Canton Coverup Part 448: Shady Manager/Attorney Matt Valentinas And Podcaster M. William Phelps Threaten Turtleboy With “Consequences” After Being Dishonest About Pro-McAlbert Podcast 

 

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As many of you know, I am featured in a podcast called 34 Fairview, which is hosted by a guy named Matt (M. William) Phelps. The podcast has been a complete disaster, as Phelps has taken the position that Karen Read is a sinister killer, while Jennifer McCabe and the rest of the McAlberts are innocent victims who have have done nothing wrong. This has led a lot of people to ask why I would agree to be part of this, so I need to explain the backstory (which I did in detail on the Live Show at the 1:28:00 mark).

I briefly interviewed Phelps on September 28 in order to promote the upcoming podcast, which would be released in 10 separate episodes, once a week. The interview was a disaster as Phelps lectured my audience about not knowing as much about the case as he did, refused to say if he thought Karen Read was innocent, and was an all around condescending doucehbag (starts at 13 minute mark).

There have been 5 episodes, and every one seems to be worse than the last. There are too many lies and issues for me to go over, but off the top of my head here are some things Phelps said that come to mind:

• Jennifer McCabe is credible and attractive, while saying that Karen Read is sinister
• Karen Read’s father lied about her being suicidal in order to have her sectioned so that Karen wouldn’t have to answer questions from the police
• Karen might’ve went back to 34 Fairview Road at 5 AM
• Phelps constantly “fact checked” me incorrectly, including one instance where he said that there is no evidence Jennifer McCabe was up until 4:53 AM when Karen Read called, despite the fact that Jen’s Apple Health data that shows she was walking around at 3:50 AM and her heart rate proves she wasn’t sleeping
• The ARCCA experts helped the Commonwealth, and he didn’t discuss or play any of their testimony
• Phelps interviewed Plevin and took him seriously
• The Canton Police could’ve missed 45 pieces of tail light because a plow had come by and created a snow pile by the curb
• Although Michael Proctor’s texts were vile, the investigation was by the book
• There was no reason to search the house, and Phelps cited his expertise as a true crime podcaster and writer of 45 books as a reason that he’s smarter than everyone else
• It made sense that all the people who drove by 34 Fairview Road didn’t see John’s body because they weren’t looking for a body

Karen Read’s innocence isn’t just a topic I’m covering. It’s something I passionately believe in, and I am dedicated to seeing justice for both her and John O’Keefe. I would never have agreed to take part in a podcast that is filled with so many lies and mistruths about the case. To present this case as some sort of divisive topic where half the people think she’s innocent and the other half think she’s guilty, is dishonest and deceptive. To present the McAlberts as innocent is nothing more than propaganda for a corrupt government.

So how did I get here? It all started with this guy:

My “manager” Matt Valentinas.

Valentinas’ LinkedIn lists him as an entertainment attorney for Sennott, Williams and Rogers, LLP. His bio on their website shows what appears to be an impressive resume in the entertainment industry. Towards the bottom it talks about his work as a manager for his management company as well:

Additionally, he also is the literary manager for numerous authors and screenwriters under his Mom’s Basement Management banner handling long term career strategy for clients. Managing tasks include providing submission services, screenplay and manuscript coverage, and advising on book proposal creation. Matthew also serves as an Executive Producer on numerous film and television and digital media productions through Mom’s Basement Media Inc. which packages and produces projects based on rights acquired or represented by Matthew. 

Valentinas was a turtle rider for several years. He had previously messaged me on Twitter with story ideas dating back to 2020. In August of 2023 he reached out again, presenting himself as an entertainment attorney who enjoyed my work on the Read case.

We chatted about business opportunities, specifically him representing me to sign away my rights to do a documentary, podcast, book deal, a movie, and a TV series. I informed him that I had already signed an exclusivity agreement to do a documentary, but I was free to discuss the other stuff. We continued to talk here and there about business after I was arrested on October 11.

On December 6 he emailed me and said he was very interested in representing me. He signed the email as a lawyer, indicating that he was interested in working with me in that capacity. He didn’t mention anything about wanting to be my manager.

 

He wrote to me  while I was in jail, and told me that I was a “brave dude” who was in there because of what I had exposed.

 

On March 15, almost a month after I got out of jail, he sent me an email to see if I was interested in hiring him as a manager OR an entertainment attorney.

 

Throughout all of his online postings he made it clear to me that he believed in what I was doing to expose the McAlberts and State Police corruption.

I can’t work with people who don’t believe in what I’m doing, so he seemed like the ideal type of person I wanted to do business with. This is one of the big reasons I like working with Tim Bradl – he believes not only in my innocence, but in the importance of my work. I need to have an attorney in my corner who is as passionate about my innocence and my work as I am.

For that reason I signed an agreement with Valentinas in late March, giving him exclusive rights to perform managerial services solely for book publishing, and any other projects that are based off the book.

I am very interested in writing a book, doing a documentary, and any other media productions that would memorialize my coverage of this career defining story. Valentinas was experienced, confident, and supportive, and I was excited about doing business with him.

When I signed this agreement I thought I was retaining Valentinas as my lawyer. In all of his communications he advertised himself as wanting to represent me as an entertainment attorney. Although it’s partly my fault for not realizing that it was a managerial agreement, not an attorney agreement, as a lawyer he should’ve advised me to have a lawyer look over the document to make sure I wasn’t getting hosed. I really assumed he was my lawyer from that point on.

As the trial dragged on Valentinas told me he had a podcaster that he wanted me to do a podcast with. He said it was one of the biggest names in true crime podcasting – M. William Phelps – and that we could potentially make millions of dollars together.

I trusted Valentinas’ judgement because of his background as an entertainment attorney. But as I would later find out, Valentinas didn’t shop around at all. He never spoke with any other podcasters about doing a project, because he had been doing business with Phelps for over a decade. Essentially, Valentinas was using my notoriety in this case to give exclusive podcast rights to his friend and long time business partner, not caring if it was a good fit for me. Phelps knew next to nothing about the case and had a small online following. I could do a podcast with anyone, but Phelps needed me to get any attention.

A search for #MWilliamPhelps on Twitter shows that Valentinas has been promoting his client since 2013 on the platform. Additionally, several accounts have tweeted exact same thing on the exact same days to promote Phelps’ books dating back years.

 

 

I’d never heard of Matt Phelps before, but I’m also new to true crime. I figured that as my manager Valentinas knew what he was doing and was working in my best interest.

Valentinas hooked me up with Phelps and we began communicating about doing a podcast together. What Valentinas didn’t tell me was that he and his managerial company – Mom’s Basement Management – would be listed as producers of the podcast as well.

Phelps and I got along well and in my initial interviews he seemed really impressed with my work. Based on everything we said to each other it seemed like he completely believed in Karen Read’s innocence, which Valentinas knew as my manager was something that Phelps would have to be in order to work with me. Phelps told me on June 10 that he though Michael Proctor was lying about his relationship with the Alberts, which he was.

 

Phelps told me that he wasn’t buying the Commonwealth’s wacky explanation for how Jen McCabe’s 2:27 Google search didn’t really happen.

 

Phelps called Alan Jackson’s closing argument “brilliant” and said that Brian Albert looked like he wanted to violently attack him.

Receiving emails like this made me believe I was doing business with someone who agreed that Karen Read was innocent.

After the trial ended they really wanted to start working on the podcast in order to release it before the second trial began. Valentinas told me to hold onto as much exclusive content because he said it would make the podcast more lucrative if I shared things for the first time on there that I had never shared before. He also told me that it was great that he had control over my podcast rights because “we control (the) story our way.”

In other words, if we did a podcast with someone who had a different take on the Karen Read story we wouldn’t have control over it. But with Phelps, the podcast would be done “our way,” meaning it would not be a hit piece on me and Karen Read. I trusted Matt because he was being paid to represent my interests, and he knew that it would be bad for my brand to be associated with an anti-KR podcast.

On July 16 I posted videos of my arrest, which Valentinas didn’t like because he thought we would make more money if I made content like that exclusive for the podcast.

Valentinas and Phelps wanted to use my work, struggles, and story to enrich themselves. But since I would be making 40% it would benefit me as well. This is how they sold it to me.

Valentinas seemed like a savvy businessman, which I liked. He firmly understood that a pro-Karen Read bias would be much more popular than a “both sides” or pro-McAlbert bias. He told me time and time again that the goal was to get the most downloads possible, which I knew from experience could only happen if the podcast favored Karen Read’s innocence, and portrayed me as the good guy. This might sound arrogant, but it’s true. When I go out in public anywhere now I have people come up to me to thank me for my work on this story. I didn’t amass a following like this because I’m so charming, I got here because I put out factual information that is backed with receipts. Since Valentinas praised my work and called me “brave” I assumed we were on the same page with that.

After Netflix announced that they had a deal with British documentary company Sandpaper to do a doc on the Read case I informed Valentinas that they were working with Gretchen Voss and the McAlberts. As he pointed out, this was a bad business idea and would likely backfire on them if they took that position. He thought it would only help us because it would make our podcast and documentary more desirable, since it would be taking the opposite position.

And he was right. Opinion polls show that more than 90% of people who watched the trial do not believe Karen Read is guilty of any of the 3 charges. Pro-Karen Read YouTube shows get more than 10 times the views that anti-Karen Read shows get. It would be a horrible business decision to make a podcast that cast Read and Turtleboy as the villains, and the McAlberts as the innocent witnesses. There is no market for that.

Phelps and I recorded together a few times at my house, and based on our conversations it seemed like he believed the same things I believed about the case. He almost never challenged me or questioned anything I said. Had he done so I would’ve responded. However, since the podcast has come out he frequently plays audio from my interview, and then interjects with “facts checks” that I could easily challenge and debunk if he said them in front of me.

Phelps sent me text messages like this one on August 9, saying that the Feds were “closing the vice,” and a shitstorm was about to rain down upon the State Police.

In August we signed an agreement that said I would be paid 40% of all advertising revenue from the podcast.

34 FAIRVIEW ROAD – Podcast Release Exclusivity and Engagment Agreement 8-19-24 – signed

The problem is that Valentinas wrote this contract and didn’t advise me to have a lawyer look it over for me. I assumed he was my lawyer, because that’s how he represented himself when he solicited my business. I’ve had two other attorneys look it over and they both think that I never should’ve signed such a one sided agreement. The contract says that the 40% of profits I make will be advertising profits minus expenses.

But that means Phelps could write off whatever he wants as an expense in order to limit how much I made. I called Valentinas about this a few weeks ago, and even though he wrote the contract he didn’t seem to know what expenses would be limited to. He just assured me that Phelps wouldn’t screw me over because he had done business with Phelps many times and he was a great guy.

The podcast would list Valentinas and Phelps as producers, even though Valentinas wasn’t really bringing anything to the table.

Phelps was constantly asking me to do all the leg work for him. He sent me lists of documents he wanted me to compile, which he could easily do on his own. Some of the things he asked for were ridiculous, like exclusive pictures of Karen Read that no one had seen. When I didn’t drop everything I was doing to get him the long list of things he demanded he would message Valentinas to complain, who would then remind me to do it.

 

Valentinas asked me to get him in touch with all sorts of people who he could easily just message himself so that he could interview them for the podcast. I always came through for him, even when people like Jessica Machado had open DM’s on Twitter that he could use to message them directly.

 

The stuff he would ask me for would take hours to assemble, and most of it was available for him to find on his own on my YouTube channel. But this was too much work for him.

 

Phelps asked me to get him in touch with Paul O’Keefe, which anyone who has been following this saga knew was a ridiculous thing to ask for.

 

He asked me for a copy of Lucky Loughran’s interview with the feds, which I obviously didn’t have.

 

I got him in touch with pretty much everyone he interviewed on the podcast, including a guy named Sean McDonough, AKA Sean on the Gulf. The problem with SOTG is that he is a pathological liar who makes shit up as he goes along. He’s the only former LEO I could get on short notice though.

 

Phelps asked me for the 3K page federal Tuohy report, which isn’t available to the public.

 

After I interviewed two jurors in articles published on TBDailyNews.com, Phelps asked to speak with them for the podcast. I realized that I could get a lot of views by having an exclusive interview with these jurors on my show, but because I had entered into a business agreement with Valentinas and Phelps I agreed to give them exclusive access.

I began to get a bad feeling about Phelps in September for a number of reasons. First he sent me a link to a Twitter troll who looks like a bootleg Peg Bundy, and asked me for a tape of my interview with Steve Scanlon. I didn’t have that and couldn’t give it to him anyway, but I was more concerned with why he was subscribing to this lunatic.

Phelps made me feel better when he referred to Julie Carpenter as the “leader” of the “fucking whackos.”

Phelps kept asking me to get him access to Karen Read, which wasn’t gonna happen.

Neither would Alan Jackson. In hindsight, this clearly upset him. In his mind, he was a bigshot podcaster. How dare this woman and her high profile legal defense team not give him an exclusive interview!

Phelps also admitted that he only interviewed Plevin because that was the best he could find from the anti-Karen Read side. He seemed to be interested in discussing how 90% of people who claim Karen Read is guilty are just people who became upset with me personally.

However, since the podcast has come out and been favorable to the McAlberts he has gotten access to several McAlberts who are speaking on the pod.

On September 20 he asked me for a list of every single one of Proctor’s text messages, which would’ve meant that I would have to listen to all the testimony and write them down in chronological order.

In hindsight I believe that Phelps is just another person who took the position that Karen Read is guilty because he became personally upset with me. Looking back I can now see that he became frustrated with me when I interviewed the jurors before he could, posted exclusive content he wanted to use, and didn’t get him the 5,000 things he could easily get himself. He would frequently cry to Valentinas and get him to ask me for them.

“Phelps is expecting….”

And therein lies the problem. He is an entitled egomaniac who thinks he’s a lot more relevant than he actually is.

In late September Valentinas told me to make a post on Twitter promoting the trailer for the upcoming podcast series, which I did.

 

But that wasn’t enough. He wanted me to pin it to my social media accounts.

 

But it still wasn’t enough. Somehow this world famous, award winning true crime podcaster, who Valentinas told me was bigger than Joe Rogan, was dependent upon ME to promote the podcast in order to get downloads. We weren’t getting the downloads Valentinas wanted to see (something he refuses to show me) so he asked me to have Phelps on my show to promote it some more.

 

I told Valentinas that Plevin’s inclusion on the trailer was turning people off, since Plevin is a running joke to most sane people.

But he didn’t wanna listen to my advice. What do I know? I’m just a guy with millions of followers spread across multiple platforms who single-handedly started the FKR movement and has achieved vast commercial and journalistic success in doing so.

After I shared the podcast I got it up to #32. Valentinas thought we could be bigger than Rogan!

However, I was getting more concerned about Phelps. At our last recording he asked me if I could remove a video I made about the Sandra Birchmore case. He was referring to a selectively edited video that Krusty Panties put up, that took my statements out of context in order to paint me in a negative light. She’s been doing dishonest things like this for years and people who fall for it just aren’t paying attention. The fact that Phelps, 1) fell for it, and 2) thought that he could censor me, was a huge red flag.

I also noticed he was following all the troll accounts on Twitter and brought these concerns to my manager. Valentinas completely dismissed everything I was saying and told me not to be so sensitive.

“you know Phelps will never say anything about you that is not true.”

That was a promise from my manager that has been broken many times by Phelps. But in conversations I’ve had with Valentinas he is too afraid to confront Phelps, since they’ve been in business together for so long. He is in awe of Phelps. It was all so creepy.

I was a team player and wanted to help make this podcast as successful as possible. When I had Phelps on my show I gave him some softball questions to drive home and give my audience a reason to be excited about the podcast. But instead of doing that Phelps talked down to them and wouldn’t share his thoughts on Karen’s innocence. I received more messages than I could count from people who didn’t trust him and didn’t want to listen to the podcast.

Since Valentinas told me that his number one concern was making money, and that in order to make money you need as many downloads as possible, you would think that he would listen to feedback from potential consumers. But instead he became very upset about the negative comments about his friend and business partner and began shitting on my followers to me in a text.

“Phelps felt ambushed.”

I just asked him if he thought Karen Read was innocent and he refused to answer the question.

“If they don’t like him they’ll listen anyway.”

No, they won’t.

“We’re on the same team here man”

I was the only one being a team player. Phelps wanted me to do all the work for him, use all of my content to profit for himself, and jump onto the Karen Read case which was a national phenomenon largely because of me. If we were on a team then Valentinas would listen to my advice on how to make the podcast more appealing to a larger audience.

“Were not trying to gain your crowd, we have them.”

No, you don’t.

“Phelps is no threat man, he’s a pros pro with a huge audience.”

If he has such a huge audience then why did he need me to promote it so badly?

After 6 episodes the podcast has gone from 32nd to 134th in the True Crime genre.

Compare this to “Karen,” a podcast released months ago by Law and Crime that took a much more pro-Turtleboy approach, and is far ahead of Phelps.

 

Vanentinas once again dismissed my concerns, despite telling me we were on the same team. I knew from previous conversations that he knew that a pro-McAlbert podcast would be bad for business. But because he’s so afraid of crossing Phelps he made excuses for him.

I attempted to speak with Phelps about factual inaccuracies in the podcast, such as his “fact check” that there was no evidence Jen McCabe didn’t go to bed after Googling “hos long to die in cold” at 2:27 AM. He said that the Apple Health data was a “Rich Green document” and that Jen’s movement at 3:50 AM was probably just her going to the bathroom.

My manager, who is supposed to represent me, was clearly conflicted because he represented Phelps as well. He was going to choose Phelps over me every time. Valentinas accused me of not being able to handle negative opinions about me, made the laughable claim that Phelps wasn’t pushing an agenda for either side, and said that Karen Read had a spell on me.

 

I once again brought my concerns to my manager who dismissed all of them, told me I was getting a great deal, insisted that he wasn’t conflicted, and took credit for the deal I signed with Compelling Pictures. He even lied and said that he was the one who got me in touch with them when in fact they reached out to me, and he had nothing to do with it.

 

Every time I’d bring concerns to Valentinas he would tell Phelps about it and Phelps would tell him he was just “following the evidence.”

Again, this is my manager who said the podcast would be done “our way,” and knew that it wasn’t in my best interest to be part of an anti-KR podcast.

I kept my mouth shut publicly and continued to promote the horrible podcast. But that changed on November 1 I noticed that Phelps had turned off replies on Twitter and comments on YouTube. This is cowardly as it seemed he was unable to take any constructive criticism. Valentinas later told me that Phelps had to do this because if advertisers see negative feedback they won’t pay as much.

I retweeted Phelps latest tweet about the podcast and called him a coward and a liar, which are both opinions backed by facts. Phelps immediately cried about it to Valentinas and accused me of being the behind the hundreds of fake accounts on Twitter that were criticizing him. Instead of telling Phelps to grow up and deal with constructive criticism Valentinas messaged me and demanded that I stop.

 

 

We spoke on the phone and Valentinas threatened me by saying that I was in breach of the contract. Since he was my manager and an attorney I assumed he could explain to me how I was violating it, but he couldn’t explain it. He just wanted me to stop being mean to Phelps because Phelps is his friend and he was getting angry texts from him. Valentinas brought up the provision in the contract that says that “both parties hereby acknowledge working together to make the podcast as successful and entertaining as possible for a global audience shall require Turtleboy’s active participation,” and that “Turtleboy will agree to work with producer to form a media strategy that best serves to promote the podcast to get a larger audience.”

I was doing that by sharing it (even though it sucked), having him on my show, and urging people who didn’t like it to download it anyway so it would be commercially successful. The only one breaking the contract was Phelps, since he was not working with me to “form a media strategy that best serves to promote the podcast.” He was doing the opposite – creating a podcast that Valentinas knew would not get as many downloads. Phelps was not working with me at all and had exclusive creative control.

Valentinas acknowledged that calling him a coward and a fraud didn’t violate that provision, so he brought up this part which says that Turtleboy “will not do anything with has impaired or will impair the rights granted to producer in the work in any way,” and that Turtleboy “does not defame any other right of any person or entity.”

But this refers to copyrights, and access to exclusive material I gave them. Additionally, I have not defamed anyone. If Phelps feels that I have he is free to sue me for defamation, but it’s not a violation of the contract. As my manager Valentinas should’ve made that clear to me. Instead he lied about what the contract said in the hopes that I would stop saying mean things about his pal Phelps.

After an hour long conversation we came to an agreement that I could criticize him, just nothing personal. I wouldn’t take shots at who he was as a parent or a person, and would keep my criticize of him to things he said on the podcast. This meant that coward and fraud were fair game. But the problem was that “he (Phelps) found calling him a fraud a personal attack,” and told Valentinas there would be “consequences” if I did it again.

If someone threatens a client their manager should back them up. Valentinas did the opposite. It was clear that Phelps’ feelings would dictate what I could and couldn’t say. He could trash me on the podcast, misrepresent things I was saying, and lie about the facts of the Karen Read case. But if I criticized him any way Phelps reserved the right to call it a “personal attack” and there would be “consequences.”

I posted on Twitter about how Phelps had threatened me and Valentinas once again stood up for him and demanded that I “correct that.”

 

 

My manager told me not to call him all weekend, but he couldn’t resist and sent me another message on Sunday telling me he had an idea on how to fix this.

I spoke with him on the phone and he had no solution. He hadn’t even spoken to Phelps and asked me what he should tell Phelps. I told him that he should tell Phelps that Aidan is allowed to criticize him. Phelps has chosen to do business with a very opinionated person who passionately believes in Karen Read’s innocence, and Phelps is choosing to take a position that runs contrary to everything I believe in.  I was shocked that such a big star like Phelps would be so sensitive to any sort of criticism. Valentinas sounded like a child on the phone, as for some reason I was telling him how to speak to Phelps, who he was clearly frightened to give any criticism to.

After Part 4 came out Valentinas still hadn’t spoken to Phelps so I reached out to him to tell him I was gonna rip Phelps again for another horrible podcast.

Valentinas is now ignoring all of my texts and phone calls.

The contract states that Valentinas will collect all advertising revenue and paying me my 40% within 90 days of the final episode. That would mean I won’t seem a dime until March.

Since revenue is based on downloads I had a right to see how many downloads the podcast was getting and what advertising revenue was. When I asked Valentinas about this he refused to allow me to see download information or advertising revenue. I just have to take his word for it, and trust that Phelps won’t add on fraudulent “expenses” in order to keep profits down.

I need a lawyer to help me out with this for several reasons:

• I want out of the managerial contract with Valentinas
• I still expect to be paid for the podcast since I’ve done all the work, they are using my content, and no one would even know about this podcast if I didn’t promote it
• I’d like to get out of the exclusive podcast agreement (which I don’t think is a valid contract) and do a podcast with someone else
• I want to look into whether or not Phelps has violated the contract by not working with me
• I want to look into whether or not Valentinas has violated any laws by representing both Phelps and I, not representing the interests of his client, and being dishonest about the direction of the project

I’ve had many offers of help and will be looking into this more.