June 23, 2025 • 25 mins
Rosemarie Coffey helped Sarah Cavanaugh for years. As a community support specialist, her services were paid for by the Wounded Warrior Project. Rosemarie spent countless hours inside Sarah’s home. We wondered - what did Rosemarie see? And what did she learn when Sarah’s lies were exposed?
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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. One morning last December, my co
host Jess mchughe and our producer Amy Gaines McQuaid traveled
(01:00):
to Rhode Island sit down with a woman named Rosemarie. Coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh, he's going to mark it to mailman? Did dogs
do boo?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Right? All? That's Rosemary talking to her dog Boo. When
Jess and Amy arrived, Rosemarie had pastries from a local
bakery waiting for them and Rosemarie she likes to take
care of people like this. She's sixty years old and
recently retired, but before that, she spent her career supporting
(01:33):
people when they're at their most vulnerable. She worked as
a community support specialist and for a time Rosemary took
care of Sarah Kavanaugh.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I've worked with her. I'm guessing three years, wow,
So it's up to the end. So it would write
exactly to the point.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Sarah enrolled in the Wounded Warrior Independence program. It's designed
for veterans with life changing injuries, and it was through
this program that Wounded Warrior paid for Rosemary's services.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
What did you understand her physical injuries to be. She
had the traumatic brain injury, she had a prosthetic hip supposedly,
and she was also going through cancer treatment, the prosthetic,
the brain injury, and the PTSD or the primary challenges.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
She still remembers the first time that she showed up
to Sarah's house.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
At the time, Sarah was like curled up in a
blanket in you know, on the couch in front of
the window, just looking out the window, all forlorn and
shy and withdrawn, and according to the case manager, she
you know, she wasn't getting adjusted to the community and
(02:58):
she really needed a lot of support. If you can
just picture that person that's just not been able to
do any anything, you know, or go anywhere, you know,
really struggling, You know that that was the persona that
she put out there.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Throughout our reporting, Jess and I had heard these stories
about Sarah running down mountain trails and competing in epic
workout challenges. But this, this was an entirely different Sarah
we were hearing about. Rose Marie worked with Sarah right
up until Sarah's double life came crashing down. Throughout all
(03:40):
that time, Sarah let rose Marie into her home, into
her life, and we wondered what did rose Marie see.
Turns out she saw and heard an awful lot, some
of which has major implications for our story. It suggests
that there may have been someone else helping Sarah with
(04:01):
her deception, a possible accomplice.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I couldn't even tell your name. I couldn't even tell
you necessarily who I suspected. But there were a couple
incidents when somebody had to call Sarah's caseworker at the
VA when Sarah's standing in the rooms or wasn't Sarah,
So who was on the other end of the phone.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Welcome back to Deep Cover Season six. The Truth about Sarah.
This is Rosemare's story. Rose Marie has worked with people
(04:58):
living with disabilities for decades, and if there's one thing
she's learned. It's that every case is different.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So there isn't a set blueprint for working with someone
with brain injury. It's different in the sense of each
person's injury manifests itself in different ways.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Rose Marie told us that most of the people that
she works with have had their worlds turned upside down
and they're still trying to find their footing.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So they've had pretty much a normal life leading up
to this injury, and then they may have had a
car accident, a stroke, a brain tumor, and then everything changes,
including personality changes. So that's part of it that you
wouldn't see it with other disabilities.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Necessarily her job helping people get back into the world,
running errands, doing chores, the simple stuff, which is no
longer so simple. That's where Rosemarie comes in. That's what
she started doing for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
At the time I met her. Supposedly, she couldn't even
go into a store, she couldn't go to a target,
she couldn't go grocery shopping, she couldn't, you know, take
care of her household.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Rose Marie believed Sarah was dealing with PTSD, so she
tried to break things down make simple tasks even simpler.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Okay, your first task is to try to just go
into target, you know, get one item and go through
the register and that's a success. Or we'd go, you know,
make a grocery list, like what do I need? How
what am I going to eat this week?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
And rose Marie was told certain things were going to
be hard for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Okay, these are things emotionally she needs to address. You know,
going out in the community like the DMV would have
been a big trigger for her, you know, to do
that by herself.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So rose Marie went with her to the DMV to
get special purple heart plates for her car. You might
remember Sarah claimed she earned a purple heart in combat.
Somehow she had the paperwork to back that claim up,
and she got the plates without even realizing it or
meaning to. Rose Marie had played a small role in
(07:16):
helping Sarah deepen her deception. As they spent more time together,
Rosemarie and Sarah began to form a bond.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So I was supporting her. And of course when you're
doing that, you want to build a rapport. You want
to have the person be comfortable, so you're you're I mean,
I was willing to do the things with her. Let's
say she's no, she's got to do laundry. Well, I'm
not just going to stand there with a clipboard, you know,
(07:46):
and talk at her.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Instead, rose Marie said, let's chat as we fold the clothes.
And over time, Rosemarie became a sounding board for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
She talked about things that bothered her. She talked about relationships,
she talked about family. She was always talking about financial
troubles that was weighing on her.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
The version of Sarah that we kept hearing about from
other people was tough, unbreakable, always smiling through the pain,
the kind of person people held up as a hero.
But rose Marie saw something else, something that seemed more
tender and fragile.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I would say about ninety nine percent of the time
when I arrived at her home, she was in tears. Wow,
she was anxious, she was worked up. There was things
that had happened. And then you know, we would talk
and she would calm down, and then we'd say, okay
with the plan, and we would you be able to
move on to an activity that she orchestrated that we
(08:50):
should do.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
One of these things was physical therapy.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
She wanted to start physical therapy and the organization was
paying for it, Wounded Warrior, and so she was nervous
about going to the first visit. So I took her
to her first visit was.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yep. Rose Marie says she took Sarah to her very
first appointment with Sam, the physical therapist she went on
to become romantically involved with. At first, nothing stood out
to Rosemarie, but over time she came to understand that
Sarah's relationship with Sam had evolved.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It took a long time before I saw evidence there
was something else with Sam, and I'm trying to be professional.
I'm not going to delve into like obviously. She had
just got married, you know, not long.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Before Rose Marie knew Nicole, Sarah's wife at the time.
She spent many hours in the home that they shared,
and she did her best to stay out of this
whole mess and just stick to her job being a
community support specialist. Well, it's tricky work. You get pulled
into people's lives, the mess, the chaos. Rose Marie kept
(10:06):
her focus, helped the person in front of you. What
she didn't know was just how messy it really was.
In early twenty twenty two, as Sarah's lies were falling apart,
Rose Marie arrived at Sarah's house to help with an
errand the moment she got there, she sensed it and
(10:29):
on settling tension in the air, like everything was on edge.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I show up. She's outside, She's not even in the house.
She's outside, she's anxious. She's got the plates in her hands,
she's got the paperwork. She was just like, we have
to go to the DMV. I have to return these plates.
They're causing so much problems. I just want to get
rid of them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Sarah was desperate to return those purple heart license plates.
It was a request that seemed to baffle the DMV staff,
but Sarah just wanted those plates gone.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
The staff at the DMV were like so nice, and
they were trying to get at what was going on,
like why why do you want to return these? Is
somebody harassing you? Like because we can help you, you know,
we'll get contact whoever we need to to help you
with this. If you know, you should feel like you
you earn these And she's like, no, no, I just
(11:24):
have to get rid of it. I don't want to
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Soon after this, reports about Sarah's fraud started circulating. Rose
Marie was at home when her husband showed her an
article that revealed Sarah's deception.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
My husband came to me and said, is this Sarah
Sarah in the news is showing me on my phone.
I was just like, oh my god. They really have,
you know, gone out of their way to hurt her.
Oh my god, poor Sarah. What's my first response? I
(12:02):
was like reaching out to her and be like, are
you okay? But so initially it sounds like your reaction
is disbelief. Oh yes, yeah. I had no reason to
doubt her, and I was just like, what are these
people doing to her? Oh my god? Is she okay?
You know, call her right away? And I just said
to her, are you okay? And she's like, well no,
(12:24):
And I was like, well, if it's not true, you
have to defend yourself, Sarah, you know, And she's like
I can't. She said I can't. I was like, what
do you mean. She's like, I can't defend myself. And
then I was like, well, tell me what's going on
and she's like, I can't talk. I'll call you right back.
(12:47):
I'm getting another call, and then she hung up. And
that was it.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Rose Marie soon learned about the investigation into Sarah's fraud
and what the FEDS had begun to discover, and she
came to the unsettling realization that she had been deceived
for years. In some ways, rose Marie knew Sarah so intimately,
but in other ways she didn't know her at all.
(13:24):
We asked rose Marie if she knew whether Sarah had
a job, and turns out she had no idea. Sarah
was a social worker at the VA in Providence. Now,
granted she did only work for Sarah part time, roughly
six hours a week, she knew that Sarah visited the
VIA pretty often, and she knew this because sometimes she
(13:44):
drove Sarah there.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I've taken her to the VA, so I I mean,
I have no idea what I took what I took
her to, but you know, definitely dropped her off and
waited in the car in that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Part of what made Sarah's story so convincing to rose
Marie and others we interviewed was the fact that someone
from Sarah's healthcare team was in contact with them. This
person's name was Ivy. Supposedly, Ivy was a social worker
at the VA assigned to managing Sarah's care.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
She had a lot of talks about the social worker
Ivy at the VA. So that's what I thought was
going on.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But what was really going on with Ivy, Well that's
something we're all still trying to figure out more on that.
After the break, a few people we've interviewed, including Rosemarie,
(14:54):
say they spoke with someone claiming to be Ivy. Rose
Marie told us about one conference call in particular. It
was a check in with Sarah's healthcare team. Rose Marie
was on the line, as was a case manager from
the Wounded Warrior Project, and then there was Ivy from
the VA, offering updates on Sarah's care.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So she would go on and talk about her medical situation,
the cancer, what they were trying to do there. So
I'd be there with Sarah and then the other two
were in conference call, and so Sarah was in the
room with yes, so she couldn't have been the one
on the phone right right, And that was the case
(15:39):
as well another time some other woman was speaking and
as Ivy.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
The question that now comes up, the one that Rose
Marie still thinks about and the one that we still
think about a lot. Is this Who's on the phone
pretending to be Ivy offering these made up details about
how Sarah's treatment was going. It wasn't Sarah because on
that particular call, Sarah was sitting in the room with Rosemarie.
(16:10):
So it had to be someone else, someone who was
complicit in Sarah's lies.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So there had to be other people involved. There absolutely
had to be, because I clearly remember at least two
times when Ivy was on the phone. But yeah, there
had to be another person.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
We talked to Tom Donnelly about this. If you recall,
he's the in house investigator at the VA's Office of
Inspector General. Donnelly's thought about this a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
We could never prove that another person was involved, but
it's evidence that leads me to believe that one hundred
percent somebody else was involved.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Donnelly told us there really is someone named Ivy who
works for the Providence VA, but investigators had interviewed her
over the course of their investigation and they felt convinced
that she was not in on this in any way.
We actually got in touch with the real Ivy and
she told us, quote, I knew Sarah from the time
(17:10):
she was a social work intern. We would eat lunch together,
and although she never pretended to be a veteran with
me or other coworkers, she would tell us story after
story about her large military family. I was shocked to
learn that they never existed, and was appalled when I
was questioned by federal agents investigating whether or not I
(17:33):
was involved in her schemes. She went on to say,
more appalling than her using my name was the grift
that she had been running for years, duping many organizations
and betraying the trust of so many veterans, like the
ones that she was receiving a salary to help. All
(17:54):
of this has led investigators to believe there had to
have been someone else, someone impersonating Ivy on a series
of phone.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Calls, Like we figured out who who Ivy's phone number was.
Ivy's phone number was Sarah's VA issued government cell phone.
So I don't know where that phone was or who
had it, but we do know that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
It was used. In other words, Donnelly thinks someone was
using Sarah's work phone to fake the whole thing, calling
people pretending to be Ivy. But if it wasn't Sarah,
well then who was it. That question has yet to
(18:37):
be answered. Maybe one day we'll find out. Before rose
Marie learned about Sarah's lies, she says she was never
really suspicious. She felt nothing but empathy for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
You see, this person has been impacted and her life
has been so impaired, and she's so young. I mean,
it really pull on your heart. There's no question about it.
Everybody who met her felt sorry for her every time,
everyone wanted to help her.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Rosemary became so attached to Sarah that even after retiring
in twenty twenty one, she continued to help her, volunteering
her time for free.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I just knew I had to be there for her,
like I felt when she reacted that she wasn't going
to have my contact, and she felt so lost and
there was just so much going on that I wanted
to be there for her. I wanted to be able
(19:50):
to say you can call me anytime. I'm here for you.
And she was like, great, okay. You know, ever said,
oh you don't have to do that, or you know,
I don't want, you know, she definitely let me do it.
It's really generous of you. I don't know, I mean,
you can't work in this career, in this field and
(20:13):
not care you know what, you can't. That's just, you know,
it doesn't make me any kind of a special person.
It's just that's where I was at, you know, at
the time.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
The last time rose Marie saw Sarah was on the
day of the sentencing in March of twenty twenty three.
Rose Marie was there in the courtroom, surrounded by people
who were angry and demanding justice.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You know. By that time, you know, sympathy had worn off,
and everybody just wanted to see her be held accountable.
You know. So basically it was Sarah and her attorney
and then a whole bunch of other people just you know,
rooting for her to go to jail.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
At sentencing, rose Marie connected with many other people in
Sarah's orbit, like Michelle the Jim Buddy and Dave the
VFW commander. Rosemarie had felt hurt and embarrassed that she'd
fallen for Sarah's schemes, but when she looked around, she
started to see the bigger picture and it put things
(21:24):
into perspective.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So many people got scammed. I mean, that's where I
stopped beating myself up with people smarter than me got scammed,
you know, in a lot larger ways. All the times
all of us could have intersected somehow we didn't, you know,
and then but it just didn't happen. Oh God, I
just wish I got to save some grief for people.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I just wish I could have saved some grief for people.
It felt like Rosemarie was basically saying, if only I
had figured this out, maybe we could have avoided this
whole mess. The fallout from Sarah's actions was far reaching,
but one of the cruelest outcomes is that someone like
Rosemarie would be left feeling even a little bit responsible,
(22:11):
blaming herself for her own generosity, wondering if that very
kindness did more harm than good. Of course she's not
to blame, but sometimes it's not so easy for her
to see it this way. At the very end of
this interview, our producer Amy asked rose Marie a final
(22:35):
question about Sarah.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Is there anything that you would want to ask her
or like, do you think that you'll connect with her?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I think everybody just probably wants to know why, But
you'd never get an answer that we could trust. If
I asked her why, I wouldn't get a real honest
you know, so what do what I really ask? You know,
just a part of my past and time to move on.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
So many people in this story were to see Rosemarie
saw this for herself at the sentencing hearing. But the
human mind, it's a curious thing. It's not always governed
by rationality or self love. Our friends may tell us
we did no wrong. We may yearn to believe them,
and perhaps we should. But in quiet moments, late at night,
(23:29):
the mind often wrestles with guilt, regret, and recriminations, feelings
that defy logic, but hard as we may try, prove
impossible to quiet. And in this way, Sarah's story lives on.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I don't think it ends. That's what I worry about.
I guess the biggest thing I wonder is like what
she's going to do after, because how do you come
out of jail and having done this and have some
kind of a normal life. She's going to have to
create another set of lies. She's not going to just
(24:05):
come out and say, yeah, I just went to prison
because I scandal these people and I stole valor, and
you know, so I don't think it stops. That's what
I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
These last words, they've stayed with me. I find them haunting.
As storytellers were always chasing after the elusive perfect endings,
looking for that final note of closure. But as long
as people remember, and as long as they're willing to
ask that most human of questions, what if, then there
(24:41):
is no end, not really, only more questions that spin
into the night. This episode was produced by Amy Gains McQuaid,
(25:04):
Jesse m Hugh Taly Emlin, and Sonya Gurwit. It was
edited by Karen Chakerji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
Original music from Luis Gera, mastering by Sarah Bruger. Special
thanks to Owen Miller, Lucy Sullivan, Jake Flanagan, Sarah Nix,
(25:25):
and Greta Cone. I'm Jake halpern
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. One morning last December, my co
host Jess mchughe and our producer Amy Gaines McQuaid traveled
(01:00):
to Rhode Island sit down with a woman named Rosemarie. Coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh, he's going to mark it to mailman? Did dogs
do boo?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Right? All? That's Rosemary talking to her dog Boo. When
Jess and Amy arrived, Rosemarie had pastries from a local
bakery waiting for them and Rosemarie she likes to take
care of people like this. She's sixty years old and
recently retired, but before that, she spent her career supporting
(01:33):
people when they're at their most vulnerable. She worked as
a community support specialist and for a time Rosemary took
care of Sarah Kavanaugh.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I've worked with her. I'm guessing three years, wow,
So it's up to the end. So it would write
exactly to the point.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Sarah enrolled in the Wounded Warrior Independence program. It's designed
for veterans with life changing injuries, and it was through
this program that Wounded Warrior paid for Rosemary's services.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
What did you understand her physical injuries to be. She
had the traumatic brain injury, she had a prosthetic hip supposedly,
and she was also going through cancer treatment, the prosthetic,
the brain injury, and the PTSD or the primary challenges.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
She still remembers the first time that she showed up
to Sarah's house.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
At the time, Sarah was like curled up in a
blanket in you know, on the couch in front of
the window, just looking out the window, all forlorn and
shy and withdrawn, and according to the case manager, she
you know, she wasn't getting adjusted to the community and
(02:58):
she really needed a lot of support. If you can
just picture that person that's just not been able to
do any anything, you know, or go anywhere, you know,
really struggling, You know that that was the persona that
she put out there.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Throughout our reporting, Jess and I had heard these stories
about Sarah running down mountain trails and competing in epic
workout challenges. But this, this was an entirely different Sarah
we were hearing about. Rose Marie worked with Sarah right
up until Sarah's double life came crashing down. Throughout all
(03:40):
that time, Sarah let rose Marie into her home, into
her life, and we wondered what did rose Marie see.
Turns out she saw and heard an awful lot, some
of which has major implications for our story. It suggests
that there may have been someone else helping Sarah with
(04:01):
her deception, a possible accomplice.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I couldn't even tell your name. I couldn't even tell
you necessarily who I suspected. But there were a couple
incidents when somebody had to call Sarah's caseworker at the
VA when Sarah's standing in the rooms or wasn't Sarah,
So who was on the other end of the phone.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Welcome back to Deep Cover Season six. The Truth about Sarah.
This is Rosemare's story. Rose Marie has worked with people
(04:58):
living with disabilities for decades, and if there's one thing
she's learned. It's that every case is different.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So there isn't a set blueprint for working with someone
with brain injury. It's different in the sense of each
person's injury manifests itself in different ways.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Rose Marie told us that most of the people that
she works with have had their worlds turned upside down
and they're still trying to find their footing.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So they've had pretty much a normal life leading up
to this injury, and then they may have had a
car accident, a stroke, a brain tumor, and then everything changes,
including personality changes. So that's part of it that you
wouldn't see it with other disabilities.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Necessarily her job helping people get back into the world,
running errands, doing chores, the simple stuff, which is no
longer so simple. That's where Rosemarie comes in. That's what
she started doing for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
At the time I met her. Supposedly, she couldn't even
go into a store, she couldn't go to a target,
she couldn't go grocery shopping, she couldn't, you know, take
care of her household.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Rose Marie believed Sarah was dealing with PTSD, so she
tried to break things down make simple tasks even simpler.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Okay, your first task is to try to just go
into target, you know, get one item and go through
the register and that's a success. Or we'd go, you know,
make a grocery list, like what do I need? How
what am I going to eat this week?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
And rose Marie was told certain things were going to
be hard for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Okay, these are things emotionally she needs to address. You know,
going out in the community like the DMV would have
been a big trigger for her, you know, to do
that by herself.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So rose Marie went with her to the DMV to
get special purple heart plates for her car. You might
remember Sarah claimed she earned a purple heart in combat.
Somehow she had the paperwork to back that claim up,
and she got the plates without even realizing it or
meaning to. Rose Marie had played a small role in
(07:16):
helping Sarah deepen her deception. As they spent more time together,
Rosemarie and Sarah began to form a bond.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So I was supporting her. And of course when you're
doing that, you want to build a rapport. You want
to have the person be comfortable, so you're you're I mean,
I was willing to do the things with her. Let's
say she's no, she's got to do laundry. Well, I'm
not just going to stand there with a clipboard, you know,
(07:46):
and talk at her.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Instead, rose Marie said, let's chat as we fold the clothes.
And over time, Rosemarie became a sounding board for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
She talked about things that bothered her. She talked about relationships,
she talked about family. She was always talking about financial
troubles that was weighing on her.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
The version of Sarah that we kept hearing about from
other people was tough, unbreakable, always smiling through the pain,
the kind of person people held up as a hero.
But rose Marie saw something else, something that seemed more
tender and fragile.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I would say about ninety nine percent of the time
when I arrived at her home, she was in tears. Wow,
she was anxious, she was worked up. There was things
that had happened. And then you know, we would talk
and she would calm down, and then we'd say, okay
with the plan, and we would you be able to
move on to an activity that she orchestrated that we
(08:50):
should do.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
One of these things was physical therapy.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
She wanted to start physical therapy and the organization was
paying for it, Wounded Warrior, and so she was nervous
about going to the first visit. So I took her
to her first visit was.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yep. Rose Marie says she took Sarah to her very
first appointment with Sam, the physical therapist she went on
to become romantically involved with. At first, nothing stood out
to Rosemarie, but over time she came to understand that
Sarah's relationship with Sam had evolved.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It took a long time before I saw evidence there
was something else with Sam, and I'm trying to be professional.
I'm not going to delve into like obviously. She had
just got married, you know, not long.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Before Rose Marie knew Nicole, Sarah's wife at the time.
She spent many hours in the home that they shared,
and she did her best to stay out of this
whole mess and just stick to her job being a
community support specialist. Well, it's tricky work. You get pulled
into people's lives, the mess, the chaos. Rose Marie kept
(10:06):
her focus, helped the person in front of you. What
she didn't know was just how messy it really was.
In early twenty twenty two, as Sarah's lies were falling apart,
Rose Marie arrived at Sarah's house to help with an
errand the moment she got there, she sensed it and
(10:29):
on settling tension in the air, like everything was on edge.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I show up. She's outside, She's not even in the house.
She's outside, she's anxious. She's got the plates in her hands,
she's got the paperwork. She was just like, we have
to go to the DMV. I have to return these plates.
They're causing so much problems. I just want to get
rid of them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Sarah was desperate to return those purple heart license plates.
It was a request that seemed to baffle the DMV staff,
but Sarah just wanted those plates gone.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
The staff at the DMV were like so nice, and
they were trying to get at what was going on,
like why why do you want to return these? Is
somebody harassing you? Like because we can help you, you know,
we'll get contact whoever we need to to help you
with this. If you know, you should feel like you
you earn these And she's like, no, no, I just
(11:24):
have to get rid of it. I don't want to
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Soon after this, reports about Sarah's fraud started circulating. Rose
Marie was at home when her husband showed her an
article that revealed Sarah's deception.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
My husband came to me and said, is this Sarah
Sarah in the news is showing me on my phone.
I was just like, oh my god. They really have,
you know, gone out of their way to hurt her.
Oh my god, poor Sarah. What's my first response? I
(12:02):
was like reaching out to her and be like, are
you okay? But so initially it sounds like your reaction
is disbelief. Oh yes, yeah. I had no reason to
doubt her, and I was just like, what are these
people doing to her? Oh my god? Is she okay?
You know, call her right away? And I just said
to her, are you okay? And she's like, well no,
(12:24):
And I was like, well, if it's not true, you
have to defend yourself, Sarah, you know, And she's like
I can't. She said I can't. I was like, what
do you mean. She's like, I can't defend myself. And
then I was like, well, tell me what's going on
and she's like, I can't talk. I'll call you right back.
(12:47):
I'm getting another call, and then she hung up. And
that was it.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Rose Marie soon learned about the investigation into Sarah's fraud
and what the FEDS had begun to discover, and she
came to the unsettling realization that she had been deceived
for years. In some ways, rose Marie knew Sarah so intimately,
but in other ways she didn't know her at all.
(13:24):
We asked rose Marie if she knew whether Sarah had
a job, and turns out she had no idea. Sarah
was a social worker at the VA in Providence. Now,
granted she did only work for Sarah part time, roughly
six hours a week, she knew that Sarah visited the
VIA pretty often, and she knew this because sometimes she
(13:44):
drove Sarah there.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I've taken her to the VA, so I I mean,
I have no idea what I took what I took
her to, but you know, definitely dropped her off and
waited in the car in that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Part of what made Sarah's story so convincing to rose
Marie and others we interviewed was the fact that someone
from Sarah's healthcare team was in contact with them. This
person's name was Ivy. Supposedly, Ivy was a social worker
at the VA assigned to managing Sarah's care.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
She had a lot of talks about the social worker
Ivy at the VA. So that's what I thought was
going on.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But what was really going on with Ivy, Well that's
something we're all still trying to figure out more on that.
After the break, a few people we've interviewed, including Rosemarie,
(14:54):
say they spoke with someone claiming to be Ivy. Rose
Marie told us about one conference call in particular. It
was a check in with Sarah's healthcare team. Rose Marie
was on the line, as was a case manager from
the Wounded Warrior Project, and then there was Ivy from
the VA, offering updates on Sarah's care.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So she would go on and talk about her medical situation,
the cancer, what they were trying to do there. So
I'd be there with Sarah and then the other two
were in conference call, and so Sarah was in the
room with yes, so she couldn't have been the one
on the phone right right, And that was the case
(15:39):
as well another time some other woman was speaking and
as Ivy.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
The question that now comes up, the one that Rose
Marie still thinks about and the one that we still
think about a lot. Is this Who's on the phone
pretending to be Ivy offering these made up details about
how Sarah's treatment was going. It wasn't Sarah because on
that particular call, Sarah was sitting in the room with Rosemarie.
(16:10):
So it had to be someone else, someone who was
complicit in Sarah's lies.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So there had to be other people involved. There absolutely
had to be, because I clearly remember at least two
times when Ivy was on the phone. But yeah, there
had to be another person.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
We talked to Tom Donnelly about this. If you recall,
he's the in house investigator at the VA's Office of
Inspector General. Donnelly's thought about this a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
We could never prove that another person was involved, but
it's evidence that leads me to believe that one hundred
percent somebody else was involved.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Donnelly told us there really is someone named Ivy who
works for the Providence VA, but investigators had interviewed her
over the course of their investigation and they felt convinced
that she was not in on this in any way.
We actually got in touch with the real Ivy and
she told us, quote, I knew Sarah from the time
(17:10):
she was a social work intern. We would eat lunch together,
and although she never pretended to be a veteran with
me or other coworkers, she would tell us story after
story about her large military family. I was shocked to
learn that they never existed, and was appalled when I
was questioned by federal agents investigating whether or not I
(17:33):
was involved in her schemes. She went on to say,
more appalling than her using my name was the grift
that she had been running for years, duping many organizations
and betraying the trust of so many veterans, like the
ones that she was receiving a salary to help. All
(17:54):
of this has led investigators to believe there had to
have been someone else, someone impersonating Ivy on a series
of phone.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Calls, Like we figured out who who Ivy's phone number was.
Ivy's phone number was Sarah's VA issued government cell phone.
So I don't know where that phone was or who
had it, but we do know that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
It was used. In other words, Donnelly thinks someone was
using Sarah's work phone to fake the whole thing, calling
people pretending to be Ivy. But if it wasn't Sarah,
well then who was it. That question has yet to
(18:37):
be answered. Maybe one day we'll find out. Before rose
Marie learned about Sarah's lies, she says she was never
really suspicious. She felt nothing but empathy for Sarah.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
You see, this person has been impacted and her life
has been so impaired, and she's so young. I mean,
it really pull on your heart. There's no question about it.
Everybody who met her felt sorry for her every time,
everyone wanted to help her.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Rosemary became so attached to Sarah that even after retiring
in twenty twenty one, she continued to help her, volunteering
her time for free.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I just knew I had to be there for her,
like I felt when she reacted that she wasn't going
to have my contact, and she felt so lost and
there was just so much going on that I wanted
to be there for her. I wanted to be able
(19:50):
to say you can call me anytime. I'm here for you.
And she was like, great, okay. You know, ever said,
oh you don't have to do that, or you know,
I don't want, you know, she definitely let me do it.
It's really generous of you. I don't know, I mean,
you can't work in this career, in this field and
(20:13):
not care you know what, you can't. That's just, you know,
it doesn't make me any kind of a special person.
It's just that's where I was at, you know, at
the time.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
The last time rose Marie saw Sarah was on the
day of the sentencing in March of twenty twenty three.
Rose Marie was there in the courtroom, surrounded by people
who were angry and demanding justice.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You know. By that time, you know, sympathy had worn off,
and everybody just wanted to see her be held accountable.
You know. So basically it was Sarah and her attorney
and then a whole bunch of other people just you know,
rooting for her to go to jail.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
At sentencing, rose Marie connected with many other people in
Sarah's orbit, like Michelle the Jim Buddy and Dave the
VFW commander. Rosemarie had felt hurt and embarrassed that she'd
fallen for Sarah's schemes, but when she looked around, she
started to see the bigger picture and it put things
(21:24):
into perspective.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So many people got scammed. I mean, that's where I
stopped beating myself up with people smarter than me got scammed,
you know, in a lot larger ways. All the times
all of us could have intersected somehow we didn't, you know,
and then but it just didn't happen. Oh God, I
just wish I got to save some grief for people.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I just wish I could have saved some grief for people.
It felt like Rosemarie was basically saying, if only I
had figured this out, maybe we could have avoided this
whole mess. The fallout from Sarah's actions was far reaching,
but one of the cruelest outcomes is that someone like
Rosemarie would be left feeling even a little bit responsible,
(22:11):
blaming herself for her own generosity, wondering if that very
kindness did more harm than good. Of course she's not
to blame, but sometimes it's not so easy for her
to see it this way. At the very end of
this interview, our producer Amy asked rose Marie a final
(22:35):
question about Sarah.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Is there anything that you would want to ask her
or like, do you think that you'll connect with her?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I think everybody just probably wants to know why, But
you'd never get an answer that we could trust. If
I asked her why, I wouldn't get a real honest
you know, so what do what I really ask? You know,
just a part of my past and time to move on.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
So many people in this story were to see Rosemarie
saw this for herself at the sentencing hearing. But the
human mind, it's a curious thing. It's not always governed
by rationality or self love. Our friends may tell us
we did no wrong. We may yearn to believe them,
and perhaps we should. But in quiet moments, late at night,
(23:29):
the mind often wrestles with guilt, regret, and recriminations, feelings
that defy logic, but hard as we may try, prove
impossible to quiet. And in this way, Sarah's story lives on.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I don't think it ends. That's what I worry about.
I guess the biggest thing I wonder is like what
she's going to do after, because how do you come
out of jail and having done this and have some
kind of a normal life. She's going to have to
create another set of lies. She's not going to just
(24:05):
come out and say, yeah, I just went to prison
because I scandal these people and I stole valor, and
you know, so I don't think it stops. That's what
I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
These last words, they've stayed with me. I find them haunting.
As storytellers were always chasing after the elusive perfect endings,
looking for that final note of closure. But as long
as people remember, and as long as they're willing to
ask that most human of questions, what if, then there
(24:41):
is no end, not really, only more questions that spin
into the night. This episode was produced by Amy Gains McQuaid,
(25:04):
Jesse m Hugh Taly Emlin, and Sonya Gurwit. It was
edited by Karen Chakerji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
Original music from Luis Gera, mastering by Sarah Bruger. Special
thanks to Owen Miller, Lucy Sullivan, Jake Flanagan, Sarah Nix,
(25:25):
and Greta Cone. I'm Jake halpern
Host
Jake Halpern
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