Title: From Cop to Bank Robber with Paul Ogden | DEEP FOCUS with John Kiriakou
Show: The Deep Focus Show
Date: 2026-05-05
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wypS_uplYDQ
Duration: 41:11

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[00:00] You go in, you get the money in the drawer, and you got to you got to get out. You can't wait for them to open the safe. You can't wait do all the stuff you see on TV. You got to get in and out. And um so it rob and plus you have now money is transferred electronically a lot of times. So you don't have they don't keep on hand as much cash as it used to in these banks. And why the banking industry doesn't make that well known, I don't know.

[00:30] People think you robbing banks you're making a lot of money when in fact you're not. Hi everybody. I'm John Kiriakou and welcome back to another episode of deep focus. When I was a little boy, I must have been eight or nine years old, my grandfather, to whom I was very very close, my father's father, told me a story. He told me that when he was working at Sharon Steel in Farrell, Pennsylvania in

[01:00] 1934, he was standing in line at the Franic Savings and Loan to cash his paycheck. And while he was standing in line, John Dillinger and his gang came into the bank and announced that nobody should worry because they weren't there to steal the people's money, they were there to steal the bank's money. They did that, they stole the bank's money, and walked out. Decades later, when I was writing my first book, I really wanted to tell this story, but deep down I remember

[01:30] thinking, I think that story probably just isn't true. So I took a day off of work. I drove to the Mercer County, Pennsylvania Historical Society and I told the lady there, "I'm writing this book. I want to include this story that my grandfather told me, but I'm just not sure if it's true." So she helped me look it up and sure enough we found the original reporting from the Sharon Herald saying that the Franic Savings and Loan had indeed been held up by John Dillinger and his gang in 1934. Not only that,

[02:00] but the newspaper article quoted my grandfather. From that day I had a fascination with John Dillinger. And indeed, I just recently went to Indianapolis with my with my son Max and we actually put some flowers on John Dillinger's grave. He's buried right there in the city of Indianapolis. Well, in any event, John Dillinger's done John Dillinger is not the only bank robber in America. I want to quote to you from a new book

[02:30] by Mark and Paul Ogden called Outside the Law. It says this, "Growing up in Elkhart, Indiana, Bruce Davidson always wanted to be a police officer. After graduating from high school and serving honorably in the Marines, he managed to reach his lifelong goal at the age of 23 when he was sworn in as a patrolman for the Elkhart Police Department. The job was everything he dreamed it would be. Day after day he worked tirelessly to remove dangerous criminals from the streets and to protect the citizens of

[03:00] his hometown. His devotion to duty and commitment to upholding the law earned him the respect of his fellow officers and he rose quickly through the ranks to become president of the Fraternal Order of Police. What Davidson didn't realize at the time was that there were powerful forces working against him. City politics, marital troubles, financial difficulties, and a broken legal system were beating him down. And as his professional and personal life fell apart, he would lose his job, his marriage, and his promising career

[03:30] as an attorney. Ultimately, he would be forced to turn his back on everything he ever stood for, violating the principles of right and wrong that had always governed his life. The cop became a criminal. The lawyer became an outlaw. And when his secret was finally exposed, his only option was to run as far as he could for as long as he could. In his 7 and 1/2 months as a fugitive, Davidson would travel across the United States 2 and 1/2 times and see things

[04:00] he'd always wanted to see all with the FBI in hot pursuit. He was the most prolific bank robber since John Dillinger. Well, today we have Paul Ogden with us. Paul, thank you so much for joining us. This is going to be fun. I've been looking forward to this uh this chat for quite some time. Well, thank you for inviting me on and I I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the book. Uh I can't wait. So, I have to say, I've

[04:30] I've got the book right here. Awesome book. Very easy read. It's a compelling story. What first drew you to Bruce Davidson's story and at what point did you decide, "You know, this warrants a full-length book. It It It's much more than just an article or a case study. People need to know this whole story." When did that finally come to you? Well, that came to me uh several years ago. I was a lawyer downtown Indianapolis at a firm called Robertson Bishop now the Robertson

[05:00] Litigation Group, but I I was talking to another attorney in there and he was working on a case and I asked him what kind of case he was working on it. He said he was trying to get a um his client's case reinstated. They had dismissed it because the attorney had not shown up for a hearing. You don't show up for a hearing and eventually the courts will dismiss your case. And I said, "Why didn't the attorney show up?" Well, he was robbing banks. And so, Mr. Bruce Davidson uh at the end

[05:30] of his career before he became a bank robber, was an attorney and in Indianapolis representing this lady and had not shown up for her hearing and he my friend Adam Wlenckowski was trying to get that case reinstated. So, that's how I first And And I thought, "Well, that's an interesting story. Uh here Here Here's an attorney that became a bank robber." Uh so, I started researching it some more, uh found out about it, um found out more about his story and how he'd

[06:00] robbed banks and been chased by the FBI. And uh I I thought I've always wanted to write write a story about interesting characters I'd run across, and I I wrote to uh Mr. Bruce Davidson at his where he was incarcerated in Lexington and asked him about writing a book, and he was interested in participating in the process. So, that's how I did, and then got sort of sort of sidetracked by COVID, but um eventually we got it fixed, and um my

[06:30] brother came in and helped, Mark, who is a was a screen write who is a um TV producer. He's worked for CNN and uh several other companies, and um he was uh enormous help as well. Well, you've you've anticipated my second question. I was I was curious as to how you got access to a lot of the materials. Uh court records are easy. Law enforcement files are not so easy, but you had personal documents, you had interviews with him that that allowed

[07:00] you to reconstruct his whole transition from, you know, proud member of the US Marine Corps to police officer to attorney, and then to bank robber. Well, you And you're right, and that's one of the challenges in terms of writing a book with someone who is still in prison. Uh you can't just show up, and jail's a little bit bit different than prison. Prison, you got to uh very often be on a list of people, and then we I I wasn't allowed to take in a piece of paper. I had to remember

[07:30] everything in my head, so I met with him a few times, and um he actually did have access, maybe surprisingly to some people, uh to email, and he was able to email some things back and forth. Other than then that we relied on snail mail back and forth. So Yeah, but it it yeah, it was it was a difficult he had a big box of materials and and we so we did he did accumulate

[08:00] attorneys tend to be pack rats. I don't know if you know that we tend not to throw stuff away. We think oh this piece of paper is going to be important someday and we we put it aside of course we can never find it when we need it but we put it aside and so he had a big box of materials and we were and we were able to go through it. So It was a challenge. &gt;&gt; Oh without a doubt without a doubt. Um When I was in federal prison even my attorneys couldn't bring in a piece of

[08:30] paper and a pen. We just had to have a conversation and hope that we all remembered things the same way. There is that that prison Corrlinks I think is what it's called the prison email system but even that can be delayed for as long as a week or 10 days if they don't like your face or they don't know they don't like what you're talking about and and often times they won't even allow the emails to go through. So I know what kind of a challenge it is and there's a huge difference between jail and prison. You know jail is just where they hold you

[09:00] when they first they first arrest you and you're awaiting trial or whatever. Prison is the real deal. Oh it is. &gt;&gt; It's it's yeah, it's it's tough. People the the TV shows conflate the two but they're completely different. &gt;&gt; Very very very different. So and trouble with Corrlinks which is the email system he was using you couldn't attach documents. So &gt;&gt; No no you can't attach documents. &gt;&gt; So Mr. Davidson wrote a lot himself and

[09:30] of course we took it and processed the material so that's where a lot of the information came from from things he wrote met with him, of course. Uh but it's a challenge cuz it's hard to follow up and ask questions about what happened here and what happened here. It's It's a challenge, certainly. Um next one I write, maybe that person will be out of prison. That would make it easier. &gt;&gt; Yeah. Yeah. So. You were You were successful in in weaving psychological

[10:00] his psychological unraveling, let's say, with with a lot of procedural detail about the robberies themselves. Um I'm sure that that came from him, of course, but how were you able to strike a balance between the pacing of a true crime uh book and and a deeper character study? And I'm going to ask you a follow-up about the character study. Well, from meeting with him um and talking to him, it was clear that and everyone has things that they they

[10:30] have ambition to do in their lives. And his ambition his entire life was to be a police officer. That was He wanted to be Elkhart police officer, and that's what he he was what he was able to accomplish. He got of course he got involved in I say of course people don't don't know if they've read the book, but they got he got involved in local politics, which can really um be good or bad depending on if you're on the winning side or losing side. And he ended up losing his his job, but

[11:00] it is if you read it's sort of a Shakespearean tragedy. It's like, "Okay, you're faced with these things. Your life is falling apart. What choices do you make?" Um and he made the choice. He had worked as a security guard at a bank. Um he knew how to go about robbing a bank if you wanted to rob a bank. And he was under enormous pressure. He He was his his uh marriage was falling

[11:30] apart. Um his legal career was not working out at all. He was short money. He was going to be hauled into court for child support um and not being able to pay child support. And he thought about the times he worked as a security guard and how the important thing is to get in and get out very fast. Uh the important thing is to uh not work with other people cuz that's how people get ratted and they get ratted out. Um so he worked alone.

[12:00] He would go into the bank and be out in a couple minutes each each bank. So but that's you brought up a very good point. I think that is the major thing I would like people to take away from this book is that we're all we all have things we have ambition to accomplish in our life. Sometimes life does not turn out the way you want it to turn out. Then what choices do you make from that point on? I mean I wanted to be a

[12:30] politician. It did not work out. I was a Republican and my the area I chose to move to became very Democrat. It just was not going to happen. Uh I ran for office a few times, but then I had and my legal career has not necessarily made me a lot of money as well, but the question is what choices do you make? I I didn't choose to rob banks. I chose for a time to work at like an even though I was an attorney to work at an Amazon because I I I hated practicing

[13:00] law on my own. I wasn't making that much money. So I worked as an Amazon at Amazon in a warehouse worker. That was a choice I made. Was a legal choice. He made a choice that wasn't legal. And Okay. &gt;&gt; And that's that's what I wanted to follow up on. Right. I mean I've I've God knows that I've been at a point in life where I had to think about how I was going to put food on the table in the next week. And so, you know, you apply to drive for

[13:30] Uber or you do the, you know, grocery shopping for people, whatever. It never occurred to me, just like it never occurred to you, to maybe start robbing banks. But with that said, I was in prison with a young guy, a bank robber. He was Amish, of all things. And he started robbing banks cuz he thought nobody would ever suspect an Amish guy is robbing the banks. Um and of course, as you just correctly

[14:00] pointed out, it's the partner who's always going to rat you out. &gt;&gt; Mhm. The partner got caught and immediately ratted out the Amish guy. And so he ended up with with 8 years in prison. There's a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years. He got 8 because they had robbed three banks. Now with that said, you go to prison and you say, "That guy's a psychopath. He's a psychopath. He's a pedophile. He's a murderer." But this guy over here is actually a pretty good guy. Mhm. Is that the the conclusion that you came

[14:30] to as you were researching this book? &gt;&gt; Most certainly. Most certainly. He was when I met him down in in Lexington in the prison there, he was the most personable person you could ever meet. He would just He walked around shaking everybody's hand. He was like He was I've been around politicians. I grew up around politicians. Came of age around politicians. The good ones remember everyone's names. They go around shake everyone's hand. He was doing that in the waiting room.

[15:00] And he knew he knew everyone's names. Then he came across one he could not quite remember her name. And he started having a conversation with her and trying to get some information until he finally figured out her what her name what her name is. Then he started using it right away. So But he was his life could have turned out much better. I mean, I remember I worked um in politics and I worked for a gubernatorial candidate named Rex Early. I'm sure you probably don't know him,

[15:30] but Rex Early was a character. He's a Republican character ran for governor. He got beat in the Republican primary. Uh if he would have won that election, I would probably be on the Indiana Supreme Court today. Cuz he was uh he said I was the only honest attorney he knew, but I I kind of think that's not true, but but our lives could have turned out much better. &gt;&gt; got a mutual friend. We've got a mutual friend and I think she would probably agree with what you just said. &gt;&gt; Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, it is uh

[16:00] um yeah, and he got he ended up getting a 25-year sentence. So, he uh and and interestingly, um after he did his bank robberies, another bank robber came along 10 years later. It's actually in the book named Anthony Hardaway. Now, Anthony Hardaway was a Boeing engineer who got uh addicted to heroin. And he started robbing banks, and he went on a heck of a bank robbing uh spree. He

[16:30] robbed 30 banks in a year. So, he he was trying to beat Davidson's record, I think. So, um but he get this. And this is one thing that's shocking to people who don't know the law, he got 9 years. He robbed 30 banks and got 9 years. Davidson got 25 years. And you can just And I was watching a true crime show the other day as I I I I do a lot uh where a woman planned the murder of her husband, and he got like

[17:00] and she got like 15 years, I think. For murder. You know, that goes back to the John Dillinger story. John Dillinger was 17 years old when a guy that he looked up to talked him into robbing the local general store. And the the owner of the general store knew him. Yeah. And um and said, "Johnny," he was known as Johnny in the in the village where he grew up. He Johnny, what are you doing? You know me. You're robbing me?" And he

[17:30] robbed him. And of course the guy called the cops and told the cops and um and the prosecuting attorney recommended a sentence of I forget what, a year, 2 years, whatever it was. And he he got something like 10 years. Mhm. And he was forced to do the whole stretch. And when he came out of prison, he was a bonafide hardened criminal. And as soon as he was released, he put together his gang and started robbing banks. And the rest is history. Yeah, and if he wouldn't have got that sentence, he probably would never have

[18:00] entered into a life of crime like that. I I think that's right. So, getting back to this absolutely fascinating story and you touched on this a moment ago. He had He had been a a security guard and so he he had not just knowledge of how banks operate, but he had inside knowledge of police procedure. Absolutely. &gt;&gt; to be central to his success as a bank robber. What aspects of that expertise surprised you the most as you researched his methods and his success as a bank

[18:30] robber? Well, he knew about one of the things that fascinates me is he knew about the tracking of a phone and um that he needed to get rid of he needed to get rid of the phone um and turn it off and not not use it. Um also too and more so now than maybe then, um there are things on your car that they can track you with. Um systems that they can track you and he was aware of that. Um

[19:00] But one of the one of the scenes is where he he was very knowledgeable about what FBI agents look like um when he was in the hotel. I don't know if you remember that scene where he's seeing very suspicious suspicious people in the lobby. Um he he knew he um knew um to watch to make sure he's not being tracked. He He knew to take different routes, places. He knew not to repeat the same thing that he'd done before cuz

[19:30] people um the the average person tends to fall into patterns. And the FBI counts on that to catch you. So uh the knowledge he had um in terms of procedures and to not repeat and take different routes um and he would go into hotels and he would not use a card. He would pay in cash. He had a story he made up where I've been a victim of identity

[20:00] theft and therefore I don't use credit cards and um he was able to use cash but even now um things have changed since then. You probably couldn't get away with that now. Um yeah, they uh he was very aware of his he he got away from the FBI for about 7 or 8 months and they were actively pursuing him. One thing I do want to talk about before I forget is one thing um he made and people this is this is one thing that stuns people but I don't know why the banking industry doesn't

[20:30] make this public knowledge. He averaged $5,000 per bank. Went through that for $5,000 per bank. The guy Anthony Hafter where I just mentioned um mentioned that uh did it 10 years later averaged $2,500 per bank, $2,500 per bank. You go in, you get the money in the drawer and you got to you got to get out. You can't wait for them to open the safe. You can't wait do all the stuff you see on TV. You got to get in and out and

[21:00] um so it Rob and plus you have now money is transferred electronically a lot of times. So you don't have They don't keep on hand as much cash as they used to these banks. And why the banking industry doesn't make that well known, I don't know. People think you're robbing banks you're making a lot of money, when in fact you're you're not. Uh but one I You want to bring up one figure here I I I did the calculation on it. Willie Horton Willie Horton, sorry. Willie Sutton Willie Sutton Um who uh is famous for

[21:30] though he probably didn't make the quote about he robs banks cuz that's where the money is. Um he averaged $20,000 per bank. And I did the math, he robbed most of his banks during the depression. And you calculate it back to 1933 money and that is $482,000 per bank. He made $482,000 in today's money. Uh $482,000 per bank compared to making $2,500 per bank.

[22:00] Um I would think that would shut down robbing banks right away if people knew that. I think you're right. And you know um even if you if you want to if you want to withdraw $5,000 in cash, just a measly $5,000 in cash, in most banks you have to make an appointment to go there. Because cuz you need to make sure they actually have $5,000 in the bank. Often times they don't. For exactly the reasons you cite. So, in the book you situate his criminal turn in the context of political infighting,

[22:30] we talked about that, financial collapse, professional humiliation, his marriage broke up. How did local politics in Elkhart and his disbarment shape the narrative? Cuz I I thought this was particularly important. Well, he was a Republican. Um he was uh active in local politics there. He was actually uh headed the FOP. He was president of the Fraternal Order of Police. Um and he he was upset because the mayor

[23:00] there, Jim Perron, a long-term mayor, he ended up serving like four terms of Elkhart, um was not um had originally been endorsed by the union, but or by the FOP, but um eventually um fell out of favors with the with the police officers there. And he didn't have their back. They did not see them as having their back. They had equipment that was failing that wasn't being replaced. They weren't getting a new equipment. Cars were breaking down.

[23:30] Um and then you also had some police action shootings that took place. And that was a big thing. Now, Elkhart, most of the cities in Indiana Indiana, I should say, are relatively well um there's not not a lot of segregation. There are some cities that are, and Elkhart is one of the cities in Indiana where there is a lot of segregation, a lot of racial tension there. And there was a police action shooting involving um

[24:00] uh well, there were there were actually several and and Davidson thought the police officer didn't have the police officers Davidson thought the mayor did not have the police officers' back. They were accused of uh violations of civil rights violations. They were taken to court. They got a judgment against um several of the officers. Uh Davidson was very anti There's one particular defense attorney who was all the time taking these cases, and

[24:30] Davidson very much was against them. But anyway, it was a So, uh Davidson ended up supporting uh Mayor Perron's rival, uh Carol McDowell, in the election. And it was a very close election. I think it was like a 154 vote difference, and he bet on the wrong horse, and Perron won. Uh and right before the election, actually, Perron ended up firing him. He ended up firing Davidson. Davidson had gotten some phone numbers

[25:00] um that were called by a couple cell phones that were city city officials and one of the city officials was Peroni. Uh so he had run him through the system trying to figure out who Peroni was following calling which um he got in trouble for that and he also got in trouble his car broke down and he put a sign his police car broke down and he put a sign on this car about this is courtesy of the mayor or something like that. I can't remember what it was. It's a sarcastic sign.

[25:30] And he got in trouble for that and they ended up firing him for insubordination but uh if his horse would have came in for the election he would probably have been chief of police. Instead he ended up unemployed and out of work. Now he did sue the mayor for interestingly he sued the mayor for defamation. The mayor had written a letter to the editor under someone else's name and defamed him so he actually had taken him to to um

[26:00] court as filed a defamation suit found out the mayor had actually written that letter to the editor sued him for defamation actually won that case. Um didn't earn didn't get a lot of money and his attorneys walked away with most of it um but he had to go through the appeal process so uh there wasn't that much money left at the end of the day but he that that intrigued him about becoming an attorney at that point. So During the the manhunt we said earlier it lasted seven and a half

[26:30] months. How were you able to verify conflicting accounts? Cuz you're talking to law enforcement, you're talking to media, you're talking to witnesses, you're getting the story straight from Davidson. How how were you able to put that all together into a into a coherent narrative? Well a A of it was um information he provided. Um, it was also news reports. Uh, got a got a uh, subscription to newspaper.com,

[27:00] pulled up news reports, local stories about um, things that places he had been. Uh, it was difficult cuz he he traveled when he found out that he was um, when he found out that they had identified him. He had come out of a a bank in Moline, uh, Illinois, and he was tailed by firefighter, uh, a off-duty firefighter, and had he had gotten his license. And he'd actually

[27:30] basically the guy was following him. And he brandished his gun at that point. And that ended up getting him 7 more years, by the way. Uh, brandished his gun to try to get the guy to back off following him, but the guy did get his license plate, and that's when he was uncovered. So, at that point he it was difficult because he didn't stay in one place. Now, the the the gentleman, um, Hathaway, who robbed the banks 10 years after him, he robbed the same bank like three times. He stayed in the same area. I don't know how he got away with that, actually, but um, my guy was uh,

[28:00] Davidson was a is a big history buff. Loved history. He knew he was going to prison for a long time. So, he wanted to see the world, or he wanted to see the United States. So, he traveled around seeing going seeing all these historical sites. Um, and but my favorite story is outside the Spy Museum. You remember that? He he's &gt;&gt; Yeah. Um, I guess the Spy Museum's not in the same location that it No, it's

[28:30] it's moved. It's moved to Southwest uh, Washington. It used to be right smack in the center of the city. Well, he went to the he he was at like an outdoor cafe or something, and &gt;&gt; Yeah, it's right next door. And the FBI buildings they're all close, and It's only two blocks from the FBI's headquarters. &gt;&gt; So, he's sitting out there and all these people come and they're they sit around him in this lunch area and they're all having their lunch and he realizes he's on the FBI most wanted list

[29:00] and they're sitting in the middle of all these FBI agents. That's a To me, that's an interesting story, but a lot of lot of the information came from him in terms of But, he he was found and determined he was going to see as much as he as he could. He did not think he was going to 25 years, though. No. I I mean, unless you kill somebody in the course of the bank robbery, I can't imagine anybody getting 25 years. That was That was really shocking, like truly

[29:30] shocking to me that he got 25 years. &gt;&gt; Yeah, he got additional, I think, 7 years because of the gun and the um the judge sort of threw the book at him because he was a police officer, um he was an attorney, a officer of the court, of course, and I that's why he did. Now, he's applied for a pardon, but he didn't apply for a pardon until this year and he he's actually getting out this year, so. He should be able to get out this year.

[30:00] I think about September. True crime books often risk glamorizing or on the other side, moralizing. What what choices did you make, whether they were structural choices or stylistic choices or even in the way you conducted yourself in interviews with him, to avoid either sensationalism sensationalism on the one side or or condemnation on the other? We Well, and

[30:30] there have been people who who say that oh, you I glamorize it might not be the right term, but maybe &gt;&gt; No, I don't think you glamorized it. &gt;&gt; excused his behavior. And yes, but no, it is what I want people to come away from thinking we all go through life. Life does not turn out like we thought it was going to be when we're 18, 19, 20 years old. It's going to We're going to go in different directions. We're going to meet this You're going to meet this great woman and you're going to get married and you think this is going to

[31:00] be great. I'm going to have a family and then things don't turn out and you end up divorced and Um by the way, I read that story about you and the the your your child in the church. That was Yeah. That was brutal. &gt;&gt; From my first book. It was brutal. I And it got worse over the years. Oh, that that's just a a brutal story. And I I've done family law cases, but but the fact is we think we know how our life's going to turn out and it rarely turns out that way. Then what choices do you make?

[31:30] Uh he was desperate. He and he drank he was he was too big of a drinker. He drank. He was an alcoholic, drank too much and um you know, he's trying to self-medicate himself. His life was falling apart and he made decisions that were bad, but my my point is that everyone he was not an evil He's not an evil person. He is a person who made bad choices and we all could make bad choices. That's exactly right.

[32:00] Were there I I'm I'm I promise I'm not going to put you on the spot here. Uh but were there parts of his life or were there were there details from the robberies that you decided to deliberately leave out either for legal reasons, ethical reasons, narrative reasons? And how did you make those decisions? I'm not asking you to rat out the secrets if there were any. Just how did you make the decisions what to put in and what to leave out? &gt;&gt; Well, uh no, we didn't get into the um

[32:30] A lot of these accounts, these first-hand accounts of the banks robberies, came from him. So he and I'm sure talking to him and seeing things he wrote, he there were things maybe that were more negative that he did not share. But, we did not, you know, make up make up like like shots. So, obviously he didn't shoot anyone. In fact, he said there were several banks where he said most banks he didn't even take a gun with him. Now, I don't know if that's true.

[33:00] There were things that he said that um he he he typically and this is a normal human nature is people try to make themselves put themselves in the best light when they're telling their stories. And he um and there were certain things we couldn't confirm. There's one that's a great story, but I couldn't get any confirmation on it. When he was at a defamation case defamation case, he's in court and the opposing counsel um it was like

[33:30] a I don't think it was the main attorney. At the other table uh the defense attorney the person had a heart episode. You know, collapsed on the ground. He knew how to give uh um to resuscitate PR CPR &gt;&gt; Yeah, thank you. I'm I'm trouble with the name. He had he had trouble he knew how to do CPR and no one else did. So, he he was the one to give CPR to his uh opposing the opposing counsel the

[34:00] attorney. And um and that's great story. I would you know, it'd look good on film, but I could not find any confirmation of it. So, left that out. But, most of these stories about the bank robberies came from him and I'm sure there were details that he left out. Um and but um anyway, most of the statute limitations of the statute limitations have run. So, Mhm. You know how that goes.

[34:30] Having immersed yourself in this story, this is the story of a former cop turned serial bank robber. Did your views of American policing, the legal profession, local politics, the criminal justice system change in any lasting way? Well, I think he he or in fact our our book is dedicated to police officers because of the job they had, the very difficult job they have. I think my my estimation or my my

[35:00] perception of police officers went up and he there's a lot of stories in the book about things that he did that were positive for the community and how they helped things out and helped out people that are struggling. There's several stories about that and it gave me a new appreciation for police officers. Attorneys, it didn't really tell me anything. Being an attorney myself, been attorney for 38 years, didn't tell me things I know. One thing about attorneys that people don't know, a lot of people their views of lawyers

[35:30] is shaped by what they see on TV. That is not reality. No. We're not all making lots of money. There are a lot of attorneys out there that are struggling. And he was one of them and I've been there. I've done that. I I worked with people in a warehouse where there were other attorneys working because they couldn't get jobs or they hated what they were doing. So, I I unfortunately, people have the wrong perception of the legal profession.

[36:00] The It made me think more about in terms of judges. I always wanted to be a judge myself. I never had that opportunity. I worked for a judge at the court of appeals which was the best job I ever had. But I always one thing that seeing especially federal judges, they're just all over the map when it comes to sentence handing down sentences. There's no consistency. I know there we're We're to have guidelines but there's just seems to be no consistency. There

[36:30] You know, I've seen I watched I watched too much true crime. And I see people get off and they do some horrible things and they'll get like 9 months in prison. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. And then uh a person I went to law school with um it's he's convicted uh Tim Durham. Um you can look that name up. He got 50-year sentence for white-collar crime. He did uh sort of a Bernie Madoff type scam thing he was running, but he got 50 years. Uh

[37:00] which &gt;&gt; death sentence. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So Um and he was And And speaking of a lawyer, he was He's actually one of the the top students at the law school when I was there. I graduated with him. And he ended up um driven There's another person who's driven You're driven to to accomplish certain things. He always wanted to be rich. He came from a poor uh from a working-class family. Wanted to become rich and

[37:30] typically you don't become rich as an attorney. You become rich in business. You can If you get the right path, you might become wealthy as an attorney, but you don't really become rich. Uh he got involved in business. Um and then he long story, but I ended up getting 50 years for a scam he was running. So But they're all over the place, as you know, in terms of how they treat people. &gt;&gt; That's true. Yeah. Yeah, and there's no consistency. So I wanted to ask you one final question.

[38:00] Looking back, now that the book is out, what questions about Bruce Davidson or about this case do you most wish readers would ask, but no one does? Going a little bit deeper, what's what's the real lesson that you want to convey with publication of this book. Uh the real lesson I think that I want to convey to people is um

[38:30] they need to know how to handle stress, need to know how to handle things going wrong. They need to be prepared that things are not necessarily going to go the way you want to in life. And what are you going to do? Uh people are driven. He's ambitious. You're ambitious. I'm ambitious. Not everybody's ambitious, but there are a lot of ambitious people out there. And things don't always work out. So,

[39:00] what is your plan B? And I that's one thing I always emphasize. What is your If this doesn't work, what what's your your backup plan? If you can't get into this college, what's your backup plan? Um if you can't get this career, what's your backup plan? And I And I And I'm as guilty as him. I again, I made different choices than he did. I came out of law school. If I had to do it all over again, I would maybe gone into the FBI. Uh may have gone into um JAG uh Judge Ad-

[39:30] I'm trying to say it right. JAG. Adjudicate Ad- I'm not saying it right. But anyway, the um I would have made different choices. &gt;&gt; Adjudicate. Adjudicate. Okay. All right. Thank you. I'll just say JAG. So, um I would have made different choices. Um but the important thing is to have My I And the reason why I did not was because I always wanted to get in politics. And in politics, you have to have kind of have a home base. You got to have a place you're from. You can't just be

[40:00] moving around. You can't just pick up and move to another state and run for office. So, I I was always going to put my roots down here in Indianapolis, which was at that time very Republican area. I was a Republican. Didn't plan ahead because it This very Republican area is now very Democrat. It's the most democratic part of the state, but uh uh didn't have a plan B, I guess, but uh the important thing the important thing is though is to um have choices in life

[40:30] and to steer away from making bad choices like Mr. Davidson made. A good person that made a bad choice. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Well, Paul Ogden, thank you so much for joining us and folks, this is the book Outside the Law by Mark Ogden and Paul Ogden. Don't miss it. It's a terrific true crime story. I couldn't put it down. Thanks again for joining us. &gt;&gt; Thank you, John. I appreciate being on your show.

[41:00] Thank you.
