Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
When it started to go a little too far. He
would sometimes show up the studio wearing bandages on his hands,
and he would say that he was mastering how to
manipulate and start fire from his hands.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
The students reached out to me and they were the
ones who told me that they got out of a cult.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's Alicia. It isn't her real name. We've had to
anonymize everyone in this episode, and you'll see why in
a minute.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh my goodness, I don't know where to start. Let's
go to the beginning. I guess.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Alicia grew up in the eighties in a chaotic home.
One of her parents struggled with addiction, so Alisha ended
up helping raise her older brothers and in a way,
raising herself.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I pretty much had to be the provider, maybe cook
food or meals as much as I could, so that
was a little stressful as a younger kid.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
When she was seven years old, her dad signed her
up for dance and it changed her life.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It definitely saved me.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
In one of her very first classes, Alicia remembers feeling
out of place.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I was the little scraggly kid in the back. It
was funny because one time I went to class and
I was wearing jeans, and I was like mortified because
I didn't have my tights or anything.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
But the dance instructor put Alicia at ease.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
She made me feel seen and like it was okay,
and you know, I was just there to dance and
no one was looking at me to try to judge me.
She was awesome, And then after that I was hooked.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That instructor became a mentor.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
She stayed my role model all the way through my
dance career at that studio until I pretty much graduated
high school.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It was a classical studio, so Alicia trained in ballet,
tap and jazz from age seven on. She joined every
class she could.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It was a way for me to escape what was
going on at home. It was my way to walk
into the studio and just be somewhere else, be something else.
I was able to escape through the music, through the movement.
It just became my safe space.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
When she went off to college, she kept dancing and
eventually she began teaching it.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It became this full circle moment of being able to
do the things that my mentor had done for me
give that back to a kid that might have not
felt seen.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
She returned to her childhood studio.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
After college, I wound up venturing back to my old
studio that I originally grew up at. I wanted to
make kids feel empowered, to make them feel good about themselves,
express themselves in the ways that they needed.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Alicia had dozens of students. One of the standouts was
a young dancer named Kim.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
One of our students was Kim. I started working with
her when she was twelve or thirteen years old. I
remember her being this fun, quirky, sassy girl.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But Kim was incredibly talented.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
She just had this natural ability to her, this natural
flexibility that people only dream of. She was always really
willing to work hard, and I knew she would go far.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I knew she was going to make it. Alicia took
her under her wing. That year, Alisha met another dancer
we're going to call Kevin. He was Alisha's age, just
finishing college.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Kevin. He was cute and I thought it was pretty
impressive to see someone that could dance as well as
he could. He had that natural ability and that natural talent,
and there's something attractive about that, like especially seeing a
guy dance in that way.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Kevin wasn't trained in a classical studio. He was mostly
self taught, and he was mesmerizing.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Special tea was hip hop, so all the traditional styles
of hip hop, which would be breaking, popping, locking, b boying.
It was something that was new to me, being more
of a traditionally trained ancer, and he definitely made it
seem effortless.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
They started off as friends, taking classes, going out and
bonding over their tough childhoods.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
He would ask me questions about my upbringing and wanted
to know a lot about what happened growing up, and
he was very attentive with that. I told him my
life story and that I didn't have the best upbringing
and Howie had to grow up pretty quickly. And then
it turned out that he wound up having the same
type of family issues.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
They both had a parent that struggled with addiction, and
Kevin seemed genuinely interested in hearing about Alicia's background. Alisha
was amazed to meet someone who shared her love for
dance and also had a traumatic upbringing.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
For the first time, I felt seen and I felt
heart in a way that others couldn't really understand, and
it felt very validating. But I didn't pick up on
his signals about, you know, getting a little bit more
than just friends.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
After a few months, Kevin confessed his feelings for her.
He bought flowers, wrote love notes, and made mixtapes.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
He even got me this necklace. It was like a
little diamond pendant necklace that he said symbolized me shedding
my last tear and that he wouldn't ever hurt me
so I would never have to cry again. And that's
when I took the leap of faith and we started
up the relationship. He just seemed like this very kind,
(06:50):
very sensitive person, and he seemed like a hopeless romantic
despite all the mistreatment that he experienced at home. So
it was pretty much the same thing as me.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Kevin had big career ambitions. This was the late nineties,
and he wanted to work with pop stars like in
Sync and Britney Spears, but he was struggling to find
long term work. So Alicia brought Kevin into the studio
where she worked to teach hip hop.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I approached the studio owner and he thought that it
would be a good idea, so Kevin had a couple
of classes to start with, and he was great at it.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Kevin's classes became a hit. Alicia's student Kim enrolled. Kim
had her sight set on becoming a professional dancer, and
Kevin saw the same potential in her that Alisha did.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
They started to have a bond in a relationship, and
he wanted to help her as well.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
The studio was like a little family. Mentoring Kim and
students like her brought them closer. Kevin and Alicia spent
every day all day at the studio. She was really
falling for him.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
He would bring out the best of me, and he
let me be myself like I was able to be
fun and quirky, and he encouraged that. You know, I
never felt self conscious around him. He would always look
at me in ways that made me feel like I
was the only person.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
A few years into their relationship, he surprised her with
a trip to New York, made a reservation at a
famous restaurant, Windows on the World. It was on the
top floor of the World Trade Center, and that night
at dinner.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
All of a sudden, he got down on one knee,
and then I look up behind me and my best
friends standing there recording, and he popped the question. He
was very nervous, but he said that he wanted to
be my partner for the rest of my life. I
don't know if I even remember hearing the rest of
what he said, because I just started crying and I
(09:00):
was just overwhelmed with joy, and it just felt like
such a special moment.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
She felt like she was marrying her best friend getting married.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I always pictured having somebody that is going to make
me feel safe, because that's something that you know, just
growing up with childhood trauma is one thing that you
don't always feel all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
The wedding day was emotional, even though Kevin had a
tense relationship with his family, they all came to celebrate him.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I started walking down the aisle and I saw him.
I became emotional because I could just see our future
together and us building this great family, and he started
getting emotional. So it was just us trying to get
through our vows and being so choked up. I was
a little embarrassed by that because I thought I could
try to compose myself, and you don't want to have
like an ugly cry in your wedding pictures, But it
(09:57):
almost felt like that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Some of their DAN students even came to the ceremony,
like Kim and her mom.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Just looking out and seeing her and some of the
other students that were so excited for us to get together.
It was great to be able to include them in that.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Once they were married, Alicia encouraged him to visit his
parents more often. They didn't live far, but Kevin still
harbored resentment about his childhood. When he was around his family,
he was a shell of himself.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And he would sulk and he would change his whole
personality on the way there because he was upset about
even having to go there, and he was going to
have to put on a fake face and pretend that
everything was okay.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So they kept their visits to holiday weekends.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Those were the only times that we would go over there.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
But when he was at home with Alicia, Kevin was
animated and loving. They started daydreaming about raising kids together.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
He always knew that I wanted to have kids and
have a family of my own. That was one of
the things that we always talked about.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
They already knew they both loved kids. They were surrounded
by them every day. One of their star students, Kim,
had become Alicia's teaching assistant, and Kevin was helping Kim
get her dance career off the ground, so.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
We kind of played the dual role of mentoring her,
and then eventually she started assisting some of his classes
as well.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
By this point, Kevin had been with the studio for years.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
He just became the staple at the studio, and all
these kids just flocked to him, you know, for guidance
and inspiration. The kids loved him, the parents all loved him,
but there was one person that didn't quite love him,
and that was my mentor. They didn't seem to be
clicking for some reason, and I thought that was unusual.
(11:52):
They just were not really on the same page.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Kevin's theory was that this older teature was jealous of
how popular his classes were.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And not too long after that, that's when one of
the kids started saying something to their parents about a
conversation that Kevin had with them in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
A parent complained about something Kevin said to a student.
We don't know what it is because Alisha never got
the full story. Kevin denied saying anything inappropriate, but the
studio owner decided to keep an eye on Kevin, and
a few months after.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That, the owner decided that he was going to let
him go. He said that there were some artistic differences
and that it was time to.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Part Kevin called Alisha outraged.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Kevin pretty much made me feel like they were ganging
up on him, and that no one understood him and
they were jealous.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It seemed like a horrible misunderstanding. And she believed Kevin
when he said this was rooted in jealousy, especially considering.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
The parents and the kids were still very supportive of Kevin.
They couldn't believe what happened, and they started attacking the
studio owners, saying to him that he didn't know what
he was doing, he didn't know how to conduct business.
How can he let him go?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
At first, Alicia assumed she would keep her job and
Kevin could find a new place to work. But for him,
this was a matter of right and wrong, and he
wanted Alisha to be on his side.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
He said, this environment was supposed to be my second
home and like my family, and look how they're treating
my husband. So I had no other choice but to
support him at that time, so then I had to
leave the studio as well. I was heartbroken because here
(13:51):
was this community that just felt like such a safe
space for me, someplace that I grew up at for
pretty much my whole life. At this point, everything that
I had worked hard for, you know, now it's all gone.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Heartbroken, Alicia turned in her keys and left the studio
she'd grown up in.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
At the time, I felt very hurt because I felt
like no one really came to me and said anything.
Looking back, I realized the only version of the story
I was getting was Kevin's story. So of course I'm
going to believe him. He's my husband, but he was
hiding something from me, something bigger, something darker.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
After Kevin was fired from the studio, his favorite students
rallied around him. He'd been working with many of them
for years, and they wanted to keep taking his classes.
The next step seemed obvious for Kevin and Alicia.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That's when I was saying to him, oh, I always
wanted to open up my own dance studio. I decided that, hey,
now we had the opportunity to create that safe space
of our own, so we could do it the way
that we wanted to why not just give it a go.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Their own studio. It would be a pre professional program,
no expensive costumes or recitals, just dance.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
We turned this pretty empty warehouse, which was six thousand
square feet, into this beautiful studio.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
They wanted to prepare kids for real careers and dance,
and Kevin was perfectly positioned to make that.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Happen since he was one of the only male hip
hop dance teachers at the time. We wound up establishing
his own hip hop company.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
They had one hundred students upon opening. Many of his
former students put down a deposit to join Kevin and
Alisha's new studio. With Kevin being the lead instructor, they
needed a plan for oversight and safety for everyone's sake.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I had observation windows. I had cameras because you always
want to make sure that the parents feel comfortable and
feel safe, especially with a male teacher, because you know,
you always hear stories of different things happening, and I
never wanted that to ever be an issue. He never
wanted that to be an issue, So I always had
those things in place so we didn't never have to
(16:31):
worry about that.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Alicia was thrilled when Kim came on board to help
them open this studio. Kim was now a college student
and she became their first employee.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
She started out helping me with the front desk, doing
those types of things at first. Then we started to
give her some classes of her own, since she didn't
really have that before, and we definitely became a life closer.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Alicia managed the business while Kevin worked tirelessly to recruit
a hip hop crew, and when the group was assembled,
it was undeniable. The crew had the it factor.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Once we got up on our feet. His hip hop
crew started doing a lot of performances all over the area.
These kids were really turning heads and winning a lot
of different awards and were pretty much neck and neck
with some professional dancers on the scene, and they would
(17:36):
get recognized because they were so young at the time
and people couldn't believe how good they were.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
The kids in Kevin's crew ranged in age from thirteen
to nineteen.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
They were a bunch of kids who came from diverse
backgrounds who all were able to rise up above adversity
and beat life's obstacles.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Within two years, the kids were winning national titles, booking
huge auditions even making it onto TV shows.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I didn't even expect it to blow up the way
that it did, especially around this particular crew. I felt
like I was on cloud nine. Things were coming together,
so it was just thrilling to be the studio owner,
like it felt really good.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
In the chaos of starting a new business, Alisha and
Kevin's marriage started to drift.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
There wasn't any intimacy. I was realizing that we were
more friends than anything, more like business partners than a
married couple.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Along the way, Alisha had put one of her own
dreams to the side.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
At this point. I am now in my thirties and
I just wanted to go back to the original goal
of having children of my own.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But Kevin seemed more interested in his crew than starting
a family with Alicia.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So there came a breaking point, and I built up
enough courage and strength to have that conversation with him.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
She finally sat him down and told him that she
wanted to separate. She was bracing for his emotional reaction,
but Kevin seemed completely unfazed.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
He pretty much just looked at me and said, Okay,
I'm like, what, how is that possible? I couldn't believe it.
I'm like, well, maybe he didn't hear me, maybe he
just didn't hit him. I just couldn't believe it. And
then he said, okay, well, well, what do you think
I should do? Just move out? I said, okay, yeah,
I guess. I was just still baffled at the fact
(19:48):
that he was just so calm about it, and he
just said okay.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Kevin moved out that night, and they stayed amicable through
the whole divorce process. It was shockingly easy.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
After we decided to separate, I almost had a sense
of calm come over me, and I started to realize
that I didn't need to still be in a relationship
with him in order to keep the studio going.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
The dance students and their education was the most important
thing to both of them. There were only a few
uncomfortable moments, Like with Kim.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
It was a little awkward for her to be in
the middle of our split because she was really good
friends with him. She just became a little bit more distant.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Alicia felt as though Kim was picking a side, and
she noticed that with the students too. She chalked it
up to them processing the.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Divorce, but then all of a sudden, like a lot
of the kids were starting to fight more, and there
was a lot of tension, and there just seemed to
be something that was off.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Then one day, one of the younger students came to
Alicia to talk one on one. The girl was in Kymn's.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Class, so I had a student approach me and wanted
to talk to me. She started saying that she didn't
like the way that Kim and Kevin were acting, and
what they were doing was disgusting. How could they do
something like that? And I really wasn't sure what she
was talking about, but I let her vent and I
(21:23):
just listened to her, and I tried to just let
her finish what she was saying while not giving away
the fact that I didn't know any of this at
the time. What she was trying to tell Alisha was
that Kevin and Kim were together.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In the moment, Alicia maintained her composure. She didn't want
the student to think she'd done anything wrong by coming
to her.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I just told her, don't worry about it, we'll figure
it out.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
After the conversation ended, Alisha was shaken. She assumed the
girl must be confused. Had known Kim since she was twelve,
or thirteen. They even had her at their wedding.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I couldn't even process the thought of them being together,
Like the thought of it just made me sick. I
just didn't understand, and I didn't know if it was
even true.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
But her gut told her to check the security cameras,
so she did. Starting with the previous night.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It was a late night session. Everyone was hanging out
in the lobby, and that was the first time I
noticed him. He was like rubbing her back. But the
way that he was doing it, like very like loving
that kind of thing. I was like, Okay, WHOA. So
I was freaking out. It made me start to question everything.
(22:46):
I was furious, I was nauseated. I didn't know what
to think or what to do.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
At this point, Kim was in her early twenties, Kevin
was nearly forty, so Alicia felt like she couldn't do
anything about it.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I just had to maybe even step back at this
moment and say, Okay, well, we're all adults here, Like
she wasn't a minor or anything at the time, and
she was a young adult, and what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Kevin and Alicia's divorce had been finalized a few months prior.
For her own sanity, she needed further confirmation that this
was really happening. So the next night, she followed them
after rehearsal.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I waited in my car and I followed them to
the diner and I waited there until they finished eating.
So I literally sat in my car, like in the
side parking lot, waiting for them to come out. And
when they came out, they started to embrace, and that's
when they started to kiss. It was true. I just
(23:53):
couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that this person
who I had mentored from such a young age was
now with my ex husband.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It wasn't just betrayal, it was something deeper. It was
a contamination of her whole reality. The past ten years
with Kevin, their business together, it all started to look different.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
There's no words to describe the feeling of him being
with somebody that we both mentored. It was creepy and disgusting.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
She couldn't go to Kevin because now she didn't trust him.
She was questioning everything. So Lisha reached out to a
trusted former student who was now an adult.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I asked her how long Kevin and Kim were together,
and her whole demeanor completely changed, and she just let
out this big sigh and she said, it's been some
time now. It's been probably going on for several years.
She said that it was something that was just not
spoken of, but it was known. It was kept a
(25:04):
secret for so long. But now that I knew about
Kevin and Kim, then that's when it seemed like the
right time for people to come and start telling me more.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Word spread among former students that Alicia knew about the affair,
and one by one they started contacting her.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
The students reached out to me. They were the ones
who told me all about what was happening.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
What was happening went far beyond Kevin and Kim's relationship.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
They were telling me that they got out of a cult.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
After she found out about Kevin and Kim's affair, it
was like the levee broke. Former students who Alisha thought
had left the studio on good terms, began telling her
about an entirely different side of Kevin, one that was
completely hidden from her.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
They were telling me that they got out of a cult,
a cult.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That word hit Alisha hard. It seemed Kevin had gone
to extreme lengths to keep Alisha in the dark. Now
she had to get to the bottom of what was
going on, so she began asking former students what happened.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And then I started to piece a lot of the
story together.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Kevin told his crew that he used to be a
backup dancer for Britney Spears and other pop artists, which
wasn't true.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
He would pull up a video and basically someone was
standing there in the background and you say, oh, look,
that's me.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It was an incredibly powerful lie because the students all
dreamed of an opportunity like that, and it made them
want to do anything to impress him. Then Kevin would
initiate what he called life chats. He would approach a
student after class to talk about their goals and dreams.
(27:22):
They would be flattered that he was interested in them,
and after that.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
He would talk to them a lot over the internet
through Messenger. He would get them to open up to
him and tell him everything he needed to pretty much
understand who they were.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Kevin tailored his influence to each student. He became whatever
that student needed most.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Some people needed a best friend, other people needed a therapist.
Other people needed someone they can confide in. Then a
father figure for some because some of them come from
broken home, So then he would become that.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
He would shape shift into whatever for each student needed
him to be. After that connection was established, Kevin wanted
to be in constant communication.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It became like a twenty four to seven connection with him.
Like he wanted them to always write back if he
texted them or if they had group chats going, and
he had a lot of different chats and different side
conversations going on all the time, so they never really
had any real privacy because he would always be involved,
and then he would get really upset if they never
(28:30):
texted back or they didn't respond.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
He made it clear to the students that he could
make or break their careers, and when they wouldn't reply
to his texts, he.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Would tie it into well, if you have an agent,
then you know you have to be able to respond
right away or you lose your job. So then it
just became a normal thing.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Then he started controlling what they wore and how they looked.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He would try to change the way they would dress.
Some of them needed to develop a little bit more
and change their look or their style or their hair
or whatever. He would relate it back to that's how
it is in the dance industry, and then he would
find ways to use more of the manipulative.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Tactics, manipulative and highly inappropriate tactics. Because after he had
emotional control over the students, Kevin started talking to the
kids about sex and their sexuality. He said it would
help them become a better dancer. And keep in mind
(29:34):
some of the students were as young as thirteen.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
He would say that they needed to learn how to masturbate,
and he would teach them how to do that. He
would show them the pictures and the videos to clarify
what he meant, and then they had the report back
so he can tell them if they did it right
and if what they're experiencing was right. He was able
to tie that all back to dance because it would
(29:58):
make them able to express them and you know it
was normal because you wanted to be able to do
that as an artist. He said that it would help
them to be a more sensual dancer.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
He started manipulating their romantic and sexual relationships with each other.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
He started to encourage them to date each other. He
would set up different group chats with different people to
have them talk about sex and getting together. He would
even drive students over to other people's houses for them
to have sex so they weren't of age because they
weren't driving at the time, so he would drop them off.
(30:38):
A lot of times he would drive students home from dance.
They would get permission from their parents, and those were
the drives that some of them said that they felt
uncomfortable in a way where you know, like when someone's
trying to hit on you or trying to suggest something like.
They kind of got that feeling, but they just didn't
engage in that, but they felt like if they were
(30:59):
to give green light, something could have happened.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Alicia was deeply concerned if Kevin ever touched them inappropriately,
but when she asked the students about it directly, they
all said no.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
He would tell some of them I know too, in
particular that he was their sole mate and that they
were twin flames and they had a deeper connection, like
he was the only person that would understand what they
went through from their past life experience.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Past life, not as in their past a few years ago,
but as in a lifetime they lived before this one
one that only he could see, one where they were
always meant to find each other.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
He was morphing into all these different personas, from the
good mentor to the peer, to you know, the father figure,
to the friend to now all of a sudden, this
enlightened figure, the light warrior.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Kevin told the students he was a light warrior, that
he had superhuman abilities, that he had a divine power.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
He would sometimes show up the studio wearing bandages on
his hands, and he would say that he was mastering
how to manipulate and start fire from his hands. Another
time he showed them a video of him supposedly turning
on a street lamp with just his mind. There were
(32:30):
times where he would make them stand outside and look
at these lamps to see if they can do it too.
One time he came into the studio in a wheelchair
because he said he was very weak from controlling things
with his mind.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
He also claimed to have visions.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
He would tell them he could see when they were
having sex because he can see their auras. He would
encourage them to try things with each other, and he
was the puppet master making a lot of that happen.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
By the time Alicia learned the full extent of it,
Kevin wasn't just a dance coach. He was a prophet,
and she started to understand why the students had stayed
silent for so long. Their whole world was tied up
in the dance crew.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
A lot of them said that they've invested so much
time and money that they felt like they couldn't leave
and then they would lose all their friends and everything
they ever known.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
To keep the kids quiet, Kevin used threats and intimidation.
He made sure that the cost of leaving wasn't worth it.
Leaving meant exile. Kevin also made them believe that leaving
the crew or breaking his rules would ruin their chances
of dancing professionally.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
After they were telling me all these stories, it made
me face what was happening, and then I realized, Wow,
he is not a mentor. He's pretty much a monster,
and he cannot be around these kids. That's when I
decided I needed to go and talk to a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
She got a recommendation for a criminal lawyer and drove
to his office right away.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
He basically told me that I probably should shut the
studio down immediately, so I left his office. I immediately
contacted my father. I told him a little bit what
was going on.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Her dad met her at the dance studio.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
He came and he helped me change the locks. I
grabbed all the stuff, like the files and the stuff
to contact families and parents and anything I can get
my hands on. And it was early afternoon. I remember
it clearly was her Friday, and I know he comes
to the studio around four and sometimes he might come
a little bit early. And I was literally shaking, and
(34:45):
I grabbed what I could and I put a sign
up on the door saying we were no longer in business,
and then I ran out of there. I don't even
know how I made it to my car because I
thought I was going to pass out, because I was
so petrified that he was just going to pull up
and see me and chase me down once he's all
that sign on the door. I had no idea who
he was or what he was capable of.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
She drove home and a few hours later Kevin called, confused.
When he asked what was going on.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
She just said one sentence, you can talk to my lawyer,
And that was the last time I ever talked to
him and had any correspondence with him.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
After she closed down the studio, Alisha braced herself for
calls and emails from the parents of her dance students,
but to her surprise, she was met with radio silence.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
That's the part that I still don't understand that no
parents really came to me or said anything.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It's possible the parents didn't turn to Alicia because they
thought she was in on it, or at the very
least turning a blind eye. She knew she'd done the
right thing by closing the studio.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Once I closed down the studio, it finally gave permission
for the ones that were struggling to leave, the ones
that were coming to me saying they weren't sure they
wanted to leave, So it finally gave them the opportunity
to leave and disconnect from him.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
But Kevin still had a grip on a devoted circle
of students.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
He still had a handful of loyal followers, so he
basically had them do all his dirty work. And they
were calling me and texting me telling me how awful
I was and how could I do this to them,
and that I was an awful person. I was so
heartbroken hearing those things. I could cry now. Actually, the
(36:36):
only thing I could say to them was that I
was sorry, and that one day they will understand.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
She couldn't undo what had happened, but she wanted to
make it right and to keep Kevin from ever doing
it again. Alicia and her lawyer took the case to
the prosecutor's office. She started at the beginning with the
revelation that Kevin and Kim were together.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
And I could immediately sense that he felt like, oh,
you know, she's just upset because you know, the situation
happened and they weren't together. I felt like he wasn't
really listening to me.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
After that, she wanted to make it clear that this
wasn't a case of a messy divorce.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So after that conversation, I immediately wrote an email explaining
everything that I was finding out. I gave him a
list of names and different people that he could reach
out to and talk to, as far as students.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Some students even reached out to the office directly to
share their stories, but they never heard back. After a
few months, Alicia's lawyer came back to her with bad news.
The prosecutor's office wouldn't be taking the case.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I'm like, what does that mean? Like I don't understand
what that means, Like how are you not interested in
something that seems so sickn magnificant, especially with kids involved,
miner's teens, And he said they only go with cases
that they feel like they can win. And they came
back and said that it seemed mild on the list
(38:13):
of sex crimes to them. He said, if he was
playing Devil's advocate, that I came across as an ex
wife scorned who was trying to take down her husband
and was jealous of him being with a younger woman.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
She was stunned. She thought about the students talking to
the police, but then her lawyer explained.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
The prosecutor's office was the sale and all they were
going to be the ones that would bring about charges.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So Kevin was never charged for anything. Even though Kevin
was telling kids to masturbate or manipulating them into having
sex with each other, the prosecutor couldn't charge him with
a crime. And for a few months after the studio closed,
Kevin was able to keep his crew going out of
his own space.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
He was pushing really hard with this new business that
he had created with them, and they all had to
recruit ten new people. And if they weren't recruiting that
he was flipping out, and they didn't want that, because,
like I said before, if you're on his bad side,
you're on his bad side.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Slowly, his remaining students began to leave, and when they did,
the other students would direct them to Alisha.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I was able to let them know that they were
safe and that they can leave and that it's gonna
be okay. And one of the students who had sent
me the text of telling me that I was the
most awful person wound up texting me and she apologized
and she said, You're so sorry for everything that she
said to me, And I said to her, like, I'm
(39:47):
so sorry, it's not you at all. I was the
one that should have been there for you.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Alicia's entire career had been about providing a safe space
for kids through dance, a place for express and growth.
Kevin had taken all that was good and pure about
that purpose and ruined it. Alicia felt like the only
good decision she'd made in the end was to immediately
close the studio.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
I felt completely embarrassed at the fact that I couldn't
see these types of behaviors that were happening right underneath
my nose, and I know a lot of it isn't
my fault, but it just really broke my heart for them.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
In a few months after the studio closed, students continued
leaving Kevin's crew. It sent him into a tailspin. He
moved back in with his parents. Apparently, Kevin was in
such a dark place that one day, his sister reached
out to Alicia. She wanted to meet in person to
better understand what was going on with her brother.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
We weren't that close, so it just came out of
no where that she actually wanted to meet up.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
The two women agreed to meet for coffee. Within the
first few minutes, Alicia realized Kevin's sister had no idea
what happened with the studio.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
She basically just sitting there looking at me, confused. I
told her a little bit about the story of what
I'd been learning about Kim and Kevin and the relationship.
That's when she just started to cry and break down.
She didn't really understand what I was saying, and she
was like, I can't believe this is happening. And that's
when I started to ask your questions about him.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Alicia knew Kevin had a fractured relationship with his family
when they were married, they only saw his parents and
siblings a handful of times. Sitting with his sister, it
was clear she needed to start from the beginning. So
Alicia brought up Kevin's past and his difficult childhood.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
And then I said to her, well, what about your dad, Like,
your dad's an alcoholic, and you know, he was talking
about all these times that he was in these fights
with him, and he even told me about a surgery
he had to go have because he had a broken
rib from being kicked on the steps. And she said, whoaoo,
what are you talking about. My dad isn't an alcoholic,
Like he doesn't drink at all. And she's like, I
can tell you. We had a really good upbringing. We
(42:15):
had a good childhood. He had everything that he needed.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Back When Alicia and Kevin first met, he told her
about his traumatic upbringing and his alcoholic parent. It bonded
them together because Alisha also had a troubled childhood with
an alcoholic parent. But now she discovered that shared experience
was fiction a long calm.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
He pretty much formed this persona that would trauma bond
with me and match all the things that I went
through in order for us to become relatable, for us
to become closer.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
It was the same thing he'd done with the students.
He told them whatever they needed to hear to trust him.
This revelation brought a clarity about how deeply disturbed Kevin
really was. Their entire life together was one lie built
upon another lie. The only thing Alicia could do was
(43:13):
rebuild a new life. Alicia went to talk to that
old studio owner, the one who had fired Kevin years ago.
It was also the studio where they'd met Kim back
when she was twelve or thirteen, So.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
When I asked him about Kevin and Kim, he said
that there were rumors that they might have been together
when she was underage. So regardless of whether he did
anything physically with her, that coerce of control definitely started
way back when she was young.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Alicia sees Kim as Kevin's victim.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
She always has, and it breaks my heart to know
that he did that to her and she was so
special to make.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
In the years since Kevin and Kim got married and divorced,
Alicia tried to go back to teaching dance at her
old studio.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
But it was never the same so I started trying
to focus on what I can do to maybe help
make the dance industry a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Today, she wants to help other studios catch what she
didn't see.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I want to spark a deeper conversation about the dance
industry and how victims of abuse have gone through similar
things in a very unchecked, highly unregulated system.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And she teaches pilates to senior citizens.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
That was a good way to give back and feel
like I'm doing something positive while I'm working on trying
to make change in the dance industry.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
We end all of our weekly episode with the same question,
why do you want to share your story?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I wasn't able to have children on my own, so
this is why this is such a passion project for me. Now.
I want to help other students, other children feel seen, validated,
and then create a safe environment for them to be
able to enjoy dance, because dance is something that is
so powerful and it could be such a beautiful thing
(45:27):
when you're able to express yourself freely and have a
safe environment. This is my way of taking control of
the situation that happened with me and making it into
something positive.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
The person that sent these letters out was saying, I
have proof, So unless you confess your sins and repent,
then I'm going to release some tapes.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Before we end the episode. I have some exciting news Betrayal.
We'll be doing our first ever live show as part
of the Virgin Voyages True Crime Cruise. We'll be answering
listener questions and discussing them live on stage with Stacey
and Tyler from Betrayal season three, as well as Caroline
from season four. So if you have a question for us,
(46:29):
please email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com with
the subject line listener question and if you want to
join us on the Caribbean cruise, there are still spots
available search Virgin Voyages dot com slash true crime. If
you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team
or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email us
(46:50):
at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod at
gmail dot com, or follow us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod.
You can also connect with me on Instagram at It's
Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content, and
connect with the Betrayal community. Join our substack at Betrayal
(47:11):
dot substack dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
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Betrayal five star reviews go a long way. A big
thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a
production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group
and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced
(47:34):
by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by
me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also
produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Caitlin Golden, Olivia Hewitt,
and Kristin Melcurie. Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart
team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing by
(47:56):
Matt Dolvecchio, mixing and mastering on this episode by day
say An. Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayals theme
composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by mybe Music
and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app
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