Sheriff Grady Judd argues that violent criminals are "stone cold crazy" requiring mandatory sentencing, citing Florida's 54-year crime low versus liberal states where felons dominate cities. He defends President Trump's Iran strategy, criticizes Judge Tiffany Baker for releasing a child rapist, and condemns Gavin Newsom's wife for promoting "woke" agendas. Judd details Polk County's success in reducing minor alcohol sales violations to 5% through aggressive enforcement, arresting R. Kelly, and utilizing AI labs with NASA drones. He asserts that housing dangerous inmates is a vital investment for public safety while warning voters against policies that increase crime or taxes. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Patriotism vs Stone Cold Crazy00:04:05
How do you filter a stone cold crazy versus regular people?
They got a hitch in their giddy up.
That means they're crazy.
They're crazy.
Stone cold crazy.
Lock them up.
What are your thoughts on what's going on with Iran?
It's becoming very contentious politically.
What President Trump is doing now should have been done 40 or 50 years ago.
Iran's out of control, and I applaud President Trump.
The traditional media says, oh, he doesn't have a plan.
He doesn't have a plan.
Just because he's not sharing the plan with you doesn't mean there's not a plan.
What do you say to guys who say, why do we have to be the police to the world?
The United States is the strongest country, so there is no reason in the world for us not to exercise command and control and to demand peace across the nation.
What's the argument for why she releases a guy that raped and killed a five-year-old?
She has no rational argument.
And if she would have remanded him to custody, that child would be alive today.
Why are they not choosing to model this?
The politicians don't care that your child is murdered.
You can stop this.
You can give me two years and bring that down 75%.
In two years, you drop the 75%.
You don't have to lock everybody up.
You just have to show them where the line is.
Did you ever think you would make it?
I feel I'm so big, so I could taste sweetly bit of dirty.
I know this life meant for me.
Adam, what's your point?
The future looks bright.
My handshake is better than anything I ever signed.
It's right here.
You are a 101?
I don't think I've ever said this before.
I don't think I've ever said this before.
All right, every once in a while we have guests in the house that I get to call them the man, the myth, the legend.
You're obviously qualified for that, Judd Grady.
And I don't know if you know this last time we were on when we spoke, one of the clips when you talked about that fellow you guys shot 68 times in a second and a half.
Yes.
That thing's at 29 million views on YouTube alone.
So if you're walking around places and people are stopping you outside of Polk County, you're becoming a celebrity all over the place.
But thank you for being back on the podcast again.
It's my honor to be with you.
You know, since we were last on the podcast, I am now doing between 10 and 20 million views a week.
Stop it.
Yes.
I'm not surprised.
Yes.
I am not surprised.
And I hope.
A lot of the other guys around the country who are in your space, who are sheriffs in different markets, I hope they're replicating your standards on how to make the city safe, on how to make their county safe.
So, 50 plus years of service, when you drive to Polk County, I think it says, Welcome to the home of Judd Grady.
I think it's right on the side of it.
Grady Judd.
Yeah, it's a great thing to have you on.
So, let me start off with the first story.
Because obviously, I got a lot of things I want to go through with you.
Of the war that's happened in Iran, I think one of the soldiers is from your county.
That's right.
If I'm not making a mistake.
His name is Cody Cork.
I want to say it correctly, if that's his name.
Major Armory Reserve General, one of the 13 fellows who passed away.
Thank you for his service.
May God take care of him and his family, and may he rest in peace.
But for you, when he came in, how did the city process something like that that happens for someone that's from your county?
Well, we were there.
The President of the United States was there when he came back into the country, and I was there when he came back into the county.
And I was there at the funeral, and it was an overwhelming response from everyone in the community.
We had a procession from our airport in Lakeland to Winter Haven, which is an accompanying city, and you cannot believe the people that line the miles and miles and miles of roads with flags.
We have a patriotic community.
We have a conservative community.
We have a God fearing community.
Trump's Middle East Strategy00:05:54
And he was, as you know, promoted to major.
And he was just a real guy.
And he was extra special to me because my son is a manager for public supermarkets.
And when Cody was a kid, or I should say Major Cork was a kid, he worked for my son.
Oh, why?
So you've known him for many years.
I knew of him vicariously through my son.
And he said he was just a great young man in high school and when he worked for public supermarkets.
He said, I enjoyed supervising him.
He was a hard worker.
And he said, but he was laser focused on the military.
He was.
So from the beginning.
From the very beginning.
He knew he was going to get into the military.
Absolutely.
Good for him.
What is your opinion?
You're an outsider, but you have opinions on pretty much everything.
What are your thoughts on what's going on with Iran?
It's becoming very contentious.
Politically, both sides going wild, including in the Republican Party, the anti interventionist, the isolationist, the interventionist.
What do you stand with it?
Well, first and foremost, what President Trump is doing now should have been done 40 or 50 years ago.
Iran's out of control.
They have not only kidnapped Americans, they've killed Americans.
They're tormenting people in the Middle East.
They're creating all kinds of problems for Israel.
And I applaud President Trump.
The traditional media says, Oh, he doesn't have a plan.
He doesn't have a plan.
Well, just because he's not sharing the plan with you doesn't mean there's not a plan.
I have the utmost trust in our military leaders, and I know they had an entrance strategy, they had a practice strategy, and they've got an exit strategy.
My prayer is that we can get out of it without having to put boots on the ground.
No one wants to do that.
And I truly believe that that can happen.
The whole goal of Was to stop them from having atomic weapons, nuclear weapons.
So I applaud President Trump for doing what needed to be done decades before.
And why do you think guys, you know, prior to him didn't do it?
Politics.
You think it's purely politics?
It was purely politics.
They cared more about their personal politics than they cared about the safety and security of not only this country, not only Israel, but the Middle East.
And quite frankly, Iran was there bullying everyone around.
What do you say to guys who say, You know, Judd Grady, respectfully, why are we getting involved in everyone's business?
Just leave them alone.
Why do we want to fight everybody's fault?
Why do we have to be the police to the world?
Well, you know, we wish it was just that simple, but this whole world is interconnected.
And it's whether it's economics, whether it's oil.
Think about this for a minute.
What if we didn't have the ability to purchase oil or deal in the oil market worldwide?
What if we got shut out?
We have to be in control to be the very best.
The United States is the strongest country.
We're up against an economic potential powerhouse with China.
So there is no reason in the world for us not to exercise command and control and to demand peace across the nation.
Look, it's the future.
It's the future of our children and our grandchildren.
Now, the critics of President Trump now, I believe, will be silenced by the future whenever they say, well, because the president did this back in.
2025, 2026.
We don't have a problem that we otherwise would have had.
Can you imagine?
Iran and that regime with a nuclear weapon that could potentially reach the United States and certainly could reach all of the countries in the Middle East and as far away as Spain and Great Britain.
I mean, that is a scary, dangerous thing.
Were you a support of the Iraq war?
Were you a support of Afghanistan?
Were you a support of the weapons of mass destruction?
We got to go find it and we spent trillions of dollars.
Well, obviously, hindsight's 20 20, but I believe prior to George Bush going in, That we didn't need to do that.
That was your position.
That was my position from the very beginning because we had already set up no fly zones.
We could have tightened up the no fly zones and restricted Iraq there and just economically worked on them.
I'll harken back to Colin Powell.
He said, You go into Afghanistan, you go into Iraq, you own it.
You've got to own it.
And I can remember on one occasion, I believe it was Colin Powell, General Powell said, Look, you think about this.
Is the leader of Iraq a vicious, murdering, terrible guy?
Yes.
But it takes a vicious, murdering, terrible guy to control that country.
So, if you take him out, who do you replace him with?
Because you're not going to change the culture just because you can bomb it to pieces.
Well, you see the aftermath of that.
So, I truly believe we should have left him in control, shut down, and controlled the no fly zones and even shrunk that and made him an island in that Middle East until he capitulated for world peace or at least world economic peace.
How different is that?
If you're saying you needed somebody that vicious to be able to control that island, How different is that than Iran?
Because even some, you know, you could call them a woke right or people that are isolationist who are not supportive of this, some of them are saying, well, we screwed up there.
We should leave these guys alone anyways.
They already, you know, they don't treat their people well, but the same thing happened with Saddam.
Normal People Don't Attack Us00:03:15
Why are we getting involved?
What do you say to that?
I didn't see Saddam Hussein reaching out and trying to attack, you know, everybody other than he dealt with Iran.
He skirmished with Iran.
I was living there when he was bombing us.
And there were problems with Afghanistan, but he was not attacking outwardly like.
Like we have seen out of Iran.
And you're talking about like the proxy militaries that Iran uses, the Houthis, the Hezbollah, and Sudan wasn't doing that.
That's correct.
So that's your biggest thing.
That's it.
Out of curiosity, 54 years you've been the sheriff of Polk County, you're Probably one of the most decorated, well respected sheriffs in all of America, quoted, respected.
People want more people like you.
I'm sure a lot of counties wish you can retire from Polk County and go to their county to make it even safer.
Have you ever experienced any terrorist attacks, any terrorist threats in the county you were part of?
Was there anything that happened that was linked to terrorist attacks?
Do you know we work a lot of intelligence and we work with our federal and state partners and we have prevented things like that.
We see what I call microcosms of people that have that attitude.
And quite frankly, I think it is encouraged by social media of today.
But as compared to what you see potentially in major cities, no.
So the question is, you know, why not?
Well, we have a robust intelligence system, we have a real time crime center, we're connected with all the state and federal.
Folks that do intelligence.
And our goal is to, if you see something, hear something, say something, we not only say that for the constituents to us at the sheriff's office, but if we see something or hear something, we say something to our colleagues.
So the goal is to prevent that from occurring.
So we've not had a major event in our community, which is now almost a million people.
A million.
So that's a good sized county.
Have you had any major fraud like some of these cities you're hearing about, Minneapolis, some of the fraud that's happening?
And if you have had it, how do you deal with it?
Because you were just on yesterday, I believe, just 17 hours ago, talking about a conspiracy theorist who thought the earth was flat.
Did he kill somebody or try to kill somebody?
I think this was just yesterday.
Yes.
No, he didn't kill anyone, but he truly believed that the earth, we call them flatlanders.
He truly thinks the earth is flat, you know, but he's a nut job.
The reality of it is all of these terrorists, all of these people who do this outrageous thing, is.
Crazy.
Normal people don't kill people.
Normal people don't want to blow up buildings.
Normal people don't want to attack our country.
So, those are all dangerous folks, but they're not, as we say in Polk County, they're not just right.
They got to hit you in their giddy up.
They got to hit you in the giddy up.
That's right.
And what does that mean?
That means they're crazy.
They're crazy.
Stone cold crazy.
So, how do you filter a stone cold crazy versus regular people?
How do you.
Do you look at patterns?
Is there certain things you notice?
You've been in this business for a while.
Florida Felony Sentencing Rules00:14:46
Well, past conduct is a clear indicator of future behavior.
Got it.
So, people who are disruptive, that are criminals, that are threatening in the past, until they do something that we can deal with them in prison, they're going to do the same thing in the future.
Got it.
So, maybe culturally it's a different thing.
By the way, your style, do you believe in publicly humiliating criminals to make sure that same behavior doesn't replicate?
Because You know, just recently, I want to show this clip, Rob, with one of the judges in Florida that the governor called out.
And if you want to pull this one up, Rob, and, you know, Governor DeSantis comes out, calls this person out.
He's asking for the impeachment of this judge because this judge that we're talking about, there was a situation where she released a child rapist.
While on bail, he raped, tortured, and killed a five year old girl.
This judge, Tiffany Baker, releases the individual.
Here's what the governor DeSantis had to say about it.
Go for it, Rob.
I appreciate the legislature for passing this, but I will just say to my friends in the Florida House of Representatives, I don't think what you've done is enough.
You have the power and you have sufficient numbers in your chamber to impeach this judge, Tiffany Baker.
Until you start holding these judges accountable, they are going to continue to find ways to benefit the criminal element.
This was an outrage.
This was such an easy call to make sure that this guy was put behind bars, and this judge refused to do it, knowing the risks, and the result is obviously.
Been a tragedy.
So, the Florida Constitution vests the House of Representatives with the ability to bring an impeachment against a circuit judge with two thirds majority.
You know, last time I checked, we've got way more than two thirds of Republicans.
Honestly, I think some Democrats would vote to impeach given what happened in this case.
There's a lot of judges like this in America.
Oh, there really are.
How do you deal with these guys?
When you see that, I don't know how she sleeps at night because this person had been convicted.
She had all the authority in the world to remand him into custody until sentencing.
And she didn't.
She let him walk out on bond.
And that child is dead.
I'm a big fan of the governor.
He's a friend of mine.
He has done remarkable work in this state.
We're a safer state.
The people in this state are safe.
It is not only the free state of Florida, but it is the safe state of Florida.
And people are moving here because of the work by the governor.
And he is spot on with her.
Shame on her.
But she is an elected official.
If the House won't impeach her, the people of the county can remove her from office by running a person against her, a qualified lawyer against her.
So she should be at least opposed in her next election if the House doesn't impeach her.
Now, so say I'm from that county, and what's the county that she's from, Rob?
I believe it's Leon County Courthouse, Tallahassee.
Okay.
Say if I'm from that county, have you ever, in your 54 years that you've been in, have you ever had a judge that was, you know, judges you typically don't know their left or right.
Supreme Court, we know when we look at them.
And generally, if you know them closer, you'll kind of get an idea.
This is a liberal judge, this is a conservative judge.
Have you ever had a liberal judge that would go against you on certain criminals and were maybe a little bit more lenient with them?
And if yes, how did you handle them?
Well, if you look, that's why we have minimum mandatory sentencing in the state of Florida now.
Because we couldn't get some judges to do their job.
They would let them out and let them out and let them out.
And I have been in law enforcement long enough.
I remember when the felons owned Florida.
And it stayed that way.
In the 70s and 80s, I would, as I rose in rank at the sheriff's office, I would go lobby the legislature and say, the felons own Florida, crime's up.
The felons own Florida, crime's up.
You've got to do something.
Nothing happened until it became an economic problem.
And then over a period of about two years, 17 tourists were murdered.
Europe sent out a travel warning about coming in.
What you were saying?
That was about 87, 88, 89.
Europe sent out a travel warning that it wasn't safe to come to Florida on vacation.
Wow.
The legislature immediately changed the law.
Now they have 85% sentencing, 1020 life, minimum mandatory sentencing, and crime fell precipitously.
Crime today in Florida is at over a 50 year low.
In my county, crime's at a 54 year low.
It's safer in my county and in the state of Florida than it's been in most people's adult life or entire life.
And it's all because we decided that we were going to care more about the law abiding, tax paying citizen and children than we were about criminals.
So criminals are held accountable and responsible.
And if they don't behave or they do something significantly bad, they're locked up as they should be.
Now, let me ask you when you look at a judge like this, and you've dealt with a lot of them, because if you're saying 87, 88, 89, 17 people, Europe is like, hey, don't go to Florida, crime.
Florida was known for a lot of the mobsters that would come and retire here.
They would come and do business here as well.
That's been known for many, many, many decades.
But when you talk to a judge like that, what is her argument why she releases a guy that raped and killed a five year old?
What's the argument for someone to say, at least they're coming from a place where.
Do they have any kind of an argument that makes sense to you?
She has no rational argument because they've now received due process.
They've now been found guilty by a jury of their peers.
And he was dangerous.
He was dangerous in the beginning.
She should have remanded him to custody.
That's what would have happened in our county, in Polk County.
That's what would have happened in the majority of counties across this state.
And if she would have remanded him to custody, that child would be alive today.
That's somebody's family, right?
And this is happening across the board in a lot of different places.
How do you process yourself?
You ever seen a movie, The Judge, with Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr.?
I didn't see that.
Okay, I think you'll like the movie.
It's a good movie, it's great actors in a movie.
The movie's about second and third chances, where the judge, who is Robert Duvall, the father of Robert Downey Jr., the character's name is Henry.
There's this kid that he wants to give him a second chance because his son was a troublemaker.
And so he gives the wrong guy a second chance and he ends up coming out and killing an innocent girl.
And it's a very interesting story to this.
How do you view second chances?
What is your process when it comes down to a kid that did something dumb?
What do you say?
Let's give this kid a second chance.
Zero chances to this guy.
You know, this guy deserves the death penalty.
How do you process that?
Everybody knows that Florida's got a tough criminal justice system.
Our tough criminal justice system out of every 100 people that come before the courts this year, only four will go to prison.
And we're a tough criminal justice system.
I believe in forgiveness.
I believe in second chances.
We have veterans court.
We have mental health court.
We have diversion programs.
We have probation programs.
We have drug rehab programs.
We give people second chances, third chances, and fourth chances.
But when they show a proclivity to be very violent, their chances are over.
When they show that they're going to continue to violate the rules, Then they get to go to prison, and they go to prison for a small amount of time.
Then they can bail more points up and go to prison for more time.
So, yes, a forgiving criminal justice system exists in Florida and should exist.
But there also has to be accountability in the criminal justice system, and there is in Florida.
And that's why our crime's down.
But when you go to California, the felons own California.
When you go to New York, the felons own New York.
When you go to Washington, D.C., the felons own Washington, D.C. Maybe in more ways than one.
But the reality is that people move to the line that's drawn and then they stop.
So, as long as they can commit crime, they will.
And then, if you're permissive like that, then you get the Me Toos.
Well, if he can do it, I can get away with it as well.
And that's what we're seeing in California and New York the Me Toos.
If you've ever had a line that should have been drawn in the sand when the illegal immigrants.
Beat down the two New York police officers.
NYPD did a great job and I think arrested most, if not all, of the ones, the gang that beat them down.
So you get this.
They're in a gang.
They're here in this country illegally.
They beat down two New York City police officers.
So they not only beat down a person, they not only beat down a police officer, but they beat down our government.
Then we take them to court and the judge releases them without having to post bail.
And they're not even in this country illegally.
Then there's another set of laws that prohibits the state of New York from at least telling our ICE partners that, hey, we got them.
They're here illegally.
They've committed horrible felonies against our police officers.
They couldn't even tell them now, so they released them.
And who knows where they are now?
That's crazy.
That is insanity.
And if you keep doing the thing that you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
Yeah, you know, I just pulled up a number right now.
And I want you to, because I think last time I asked this question about death penalties, I pulled up which states have had the most executions in 2025.
Are you surprised who number one is?
Florida.
Florida's number one, okay?
At 19, 40% of all executions nationwide are from the state of Florida.
40% of all nationwide by a wide margin.
You're not winning by a field goal or a touchdown, you're winning by.
Six touchdowns is what you're winning.
Number two is tied between Alabama, Texas, and South Carolina with five executions each.
So if you combine Alabama, Texas, South Carolina, and then the other ones are Tennessee is three, Arizona's two, Indiana's two, Mississippi's two, Oklahoma's two, then you got a couple guys at single digits, Louisiana, Missouri.
You can almost combine all those states combined.
49 states combined and they go against Florida, it's almost a tie match, is what we have going on.
How do you feel about that?
Well, I feel that the governor's doing his job.
Now, here's what's sad about that.
If you look, these people have been on death row for 20, 25 years.
20 or 25 years?
That's crazy.
There's no reason in the world why a person can't be arrested, charged, convicted, and give them two or three appeals and move them through the system in five years, seven years, eight years.
To think that it takes 20 and 25 years to get somebody to the death row.
Reform or?
This is not people that just shot somebody in a bar over a drunken brawl over a beer.
This is premeditated, cold blooded, first degree, heinous murder.
And quite frankly, I'm proud of Governor DeSantis.
He is the man.
But the reality of it is why hasn't this been going on in every state?
And why is there such a backup in Florida?
Once again, politicians in the past not doing their job.
But we in the criminal justice system need to be pulled in line by the Florida legislature.
You look at the death penalty as it's carried out in the federal system, it does not linger around 20, 25, 30 years.
They're quick with that death penalty if, in fact, someone needs the death penalty.
And I've heard arguments well, it doesn't stop others from committing crime and all that.
Well, take that to the bank and store it, okay?
Because that person that is executed will never hurt anybody else, period.
So you're saying anybody above 20 years, why don't we just execute them?
Is that kind of what you're saying?
No, no, no.
I'm saying that we should move them through the process in a lot less than 20 years.
I'm fine.
With it having to be a cold blooded, heinous murder, okay?
Not two drunks that got in a fight in a bar over a bottle of beer and somebody got killed.
That needs to be.
What do you typically get 20 plus years for, though?
20 plus years is normally a murder, or you get something to get 20 plus years.
Well, sexual battery will get you 20 years.
Sexual battery gets you 20 years.
Plus.
First time.
Yes, plus, depending on the circumstances.
In Florida.
Depending on the circumstances.
So unpack for me sexual battery.
What does sexual battery.
Well, sexual battery, somebody breaks into a house.
Yeah.
Okay.
Rapes a woman at knife point.
I got it.
Okay.
That's armed burglary.
That's a first degree or life felony.
20 plus years.
Life.
Kill or no kill?
No kill.
You go into a house, you rape them, you're getting life in prison.
Should.
You should.
Yes.
All right.
Yes.
So if that's one, what else is 20 plus years?
What else do you do to get it?
Robbery with a firearm.
Robbery with a firearm is 20 plus years in Florida.
20 plus years in Florida.
You shoot somebody, robbery with a firearm, 20 plus years.
25 years.
Cocaine, if I'm selling cocaine a good amount, is that 20 plus years?
Trafficking and cocaine, racketeering is 30 years.
Okay.
Okay.
If you're in an illegal criminal enterprise, 30 years.
How about pedophilia?
If I'm doing sex trafficking, what is a.
If someone's doing pedophilia.
It can be up to life.
That can be up to life.
So, what gets it to the position of, you know, where it's death penalty?
These numbers that we just talked about, the 19 executions, what gets it to that level?
What gets it to the death penalty?
Death Penalty and Homicide Stats00:05:17
Yes, the 19 executions.
First degree murder.
Okay.
And then it's got to be cold, calculated, heinous.
It is not two drunks in a bar that have a fight.
And somebody kills somebody.
Somebody kills somebody.
It is raping and murdering somebody, it is going into a grandmother's house and slashing her.
It is eviscerating a child and photographing it.
It's got to be just the most horrible.
That's why I'm saying the people on death row in the state of Florida are the most vile, dangerous people on the face of the earth.
That's who gets first degree murder.
So I just pulled up and I said, can you break down for me what these 19 cases were?
Okay.
So we have one guy, Frank Walls, okay, final execution, double murder, home invasion, broke into a home, killed a man.
And women during the robbery, later linked to additional killings.
Boom.
This guy was one of the death penalty guys.
Next one sexual assault and murder, multiple victims.
Rape and murder of the neighbor, sexual assault followed by killing.
That's multiple.
Child rape and murder, rape and murder of six year old.
This is one of the stories execution.
Multiple victim family murders, entire family killed, spouse and children.
Boom, death penalty.
Serial killing, offender tied to multiple murders across different cases, kidnapping and murder.
Abduction followed by killing, robbery and murder, triple murder, killed three victims in one event, boom, death sentence.
Torture style, prolonged killings, victim bound, beaten or held before being killed.
Rape and drowning, disposable body, victim raped and drowned in the canal.
These are the reasons why these people got death penalties.
Now, the argument for other states who don't do this, because I also looked up the math to see how much it costs to have a prisoner in the state of Florida, it's $25,000 a year per person.
And then I asked the question how many are In prison right now for 20 plus years, the number is 20,000.
20,000 times $25,000, that's a $500 million dollar cost to taxpayers in the state of Florida.
How would you fix that?
Because that's savings right there if you can find a way to save that $500 million to taxpayers.
Yeah, you're looking at it wrong.
It's a $500 million bargain.
It's an investment in your eyes.
It is a bargain.
It's an investment.
Think about those 20,000 people being out.
Because that's what these other states think about it.
In California, they're like, well, we have a, you know, we got to let these guys out.
It's not fair, Judd Grady.
You're being too strict.
You're being too tough.
It's a bargain.
What's your children's life worth?
Priceless.
They're here right now running around in the office.
Sure.
Imagine, imagine right now those 20,000 people who are that dangerous on the streets.
And for $500 million a year in a multi, multi, multi billion dollar budget, it's what?
What, a half of 1% of our budget?
1% of our budget?
Isn't 1% of our budget worth keeping an entire state of 24 million people plus all of our millions of tourists safe?
Oh, you're preaching to the choir here.
Sure.
We're on the same page here.
What I'm trying to see is why don't other states, so for instance, Rob, if you want to pull up this number for Chicago, here's a report that just came in from Chicago, right?
So far this year in Chicago, 364 shootings, 90 homicides, 3%, I don't know why the last stat is necessary, only 3% of the shootings have involved white people.
But 364 shootings, 90 homicides so far in Chicago.
Okay.
Why do these cities who have stats like this, and then the people who live there, the family who have daughters, sons who lost somebody to this, they're one of the 90 homicides.
If they listen to podcasts like this and see the way you're breaking it down and saying, here's how Florida is, the lowest in 54 years, why are they not choosing to model this?
The politicians in Chicago, In Illinois, they think more of the criminals than they do of the law abiding citizens.
Why though?
The politicians don't care that your child is murdered.
They don't care.
They don't care because you can stop this.
You can stop.
Let me put that in the appropriate vernacular.
You can slow this down significantly.
I could go to Illinois and add 25,000 beds to the state prison system.
And change the minimum mandatory sentences and bring that down 75%.
In how long would you be able to fix that?
If you could build the 25,000 beds this year and you could give me the minimum mandatory sentences, two years.
Two years, 75% you drop?
Two years.
In two years, you drop the 75%.
You don't have to lock everybody up.
You just have to show them where the line is and make believers out of a few, and the others will quit doing it.
Human Trafficking Victim Rights00:14:59
That's what we did in Florida.
That's what we did in Florida.
But I can tell you right now, the question you ask of me, I ask of my liberal friends across this country why is it you don't want to make the investment to keep your children safe, to keep from being robbed, to keep from being shot?
You know, because I'll tell you why, Pat, because nobody cares until it's their family.
Well, in Florida, we care.
Governor DeSantis cares.
I care.
The sheriffs of the state of Florida care.
We go to work every day, not what's in our best interest, but what's in the best interest of the people of the state of Florida.
And nothing matters until you're safe and you feel safe.
And if you create an environment where you're safe and you feel safe, the people will thrive.
Businesses will thrive.
And as a human being and as a social society, we will get away with as much as we're allowed to get away with.
And wherever the line's drawn, that's where people are.
Stop.
That makes sense to me.
And I want to get to one of the stories because this is going to lead to the following question I'll be asking you.
So there's a story of Fool Around and Find Out again 246 arrested in Florida's human trafficking sting.
Okay.
246 suspects involved in human trafficking, prostitution, and child sexual exploitation.
I think this is a story of a few months back, September 19th of last year, 2025.
You know, what can you tell us about this story?
What do we learn about this story here, the 246 suspects?
Sure.
We do.
Undercover operations, human trafficking operations, and we're looking for the victims of human trafficking.
In order to do that, let's compare it to fishing.
So we know there's victims of human trafficking out there, but how do we find them?
Well, it's kind of like there's fish in the sea, but how do you find them?
You use bait.
So we go undercover online on the different social media chat rooms and we put our information out as if we're John's.
Looking for ladies of the evening, or were prostitutes looking for business?
We partner with the other police departments, the federal and the state.
Our team at the Polk County Sheriff's Office is the very best in the nation.
Really?
The best in the nation.
In one week, we'll make 230 arrests.
We recovered 16 victims of human trafficking in one week.
How did you do that?
Because those are two different skill sets.
Because to act like a prostitute or act like somebody who's interested, that's a different model than to be able to catch the kids.
Freedom.
What's that model?
Here's the model because the human traffickers are bringing the prostitutes and forcing them, indenturing them into sex slavery.
Okay?
And they bring them here, and then we identify them, and we rescue them, and then we lock up their human traffickers.
In addition to that, at the same time, we run sex predator operations where people are looking for children to have sex with them.
And we arrest them at the same time.
So we're working a prostitution sting, a human trafficking operation.
We're working a child predator operation.
We're working child pornography all at the same time in these operations.
It's a massive operation.
I suggest to you I don't think you can find any police agency in the nation that arrests between 230 and 250.
In a six or seven day operation, other than us, but it's working with our partners.
We filed unbelievable human trafficking charges.
Now, one of the pieces of magic is what we call our NGOs, our social services folks.
We invite our one child team, we invite our state folks with us.
So we immediately Start evaluating them as victims of human trafficking anytime we have a prostitute come in.
So the counseling, the investigation begins.
Tell me more.
Florida has a beautiful law.
If you are a victim of human trafficking, you're not a criminal.
So, if you're brought here by a human trafficker to one of our operations, you are a victim, not a prostitute, and not a suspect.
Can you give me a demographic of what a prostitute or somebody who was brought here for human trafficking, what does that person look like?
Give me a profile of that person.
That person is 17 years old, 19 years old, 22 years old.
They're in this country illegally.
They've been brought across the border by mules.
And then they're told, hey, we'll take you into the United States for free, but you have to work for us.
And then they indenture them and they send them out with supervision and take them around and prostitute them.
And that is our victim.
So when we intercede, we have immediate counselors at the point of arrest.
And when we say, hey, this is a victim, then there's no arrest.
We take them into protective custody.
And I say protective custody, we take them away from their human trafficker.
We work with DCF.
And we work with our private NGOs to give them a place to stay.
We rescue them.
And that's what's so really exciting about what we do.
We're rescuing the victims of human trafficking.
That's honorable.
Now, how do you get them back into society?
What role do you play there to get them?
We hand them off to our NGOs, and they work with counseling and with teams.
Sometimes it's a matter of getting them back to their home country.
Sometimes it's a matter of reuniting them with their family.
Sometimes it's long term counseling, and sometimes they regress and fall back into the world of prostitutes.
How confident are you in your ability to catch human traffickers if you were given an assignment to a different place?
Oh, I can catch them wherever we are.
So I'm glad you said that.
So let's just say we moved you to Palm Beach County, and there's a guy here whose name is Jeffrey Epstein, okay?
Who, Pam Bondi, had the responsibility of working with that, and that was a big, you know, they dropped the ball in a big way.
I call that the biggest fumble of the administration at the beginning.
Two days ago.
I think she got fired, maybe yesterday, maybe a day ago, but she got fired recently.
Um, How different would you have handled?
There is documentation, there is reports, there is videos, there is a number of girls being recruited, bringing 14 year old girls back to his place.
Some of them would have sex, $200.
He would do this.
All documentaries after documentation, after exchanging emails, after everything that we've seen.
Okay.
You're saying it's so easy to be able to do that.
Why have they had such a hard time with a guy that's been doing this for decades to catch him and some of the victims who have been telling these stories to people, some of them that are no longer with us right now?
Who are protecting.
So you have to realize a lot of people are sitting there saying, Who are they protecting?
How different would you have handled if Jeffrey Epstein was in Polk County?
What would you have been doing yourself?
Yeah, first and foremost, you notice he didn't do it in Polk County, Florida, did he?
No, he didn't.
He did it in Palm Beach County.
Right.
The reality of it is, you have to aggressively go after these undercover operations.
Then you have to look at Epstein.
He was not doing street level prostitution, okay?
He was hiring out very expensive.
Prostitutes or very expensive victims of human trafficking.
So he was going not only nationwide, but around the world, and these folks were being recruited in.
And then he was going to his island or wherever it was and doing this nefarious conduct.
We would have been on Jeffrey Epstein like white on rice.
He would have been in prison a long time ago, had We had access to him or had information about this.
But it's important to understand there's a lot of people that knew a lot of things that never opened their mouth.
Why?
Because they were either a part of it or he was so powerful and had so much money that politically they weren't going to mess with him or they didn't care.
It didn't affect them.
It wasn't their children, it wasn't their wife.
So you've got to care enough about the community that you dig down and just do what's right.
I can't explain to you why he wasn't in jail years and years and years before.
So you're in Florida.
You're a heavyweight in Florida.
People know who you are.
You've been doing what you've been doing.
You're the only person that I think has won six elections.
If I'm not mistaken, in the history of it, this has never happened.
Longest tenure of Polk County yourself.
So decorated.
You started off at 27 years old when you became a sheriff.
You can correct me.
You're at 44 employees reporting to you.
You're somebody that's the guy to call and say, hey, you know, Sheriff Judd Grady, how should we handle this?
What do you think we should be doing?
Did anybody at any point reach out to you to say, how should we handle this?
Can you help us out?
Never.
Are you serious?
Never.
I saw it on television like everyone else did.
Here's what's important.
Our agency is 2,000 members.
I have 1,200 deputies.
Yours is.
My agency is 2,000 members, 1,200 deputies.
The county's about a million people.
But we do national and international investigations, drug and narcotics investigations, with our FBI partners, DEA partners, ATF partners.
We all work together as one.
We have built this culture of cooperation.
And that's why we've been successful.
When we set up these undercover operations, it's no.
We broadcast.
We're doing undercover operations.
And then I do press releases and social media.
And still we arrest between 230 and 260 or 70 in every operation, no matter how many times we do them a year.
It's a sickness.
It is a mental sickness to attack little boys, children, ladies.
And it's also against the law.
So the bottom line is, we're going to rescue the victims and we're going to arrest the suspects.
And I don't buy into this.
You come into our county, almost a million people, there's no triple X rated theaters, there's no new dancing establishments.
Do you know why?
I don't allow that.
I don't allow that.
Literally, when you came in, you said that's not allowed.
We don't allow it.
Did you guys used to have them back in the days?
Back in the day, they moved in.
I was a deputy when they first moved in.
When I got to be a major, And a captain and a major in charge of narcotics organized crime.
Then, our then sheriff, I said, let's stop this.
We went to the state attorney.
We started long term investigations.
Oh, we were sued, and you know, oh, you're violating their civil rights.
No, I'm not.
You cannot violate anybody's civil rights when you're professionally and appropriately enforcing the law.
We made and shut down over 100 businesses over 10 or 15 years.
But today, You go into a county, you see new dancing establishments, you see triple X rated theaters, you see all of this scrum nastiness going on.
It's because the community allows it, the laws are in place to stop it.
And we stopped it in our community.
And you can stop it in any county in this state.
And I suggest to you, any county or city in the United States, because we're all operating under the same constitution.
And we have beautiful laws in the state of Florida that protect victims.
And we're not going to allow that trash.
And we don't have it.
Pam Bondi's from Hillsborough County, I believe.
She's from Tampa.
I love Pam Bondi.
Yeah, Pam Bondi's from Hillsborough County.
And then you got Todd Blanch, that he was a previous lawyer as well.
Has anybody from the White House reached out to offer a job for you to come clean house in certain places?
No, sir, but I'm not interested anyway.
You're not interested?
No, I'm a.
Would you do it as a consultant?
I consult across this nation with my colleagues, my police chiefs, my sheriffs.
We make a science out of investigations and new ways to investigate.
That is our passion.
And that's why our crime is so low.
And that's proactively why we put 230 to 250 or 60 a week in jail.
And yes, I've counseled.
We've had police officers and police chiefs from as far away as Wisconsin and around the country come see how we do undercover operations.
And I'm proud to share that.
It's not something we developed overnight, it materialized over time with professional law enforcement.
But you know what?
In order to be effective, you've got to love your community and you've got to want to protect the community and you've got to want to have a safe and a healthy environment for children to be raised.
You know, this whole thing with Vag Tim and MPBD podcast started with a phone, me, and Mario.
That's it.
And it grew today to, you know, 15 million subscribers almost and 164 full time employees.
And that relationship, or you watching us and supporting us, wouldn't happen without you.
But did you know 51% of you that watch the content are not subscribed to the channel?
And it would mean the world to us if you could press.
That subscribe button and notification.
Why?
It allows us to grow, hire more, do bigger interviews, have a bigger team, and deliver a better product to you.
So if you haven't yet, if you don't mind, press that subscribe button.
It would mean the world to us.
Thank you so much.
You said you love Pam Bondi.
I've met Pam Bondi.
She seems like a sweetheart.
How do you think she handled the Epstein files?
Do you know?
I've known Pam Bondi since she was a homicide prosecutor in Hillsborough County.
Why You Should Subscribe Now00:15:50
I knew her as the attorney general in the state of Florida.
She is and was remarkable.
What I don't know is the inside baseball on the Epstein files.
I don't know enough details about that.
But I do know Pam Bondi, and my thoughts are that she did everything that she believed she could.
But keep in mind, she's a brand new, she is a rookie in the federal system.
She is the attorney general, but she's also a rookie, and she's got an entire office full of attorneys.
She's not a rookie in Florida, though.
She's not a rookie in Florida.
No, but it's a different system.
But she knows what happened with Epstein if she's coming from Florida.
I mean, to just push back, because the audience is going to be like, you know, yes, we understand she's a likable person, but you're in a state that you know what this guy was doing, and you've been here for a while as a player, and we all wanted her to have this job.
Well, you'll find that one of the attributes of me is to not attack.
When I don't know.
I respect that.
And I don't know what the inside baseball.
I don't know what evidence she had before her.
What I do know is she's brand new in a job.
She's in a totally different system than she's ever worked in.
She's got mountains of federal attorneys working for her.
And I know and have seen the decisions she's made in the past.
So I don't know why she made the decision she did.
Because I don't know what evidence she had before her.
If you came into the White House today and somebody said, okay, we're not going to offer the job, but look, for America, do it for the kids, Sheriff Judd Grady, even if it's part time, just come and help us out with this.
We want you to help get to the bottom of Epstein files, okay?
What would be your next three moves?
What would you ask for?
What would you want to see?
Well, first off, I'd like to know what the investigation really says, because people are led by the Epstein files with the public media, all right?
What is the media saying?
Is that the truth?
I don't know.
What have you heard?
Even somebody that's a heavyweight in the state of Florida, people talk.
You guys talk to each other, right?
I mean, if I'm in the insurance space and I was a power player in the insurance space, I went to a conference.
Guess who I'm talking to?
Other power players.
Guess what they're talking about?
Did you hear about that guy that did the fraud?
He was doing such and such.
He's going away for jail.
Did you hear that organization that went and hired that CEO?
He went and picked up a cocaine and lost all the employees to the other.
Did you hear those guys that bought the other guys?
Everybody talks.
So when you were doing your thing the last five plus decades, Did stories ever come back to you in Polk County about this guy named Jeffrey Epstein?
Never.
Never.
Until I saw him in the news.
Oh, outside of the news, nothing ever came back to you.
Nothing.
Interesting.
So, all I knew is he's dead now, but he's a deviant.
He's a sick.
How do you know that?
From the evidence of and his arrest.
So that unequivocally, he's a deviant, but I don't know the investigative information on the case.
And quite frankly, do you know why?
I'm busy doing my thing.
I don't have time to dig down.
And you can't dig down and get what I call the inside baseball on it because investigations are confidential and they're compartmentalized.
I know he was a terrible, horrible person, and why in the world?
Anyone would want to ever be around him is a shock to me.
Would want to be around him, yeah.
I mean, listen, the stories are coming out, Sheriff Grady.
This is, you know, regularly, you know, we see the stories and more and more emails are coming out, the more and more embarrassment to a lot of heavyweights that, you know, you heard about what Warren Buffett just said.
I don't know if you heard about this Warren Buffett story, Rob.
Warren Buffett just recently said, I have distanced myself from Bill Gates over the Epstein stuff.
Now, these are guys that are, at one point, they were very good friends.
Is this it, Rob?
Do you know what minute it starts in or you don't have it yet?
Where I'm picking some guy's pocket or proposing to some guy.
I need one second.
Okay, go for it.
Do that.
So you're right.
It's happening with a lot of guys.
It's just this has gotten so much national attention because, you know, what it makes the average guy do?
The average guy goes out there and says, okay, the system is not, they'll listen to someone like you.
I'll listen to someone like you and I'm like, dude, I wish we had a thousand, you know, Sheriff Grady Judds that are going out there cleaning house, makes me feel safer.
I live in Florida.
With four kids and a family and a business.
You saw the first time you came, we did a podcast in the other building.
You saw where we are right now.
We're talking about the business.
I'm here because I trust DeSantis.
I trust the way he leads.
He's fantastic.
He's phenomenal.
Like, I was very complimentary.
By the way, I gave him a hard time a few years ago because I wanted Trump to run instead of him.
But I am such a supporter of what he does as a governor for families and kids to feel safe, right?
Families and kids to feel safe.
But then when you see somebody like you who has this experience, if I'm in the White House, I'm sorry, you're going to get a call and I'm going to guilt trip you into helping me out with this thing here.
I'd call you and say, look, I know you don't want to do this, but these kids need someone like you to come and find out what happened and get to the bottom of it because a lot of these guys are having a hard time.
And if you said no, I would say, listen, on my own dime, I'm going to get you and your wife a beautiful place over here.
Give us 90 days.
I'll give you access to the information.
Let's get to the bottom of it.
What would you do?
There's no way in the world I'm going to let a guy like you with your capabilities, your experience, not have some kind of a shot at getting to the bottom of this.
Well, I can tell you that I would look you in the eye and say, you know, as long as I don't have to quit being the sheriff of Polk County, I'll bring my team and straighten that out because I can do it with my team.
I'll guarantee it.
But the.
But you've got to have people who want to be engaged and are full bore involved in doing what's right.
And that's all you have to do.
This stuff is not rocket science, but it's really much more important than rocket science.
And the reality is Epstein is a deviant.
But who knows?
He might have thrown lavish parties and big parties that people went to.
They had no idea he was a deviant because they weren't into that deviant conduct.
Now, on the backside, we find out what he really is and what he was doing.
Well, it wraps up a lot of people who said, All I did was go to his house for a party.
That's right.
I didn't know.
That's right.
Now, that's a real possibility.
But there's not enough bad words to say about Epstein.
And that's why I say if somebody clips this and puts it out there and they're saying, Yes, I would love for him to get nominated, share this and retweet it so people can see it.
And maybe we can get some nominations coming up here soon because this conversation we're having together.
I'm going to go to another story with you again, kids.
I think as we're going through this next phase, a clip was going viral yesterday by Gavin Newsom's wife, Jennifer Newsom.
Talking about how, you know, we gave our sons dolls.
And for boys, we feel boys need to have dolls as well.
And she starts going into all this stuff that she's doing, you know, this whole sensitivity, woke, LGBTQ BS that we've all heard.
And she's kind of going there, right?
And the one part that I don't think the Democratic Party understands is this is an issue that even Democratic families are against.
And they keep pushing it, thinking they have their base.
Maybe half of their base wants it, but the other side doesn't want it.
And the more they talk about this, the more they're going to force people to become independents, libertarians, and Republicans because they're like, leave my kids alone.
Here's one story of what you guys did.
Which is very weird, and I think it's very important for parents to hear this.
A fake child services worker tries to take kids.
Did that really happen in Polk County?
A fake child services worker?
Oh, absolutely.
How did they do that?
How does that happen?
Well, that's scary in and of itself.
Can you pull this story up, Rob?
Please continue.
He'll pull it up for the audience.
They pretended to be DCF workers.
And what this lady was going to do is she went to church with the mother of the child or the children that was removed.
This one right here?
Is this the same?
Yes.
So what she was going to do is get the child back where it was in DCF custody and return it to the mother who it had been taken from.
So she goes there and pretends to be a DCF worker.
Nicole Terry Thomas.
And so, fortunately, the person that was keeping the children at the time went, Okay, so show me your ID.
Well, I left it in the car.
Well, go back and get it.
Well, leave it at home.
Well, I left it at home.
Well, so the fake DCF worker, this Nicole Terry Thomas, says, If you don't give me the children, I'm going to call the sheriff's office.
And so she said, Well, call the sheriff's office.
They called us out there.
Are you ready for this?
They called this lady, called us out there for us to help take the children from the legitimate caregiver and give to the fake DCF worker.
And of course, we got there, unraveled it, and put her in jail.
And then Nicole Terry Thomas, 56 years old, accused of pretending to be a child protective services employee in an attempt to kidnap a nine year old boy from his babysitter's home.
Right.
How does she profit from it?
Well, she was a friend.
With a mother who lost the child.
Got it.
Got it.
And she was going to act as if she was the DCF worker, get the child, and return it to the mother.
I got it.
So it wasn't like a child trafficking thing.
It was just trying to get it.
Now, how much time is she facing for doing this?
Well, when you look at the charges, she could get decades, but I don't think she had a real history.
She was a church going woman.
She just had mental health issues, and it seemed to make sense to her at the time.
Wow.
So, a regular person who thought is doing a favor for a friend.
Could end up doing 10 years plus.
Oh, yes.
Easy.
Are you serious?
He attempted to kidnap the child.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
So, friend of the mother tries to get the kid, is going to end up getting a decade.
Church going person.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable to see something like this happen.
Okay, here's another one for you because you got a list of these.
Store clerk arrested for selling alcohol to minors.
Okay?
When I was a kid, I had friends of mine who had these store clerks.
When you're 16 years old and you're raised in a very difficult upbringing and you party a lot, these people were your friends.
But of course, we know they're not good to society because of what they're doing.
Sure.
How do you guys handle this crime in Polk County?
Well, it's interesting because we go undercover to all the convenience stores and we go with what we call our explorers or our cadets, okay?
Our kids that are.
How old are these kids?
They're 17, 18 years old.
You hired these kids to.
No, no, no.
It's part of the explorer.
Police program.
They want to be cops one day.
So we go undercover and we send them in with money and try to buy beer.
Oh my God.
And what we were doing in the beginning, if they sold them beer, we were giving them a notice to appear, the clerks, right?
But they weren't paying any attention to us.
They were just taking their ticket, paying their fine, and going around.
So I said, hey, we'll stop that.
Now, when they go undercover and we call it auditing, we audit these stores.
When they sell, Beer to an undercover child.
We arrest them, put them in handcuffs, and take them to jail.
It has slowed the sale of alcohol down to minors.
How many of these have you done?
Oh, we do them every week or two.
And how many kids do you guys send out?
We normally send, we'll send a team out.
So, say tonight, it's run out of our school resources division.
So, our deputies get a lot of feedback about, hey, we heard that this store is selling to children or this store is selling to children.
So, our school resource deputies.
Take our students that are in our cadet program, and we go work undercover.
We'll do 10, 15, 20 stores a night, depending on how many you're at.
What's the success ratio?
If you do 20, how many of them will do a dumb thing and just sell them the alcohol?
Maybe one or two.
Oh, so 5%.
It's not a big percentage.
Now.
Okay.
It used to be one.
Now, it used to be 30, 35%.
Oh, got it.
So that's a big drop off because people are not always here.
And how much time do those who sold the alcohol to a minor?
Normally, they get fined.
When they go to court, if unless you know, because I don't know that I've ever had a repeat on that, but here's something else I do for all of the stores that pass, I send a letter, I sign the letter.
I we are we print it out and say, Congratulations, we went undercover at your store and you did not sell to the miners.
Thank you very much for adding to the positive environment to raise so you not only humiliate the ones that screwed up, but you lift up the people that are doing the right thing, absolutely.
And I've gone into convenience stores and seen my letter posted in their store.
I love that.
That is, of course, that's an honor to say, look, look at what, and I would frame that and put it up to you.
Absolutely.
That's amazing.
That's amazing.
By the way, do a lot of kids, 54 years means if I'm 30, you know, when you were coming up, you could have met me at five years old and I'm a cop working for you, right?
You said you have 1,900 or 2,000, the number was over 2,000.
How aggressively do you recruit cops?
And in Polk County, how many kids grow up because of you saying, I want to be a cop one day?
I want to be a sheriff one day?
A lot.
I can only imagine.
I've got to tell you a funny story.
So, we are swearing in a group of deputies, and then we have their wife, their sister, their mother, their father pin on their badge, right?
So, a mother comes up and she's pinning on the badge of her son, who is now a brand new deputy.
And I look at him while she's pinning the badge on, and I said, You know, I worked for the sheriff's office before you were born.
And he said, Sheriff, you worked for the sheriff's office before my mama was born.
I thought that was a telling moment in life.
So I had worked for the sheriff's office much longer than, and here he's old enough.
I started work at the sheriff's office when I was 18.
It's a God thing.
I believe this is my mission field in life.
And I worked my way through the ranks.
I didn't run against the incumbent sheriff, he was a dear friend of mine, still is.
When he retired, I ran for office.
My dream from the time I, as far back as I can remember, is to be the sheriff of the county.
And I've been offered to run for governor, House of Representatives, Senate.
You know, I've had political groups come really, really recruit me.
That's a blessing.
I appreciate that, but I'm just a sheriff.
I'm just a sheriff.
I just keep the place safe.
So, cops, kids wanted to grow up to be cops, right, in the area.
Sheriff Ethics and R. Kelly00:05:26
Question for you on the opposite side.
You sound like you're big on making examples of people that do dumb things, so they stop doing it.
Have you ever had bad cops, and how do you treat bad cops?
The same way.
Is it worse or is it the same standard?
Same exact standard.
We investigate.
If we have a cop who, Violates the law.
We investigate them.
We get a warrant for their arrest.
We arrest them.
I do a press release and then I do a press conference.
Oh, seriously?
Oh, you can go online and see where I've held pictures of deputies up that we've arrested because I make it abundantly clear we all go by the rules.
And if you don't, then I'm going to use that public record.
That public record is there so the community knows who is being arrested.
Give me an example.
What is this?
Did you find one?
Is there an example of one where, and what did they do?
Just an example of see how you make it, because this makes me, as a voter in your county, to say this guy's fair.
He treats everybody the same with the same standards.
Sure.
You know, fortunately, I've got 1,200 deputies, and it's a rare, rare, rare event.
But occasionally, well, here's one that they've brought up for us.
He falsified documents.
21 year old Jay Keramek was booked in Polk County Jail and charged with forgery, uttering a false statement.
Instrument use of ID of another person without consent and public servant altering official document.
He resigned at the time of his arrest.
Had he not resigned, his employment would have been terminated by PSM.
Public servants must be held to a higher standard.
Dishonesty will not be tolerated.
Your conduct was unethical and criminal, and we are making sure he will be held responsible.
Yes, I'd do a press release and put his picture out there.
There's his picture.
Is that a.
Do you think making examples of people publicly?
Is effective.
Is that one of your philosophies?
I believe in that.
I believe in using the public record of the state of Florida.
And I truly believe that we hold law enforcement officers to a higher standard.
Because law enforcement officers are supposed to be the positive example for the community.
And they are.
When you go throughout my community and you see a deputy, then you can be sure that that deputy is honest, ethical, and moral.
Because if he or she's not, they can't work for me.
It's not personal, it's just business.
But I can tell you this.
When a law enforcement officer, a deputy in my county sits down to eat lunch at a restaurant, as many times as not, when he goes to pay the bill, when he gets up to leave, somebody's picked it up and paid it.
Got it.
Our community wraps their arms around us and supports us.
That's so awesome.
And we love our community.
That is so awesome.
That's so awesome.
To me, I see it the same way.
You know, when you see a guy in a uniform, it's like, hey, thank you for your service.
When you see a guy that's keeping your community safe and you got kids, hey, I want to make sure you're happy.
I want to make sure you're taken care of.
But it's also important that your standards are equal whether somebody is working for you versus if it's somebody that's criminal as well.
By the way, who's the most famous person you've dealt with, you pulled over?
For example, just a few days ago, we all saw the mugshot of Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods.
You know, I'm a big fan of him, I love the guy on how he is, his fierce competitiveness.
And then while he's getting arrested, there's a clip that came viral that he's right that this is the camera of him calling the president.
If I'm not mistaken, Rob, is this the TMZ Sports clip?
Yes.
Can we show this or no, Rob?
Are we able to show this?
Go for it.
Go ahead.
Or at least he said he was.
Take it.
Just keep you down here with us, please.
Yeah, I was talking to the president.
At least he said he was.
Yeah.
Who have you experienced in Polk County?
Have you guys had any incidents where somebody is there coming through?
Yeah, I'm trying to think.
There was a rapper that was hiding out in Davenport several years ago.
He is now in prison in Illinois for sex crimes against children.
Help me out.
I'm not big on.
R. Kelly?
R. Kelly, yeah.
R. Kelly was in your county.
Oh, yeah.
We arrested him.
And we arrested him.
He was hiding out.
I think it was Illinois warrants.
He was hiding out in Davenport.
And we arrested him and put him in the county jail.
Interestingly enough, the story behind that is some of the detention deputies, because as you know, R. Kelly's a pretty big deal, they wanted to pose with him and get pictures with him while he was in jail.
And he did.
He was a heck of a nice guy.
But it cost them a suspension because that's not professional.
Stop it.
And because of you.
Oh, we hammered him.
Was this mind telling him no, R. Kelly?
Like, was he the stuff that he was doing?
No, this was before they knew that he was the deviant he was.
Got it.
He was just a high profile rapper that was arrested and.
And I forget what the.
Did you meet him?
Oh, no, no, I didn't.
My guys went out and arrested him, and they said, R. Kelly is downstairs in the jail.
And I went, Well, who's R. Kelly?
I don't know who R. Kelly is.
Did they play the song to say, Listen, Sheriff Grady Judd, this is R. Kelly.
He's a big time.
AI Drones Keep Officers Safe00:09:33
So it's interesting.
So he was hiding.
Have you ever had guys that come up to you and say, Do you know who I am?
Do you know who I am?
How do you handle that?
Do you know who I am?
You know, back in the day when you're a deputy, they try that kind of thing.
And today they try it with my deputies because obviously, you know, I've got a presence.
Well, I'm friends of Sheriff Grady Judd.
And my deputy smiled at him and said, Well, I am too.
He hired me to arrest you today.
Well, what do you do if you have a friend that gets arrested and tries to use your name and says, Come on, Grady, you got to take care of me here?
What do you tell them?
I tell them, you know, I'll give you two pillows and an extra mattress, but you're going to the county jail.
You go, has it ever happened like a very, very good friend?
Oh, yes, relatives.
And you know, I tell them, lock them up, lock them up.
That's what we do.
We put bad guys in jail, we put people who violate the law in jail.
So, yes, I've had friends, I've had acquaintances.
Do they look at you and say, How could you do this, Grady?
I have.
How could you do this?
Oh, it's easy.
What do you tell them?
Makes me smile, warms my heart.
A true believer from day one for you, huh?
Like, not even a question.
Yes.
Now, and I'll tell you, you know, if they get all sad.
You know, I tell them, I, you know, I'll call your wife to bond you out if that'll help you out some, but you got to go.
Yeah, no, no, don't call the wife.
Please don't call the wife.
So, okay, AI is changing in a lot of different industries.
We're seeing all these disruptions in different industries.
How are you using AI today?
I've got, I created, and I say I created, I directed, I've got really brilliant people that work with me.
I asked about a year and a half ago to create a sheriff's artificial intelligence laboratory cell.
We partnered with a Polytech.
And so the Polytech sends us their best and brightest students as capstone courses for them to work with us on AI projects.
I'm pretty excited.
The first year, which was last year, there were three awards given out by the Polytech for incredible projects.
Two students that worked with us won two awards.
The third award was won by a student that was working with NASA.
So we were in pretty good two out of four?
Two out of three.
Two out of three is yours.
And the third one was NASA.
NASA.
So, the two are in Polk County.
All three of the students were at the Polytech in the county.
Two of them are yours.
One of them is from NASA.
One of them worked with NASA.
But it's called the Sheriff's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
We've got to figure out how to have tools to protect the community from bad AI.
We've also got to figure out how to use AI to keep the community safe.
And we've got to do it without bias being blended in.
And that is where we are.
So at the end of the day, we are so excited.
Now we're working on, right now, I've got them working on, among other things, what I call an artificial intelligence hub.
We started out working on law enforcement applications and operations, and now I've had them spider it out.
They are working on an org chart right now in a system and a process for me so that we, so the artificial intelligence hub will contain the cell unit, the sheriff's artificial intelligence laboratory.
And we are working not only to create artificial or using artificial intelligence and create programs, but to also go out and search.
Because it's easier to use that which is already developed.
That is going to be the tool in the future that keeps us safe, that allows us to fly in autonomous vehicles, that allows us to ride in autonomous vehicles.
But it's also going to be a tool that the criminals use against the community.
And that's what we're working on now.
Now, I've checked across the state and nation, and I know you're a worldwide broadcast.
If somebody can show me, Another police agency, local police agency that's doing this anyplace in the United States.
I want to know so we can also partner with them.
But I think I've got the only sale unit in the United States right now.
Yeah, well, I mean, you're not hard to get a hold of.
If somebody's watching, they can send a message to you to find out if there is any.
But that's great to hear that.
By the way, are you seeing this?
I saw a stat Rob was showing me earlier that this robo cop, not just robo cop, but $11.7 billion industry.
Per year for law enforcement on what they're buying and what they're using.
I saw something the other day about a scarecrow robbery.
You may have showed it to me like literally maybe this morning or this afternoon.
Is this the one?
Yeah, this right here.
Can you go up a little bit?
Ominous surveillance scarecrows appearing across America.
This is March 28th, literally four or five days ago, of this story coming out.
We stop crimes before they start, if you want to go a little bit lower.
And it explains how police technology, the major business in the U.S. altogether, the law enforcement equipment market was valued at around $11.7 billion in 2025.
And as dystopian toys, Like self driving squad cars and crime fighting drone hives make it to the market, that number is set to skyrocket.
How much are you guys spending thinking about doing some of these things?
Like, that's a camera on wheels going around catching people committing crimes.
Do you think this is a good idea?
Do you think it's a bad idea?
Do you think you kind of have to use this technology?
How do you process this?
I'm a big privacy wonk.
I don't think we should be in anybody's space that's private.
But I can tell you that we use drones.
On police responses today.
I've probably got 40 drones.
Now, they don't fly around the community and look in your backyard, but if you call and say, I've got a burglar, we immediately send a patrol team, we immediately send a canine team, we immediately send a drone team, and we immediately send a helicopter because we're going to catch that person.
What does the drone team do?
And how many drones do you send?
Well, we have about 40 drones.
Right.
Assigned 247, but we send the drone team, and what they do is they're an aerial platform so we can look at wherever the perimeter of the crime scene is to see if we can find somebody running, somebody hiding, somebody behind a building with a gun that could ambush us.
So we use that drone capability now, but it's line of sight.
There will come a day where instead of having to mobily drive that drone to the area, That we'll operate that drone from an intelligence center.
So we'll launch that drone to emergencies.
And it's not just line of sight.
We'll be able to fly that drone for initial response and many times get there before the patrol car does and say, hey, look, that suspicious person, he's selling ice cream.
You don't need a patrol response for that.
There will also come a day when our communication centers are AI, when they're sophisticated enough where they can answer your call, they can direct the emergency response, whether it's police, fire, or EMS.
And then they will tell the responding units here, I don't care that it says it's zoned for this unit.
This unit over here has finished their last job and they're closer.
So we're going to see economies of scale.
We're going to see a faster response, a better response, a more complete response.
And technology is why we're catching bad guys today.
And we're doing it all in public space.
We're not in anybody's private space doing that, nor would I ever support that.
So, if there's a crime scene, how many drones?
I know you got 40 of them, but how many do you send to one?
Because you can't send all of them in case something else happens, right?
You need someone.
Normally, you send one in a backup because of battery.
That's one thing that we've not been able to conquer yet how to get a really long lasting battery.
So, what we'll do is if it's what I call a simple response, it may only have one.
But if we see we're going to be launched and busy for a while, we'll send a minimum of two.
And sometimes we will send three.
We had, for example, and this has been, gosh, three or four years ago, we had a hostage situation where we landed the drone just outside the front door and used the camera to look up in the house.
And this went on for hours.
But because we were only using the camera and not the motors, we were able to.
I believe there was only one drone operator there.
But what we're seeing is it's keeping law enforcement officers safe and it's saving lives.
Has a bad guy ever shot it down?
Not yet.
Prison Reform and Skill Training00:10:39
Okay, well, listen, I'm assuming every single time you come with new stories, something could happen.
We can't be surprised.
When they do, I'll be back to talk about it.
Okay, sounds good.
Who, right now, when you start thinking about how long you've been in there, how many people want your job?
Are there people that you look at as saying, hey, succession planning?
Is that even in your mind right now?
Not at all.
No, we always secession plan because whether it's we've got sergeants that are going to retire, lieutenants, captains, majors, chiefs that are going to retire, and we practice secession planning.
And there are people in the organization that one day, whenever I decide not to be sheriff, they'll want to be sheriff, and we are preparing them.
But let me make it abundantly clear after every election I've ever run, somebody comes up to me and says, Oh, I heard that you're going to retire.
Well, no, I'm not.
I'm going to run the next term.
Work is my happy place.
You know, some people like to retire.
Some people like to go to the beach.
I love to work.
And as long as I'm game on, I have my health, we're moving the agency forward, I'm going to be the sheriff as long as they'll elect me.
And so far, it's working out pretty good.
I got about 84% of the vote last time.
I saw that.
That's crazy, 84% of the vote.
So you're going to be going for a minute.
By the way, TSA agents, I heard you said something about when TSA agents were having a hard time with their jobs, getting paid.
You said, anybody that wants to leave, you guys can come in.
You know, what was it you said?
I think you were offering them jobs?
Sure.
It really frustrated me.
Now, you know, I speak truth to power and I tell people like it is.
And quite frankly, I think that's why I'm as popular as I am in the community because I say what I believe the majority of the people are thinking.
I want to make Congress abundantly aware that playing politics with young men and women who are trying to keep this country safe is wrong, wrong, wrong.
You deal with your political issues and how y'all want to deal with the policy.
In the political and the legislative process.
But these young men and women that are trying to keep us safe, that are making sure that bombs and guns and knives and crazy people don't get on airplanes, to play with them and withhold their salaries is wrong at every level.
Shame on you.
And quite frankly, it is just absolutely abhorrent behavior.
They have to stop it.
Now, having said that, You can have your political opinion, whether you believe or don't believe, but when you start taking it out on young men and women who are living paycheck to paycheck, and then we're putting you on the front line to keep us safe, what does that say?
So the bottom line is I appreciate TSA, I appreciate our ICE folks.
I work with ICE every day in the state.
They are remarkably good people doing a very difficult job.
In a political landmine.
I'm assuming you don't have a lot of illegal immigrants in Polk County.
Well, we have illegal immigrants in Polk County just like we do in every other county across the state.
How do you handle it?
What is your relationship with them?
Here's what we do Florida law says we will assist our federal partners.
And I tell folks I don't do anything different today than I did in the Biden administration, than I did in the last Trump administration, than I did in the Obama administration.
When we are working, we run a warrants check on everybody.
If we find there's a warrant out for their arrest, whether it is a criminal warrant or an ICE warrant, then if it's an ICE warrant, we call ICE up and say, We're detaining a guy that's here illegally in this country.
Do you want him or not?
They say yes or no.
They say yes, we take him to the jail, and then within 48 hours, they have to pick them up.
The difference is since President Trump's gotten back into office, He's done a remarkable job immediately at sealing off the border.
And now the job is how do you remove the 10 to 20 million people that are in the country illegally?
Well, it is physically impossible to get all 10 or 20 million people out through the due process system in your life or their lives.
So we prioritize, starting with the worst first, starting with the criminal committers.
And that's how we engage them because we see them during our normal course of business.
In our county, we're not going to Home Depot's.
We're not going out into strawberry fields or citrus groves.
We're not going on to construction sites.
What we're doing is we're doing our job.
And when we bump into them, we notify ICE.
ICE says to hold them, we hold them.
And that's the appropriate thing to do.
Yeah.
And, you know, everything you're saying is just a lot of common sense, which, by the way, a lot of people are.
Floridians, at least, when I speak to them, I've only been here for five years, a little over five years.
We lived in Dallas for five years and we lived in California for 20 some years, minus my time in the military, Germany, and Iran.
But a lot of people are moving to Florida.
Are you concerned long term?
Like you're seeing the wealth tax of what Mamdani and those guys are doing in New York or California, the mess that they're doing with the wealth tax or Illinois crime being horrible.
So Ken Griffin and some of these guys are just moving down here.
How worried are you with the way of thinking may change in Florida if more and more people?
People from these liberal states end up in Florida.
Are you concerned about that or not really?
Well, what I've found is the people that are moving to Florida from these liberal states, percentage wise, are conservative.
They're running from that craziness.
They are running from it, and we welcome them with open arms.
But when I go through my retirement communities and my new communities, we've added 135,000 new people in our county in like five years.
135,000 in five years?
In five years.
So, you've gone up 13%, 14% in the last five years.
That's right.
And what types of people?
And retirees, new businesses, or businesses moving to Florida.
Remarkable people, remarkable.
But here's what I tell them.
You moved here for warm weather in the winter.
And they go, Yeah.
You moved here for lower taxes than you had where you came from.
And they said, Yeah.
And I said, And you also moved here because it's safe.
And they said, Yeah, that's really why we moved here first.
And I said, Well, do me a favor.
Don't vote the way the majority did where you came from.
You'll still have warm weather in the winter, but you won't have lower taxes and you won't have lower crime.
Because the decision makers we elect to the majority of the House, majority of the Senate, the governor, Your mayors, your city commissioners, and your county commissioners, they are the ones that pass the laws or the rules that determine whether or not you care more for the criminals or more for the law abiding citizens.
And in Florida, we care more for the law abiding citizens.
Last question before we wrap up reform, prison reform, okay?
Thoughts on it?
What's worked?
What doesn't work?
You know, the amount of experience you have is how many good case studies you have as a guy that went in for 10 years, came out, became a good contributing citizen that's done very well for himself?
And if yes, why?
Yes.
Let me tell you that we're always hearing about criminal justice reform, criminal justice reform.
We only need to reform what doesn't work.
And what does work is the criminal justice system in Florida.
Crime is down, criminals aren't running wild.
There needs to be reform in Chicago, but the reform needs to be locking more people up and getting people's attention.
When we send people to prison in the state of Florida, the What I would emphasize even more than they do if you take somebody out of society for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, pick a number, we need to make sure that they are offered the opportunity for a skill set so that when they come back into society, they can work and be productive and behave.
We do some of that.
We need to do more of that.
But we also need to understand that people run around screaming, Oh, we need criminal justice reform.
Well, what's wrong with a system that's got crime at a 50 year low?
What's wrong with a system in Polk County that's got crime at a 54 year low?
Well, here's what happens.
People think that just happens.
It's just because it's always been that way.
The legislators, some Republicans, probably 10 years ago, 8 years ago, started into this oh, we need to reform.
We need to cut down these prison sentences.
And I got to thinking, my goodness, how could they think like that?
Well, back in the day, When the felons owned Florida, they were either not thought of yet, they were in diapers or elementary school or middle school.
We changed the law.
Crime fell precipitously, and they've always lived in a safe state.
So they don't know there's anything other than a safe state.
And now they're wanting to tweak and make small snippets of society happy by going, oh, we need criminal justice reform.
No, we don't.
We need criminal reform.
And that criminal reform comes in, you're either going to behave or you're going to be held accountable.
We have a forgiving system.
You're going to prison, however, if you do something very bad or very dangerous or hurt someone.
And if you go to prison, we're going to give you robust training before you get out at 85% of your sentence, which I think is generous.
We give them 15% off.
We ought to give them 100% and let them earn the 15% off.
And then we're going to train you so you can be a productive member of society.
I see those people that have been to the county jail or to prison and have come out and have become productive members of society.
Becoming Productive Members of Society00:02:35
I go to church with them, I see them in the community.
I have my picture with them.
But if you want to misbehave, you're going to be held accountable.
How do they talk to them when they see you at church?
What do they tell you?
They hug me, thank me.
I've got a faith based dorm.
We help people with mental health counseling, with drug addiction counseling.
I've got a program where now, if you can't afford your medicine, your mental health medicine, and you're in the jail, we'll give it to you when you get out of jail if you'll take a probation as opposed to a year in jail.
We'll give you that.
We're going to help you, but we're also going to hold you accountable.
We're going to be like a good parent.
And a good parent does whatever is necessary to protect the children, the rest of the family, and society.
And that's what we do in Polk County.
You are a hero, sir.
You're amazing for what you're doing.
It's an honor.
Yeah, truly, when I say this to you, because, you know, as a kid who grew up, you know, not necessarily having a direction of what I was going to do, it was men like you who took the time to work with me that got me to make better decisions to be where I'm at today.
And sometimes you don't know the impact you're making for decades.
I know, obviously, you know it because you've been around, and I'm sure you've had a lot of conversations with people that come up to you and tell you, I am where I'm at because of you.
But you're a hero.
I think we need to share your story even more.
I'm very excited that you're getting the 10 to 20 million views on a weekly basis because Americans are yearning for this.
They're hoping Polk County becomes America.
They're hoping the standards you're using come to their counties so they can feel comfortable.
Their kids going out there and playing outside and knowing there's a guy who takes his job so seriously, he's going to be keeping the families and the kids safe.
And so, it's a very honorable profession you got.
I have a lot of respect for you.
Thank you for your service.
And again, it's great to have you on the podcast.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate being with you again.
And I look forward to the next time we can do this.
There's no question about it.
Thank you.
Take care, my friend.
Likewise.
Take care, everybody.
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