August 1, 2024 • 38 mins
Ashley is robbed, deceived, and endangered – all by the person she trusts the most.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
They call it from an eight hundred number. I didn't
know who it was, but I answered the phone and
I heard you were getting a collect call from an
Innate County jail. That wave of dread came over me.
You have that decision to accept the call or not
(00:23):
accept the call. My heart sank, my stomach went into
my throat.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. A few months ago, we heard from a
woman named Ashley. When our team first met Ashley, she
was working as a correction caseworker in a prison and
was pursuing her master's degree in forensic psychology.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm very in tune with people's emotions and how people
are feeling. I love people. I will go above and
beyond to help somebody in need.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Ashley's a sensitive person and the betrayal she experienced was
so intense it nearly broke her. It's a twisted story
of theft, deception, and even threats from a Mexican drug cartel.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I was sitting there thinking, who did I marry? Am
I sleeping next to somebody who would murder people? For
a cartel.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
When we first spoke with her, I was surprised how
flatly she describes what she went through. It was almost
like she was divorced from emotion. So we asked her
about that directly.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
If I let myself get emotional about it, I am
in danger of getting back to that dark place that
I don't want to find myself in. I know it's
not a healthy coping mechanism, but like I disassociate from it.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
When Ashley was twenty six, she was working as a
mental health case manager. It's her passion. Her life was
on track. She was proud to be living alone in
her first apartment. She even worked a second job as
a swim coach to make extra money. But there was
one big thing she still wanted in her life. Love.
(02:30):
She'd had a string of bad boyfriends and was looking
for someone stable, someone she could build a life with.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I was using all the dating apps like Tinder, all
that fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That's when a new guy started at Ashley's job, Jake.
He was confident and smart. She was immediately drawn to him,
not necessarily romantically, but just as a person.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Jake had really loved black hair down to the middle
of his back and kind of looked like somebody that
was like in a band or something, not the type
of guy I would date.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
The two shared the same work schedule and soon became
fast friends. Jake even teased her about being on dating apps.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
I'd come into work and share my dating experiences on
these apps. It started off by him kind of joking
about the types of guys that I would go out
on dates with, what they did as a profession, or
like their screen names or whatever on the dating apps.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
One day, Jake came into the office with bad news.
He told Ashley that over the weekend he found out
that his wife, Amber was cheating on him.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
He wasn't going to tolerate cheating, and so he kicked
her out of the house, changed all the locks, and
they were going to get a divorce.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Ashley was sympathetic, especially because the couple had a three
year old daughter together.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
One day, he left from work early because he had
this lawyer appointment and he was going to go file
for divorce. He thought it was best to separate and
raise their child together, but separate.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
A few weeks later, Jake asked Ashley to hang out
after work. She expected something casual like beer and wings,
but Jake had other plans.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
He showed up at my apartment and he bought me
this huge bouquet of flowers and they were just gorgeous
pinks and orange and just really pretty flowers.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
To Ashley's surprise, it was a date. When they went
to dinner that night, Jake showed her a different side
of him. He was a gentleman.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
He was such an upgrade to what I was used to.
He just seemed very honest, which was a breath of
fresh air to me because I came from relationships where
there was a lot of lying and hiding in secrets,
and he seemed to be upfront and honest about everything,
and I was like, this is a nice change of pace.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Jake was also thoughtful. He would walk into work in
the morning with her favorite coffee in his hand. That
was just the beginning of Jake's generosity.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
He would randomly buy me like designer purses or jewelry,
just because he was just like, I saw this and
I thought of you, and I thought you'd like it,
so I bought it for you, which you know, I've
never had someone do that for me before.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
It was romantic. They started having date nights every Thursday
and Saturday. They were the highlights of her week. Around
that same time, Jake was settling his divorce and finalizing
the sale of his house.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
He was like, I sold the house, but I have
to be out in a week. I don't have anywhere
to go. And I'm like, well, you can move in
with me.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Even though Ashley and Jake had only been dating a
few months, she didn't want someone she cared about to struggle. Plus,
she saw a future with this guy, so Jake moved in.
Ashley's only concern was how his three year old daughter
would handle the change. She knew how much his only
child meant to him.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I love kids. I'm good with kids, but I don't
have any children. I didn't know how that was going
to work, or how he was going to explain to her.
You know that, Oh, I'm living with her now.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Ashley knew she wanted kids of her own one day
and was willing to make room for Jake and his daughter.
She offered to set up a bed for her living room,
but his daughter never came to stay. His ex wife,
Amber wasn't happy about Jake's new relationship.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Amber did not trust me. Amber did not want me
around their daughter, and he said that she was keeping
her and breaking the custody order that they had.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Ashley didn't want to get involved in the custody battle.
Despite the stress of the divorce, living together was surprisingly easy.
The couple would go to work together, come home at
night to make dinner, and then snuggle on the couch
to watch movies. It was simple. He made her happy.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I could have the worst day ever, and he always
found a way to make me laugh.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
After about a year together, Jake took her on a
trip to visit Kentucky, where Ashley used to live. She
was delighted by the gesture. She took him around to
all of her old haunts and he was genuinely interested
in getting to know the place, says she loved. That night,
he gave her another gift.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We were getting ready to go to sleep, and he
slid over a box and just tapped me on the
shoulder and made that little like noise. I was like,
what is this and he was like, well, open it
and it was a ring. And I was like, are
(08:30):
you asking me to marry you? And he was like,
well duh.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Ashley admitced the proposal was underwhelming, but she didn't care.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I loved him and I wanted to marry him, so
the proposal and how it was done at that point
didn't matter. I just wanted to move forward and start
building a life with this person.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Jake found an elopement package a weekend getaway at a
bed and breakfast. Most of the day was a blur
for Ashley, except for the vowels the couple had written
for each other. She remembers that moment clearly.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Mine were all about how I promised to love him
and be the best wife I could be, and his
were joking about how we met at work and how
this friendship ended up becoming what it is today. The
very last line of his vows, he used the song
Africa by Toto about how it's going to take a
(09:36):
lot to drag me away from you. At the time,
I was like, oh, that's sweep, But looking back now,
I'm like, it's an interesting way to end your vows.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Interesting, perhaps more like foreshadowing. After a year of dating,
Ashley and Jake had tied the knot in his simple
(10:11):
elopement ceremony. As she said in her vows, she promised
to be the best wife she could be. That meant
making the marriage work even in the hard times, just
like her parents had.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
My parents were never divorced. I grew up with my
parents together, and I wanted to have one and only
one marriage, just like my parents.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
But early on the couple had a few fights, fights
where she saw a new side of Jake. There's one
specific night that Ashley says she'll never forget. She'd been
working her second job as a swim coach that night,
she stayed a half hour late to hang out with
the other coaches. When she got back to the apartment
(10:57):
and unlocked the door, sitting there glaring at.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Her, and he was like, where were you? And I
was like, I was talking to the coaches. We were
having a good time. And he was like, that is
not okay for you to be coming home half an
hour late and not be notifying me of this, and
(11:22):
I'm like, I'm sorry, it's only a half an hour.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Ashley didn't like the behavior and knew he was overreacting,
but at the same time, she thought.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Well, maybe that's just a way that he is trying
to be protective of me and like showing me that
he cares where I'm at and he's worried about me.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Jake was always a bit worried about Ashley. She struggled
with depression and anxiety, and Jake fixated on that.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I've had bouts of depression and anxiety throughout my whole life.
He kept telling me over and over and over, I
need to not work, that I need to focus on
getting better with my mental health. He told me that
(12:12):
he thought I should pursue social Security disability. And how
can you expect to go to work and handle all
the stress when you can't handle stressors in our marriage
and in our life. You take naps and you rest,
and you go to therapy and work on your mental health,
and I'll do everything else in life for you. It
(12:36):
just made me become more and more dependent on him.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Ashley eventually stopped working and started collecting disability. With less income,
the couple moved into Ashley's mom's house to save money,
but during the move, Ashley realized she couldn't find one
of her most treasured possessions.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
My dad gave me his military cult forty five gun
before he died. That was one of my dad's favorite
things he had. You know, I was crying and I
was like, I don't know where it is.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
She started to worry that one of her ex boyfriends
could have stolen the gun. Jake was trying to calm
her down. He said if any of her exes had
stolen the gun, he could get it back for her.
He took a deep breath and confessed that he had connections.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
And I'm like, what do you mean you have connections?
And then he told me that for several years he
has been involved with a local gang that worked for
one of the Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel cartel.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Her husband involved in a Mexican drug cartel. This was
news to Ashley, shocking and terrifying information. Even though Ashley
is now detached from what happened to her, she was
certainly not so calm about it in that moment. This
was a huge deal. She couldn't believe this revelation was
(14:17):
just coming out now after they were married. She asked
how exactly he was connected to the cartel. He said
that his job was to be quote a problem solver.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And of course I had to ask what that meant.
And then he told me how he would murder people
for whoever told him to. I asked him how many
people he had quote taken care of, and he told
me he was like at nineteen and it's not personal,
(14:54):
it's business. I was sitting there thinking, who did I marry?
Am I sleeping next to somebody who would murder people
for a cartel?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Ashley stayed awake that night, trying to understand what this
meant for her and Jake's future. Could he really be
a hit man for the cartel?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Every question that I had, he had reasons for it,
or he connected the dots for me that weren't making sense.
He backed up a lot of stuff. He would show
me emails, he'd show me text messages with conversations with people.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
But was even more disturbing was that he was simply
unfazed by the gravity of this. Jake acted as if
it were just a simple little secret.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
You should feel privileged that I even let you in
on this part of my life. I've never told anybody
else that I was involved in this stuff, and you
know more about this than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Ashley was scared and felt completely trapped. Jake expressed that
he was too.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
He explained to me how he was trying to get
out and they weren't going to let him out.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
These guys were serious, and they weren't afraid to hurt families.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Some of the stories about how people ended up missing
were scary because he would explain that they will make
it look like an accident, or you will just disappear
and never be heard from again. By him telling me
about the cartels, was that putting me in danger by
(16:40):
knowing that information?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
In fact, Jake said they were both in danger. Shortly
after that night, he told Ashley he broke ties with
the cartel, making the two of them a target. Now
they needed to go on the run and hide out.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
The higher ups in the cartel told him if you
come back to the area, you're going to be dead.
We're going to get you.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
The impact of the stress and terror began taking a
toll on Ashley.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. I lost quite a
bit of weight. I was not able to sleep unless
I was medicated.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
They hit out in hotels for a few weeks. Eventually
Jake demed it safe enough to return. Ashley felt safer
with him than without him, so they moved back in
with Ashley's family. It wasn't long until another issue surfaced.
Ashley's mother and grandfather apparently had their identity stolen. Their
(17:42):
bank accounts were being hacked.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
My mother would literally get a paycheck deposited on Friday
and then on Saturday go to buy something and her
bank account was overdrawn because someone hacked your bank account.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Every few weeks, her mother and grandfather and notice a
security breach. Just when it was solved, another one would arise.
Both Ashley and Jake threw themselves into helping her family
triage the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Jake was really attentive to my mom and my grandpa,
always sitting down with them at the kitchen table calling
the banks. That became his sole focus was helping my
mom and my grandpa fix their bank accounts.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
It went on like this for six overwhelming months. In
the back of her mind, Ashley feared that the missing
money could have something to do with the cartel, but
she didn't want to burden her mom with the truth
about Jake, so she kept it all inside. One day,
her grandpa got his bank statement and noticed something particularly concerning.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Twenty thousand dollars was missing from his savings account. He
called the banks, you know, they said for them to
have it insured and cut and put back into his account.
That he has to do a police report. So my
grandpa went and did a police report, and our local
police said, it looks like the money was being taken
(19:13):
out of an ATM, so we'll pull the footage from
that and see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
The family didn't hear anything from the police for a
few weeks until one night.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Our bedroom door gets busted down. Police are pointing guns
at both me and him, telling us put our hands up.
They asked if his name was Jacob Levin and he
said yes. They told him, like, stand up and face
the wall and put your hands behind your head. I'm
(19:51):
trying to talk to the cop and I go, what's
going on? What happened? And he said, well, ma'am, I'm
gonna let you know, we have evidence that Jake was
the one feeling the money from your grandfather's bank account.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
It didn't add up. Jake had been the one going
out of his way to help her grandfather sort through
this whole financial mess. The only explanation she could think
of is that this was all happening because Jake had
left the cartel in order to steal from her grandfather.
He had to be desperate to come up with cash
(20:31):
quickly and that meant she and her family could be
in danger, so she pawned her valuables and paid his bail.
She took him straight to a hotel where they could
talk in private, and he confessed.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
He explained to me that he had received a message
from one of these people in the cartel and they
were threatening me and my mom and my grandfather, and
if he didn't come up with some form a payment,
they were going to harm us. They knew where we
(21:06):
were living and they were driving past our house. So
he said that he was concerned for our safety and
my family's safety.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
He also explained what he'd kept the whole scheme a secret.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
He told me that he didn't want to add more
stress and worry to me because I was always kind
of worried and stressed out about things going on in
our marriage, our finances. People in the cartel after us,
and he told me he didn't want to add more
to my plate.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Right then, she wanted to walk out. The fear for
her safety and her family's safety was overwhelming, But more
powerful than fear was a deep insecurity.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I was brought up with the like, never give up
on something, try your hardest to make anything work attitude.
I just didn't want to fail, and I thought that
if I washed my hands of him in the whole marriage,
I was failing.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Their relationship was hanging on by a thread. Things were
so tumultuous that Ashley picked up and left the hotel
to spend the night at her mom's house. When she
went back to the hotel the next morning, she found
Jake missing, along with a few other important things.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
He had cleared out all of his things in the hotel,
including a lot of my things that he took. Three
of those things were three of my guns that I
had in the hotel, and they were registered to me.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
The guns were gone, and so was Jake. He wasn't
answering her phone calls. The hours turned into date. That's
when she and her family started looking for their valuables
and they found even more things missing.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
The weapons missing kind of prompted everybody in the house
to start looking at our valuables. That is when my
mother noticed that her wedding band and engagement ring set
when missing, as well as my grandmother's wedding ring and
engagement band. I was upset about the weapons, but the
(23:35):
wedding ring sets from both my mom and my grandmother's
was the ultimate betrayal to me. Those did mean so
much to me and my family, especially because my father
meant the world to me, and my dad has said
(24:00):
it's passed and those things are things that can't be replaced,
so it hurt real bad.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The wedding rings were the final straw for Ashley. She
knew immediately that her husband had stolen them.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
At that point, I knew I meant nothing to him.
I could not fathom how somebody could take something that
meant so much to somebody and take it to a
pawn shop and pawn it for however much money he
got for it. To him, it was just things. But
(24:43):
to me and my family, those things are priceless, and at.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
That point I knew that I was just a thing
to him.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
She and her family made a list of missing items
and took it to the police. At that breaking point,
Ashley decided to start researching her husband's legal record. She
saw the recent theft charges, some small claimsport records, and
then she clicked on a document about his divorce from
his first wife.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And one thing I noticed was the timeframe of it.
Jake had told me that he filed for divorce in
twenty seventeen. This wasn't filed until twenty twenty one. Jake
had told me that he was the one that filed
for divorce. This was showing that Amber was the petitioner
(25:44):
and Jake was the respondent. So I read more and
then I read that the case was dismissed.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Ashley needed answers, so she decided to go to the
one person who have them, Jake's ex wife Amber. A
few years ago, Amber had messaged Ashley on Facebook. Instead
of reading the message, Ashley had just deleted it and
blocked his ex.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I went back on Facebook. I unblocked her, and I
asked her if she would be willing to talk to
me because I have some questions about her in Jake's marriage.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Amber replied a few days later, and what she said
changed everything.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
As far as I knew, Jake and her only had
one child together, and one of the first things she
said to me was, you do realize that Jake has
five kids.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Ashley learned that her husband didn't just have one daughter
like he said, He had four other small children, four
children he pretended didn't exist. And Amber had a lot
more to say the story. Jake had told about his
ex wife cheating on him. Amber says that never happened.
(27:31):
She had divorced him after he disappeared suddenly. Their divorce
wasn't finalized until twenty twenty one, but Ashley had married
Jake in twenty eighteen. Was their marriage even valid? She
went to a divorce attorney to find out.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
The lawyer had explained to me that, well, no, according
to the date on my marriage certificate and the date
of Amber's dissolution of marriage, my marriage in fact was
never legal to begin with. Her term was it was
null and void from its inception.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Everything was crashing down around Ashley when she got a
phone call from the detective working on Jake's case.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And he said, I have some news for you. You
might want to sit down. I'm like, I just found
out my marriage was never real. The man I married
had a wife and five children that I didn't even
know about. Some of the children stole from my family.
(28:41):
You know what else could there be?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
The police explained they had just arrested Jake again and
this time he was living with his new fiance and like.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Excuse me fiance, and he said, yeah, Jake was living
with the Wood. She had children and this woman in
him had plans about a week prior to him getting
arrested to fly to Las Vegas and get married.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
In Las Vegas, the police searched Jake's phone, where they
found even more troubling details.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
He told this woman that he did have five children,
but his five children all died in I think it
was like an automobile accident, like a car crash, and
I do believe that Amber was a part of that
crash as well.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
He told his new fiance that he wanted to be
a stepdad to her kids because his own had all died.
Jake could have been in jail for a few days
when Ashley got a call.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
They call it from like an eight hundred number, and
I didn't know who it was, but I answered the phone.
And as soon as I heard you were getting a
collect call from an inmate County jail, that wave of
dread came over me. My heart sank, my stomach like
went into my throat. You have that decision to accept
(30:20):
the call or not accept the call.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
She knew she needed to confront him about his lies.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
As much as I did not want to talk to him,
I had to ask him questions and I know if
I didn't accept that call that I wouldn't have another
chance to ask him directly those questions.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
So she summoned all of her courage and accepted the call.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
And I said, you have five children. You never told
me you had five children. You told me you had one.
And his response was, quote, it is what it is.
I said, you were never divorced from Amber, and he goes,
that's news to me. And I was like, you know,
(31:12):
our marriage was not like a marriage. We were never
legally married, and he again said that's news to me.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Before Ashley hung up, he asked if they had a
future together.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm pretty happy with myself that. I was very firm
and bold and said absolutely not. No, we do not
have a future together. So that was probably the moment
where the healing began. That was like the final cut
of the cord.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
After that final phone call, Ashley began accepting the extent
of his lies.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I don't know who this person is. I don't know
who he ever was, and quite honestly, there's nothing I
can believe that he ever told me outside of the
fact that here's his name and his birthday because I
have his birth certificate.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Was he actually a problem solver for the cartel? Or
was that a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
To Now that I'm out of the situation and completely
removed and I can see the whole picture for what
it is, I do not believe any of the cartel
stuff was real. I believe that was like a scare
tactic to just keep me worried, keep me on edge,
(32:38):
like a diversion. Pay attention to the cartel stuff, but
don't look at what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Scare tactic is an understatement lying about being a hit
man for the cartel. It's a lie that created a
baseline of her in her everyday life, A lie that
allowed him to justify years up to say anger and theft,
A lie that made dozens of smaller lies seem more plausible.
(33:07):
Jake Spinning County jail for nearly two years awaiting trial
on charges of theft, fraud, theft of a firearm, and
defamation with intent to defraud. Ashley submitted a victim impact
statement to the court where she recounted the emotional and
financial damage he caused her and her family. The police
(33:27):
weren't able to recover the stolen items from Ashley's family.
The Priceless Family heirlooms. Ashley doesn't know if she'll ever
see them again. She's learning to make peace with that.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
This situation led me to realize, out of all the
stuff he has taken from me and my family, I'm
not going to let him take something else from me.
That includes my outlook on the world, my outlook on men,
(34:00):
like I don't hate men and think all men are
liars and cheaters because of what happened to me.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
She's putting her life back together. She just finished her
master's degree in forensic psychology and today she's a correctional
caseworker in a prison. It's work that brings purpose and
meaning to her life.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I go to work every day and I deal with
incarcerated individuals who have victims, have hurt people, and I,
being a victim myself, don't let that affect how I
treat any of my clients. I believe that they can
(34:45):
find redemption. I do think that people can change, and
a part of my job is to help them find
that way so that they can redeem themselves and get
out and find a way to live a happy, successful
life that won't have them end up back in prison.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Incredibly, she even believes that Jake has potential to find
redemption if he just takes accountability for his crimes and
the harm he caused. And there's one silver lining in
this terrible situation.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I never had to get a divorce because I never
had a legal marriage.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Ashley is focusing on moving forward, going to therapy, and
putting the pieces of her life back together. We end
all of our episodes with the same question, why did
you want to tell your story?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
I want people to know that something like this can
happen to other people, and hopefully somebody here's my story
and either makes them take a second look in a
situation that they're in, or if somebody else is in
a similar situation, they don't feel alone. Because one thing
(36:05):
that really helped me when I was going through this
was hearing similar stories. It made me feel like it's
not me. This happens to other people, and there is
a light at the end of the tunnel, because if
other people have gone through the same things I went through,
then it's possible that I can also find that happiness
(36:29):
and clarity.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
I remember her entering the Niki waiting room first off,
with no baby, and she just had this look on
her face.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayal pop at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
pod at gmail dot com. Also, please be sure to
follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all Betrayal content,
news and updates. We're grateful for your support. One way
(37:15):
to show support is by subscribing to our show on
Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review 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, in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by
(37:35):
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 Kristin Melcurie and Grace Bollinger.
Our ihearteam is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing
(37:57):
and mixing by Matt del Vecchio. Trails theme composed by
Oliver Baines. Music library provided by my Music. And for
more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
They call it from an eight hundred number. I didn't
know who it was, but I answered the phone and
I heard you were getting a collect call from an
Innate County jail. That wave of dread came over me.
You have that decision to accept the call or not
(00:23):
accept the call. My heart sank, my stomach went into
my throat.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. A few months ago, we heard from a
woman named Ashley. When our team first met Ashley, she
was working as a correction caseworker in a prison and
was pursuing her master's degree in forensic psychology.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm very in tune with people's emotions and how people
are feeling. I love people. I will go above and
beyond to help somebody in need.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Ashley's a sensitive person and the betrayal she experienced was
so intense it nearly broke her. It's a twisted story
of theft, deception, and even threats from a Mexican drug cartel.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I was sitting there thinking, who did I marry? Am
I sleeping next to somebody who would murder people? For
a cartel.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
When we first spoke with her, I was surprised how
flatly she describes what she went through. It was almost
like she was divorced from emotion. So we asked her
about that directly.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
If I let myself get emotional about it, I am
in danger of getting back to that dark place that
I don't want to find myself in. I know it's
not a healthy coping mechanism, but like I disassociate from it.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
When Ashley was twenty six, she was working as a
mental health case manager. It's her passion. Her life was
on track. She was proud to be living alone in
her first apartment. She even worked a second job as
a swim coach to make extra money. But there was
one big thing she still wanted in her life. Love.
(02:30):
She'd had a string of bad boyfriends and was looking
for someone stable, someone she could build a life with.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I was using all the dating apps like Tinder, all
that fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That's when a new guy started at Ashley's job, Jake.
He was confident and smart. She was immediately drawn to him,
not necessarily romantically, but just as a person.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Jake had really loved black hair down to the middle
of his back and kind of looked like somebody that
was like in a band or something, not the type
of guy I would date.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
The two shared the same work schedule and soon became
fast friends. Jake even teased her about being on dating apps.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
I'd come into work and share my dating experiences on
these apps. It started off by him kind of joking
about the types of guys that I would go out
on dates with, what they did as a profession, or
like their screen names or whatever on the dating apps.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
One day, Jake came into the office with bad news.
He told Ashley that over the weekend he found out
that his wife, Amber was cheating on him.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
He wasn't going to tolerate cheating, and so he kicked
her out of the house, changed all the locks, and
they were going to get a divorce.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Ashley was sympathetic, especially because the couple had a three
year old daughter together.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
One day, he left from work early because he had
this lawyer appointment and he was going to go file
for divorce. He thought it was best to separate and
raise their child together, but separate.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
A few weeks later, Jake asked Ashley to hang out
after work. She expected something casual like beer and wings,
but Jake had other plans.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
He showed up at my apartment and he bought me
this huge bouquet of flowers and they were just gorgeous
pinks and orange and just really pretty flowers.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
To Ashley's surprise, it was a date. When they went
to dinner that night, Jake showed her a different side
of him. He was a gentleman.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
He was such an upgrade to what I was used to.
He just seemed very honest, which was a breath of
fresh air to me because I came from relationships where
there was a lot of lying and hiding in secrets,
and he seemed to be upfront and honest about everything,
and I was like, this is a nice change of pace.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Jake was also thoughtful. He would walk into work in
the morning with her favorite coffee in his hand. That
was just the beginning of Jake's generosity.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
He would randomly buy me like designer purses or jewelry,
just because he was just like, I saw this and
I thought of you, and I thought you'd like it,
so I bought it for you, which you know, I've
never had someone do that for me before.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
It was romantic. They started having date nights every Thursday
and Saturday. They were the highlights of her week. Around
that same time, Jake was settling his divorce and finalizing
the sale of his house.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
He was like, I sold the house, but I have
to be out in a week. I don't have anywhere
to go. And I'm like, well, you can move in
with me.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Even though Ashley and Jake had only been dating a
few months, she didn't want someone she cared about to struggle. Plus,
she saw a future with this guy, so Jake moved in.
Ashley's only concern was how his three year old daughter
would handle the change. She knew how much his only
child meant to him.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I love kids. I'm good with kids, but I don't
have any children. I didn't know how that was going
to work, or how he was going to explain to her.
You know that, Oh, I'm living with her now.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Ashley knew she wanted kids of her own one day
and was willing to make room for Jake and his daughter.
She offered to set up a bed for her living room,
but his daughter never came to stay. His ex wife,
Amber wasn't happy about Jake's new relationship.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Amber did not trust me. Amber did not want me
around their daughter, and he said that she was keeping
her and breaking the custody order that they had.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Ashley didn't want to get involved in the custody battle.
Despite the stress of the divorce, living together was surprisingly easy.
The couple would go to work together, come home at
night to make dinner, and then snuggle on the couch
to watch movies. It was simple. He made her happy.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I could have the worst day ever, and he always
found a way to make me laugh.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
After about a year together, Jake took her on a
trip to visit Kentucky, where Ashley used to live. She
was delighted by the gesture. She took him around to
all of her old haunts and he was genuinely interested
in getting to know the place, says she loved. That night,
he gave her another gift.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
We were getting ready to go to sleep, and he
slid over a box and just tapped me on the
shoulder and made that little like noise. I was like,
what is this and he was like, well, open it
and it was a ring. And I was like, are
(08:30):
you asking me to marry you? And he was like,
well duh.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Ashley admitced the proposal was underwhelming, but she didn't care.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I loved him and I wanted to marry him, so
the proposal and how it was done at that point
didn't matter. I just wanted to move forward and start
building a life with this person.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Jake found an elopement package a weekend getaway at a
bed and breakfast. Most of the day was a blur
for Ashley, except for the vowels the couple had written
for each other. She remembers that moment clearly.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Mine were all about how I promised to love him
and be the best wife I could be, and his
were joking about how we met at work and how
this friendship ended up becoming what it is today. The
very last line of his vows, he used the song
Africa by Toto about how it's going to take a
(09:36):
lot to drag me away from you. At the time,
I was like, oh, that's sweep, But looking back now,
I'm like, it's an interesting way to end your vows.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Interesting, perhaps more like foreshadowing. After a year of dating,
Ashley and Jake had tied the knot in his simple
(10:11):
elopement ceremony. As she said in her vows, she promised
to be the best wife she could be. That meant
making the marriage work even in the hard times, just
like her parents had.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
My parents were never divorced. I grew up with my
parents together, and I wanted to have one and only
one marriage, just like my parents.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
But early on the couple had a few fights, fights
where she saw a new side of Jake. There's one
specific night that Ashley says she'll never forget. She'd been
working her second job as a swim coach that night,
she stayed a half hour late to hang out with
the other coaches. When she got back to the apartment
(10:57):
and unlocked the door, sitting there glaring at.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Her, and he was like, where were you? And I
was like, I was talking to the coaches. We were
having a good time. And he was like, that is
not okay for you to be coming home half an
hour late and not be notifying me of this, and
(11:22):
I'm like, I'm sorry, it's only a half an hour.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Ashley didn't like the behavior and knew he was overreacting,
but at the same time, she thought.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Well, maybe that's just a way that he is trying
to be protective of me and like showing me that
he cares where I'm at and he's worried about me.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Jake was always a bit worried about Ashley. She struggled
with depression and anxiety, and Jake fixated on that.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I've had bouts of depression and anxiety throughout my whole life.
He kept telling me over and over and over, I
need to not work, that I need to focus on
getting better with my mental health. He told me that
(12:12):
he thought I should pursue social Security disability. And how
can you expect to go to work and handle all
the stress when you can't handle stressors in our marriage
and in our life. You take naps and you rest,
and you go to therapy and work on your mental health,
and I'll do everything else in life for you. It
(12:36):
just made me become more and more dependent on him.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Ashley eventually stopped working and started collecting disability. With less income,
the couple moved into Ashley's mom's house to save money,
but during the move, Ashley realized she couldn't find one
of her most treasured possessions.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
My dad gave me his military cult forty five gun
before he died. That was one of my dad's favorite
things he had. You know, I was crying and I
was like, I don't know where it is.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
She started to worry that one of her ex boyfriends
could have stolen the gun. Jake was trying to calm
her down. He said if any of her exes had
stolen the gun, he could get it back for her.
He took a deep breath and confessed that he had connections.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
And I'm like, what do you mean you have connections?
And then he told me that for several years he
has been involved with a local gang that worked for
one of the Mexican cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel cartel.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Her husband involved in a Mexican drug cartel. This was
news to Ashley, shocking and terrifying information. Even though Ashley
is now detached from what happened to her, she was
certainly not so calm about it in that moment. This
was a huge deal. She couldn't believe this revelation was
(14:17):
just coming out now after they were married. She asked
how exactly he was connected to the cartel. He said
that his job was to be quote a problem solver.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And of course I had to ask what that meant.
And then he told me how he would murder people
for whoever told him to. I asked him how many
people he had quote taken care of, and he told
me he was like at nineteen and it's not personal,
(14:54):
it's business. I was sitting there thinking, who did I marry?
Am I sleeping next to somebody who would murder people
for a cartel?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Ashley stayed awake that night, trying to understand what this
meant for her and Jake's future. Could he really be
a hit man for the cartel?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Every question that I had, he had reasons for it,
or he connected the dots for me that weren't making sense.
He backed up a lot of stuff. He would show
me emails, he'd show me text messages with conversations with people.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
But was even more disturbing was that he was simply
unfazed by the gravity of this. Jake acted as if
it were just a simple little secret.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
You should feel privileged that I even let you in
on this part of my life. I've never told anybody
else that I was involved in this stuff, and you
know more about this than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Ashley was scared and felt completely trapped. Jake expressed that
he was too.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
He explained to me how he was trying to get
out and they weren't going to let him out.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
These guys were serious, and they weren't afraid to hurt families.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Some of the stories about how people ended up missing
were scary because he would explain that they will make
it look like an accident, or you will just disappear
and never be heard from again. By him telling me
about the cartels, was that putting me in danger by
(16:40):
knowing that information?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
In fact, Jake said they were both in danger. Shortly
after that night, he told Ashley he broke ties with
the cartel, making the two of them a target. Now
they needed to go on the run and hide out.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
The higher ups in the cartel told him if you
come back to the area, you're going to be dead.
We're going to get you.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
The impact of the stress and terror began taking a
toll on Ashley.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. I lost quite a
bit of weight. I was not able to sleep unless
I was medicated.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
They hit out in hotels for a few weeks. Eventually
Jake demed it safe enough to return. Ashley felt safer
with him than without him, so they moved back in
with Ashley's family. It wasn't long until another issue surfaced.
Ashley's mother and grandfather apparently had their identity stolen. Their
(17:42):
bank accounts were being hacked.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
My mother would literally get a paycheck deposited on Friday
and then on Saturday go to buy something and her
bank account was overdrawn because someone hacked your bank account.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Every few weeks, her mother and grandfather and notice a
security breach. Just when it was solved, another one would arise.
Both Ashley and Jake threw themselves into helping her family
triage the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Jake was really attentive to my mom and my grandpa,
always sitting down with them at the kitchen table calling
the banks. That became his sole focus was helping my
mom and my grandpa fix their bank accounts.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
It went on like this for six overwhelming months. In
the back of her mind, Ashley feared that the missing
money could have something to do with the cartel, but
she didn't want to burden her mom with the truth
about Jake, so she kept it all inside. One day,
her grandpa got his bank statement and noticed something particularly concerning.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Twenty thousand dollars was missing from his savings account. He
called the banks, you know, they said for them to
have it insured and cut and put back into his account.
That he has to do a police report. So my
grandpa went and did a police report, and our local
police said, it looks like the money was being taken
(19:13):
out of an ATM, so we'll pull the footage from
that and see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
The family didn't hear anything from the police for a
few weeks until one night.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Our bedroom door gets busted down. Police are pointing guns
at both me and him, telling us put our hands up.
They asked if his name was Jacob Levin and he
said yes. They told him, like, stand up and face
the wall and put your hands behind your head. I'm
(19:51):
trying to talk to the cop and I go, what's
going on? What happened? And he said, well, ma'am, I'm
gonna let you know, we have evidence that Jake was
the one feeling the money from your grandfather's bank account.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
It didn't add up. Jake had been the one going
out of his way to help her grandfather sort through
this whole financial mess. The only explanation she could think
of is that this was all happening because Jake had
left the cartel in order to steal from her grandfather.
He had to be desperate to come up with cash
(20:31):
quickly and that meant she and her family could be
in danger, so she pawned her valuables and paid his bail.
She took him straight to a hotel where they could
talk in private, and he confessed.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
He explained to me that he had received a message
from one of these people in the cartel and they
were threatening me and my mom and my grandfather, and
if he didn't come up with some form a payment,
they were going to harm us. They knew where we
(21:06):
were living and they were driving past our house. So
he said that he was concerned for our safety and
my family's safety.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
He also explained what he'd kept the whole scheme a secret.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
He told me that he didn't want to add more
stress and worry to me because I was always kind
of worried and stressed out about things going on in
our marriage, our finances. People in the cartel after us,
and he told me he didn't want to add more
to my plate.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Right then, she wanted to walk out. The fear for
her safety and her family's safety was overwhelming, But more
powerful than fear was a deep insecurity.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I was brought up with the like, never give up
on something, try your hardest to make anything work attitude.
I just didn't want to fail, and I thought that
if I washed my hands of him in the whole marriage,
I was failing.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Their relationship was hanging on by a thread. Things were
so tumultuous that Ashley picked up and left the hotel
to spend the night at her mom's house. When she
went back to the hotel the next morning, she found
Jake missing, along with a few other important things.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
He had cleared out all of his things in the hotel,
including a lot of my things that he took. Three
of those things were three of my guns that I
had in the hotel, and they were registered to me.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
The guns were gone, and so was Jake. He wasn't
answering her phone calls. The hours turned into date. That's
when she and her family started looking for their valuables
and they found even more things missing.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
The weapons missing kind of prompted everybody in the house
to start looking at our valuables. That is when my
mother noticed that her wedding band and engagement ring set
when missing, as well as my grandmother's wedding ring and
engagement band. I was upset about the weapons, but the
(23:35):
wedding ring sets from both my mom and my grandmother's
was the ultimate betrayal to me. Those did mean so
much to me and my family, especially because my father
meant the world to me, and my dad has said
(24:00):
it's passed and those things are things that can't be replaced,
so it hurt real bad.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The wedding rings were the final straw for Ashley. She
knew immediately that her husband had stolen them.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
At that point, I knew I meant nothing to him.
I could not fathom how somebody could take something that
meant so much to somebody and take it to a
pawn shop and pawn it for however much money he
got for it. To him, it was just things. But
(24:43):
to me and my family, those things are priceless, and at.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
That point I knew that I was just a thing
to him.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
She and her family made a list of missing items
and took it to the police. At that breaking point,
Ashley decided to start researching her husband's legal record. She
saw the recent theft charges, some small claimsport records, and
then she clicked on a document about his divorce from
his first wife.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And one thing I noticed was the timeframe of it.
Jake had told me that he filed for divorce in
twenty seventeen. This wasn't filed until twenty twenty one. Jake
had told me that he was the one that filed
for divorce. This was showing that Amber was the petitioner
(25:44):
and Jake was the respondent. So I read more and
then I read that the case was dismissed.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Ashley needed answers, so she decided to go to the
one person who have them, Jake's ex wife Amber. A
few years ago, Amber had messaged Ashley on Facebook. Instead
of reading the message, Ashley had just deleted it and
blocked his ex.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I went back on Facebook. I unblocked her, and I
asked her if she would be willing to talk to
me because I have some questions about her in Jake's marriage.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Amber replied a few days later, and what she said
changed everything.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
As far as I knew, Jake and her only had
one child together, and one of the first things she
said to me was, you do realize that Jake has
five kids.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Ashley learned that her husband didn't just have one daughter
like he said, He had four other small children, four
children he pretended didn't exist. And Amber had a lot
more to say the story. Jake had told about his
ex wife cheating on him. Amber says that never happened.
(27:31):
She had divorced him after he disappeared suddenly. Their divorce
wasn't finalized until twenty twenty one, but Ashley had married
Jake in twenty eighteen. Was their marriage even valid? She
went to a divorce attorney to find out.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
The lawyer had explained to me that, well, no, according
to the date on my marriage certificate and the date
of Amber's dissolution of marriage, my marriage in fact was
never legal to begin with. Her term was it was
null and void from its inception.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Everything was crashing down around Ashley when she got a
phone call from the detective working on Jake's case.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And he said, I have some news for you. You
might want to sit down. I'm like, I just found
out my marriage was never real. The man I married
had a wife and five children that I didn't even
know about. Some of the children stole from my family.
(28:41):
You know what else could there be?
Speaker 2 (28:44):
The police explained they had just arrested Jake again and
this time he was living with his new fiance and like.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Excuse me fiance, and he said, yeah, Jake was living
with the Wood. She had children and this woman in
him had plans about a week prior to him getting
arrested to fly to Las Vegas and get married.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
In Las Vegas, the police searched Jake's phone, where they
found even more troubling details.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
He told this woman that he did have five children,
but his five children all died in I think it
was like an automobile accident, like a car crash, and
I do believe that Amber was a part of that
crash as well.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
He told his new fiance that he wanted to be
a stepdad to her kids because his own had all died.
Jake could have been in jail for a few days
when Ashley got a call.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
They call it from like an eight hundred number, and
I didn't know who it was, but I answered the phone.
And as soon as I heard you were getting a
collect call from an inmate County jail, that wave of
dread came over me. My heart sank, my stomach like
went into my throat. You have that decision to accept
(30:20):
the call or not accept the call.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
She knew she needed to confront him about his lies.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
As much as I did not want to talk to him,
I had to ask him questions and I know if
I didn't accept that call that I wouldn't have another
chance to ask him directly those questions.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
So she summoned all of her courage and accepted the call.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
And I said, you have five children. You never told
me you had five children. You told me you had one.
And his response was, quote, it is what it is.
I said, you were never divorced from Amber, and he goes,
that's news to me. And I was like, you know,
(31:12):
our marriage was not like a marriage. We were never
legally married, and he again said that's news to me.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Before Ashley hung up, he asked if they had a
future together.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I'm pretty happy with myself that. I was very firm
and bold and said absolutely not. No, we do not
have a future together. So that was probably the moment
where the healing began. That was like the final cut
of the cord.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
After that final phone call, Ashley began accepting the extent
of his lies.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I don't know who this person is. I don't know
who he ever was, and quite honestly, there's nothing I
can believe that he ever told me outside of the
fact that here's his name and his birthday because I
have his birth certificate.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Was he actually a problem solver for the cartel? Or
was that a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
To Now that I'm out of the situation and completely
removed and I can see the whole picture for what
it is, I do not believe any of the cartel
stuff was real. I believe that was like a scare
tactic to just keep me worried, keep me on edge,
(32:38):
like a diversion. Pay attention to the cartel stuff, but
don't look at what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Scare tactic is an understatement lying about being a hit
man for the cartel. It's a lie that created a
baseline of her in her everyday life, A lie that
allowed him to justify years up to say anger and theft,
A lie that made dozens of smaller lies seem more plausible.
(33:07):
Jake Spinning County jail for nearly two years awaiting trial
on charges of theft, fraud, theft of a firearm, and
defamation with intent to defraud. Ashley submitted a victim impact
statement to the court where she recounted the emotional and
financial damage he caused her and her family. The police
(33:27):
weren't able to recover the stolen items from Ashley's family.
The Priceless Family heirlooms. Ashley doesn't know if she'll ever
see them again. She's learning to make peace with that.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
This situation led me to realize, out of all the
stuff he has taken from me and my family, I'm
not going to let him take something else from me.
That includes my outlook on the world, my outlook on men,
(34:00):
like I don't hate men and think all men are
liars and cheaters because of what happened to me.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
She's putting her life back together. She just finished her
master's degree in forensic psychology and today she's a correctional
caseworker in a prison. It's work that brings purpose and
meaning to her life.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I go to work every day and I deal with
incarcerated individuals who have victims, have hurt people, and I,
being a victim myself, don't let that affect how I
treat any of my clients. I believe that they can
(34:45):
find redemption. I do think that people can change, and
a part of my job is to help them find
that way so that they can redeem themselves and get
out and find a way to live a happy, successful
life that won't have them end up back in prison.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Incredibly, she even believes that Jake has potential to find
redemption if he just takes accountability for his crimes and
the harm he caused. And there's one silver lining in
this terrible situation.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I never had to get a divorce because I never
had a legal marriage.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Ashley is focusing on moving forward, going to therapy, and
putting the pieces of her life back together. We end
all of our episodes with the same question, why did
you want to tell your story?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
I want people to know that something like this can
happen to other people, and hopefully somebody here's my story
and either makes them take a second look in a
situation that they're in, or if somebody else is in
a similar situation, they don't feel alone. Because one thing
(36:05):
that really helped me when I was going through this
was hearing similar stories. It made me feel like it's
not me. This happens to other people, and there is
a light at the end of the tunnel, because if
other people have gone through the same things I went through,
then it's possible that I can also find that happiness
(36:29):
and clarity.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
I remember her entering the Niki waiting room first off,
with no baby, and she just had this look on
her face.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayal pop at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
pod at gmail dot com. Also, please be sure to
follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all Betrayal content,
news and updates. We're grateful for your support. One way
(37:15):
to show support is by subscribing to our show on
Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review 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, in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by
(37:35):
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 Kristin Melcurie and Grace Bollinger.
Our ihearteam is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing
(37:57):
and mixing by Matt del Vecchio. Trails theme composed by
Oliver Baines. Music library provided by my Music. And for
more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Andrea Gunning
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