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How One Squirrel United a Nation Against Injustice | Mark Longo
00:44:27
🐿️ How One Squirrel United a Nation Against Injustice! 🇺🇸 Join Sean Kelly as he sits down with Mark Longo, the man behind the viral sensation Peanut the Squirrel. Discover the shocking truth behind a government raid that sparked nationwide outr
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- [00:00]
A
You are uniting Democrats and Republicans, like everyone.
- [00:03]
B
That was the craziest part, is the way this transpired and the timing of it. It's like a movie. Your government just comes in and it's surreal. You know, nine people with weapons show up at your house for two small animals. You never gotten in trouble before. You never, you know, been involved with, with any criminal activity. And now you're being treated like you're, you're a drug dealer.
- [00:27]
A
All right, guys, really excited for this one today to get Mark's side of the story because the PR's been crazy on this, man. Thanks for coming on.
- [00:34]
B
I appreciate it, Sean. It really, really means a lot. Absolutely.
- [00:37]
A
How did you feel seeing all those articles coming out?
- [00:39]
B
You know, it was, you know, we didn't want this story to go away. You know, it was a tragedy. It was government overreach. It was basically another day in the office for these guys. But when they came here, we made sure that the world saw this and the world came together for it. And you know, usually you kind of see the, the table of the shift. Right. You always have the people that disagree and the people that agree. When he came to this one, it was like a 95 to 5 percenter. And you know, you have the biggest people around the world going, what the hell happened here?
- [01:08]
A
Right.
- [01:08]
B
So that was the biggest part of just trying to get this story out.
- [01:11]
A
You were uniting Democrats and Republicans, like everyone.
- [01:14]
B
Right. It was, that was the craziest part is the way this transpired in the timing of it was. It's like a movie.
- [01:22]
A
Yeah.
- [01:22]
B
You know, it's three days before election and your government just comes in and it's surreal. You know, nine people with weapons show up at your house for two small animals.
- [01:33]
A
Crazy.
- [01:34]
B
You're like, you never gotten in trouble before? You never, you know, you've been involved with, with any criminal activity and now you're being treated like you're, you're a drug dealer. Oh, it's. It's something I'll never forget.
- [01:46]
A
I bet. So nine people. Which agency was that?
- [01:48]
B
This was the dec. The Department of Health, the Shimung county of New York City, New York State. There's a lot of agencies involved in this. It wasn't even just one.
- [01:56]
A
Jeez. They were all working together. They show up with a search warrant. Right, Right.
- [01:59]
B
They did a 10 month investigation on scrolling raccoon.
- [02:02]
A
And was that before the search warrant?
- [02:03]
B
That was before the search warrant.
- [02:04]
A
Oh, so you were aware there was an investigation going on?
- [02:07]
B
I wasn't. Oh, you weren't the more that this unfolded, the more people were like, oh, we saw DEC officers drive by your. Your farm and take photos. And then it started to unravel. And then they came out and made a statement saying they started this investigation in January. Wow. And you're like, they even came as far as the raid was the 30th. They came out on a statement on TV and said they were going to kill the animals on the 22nd, what, eight days before the search and seizure, they came out and made a statement of the timeline of how things transpired. And one of the agencies called the Department of Health to get the protocol on euthanasia. So it was just like, this was a target, man. This wasn't about two animals. This was an agenda. And this was another day in the office for these guys.
- [02:51]
A
That is nuts. It was planned out.
- [02:53]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [02:54]
A
You really couldn't do much at that point.
- [02:56]
B
At that point, you know, five hours of being detained in your own house. You know, you're in the corner of your driveway, you're being asked if there's cameras in your house. My wife's German. They asked her immigration status, as if that was relevant to anything.
- [03:10]
A
That is nuts. Did they take the camera footage?
- [03:13]
B
We didn't have cameras in the house, and they weren't wearing body cams. So, you know, then you park me in the corner of my own house to the point where I asked, go to the bathroom. An officer took me to my own bathroom, took apart the toilet before I went to the bathroom. You're here for a squirrel and a raccoon. Why are you inspecting my toilet before I take a leak?
- [03:36]
A
Wow.
- [03:37]
B
You know, there's. There's so much to this story that the world didn't see, you know, and this. This is all about the justification of. Of killing two animals. But if you look at the bigger picture here, this is human rights, this is animal rights, and this is, you know, what needs to stop. This can't happen again. And that's what our fight is all about now.
- [03:55]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. They did that. And then the coordinated media attack with the rabies stuff seemed very planned out.
- [04:00]
B
Oh, yeah. You know, and it wasn't. Again, I don't mean to disrespect them at all. You know, these are people that have families and stuff. But you got caught. And then you fabricated a story that was such a lie that people didn't even bat an eye when you said it. You know, you took two animals and didn't even do your own data. Like, New York State has its own data on rabies. And you picked a squirrel who is never, ever. Squirrels never have had any case of rabies in the United States alone, let alone New York state, you know, and there's 35 cases of raccoons in the last, you know, almost 20 years. And peanut was a famous squirrel. Like, just something that could not live in his natural habitat. Right. He. I found him as a young, young squirrel. He was five weeks old. We rehabbed him, we put him back outside. He ended up getting attacked, lost half his tail, became an indoor squirrel whose best friend was a cat. Like, I had a Tom and Jerry in my house. It was the coolest thing on the planet. And, you know, it was something that was like, the Internet needs to see this. Right? This wasn't like, you know, people call me the squirrel dad. If I walked up to you, Sean was like, my name is Mark, AKA the squirrel dad. You laugh at my face. Like, this isn't like, oh, I'm flexing like some clout here. It's like you walk down the street, hey, squirrel daddy. You know, it's not. It's not something to be. You know, I'm proud of people, Peanut, but I wasn't, like, sitting here trying to flaunt the scroll dad effect. It was just something cool to be in the background of a unique animal, like a squirrel using a litter box and dressing up as cowboy. You know, if that doesn't make you smile, I don't know if you have a heart. I mean, that was the whole premise of this entire thing, this whole social media thing was to just go, hey, you know, this might be a unique animal, might just be a fluffy tree rat, but, you know, everybody needs love. And this was a prime example of just love and joy in an animal. And we loved sharing it. You know, kids loved him, families loved him. We've had people travel the world to meet him.
- [05:49]
A
Wow.
- [05:50]
B
Like, people from England traveled to New York.
- [05:52]
A
He was world renowned.
- [05:53]
B
Yep. He was deemed the world's most famous squirrel. Like, he did interviews from around the world. We've had news, you know, the documentaries about him. He's been on peanut butter labels. Like, the dude was more successful than me, you know, and it was. It was awesome. Like, I took a back seat to something really cool, and I was just a proud, you know, person to be a part of it. And, you know, the best part about it was, you know, reading those comments, reading those DMS of how Peanut changed our life.
- [06:19]
A
Wow.
- [06:19]
B
You know, we had, you know, we had a person who's like, listen, I was a couple of days away from, you know, ending myself, and I came across your page and it was like, dude, here's my number. If you ever feel like that ever again, I'll. I'll send you whatever you need. Just, you know, you're not fighting alone. Like, there's a lot of us who have mental health. I have it. I've really bad anxiety. And I used animals to help combat that. So it wasn't just a positive movement. It was, if you need help, never be silent or we're here for you. So it had a lot of different effects on people, and that's what I loved about it the most. So when this hit, it wasn't like you walked in and your poor pet passed away. You had your own government who you pay taxes to come in and cut their heads off. You know, come from a family that, you know, trauma doesn't happen to us. You know, you fight, you go to work, you provide for your family. And, you know, they. They broke a soap bottle in my bathroom. There's a stain from the soap. And we had two professional cleaners come in, couldn't get it out. So walking in my bathroom and seeing that, and I haven't even fixed my closet yet. They tore apart my closet, my wife's closet, nothing else in the house.
- [07:25]
A
Wow. What do you think they were trying to find?
- [07:27]
B
So, you know, as this story came out, you know, obviously it was never hiding my only fans, but they tried to connect puzzle pieces here. This wasn't about Peanut and Fred. This was a new guy on social media, has an only fans, moves to a small town, 1800 people. And the question was, why? Well, why are you here? We tried our best to go, hey, listen, we want to start a community. We want to start a nonprofit. Squirrels live 15, 20 years. And this is an animal page, right? This is not, I'm trying to be famous. I was like, I'm actually doing the counter opposite. I'm moving from New York City to a rural area so that I could just focus on me, my family and animals. And I think that kind of just rubbed somebody the wrong way. Somebody who had poll, somebody who was local that might have had some connections into any agency and probably banded together with a couple other people to file complaints. You know, a lot of people were like, oh, it's anonymous calls from the Internet. I think it might have been. But it's also not enough for a ten month investigation. Right. So those are the questions we want. Will we ever get them? Probably not, but it rose questions from Everybody around the world, why did we use six figures of taxpayers money for a 10 month investigation on a squirrel and raccoon? It's not living in an apartment in Manhattan. It's on a 350 acre farm that's also being used for a non profit animal rescue.
- [08:51]
A
Yeah. You had a sanctuary.
- [08:52]
B
Right, Right. So you know, Peanuts Freedom Farm. We moved up there and that was my way of going, this is his legacy, is we're going to start something that's bigger than all of us, help more animals and bring the community together. So, you know, we're helping kids, families, and at the same time we're helping animals. So we thought it would be perfect to do something like this in a small town. Man, this is what happened.
- [09:15]
A
Crazy. And a big thing the outlets were saying was it was illegal to own the squirrel in that state.
- [09:20]
B
Right, right. And we had moved there a year prior and we were doing stuff with the organization, getting our permits and all that stuff. And it's like going to the dmv. You put in your application, you don't hear it for three months. Right. It's not. You put this in, you get your paperwork and call it quits. My wife and I took our test, we put in our applications. We were waiting for them to receive it so then we could do our interview and do the proper steps. I know that common misconception here was we were just sitting here kind of doing nothing. You know, I heard like so many people, like, well, they reached out to you so many times. Like, no, the only time they reached out to me was to intimidate me and tell me peanut's never allowed here. You know, we're not talking about moving an alligator from state to state. You know, I'm not harboring a bear. It's a, it's literally we'll cut his tail off and he's a rat. So if you don't have the paperwork, it's $200 fine. Jaywalking's $200 fine. Yeah, you don't get your house rated. You know, when you get pulled over on your cell phone, you appear in court, $250 fine, you don't get your house rated. And that was the biggest thing here is why. And it's sure as hell not the animals.
- [10:26]
A
Yeah, that's nuts. Ratings a whole nother level. And we were talking off camera. I'm not sure if you're allowed to say this, but the search warrant was kind of bogus, right?
- [10:32]
B
Oh, yeah. You know, it's, it's surreal. Like you can make a movie off of this. And. And it's real life. You know, you bring nine people, six of which have weapons, and you detain a family with a search warrant that clearly states you're here for a squirrel and a raccoon. You don't even have a docket number on your search warrant. You know, my lawyer couldn't even find it when he. When she went to the courthouse, you know, and then you falsely detain me for five hours. You don't arrest me, you don't charge me with anything. You don't give me an appeal of court, I don't get a violation, I got nothing. Then what I got, I got the search warrant and I got two pieces of paper, was a chain of evidence, the scroll and raccoon. And then they confiscated a weapon that wasn't even mine, and they tried to forcibly make me sign that it was my. My weapon. Whoa. They even wrote my name, you know, like it says, I, you know, Mark Longo. This is my sole property. They wrote my name in there. And then they said, we need you to sign here and here. I said, I'm not signing that because that's not my weapon. I had a cosigner on the farm. Good friend of mine brought his rifle up. It's a farm Again, we're not talking about an apartment in New York city. It's a 350 acre farm. Yeah, we live in farm to. Everybody has a weapon. You know, we're not out here, you know, riling up together. You know, there's bears, there's coyotes, there's. We got to protect our animals, not a gun guy. So they started feeding me all this crap. I was like, I'll pull up Call of Duty. You tell me what part we're talking about in the guns. I don't know the hell you're talking about, man. He was like, you know, this and this piece and that piece and this violates this. And I was like, I don't. Listen, we'll go pull up COD and. And you can show me. What. What's wrong?
- [12:06]
A
They wanted to charge you for the gun stuff.
- [12:08]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [12:09]
A
If you signed that, they probably would.
- [12:10]
B
Have pursued that 100, you know, and they still tried to pursue it, and it got shut down really quickly, you know, and. And the DA came out and told my. My lawyer, like, me in touch on this.
- [12:18]
A
Oh, really?
- [12:19]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [12:19]
A
But they're on your side, the D.A.
- [12:20]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [12:22]
A
Well, because of the P.R.
- [12:23]
B
Probably, right? And also because, you know, going back to search warrant, there were Multiple agencies on the search warrant. Some weren't even involved in the search and seizure whatsoever. You know, it was probably a template. There was probably already agencies on it, and nobody deleted them. You know, like, that's so amateur. And that's. That was the biggest thing here, is how many times have they done this where this has been overlooked?
- [12:45]
A
Yeah. Has anyone actually hit you up saying, yo, that happened to me too?
- [12:48]
B
Yeah. Multiple cases from dogs to raccoons to. And we've been helping ever since this kind of, you know, hit the spotlight. You know, there's a dog in California right now is protecting his family and for. From a repeat offender. And they're actually in court fighting to make sure that this dog doesn't get put down. Whoa. You know, like, when does this line get drawn? When are we going to stop complaining about, you know, money? When we're spending it. Yeah. My area has a really bad homeless issue. Why are we not helping them? Like, they're. It's cold. You know, we're right below Buffalo. We're hitting, you know, minus degrees very soon. They need shelter. You know, they're. They're starting fires under the bridge to keep warm. They're actually melting the steel and damaging the bridges.
- [13:33]
A
Wow.
- [13:33]
B
That's dec's authority. You know, bridges are deceased. That's their main area. Why are we not helping them? We have a rabid coyote that bit three people already. We have a horse down the street that's so neglected, they don't even bat an eye. They don't show up to these. And we were told, oh, every complaint, it gets followed up by, well, then why aren't these. List of 20 that I'm giving you right now Ever followed up on crazy?
- [13:55]
A
You know, a lot of corruption.
- [13:56]
B
Right. It's just.
- [13:57]
A
That's why I'm excited for Doge.
- [13:59]
B
Yeah.
- [14:00]
A
You know.
- [14:00]
B
You know, and that was the biggest thing was this hit everywhere. It went worldwide. This wasn't like the state of New York knew about it. You have Elon Musk tweeting, You have presidents talking about it. You have a squirrel walk by the podium at Kamala's press release. You know, the world saw this. You know, and that was the surreal moment for me was, yeah, I lost my. My best buddy. You know, we did everything together. Breakfast, like little tmi, like, I have to go to the bathroom. He's on my shoulder. Like, we did everything together. Like anybody with a dog or anybody with a pet who's really bonded, it's the same thing, you know, mine was just a tiny Little fluffy rat. But that bond was there and we shared it with the world. And people resonated with that, whether or not it was with an animal. Because that's what hit the most was, you're violating human rights and animal rights. This resonates with the guy that got pulled over for speeding and pulled out of his car. It's the government overreach here is you get a guy that has a heart on one day or had a bad day at home, he takes it out on you. The lead investigator of this raid was awarded the best DEC Officer of the year, like, two years prior to this. Whoa. And this is how you're conducting yourself?
- [15:15]
A
Crazy.
- [15:17]
B
The consensus when we were there was, please don't take my animals. And one of the officers looked me dead in my eye. He was like, it was a squirrel and that was a raccoon. When does the snowball effect stop? As if I was harboring giraffes and, you know, actual monster animals. You know, again, you didn't walk in. And I had a bear. Yeah. Two little animals. And Fred was there as a temporary thing. Somebody dropped him off. You know, it's not like you can call a, you know, booklet and be like, oh, you know, so and so I have a raccoon. You're an animal rescue. You're an animal lover. If somebody dropped off an animal at your front porch, you're going to want to help that animal regardless of what it is. And that's what we did. My wife and I sat there and plucked about 80 ticks out of his ears. Whoa. And washed him up, gave him food and water, wanted him to get big enough so he could be released in our woods. That was the only premise of it. This wasn't like, oh, we're going to put Fred on Instagram and start a new movement. It was just literally this. This little dude needed help and we got the means to help him. Let's start him in the right direction and then release him. You know, and if I need some paperwork to do that, to just be a. A kind hearted person, then arrest me or give me a fine, but it'll never stop me from wanting to go and help. And they took that and they ran with it. And that's the heartbreaking point here, is you came after me and you didn't find anything on me. Whether or not you were trying to associate my only fans with the kids that we help work on the farm and babysit, it's shameful.
- [16:48]
A
It's disgusting.
- [16:49]
B
It's not like somebody is like, oh, they're, they're selling a bag of weed. You know, that you're making some very strong accusations that you, you can't turn around and apologize for. You know, there is, there's a line. And that line was heavily crossed.
- [17:03]
A
Absolutely. Why did you pick onlyfans over every other platform?
- [17:06]
B
I just, I had the opportunity, somebody called me up, was like, listen, we can make you X amount of money. And the wheels kind of turned for me, was like, you know, I never really used social media to monetize anything. I was a mechanical engineer. I had my own job, you know, had my own career. So it was never really like, oh, I need this for me and go buy a Ferrari. But my wife and I had ambitions and they were like, you can make a lot of money really fast. And I was like, well, do I sit here and save every penny for the next seven years and hopefully I could buy a farm one day, or do I just pivot, do something that's not everybody's cup of tea? At the end of the day, I don't give a crap what you think about. This was a way for me to fulfill my dream. So if I have to do cartwheels naked to make a little bit extra money, so be it, you know. And it was very successful. And I was able to purchase the farm and start the organization. And for the most part, you know, we've only done this for a year and a half. My only fans money was the 60% of the funding to the sanctuary.
- [18:04]
A
Wow.
- [18:04]
B
And, you know, our sanctuary needs 30 to $40,000 a month.
- [18:08]
A
Yeah. The food's expensive and all the right pet care.
- [18:11]
B
You know, you have dental work, your feet. You know, it depends on the, you know, the severity of, you know, the neglect cases. So it's not something where you can just go, okay, you know, hey, is a thousand bucks. You know, this is that this. There's so many variables. What if a horse gets sick, your vet bills 10 grand, you know, so it's like you need it. So we were using Peanut's social media platform. We got our 501C3. We were tax write off and, you know, slowly was starting to gain traction with animal lovers. You know, you have a cool animal sanctuary is built around him. And yeah, this wasn't, you know, let's, let's see if we could just kind of pull everybody's heartstrings, make us money. You know, at the end of the day, we were probably bringing in $10,000 in donations. So, you know, the 25, 30 grand extra was out of pocket for me and my wife. And, you know, we were like, well, maybe one day this will kind of shift and more people get involved. We were a startup, you know, and it's not profit. We're not making anything. You know, everything that we bring in goes right back out to these animals. So it's not like, okay, we have a baseline now and we'll bring in this or we'll profit off of this. It was just. No to the point where my wife started making goat milk soap and lotions, and we did everything we could to just get as much funding as possible. So when you kicked the legs out of it by killing Peanut, it left us in a vulnerable position. Nobody comes here to look at me. You might hear my voice, but you're looking at that squirrel wearing a cowboy hat or a Santa Claus hat. You know, you're not here for me. You know, I'm not the squirrel guy without the squirrel. And so how am I going to present the squirrel without the squirrel? You know, how am I going to keep people engaged if I don't have the main star of the. The entire thing? So.
- [19:49]
A
Makes sense.
- [19:50]
B
That was the toughest part, was, holy cow, what are we going to do now?
- [19:54]
A
Yeah. Have they pretty much told you you can't have any more animals there?
- [19:57]
B
No. It's been complete radio silent. They took the animals and the government went dead silent. The governor didn't say anything. We heard about the demise of Fred and Peanut through a local news station.
- [20:09]
A
Crazy.
- [20:10]
B
Three days later. So I'm begging and pleading on the Internet for people to call the dec call agencies, find out where Peanut is, all while he's dead already. Wow.
- [20:19]
A
So they killed him right away.
- [20:20]
B
Right away. And they blamed it on rabies. My. My theory was. And. And this is what started to become the snowball fact is you have a rabies vector animal and Fred, right. You think of raccoons, you think rabies right off the bat. You see a raccoon on the street in broad daylight, rabies. And you see a fluffy squirrel that's been on the Internet for seven and a half years clearly doesn't have rabies. But the narrative is Peanut is the star here. So if Peanut bites somebody, we're going to call rabies. Today is the 37th day of the aftermath. There's been no bite evidence. There's been nothing. Yeah.
- [21:00]
A
You think they would have to back up that claim. Right. When they say rabies.
- [21:04]
B
Every claim that you've made has been shut down so aggressively, you're out here saying, this guy is purple when everybody can see his blue. And I think that's where the silence comes in. But who am I to judge that? Maybe they're trying to get their information together. But you tell the world that a pet squirrel bit through two protective pairs of gloves, who's a professional, right? So you have a professional officer who gets bit through two pairs of gloves. That shows incompetency or the bite never happened. So why did you get the job in the first place if you couldn't handle a squirrel when your job is also to help animals like bears and coyotes and dogs and much bigger mammals, right? But you let a indoor, very cuddly, very sweet animal bite you through two pairs, you know, so it's like, it's like me going, oh, you have blonde hair.
- [22:04]
A
Yeah.
- [22:04]
B
No, you don't. So it's just you sitting here just with your jaw on the floor, along with the entire world asking the same questions, is how long you been doing this? This isn't the first case.
- [22:16]
A
Not at all. Was your lawyer able to get any information on them or anything?
- [22:20]
B
She. There's a 12 month, 12 week. It's 12 pages notice of claims. That's how much information went in this, from your amendment rights to your constitutional rights, your civil rights, and you have false arrest. My lawyer is making a strong claim of Peanut being a companion animal. He was never a wild animal. You know, it's clear as day, right? You know, if you took a three year old squirrel indoors or any type of animals after having such a long wildlife, okay, that's a wild animal. You have an animal who, since a baby has been living inside, he falls under the companion animal under the law, like you can make a strong case of it. If he was, then there would be felony charges brought up on the state.
- [23:08]
A
Whoa.
- [23:09]
B
Under the Animal Cruelty act, you killed a companion animal under the Animal Cruelty Act.
- [23:13]
A
So those are not allowed, like emotional support animals. You can't touch those.
- [23:16]
B
No, no, you can't. You can't come in and kill a dog like that.
- [23:19]
A
Wow.
- [23:19]
B
You know, it's, it's, first of all, it's disgusting. You know, you're supposed to be protecting animals. You're supposed to be the light for people to feel safe. And you're telling me over some paperwork you came and raided my house for five hours. Something's wrong here and the bigger picture is not being seen. And that's what we're trying to shed some light on, is to go, hey, this is bigger than these two animals. I love them to death, but this is much bigger than all of us.
- [23:47]
A
Yeah. You might set a precedent.
- [23:48]
B
Right. And they're even attempting to pass a bill. Peanuts law. Really make sure that animals have ample time. There's due process. That's the biggest thing here, is I didn't have my day in court.
- [23:59]
A
Right. You couldn't even fight it.
- [24:00]
B
Right. My animals didn't have their day in court. And you know, you could call a bite a bite. A spades, a spade, whatever it is. Why wasn't that animal quarantined for 10 days? The new York Post just did a huge article with an expert on rabies. You know, rabies for humans take 45 days to get your brain. Once you get your vaccine, it's wiped away. So, one, why weren't you vaccinated? If you were, please produce it. And if you weren't, why didn't you have it or get it?
- [24:30]
A
Yeah. If you're in that line of work, I mean, you should get the rabies vaccine. I'd assume if you're dealing with wild animals, 100%.
- [24:35]
B
But also, you clearly watch the social media. That's how you found out that I had Peanut in the house. And you can clearly see I don't have rabies. You know, Peanut didn't have rabies. My whole family didn't have rabies. Everybody that's been on the farm doesn't have rabies. This was a holy crap moment going. We don't really have an answer. We gotta come up with one. And the lack of experience. You have a small town, you have sheriff's office, you have two animal control officers in three counties. These people weren't set and ready for something this big to come their way. So it was kind of, let's scramble to just come up with something. And it's my opinion, but, you know, it's clear as day.
- [25:16]
A
Yeah, it's such a shame because you were trying to provide a safe spot for people to go to and, you know, feel better. You were talking about going to slaughter auctions, saving horses from being slaughtered.
- [25:25]
B
Right. That was the whole premise of why we moved up here. And, you know, it makes me regret moving to New York. You know, if I just stayed in Connecticut and lived my normal life, you know, would still be here. It's still be happy with my family, you know, but it was the bigger picture was, you know, there are animals out there that need helping hand. They need a second chance. And my wife being a huge animal lover and huge, you know, growing up on a farm and having horses, we really didn't understand how sad it was out there. You know, you go to these slaughter auctions, you see the. The shape that these animals are in, and we want to help them. And knowing that they're being bought and sold for meat is devastating. We have enough things to eat. We don't need to eat horses and donkeys.
- [26:06]
A
You know, I can't believe that's happening in the U.S. right?
- [26:09]
B
So it's actually illegal for people in the U.S. to slaughter them. So what people do is they buy them here, they ship them to Mexico, Canada, and they get a ton of money off them. You know, we got to feed our families, understand that. But, you know, there's. There's that moral respect is. Don't do that. You know, find another way to help your family. But again, who am I? You know, if you're providing for your family and this is the way you have to, so be it. But I'm going to take a strong stance against it. Know, we're going to raise the money to help save those animals. So, you know, you go and buy a horse for 200 bucks, you sell it for 2 grand. That's a big, big payday, you know, so we, we started this organization to go, hey, when this happens, we'll raise enough money for that $2,000 to save that horse. And we'll build that horse back up. Whether or not it's able to be adopted out. Just knowing that we have a secondary area to go. Okay, if it can't be adopted out or if it has, you know, lingering injuries, it could retire at our sanctuary. And that was the whole premise of wanting to start this was, you know, everybody needs a second chance, and we're the voice of the animals, and that's what our mission was.
- [27:12]
A
Yeah. That's crazy, man. I didn't know those auctions were a thing. Slaughter auctions are called. How can people look more into those?
- [27:18]
B
Honestly, I'm relatively new to it, but you could literally type in auction animal auctions in whatever state you are. You know, being in a rural area, in a farm area, it's much easier to find them. And they're huge. You know, they're once or twice a month, and you go there and there's hundreds of animals.
- [27:33]
A
Yeah.
- [27:34]
B
And, you know, there's farmers that go there to get the animals. I'm. I'm totally for using your animals for farm work, but you got to provide it the food and the care that it needs. But when you can't do that and you're doing this vicious cycle of running them to the ground and then selling them. You know, something has to change, and, you know, that's what we thought was the best way is to go in, try to make a stand on it by. By taking it. We have 74 horses.
- [27:58]
A
Damn.
- [27:59]
B
Yeah, we have a lot. 100 goats. Holy cow. We have over 350 animals. So it's not like we're sitting here begging and pleading for people to donate on one horse. You know, one horse is, you know, expensive enough and add 74 more. You know, we. Yeah, we take in, you know, pregnant horses. We take in, you know, run of the mill. Like, there's animals that we have that I couldn't pay you to take back, you know, but we love them because, you know, they give you the respect and love and just, you know, you might. They might not be able to say it, but you could see the love that they're like, hey, thank you. You know, I. I have one that's about 2, 500 pounds. He's.
- [28:36]
A
Damn.
- [28:36]
B
I call him our dinosaur. His name's Wilbur. You know, he's 28 years old. He was, you know, a big Amish workhorse, and all he wanted to do was just relax. And he free roams the entire farm. Like, that's awesome. There's a lot of areas where we just let them go, and they walk around with this kind of big smile on their face and just let them run free.
- [28:55]
A
That's what they deserved.
- [28:57]
B
And just to be able to provide that on the back of Peanut was what I wanted this whole thing to be about. Obviously, that didn't work out as I planned, but it doesn't stop us from the mission that we have. And does it suck that this had to transpire, but the sacrifice that was made here for the greater good is. Is what I have to take out of this. The positivity, you know, doing this, talking about this, having people go, wow, that's really messed up, and just make sure that we just. This never happened.
- [29:28]
A
Yeah. Beautiful. You think you're gonna move out, though?
- [29:30]
B
No, I. I think that would be disrespectful for Peanut and Fred and to the other animals. Right. You know, if I just up and leave, what does that say about me? You know, I have a mission. I have a goal. My family does. And the mission is to continue in Peanut's legacy, because ultimately, that's what I told our viewers was. You know, we don't. They don't live as long as we do. And this was the legacy that I wanted to build for Peanut. He left us A little bit earlier than I anticipated, but it won't stop us from what our goal was. And now that we have almost the world on our side, we want to make this one of the best places on this planet for animals.
- [30:10]
A
Yeah. What's the next step? What's something people watching this can do actionable to help you or help their community?
- [30:15]
B
Absolutely. You know, we're, we're, we're expanding, you know, not only on our farm, but, you know, if you want to follow Peanuts Freedom Farm, we have, you know, this, this really kind of boomed in the social media realm for our sanctuary. It really built up people who had no idea who Peanut was or what we were doing behind it. You know, getting involved, whether you're a local and want to volunteer or you need a tax write off, you know, this is, this is the best form of a way for us to go, hey, we'll put in the work. If we can get the funding behind us, I have no problem shoveling horse crap for 15 hours. And for all the naysayers are going, oh, you're doing this for money. Like, come to the farm, scoop up horse crap for 15 hours. See if you come back the next day. You know, come and live in a rural area that has more people than teeth and see if it's as luxurious as you think you are. It is. You know, and that's a common misconception is like, oh, he has a. He has a nice car, he has a nice house. Like, because I had a job, you know, I have a career, I saved up money and I didn't move to this area. For me, you know, there's nothing to do. Like, our best steakhouse down the street is like Olive Garden. You know, it's not like you come here and you have, you know, Vegas steaks and New York City steaks. You know, Arby's is like your.
- [31:31]
A
Your choice at night, 1800 people there. That's less than my high school.
- [31:34]
B
Right. You know, and that was like, we want to be left alone. I'm a strong, like, my, my perspective animals over humans a large majority of.
- [31:42]
A
The time, and deny that and be honest.
- [31:44]
B
Yeah. And then, you know, we, obviously, we took a big leap into this crypto. Right. You know, I'm way before an amateur here, and I, I got caught up in, you know, some people that fed me a bunch of bs and it started with like, oh, you know, we'll make a contribution to your GoFundMe or your social media or the farm. In return, you know, just. Just give us a Nice little shout out. I'm not thinking anything of it. You know, the money is helping the farm, so I'm going to do whatever it takes to help the farm. So, you know, three or four, you know, these. These people are using my animals. So I'm like, okay, you know, what are we doing here? You're taking this story and you're running with it for money, and you're not even donating to the sanctuary.
- [32:31]
A
Oh, so they didn't donate?
- [32:32]
B
Oh, no. There was one or two, it's maybe three on top of my head that contributed, but it was a fraction of what they made. They're making hundreds of millions of dollars.
- [32:44]
A
What?
- [32:44]
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah. This original peanut coin, I think, had a market of almost 2 billion.
- [32:51]
A
Yeah. So P N u T was the coin, Right. I saw this one.
- [32:55]
B
Right. We had no affiliation with this whatsoever.
- [32:57]
A
Really.
- [32:57]
B
They never reached out. They never spoke to us. They took my story, my likelihood, my. My own photo. My hands are in my. In the photo, and they're making hundreds of millions of dollars.
- [33:07]
A
Holy crap.
- [33:08]
B
And you're sitting here going, wtf? You know, you're. You're building this kind of an empire in the crypto world with the story of a tragedy and cutting the family and the organization out of it.
- [33:20]
A
It's terrible. They could have thrown you like a percent or whatever, you know, you know.
- [33:24]
B
And then, you know, not getting down to it, but it was like, okay, let's. Let's find some people that know a lot more than I do. Right? And I put my trust in some people that failed me, which made my name get run through the dirt in the crypto world.
- [33:39]
A
Well, this is topping to hawk to a girl yesterday. Oh, yeah, yeah, she got wrecked.
- [33:42]
B
She got destroyed, you know, and it's like, again, we're not experts. You know, I can't speak for her in this, but, you know, I'm not. I'm no expert. You know, people are like, oh, you rugged 15 coins. I'm like, I started this crap two weeks ago. Wait, what do you mean, rugged? I didn't develop any of this. I went to people that said, hey, yeah, we could develop a coin and we could make your sanctuary a really good money. At the end of the day, there's two things I want more than anything here is retire my parents and make sure this sanctuary lives on forever. I'm not going to buy a Ferrari. I don't give a crap about a Rolex. Means nothing to me. It's solidifying this organization. And what we were being told was Astronomical amounts of money. You know, something that would be able to really solidify both, Right. You know, get the, like, two and a half million dollars of renovations that need to be done at the bar and on the farm, you know, provide locals with jobs, get more involved with all this stuff. So your wheels are turning, right? You're. You're vulnerable. You just had your house rate of 5 hours, your animals killed. So you're in this point where you've got to do whatever it takes.
- [34:46]
A
Right?
- [34:46]
B
And I trusted some people who, you know, did some shady stuff behind my back, and obviously, I'm the face of it.
- [34:52]
A
They sniped all the tokens.
- [34:53]
B
Oh, they did way more than that, you know, and it was heartbreaking because, again, these were people that, you know, I knew from my wife. Right. These were people that I didn't know, but I felt trusted them because they had some affiliation with me.
- [35:08]
A
Yeah.
- [35:09]
B
And again, I was like, listen, don't give me anything. The less I have is better, because again, if I sell something and it ruins something, I really don't know what I'm doing. So I'm literally giving you the. Probably the keys, you know, and. And that's on me. You know, that was like my trust level was, hey, I don't really know what I'm doing. You guys, kindly just take whatever you want to allocate to me, keep it. Whenever it comes to our time, make the donation. And it was a couple days later, people were just shelling me, you're stealing money. You're doing this. And I'm like, guys, I'm just kind of sitting here. I don't know what the hell is going on. And they're throwing out numbers and this and that. And long story short, there's a lot of stuff that was missing, and I'm the one being targeted here. My face is the face of this.
- [35:58]
A
You were the only one that was publicly on it.
- [35:59]
B
Right, Right. So, you know, now you're. You're trying to defend yourself in an. In an area. You have no. I don't know the lingo. I know the terminology. I don't know what's sniping and rugging and, you know, all this thing. And then you're reading like always, this is his 15th coin. I, like, I don't even have that many animals coins. You know, I'm being involved in a trump token and this and that. I'm like, yeah, no, no. I don't even know how to read this damn chart, let alone being a part of it. And, you know, we we kind of. We sat down with people that I met over the course of this kind of this debacle of crypto. And I met them, and they were like, listen, we don't need the money. This is not about the money. It's about the story. It's about you. And we want to make sure moving forward that your sanctuary is solidified.
- [36:47]
A
Nice.
- [36:47]
B
And they took me under the belt. They started to show me the basic 101s, and we developed justice for Peanut. And I'm even wearing the merch here.
- [36:56]
A
Let's go.
- [36:56]
B
Shout out to justice for Peanut. You know, but it's still like, you're building everybody's trust back, you know? And it's like, oh, you stole. You're a scammer. You're this. Like, guys, all I want you guys to know is, like, this is about my farm and my family. If I wanted a Ferrari, I would have joined the Peanut token stoler, scam the rug, the hell. Whatever the hell you want to call it, took a bunch of money and just left. You know, I'm here fighting for the story. I'm here fighting for justice. I'm here fighting for the common person who got ripped out of their car.
- [37:26]
A
Right.
- [37:26]
B
Got their dog killed. You know, those are the people we're fighting for because they didn't have the voice that Peanut did, you know, and that's what was the biggest thing you said, is I've had so many people reach out, go. The DEC did this to me. They killed my animals right in front of me. They shot my dog, and they just walked away. And that's what this movement is about, is bringing that community together to make sure that those people have a voice.
- [37:47]
A
Absolutely.
- [37:48]
B
So it's. It's like, okay, now you got to get the. The fud. The FUD out of it and build people's trust. And that's. That's what we're doing here. You know, I was even going like, hey, after this podcast, I'll go get a tattoo that says justice for Peanuts. You know, that's how much this means to me. Again, if you want to call it a money grab, call it a money grab. You know, I'll show you the wallets. I'll show you where the money goes. I'll show you that we want to build a new barn and arena and put that damn token on the side of it.
- [38:11]
A
Yeah.
- [38:12]
B
And have the community go, wow, we built this. We saved this animal. We collaborated and helped this family. Or we. On Christmas time, we donated to the children's Hospital. It doesn't just stop here. I'm not expecting everybody to jump on board for peanuts Freedom Bar, but we have enough people and we have enough community members to go, okay, there's a family in Louisiana that needs help, or this organization in California is battling forest fires. You know, how can we help? And that's what this movement is about.
- [38:43]
A
Yeah.
- [38:43]
B
And that's, that's why we're here. Yeah.
- [38:46]
A
I want to support more local farms and sanctuaries because right now the farming, like industry has been taken over by big companies and the animals are treated like shit.
- [38:54]
B
Right. You know, and it's a big thing, you know, and, and hopefully this, you know, shedding a tiny light from a scorn raccoon can bring that light to bigger things that are happening here. You know, it doesn't just stop at animals rights stops. You know, we got to stop it everywhere. I know it's a lot easier said than done, but, you know, you take a story like this and it opens everybody's eyes. You know, not only you pay taxes, this is where your taxes are going. Your tax money is going to six figures to raid some guy's house in the middle of nowhere for a 10 month investigation.
- [39:24]
A
It's crazy. And it goes on a bigger scale too with Trump. They went after Trump. They spent nine figures of our tax dollars going after him and now all the charges are getting dropped.
- [39:31]
B
Right.
- [39:31]
A
They just wasted it.
- [39:32]
B
Exactly. And I'm not politically affiliated with anybody, but you could tell that this changed the tide in a lot of people's views on politics. You had young kids teetering on what side they were going to vote. And after what happened on the election, if you said Peanut was not involved with tipping the scale, you know, was involved.
- [39:58]
A
It was all over X for weeks.
- [40:00]
B
Right. And you know, it's, it's one of those things that it's a government overreach. And if we want to be a part of change, this is the story to start that movement, whether or not it swayed anybody in their voting. You know, it's. The timing couldn't have been any better.
- [40:16]
A
Absolutely. I mean, 450 government agencies, something crazy like that. And I think Elon just posted Yesterday that only 1% of them show up to work.
- [40:24]
B
Right, Right.
- [40:25]
A
So crazy. So we're paying those salaries.
- [40:27]
B
Right. You know, the biggest thing that I took out of this was the Supreme Court commented on this for reform in New York State for Peanut the squirrel. Supreme Court doesn't comment on anything commenting on my squirrel. That's how big this was. Was you have world leaders going, wtf?
- [40:45]
A
You know what the Supreme Court said?
- [40:46]
B
They literally said this, like, we need reform, you know, and that's. We have enough things to talk about. And I always said this from the beginning, like, I shouldn't be in the news. We have bigger fish to fry. And although I'm honored to be able to fight for my animals, you know, what's happening to the kids that, you know, have to sleep under a rock at night, the people that can't afford their electricity, you know, those are the people we're fighting for, but yet we're talking about a squirrel. You know, you have Kathy Hochul, our governor of New York State, advocating for animal and human rights. World mine. You don't want to talk about mine, though. You know, you falsely arrested me in my house. You broke five amendment rights, but you want to talk about rights?
- [41:28]
A
So she had to sign off on that. The government.
- [41:29]
B
Oh, 100%.
- [41:30]
A
Wow.
- [41:30]
B
She's. She's the head of the DEC. She's the voice that's. Those are your agencies, and you're telling me you didn't have any idea what was happening here? How do you have multiple people and then a family court judge sign off on this?
- [41:42]
A
So.
- [41:43]
B
So somebody had to go, hey, yo, so and so. Hope you're having a great day. How's your family? This and that. Oh, yeah, by the way, can you just sign this real quick? Anybody with a brain would have looked at this case and gone, I ain't signing that and put my name on it.
- [41:53]
A
Right?
- [41:54]
B
Except this guy did it without a sweat broke.
- [41:57]
A
You know, it's just another day for him. Right? He probably does that once a week at least, right?
- [42:00]
B
Yo, and that's the same goes with the police. You know, the agents that showed up here, you've done this so many times, there's a cakewalk. You didn't go through your procedures because you've done this so many times. You don't have to worry about it.
- [42:14]
A
The difference is you had a voice, right? You know, they're probably doing it to ordinary people. They don't have social media following. Nothing happens.
- [42:19]
B
And that's exactly what they thought here was, we're just going to go do this. We don't like this. This family being here. We're going to show them we could flex our muscles. We're going to kill your animal. The literally the name of your organization. We're going to kill it, and you're going to have nothing to stand on. What am I going to do if I don't have this platform. There goes my donations, There goes the name of my organization I have to shut down.
- [42:41]
A
And most people don't have money to fight something like that.
- [42:43]
B
Right. So it's like that's what they came in here, they kicked the legs out of this organization and they thought they were just going to walk away from it. And boy, were they wrong. And that's the biggest thing, the love and support for this. You know, walking down Vegas and just being here and people going like, justice for Peanut. There's no dollar sign that could ever amount to that. You know, that's a surreal moment.
- [43:04]
A
Yeah.
- [43:04]
B
You know, if we do a Netflix documentary on this, I can see it. You know, it's. It's a story that is so unbelievable that every turn that you make, there's something else that you're like, holy crap. And it's just, just sitting here talking about it. You're like, this is. This can't be real.
- [43:20]
A
Yeah, I can't wait to see what you do with the mark. Where can people keep up with you and donate and all that stuff?
- [43:25]
B
Yes. Just. We have our socials, we have our website. You know, it's minus scroll dad, but it's peanut. The Scroll 12. It's always been the same original stuff. And then we abbreviated peanut to make it a little bit more original. So we went with the P apostrophe and UTS Freedom Farm. The more supporters and the more we kind of continue to drive this in the right direction, the more organizations we could help. Not only ours, but that's what we ultimately want to do is help those veterans, help the ptsd, help the children, help the lower income families. Whether it's providing free services at the farm or, you know, raising money for their care. You know, it doesn't just stop in organization. That's where, you know, I think this movement to really be focused on is. Yes. You know, what happened to me was a tragedy. Let's shift the narrative here and let's help people in and animals alike.
- [44:14]
A
I love that man. We'll link everything below. Thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. See you at power slaps tonight.
- [44:18]
B
Absolutely.
- [44:19]
A
See you guys.
- [44:20]
B
Take care.