Fraud by the book

Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

It’s the ultimate taboo to give away the ending to any book. But we’ll tell you this: Matthew Cox's book ends with a fugitive con man, on a Florida cruise ship, carrying a bag with millions in cash, sailing away with the girl of his dreams one step ahead of the angry throng giving chase.

But is the book fiction or fact?

There are truths in this tall tale as bizarre as any novel.

Alison Arnold:  He felt like the modern-day Robin Hood he would steal from the rich and give to the poor. That was his thing. And I believed in him.

The story begins in Tampa, Florida in the late 90’s when a hard-charging 20-something named Matthew Cox began making a name for himself as a mortgage broker.

Scott Cugno: I always used to say to him, “Matt you never come across as a salesman to me.”

Scott Cugno was a bank rep who thought the mortgage business a strange fit for Cox.  For one thing, Cox was severely dyslexic, and he’d heard Matthew’s stories about the special schools he attended, where teachers told him he should work with his hands and that he wasn’t smart enough to do anything else. So Matthew Cox had studied art at the University of South Florida, working on sculptures and developing a passion for, even an obsession with painting.

Cugno: He always had pictures he would show me when I came in his office.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: Artistic guy?

Cugno: Very artistic.

But now Cox the artist was attacking the mortgage world as he attacked his canvas and his life: as if he had something to prove.

And remarkably, the man whose friends wondered if he could even read beyond a second grade level, had somehow written a book, called “The Associates,” a work of fiction with a main character whose charm, personality, and even physical description was the spitting image of the book’s author, Matthew Cox.

Quote from Cox's novel: Christian J. Locke was 29 years old, stood only five foot seven inches tall, with dark brown hair/sun-tanned skin..

Cugno: He did show it to me and straight from Matt’s mouth. It was just about a guy that was gonna basically go around the country committing mortgage fraud, and then sail away.

Morrison: What did you think when he told you about the book?

Cugno: Well, I kinda knew.

Knew, he says, because from the day he’d met Cox, the word was out in Tampa’s “everyone-knows-everybody” mortgage world that something, well, slippery was going on in Cox’s office.

Cugno: You just knew because other people in the business would talk how Matt’s office is. “If you need a W-2, he’ll make it always appear. If you need someone’s Social Security card, he’ll make it appear.”

Morrison: So he wasn’t just bending the rules he was breaking them?

Cugno: Absolutely…  oh absolutely.

And just how badly Cox was breaking the rules became clear in the spring of 2001, when a warrant was issued for his arrest?

Cugno: I had come to his office and people had told me “Man, the cops were just here. Matt just literally ran out the back door, jumped over the fence... and…”

Morrison: You’re kidding! Jumped over the back fence..?

Cugno: Yeah I guess a couple of ‘em did because they were all kinda worried.

Morrison: It was clearly a rogue office?

Cugno: Oh absolutely.

Suddenly, that novel Matthew Cox had written didn’t sound so far-fetched.  He was facing state and federal charges. What had he done?

'THIEF OF HEARTS' More on Matthew Cox's fraud by the book Read an excerpt of Cox's manuscript  Keith Morrison blogs See some of Cox's murals and art Tips on spotting mortgage fraud Producer Shane Bishop blogs

For starters, he assumed a fake identity to get an $80,000 mortgage. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand theft, got three years probation and was ordered to stay out of the mortgage business. Which might have been the end of our little story. Except the convictions did not stop Matthew Cox.

Oh, he didn’t work as a mortgage broker, not exactly.  But he was certainly back in the business.  He called himself “a consultant.”

He just wouldn’t stop living on the edge, said his friends.  He was a sky-diver, a daredevil who on the ground skirted the law and honed his schemes. He was able to fake good credit to buy literally dozens of Tampa properties, including an apartment building. Inside, Cox left his distinctive mark in great swatches of vibrant color, painting huge murals all over the walls. Matthew Cox was here it said.

And then secretly, leaving almost no mark at all, according to investigators, he used his building like a burglar’s tool. Again, using a false name, he filed fake documents to make it appear it was paid off.

From his novel: He was a mortgage broker, not a bank robber. He just had ‘a knack for finding loopholes…

It’s reported Cox took out mortgages on this building worth nearly a $1 million, five times what it was worth.

And then, Cox turned his charms on young women.

Arnold: He said "All you need is someone to believe in you."

Her name is Alison Arnold. She was 29 years old in 2003 and miserable. Her marriage was on the rocks, she had a young son to care for, she had big dreams but was drowning in a sea of debt. 

Arnold: He said, “You could work for me. I’ll pay for you to get your mortgage license. I’ll pay for you to get divorced. I’ll give you money for an apartment. I’ll rent it for you. I’ll furnish it. You’ll be set. You can start a new life. The offer was on the table.”

Morrison: What did you do?

Arnold: I took him on his offer.

And just like that, Alison left her husband, and joined Cox’s office as a loan processor.

But Matthew Cox as a lover? That lasted about a week. The real relationship, it turned out, wasn’t about sex, or romance.  There were lessons to be learned.

Arnold: He loved to go to the movies.

Morrison: What kind of movies did he like?

Arnold: Anything to do with criminal activity.

Arnold: “Catch Me If You Can,” he loved that movie. We went and saw this movie, “The Italian Job.”

Alison had seen how shady Cox’s strategies were and how successful.  She was intrigued.

Arnold: He said that he wanted to help me in a way that would make me loyal to him. And he told me straight up.

Morrison: Was he upfront about that?

Arnold: Very, very upfront. The loyalty part came in when he needed favors from me to do the illegal mortgages.

And she convinced herself it wasn’t actually bad, not evil.  They were more like Robin Hood, Cox told her—the big fat insurance companies would cover the losses, nobody would actually get hurt.

And so she was willingly sucked in.

Alison rented a home, forged a deed, and then just as Cox told her he’d done again and again, filed phony paperwork to get three real mortgage loans borrowing nearly $400,000 against a property she didn’t even own.

Then, she bought a house under a fake name and incredibly, the Social Security number of her own young son.

Morrison: You must have known that what you were doing was not just shady but illegal.

Arnold: I knew it was illegal but...

Morrison: But it still felt like nobody was getting hurt?

Arnold: It felt like nobody was getting hurt, yeah. And Matt did it and he got in trouble twice for exactly the same thing that I did, exactly. So I thought, okay there’s a risk. But the risk to me, was, “I’ll have a felony and a thousand dollar fine. Okay. But I’ll make $250,000.” I didn’t think it was a big deal.

There they were, she thought, Bonnie and Clyde, real estate division.

But soon, she says, he began to make her feel that she wasn’t quite good enough, or smart enough or attractive enough to play the role.

Arnold: He said, “You’re pretty in a trailer park kind of way.” He’s like, “We’re gonna buy you some boobs,” like that. He said “Every girl I date, I buy boobs for her. I said no way.”

But when Alison refused implants, she could no longer be that character in Matthew’s book.

From his novel: He even managed to buy her a set of silicone breast implants. Christian had to admit, it was one of the best investments he’d ever made.

And Alison says she was about to learn a very painful lesson. Her partner in crime was not burdened by sentimentality or affection. She would not be the only woman to fall for this charming thief.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

The Friday the 13th Mystery Mystery at Lost Dog Road Slideshow: Photos in the Bob Duke case When The Smoke Clears   Sneak peek: When The Smoke Clears Slideshow: The Christie Fleming murder Transcript: Dan Brown and Secrets Of The Lost Symbol Through The Pouring Rain In Plain Sight: Jaycee Dugard Timeline: Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: