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Pimps + Pastors with Eric Robinson · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

• Lyndsay Soprano (00:02.414) I grew up in a Christian home in Southern California until one day I walked away from the church never to return. I have a plethora of reasons for why that is, but the main one was that a great deal of the youth that were at the church that I was going to were being sexually abused. We didn't really talk much about it because we were so little until recently. We're finally starting to use our voices, guys, to share our stories, whether those are around us, believe us or not. And it wasn't just happening at that church. What I was finding was that it was rampant in youth everywhere. And it was all around me. And with stories of pastors getting caught with their hands on the child pornography cookie jar lid, to the horrific stories that came out of Hollywood with Harry Weinstein, to... Our current state affairs with the Epstein files, we can no longer choose to be blind to what is actually going on with our children, our young women, and us that are also attempting to adult here after the math of everything that has happened to us from when we were little until we're old. mean, the spectrum of abuse is, it's mind blowing. And it's a wonder why we don't go to the police, right? Why we don't share with our family and our friends what's happened to us because often we are not believed. We are fighting for our lives from past traumas. I mean, for me, I have chronic illness, I have chronic pain. We see this all over the place with what happens with trauma. Then we get traumatized over and over and over again when we're trying to tell our stories. Finally finding that strength, guys, right? To come forward. only to get bombarded in the media, and even worse, to get bombarded in our family's kitchens, that we are liars. And I am here to say fuck you, well, Pam Bondi, for starters, and all the rest of you believers that don't believe us. Because I know for me, you couldn't pay me to walk back into a church again, but also, you guys gotta start listening to us and believing the words that are coming out of our mouth, because it is incredibly important. Lyndsay Soprano (02:18.776) for our lives, our livelihood, and our health moving forward. So I know for, excuse me, but for this episode, it isn't just about leaving the church. It's about where my guests went after the church, where it gets even grittier. So today we're gonna talk about leaving the pulpit and heading to the FBI, pastors pimping girls out to other pastors, the underbelly of dealing with violent criminals, the world of rescuing teen prostitutes and catching pedophiles. how our communities and you can help with sex trafficking and much, much more. So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to my very handsome guests in our beautiful state of Michigan, Eric Robinson. Hello, darling. Eric Robinson (03:01.895) Hi Lindsay and fuck Pam Bondi. Lyndsay Soprano (03:06.414) We're gonna make t-shirts for this episode and we'll wear them for you guys next time we do a show together. Eric Robinson (03:09.939) I have to believe those shirts are already out there somewhere. Lyndsay Soprano (03:13.858) They have to be. So Eric recently retired from the FBI after 24 years as a special agent, working cases ranging from counterterrorism and public corruption to gangs, drugs, white collar crime and crimes against children. During his time with the Bureau, he also served as a SWAT operator, firearms instructor and taxics instructor. Keep away from this guy because he's a badass. Before joining the FBI, spent over a dozen years in Christian ministry, including pastoring a Baptist church in Western New York. Now retired, Eric is preparing to release his first book, a memoir filled with surprising humorous and unforgettable moments from a life spent moving between pulpits, investigations, and the front lines of the FBI. With a pastor's heart and investigators instincts and a sharp sense of humor, Eric brings a rare perspective to the human side of crime and the people caught in its aftermath. I'd like to start with what brought you from the pulpit to becoming an FBI agent because dear Lord guys get ready for this and let's take it from there. Eric Robinson (04:18.439) Well, I'm the only former pastor that I had met as an FBI agent. So I acknowledge that it's fairly unique, but at the same time, I always felt like I was still doing God's work. Obviously in the church, you know, that's God's work, but working in law enforcement, at least for me, was still something that fit into God's plan as there's many ways to have justice and righteousness. If you get your house break broken into or your children are harmed, the church can do certain things for you, but they're not able to find ultimate justice. So I did feel like I could continue doing good things. And in my mind, it was still for God's good purpose. But the church that I had started was one that was meant to reach out to people who didn't normally go to church. And we were successful doing great. People were enjoying it. We were growing. And one of the issues with people coming to the church who didn't grow up in church, at least where we were in Western New York, was they were bringing a lot of their personal problems with them too. And I found it impossible to separate their issues and holding onto them. So I continued to bear those burdens. And so for two years straight, I had stress related headaches every single day. And it's not an exaggeration. It was every day while I was awake, my head hurt. And the indicator that I probably did the right thing to change career paths was the day that I got accepted in the FBI, the headache stopped. I knew I was out. Lyndsay Soprano (06:02.254) Whoa, look at that. I it's amazing how our body keeps the score of things. mean, I know something, my husband will say something to me and it's about somebody in particular. Those that know me know who it probably is. And my pain level will immediately increase, like in a second. It is amazing what the pain response is to stress. Eric Robinson (06:28.467) But I fought it because I was finally getting to do, you know, I've been a youth pastor and so you do your things, associate pastor. I was doing what exactly I wanted to do and we were doing well. And it was a church that was, you know, I told people, if we're gonna make a mistake, let's err on the side of grace. Let's be kind and we'll figure out the whole sin issue along the way. And I wanted to keep doing it, but. I fought it and fought it until finally I just realized I cannot do this anymore. Lyndsay Soprano (06:59.63) What was the final straw for you? I know that's a tough question because it kind of compounds on itself until it blows up. Eric Robinson (07:06.875) Yeah, there were a few things that, that, you know, wasn't this day, but it was a few of the people that I had led to Christ, know, discipled. They were active in the church decided, well, it was, you're kind of a starter church. And I thought you guys would be nowhere. Like, how do you come and like see how great this is, how welcoming this is, but now you want to move on to. Lyndsay Soprano (07:10.648) Yeah. Eric Robinson (07:36.888) a deeper church. There was that and then we got pregnant. Insurance was through my wife's meager income and I knew this was going to be too hard that now unlike some of the folks you see on TV, I was a pastor not flying around in my own airplane. So we didn't make much. Lyndsay Soprano (07:50.072) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (08:00.526) Come on, we love Big Church. Eric Robinson (08:04.249) I don't. Lyndsay Soprano (08:05.326) I don't either. It's a very scary place for me to walk into and that was, that's post, that's post leaving the other little one. I kind of dabbled back in and it was mostly because I think that my parents, there's so much, there's the shame and the guilt and the shame and the guilt of like, well, you're going to hell if you don't do this. And I was tired of being told that I was going to hell. I mean, that's just what it came down to because I mean, I kind of feel like some, in some cases, some of the really fun party people are going to be down in hell. I'm kidding. Okay, so you get into the FBI. How crazy is that? Did you tell anybody at the church that you were gonna be trying to go into the FBI? That's such a big swing. Eric Robinson (08:44.527) Yeah, I'm always amazed when like people leave positions and there's no plan to backfill. So I worked closely with the core group so that when I left, they would already have someone ready to put in place. And I felt like that's the right thing to do. You don't just say, hey, look, I'm going to be going in two weeks and good luck. Lyndsay Soprano (08:54.422) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (09:13.55) Godspeed. All right, so you're in the FBI and you end up work. I mean, you worked in a lot of different areas, but you ended up really honing in on teenage prostitution. And so let's get into that because man, man, is the belly of this whale. The more and more I read about you and the more and more we've talked, it's. Eric Robinson (09:13.553) you maybe you'll survive, maybe you don't. Yeah, Godspeed. Lyndsay Soprano (09:38.574) It just, well, it's so filthy and gross and sad and it's just everything. So let's talk about what you got into and how you did this. Eric Robinson (09:46.344) So a little quick history. I worked out of the Cleveland division and there's many satellite offices out of the main offices and I was out of Toledo, Ohio, which is where I grew up. So I got to go back home. In 2005, there was a staying at a truck stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where a number of teenage girls were prostituting and then pimps. And there was an inordinate amount of victims and pimps. from Toledo, Ohio. And so the FBI got onto that quickly and established a task force to try to rescue teens and work on teen prostitution. And so by the time I was the leader of that task force, they'd been going, they knew what they're doing, and we'd been trying to combat that for quite a while. And there were many stories that went around about people knowing that Toledo had a lot of sex trafficking and they talked about, maybe it's the intersection of I-75 and the turnpike. There's a generational history of pimping in Toledo. There's a spiritual battle. There's all sorts of things, it's mainly it was your neighbor kid got a BB gun and start shooting squirrels. And as he shoots so many squirrels, you're like, wow, I didn't realize we had a squirrel problem, but we don't have a squirrel problem. So there were, Lyndsay Soprano (10:54.221) Hmm. Eric Robinson (11:10.777) enough teen girls who were being trafficked, but the FBI was on the forefront of working it. And so I think our success through people who preceded me won a lot of attention. And now people looked at Toledo as a horrible place. Lyndsay Soprano (11:27.512) Wow. Yeah, I mean, what were the numbers that we're talking about here? Eric Robinson (11:32.723) numbers for Lyndsay Soprano (11:34.264) for like how many, at this point in time, sorry, that was vague. The numbers of the girls that you were talking about, like at this particular point, we were talking about squirrels. Eric Robinson (11:43.662) it was it became more of a just a topic. So one of the professors at the University of Toledo hold regularly holds a conference on human trafficking. And all these are great. But because of that and because of people telling rumors of gals being kidnapped from the mall and plied with heroin, which never happened because the girls who were Lyndsay Soprano (11:57.058) Mmm. Eric Robinson (12:12.691) trafficked, were trafficked, but it's a very legal definition. They were already prostituting almost all the time on their own. know, 15 year old needs money, finds a way, has sex with men, but a pimp comes along and now directs her, helps her, guides her, takes a portion of the money. That's trafficking. She's doing the same thing, but the man who takes advantage, her situation hasn't changed. Sometimes they're Lyndsay Soprano (12:34.35) Right, right. Eric Robinson (12:41.959) definitely is abuse, there's coercion. There's times when there's adult trafficking through force or coercion. But the issue is the man, and I had a case on a female pimp who was trafficking, taking advantage of the underage girl. Lyndsay Soprano (12:57.965) Whoa. Lyndsay Soprano (13:03.406) Hmm, sounds like Epstein's partner. interesting. Eric Robinson (13:08.743) Well, absolutely. And we would see that we charged many adult women who were, if I may, called the bottom bitches because they were the the prostitutes who had raised up in the ranks could now be trusted by the pimp. And they were the ones who taught the younger girls and it could be younger adult women, but would teach them how they are supposed to act, what they're what they need to do and what the process is. Lyndsay Soprano (13:15.182) Mm-hmm. Lyndsay Soprano (13:35.202) So insane to me. So when you're, gosh, I just, can't even wrap my mind around anybody wanting to ever do this to another human being, especially a young girl. When you ended up, so you end up, this is like the main focus of what you're doing at the FBI, right? So talk me through like a little or talk us, it's not just you and me, Eric, that's the world behind this mic. I know we're talking to the whole globe. Eric Robinson (14:00.464) no one told me we were recording. Lyndsay Soprano (14:04.66) yeah, that's right, we're recording today, you didn't know. I knew we were gonna have fun today, Eric. So you're in the FBI, you're doing this. Give us some examples of a couple cases that really stood out to you with these girls because they come from, you're talking about how they were already, most of them already prostituting themselves. Now they find this father figure, if you will. Eric Robinson (14:05.453) man, Lyndsay Soprano (14:31.49) Somebody that's willing to kind of take care of them a little bit better. Do they give them housing? Like, what do you, what do they provide for them that make these girls that come from backgrounds with, you know, drugs and abuse and mental health issues? What do they do to these girls to make them feel safe in such an unsafe situation? Eric Robinson (14:51.109) show them love. That's and it's not real but that they they have parents who are either absent or abusive or useless. They do not have adults in their life who they otherwise would turn to because who wants to run away and sell your body to disgusting men? That's their last choice. So there's no adult in their life and now granted this adult to a 15 year old is 26. Lyndsay Soprano (14:52.45) Hmm. Right. Lyndsay Soprano (15:19.928) Hmm. Eric Robinson (15:20.423) but he knows his way around enough and he provides transportation. This is the crazy thing is you're having sex with men for me and you bring me the money, but I buy you gifts. And you're like, you're so sweet. Well, it's your money, but the way it comes off and the men have, they're very wise to know how to manipulate how this works. Lyndsay Soprano (15:37.484) Your money, yeah. Eric Robinson (15:49.918) Conversely, the girls are so young that they don't know how to just live their lives and what truly is going on. And so if I had a snotty tissue for every time some girl was crying in my vehicle because we were putting her soulmate in handcuffs, I would, and I did have a lot of snotty tissues in my Bureau vehicle. Lyndsay Soprano (16:14.616) That's amazing how we can get, I mean, it's almost like I was reading the Virginia Jeffries book, Nobody's Girl about Epstein. If you haven't read it, you absolutely need to. It is heartbreaking. And how many times you keep going back and you keep getting into them. Your mind can't even fathom it, but when you're in that space, Eric Robinson (16:24.221) Mm-hmm. Lyndsay Soprano (16:43.648) I was in an abusive marriage. You're in that space. You're like, well, maybe this is happening in every house. You rationalize these kinds of things. It's unbelievable. Right. Why don't you just leave? OK, because he's threatening to kill me every day. That's why I'm not leaving. Yeah. Eric Robinson (16:51.923) Yeah. Why don't you just leave? Why don't you just do something different? Eric Robinson (17:01.171) It was something to, we would have to deal with prosecutors too. And there was many occasions where good prosecutors who had familiarity with this type of field, but I would bring a case and I'd say, hey, here's a pimp and here's a 17 year old that he prostituted. And they're like, yeah, but she's 17. And as far as a witness goes, she's terrible. And I'd say, look, it has nothing to do with the victim. The case is against this bad person. This is why we on getting him out of the picture. We're gonna bring services to the victim, but that has nothing to do with the United States Attorney's Office. So it doesn't matter if they're a bad witness. It doesn't matter if they were doing it ahead of time, if the story's not great, if they weren't actually kidnapped. So there's a lot that we had to wrestle with that comes from that mindset you talk about of, know, why wouldn't she just stop or she could have done that she was doing this on her own beforehand. Lyndsay Soprano (18:02.093) Right, right. Yeah. I mean, well, yeah. And I mean, if some guy was going to take care of me when I'm already doing this, I'm already making this money and I'm not being taken care of. And now I've got somebody, even though I'm doing the same thing, I'm giving a little bit of it away to feel a little bit more secure. It's, it's crazy, but I create, it's, I understand it. have safety issues. So I understand where you want to like, Ooh, that feels safe over there, even though that's like really not a very safe place, but it feels safer than where I was. So All right, so we've got all of these poor, traumatized girls. Can you give us a couple examples? I know you and I spoke about a few of them. One of them was the pastor. We've got to touch on that one, only because I mentioned it in the opening, also because, come on. Let's talk about that one, and then let's talk about a couple other ones, because man, these are so incredible. Eric Robinson (18:50.226) Yeah, come on. Eric Robinson (18:56.445) So by the time I had moved out of the Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force and another man had taken over that program, great guy, he had a case on a local Toledo pastor who had kind of informally fostered a young girl in his church. And then he took that 15 year old girl and he pimped her out. exclusively to other pastors. So it was, and his daughter was, so presumably there was abuse there too. His daughter was the one who acted as the bottom bitch mentor who showed this foster sister how she was supposed to behave and how she was supposed to treat the men too. So that, I mean, that clearly says something about where the first pastor came from. Lyndsay Soprano (19:48.502) Ugh. Eric Robinson (19:55.762) what was going on in his family. So as the case was made and the ministers were being arrested, I was asked, presumably because that was my role in the past, to interview one of the pastors. And I had watched video of him on YouTube preaching. I, like, I would joke about it with my buddies as we're preparing for the arrest and I'm taking notes on how to interrogate him. I said, watch, if you freeze it here, you can see a pair of panties come out of the audience. And he's just wiping his brow with them, his brow, because it was very, very dramatic. he, so I watched that on YouTube. go to arrest him and I'm interrogating him with another task force officer. And all that stage presence was not there. You know, he was now. Lyndsay Soprano (20:51.573) Interesting. Eric Robinson (20:54.223) as he knew he was gonna have to, he was coming to terms with what he'd done. The interesting part of that interview, while I got a confession out of him, I had a beautiful come to Jesus moment. Ready, yeah. Very literally, I was asking him to come to Jesus and I had Bible verses on confessing your sins and being right with God. And I started going through them and he said, Lyndsay Soprano (21:09.526) We love those. Yes. Eric Robinson (21:23.985) I'm gonna stop you there. That's not for this place. I'll talk to you, but I don't wanna be bringing Jesus into it. And you can see how he had so well compartmentalized, like the man who has sex with underage girls, that's me. The man who preaches on stage, that's a different one than this carnal man. so he did give a confession. He admitted to some things, we had to draw other stuff out, but. Lyndsay Soprano (21:33.538) Wow. Lyndsay Soprano (21:43.694) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson (21:52.7) He did not want, it felt terrible to say a man of God did these things. No, was, was Cordell. yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (22:02.478) Yeah, wow, that's insane. Talk about compartmentalizing. And I think that that is what happens when we're seeing these guys that are getting arrested on the news. I mean, we're in the news business. People that listen to the show know my husband and I. And so we're unfortunately, we have to watch more news than we'd like to. But we see these white pastors getting arrested for kiddie porn and all this. And you're just like, how do they stand up every day? and do this and then go and do their behavior and go home to their wife and kids and put their head on their pillow and start all over again and be okay with themselves. And are they? Who knows? I mean, yeah. Yeah. Eric Robinson (22:40.627) You have to separate it. have to, you know, I do enough good for God that he erases those bad things. I don't know. Lyndsay Soprano (22:49.624) Just ask for forgiveness, Eric, and it's all good. We're good! Eric Robinson (22:52.253) We're good, now we're skating. Now we're skating. The crazy thing about this pastor that I had arrested, he was offered a plea deal, I think, of 12 years. And his attorney said, we'll take our chances. So they did, and he got life in prison, which is very rare, very rare. Yeah, yeah, two guys got life. Lyndsay Soprano (23:11.466) Whoa, I was gonna ask. I'm so happy. No kidding. Usually it feels like everybody just gets a slap on the wrist, you know? Eric Robinson (23:19.859) Usually when you're trafficking in girls, the judge gives it to you. Lyndsay Soprano (23:24.138) Okay, well that's good to hear because it feels like it doesn't happen, but we don't hear all of these stories. How could we possibly hear all of these stories from across the globe? Eric Robinson (23:33.329) Well, right, and then there's some cases as you referenced where nobody gets nothing and everybody walks away. Lyndsay Soprano (23:36.0) But then there's that. my goodness gracious. you have you had any experience with I know a lot of the stories that we hear where the majority of the stories are about young girls. What about young men? Have you have any experiences with having to help a young man out of a situation? Eric Robinson (23:56.116) Well, we haven't had any history, at least not evident of young men, underage boys prostituting at least enough that we were trying to work with them. But there are many cases that we had where we would work, we called them traveler cases. And so it was a person who traveled across state lines in order to engage sexually with an underaged victim. And I remember a case that I had where. Lyndsay Soprano (24:07.746) Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson (24:25.733) It was what struck me most about this case was the victim was a 13 year old boy and he looked even younger. He was, he was tiny for his age. And the case came to me because local PD, the parents found messages on their son's device and the grown man, James was his name, said, Hey, let's take this to kick. And they were talking there and it was. clearly inappropriate. So they took it to the local PD and local PD says, hey, you should probably go to the FBI. And when I was interviewing the victim, the young boy, he was just pleasant, fine, untraumatized, showed no sign. Like he was laughing and happy and telling jokes. And he went to a drama school and he was like showing me some of his leaps that he is learning. I went, this is odd. And the parents seemed to be concerned, but fine as well. And we worked the case up and it was quite straightforward. And so we traveled to Fort Wayne where we arrested the man involved. And it was at that time that when we finally now arrested him and brought him to prison where the boy changed. Not bad, not bad like he was broken, but he went from Lyndsay Soprano (25:49.575) Eric Robinson (25:55.09) going, yeah, I guess you caught me and I was with this man. But we, you know, we did fun things together where now he started realizing that man took advantage of me and abused me. And now he got angry and now he recognized he's just a kid. And this 28 year old man is not his friend. Lyndsay Soprano (26:10.307) Yes. Lyndsay Soprano (26:20.654) Yeah, and I'm glad you brought the word anger because that was literally going to be the next thing that I was going to talk about because I don't know how when we're when you're talking about dealing with these kinds of people, the good, bad and the ugly and the dark and twisty stuff of it, our bodies, our souls, our hearts, our minds, everything, you know, we're affected by I mean, everything down for like the horrible movies that we watch, the news that we're watching to everything that's going on in our globe right now. And certainly the non-united States of America. Give me a break. Get me out of here. And, you know, what happens, this episode or this the season is all about the aftermath of what happens to the people like yourself. How do you how do you handle these kinds of cases without getting so incredibly angry when you're dealing with pedophiles? Like how do you deal with that anger? Because I have a massive amount of anger in me that has started to bubble up since I've been dealing with coming out about these things that happened to me when I was younger. I'm like getting angry, I'm getting resentful, these feelings that like are coming out that I don't know how to really process right now. How do you guys handle this kind of stuff? I mean, specifically for you. Eric Robinson (27:29.299) Well, I think it relates to what you've been talking about, for example, with the Epstein files. Why are you so angry about that? Well, you're angry because there's no justice and you have no control over it. What was helpful for us, we were seeing terrible things, but I was also getting to be part of a solution. I could bring services to this young man. He was getting victim help through the FBI. Lyndsay Soprano (27:41.854) Mm-hmm. Lyndsay Soprano (27:51.597) Yeah, yeah. Eric Robinson (27:58.16) It wasn't something where I'm just sitting back and watching and going, somebody needs to do something about this. And no one's listening to me. I got to actually be that person. as we talk to, like I would talk to buddies from other agencies or police departments or even civilians. And they would say, I don't know how you can do that. Because I would want to just put a bullet in the head of that guy. And part of that too is, Lyndsay Soprano (28:03.32) doing about it, Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (28:09.678) That's cool. Eric Robinson (28:28.551) when you have contact with these people, it makes it much easier to realize, yep, they're just people. I rarely, well, I wouldn't even say rarely, I never had to tell these pedophiles how disgusting they were because they knew they were disgusting. They had more shame. I couldn't put shame on them. They felt that already. They still did it. It was a compulsion. Lyndsay Soprano (28:54.038) Interesting. Eric Robinson (28:57.787) The man that we arrested in Fort Wayne, Indiana, tried to explain how he actually loved the boy. And maybe he did in the way that somewhere in his life broke him so that he thought that was love. But I didn't need to say, you're disgusting because they felt like they felt that way in the first place. And so many, the sex offenders, they will so often confess, I've had guys confess before we got into the second room of the house to clear it. Because they know this is going to come at some point and I hate it and God help me, but here I go back to it again. Why do I do this? And they were one that they're ready to break very easily. Lyndsay Soprano (29:33.282) wow. Lyndsay Soprano (29:37.262) Mm-hmm. Lyndsay Soprano (29:48.79) It's interesting, actually, because I mean, there's a part of me that would think that some of them would be like that, but not as many as they're implying, which is that I find that very interesting. And also, yeah, you know, you're going to end up getting caught at some point. It's like I watched you crime all the time. You're watching these. I'm like, I love watching stuff about Dahmer. Don't I don't know why. Eric Robinson (30:09.043) You Lyndsay Soprano (30:09.528) But I do, okay? I watched the one big one that was nominated for all these Emmys and stuff that got all kinds of flak from the family about getting nominated for Emmys. like, come on guys, I get it. But anyway, I'm so intrigued by how he's like, I wanna stop this behavior, but I just have this compulsion to do this and act out this way. And I'm not sure why. it makes me sad for them. as well to a certain extent something happened to you what happened to you to get you into this place or are you just you were just born a psychopath you know i mean it's like Eric Robinson (30:44.883) It yeah, it's it's it's almost always trauma, which is difficult because then that sweet boy I talked to is going to be much much more susceptible than your neighbor boy to be in the position where the FBI comes and arrests him because he went through that himself. And so we will see some sex offenders who will oppose us and they will, you hold off. I had one guy who was just. I don't know where his abstinence came from, but he was. Lyndsay Soprano (30:48.418) Yeah. Eric Robinson (31:15.147) Most will confess immediately, but over the past years, the FBI has graded sex offenders as a threat for violence for leading up to arrest because it's either, you know, I'll confess because this is terrible or I'm not going and I'll shoot you and I'll shoot myself. And so they become very much a threat for violence. Lyndsay Soprano (31:44.162) Yeah, because how often did you find yourself that your life was in danger when you were going to any of these places? Was it all of the time? Was it often? Eric Robinson (31:54.852) all the time i mean it's in the sense that we are going somewhere where we don't know if this person is going to oppose us violently and so that's why we would bring the swat team that's why we had tactics to take cover first behind armored vehicles before we make advances that's why we had a principle where we send the fewest number of people to get the job done because if they get shot it's it's a Lyndsay Soprano (31:56.886) All the time. Wow. Lyndsay Soprano (32:04.973) Yeah. Eric Robinson (32:24.101) less it's a smaller number yeah that's part of the planning is we don't just mass everybody because if you spray a lot of people are going to die so we got a plan for that. Lyndsay Soprano (32:24.758) Less casualty. Yeah, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (32:34.956) Wow. Yeah, and I would think that if you're, when you're doing these stings, if you will, and you're going out you're going after these pimps and there's, these girls are with them, wouldn't that big ass swarm attack traumatize the girls even more so? Wouldn't that be scary? How do they, how do they respond to you coming in and going, we're going to take you out of the situation because it's dangerous and scary and you've got a better future for yourselves? Like, how do these girls respond to that kind of thing? Because to me that feels like, shit, now I've got a bunch of cops all around me and SWAT team and guns are being pointed. I mean like that in itself sounds scary too. Eric Robinson (33:14.193) Yeah, unfortunately that's what they got because unless we had something that could get them separated, for instance, we would call the girl in to an undercover and now we get her and now the call goes on the radio that the surveillance team can now affect the arrest of the pimp in the vehicle out front. So in those cases, you know, much less trauma and stress to the young girl. Lyndsay Soprano (33:16.578) Yeah. Eric Robinson (33:43.294) But then there's times where they are in the car and we had one where we had to ultimately get grandma to call the teenage girl said, hey, on your way through, can you stop by and see your son? He misses you. And the pimp was driving her. And that's when we just block in the vehicle. We're out with guns out. Lyndsay Soprano (34:06.22) Good job, Granny. Eric Robinson (34:08.081) Yeah, we tried everything and Granny was the last one. That was our last ditch. Lyndsay Soprano (34:10.894) Please! I love it, hey, as you get older, we don't give a shit thing, you know? You're like, okay. my God. what happens, what kind of services, what happens to these girls when they end up being removed? What happens to them? What kind of programs do they get into? How are we helping them in their aftermath of what's happened to them? Yeah. Eric Robinson (34:34.077) Well, we're trying, but they have to accept it. And part of the difficulty, as I mentioned, there haven't been reliable adults in their life. And so they don't trust me or they don't trust the victim coordinator that we bring with us oftentimes. And so it's a balance. Like there's times where we have, in conjunction with the social workers, and talking about what the best strategy is, we've put them in jail or juvenile detention because the social workers say, you put her back in her foster home and she's just running tonight. And so we'd have to find ways where, you know, this hurts me more than it hurts you type of like, I know you don't like this, but this is for your own good, where we would have to do that. But what we would find at times was as Lyndsay Soprano (35:14.36) Yeah. Yeah. Eric Robinson (35:31.972) as we wore on them, as we showed we're reliable, they start to come around and they start to respond and they see that their life can be better. But that's hit or miss and you've got to get that traction. So if you save them, rescue them from the pimp and they immediately just run off that we don't have that opportunity. And my first introduction to the teenage prostitutes was before I was leading the task force. And a friend of mine said, hey, there's this gal I'm trying to reach out to. We're coming back from the range. mind if we stop by their apartment? I said, sure, let's go. And we go to the door and my friend Laura knocks on the door and you hear just a yell from inside, who is it? Says, it's Agent Laura. And from the other side of the door I hear, ugh, just like. fed up and so you know Laura's talking to her through the screen door you know just every won't even open that part of the door are you done yeah wham and the doors get slammed and like is that what it's like Laura she goes yeah pretty much and it's hard to get through it's hard to work with them and then we'd have a few victories now and then Lyndsay Soprano (36:50.862) Yeah, what are, do you, mean, I would like absolute exact specifics on this, Generally stating, like, how successful are you guys at this? Eric Robinson (36:59.859) Well, the hard thing, and again, is nothing I've been doing in the past few years, but back when we were doing it in the early 20 teens. Lyndsay Soprano (37:05.495) Right. Eric Robinson (37:12.837) it, the, you are trying to do first is locate a girl who needs to be rescued. And that comes from the social workers. comes from the guardian ad litem. It might come from someone at the juvenile detention center. Hey, we had a gallon here. And when she was booked, she had an iPhone, she had jewelry, she had the signs that she's making money. So, you know, now we try to track them. Now we would go on at that time on back page. Lord knows, I don't know. Lyndsay Soprano (37:33.431) Yeah. Eric Robinson (37:43.54) I don't know what they use now, but we would try to find where this girl is and now get that date with her. And they're always skittish and they're worried about the cops. that would be difficult as well. My buddy who had the case on the pastors, now what he largely does is gets online and talks with men who want to trade children for sex. That's a little darker than the stuff I had to deal with. Lyndsay Soprano (38:14.51) my god, black freaking wave just went over this episode right there for a second. Yikes. I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all. Eric Robinson (38:25.675) my goodness. I walked into their task force office once as they were prepping for an arrest and said, hey, can you help out? He said, there's this guy, my buddy Alex, he says, I can do this all day. And here is a guy who kept hammering him. And Alex was like, go away. Until finally he's like, my gosh, this guy just wants me to arrest him. So fine, here we go. And you know. Lyndsay Soprano (38:42.647) Wow. Eric Robinson (38:55.047) This work could be done except for the planning, the arrests, the time that it takes to write affidavits and then all the admin stuff. You could do an arrest a day. Lyndsay Soprano (39:08.174) My gosh, it's heavy stuff and I applaud you for being able to do it because I I'm such a bleeding heart Well liberal as everybody knows but I am such an empath like I mean I I'm actually surprised I haven't teared up yet on this episode because normally I'm grabbing for my tissues But how do you and your buddies? I guess more specifically you because we're talking to you but how did you guys cope with all of this the emotional toll and the pain and, you know, managing distance between the profession and deeply caring about the cases and the people who are in that. What were you, what do you do to cope with that? Eric Robinson (39:49.268) author Kim Petroni, and she probably stole this from somebody else says that the body heals through stories and her, her, way she talked about that was like in journaling and, and, and you working through it. But I found that that is how agents dealt with our issues many times where, instance, the man in whose case we're just talking about, he was hiding. in the very last space that he could in the basement and surprised us. And I had to yank him out of a crawl space by his hair while he was yelling for us to kill him. And that's kind of traumatic, like just to have to deal with that. It's not terrible and we've been there before and we're trained to do that, but it's not enjoyable to have someone screaming, kill me. It just feels harsh on the soul. But then my buddy and I will talk about that. Lyndsay Soprano (40:32.942) Yeah. Eric Robinson (40:47.591) Like, yeah, remember when we pulled that guy out? And the talking about it I have found is I think a way where we both say, without saying it, remember that really dangerous time that was crazy? Yeah, I do. Well, we're both here. Yeah, yeah, we are. Yeah, good. And I think that reliving it and talking about Lyndsay Soprano (41:03.426) Mm. Eric Robinson (41:15.869) the adrenaline and the rush and the unexpected things, the things that shocked us were, hey, Matt, remember when I threw that door open and you panned to the side and I saw you jolt because you didn't expect to see somebody and there he was. And at the moment, that probably spiked Matt's heart rate because you're lazily looking at a corner and all of a sudden you're seeing the subject and you don't know if he's got a gun. Lyndsay Soprano (41:28.492) Yeah, Lyndsay Soprano (41:45.25) Yeah. Eric Robinson (41:46.598) So we would talk about it and we would say, yeah, man, that was crazy. And I feel like that is the, it's the reliving so that we can do it in in an office or over lunch. Lyndsay Soprano (42:02.03) So, and I like the storytelling part because a lot of the people that I've been talking to on this show so far, especially in this particular season for the topics that we're tackling is storytelling. It's writing, which is what you've started to do with your book that you're gonna be coming out with. We'll touch on in just a minute. But it's like, I know for me, I write a lot. I get a lot out of my body through writing. I get a lot out of it through swimming. Like I process in X, Y, and Z ways. try to, after these episodes that I do where I take in a lot, I hear these things. Tonight I'll probably be dreaming about you, Eric, is totally true. I mean, how could you not look at you? Look at you, you're an Adonis. But it's, I'm just saying, it's like we don't even know what we're taking in all day long and all night long, the things that we're reading, because we've got so many meshes between our Instagram feeds and social media and our news cycles and everything. Eric Robinson (42:38.641) Hmm. Lyndsay Soprano (42:58.612) and then our jobs like yours, where you're seeing so much trauma and so much sadness and you don't even know that your body's holding on to these things, you know? And so I think it's really neat that storytelling is part of your guys' process for coping through that. Are there any other things that you had to deal with as far as like any chronic pain issues? like, I mean, we all had, I know you had your headaches with Jesus, but you know. My Jesus headaches. Eric Robinson (43:23.057) Yeah, that's a that's a great one. Headaches with Jesus. That's my that's my my next podcast. Yeah. Headaches with Jesus. Uhm? I don't know. I don't know. Lyndsay Soprano (43:27.938) Thank you. You can lift it. It is yours. Next podcast is Hicks with. Dad, my mom can be your first guest. I'm kidding. Sorry, Mom. She doesn't listen to the show. Who are we kidding? Eric Robinson (43:47.38) So we had an incident a year and a half ago. Again, this was a young man trading in child sexual abuse material. And because of the difficult terrain of where he lived, because he had passed assaults on family members and law enforcement, because he was a sex offender and so there was going to be that raised threat of violence, we had... SWAT was requested for that and it ended up being a good call because when we arrived, was me and two other men covering the side and back of the house. have what we call a tactical L so that we can have our guns pointed not at each other, but cover all squares of the house. And quickly I heard my buddy on my right yell contact rear where the kid had kicked out a first story window, popped out. And then I hear my buddy yelling, put down the bat. And the kid kept coming towards us until moving forward. He necessitated deadly force. He charged with his bat over the head and yelled, kill me. And he was killed and we rendered aid immediately, but he's still died. So a couple of things with that. One is I asked my, my buddy right after it, I said, how long do you think that was? And he goes five minutes. I go, right. That's what I think too. I bet it's like one fifth of that. And it was a minute and a half. Yeah, it seemed, I was, I remember being a little bit angry at my teammates because I had called for a hands team because there was a moment where I thought we can wrestle this kid. And then, and that moment passed. And I remember being a bit pissed like, hey man, Lyndsay Soprano (45:30.062) was gonna say a minute 15. Like that, yeah. Wow. Lyndsay Soprano (45:47.981) Yeah, yeah. Eric Robinson (45:53.094) I'm calling for a hands team. Why did no one respond? Ours was the first FBI shooting with body cameras. And I reviewed the footage. It was 10 seconds. It was 10 seconds from when I said, you know, I go, Hey, we need let's get a hands team. And they moved on us. And by the time he was, the subject was shot, they were right behind us. And so all of this seemed like, I mean, to the point where I was angry. Lyndsay Soprano (46:22.2) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eric Robinson (46:22.341) at my teammates like, why were you not here? But they were because everything slowed down remarkably. And so after that, I didn't feel bad. I didn't feel sad. I felt disappointed because he had initiated this. Like, why would you do that? Like a little angry at him, like, come on. Lyndsay Soprano (46:44.899) Yeah. Yeah, your baseball bat. What are you gonna do with the frickin baseball bat, buddy? Yeah. Eric Robinson (46:49.533) Like, right. Well, you know, part of our deadly force is that was a threat of, serious bodily harm. And so that's, that's how that went. And I remember thinking, yeah. And, and, and then that night. Lyndsay Soprano (47:02.53) Sounds like domestic terrorism to me. Eric Robinson (47:10.737) my mind wouldn't let me stop replaying it. And what it was doing was trying to find a way to resolve the situation without killing him. And it just kept like, okay, that didn't work, let's do it again. And it just kept going until I just, you know, I got up and had to clear my head because it just said, let's try this. Let's try this in a way where this kid doesn't get killed. So I guess, you know, Somewhere there was some regret but I it the mind ran ran ran ran and just kept going along the way Lyndsay Soprano (47:47.064) We call that busy brain disorder here. So you're also welcome to lift that. Eric Robinson (47:50.74) if that's what you call it. So I was wearing my Garmin watch at that time and you can tell me the minute of the day when we got into the shooting. Lyndsay Soprano (48:03.374) wow. So he's showing me, especially if you're not watching the episode, but if you look at it, it says heart rate on Monday, July 15th, and the spike at the time of it is like through the roof. Wow. Holy moly, man. Eric Robinson (48:16.047) 178 beats a minute. And what I'll say too is part of being on squat was being prepared and being fit. And so you can see that spike and you can see it went down. I didn't plateau and live at 170, 160 beats a minute. My body did come back down because, okay, I got to perform. Okay, let's finish the job in a normal way. Lyndsay Soprano (48:24.82) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (48:39.619) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (48:45.102) So how is your health and your mental health now that you're out of the FBI, you're out of Jesus, and now you're gonna be this amazing author and speaker and who knows what you've got left going on in your life? Eric Robinson (49:00.733) Yeah, well, I'm just under two months retired and buddies gave me the recommendation, like take some time. And so two months of relaxing has been really good. And I knew that I probably value most getting rid of that damned Bureau phone and always going off. And there's always an alert. Lyndsay Soprano (49:12.13) Yes. Eric Robinson (49:31.027) The alarm for a SWAT call out made a certain clanging sound and there's like a fucking Tide commercial that has that same sound and I'm not on SWAT anymore and all of a sudden, Lyndsay Soprano (49:49.102) We will never do laundry again. Eric Robinson (49:51.089) Yeah, I'm like, okay. Okay, it's a commercial. I'm fine. So it's nice. Lyndsay Soprano (49:55.874) God. Well, it is amazing how traumas, because you've been affected by trauma, my darling, how that stuff does affect us and sit with us. And I'm proud of you for going through the motions that you've done to keep yourself sane, because I don't know how I don't know how you guys do it. And I'm here to not only say fuck you, Pam Bondi, but I'm also here to say thank you for what you've done for these girls to help them. See, I told you I was gonna end up crying. I knew it was coming. Thank you for helping these girls. Whether they took the help or not, you have success stories and you can go on in your life knowing that you did these incredible things for these girls and for the guys, quite frankly. Even if they end up in prison, getting them out of that to a certain extent, is that a positive thing for them versus being on the street doing what they were doing? I don't know. I just know that. There was an episode that I did a couple episodes before this one with Elizabeth Gaines and she also was talking about sex trafficking and there was a pimp that ended up because the gal that he was pimping out didn't come back with enough money. He decided to turn on a hot curling iron and shove it up her vagina. And you hear stories like that and your heart breaks in a million pieces. And I don't know how you cannot be affected by that. But if we can take the things that have traumatized us and give them purpose, which is what the show is all about, is giving pain purpose, that's what we're here to do. So I wanted to thank you and your crew for doing what you've done. Eric Robinson (51:33.948) Yeah. Hey, let me finish with a positive story. So the young victim who was pimped out by the pastor, I spoke to our victim coordinator, not mine, but another, the task force officer who worked with us for years from the Toledo Police Department, great guy Pete, at his retirement. Lyndsay Soprano (51:37.761) Yes. Lyndsay Soprano (51:42.016) You got to it before I did. Look at you. Lyndsay Soprano (51:55.544) Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson (52:01.19) I'm talking to our victim coordinator who worked with us so often, and I was talking about that case we're reminiscing as we do. And she goes, yeah, she's spoken at some FBI events and talked about how being rescued, like how significant that was to her. She was later kidnapped by the pastor's wife and daughter, and we had to rescue her from there. So it was, it was a lot. Lyndsay Soprano (52:27.854) Holy, she's Louise. She's got a book in her. Eric Robinson (52:30.471) That's a whole story. And now she works in the government as a paralegal and just has her life right, which is awesome. And then I got to see a picture of her little baby. Lyndsay Soprano (52:40.028) my gosh, I love that story. I know. my God, full circle, I love that because there is hope in these horrible, devastating stories, you know? And if we don't have hope and we don't talk about that there is hope, then you know, then there is no hope. We gotta keep sharing it. Before we leave, I wanna ask you really quick, what can we in our communities do to spot any of this kind of behavior? I know there's like this thing on, Eric Robinson (52:47.185) Yeah. Eric Robinson (53:06.237) Ahem. Lyndsay Soprano (53:13.888) Insta and on social where if a girl is walking with a guy and she does this thing like behind her back, she like taps somebody as she's walking by and does this like four like count behind her back that it says like I'm being trafficked, I'm being abused, save me kind of a thing. And 95 % of these people just walk by, but there's a few that have been on it. Is there a way for us to like pay more attention? I know in our meet and greet, you mentioned something about hotels in particular. Eric Robinson (53:30.131) Thanks watching. Eric Robinson (53:40.99) Yeah, the hotels are over the years now have become well trained on what to spot because that's where it's happening. And the hotels where the pimps and prostitutes go know who they are. So it's not the high end Marriott's, but right. But again, as we talked about it, it's so unlikely to be a taken. Lyndsay Soprano (53:49.344) and educated on it. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (53:57.226) Okay. They're not staying at the Ritz, you mean? Eric Robinson (54:10.843) situation. re- like even I don't know the situation but even the girl who was abused with a curling iron probably stayed with that guy. Yeah. So, so the idea of I need to get away that can happen. Those are kidnappings. Those are more of the child sexual abuse as opposed to the prostitution. But it's a matter of the most success and fulfillment that I saw. Lyndsay Soprano (54:20.91) She did. Eric Robinson (54:38.725) is when every part of the system was working. And I don't know how the civilian population works in this too, but they can find a spot. It's when the guardian ad litems are representing these kids in court, doing well and telling them what their rights are and how they can get by. The social workers with us, the victim coordinator, the local PD, and then the FBI. And we all have our roles, the juvenile courts, like we are all finding. what we do to take care of this young girl. And so, I mean, it was even to the point where I had one friend signed her up as an informant so that she could go online and try to, on our behalf, have profiles that might attract men that we could now say, okay, let's get you out of here if you're trying to go after your young girls. So there may be things like that, but it's finding. Lyndsay Soprano (55:34.338) There's just not a lot that we can do. Like we can't keep our eyes peeled for something. I mean, it's tough. I mean, I'm from LA, so there's higher population and we've got a lot of people going on and stuff like that, but. Eric Robinson (55:39.921) Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I'll tell you what, for me, when we would arrest or, you know, we would arrest or rescue a juvenile, the hardest thing is like, what's next? Where are we putting her so that she can be monitored and be safe and stay on the good side for a while until she cleans up her mind? You know, down the street from us, there was this three unit simple drive up. Lyndsay Soprano (55:59.256) Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson (56:13.875) apartment motel and I used to talk to the wife of like, you know, it'd be good I'd love if we could afford to buy that and have that like as a halfway house a shelter domestic violence just like Something like that and it's that type of thing where you say hey FBI LAPD Sheriff's Department I have this I I'm you do your investigations on your own and you find Groups that reach out to girls like this and say what might I do? Lyndsay Soprano (56:25.4) Yeah. Eric Robinson (56:43.773) Can I purchase this? Can I open my home? Can I give supplies? Because that middling ground between getting them off the street and getting the pimp put away, where they have to get their mind right, there is a place for society to jump in and play a role. Lyndsay Soprano (56:47.406) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (57:02.766) Okay, so everybody go buy a piece of property right now. Let's fucking go. man, well, thank you so much for all of this today. I wanna keep talking to you for the rest of the day, but that's impossible for me to do because I need to go sit in the sunshine because it's 90 degrees here in Southern California. So I apologize to all of you that are digging your asses out of snow. Eric Robinson (57:06.545) Yeah. Eric Robinson (57:21.283) Lyndsay Soprano (57:31.458) What's climate change though? What's science? So, my goodness, this has just been lovely. Thank you so very much. Is there anything that you wanna leave us with before we hit the dusty trail here? Eric Robinson (57:42.387) Fuck Panbody. Lyndsay Soprano (57:44.97) And scene, we're done. It was lovely talking to you. No, but it is true. Fuck Pam Bondi. This has been absolutely lovely. Okay, really quick. So you've got a book coming out. You want to quick talk about it? Okay. Eric Robinson (57:56.468) Yes, so many other crazy stories, working million dollar financial crimes, being on SWAT. There's a lot of things. I never lost the awe that I had when I was first told I could join the FBI. I'm like, wow, really? The FBI? That's amazing. And then all along the way, I'm like, wow, I'm in the FBI. This is awesome. And I was leading people. And now that I'm out, Lyndsay Soprano (58:00.897) Right. Lyndsay Soprano (58:18.094) He's no kiddin'. Yeah. Eric Robinson (58:25.491) I look at it like, oh, you know what? That was like a 24 year experience, experiment of like, what would happen if you stuck a Baptist pastor in the world's elite law enforcement agency? And so I wrote a story about that of just that thread of what runs through as I was a guy who, didn't hunt. didn't, wasn't in the military and I jumped into the FBI and spent more than half that time. Lyndsay Soprano (58:37.208) Right. Eric Robinson (58:53.671) breaking down doors for SWAT and got to see some very amazing things. So I wrote a book called Irreverent because I was irreverent going to do some irreverent things. And we talk about going from saving souls to chasing sinners in the FBI. Lyndsay Soprano (59:10.144) I love it. I can't wait for it to come out. And when it comes out, you're going to have to bring it back on. So it's called irreverence. So bookmark it in your noodle from saving souls to chasing sinners with the FBI. And I can't wait to read it because I believe wholeheartedly that in you writing this book, too, you're working through a lot of some of the things that happen to you and process that through storytelling, which I think is incredibly important and healing for anybody, quite frankly, that has dealt with any kind of trauma. And you certainly have seen a lot of it. And thank you for doing it for. all of the gals out there. I appreciate you for being here with us today. Thank you so much. This has been great. Thank you so much. You are exclusively invited to share this saving our young girls and healing our bodies through stories, VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the heart of how to heal with you by my side. Please follow the pain game podcast wherever you digest your podcast content. We will be there. Eric Robinson (59:45.107) been great, Lindsay, I appreciate it. Lyndsay Soprano (01:00:06.22) visit us at thepangamepodcast.com and follow us on all the socials. Thanks for listening, my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.