they have a restitution to Tesla motors of just over $493,000. And I always get to this point in this case and I’m like, How is this fucker going to pay for this? Right? I mean,

00:09:44:49 – 00:09:53:51
Keith
may maybe he has the money saved away from his Tesla that he bought and sold. I doubt it. I doubt he did.

00:09:53:51 – 00:10:24:22
Keith
But how do you pay a half a million dollars even if you have a clean record and have a good job? That’s it. That’s like a house. So what happens is in the court paperwork, just to make sure he makes some payments. They said, you, sir, are going to make 10% payments of your gross monthly income until it’s paid in full for life, until it’s paid in full to Tesla.

00:10:24:27 – 00:10:25:28
Keith
So, yeah.

00:10:25:28 – 00:10:43:59
Keith
yeah. And I do see here there’s actually they actually did find a forfeiture forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $231,000 actually almost $232,000. So that must have been the money that he made off selling those Teslas. Probably had that left over in some bank somewhere, and they just clawed it back.

00:10:43:59 – 00:10:57:40
Keith
Okay. So some final thoughts. That’s it. That’s the end of this crazy case. And you got to admit with me that’s that’s that was that was a whole shitload of stuff he did. So four years for about $500,000 in this case

00:10:57:40 – 00:11:02:46
Keith
same amount of years for less amount of dollars that you saw people get in prior cases.

00:11:02:46 – 00:11:16:46
Keith
So weigh that for what it’s worth. I know that he had a violent tendency in here, and I think that was the reason that there was more years for less amount of money. If it if you ask me, that’s just my opinion.

00:11:16:46 – 00:11:26:39
Keith
Now, if you’re at the end of this and you go, how does this ACH transfer scheme like this, how does this how is it still allowed?

00:11:26:44 – 00:11:46:31
Keith
I have no idea. I have no idea. We are so connected right now. You would think that at worst, at worst, a bank could figure out within a couple of hours whether or not that they were going to get paid through a transfer. Now take this with the grain of salt I’m not a banker. I don’t get behind the scenes with that whole transfer process.

00:11:46:35 – 00:12:00:10
Keith
But it just seemed like we’re on computers and that whole process could be not days and weeks that we saw in this case where they figured out, he didn’t pay, but rather minutes and hours and hopefully seconds even.

00:12:00:10 – 00:12:07:53
Keith
And at the end of the day, Adam Neumann from WeWork called and just said, Hey, Michael Gonzales, I want my hair back. Now,

00:12:07:53 – 00:12:14:26
Keith
before I give you a preview of next week’s case, which I’m going to stick on to the big hair theme.

00:12:14:26 – 00:12:32:27
Keith
Wait until you see this guy’s picture. I want to tell you a little bit how to reach us. So if there’s anything you like in this episode, like, subscribe, follow, thumbs up, whatever it is on your application, please click it. If you have been our website, you can go there and get all our episodes. You can listen to audio versions

00:12:32:27 – 00:12:59:33
Keith
there and everything. It’s just eCrimeBytes dot com bytes spelled the computer way y as in yellow milk. So it’s B y t e s is how it’s spelled. And if you go there, we got all our social media and everything linked across the top. Now please do come back next week because I am putting a preview up on your screen now of this individual I’m going to be covering next week.

00:12:59:33 – 00:13:24:29
Keith
And this is selling fraudulent Internet addresses with Amir Golestan. Now, Amir is he’s carrying on with our big hair theme. And if you don’t know what selling fraudulent Internet addresses means, don’t worry. I put that in there. I have a more slightly more technical topic here for my computer folks, so they get to hear more about like addressing on the Internet.

00:13:24:34 – 00:13:46:49
Keith
But I’m going to boil this down to layman where we’re going to be talking about it like it’s houses and addresses and telephone numbers and addresses. It’s not the Internet addresses themselves that are important to this story. That’s just the thing he’s selling fraudulently. And there’s this whole fraudulent scheme behind there that’s easily understandable and just kind of a crazy scheme.

00:13:46:53 – 00:14:04:35
Keith
And it’s a very short, you know, we’re going to get through it very quickly and just get to the punch lines and talk about what it is Amir did. And it’s he makes a lot of money on this and it’s just not something that you would normally hear about. And since it was a different type of case, I thought I’d bring it to you next week.

00:14:04:35 – 00:14:11:05
Keith
So I hope you come back and join me on that. And with that, I hope to see you then. Thanks. Bye.

DrKeithJones.com

Burning Teslas With Michael A. Gonzalez – Act 4: Punishment

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Transcript:

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