June 9, 2025 • 45 mins
As the walls close in, Sarah finds herself alone—abandoned by friends, facing federal charges, and scrambling for a defense. She hires a lawyer, a fellow veteran, to make her case; but the evidence is overwhelming. In our series finale, Jake and Jess return to Sarah for a long, final conversation—seeking answers to the question that still haunts everyone: Why did she do it?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake. I hope you enjoyed our season
The Truth about Sarah. We'll be having a live event
later this year. It's going to be a conversation between
me and my co host Jess McHugh, and we want
to hear from you too. What questions do you have
(00:37):
for us about this season? Send your questions to deep
Cover at pushkin dot fm. That's deep Cover All one
word at pushkin dot fm and stay tuned for more
details on this event.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Previously on deep Cover.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I remember sitting on her couch and like me like
telling her, asking her is this real? Is this real?
Is this real? Is this real?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
You know?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
She was like no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
What immediately occurred to me was that as soon as
I told her I cancer, even though she was telling
me it was okay, in the back of her mind
she was thinking, I can take advantage of this.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Laying in bed in the dark, kind of like pillow talk,
I asked her one more time, do you have cancer?
When you lived two separate lives for so long, it
feels normal, right. I had to be someone else in
front of other people when I was a child, and
that was normal.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
As the Feds built their case against Sarah. They collected
all kinds of evidence, texts, emails, forged paperwork, witness interviews,
and even a country ballad, I Kid you not.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
The sun was warm and Edinburgh boots on the ground
covered in Afghander.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
This song, it's called Let's Go Back. It's all about
this tragic war hero who's still reliving the pain of
what happened in Afghanistan.
Speaker 7 (02:28):
Na smell the song at the sub life and now
the ever again, how heavy the silence buzz Let's gold back.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The inspiration for this song, the hero that it's all about. Yeah,
you guessed it, Sarah Kavanaugh. She's not the one singing.
That's a country music artist. Sarah collaborated with some songwriters
down in Nashville to create this song as part of
a program called Creative Vets.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
This is a coveted program with limited spots. It gives
veterans an opportunity to work through their feelings and try
through music. So when Sarah faked her way in, she
took away the chance for some healing for actual veterans.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
The only reason that we even know about this song
is because of federal investigators. After they searched Sarah's house.
They began picking through Sarah's entire life. This is when
everything began to really unravel for her. After the search,
she admitted to her wife, Nicole that she'd been lying
(03:38):
about having cancer. Nicole was like, I'm out of here.
She left the next morning, and eventually she filed for divorce.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Sarah's story was all over the local news. Sarah says
she got death threats. She left her position at the VA,
and she took a string of low wage jobs. None
of them lasted very long. Once her employers caught wind
of her story, Sarah says she was.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Fired while she was facing a host of criminal charges,
including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and fraudulent use of
military medals. It seemed as though everything was finally catching
up to Sarah Cavanaugh. So many questions swirled. Would her
(04:28):
victims confront her, would she expressed remorse, and would she
be held accountable. I'm Jake Colburn and I'm Jess McHugh
(04:52):
And this is Deep Cover Season six, The Truth About Sarah,
(05:15):
Episode six, The Defendant. To fight the charges against her,
Sarah needed a lawyer, and a good one. Enter Kensley
Barrett Esquire a veteran who'd served eleven years in the
Coastguard before becoming a lawyer. He goes by Ken, and
(05:40):
one of the first things I asked Ken was whether
as a veteran he had any misgivings about representing Sarah.
Ken said, a lot of people were bewildered they took
this case.
Speaker 8 (05:53):
My perspective was that I represent people who are accused
of heinous crimes. You name it, murder, sex, assault, everything
in between.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Ken says that if he started declar lining cases due
to some kind of moral aversion, as he put it, well,
then what kind of criminal defense lawyer would he be.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
I didn't necessarily have any second thoughts about representing miss
Galana and anything. It is more of intrigue as to
how she ended up in the situation that she was in.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
When Sarah walked into his office, Ken's first question was
about the financial impact of her fraud. He wanted to
know how many victims were involved and what was the
dollar amount. Ken says, initially Sarah downplayed the whole thing.
It would take Ken some time to get a clearer picture,
(06:54):
but eventually, as he reviewed the evidence, he understood it
was not a small dollar amount. The prosecution claimed Sarah
had stolen over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth
of money and services. Ken needed to know if the
allegations were true, and after reviewing the evidence, he was
(07:16):
pretty concerned. The evidence against Sarah, he says, was strong,
and he worried about the impact that it would have
on a jury.
Speaker 8 (07:25):
This case was really like hitting the third rail, and
I guess anything that involves dogs or animals and the military.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Simply put, you mess with certain types of people or
certain types of four legged animals, and you've instantly turned
the jury against you.
Speaker 8 (07:43):
Those two crimes in particular, always elicit a very strong
viseral reaction.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
All of this led Ken to believe that a trial
it'd be a disaster because if she lost, she could
be hit with a sentence of up to twenty four years.
Seemed like the best strategy. The only strategy really was
for Sarah to take a plea.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
It became very clear to me from my lawyer that
if I wanted to kind of survive this, I was
going to have to take whatever they were going to give.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Ken told Sarah that even with a plea best case scenario,
she was looking at a minimum two years in.
Speaker 8 (08:23):
Prison, and Sarah expressed concern that she couldn't do two
years in prison or any jail time. And when I
tried to convey to her that two years would be
like a gift, her reaction was kind of like why me,
(08:48):
Like why should I go to person for two years?
And I was kind of taken aback. That was the
one time in our entire time together where I was
truly like, she doesn't get it.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
We asked Sarah about this, and she agreed with Ken's assessment.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
I didn't get it. No, Like I remember him saying
to me once, the only thing where she could have
done is kill puppies, right, And I remember him saying
that and being like what and not? But now I see, yes,
I can see the gravity of it and all of that.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
But at the time she didn't see it. And this
made Ken wonder about Sarah's mindset because in that moment,
he says, her thinking seemed quote detached from reality. Ken
believes that Sarah was motivated by a deeply misguided need
to find comfort and belonging because to him, simple greed
(09:53):
didn't explain.
Speaker 8 (09:54):
Everything, although to mar believe in that it was not
all financially motivated. I actually believe that maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Sarah eventually agreed to forego a trial and plead guilty.
At this point, Ken says they had to pivot now
it was all about minimizing jail time. To do this,
they needed to establish mitigating factors, basically things that might
help a judge understand why Sarah did what she did
(10:35):
and then maybe show some mercy. Sarah told Ken that
during her childhood a man had sexually abused her. This
trauma had apparently fueled her drinking and depression. To Ken,
these were mitigating factors that he could present to a judge.
(10:56):
The problem, of course, was Sarah. Her credibility was well
pretty much nonexistent at this point, but on this claim
she had some backup. In official documents submitted to the court,
Sarah's mother attested that the claims of sexual abuse were true.
(11:16):
Ken also asked Sarah to gather letters from friends that
might humanize her or speak to the good things that
she had done. Sarah provided several such letters to Ken,
and he submitted them to the court.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Sarah's sentencing hearing took place at the US District Court
in Providence, Rhode Island picture, dark wood paneling and heavy
green drapes which led in just enough light to glint
off the polished floors and faded brass handrails. Very nineteen thirties.
You'd half expect to see some old timey gangster played
(11:55):
by James Cagney dragged in in handcuffs.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
The place was packed. The gallery was filled with spectators,
many of them veterans. So many people were in attendance
that they actually had to set up an overflow room.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The prosecution had arranged to have several of Sarah's victims
be there in person so that they could read their
victim impact statements, including some of the people you've heard
from in this series. Dave Ainslie, the commander of the VFW,
Michelle the Jim Buddy who was Sarah's primary shoe tire,
and of course Justin was there too. Justin told me
(12:36):
he was nervous about the whole thing. He'd never made
a statement in court before, and he hadn't actually seen
Sarah since he'd learned about her lies.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Honestly, it was kind of disconcerting because when we went
into the courtroom, when we went to the lobby, she
came in like behind me, Like, I turned around and
she was there, and that was kind of it was
almost like getting hit by lightning, kind of like just
kind of like this fight or flight response.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Justin slowly made his way into the gallery and he
found some company, some other people who were also there
to speak.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
When I got there and found all these you know,
started meeting these other people that are making statements, and
they were telling me what she had done to them.
And I hate to say it, but it made me
feel a little better. Though I wasn't the I wasn't
the only one that she had victimized so many people
(13:35):
that that we were all in this together.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
The prosecutor in this case was a guy named Ron Jendron.
He's an old hand for thirty years, he's been prosecuting criminals, murderers,
gang members, white collar embezzlers. He's seen everything. And when
he walked in, looked around and sized up the crowd,
he took it as a good sign.
Speaker 9 (14:03):
I was quite frankly exhilarated to see that turnout. Because
you toil away in your office and you don't really
have any contact with people during that process. You have
an idea of how it impacted people, but you don't
know until you walk into a court room and you
see those people there.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
In some ways, this case was a perfect fit for
this courthouse. Providence, Rhode Island. It's actually infamous for its
history of mobsters, scam artists, and corrupt public officials. Courtrooms
like this one have long fed themselves on a steady
diet of fraud cases. All of that being said, Ron says,
(14:46):
this case involving Sarah it was special.
Speaker 9 (14:50):
I've seen a lot of stuff over thirty years, you know,
some very despicable crime and things that are kind of
tough to wrap your head around, and this ranks right
up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
For Ron, the argument that Sarah should receive a lighter
sentence due to her trauma just didn't hold weight.
Speaker 9 (15:14):
The argument that you know, my trauma caused me to
do this, it doesn't fly with me. I mean, I've
been doing this for an excess of thirty years, and
you know, trauma and facing adversity or part of the
human condition. Every defendant comes before a court having had
(15:36):
some sort of loss or trauma in their life. Every
human has such things, but not every human goes out
and commits crime.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Sarah's fraud was so extensive, but for Ron, the worst
of it, the gut punch was what she had done
to Justin. When the time came, Justin rose to his
feet and faced the judge. Then he read his victim
impact statement. When I interviewed Justin, I asked if he'd
(16:11):
read it to me.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
My name is Justin. I'm a member of VFW Post
one five two, the post were Sarah conderway into becoming
the commander. I'm also the victim referred to in the
charges as JH. I'm a twenty year Navy veteran. I
have stage four lung cancer from exposure to the burn
pits wall in combat, and Sarah Kavanaugh legally accessed and
(16:34):
copied my medical records for her own personal gain.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
He went on to describe how we believe that Sarah
had cancer and how he couldn't stand by and let
another veteran suffer if he had the power to help,
so he gave her over five thousand dollars, believing he
was helping her secure private insurance to get treated at
Dana Farber just like he had.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
She knew the suffering My family and I were going
through Yet she took money from us anyway, money that
could have been used to pay for my own treatment
or take care of my family in our time of need.
I don't know what kind of person can do that
to someone with a terminal illness. I know that at
some point my cancer will catch up with me. When
that happens, I hope my consolation will be that she
(17:21):
is paying to the maximum extent possible for what she
did to me, my family, and countless others. The mental
anguish she has caused me and my family cannot be
measured in money or time in prison, but I guess
it will.
Speaker 8 (17:32):
Have to do.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
When Justin was done speaking, Sarah's lawyer, Ken Barrett, gathered himself.
Speaker 10 (17:42):
I knew after hearing Justin speak that no matter what
I said, that wasn't going to make an ounce difference
to the judge why my client was deservative of mercy.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Ken told me that it was more than just that.
He says it wasn't until this moment that he truly
understood the nature of Sarah's crime. The feeling was so acute,
he says, it was almost like an out of body experience.
That's how he put it. As if for a moment,
(18:17):
he was no longer himself, no longer Sarah's lawyer. He
was just an observer of another man's pain.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
The judge in this case was a man named John J. McConnell, JOR,
and when it came time to render his sentence, Judge
McConnell remarked that he too was deeply moved by Justin's story.
Addressing Justin directly, he said, you just gave of what
you had, and to know that that love was destroyed,
(18:54):
and that that love was obtained through fraud, It's the
worst kind of victimization. It's really awful when somebody betrays
the human love that you showed. I hope in your
healing you don't lose what is that compassion? With those
words hanging in the air, he delivered his sentence seventy
(19:17):
months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Sarah was also ordered to pay restitution totaling over two
hundred and eighty thousand dollars. She was taken directly from
the courtroom into custody.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It says her one mile away on a perfect but
of every day.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The first time we met Sarah, she was a year
and a half into her sentence that she was serving
out at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
That is crazy. So it's two fences of circular barbed wire.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, on the bottom, middle, and top.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
It doesn't look so I obsecurity.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I know this place, by the way, it has something
of a reputation as a prison for the stars, kind
of like Club Fed. This is the facility that inspired
the TV show Orange is the New Black. This is
where Leona Helmsley, Lauren Hill, and Real housewife Teresa Judice
(20:42):
all serve their time. The first time we came here,
a prison official walked us up this hill to a
small building for visitors, and then they just left us
on our own in this windowless room with a crayon
marked table. The visiting room was for family visits. There
was a mural of mermaids on one wall and doll
(21:04):
parts scattered in the corner.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
On that first visit, we waited for a while until
finally a woman strolled in on her own. She was
dressed in a gray sweatshirt and olive green pants. Her
blonde hair was pulled into a low ponytail. Her entrance
was so casual I thought maybe she was a prison employee,
(21:27):
a groundskeeper perhaps, but no, this was Sarah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Okay, so yeah, maybe we always just kind of start
with can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Okay, I'm Sarah Kavanaugh. I currently am in prison, so
i don't have a real job before this. I was
a social worker for the VA in Providence, and I'm
originally from Rhode Island.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
We talked for hours. We kept saying, you want to stop,
you need a break. No, she was tireless, and through
it all there was really just one question on our minds. Why.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Sarah's version basically is that it all started with a
big misunderstanding.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
I was invited to an event, and when I walked in,
I realized it was only veterans, and I realized, right
then and there, Okay, they think I'm a they think
I'm a veteran. But I didn't deny it, right. I
didn't stand up me say yes, here's where I served
in all of these things that hadn't started at that
point that dramatically yet. But I definitely didn't say, oh no,
(22:43):
there's a misunderstanding.
Speaker 8 (22:45):
Why not.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
I was enjoying being around them.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Sarah says that she never intended to become a celebrated
war hero. But that explanation just doesn't make sense to me.
You said you don't want to be the public face,
but there are these photos of you, you know, in
uniform next to the governor. How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah, it's like spirals out of control, right. It just
became this monster that I had lost control of, and
I didn't know how to stop it, because I think
I was always just like, get through the moment, be there,
be what people want you to be, Get through it,
you know, take the pictures, move on.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
So surely she wouldn't have done this for six years
if she was just getting through it. Why do it
in the first place?
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Did feel good to be noticed, It felt good to
be the center of attention. It those aren't really great
things to say about myself, But I know now that
those are true, that I did enjoy those moments, not
just push through them.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
As she tells it, the main benefit of these lies
was the love and admiration she received, and the services
and money were just a fringe benefit. But just for
the record, Sarah started defrauding the Wounded Warrior Project in
twenty sixteen, the same year she joined the VFW. If
(24:21):
There's one part of this story that seems to really
weigh on Sarah. It's her relationship with Justin. She brought
him up again and again. Justin is particularly.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
There are like a few people who I really feel,
who I really feel, were hurt more than most, and
he is he is he is one of those people
because he really cared for me. He really really cared
for me.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
You can hear the emotion in her voice, the sadness.
It felt really convincing. So we asked, Okay, if that's
the case, why steal Justin's money and his private medical paperwork.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I knew he had that diagnosis, right, he was a patient,
I knew his last name. I knew he was enrolled
in care. There. Those aren't excuses, that's not right, but
those are facts that I knew, which made it reliable
to go to that document.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You say it like it sounds obvious.
Speaker 8 (25:34):
I think it was just.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
A way to make the lie more convincing. It was
merely to use the correct language, right. It was so
like this impersonal, detached decision that I made.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
We were baffled. She had been crying, visibly, upset over
hurting Justin, and now she seemed really cold, annoyed.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Even sitting there, I still didn't feel like she'd answered
the question why did she take Justin's money in the
first place? Over five thousand dollars. This part of me
that feels like you accepting that money from Justin is
almost like proof to yourself. The money is proof to
yourself that he cares about you.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
No.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
No, him giving me that money was not proof that
he cared about me. I knew he cared about me
long before that money.
Speaker 8 (26:32):
No.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Honestly, I was kind of taken aback by this. I
was searching for a more heartfelt explanation. I was kind
of offering it up to her, and she was just like, no.
There are still moments when Sarah Voice's uncertainty about herself
(26:58):
almost doubts her own ability to see things clearly. She'll
say things like, am I seeing that correctly? And at
one point I just pressed her on this.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
I mean, am I seeing that in a skewed way?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
That's interesting? Why do you ask me that?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Because I think sometimes I'm not. I didn't see what
I was doing wrong at the time as wrong, and
I certainly did not have the insight I had now,
And is my insights still not correct? Is it still
not accurate?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
It's as though she's seeking reassurance, still wrestling with the
challenge of seeing things as they truly are, which seems
credible and sympathetic and also really convenient, because you can't
fully hold someone accountable if they're still lost in a fog.
(27:56):
And this raises a really thorny question, one that I've
been grappling with throughout this story. How do you think
about someone who's done something really terrible and seems to
be struggling with their mental health. I bounced around on
this a lot, and I do feel empathy for Sarah,
(28:19):
but I also know she's honed the art of weaponizing
such empathy.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Even after her deception was revealed, Sarah still drew empathy
from some people, including Sam, the physical therapist she'd been
romantically involved with. If you recall, at her sentencing, there
were letters submitted to the court. One of those came
from Sam. Sam's letters seemed to reflect a deep belief that,
(28:53):
beneath all the lies, Sarah was still worthy of sympathy. Honestly,
I wasn't expecting this, but what really surprised me was
that Sam's mother also wrote a letter of support. She's
in her eighties and is battling ovarian cancer. And if
you recall, Sarah had used her medical bills and passed
(29:15):
them off as her own.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
We want to read you one line from that letter quote,
though Sarah hurt me with her lies, I have forgiven
her and will continue to support her, regardless of her
legal outcome, for the remainder of my life.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I still remember the first time I read this letter,
it struck me that, despite it all, Sam's mother seemed
capable of seeing something deeply kind and redeeming in Sarah.
This really moved me. But when we visited Sam, we
(30:01):
learned that there was more to this story. She dropped
a bomb on us. How did you and your mother
decide to write these letters in support of Sarah leading
up to her sentencing?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Sarah wrote those letters?
Speaker 8 (30:14):
What?
Speaker 9 (30:23):
Yep?
Speaker 8 (30:25):
Wow?
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Did you know?
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I knew that she wrote one for me. I didn't
know that she wrote one for my mother.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Okay, so two bombs really. Sam told us that she
gave Sarah her blessing to basically ghost write her letter.
She explained that at the time she was still on
good terms with Sarah and wanted to help her. It's
a little hard to imagine why Sam would agree to this,
and our producer Amy gently nudged Sam on this.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
I think it's hard if I'm I'm praying for myself
in her shoes, very hard.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
That I feel comfortable enough with her.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Trying to channel what I'm feeling after there's been so
much trail.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Uh, yeah, I don't know. I think I was still
kind of under her spell. Does that make sense? I
know that sounds really weird, but that's how I feel
like like she had this power over me. I don't
know how to say it. And I'm a really really
(31:43):
strong person, really strong person mentally, physically, all of it.
And it's really weird that this happened.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And yet I see it. It's one thing to spot
a lie, but untangling yourself from the liar that's something
else entirely, especially when their web of deception has nodded
your lives together.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
The part of this that was really shocking was a
letter from Sam's mom. We got in touch with her
and she told us, no, I didn't send any letter.
She went on to say at that time, I didn't
want to think about her. She created havoc. We talked
(32:36):
to Sarah about all of this. She said she helped
Sam with her letter, but categorically denied writing one for
Sam's mother. She was insistent about this. This was a
tricky bit to report. It was an uncomfortable conversation with Sarah,
and I told her it's really hard to give her
(32:56):
the benefit of the doubt here. As far as we
can tell, at the very moment, Sarah faced culpability. It's sentencing.
This letter seems like proof that Sarah was still lying,
and not just lying, but yet again pretending to be
someone else, this time a woman she victimized, a cancer
(33:22):
patient whose builds she used, pleading in someone else's voice
for mercy. According to Sarah, she's in a much better
(33:55):
place than she once was. She's been in therapy and
she says she's done a lot of reflection.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
In fact, she talked about how she thinks of herself
compared to some of the other people she's met in prison.
She says her crime stands out from the others.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
It might be worse, right than like insurance fraud or
mortgage fraud, Like you don't know those people. They don't
come to your house, and they don't have holidays with you.
Or come to your wedding. But these people did, and
they shared their lives with me, and that's I mean,
that's the worst part.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Sarah seems to have this awareness that what made her
crime so heinous to many people was not just the
dollar amount. It was the intimacy of it all, how
wrapped up it was in her life and the lives
of so many other people.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
It's really hard to think about people like Justin or
Samantha or Nicole, people who who are inherently good and
who our relationship was so signific again and so deep,
and yet like I did this to them.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
When she talks like this, you see the social worker
side of her, someone capable of deep analysis of herself,
including her own needs.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
When I think about greed and wanting more for me,
that feeling was like being important to these people. When
I reflect now and think of the greed, like that
was what it was to me. And I understand that
the money is not inconsequential to the people that it
came from, but the emotional loss is much more significant
(35:54):
than the financial loss. And I cause that emotional loss.
I took those things. I wanted them, or I yearned
from them, I wanted more of you know, to feel important,
to feel love, to feel all those things. And that's right,
that's greed.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
As she said these last words, she had tears in
her eyes. There was no plexiglass separating us from Sarah,
no handcuffs. We all leaned in close together, Jake and
I sharing a mic. We were close enough to reach
out and pass her tissue. And in the silence after
she said this, the only sounds we heard were her
(36:36):
sniffling and the clanging radiator. It was in moments like
this one that I felt acutely aware that Sarah is
an exceptional storyteller, That she's telling us a story, one
in which she's more than the worst thing she's ever done.
And for some people, the more forgiving types, she is
(36:59):
more than that. But to so many of the people
she's harmed, she's precisely that, no more and no less.
And the reasons why she did those things there just reasons, words,
more stories. When Sarah's released, she'll be in her mid thirties.
(37:24):
She still has her whole life in front of her.
What will that life look like?
Speaker 4 (37:29):
I know I'll never lie on this scale. No, I'll
never create a fake life or pretend I'm someone I'm not,
But that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna not ever
hurt someone again, right like, and I don't want to
do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Soon after this, a prison guard knocked on the door
to tell us it was time to go. Sarah had
to check into her prison block, the one overlooking the mountains.
The next day she would wake up here again and
watch the sunrise. But we understood that one morning, soon
she would wake up somewhere else on the outside. Once again,
(38:08):
Sarah Kavanaugh would start a new life, one where she's
not Sarah the social worker, not Sarah the war hero.
She will be something else entirely.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It's tempting to look at Sarah's story as a unicorn,
as a freak occurrence involving a very skilled buyer, but
in fact, her scams revealed a much deeper problem. The
VIA is bogged down by bureaucracy and limited resources. As
a result, a network of charities has emerged to jump
(38:48):
in and help vets right away. They operate on trust,
good faith, and speed, and Sarah exploited this.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
In common stories, the victims or marks are often depicted
as naive, greedy, or just, but this story it shows
how wrong that is. People fell for Sarah's scam because
they were open hearted, generous, hopeful, ready to help a
(39:22):
near stranger. That's a rare and beautiful thing in contemporary America.
But what are you supposed to do when all of
your goodwill just blows up in your face. Many of
the people we spoke with for this story expressed a
sense of shame that they'd been tricked and said they'd
(39:46):
be slow to trust strangers again. But they all also
said they didn't want this whole nasty business to change
their outlook on life. They didn't want the lesson here
to be don't trust someone claiming to be a vet,
or don't help a cancer patient. Dex, one of the
(40:07):
female Marines who met Sarah and Montana, shared her take
on this with me.
Speaker 11 (40:13):
I think we struggle with forgiveness because you have to
eat the cost. There's no closure before you get to
forgive somebody. If something requires you to forgive another person,
you have to you have to fully eat the cost.
Whatever wrong they did, you have to expect no repayment.
You can't expect it to.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Be made whole.
Speaker 11 (40:35):
You have to be okay with it not being whole.
People wrong you and you you know, if you're really
going to forgive somebody, if you have to be okay
with fixing it yourself.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
This is a definition of forgiveness I'd never heard before,
and it's one I really like. The idea being all
the things that people gave to Sarah, their money, their time,
their friendship, their love, those things are lost. Those things
are gone. Yeah, sure some people may get some money back,
(41:10):
but the rest of it is not coming back. And
when Deck says you have to be okay with fixing
it yourself, I like to think of all the ways
in which all the people we met in this story
continue to fix it themselves. Many of our interviewees continue
to help others, to give of themselves, to make small
fixes to broken systems. Dex became staff at Pibia Batte Retreats.
(41:36):
Tom Schumann hasn't stopped running those retreats in Montana. We're
trying to help people, and Michelle is still teaching boot
camps at a gym in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
As for Justin, even though he's retired now and still
battling cancer. In his spare time, he coaches veterans, trying
to help them as they look for jobs. When I
sat down with Justin for our interview this past winter,
we talked about this, about how he'd found his way
back to giving of himself.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
I did a lot of introspection and said, well, what
gives me energy, and that's what gives me energy is
to help help people, especially fellow veterans, and so you know,
if I lose that, you know what do I have.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Justin's words made me think again about the meaning of empathy.
It's more than just a feeling. It's a mysterious human magic,
a synergy that crackles between friends and strangers alike. It
always seems to conjure a flicker of pain and a
(42:47):
breath and a choice. Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah
(43:30):
was produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Tolly Emlin, additional
production support by Sonya Gurwood.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Our show is edited by Karen Chakergee. Our executive producer
is Jacob Smith, mastering by Jake Gorsky.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Original scoring in our theme were composed by Luis Gara.
Our show art was designed by Sean Carney, fact checking
by Anica Robbins.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Special thanks to Izzie Carter, Daphne Chen, Lucy Sullivan, Eric Sandler,
Morgan Ratner, Kira Posey, Amy Hagadorn, Owen Miller, Jordan McMillan,
Barah Bragaire, Jake Flanagan, Christina Sullivan, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cohen.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Additional thanks to Jim Rosenberg, Amanda Simmons, Katie Lee, Jonathan Nellermoe,
Daniel Potter, Darwin Lamb, Sabrina Moore, The Fun for Investigative Journalism,
Evan Krask, Anna Sproll, Latimer, Travis Dunlap, Charlotte Simms, Hillary Sites, Michael,
(44:38):
Jackie and Joe Gilleran, Jason McQuaid, The McHugh Family, Lyon,
Marie Heatherington, Matt Brown, Kasha Sebastian Lucian and Milo. I'm
Jess McHugh and I'm Jake Halpern. Hey, it's Jake, And look,
(45:12):
I got a little favor to ask. If you like
the show, please just take one minute and review us
on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Honestly, it really helps new
listeners find the show, which in turn helps us continue
making these stories for you. Thanks a lot,
Pushkin. Hey, it's Jake. I hope you enjoyed our season
The Truth about Sarah. We'll be having a live event
later this year. It's going to be a conversation between
me and my co host Jess McHugh, and we want
to hear from you too. What questions do you have
(00:37):
for us about this season? Send your questions to deep
Cover at pushkin dot fm. That's deep Cover All one
word at pushkin dot fm and stay tuned for more
details on this event.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Previously on deep Cover.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I remember sitting on her couch and like me like
telling her, asking her is this real? Is this real?
Is this real? Is this real?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
You know?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
She was like no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
What immediately occurred to me was that as soon as
I told her I cancer, even though she was telling
me it was okay, in the back of her mind
she was thinking, I can take advantage of this.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Laying in bed in the dark, kind of like pillow talk,
I asked her one more time, do you have cancer?
When you lived two separate lives for so long, it
feels normal, right. I had to be someone else in
front of other people when I was a child, and
that was normal.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
As the Feds built their case against Sarah. They collected
all kinds of evidence, texts, emails, forged paperwork, witness interviews,
and even a country ballad, I Kid you not.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
The sun was warm and Edinburgh boots on the ground
covered in Afghander.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
This song, it's called Let's Go Back. It's all about
this tragic war hero who's still reliving the pain of
what happened in Afghanistan.
Speaker 7 (02:28):
Na smell the song at the sub life and now
the ever again, how heavy the silence buzz Let's gold back.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The inspiration for this song, the hero that it's all about. Yeah,
you guessed it, Sarah Kavanaugh. She's not the one singing.
That's a country music artist. Sarah collaborated with some songwriters
down in Nashville to create this song as part of
a program called Creative Vets.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
This is a coveted program with limited spots. It gives
veterans an opportunity to work through their feelings and try
through music. So when Sarah faked her way in, she
took away the chance for some healing for actual veterans.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
The only reason that we even know about this song
is because of federal investigators. After they searched Sarah's house.
They began picking through Sarah's entire life. This is when
everything began to really unravel for her. After the search,
she admitted to her wife, Nicole that she'd been lying
(03:38):
about having cancer. Nicole was like, I'm out of here.
She left the next morning, and eventually she filed for divorce.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Sarah's story was all over the local news. Sarah says
she got death threats. She left her position at the VA,
and she took a string of low wage jobs. None
of them lasted very long. Once her employers caught wind
of her story, Sarah says she was.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Fired while she was facing a host of criminal charges,
including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and fraudulent use of
military medals. It seemed as though everything was finally catching
up to Sarah Cavanaugh. So many questions swirled. Would her
(04:28):
victims confront her, would she expressed remorse, and would she
be held accountable. I'm Jake Colburn and I'm Jess McHugh
(04:52):
And this is Deep Cover Season six, The Truth About Sarah,
(05:15):
Episode six, The Defendant. To fight the charges against her,
Sarah needed a lawyer, and a good one. Enter Kensley
Barrett Esquire a veteran who'd served eleven years in the
Coastguard before becoming a lawyer. He goes by Ken, and
(05:40):
one of the first things I asked Ken was whether
as a veteran he had any misgivings about representing Sarah.
Ken said, a lot of people were bewildered they took
this case.
Speaker 8 (05:53):
My perspective was that I represent people who are accused
of heinous crimes. You name it, murder, sex, assault, everything
in between.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Ken says that if he started declar lining cases due
to some kind of moral aversion, as he put it, well,
then what kind of criminal defense lawyer would he be.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
I didn't necessarily have any second thoughts about representing miss
Galana and anything. It is more of intrigue as to
how she ended up in the situation that she was in.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
When Sarah walked into his office, Ken's first question was
about the financial impact of her fraud. He wanted to
know how many victims were involved and what was the
dollar amount. Ken says, initially Sarah downplayed the whole thing.
It would take Ken some time to get a clearer picture,
(06:54):
but eventually, as he reviewed the evidence, he understood it
was not a small dollar amount. The prosecution claimed Sarah
had stolen over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth
of money and services. Ken needed to know if the
allegations were true, and after reviewing the evidence, he was
(07:16):
pretty concerned. The evidence against Sarah, he says, was strong,
and he worried about the impact that it would have
on a jury.
Speaker 8 (07:25):
This case was really like hitting the third rail, and
I guess anything that involves dogs or animals and the military.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Simply put, you mess with certain types of people or
certain types of four legged animals, and you've instantly turned
the jury against you.
Speaker 8 (07:43):
Those two crimes in particular, always elicit a very strong
viseral reaction.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
All of this led Ken to believe that a trial
it'd be a disaster because if she lost, she could
be hit with a sentence of up to twenty four years.
Seemed like the best strategy. The only strategy really was
for Sarah to take a plea.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
It became very clear to me from my lawyer that
if I wanted to kind of survive this, I was
going to have to take whatever they were going to give.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Ken told Sarah that even with a plea best case scenario,
she was looking at a minimum two years in.
Speaker 8 (08:23):
Prison, and Sarah expressed concern that she couldn't do two
years in prison or any jail time. And when I
tried to convey to her that two years would be
like a gift, her reaction was kind of like why me,
(08:48):
Like why should I go to person for two years?
And I was kind of taken aback. That was the
one time in our entire time together where I was
truly like, she doesn't get it.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
We asked Sarah about this, and she agreed with Ken's assessment.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
I didn't get it. No, Like I remember him saying
to me once, the only thing where she could have
done is kill puppies, right, And I remember him saying
that and being like what and not? But now I see, yes,
I can see the gravity of it and all of that.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
But at the time she didn't see it. And this
made Ken wonder about Sarah's mindset because in that moment,
he says, her thinking seemed quote detached from reality. Ken
believes that Sarah was motivated by a deeply misguided need
to find comfort and belonging because to him, simple greed
(09:53):
didn't explain.
Speaker 8 (09:54):
Everything, although to mar believe in that it was not
all financially motivated. I actually believe that maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Sarah eventually agreed to forego a trial and plead guilty.
At this point, Ken says they had to pivot now
it was all about minimizing jail time. To do this,
they needed to establish mitigating factors, basically things that might
help a judge understand why Sarah did what she did
(10:35):
and then maybe show some mercy. Sarah told Ken that
during her childhood a man had sexually abused her. This
trauma had apparently fueled her drinking and depression. To Ken,
these were mitigating factors that he could present to a judge.
(10:56):
The problem, of course, was Sarah. Her credibility was well
pretty much nonexistent at this point, but on this claim
she had some backup. In official documents submitted to the court,
Sarah's mother attested that the claims of sexual abuse were true.
(11:16):
Ken also asked Sarah to gather letters from friends that
might humanize her or speak to the good things that
she had done. Sarah provided several such letters to Ken,
and he submitted them to the court.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Sarah's sentencing hearing took place at the US District Court
in Providence, Rhode Island picture, dark wood paneling and heavy
green drapes which led in just enough light to glint
off the polished floors and faded brass handrails. Very nineteen thirties.
You'd half expect to see some old timey gangster played
(11:55):
by James Cagney dragged in in handcuffs.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
The place was packed. The gallery was filled with spectators,
many of them veterans. So many people were in attendance
that they actually had to set up an overflow room.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
The prosecution had arranged to have several of Sarah's victims
be there in person so that they could read their
victim impact statements, including some of the people you've heard
from in this series. Dave Ainslie, the commander of the VFW,
Michelle the Jim Buddy who was Sarah's primary shoe tire,
and of course Justin was there too. Justin told me
(12:36):
he was nervous about the whole thing. He'd never made
a statement in court before, and he hadn't actually seen
Sarah since he'd learned about her lies.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Honestly, it was kind of disconcerting because when we went
into the courtroom, when we went to the lobby, she
came in like behind me, Like, I turned around and
she was there, and that was kind of it was
almost like getting hit by lightning, kind of like just
kind of like this fight or flight response.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Justin slowly made his way into the gallery and he
found some company, some other people who were also there
to speak.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
When I got there and found all these you know,
started meeting these other people that are making statements, and
they were telling me what she had done to them.
And I hate to say it, but it made me
feel a little better. Though I wasn't the I wasn't
the only one that she had victimized so many people
(13:35):
that that we were all in this together.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
The prosecutor in this case was a guy named Ron Jendron.
He's an old hand for thirty years, he's been prosecuting criminals, murderers,
gang members, white collar embezzlers. He's seen everything. And when
he walked in, looked around and sized up the crowd,
he took it as a good sign.
Speaker 9 (14:03):
I was quite frankly exhilarated to see that turnout. Because
you toil away in your office and you don't really
have any contact with people during that process. You have
an idea of how it impacted people, but you don't
know until you walk into a court room and you
see those people there.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
In some ways, this case was a perfect fit for
this courthouse. Providence, Rhode Island. It's actually infamous for its
history of mobsters, scam artists, and corrupt public officials. Courtrooms
like this one have long fed themselves on a steady
diet of fraud cases. All of that being said, Ron says,
(14:46):
this case involving Sarah it was special.
Speaker 9 (14:50):
I've seen a lot of stuff over thirty years, you know,
some very despicable crime and things that are kind of
tough to wrap your head around, and this ranks right
up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
For Ron, the argument that Sarah should receive a lighter
sentence due to her trauma just didn't hold weight.
Speaker 9 (15:14):
The argument that you know, my trauma caused me to
do this, it doesn't fly with me. I mean, I've
been doing this for an excess of thirty years, and
you know, trauma and facing adversity or part of the
human condition. Every defendant comes before a court having had
(15:36):
some sort of loss or trauma in their life. Every
human has such things, but not every human goes out
and commits crime.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Sarah's fraud was so extensive, but for Ron, the worst
of it, the gut punch was what she had done
to Justin. When the time came, Justin rose to his
feet and faced the judge. Then he read his victim
impact statement. When I interviewed Justin, I asked if he'd
(16:11):
read it to me.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
My name is Justin. I'm a member of VFW Post
one five two, the post were Sarah conderway into becoming
the commander. I'm also the victim referred to in the
charges as JH. I'm a twenty year Navy veteran. I
have stage four lung cancer from exposure to the burn
pits wall in combat, and Sarah Kavanaugh legally accessed and
(16:34):
copied my medical records for her own personal gain.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
He went on to describe how we believe that Sarah
had cancer and how he couldn't stand by and let
another veteran suffer if he had the power to help,
so he gave her over five thousand dollars, believing he
was helping her secure private insurance to get treated at
Dana Farber just like he had.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
She knew the suffering My family and I were going
through Yet she took money from us anyway, money that
could have been used to pay for my own treatment
or take care of my family in our time of need.
I don't know what kind of person can do that
to someone with a terminal illness. I know that at
some point my cancer will catch up with me. When
that happens, I hope my consolation will be that she
(17:21):
is paying to the maximum extent possible for what she
did to me, my family, and countless others. The mental
anguish she has caused me and my family cannot be
measured in money or time in prison, but I guess
it will.
Speaker 8 (17:32):
Have to do.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
When Justin was done speaking, Sarah's lawyer, Ken Barrett, gathered himself.
Speaker 10 (17:42):
I knew after hearing Justin speak that no matter what
I said, that wasn't going to make an ounce difference
to the judge why my client was deservative of mercy.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Ken told me that it was more than just that.
He says it wasn't until this moment that he truly
understood the nature of Sarah's crime. The feeling was so acute,
he says, it was almost like an out of body experience.
That's how he put it. As if for a moment,
(18:17):
he was no longer himself, no longer Sarah's lawyer. He
was just an observer of another man's pain.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
The judge in this case was a man named John J. McConnell, JOR,
and when it came time to render his sentence, Judge
McConnell remarked that he too was deeply moved by Justin's story.
Addressing Justin directly, he said, you just gave of what
you had, and to know that that love was destroyed,
(18:54):
and that that love was obtained through fraud, It's the
worst kind of victimization. It's really awful when somebody betrays
the human love that you showed. I hope in your
healing you don't lose what is that compassion? With those
words hanging in the air, he delivered his sentence seventy
(19:17):
months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Sarah was also ordered to pay restitution totaling over two
hundred and eighty thousand dollars. She was taken directly from
the courtroom into custody.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It says her one mile away on a perfect but
of every day.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The first time we met Sarah, she was a year
and a half into her sentence that she was serving
out at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
That is crazy. So it's two fences of circular barbed wire.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, on the bottom, middle, and top.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
It doesn't look so I obsecurity.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I know this place, by the way, it has something
of a reputation as a prison for the stars, kind
of like Club Fed. This is the facility that inspired
the TV show Orange is the New Black. This is
where Leona Helmsley, Lauren Hill, and Real housewife Teresa Judice
(20:42):
all serve their time. The first time we came here,
a prison official walked us up this hill to a
small building for visitors, and then they just left us
on our own in this windowless room with a crayon
marked table. The visiting room was for family visits. There
was a mural of mermaids on one wall and doll
(21:04):
parts scattered in the corner.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
On that first visit, we waited for a while until
finally a woman strolled in on her own. She was
dressed in a gray sweatshirt and olive green pants. Her
blonde hair was pulled into a low ponytail. Her entrance
was so casual I thought maybe she was a prison employee,
(21:27):
a groundskeeper perhaps, but no, this was Sarah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Okay, so yeah, maybe we always just kind of start
with can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Okay, I'm Sarah Kavanaugh. I currently am in prison, so
i don't have a real job before this. I was
a social worker for the VA in Providence, and I'm
originally from Rhode Island.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
We talked for hours. We kept saying, you want to stop,
you need a break. No, she was tireless, and through
it all there was really just one question on our minds. Why.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Sarah's version basically is that it all started with a
big misunderstanding.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
I was invited to an event, and when I walked in,
I realized it was only veterans, and I realized, right
then and there, Okay, they think I'm a they think
I'm a veteran. But I didn't deny it, right. I
didn't stand up me say yes, here's where I served
in all of these things that hadn't started at that
point that dramatically yet. But I definitely didn't say, oh no,
(22:43):
there's a misunderstanding.
Speaker 8 (22:45):
Why not.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
I was enjoying being around them.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Sarah says that she never intended to become a celebrated
war hero. But that explanation just doesn't make sense to me.
You said you don't want to be the public face,
but there are these photos of you, you know, in
uniform next to the governor. How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah, it's like spirals out of control, right. It just
became this monster that I had lost control of, and
I didn't know how to stop it, because I think
I was always just like, get through the moment, be there,
be what people want you to be, Get through it,
you know, take the pictures, move on.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
So surely she wouldn't have done this for six years
if she was just getting through it. Why do it
in the first place?
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Did feel good to be noticed, It felt good to
be the center of attention. It those aren't really great
things to say about myself, But I know now that
those are true, that I did enjoy those moments, not
just push through them.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
As she tells it, the main benefit of these lies
was the love and admiration she received, and the services
and money were just a fringe benefit. But just for
the record, Sarah started defrauding the Wounded Warrior Project in
twenty sixteen, the same year she joined the VFW. If
(24:21):
There's one part of this story that seems to really
weigh on Sarah. It's her relationship with Justin. She brought
him up again and again. Justin is particularly.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
There are like a few people who I really feel,
who I really feel, were hurt more than most, and
he is he is he is one of those people
because he really cared for me. He really really cared
for me.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
You can hear the emotion in her voice, the sadness.
It felt really convincing. So we asked, Okay, if that's
the case, why steal Justin's money and his private medical paperwork.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I knew he had that diagnosis, right, he was a patient,
I knew his last name. I knew he was enrolled
in care. There. Those aren't excuses, that's not right, but
those are facts that I knew, which made it reliable
to go to that document.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You say it like it sounds obvious.
Speaker 8 (25:34):
I think it was just.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
A way to make the lie more convincing. It was
merely to use the correct language, right. It was so
like this impersonal, detached decision that I made.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
We were baffled. She had been crying, visibly, upset over
hurting Justin, and now she seemed really cold, annoyed.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Even sitting there, I still didn't feel like she'd answered
the question why did she take Justin's money in the
first place? Over five thousand dollars. This part of me
that feels like you accepting that money from Justin is
almost like proof to yourself. The money is proof to
yourself that he cares about you.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
No.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
No, him giving me that money was not proof that
he cared about me. I knew he cared about me
long before that money.
Speaker 8 (26:32):
No.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Honestly, I was kind of taken aback by this. I
was searching for a more heartfelt explanation. I was kind
of offering it up to her, and she was just like, no.
There are still moments when Sarah Voice's uncertainty about herself
(26:58):
almost doubts her own ability to see things clearly. She'll
say things like, am I seeing that correctly? And at
one point I just pressed her on this.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
I mean, am I seeing that in a skewed way?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
That's interesting? Why do you ask me that?
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Because I think sometimes I'm not. I didn't see what
I was doing wrong at the time as wrong, and
I certainly did not have the insight I had now,
And is my insights still not correct? Is it still
not accurate?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
It's as though she's seeking reassurance, still wrestling with the
challenge of seeing things as they truly are, which seems
credible and sympathetic and also really convenient, because you can't
fully hold someone accountable if they're still lost in a fog.
(27:56):
And this raises a really thorny question, one that I've
been grappling with throughout this story. How do you think
about someone who's done something really terrible and seems to
be struggling with their mental health. I bounced around on
this a lot, and I do feel empathy for Sarah,
(28:19):
but I also know she's honed the art of weaponizing
such empathy.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Even after her deception was revealed, Sarah still drew empathy
from some people, including Sam, the physical therapist she'd been
romantically involved with. If you recall, at her sentencing, there
were letters submitted to the court. One of those came
from Sam. Sam's letters seemed to reflect a deep belief that,
(28:53):
beneath all the lies, Sarah was still worthy of sympathy. Honestly,
I wasn't expecting this, but what really surprised me was
that Sam's mother also wrote a letter of support. She's
in her eighties and is battling ovarian cancer. And if
you recall, Sarah had used her medical bills and passed
(29:15):
them off as her own.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
We want to read you one line from that letter quote,
though Sarah hurt me with her lies, I have forgiven
her and will continue to support her, regardless of her
legal outcome, for the remainder of my life.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I still remember the first time I read this letter,
it struck me that, despite it all, Sam's mother seemed
capable of seeing something deeply kind and redeeming in Sarah.
This really moved me. But when we visited Sam, we
(30:01):
learned that there was more to this story. She dropped
a bomb on us. How did you and your mother
decide to write these letters in support of Sarah leading
up to her sentencing?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Sarah wrote those letters?
Speaker 8 (30:14):
What?
Speaker 9 (30:23):
Yep?
Speaker 8 (30:25):
Wow?
Speaker 9 (30:29):
Did you know?
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I knew that she wrote one for me. I didn't
know that she wrote one for my mother.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Okay, so two bombs really. Sam told us that she
gave Sarah her blessing to basically ghost write her letter.
She explained that at the time she was still on
good terms with Sarah and wanted to help her. It's
a little hard to imagine why Sam would agree to this,
and our producer Amy gently nudged Sam on this.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
I think it's hard if I'm I'm praying for myself
in her shoes, very hard.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
That I feel comfortable enough with her.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Trying to channel what I'm feeling after there's been so
much trail.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Uh, yeah, I don't know. I think I was still
kind of under her spell. Does that make sense? I
know that sounds really weird, but that's how I feel
like like she had this power over me. I don't
know how to say it. And I'm a really really
(31:43):
strong person, really strong person mentally, physically, all of it.
And it's really weird that this happened.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And yet I see it. It's one thing to spot
a lie, but untangling yourself from the liar that's something
else entirely, especially when their web of deception has nodded
your lives together.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
The part of this that was really shocking was a
letter from Sam's mom. We got in touch with her
and she told us, no, I didn't send any letter.
She went on to say at that time, I didn't
want to think about her. She created havoc. We talked
(32:36):
to Sarah about all of this. She said she helped
Sam with her letter, but categorically denied writing one for
Sam's mother. She was insistent about this. This was a
tricky bit to report. It was an uncomfortable conversation with Sarah,
and I told her it's really hard to give her
(32:56):
the benefit of the doubt here. As far as we
can tell, at the very moment, Sarah faced culpability. It's sentencing.
This letter seems like proof that Sarah was still lying,
and not just lying, but yet again pretending to be
someone else, this time a woman she victimized, a cancer
(33:22):
patient whose builds she used, pleading in someone else's voice
for mercy. According to Sarah, she's in a much better
(33:55):
place than she once was. She's been in therapy and
she says she's done a lot of reflection.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
In fact, she talked about how she thinks of herself
compared to some of the other people she's met in prison.
She says her crime stands out from the others.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
It might be worse, right than like insurance fraud or
mortgage fraud, Like you don't know those people. They don't
come to your house, and they don't have holidays with you.
Or come to your wedding. But these people did, and
they shared their lives with me, and that's I mean,
that's the worst part.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Sarah seems to have this awareness that what made her
crime so heinous to many people was not just the
dollar amount. It was the intimacy of it all, how
wrapped up it was in her life and the lives
of so many other people.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
It's really hard to think about people like Justin or
Samantha or Nicole, people who who are inherently good and
who our relationship was so signific again and so deep,
and yet like I did this to them.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
When she talks like this, you see the social worker
side of her, someone capable of deep analysis of herself,
including her own needs.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
When I think about greed and wanting more for me,
that feeling was like being important to these people. When
I reflect now and think of the greed, like that
was what it was to me. And I understand that
the money is not inconsequential to the people that it
came from, but the emotional loss is much more significant
(35:54):
than the financial loss. And I cause that emotional loss.
I took those things. I wanted them, or I yearned
from them, I wanted more of you know, to feel important,
to feel love, to feel all those things. And that's right,
that's greed.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
As she said these last words, she had tears in
her eyes. There was no plexiglass separating us from Sarah,
no handcuffs. We all leaned in close together, Jake and
I sharing a mic. We were close enough to reach
out and pass her tissue. And in the silence after
she said this, the only sounds we heard were her
(36:36):
sniffling and the clanging radiator. It was in moments like
this one that I felt acutely aware that Sarah is
an exceptional storyteller, That she's telling us a story, one
in which she's more than the worst thing she's ever done.
And for some people, the more forgiving types, she is
(36:59):
more than that. But to so many of the people
she's harmed, she's precisely that, no more and no less.
And the reasons why she did those things there just reasons, words,
more stories. When Sarah's released, she'll be in her mid thirties.
(37:24):
She still has her whole life in front of her.
What will that life look like?
Speaker 4 (37:29):
I know I'll never lie on this scale. No, I'll
never create a fake life or pretend I'm someone I'm not,
But that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna not ever
hurt someone again, right like, and I don't want to
do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Soon after this, a prison guard knocked on the door
to tell us it was time to go. Sarah had
to check into her prison block, the one overlooking the mountains.
The next day she would wake up here again and
watch the sunrise. But we understood that one morning, soon
she would wake up somewhere else on the outside. Once again,
(38:08):
Sarah Kavanaugh would start a new life, one where she's
not Sarah the social worker, not Sarah the war hero.
She will be something else entirely.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It's tempting to look at Sarah's story as a unicorn,
as a freak occurrence involving a very skilled buyer, but
in fact, her scams revealed a much deeper problem. The
VIA is bogged down by bureaucracy and limited resources. As
a result, a network of charities has emerged to jump
(38:48):
in and help vets right away. They operate on trust,
good faith, and speed, and Sarah exploited this.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
In common stories, the victims or marks are often depicted
as naive, greedy, or just, but this story it shows
how wrong that is. People fell for Sarah's scam because
they were open hearted, generous, hopeful, ready to help a
(39:22):
near stranger. That's a rare and beautiful thing in contemporary America.
But what are you supposed to do when all of
your goodwill just blows up in your face. Many of
the people we spoke with for this story expressed a
sense of shame that they'd been tricked and said they'd
(39:46):
be slow to trust strangers again. But they all also
said they didn't want this whole nasty business to change
their outlook on life. They didn't want the lesson here
to be don't trust someone claiming to be a vet,
or don't help a cancer patient. Dex, one of the
(40:07):
female Marines who met Sarah and Montana, shared her take
on this with me.
Speaker 11 (40:13):
I think we struggle with forgiveness because you have to
eat the cost. There's no closure before you get to
forgive somebody. If something requires you to forgive another person,
you have to you have to fully eat the cost.
Whatever wrong they did, you have to expect no repayment.
You can't expect it to.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Be made whole.
Speaker 11 (40:35):
You have to be okay with it not being whole.
People wrong you and you you know, if you're really
going to forgive somebody, if you have to be okay
with fixing it yourself.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
This is a definition of forgiveness I'd never heard before,
and it's one I really like. The idea being all
the things that people gave to Sarah, their money, their time,
their friendship, their love, those things are lost. Those things
are gone. Yeah, sure some people may get some money back,
(41:10):
but the rest of it is not coming back. And
when Deck says you have to be okay with fixing
it yourself, I like to think of all the ways
in which all the people we met in this story
continue to fix it themselves. Many of our interviewees continue
to help others, to give of themselves, to make small
fixes to broken systems. Dex became staff at Pibia Batte Retreats.
(41:36):
Tom Schumann hasn't stopped running those retreats in Montana. We're
trying to help people, and Michelle is still teaching boot
camps at a gym in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
As for Justin, even though he's retired now and still
battling cancer. In his spare time, he coaches veterans, trying
to help them as they look for jobs. When I
sat down with Justin for our interview this past winter,
we talked about this, about how he'd found his way
back to giving of himself.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
I did a lot of introspection and said, well, what
gives me energy, and that's what gives me energy is
to help help people, especially fellow veterans, and so you know,
if I lose that, you know what do I have.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Justin's words made me think again about the meaning of empathy.
It's more than just a feeling. It's a mysterious human magic,
a synergy that crackles between friends and strangers alike. It
always seems to conjure a flicker of pain and a
(42:47):
breath and a choice. Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah
(43:30):
was produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Tolly Emlin, additional
production support by Sonya Gurwood.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Our show is edited by Karen Chakergee. Our executive producer
is Jacob Smith, mastering by Jake Gorsky.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Original scoring in our theme were composed by Luis Gara.
Our show art was designed by Sean Carney, fact checking
by Anica Robbins.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Special thanks to Izzie Carter, Daphne Chen, Lucy Sullivan, Eric Sandler,
Morgan Ratner, Kira Posey, Amy Hagadorn, Owen Miller, Jordan McMillan,
Barah Bragaire, Jake Flanagan, Christina Sullivan, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cohen.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Additional thanks to Jim Rosenberg, Amanda Simmons, Katie Lee, Jonathan Nellermoe,
Daniel Potter, Darwin Lamb, Sabrina Moore, The Fun for Investigative Journalism,
Evan Krask, Anna Sproll, Latimer, Travis Dunlap, Charlotte Simms, Hillary Sites, Michael,
(44:38):
Jackie and Joe Gilleran, Jason McQuaid, The McHugh Family, Lyon,
Marie Heatherington, Matt Brown, Kasha Sebastian Lucian and Milo. I'm
Jess McHugh and I'm Jake Halpern. Hey, it's Jake, And look,
(45:12):
I got a little favor to ask. If you like
the show, please just take one minute and review us
on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Honestly, it really helps new
listeners find the show, which in turn helps us continue
making these stories for you. Thanks a lot,
Host
Jake Halpern
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