Speaker 1: A friend of mine described it really well. She said,
Speaker 1: it's not like he's a catch me if you can
Speaker 1: type person. He actually lies to make himself.
Speaker 2: As normal as possible, just like your average boat.
Speaker 1: And it's true his bacade was authenticity.
Speaker 3: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, A show about
Speaker 3: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 3: change everything. Tina Maya is a successful e commerce consultant
Speaker 3: in the UK. In twenty sixteen, a casual, romantic fling
Speaker 3: turned her entire world upside down. It showed her a
Speaker 3: dark side of humanity, one that she'd never seen before.
Speaker 1: There's definitely an element of control. He can walk away,
Speaker 1: but he can remotely control the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: Her story is also one of community. Along the way,
Speaker 3: she found a group of other women who had been
Speaker 3: deceived and betrayed by the same man. Tina's become their
Speaker 3: spokesperson and the spokesperson for a much larger story. Tina
Speaker 3: was raised to be opinionated and strong willed.
Speaker 1: So I was born in Iran actually before the revolution.
Speaker 1: We came here in nineteen seventy eight, and I grew
Speaker 1: up in Southeast England, though very green leafy parts of
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 3: When she graduated from university, traveled and spent years living abroad.
Speaker 1: I went to Australia, in Thailand and India, as well
Speaker 1: a lot of places Costa Rica. You know that I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time of building my career and
Speaker 1: living life.
Speaker 3: In the nineties and two thousands, Tina was early to
Speaker 3: adopt the internet's potential, especially for commerce and online retail.
Speaker 3: She made a career working in digital sales that ended
Speaker 3: up taking her to New York City, where she met
Speaker 3: her husband. By her mid thirties, he welcomed the son, Leo.
Speaker 1: He was an incredible baby and I really enjoyed becoming
Speaker 1: a mother.
Speaker 3: But her husband, on the other hand, struggled.
Speaker 2: He wasn't a very handsome father. It was just thea
Speaker 2: when me it gets work.
Speaker 3: For a while, when Tina was offered a prestigious job
Speaker 3: back in the UK, she separated from her husband and
Speaker 3: made the leap. Now her daily life was focused on
Speaker 3: work and raising her son. For Tina, being a single
Speaker 3: mom to one child felt manageable. She loved that dynamic.
Speaker 1: I was at a mom's drinks thing and I remember
Speaker 1: having a conversation with one of the moms who had
Speaker 1: a lot of problems with the second child.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you got it right, like one child
Speaker 2: the tree.
Speaker 3: When her son started grade school, Tina had more nights
Speaker 3: to herself.
Speaker 1: He spends more time with friends, he goes sleepovers, but
Speaker 1: a little bit more independence. I wasn't actively going out
Speaker 1: and dating or anything like that. I was so busy.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even thinking about dating. It wasn't on the radar.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, she attended a tech conference in London.
Speaker 3: That day she must have met in exchange contact info
Speaker 3: with at least thirty people, one of them being Neil Lahman.
Speaker 1: He's a very charismatic person. He's very good looking. I
Speaker 1: suppose he was a bit flirtatious.
Speaker 3: Neil was from Essex. To put it in American terms.
Speaker 1: I guess the American version would be Jersey, sure.
Speaker 3: Big party culture in spray hands. Tina's interaction with Neil
Speaker 3: was nothing special, just a friendly exchange of business guards.
Speaker 3: She assumed it was a professional connection, but soon Neil
Speaker 3: began texting her.
Speaker 1: And then one day he texted me and I had
Speaker 1: just closed a very significant deal, so I was in
Speaker 1: a very good mood, and he said that he was
Speaker 1: in the area and asked me if I fancied going.
Speaker 3: For a drink that night. Her son was at a sleepover.
Speaker 2: I said, you know what, why not.
Speaker 3: It was perfect timing, so they met at a neighborhood pub.
Speaker 1: We sat down and started talking. He was very open,
Speaker 1: asked me about you my life.
Speaker 3: She talked about her son and her ex husband in America,
Speaker 3: and Neil shared details about his past.
Speaker 1: He told me that his ex wife they lived together
Speaker 1: in the US, and she had cheated on him and
Speaker 1: she'd run off with his best friend.
Speaker 3: The reason his wife had left was because Neil couldn't
Speaker 3: have kids.
Speaker 1: She was very bitter about the fact that he couldn't
Speaker 1: give her children. And then he went on to tell
Speaker 1: me about the fact that he'd had cancer and has
Speaker 1: testicular cander, so it was impossible.
Speaker 3: It was a touchy subject. Neil seemed deeply hurt by
Speaker 3: his ex wife. Tina felt for him.
Speaker 1: He seemed almost a little bit vulnerable, like he had
Speaker 1: this sort of emotional vulnerability about him.
Speaker 3: The name was going well, and before long they found
Speaker 3: themselves in another bar, making jokes and inching closer together.
Speaker 3: She liked him, but she wanted to keep it casual.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it as being a long term, serious
Speaker 1: relationship prospect. That was not where my head was. It's
Speaker 1: not the sort of time that I had. I wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in bringing anyone into my son's life.
Speaker 2: It was just letting my head down and having a
Speaker 2: bit of.
Speaker 3: Fun, really, and Neil knew how to have a good time.
Speaker 1: He had that sort of cheeky, chappy, jack the lad
Speaker 1: kind of thing about him.
Speaker 2: It was fun.
Speaker 3: At the end of their night together.
Speaker 2: He walked me home in the very early hours of
Speaker 2: the morning.
Speaker 3: They kissed goodnight, and Neil said he wanted to see
Speaker 3: her again. He was often in her area because he
Speaker 3: owned and managed a few properties there. He promised to
Speaker 3: text the next time he was in her neighborhood, and
Speaker 3: he did so. After their first night out together.
Speaker 1: He continued to text me, and then he would come
Speaker 1: over once a week or so.
Speaker 3: Tina couldn't remember the last time she had a fling
Speaker 3: like this. It had to have been well before her marriage.
Speaker 3: It was just what she needed. It made her feel
Speaker 3: sexy and confident. Before they slept together, I said.
Speaker 1: To him that it wasn't on the pill. Does he
Speaker 1: have anything? Said no, I'm really allergic to late text.
Speaker 3: Tina was forty one, and after his testicular cancer treatments,
Speaker 3: Neil couldn't have kids without the pill or using regular condoms.
Speaker 3: They settled on another method.
Speaker 1: I was quite adamant about using withdrawal methods, and I
Speaker 1: asked him, did you withdraw in time? Because I could
Speaker 1: have gone and got a plan B.
Speaker 2: But he was like no. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Over the next few months, they saw each other whenever
Speaker 3: they could, and Tina got to know more about him.
Speaker 1: He said that he went to the London School of Economics,
Speaker 1: which is sort of Harvard Business School level.
Speaker 3: But when Tina tried to talk about the neighborhood where
Speaker 3: are the school's located, Meal seemed confused, like he didn't
Speaker 3: know the area. But it had been decades since Neil
Speaker 3: was in school, so Tina didn't think much of it.
Speaker 2: I didn't really question it too much.
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking of him as husband's material or something,
Speaker 1: so things weren't registering too much with me.
Speaker 3: Eventually, Neil's appeal started to wear off.
Speaker 2: There was just one too many things that just wasn't
Speaker 2: adding out.
Speaker 1: Who ring true, Like he would make a plan and
Speaker 1: then have some weird excuse and like it started to
Speaker 1: be less fun.
Speaker 3: Now she was ready to move on, so she stopped
Speaker 3: responding promptly to his texts.
Speaker 2: Kind of wanted to phase it out anyway, So it
Speaker 2: got a little cold.
Speaker 3: A few weeks later, she didn't feel quite like herself.
Speaker 2: It was misplacing things.
Speaker 1: I was looking for my car keys all over the
Speaker 1: place and realized that I'd turned them in the wheelie
Speaker 1: bin with.
Speaker 2: My rubbish when I threw the rubbish out.
Speaker 3: This feeling was familiar.
Speaker 1: Funny thing I normally handy two things like that when
Speaker 1: I'm pregnant. I don't get morning sickness, I don't get cravings,
Speaker 1: but I get very forgetful.
Speaker 3: She confided in a friend about what was going on.
Speaker 2: She said, to me, go and get a pregnancy test.
Speaker 1: And she said, as soon as you do that, I
Speaker 1: mean you realize that you know you're not pregnant, then
Speaker 1: the period of p I'm like, you know that, that's
Speaker 1: a really good idea.
Speaker 3: So she got the test.
Speaker 1: So I went to the back room and read the
Speaker 1: instructions and then yeah, popped the lad on your face
Speaker 1: to wait three minutes. Immediately came up quite nun okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just wait the full three minutes for the knot
Speaker 1: to come up.
Speaker 3: She was pregnant at forty one. Even though it was
Speaker 3: unexpected and unplanned, she felt immediately connected to this child.
Speaker 1: It's hard to describe, but she was very present in me,
Speaker 1: very early on. There was something very very strong about
Speaker 1: this present and I felt that right away.
Speaker 3: Even still, it was a massive shock because the baby
Speaker 3: had to be meals.
Speaker 2: There hadn't been anybody.
Speaker 3: Else but Neil was infertile, so this baby was a
Speaker 3: medical miracle. Tina turned to her friend, who suggested maybe
Speaker 3: Neil would be happy about the baby.
Speaker 2: She was like, oh, these he is. He didn't know
Speaker 2: that he could have children.
Speaker 3: Miracle baby or not. Tina knew that she and Neil
Speaker 3: didn't have a future together. Now she had to break
Speaker 3: up with him and tell him the news.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, this is going to be awkward.
Speaker 3: Then she took a few days to think and finally
Speaker 3: sent Neil a message.
Speaker 1: So I said, I need to talk to you, but
Speaker 1: to meet up tomorrow. I can come to meet you,
Speaker 1: but need to have a little chat. And then he
Speaker 1: said something along the lines of yeah, yeah, sure, I'll
Speaker 1: send my brother to meet you and I know because
Speaker 1: we need to talk, and he said, well, I don't
Speaker 1: see why there's anything you can't tell me here. I
Speaker 1: was like, really, you want me to tell you what
Speaker 1: I need to tell you over text and he said yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, Hi, if you insist, and so
Speaker 1: I said, I am pregnant. You are the only option
Speaker 1: of who the father is. And then he answered a
Speaker 1: little bit strangely, he said, nice, try. I had a
Speaker 1: vasect to me.
Speaker 4: I was like.
Speaker 1: Thesectomy, and I sent him a picture of the pregnancy
Speaker 1: test and I said, well it didn't work.
Speaker 3: She wasn't expecting anything from him.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I immediately said was I'm
Speaker 1: not expecting or asking you to be a father to
Speaker 1: the child. I am letting you know because it's a
Speaker 1: responsible thing to do, and you can be as I'm involved,
Speaker 1: as you wish.
Speaker 3: She didn't know how he would react, but she certainly
Speaker 3: wasn't expecting what happened. Next.
Speaker 1: Things turned nasty on his part, which took me aback.
Speaker 1: He said, the whole load of nasty voice mails.
Speaker 5: Hi, Tya, let's talk about this baby.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: Now there's something very strange about this baby. Let me
Speaker 5: explain it.
Speaker 1: To you, and you could just hear in his voice
Speaker 1: that turn, and how nasty he became, as like real viteroal.
Speaker 3: In these messages, Neil doubled down on his story.
Speaker 5: I have zero span is medically impossible. If it were,
Speaker 5: I'd still be living happier with my wife in the USA.
Speaker 5: We split up because she wanted kids and I couldn't
Speaker 5: have them.
Speaker 3: As the messages and cars kept coming, they got more personal.
Speaker 1: He said thing that you'd be a single mom, you
Speaker 1: won't be able to get a job, and you won't
Speaker 1: be able to work, and you'll be.
Speaker 3: Poor, then meaner and.
Speaker 1: Oh he accused me of thinking of him as a
Speaker 1: cash can.
Speaker 3: Then kind of scary.
Speaker 1: And then he said that he had gone to the
Speaker 1: police and reported me to the police. At first he
Speaker 1: said harassment, and then he said that he'd reported me
Speaker 1: for entrapment.
Speaker 3: And some of his messages were downright strange.
Speaker 1: He started to come up with a story when he
Speaker 1: was in the hospital with his kidney infection, they found
Speaker 1: cancer cells, and how selfish I am, and what a
Speaker 1: horrible person I am at having told him that I
Speaker 1: was pregnant, then that I'm basically killing.
Speaker 3: Him from her first date with Neil. She knew he
Speaker 3: wasn't a keeper. She had no idea he could be
Speaker 3: this cruel.
Speaker 2: Whoa, This is not normal. This was really strange.
Speaker 5: So I'm going to tell you something. I will have
Speaker 5: nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you
Speaker 5: claiming I'm father with your child.
Speaker 2: You can keep the baby.
Speaker 5: Great for you, but it ain't mind, darling. It's seriously, seriously,
Speaker 5: he isn't mine.
Speaker 2: I just thought he was an assphole.
Speaker 1: My friend, who's kinder than me, thought that he was
Speaker 1: in some sort of state of shock because he thought
Speaker 1: he could never have children.
Speaker 3: But Neil wasn't in shock, and he wasn't in denial.
Speaker 3: Tina didn't know it at the time, but this was
Speaker 3: something far more insidious.
Speaker 1: This is something that he's got too many, many, many
Speaker 1: many times over.
Speaker 3: When Tina Maya told the man she'd been casually dating
Speaker 3: she was pregnant, he became a different person. Neil Lawman
Speaker 3: started sending her callous voice messages about how the baby
Speaker 3: could not possibly be his. He even accused Tina of harassment.
Speaker 3: Regardless of his disturbing reaction, Tina wanted to have the
Speaker 3: baby on her own. She was sure of that, so
Speaker 3: After his vitriolic messages, she drew a boundary with Neil.
Speaker 1: Said, yeah, I'll let you know when she's born and
Speaker 1: you can decide if you want to have a dnatist
Speaker 1: or not. That's you're right, And then he replied, no,
Speaker 1: thank you. I will not be participating in any dnatist. Okay,
Speaker 1: no worries.
Speaker 3: As far as Tina was concerned, Neil was out of the.
Speaker 2: Picture, and I went on obviously I had a lot
Speaker 2: to deal with.
Speaker 3: She blocked him and moved forward with the rest of
Speaker 3: her pregnancy. It wouldn't be her first time as a
Speaker 3: single mom. Tina's friends and family rallied around her to
Speaker 3: buy support, and she needed it, especially when the baby
Speaker 3: was born.
Speaker 1: When I went into labor, both she and I got
Speaker 1: an infection. She wet blue, and she was there in
Speaker 1: an incubator. She also had very very very bad georgice.
Speaker 3: Her newborn baby, Josephine, was in critical condition. She had
Speaker 3: a severe lung infection. The doctor wanted to prepare for
Speaker 3: a blood transfusion.
Speaker 1: He said, so, you know, just in case of the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, we're going to need to get medical history,
Speaker 1: blood types of parents. In cases some kind of rarity,
Speaker 1: the genetic rarity or something like that.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, I could only give you half.
Speaker 3: But half wasn't good enough, especially considering Neil's history of cancer.
Speaker 1: There was probably a complex medical history that we needed
Speaker 1: to know about before we get this baby a blood transfusion.
Speaker 2: She was two days old.
Speaker 3: Instead of reaching out to Neil, she decided to call
Speaker 3: one of his friends, the only friend of his she
Speaker 3: knew how to reach.
Speaker 1: I said, listen, here's my hospital number, and this is
Speaker 1: the doctor's name. Can you just have him tell them blood's,
Speaker 1: like any kind of medical history, anything like that.
Speaker 3: Neil's friend tried to get him to go or at
Speaker 3: least to call the hospital at Is.
Speaker 1: I know absolutely. I told him he needs to get
Speaker 1: his down there right away.
Speaker 3: But Neil never showed up.
Speaker 1: No call has come through to researchers. So yeah, he's
Speaker 1: not here and has not been here.
Speaker 3: And then while Tina was lying in her hospital bed,
Speaker 3: she got a text from Neil.
Speaker 1: He sent me long abusive text messages.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't lift a finger to help your child, even
Speaker 1: if she did have my DNA. I'm not giving any
Speaker 1: information to any doctors. I'm like, oh, okay, you are
Speaker 1: a psychopath. This is a two day old baby, and
Speaker 1: all I asked is for you to make a phone call,
Speaker 1: which anybody would do for a stranger's baby, for a kitten.
Speaker 1: No human being would refuse to make a phone call
Speaker 1: to potentially, say, a baby.
Speaker 3: But Neil refused. He was not interested in helping the baby.
Speaker 3: He was more concerned with lashing out at Tina.
Speaker 1: That he called me vile tongued, foul woman and all
Speaker 1: sorts of like, horrible name.
Speaker 5: It's not you.
Speaker 2: I just given birth.
Speaker 1: I was in hospital with needles stuck in me for
Speaker 1: the antibiotics and things like that.
Speaker 2: But this is a really evil person.
Speaker 3: She was beyond anger.
Speaker 2: I was disgusted. I was disgusted. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: whatever you are, you have no humanity.
Speaker 3: Up until this moment, she'd planned to raise the baby
Speaker 3: completely on her own, without asking Neil for a single penny,
Speaker 3: But after he showed his true.
Speaker 2: Colors, she decided, you know what, I'm just going to
Speaker 2: send the Chelseapool Agency how to keep for the next
Speaker 2: eighteen years. Bye bye.
Speaker 3: She figured the courts could handle Neil and she and
Speaker 3: her family could move on. Luckily, her newborn daughter recovered
Speaker 3: without needing a blood transfusion.
Speaker 1: After a week of being in hospital, we were both
Speaker 1: able to go home.
Speaker 3: When she got home with Josephine or Fifi as she
Speaker 3: calls her, their house was full of joy. Her son,
Speaker 3: who was eight, became a doting big brother.
Speaker 2: Right son adored her from day one.
Speaker 1: And she's just the sweetest baby.
Speaker 3: Now with two children to support, Tina had to return
Speaker 3: to work just two weeks later.
Speaker 1: So I took the mandatory two weeks and went back
Speaker 1: to work and I was back on a train in London.
Speaker 1: I had a nanny and my friend helped me out
Speaker 1: also with hope and yeah, that's work.
Speaker 3: One day, while she was on her way to work,
Speaker 3: she decided to call the UK's child support agency to
Speaker 3: get the paperwork started for child support. After they looked
Speaker 3: into Tina's claim, the agency contacted her with surprising news
Speaker 3: about Neil.
Speaker 1: It came back that firstly, it said that he only
Speaker 1: had to pay five pounds a week because he was
Speaker 1: in receipt of benefits.
Speaker 3: Meaning that Neil was on unemployment. But that didn't add
Speaker 3: up to Tina. She met him at a tech conference.
Speaker 3: He owned his own company. She'd met his coworkers. She
Speaker 3: tried to explain this to the child support agency, and I.
Speaker 1: Said, well, he's not, and if he is, he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be because he's got a business.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen it. I know he has a
Speaker 2: functioning business.
Speaker 3: But the government didn't have records of his businesses or income.
Speaker 3: And that wasn't all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Other interesting thing was that five pounds a week it
Speaker 1: was split between my daughter and three other children.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, so here's a new spin.
Speaker 3: Neil had three other children? What about his story of
Speaker 3: being infertile. Tina went into investigation mode, searching for business
Speaker 3: and personal records of Neil Lawman.
Speaker 1: I went all the way back to one from a
Speaker 1: number of years ago.
Speaker 3: In Neil's records, she found the name of a woman
Speaker 3: someone who changed her last name to Lawman.
Speaker 1: Says, okay, that must be his ex wife. If she
Speaker 1: is an it might be his current wife.
Speaker 3: Maybe this was the woman he'd been married to in
Speaker 3: the States. But Tina didn't really know what to believe anymore.
Speaker 1: At this point, I realized that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: lie So I go on Facebook and Norman isn't a
Speaker 1: common name. I put it up and there's her Facebook profile.
Speaker 3: The first thing she noticed about her profile she was not.
Speaker 2: In America, She's right here in the UK.
Speaker 1: And the second pictures of two girls who are undoubtedly
Speaker 1: his daughter's.
Speaker 3: Looking at the photos of two little girls clearly related
Speaker 3: to Neil made Tina's headspin. At the very least, she
Speaker 3: knew she'd found the right person.
Speaker 1: So I text her on Facebook and yeah, obviously I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how she
Speaker 1: would react, if she would respond at all. I didn't
Speaker 1: know if they were still married, and he'd like about that.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what to expect from this, But yeah,
Speaker 1: what could I do? So I wrote her message. As
Speaker 1: she immediately responded, The first line of a very long
Speaker 1: message said, I'm so so sorry that you have been
Speaker 1: his victim.
Speaker 3: When Tina applied for child support, she discovered a trove
Speaker 3: of information about her daughter's biological father, Neil Lahman. First
Speaker 3: that he was on unemployment and claimed he was unable
Speaker 3: to make child support payments. He wasn't the high flying
Speaker 3: tech guy he'd pretended to be. Second that he already
Speaker 3: owed child support for three other children. The whole story
Speaker 3: about him being infertile from prostate cancer was a complete lie,
Speaker 3: an elaborate deception. From night one, when Tina began looking
Speaker 3: into Neil's background, she found the name of his ex
Speaker 3: wife for going to call her, Wendy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we stopped talking and communicating, and.
Speaker 3: His ex wife had a story to tell. She'd been
Speaker 3: with him for ten years, they had two daughters together.
Speaker 3: Then one day Neil walked out, leaving her with a
Speaker 3: significant amount of debt.
Speaker 1: If she hadn't been bailed out by her parents, they
Speaker 1: would have been on the streets or something like that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, she seemed traumatized.
Speaker 3: Neil had claimed that his wife cheated on him, that
Speaker 3: she left him because he was infertile. He said she
Speaker 3: was still back in America, But it turns out Wendy
Speaker 3: very much lived in the UK. In fact, she lived
Speaker 3: in the same neighborhood as Tina. Now Tina could safely
Speaker 3: assume everything he'd ever told her was a lie.
Speaker 2: So we now know that the whole America thing was
Speaker 2: a lie. Cancer thing.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, even if he'd had cancer, they did not
Speaker 1: cause in fertility. I'm like, wow, Okay, right now we're
Speaker 1: down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: Tina and Wendy agreed to meet for dinner to talk
Speaker 3: in person.
Speaker 2: So we met up in London. We both liked sushi,
Speaker 2: so we went to a very nice sushi restaurant right away.
Speaker 3: Tina was struck by how familiar Wendy seemed. The two
Speaker 3: women had the same energy, independent, confident, and outgoing. Wendy
Speaker 3: had some important information for Tina, things she needed to know.
Speaker 3: You see, after Neil left her, Wendy found out about
Speaker 3: two more children, two sons he had father before her
Speaker 3: daughters were born. Tina stared at Wendy, processing the reality
Speaker 3: that her daughter was one of five, how many more
Speaker 3: kids were out there, and what would that mean for
Speaker 3: her daughter, for their daughters. It was a reality Wendy
Speaker 3: had barely begun to confront herself.
Speaker 1: She'd said that she had never told her daughters about
Speaker 1: the older voice that she'd found out about.
Speaker 3: Since Neil left Wendy, he'd barely spoken to their two
Speaker 3: young daughters.
Speaker 1: Nothing, absolutely nothing in all of these years, except an
Speaker 1: annual birthday phone call to one of the children, where
Speaker 1: you would lie about having said a gift that never arrived.
Speaker 3: Tina and Wendy ordered another round of Martini's and talked
Speaker 3: until the restaurant closed before they said goodbye. Tina got
Speaker 3: an idea, let's.
Speaker 2: Do something a little bit bunny, so we took a selfie.
Speaker 2: We were both giving the bird.
Speaker 1: And we sent him an email with just a picture
Speaker 1: and insightled the other mother mother uha.
Speaker 2: He went ballistic.
Speaker 3: Neil started sending unhinged emails to Tina, to Wendy, even
Speaker 3: to his ex father in law.
Speaker 1: And then he'd also send a horrific email to my work,
Speaker 1: very graphic flood shaping email addressed to the entire company,
Speaker 1: including the CEO.
Speaker 3: She was horrified this was too far.
Speaker 1: So I reported this to the police and they did
Speaker 1: take it quite seriously, and they said that it was
Speaker 1: malicious munication.
Speaker 3: But this wasn't the first time the cops had investigated Neil.
Speaker 1: He was also involved in a very high profile fraud
Speaker 1: case of the Fimbo wine scheme, and his ex girlfriend
Speaker 1: actually ended up serving time for that, but he just
Speaker 1: walked away.
Speaker 2: It's got free.
Speaker 3: Allegedly he'd been implicated in a multi million dollar fraud scheme,
Speaker 3: and there was more. In total, he had eleven offenses
Speaker 3: in five convictions, but he never served any prison time.
Speaker 2: Like Teplon, nothing sticks.
Speaker 3: After Tina reported Neil to the police. She waited for
Speaker 3: an update. She'd given them all the information she had
Speaker 3: on him, and the officers said they'd call her when
Speaker 3: they made an arrest. But months went by without word
Speaker 3: when Tina called for an.
Speaker 2: Update, strangely so that we can't find him.
Speaker 1: He went on the ground or something, and then after
Speaker 1: a year the world was canceled, which I found odd.
Speaker 3: Tina knew where he was. He wasn't hiding at all.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, I can find him, why can't you.
Speaker 3: This got Tina thinking.
Speaker 1: It crossed my mind that he might have been an
Speaker 1: informant and he got himself out of these things by.
Speaker 2: Giving information to throw the people out of bus.
Speaker 3: Again, that's just a theory. If the police weren't going
Speaker 3: to give her answers or justice, she was going to
Speaker 3: find them herself. So she reached out to Wendy and
Speaker 3: together they came up with another idea.
Speaker 1: He said, look, why don't we start a Facebook group
Speaker 1: that has his name in it, So at least if
Speaker 1: someone's looking to sort of date him or get into
Speaker 1: business and they look him up on Facebook, come up, maybe.
Speaker 2: Give them a rip black give them a warning.
Speaker 1: So we set up this Facebook group called the Neil
Speaker 1: Norman Victim support group.
Speaker 2: It was a little tongue in cheek, but yeah.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing was that, you know, one after another,
Speaker 1: people actually started to join and tell their stories.
Speaker 3: As the group grew, Neil tried to get it taken down,
Speaker 3: but Facebook declared it legitimate public interest. Through this page,
Speaker 3: they discovered that Neil was allegedly running quite a few schemes.
Speaker 3: At the same time, there were lots of posts about
Speaker 3: his alleged shady business dealings. When it came to starting
Speaker 3: new businesses, the posts suggested that Neil had an.
Speaker 1: M He would befriend somebody, get into their lives, yet
Speaker 1: understand their business, and then take over the business.
Speaker 2: He would just make a.
Speaker 1: Copy of it and then take all the customers and
Speaker 1: try and these businesses that were other people's in there.
Speaker 1: Suddenly he's an expert.
Speaker 3: And then there were all the women he'd ghosted, women
Speaker 3: he'd met online and started serious long distance relationships with.
Speaker 1: There was a diplomat he'd had an online relationship with
Speaker 1: for years.
Speaker 3: When this woman finally booked a trip to meet him
Speaker 3: in person, he said he would pick her up at
Speaker 3: the airport, but when she landed, he wasn't there. She
Speaker 3: tried to call him and she realized he blocked her.
Speaker 3: She never heard from him again.
Speaker 1: He's done that a lot. He's done that a lot.
Speaker 1: It's been quite a few people that he's had these
Speaker 1: sort of online ongoing relationships with.
Speaker 3: These stories were bizarre. Was he doing it for the
Speaker 3: money to resell the expensive hotel room bookings and concert
Speaker 3: tickets or was it all just one big game to him?
Speaker 3: Whatever the case, in every story, Neil didn't stick a round. Instead,
Speaker 3: his victims were left to deal with the consequences of
Speaker 3: his actions, and some were never the same, like one woman, she.
Speaker 1: Was only eighteen at the time, thought she was going
Speaker 1: for a job interview, and then he said, oh, there's
Speaker 1: a meetings going on in the office.
Speaker 2: Do you have to meet me?
Speaker 1: There's the restaurant downstairs and bought her a drake.
Speaker 3: She wrote to Tina in her Facebook messages, she said
Speaker 3: that she woke up in a hotel room disoriented. She
Speaker 3: alleged that she'd been drugged and raped.
Speaker 2: She didn't go to the police because she felt ashamed.
Speaker 3: Multiple women shared stories like this one. Their Facebook posts
Speaker 3: alleged that Neil was not just a con artist, but
Speaker 3: a violent man.
Speaker 1: The fact that they have these let's identical stories. Me
Speaker 1: said that, yeah, that's a pattern.
Speaker 3: As the group grew, Tina continued to wonder did anyone
Speaker 3: out there have a story like hers?
Speaker 2: And then another mother came along.
Speaker 3: Her son was now an adult, but she knew Neil
Speaker 3: was the.
Speaker 1: Father, and it turned out that her son was only
Speaker 1: a few weeks older than one of his other sons
Speaker 1: and they lived down the road.
Speaker 2: From each other.
Speaker 3: Their families knew each other. The boys never interacted, but
Speaker 3: they easily could have.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's how close they were.
Speaker 3: Through the group, Tina learned more about Neil's backstory and
Speaker 3: it was revealing.
Speaker 2: As far as I'm aware.
Speaker 1: He believed that his stepfather was his real father until
Speaker 1: he was about fourteen, and then the mother told him
Speaker 1: the truth that he was rejected by his own father,
Speaker 1: but he was never.
Speaker 3: In Neil's life like his mom. Neil also had his
Speaker 3: first child in his teens.
Speaker 1: When Neil was not eighteen. That's when he got the
Speaker 1: first mother pregnant. She was only fifteen at the time
Speaker 1: the baby was born, and he ran.
Speaker 3: Off after that. It seemed like this became a pattern
Speaker 3: of his and this wasn't just about having unprotected sex
Speaker 3: or fathering many kids. He was intentionally deceiving women into
Speaker 3: believing he was infertile. These women who got pregnant would
Speaker 3: be tied to Neil forever.
Speaker 1: There's definitely an element of control. He can remote the
Speaker 1: control the rest of your life. He can walk away
Speaker 1: but still keep that control.
Speaker 3: So how many children does Neil Lahman actually have? Well,
Speaker 3: four have been confirmed by DNA, but there are many
Speaker 3: women who believe Neil is father of their children.
Speaker 1: From people coming forward and talking to us, there are
Speaker 1: at least thirteen credible children that, yeah, the mothers have
Speaker 1: said that he's the father.
Speaker 3: So the scheme clearly didn't end with Tina. The thirteen
Speaker 3: mothers have become a kind of group. They've bonded. Some
Speaker 3: of them are even friends.
Speaker 2: Tina admits he does have good taste in women. It's
Speaker 2: his one deeming quality.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because he doesn't tend to go for
Speaker 1: vulnerable women. He doesn't tend to go for women who
Speaker 1: he can control financially, or who don't have close families
Speaker 1: and things like that. It's almost like a challenge to
Speaker 1: him that he will target women who are strong, who
Speaker 1: have careers who are accomplished and break them down.
Speaker 3: But of course Nil's victims aren't just the women. Some
Speaker 3: members of Facebook group are Neil's now adult children. Many
Speaker 3: of them haven't been confirmed by DNA, but one of
Speaker 3: them tried to find Neil. He told Tina about the experience.
Speaker 1: He told me about when he was a teenager. He'd
Speaker 1: try and find him, and he'd waited outside his office.
Speaker 1: He'd spoken to him on the phone, and he seemed
Speaker 1: all right on the phone, but then when he went
Speaker 1: to meet him, he waited at a coffee shop across
Speaker 1: from where he worked, and then Neil came down and
Speaker 1: saw him and just turned the other way and walked away.
Speaker 2: A lot of these stories are very heartbreaking.
Speaker 3: Hearing these stories, Tina felt even more certain that justice
Speaker 3: needed to be served, and in talking to a police officer,
Speaker 3: she heard something that piqued her interest.
Speaker 2: This could be considered rape by deception.
Speaker 3: Rape by deception is a situation in which a perpetrator
Speaker 3: deceived someone in order to get secual consent. The victim
Speaker 3: wouldn't have consented if not for a crucial lie, like
Speaker 3: one around the perpetrator's STD or fertility status. Rape by
Speaker 3: deception isn't a specific charge. It's a way of arguing
Speaker 3: and giving contact to a situation as rape, even if
Speaker 3: it falls outside the typical definition of rape under the law,
Speaker 3: and it's been used before in cases like Tina's.
Speaker 1: There was another high profile case whereby someone who is
Speaker 1: a convicted rapist is taken to court because he'd claimed
Speaker 1: to have had of asephymy and got a woman pregnant,
Speaker 1: and the jury had ruled him guilty.
Speaker 2: He was given a sentence.
Speaker 1: However, they appealed it and the Supreme Court overruled the conviction.
Speaker 3: For Tina, there's still a lot of work to be
Speaker 3: done around this issue. In the meantime, she's had to
Speaker 3: move forward with her life and focus on her kids.
Speaker 2: My daughter is an absolute blessing gift. She's a ray
Speaker 2: of sunshine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The irony of this whole thing is that she looks
Speaker 2: just like him.
Speaker 3: Tina has learned to navigate some tough questions with care.
Speaker 3: For instance, her daughter has asked, it's my good a
Speaker 3: nice person.
Speaker 1: I was like, your father, he's not a nice person,
Speaker 1: but that's nothing to do with you, And.
Speaker 2: She's like, okay.
Speaker 1: She's just very matter of fact and it's it's just
Speaker 1: funny how adaptable kids are.
Speaker 2: Friends of hers very innocently asked, you know, so, what'd
Speaker 2: you dad, And she's like, oh, I don't have one.
Speaker 2: I don't have one.
Speaker 1: When they do Father's Day things at school, she makes
Speaker 1: things for her brother.
Speaker 3: Tina and her two children have a strong little family unit.
Speaker 3: But now that's not their entire family because Tina and
Speaker 3: Wendy decided to tell their kids about each other. When
Speaker 3: Wendy told her daughters.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the older daughter did say
Speaker 1: was that she wanted to meet her sister.
Speaker 3: Tina does worry about her daughter and how the situation
Speaker 3: will impact her as she grows up.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, what hurts and
Speaker 1: what causes damage is the life, not the truth. I've
Speaker 1: seen it over and over again that a lot of
Speaker 1: the children, the people, the victims, have all been impacted
Speaker 1: so negatively by this trail of lines upon lives upon
Speaker 1: lives upon life, and the best way to combat that
Speaker 1: is by absolute truth. And my daughters will have a
Speaker 1: source of truth about her situation. She wasn't abandoned and
Speaker 1: it's not her fault. This is what he does. This
Speaker 1: is a hymn problem.
Speaker 3: We end all of our episodes with the same question,
Speaker 3: why did you want to tell your story? Tina has
Speaker 3: a really specific reason. She wants to warn anyone who's
Speaker 3: just met Neil Lahman.
Speaker 2: If I can help one person.
Speaker 1: Avoid that pain, avoid going through this situation, or to
Speaker 1: get out before it's something devastating, If I can help
Speaker 1: one of the mothers out there to feel not alone,
Speaker 1: that overcomes all of his darkness, all of his lies,
Speaker 1: I think that that can only be a positive thing.
Speaker 3: On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 4: That evening, one of the strangest things happened. I looked
Speaker 4: in the mirror and I said, out loud, but he's
Speaker 4: not coming home. And I thought, my god, am I
Speaker 4: being dramatic? Of course he's going to be home. And
Speaker 4: I dismissed it.
Speaker 3: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 3: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 3: us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
Speaker 3: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 3: on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 3: Betrayal five star reviews, Go A Long Way, A big
Speaker 3: thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a
Speaker 3: production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group
Speaker 3: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. Show is executive produced by
Speaker 3: Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Speaker 3: Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique le Board, also
Speaker 3: produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and
Speaker 3: Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krinchek.
Speaker 3: Audio editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio, additional editing
Speaker 3: support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains.
Speaker 3: Music library provided by Mybe Music and For more podcasts
Speaker 3: from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 3: you get your podcasts.