En route, I called Ron Austin and told him I had been raided. Turned out my talking to Ron wasn’t such a great idea: like Petersen, he had become a snitch in the hope of getting a reduced sentence. He’d been recording our conversations and turning the tapes over to the FBI, playing both sides all along: being a friend to me by giving me the California DMV access... while at the same time cooperating with the Feds. He was out on bail, gathering information on Lewis and me for FBI Special Agent McGuire and company. I’ll admit he did a clever job of gaining my trust by giving me access to the DMV database.