Speaker 1: Mike Livengood pled guilty to just one count of second
Speaker 1: degree rape. He took a plea deal that meant he
Speaker 1: would only serve eighteen months in prison by the time
Speaker 1: of his sentencing. Hearing the one You Heard last episode,
Speaker 1: the judge's hands were tied, but she had watched those
Speaker 1: chatterbait videos and she was sure of what she saw.
Speaker 2: It was clear to me that miss Inwood was comatose,
Speaker 2: not asleep, but comatose unconscious.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, any technicalities in the law didn't matter. The videos
Speaker 1: spoke for themselves. To Judge Jill Cummins, this was rape.
Speaker 2: You were a predator to miss Inwood, and I completely
Speaker 2: understand it. The damage done to her.
Speaker 3: Is probably irreparable.
Speaker 4: Do you understand that by pleading guilty this morning, you
Speaker 4: are waving or giving out that presumption of innocence?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 5: I do so was to plead guilty this morning, I do.
Speaker 6: You're honor okay? And are you pleading.
Speaker 2: Guilty today, sir?
Speaker 7: Because you are in fact guilty, Yes, you're of the
Speaker 7: one account.
Speaker 1: You'd think that would have been the end of it,
Speaker 1: But for Saskia, things were about to get much worse.
Speaker 1: Mike was just getting started I'm Andrea Gunning and this
Speaker 1: is Betrayal. Season five, episode six, Credibility. Mike's guilty plead
Speaker 1: marked the end of his criminal proceedings, but his sentencing
Speaker 1: hearing wouldn't be his last time in court. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: be Soaski as either. For a year, the criminal matter
Speaker 1: took center stage, but the whole time, there was another
Speaker 1: case playing out, Saskia and Mike's divorce. We're going to
Speaker 1: rewind a bit to before Mike's plea deal, before he
Speaker 1: was even charged with a crime. It was November one,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, just four days after Saskia discovered the videos
Speaker 1: of her being sexually assaulted and went to the police.
Speaker 1: On that day, Saskia was back at the courthouse finalizing
Speaker 1: her protective order. But before she could leave the building.
Speaker 3: I got served the divorce papers.
Speaker 1: At first, having those papers in hand was a relief.
Speaker 1: She wanted a divorce as quickly as possible. But as
Speaker 1: Saskia sat in the courthouse lobby reading the documents Mike
Speaker 1: sent she realized this wasn't just any divorce filing.
Speaker 3: He was actually saying that I was complicit in all this,
Speaker 3: and I knew about chatter baden It's pages and pages
Speaker 3: of allegations that him and I were a team camming together.
Speaker 1: Just four days after Saskia realized what Mike was doing
Speaker 1: to her, four days after Mike left the house, he
Speaker 1: filed for divorce on the grounds of cruelty Saskia's cruelty
Speaker 1: towards him. Mike said that Saski's allegations that he raped her, secretly,
Speaker 1: videotaped her, and posted nude images of her without her
Speaker 1: knowledge were all false. Saskia was making it all up.
Speaker 1: The divorce complaint reads the parties would spend evening time
Speaker 1: posting and watching other couples doing the same. This was
Speaker 1: a regular activity that the parties engaged in openly. These
Speaker 1: acts were all consensual.
Speaker 3: To get this divorce complaint just floored me. I knew
Speaker 3: that this was going to be really ugly.
Speaker 1: These divorce proceedings were completely different than the criminal case
Speaker 1: Mike was about to face. That case was the State
Speaker 1: of Maryland versus Mike Cleven Goood. It was the state's
Speaker 1: job to prove Mike's guilt. This divorce case was Mike
Speaker 1: Levin Goood versus Saskia in Wood.
Speaker 3: It really felt like I was the one on trial.
Speaker 1: Mike could have gone for a no fault divorce. Instead,
Speaker 1: he was determined to take Saskia down, and this path
Speaker 1: had a lot to offer him. His criminal trial hadn't
Speaker 1: taken place yet, so the divorce was a bargaining chip.
Speaker 1: Saskia thinks that Mike was using the divorce case to
Speaker 1: get her to back down and make his criminal troubles disappear.
Speaker 3: I think that he assumed that I would accept some
Speaker 3: kind of deal for alimony in exchange for not testifying.
Speaker 3: It would be easy to throw some cash my way,
Speaker 3: and that's what I'll I'll go away.
Speaker 1: Saskia could have used that money she was dipping into
Speaker 1: her four to h one K just to pay her
Speaker 1: divorce attorney, but that kind of deal she'd never accept.
Speaker 3: If the condition is that I don't testify it, there's
Speaker 3: no way. I don't care. I'll be destitute. We're gonna
Speaker 3: follow through with this.
Speaker 1: The criminal proceedings went ahead with Saskia as an active
Speaker 1: participant in the case, but even after Mike pled guilty,
Speaker 1: even after the criminal matter was closed, he charged ahead
Speaker 1: with the divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Saskia wanted
Speaker 1: a divorce too, But like I said earlier, this was
Speaker 1: no typical divorce. Mike was saying Saskia was a liar
Speaker 1: and there was a lot at stake. If a judge
Speaker 1: believed him, Saskia could owe Mike her rapist tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. She could even be charged with false
Speaker 1: reporting or sued for defamation. In this case, there were
Speaker 1: lengthy depositions, requests for documents.
Speaker 3: And then in January of twenty twenty one, the Dors
Speaker 3: actually went to trial.
Speaker 1: This is extremely rare, only about five percent of divorce
Speaker 1: cases make it to trial. It was the middle of COVID,
Speaker 1: so much of the trial took place over zoom. Saskia
Speaker 1: sat at her kitchen table, staring at Mike through her screen.
Speaker 3: He was sitting there in an orange jumpsuit after pleading
Speaker 3: guilty to rape.
Speaker 1: At this point, Mike had been convicted, but in spite
Speaker 1: of that, at this divorce trial, Mike would claim he
Speaker 1: was innocent. That's why he was so determined to see
Speaker 1: this case through. You see, Mike couldn't win his freedom
Speaker 1: through his plea. He'd waived much of his right to
Speaker 1: an appeal, but convincing knew judge that Saskia was lying
Speaker 1: could help him clear his name. If he won the divorce,
Speaker 1: he could have an official document that proved Saskia made
Speaker 1: the whole thing up, a document he could take to employers,
Speaker 1: friends and family to say this is what really happened.
Speaker 1: The divorce judge saw the truth. On the surface, the
Speaker 1: divorce trial was all about money, as most divorces are.
Speaker 1: Who'd get the house, the cars, But really the trial
Speaker 1: rested on who the judge believed, Mike or Saskia.
Speaker 3: Mike looked very arrogant and cocky and had no emotion
Speaker 3: or feeling. I think he thought that it would be
Speaker 3: just a wash.
Speaker 1: When Mike and his attorney opened their case, their strategy
Speaker 1: was clear. Turned the spotlight off Mike and onto Saskia.
Speaker 1: Their goal was to undermine Saskia's credibility. But what does
Speaker 1: that really mean. Well, they would have to prove she
Speaker 1: wasn't believable. They'd introduce patterns of behavior, aspects of her
Speaker 1: character that would show she wasn't a reliable narrator. How
Speaker 1: would they do this by saying she'd lost her mind?
Speaker 7: She was very depressed, she was unable to get out
Speaker 7: for work. I'm depressed, I can't take it. I can't
Speaker 7: work to stretching me out. The kids are stretching me out,
Speaker 7: like is starting me out.
Speaker 1: This is the courtroom audio from the divorce trial. That's
Speaker 1: Mike's real voice you just heard, and calling out Saskia's
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression wasn't the only way he tried to
Speaker 1: undermine her credibility. He also talked a lot about her
Speaker 1: use of drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 6: She drank the signiat to get him out.
Speaker 7: There was douqu on her heart more than mine, very
Speaker 7: quickly snowball into seven eight nine drinks. She also received
Speaker 7: the adderall and from a friend. When she starts drinking,
Speaker 7: she doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: All of this was to introduce doubt about Saskia. Saskia's
Speaker 1: lawyer objected to a lot of this testimony, arguing that
Speaker 1: Mike's side was trying to enter character evidence unfairly, but
Speaker 1: the judge allowed Mike to continue.
Speaker 3: I felt it goes on the twilight zone. The fact
Speaker 3: that the judges were even listening to these things was
Speaker 3: blowing my mind.
Speaker 1: When sask and Mike's divorce trial began, he was zooming
Speaker 1: in from jail and his legal strategy was to discredit
Speaker 1: she was very repressed there.
Speaker 7: With drug you on her part more than ane. She
Speaker 7: starts drinking, she doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: Saskia sat through hours and hours of this testimony, listening
Speaker 1: to Mike drag out every time she drank too much
Speaker 1: and every time she couldn't get out of bed. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that these moments hadn't occurred, it was that Mike
Speaker 1: was using them to say Saskio was responsible for everything
Speaker 1: that happened to her. He was telling the story of
Speaker 1: the worst period of her life, but in this story
Speaker 1: it was all her fault. She was the one causing chaos.
Speaker 3: These things were so dehumanizing and so dismissive of what
Speaker 3: I had been through in my pain.
Speaker 1: I have to admit it's hard for me to listen
Speaker 1: to Mike make this argument without feeling angry. Mike knew
Speaker 1: her family's mental health history and how Saskia was determined
Speaker 1: to remain stable walk the same path as her dad.
Speaker 1: Saska thought Mike was on her team, and yet Mike
Speaker 1: had been exploiting her mental illness, her use of alcohol
Speaker 1: and drugs for years. Saskia's friend Heather put it best.
Speaker 8: It was to his advantage to keep her in this drunken,
Speaker 8: drugged up, bad mental health state, because the more vulnerable became,
Speaker 8: the easier it became for him to take advantage of her.
Speaker 1: But as Mike testified and his attorney spoke, his culpability
Speaker 1: faded into the background. He zeroed in on her behaviors,
Speaker 1: her imperfections, to show that she shouldn't be trusted and
Speaker 1: even that she was to blame. I want you to
Speaker 1: hear Mike's account of October twenty seventh, twenty eighteen, the
Speaker 1: night of the Halloween party, the night Saskia saw what
Speaker 1: was on Mike's computer screen. The audio isn't perfect, so
Speaker 1: listen closely. Here's his story of that night.
Speaker 9: We've been out of the part a home, we're both
Speaker 9: stuck and ended up looking at cturbate the website.
Speaker 1: When they got home, they went onto Chatterbait, the camming website,
Speaker 1: but just as they were logging on, she.
Speaker 7: Got up and wanted it off, so kind of it off,
Speaker 7: went to bed and that was for the evening. Next morning,
Speaker 7: he was very very aggated, wanted to look at the website,
Speaker 7: which we did, and then became very focused on my
Speaker 7: use of pornography, meaning looking at the website. Without her
Speaker 7: that then we became.
Speaker 6: Very emotional, but as all kinds of things.
Speaker 7: And that's at the point where.
Speaker 6: She stood there in front of the dresser and she
Speaker 6: looked at how she said, you know, I now know
Speaker 6: be doing and it was just shut the shock and
Speaker 6: out of nowhere.
Speaker 7: It's completely floordy that moment when I realized that with
Speaker 7: the worm that was going on there.
Speaker 1: In Mike's memory, he and Saskia were at a party.
Speaker 1: They were both drunk, looked at a website. The next day,
Speaker 1: Saskia went crazy on him out of the blue. There
Speaker 1: could only be one explanation for all of this. Saskia
Speaker 1: was mentally ill. In court, this strategy is often effective.
Speaker 1: It plays on misconceptions we all have about what it
Speaker 1: means to be a rape victim. If you've watched any
Speaker 1: crime show or any courtroom drama, you're probably familiar with
Speaker 1: the character of the perfect victim.
Speaker 10: As sure as I live and breathe, William Harris is
Speaker 10: the man who raped me in that alley.
Speaker 1: Think of Law and Order SVU. There's the perpetrator, the
Speaker 1: bad guy, and then there is an innocent victim. She's
Speaker 1: written to be brilliant, beautiful, and beyond reproach.
Speaker 10: I tried to get away, but I couldn't.
Speaker 8: She just left me there.
Speaker 1: Storytellers love this archetype. The protagonist is clear, and audiences
Speaker 1: love it too. We know exactly who to root for.
Speaker 1: There's no room for doubt.
Speaker 5: The problem is that most victims don't behave the way
Speaker 5: this imaginary perfect victim behaves.
Speaker 1: That's Deborah Turkheimer, a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School
Speaker 1: of Law.
Speaker 5: I am a former prosecutor and I handled cases involving
Speaker 5: special victims.
Speaker 1: Deborah wrote a book called Credible, Why We Doubt accusers
Speaker 1: and protect Abusers. She's an expert on sexual violence. She says,
Speaker 1: the perfect victim character doesn't just live on screen. She's
Speaker 1: the benchmark, the standard that all rape victims are judged
Speaker 1: against in the courts and circles of friends everywhere.
Speaker 5: The perfect victim standard includes misconceptions about how victims behave
Speaker 5: and how they ought to behave before, during, and after
Speaker 5: the abuse. Before there ought to be no drinking, no drug.
Speaker 1: Use, and Saskia, as we know, was on a lot
Speaker 1: of substances when she was raped.
Speaker 5: During the abuse, the perfect victim fights, she fights back,
Speaker 5: She fights hard.
Speaker 1: But Saskia was knocked out.
Speaker 5: And then afterwards, the perfect victim, he's able to recall
Speaker 5: with precision every single detail of what happened, which again
Speaker 5: Saskia couldn't.
Speaker 1: In every way, Saski failed to rise to the perfect
Speaker 1: victim standard. The reality is most victims do.
Speaker 5: It's unfair to impose a set of rules that, for
Speaker 5: the most part, can be followed and aren't followed.
Speaker 1: And yet the rules remain and they serve abusers like Mike,
Speaker 1: because when victims aren't perfect victims, we can write them
Speaker 1: off and we can turn them into other characters.
Speaker 5: The regretful woman, so someone who had consensual sex and
Speaker 5: then decided it was a mistake and so is now
Speaker 5: quote unquote crying rape. The gold digger, someone who is
Speaker 5: making this up because she wants money.
Speaker 1: And then there's the hysterical woman.
Speaker 5: Someone who just really doesn't know what's going on and
Speaker 5: doesn't have a firm grasp of reality.
Speaker 1: It's one of the oldest and most effective ways to
Speaker 1: discredit a victim, to make the judge question their sanity
Speaker 1: and doubt what happened to them. Here's Alice Perey, Mike's
Speaker 1: attorney from the divorce trial.
Speaker 4: What did you see that makes you believe that she
Speaker 4: was struggling?
Speaker 7: He was very depressed. He was unable to get out
Speaker 7: for work. Many many time he was struggling with you
Speaker 7: take care of the kids.
Speaker 4: He's in which as I'm feeling like shit. How often
Speaker 4: would she tell you something like that?
Speaker 7: So many times I could not even count.
Speaker 4: And with any particular reasons why.
Speaker 7: She felt like shit because of this undepressed I can't
Speaker 7: take it. I can work as here me out. The
Speaker 7: kids are stripping me out like this, step from me out.
Speaker 1: By Mike's account, Saska wasn't composed or stable or credible.
Speaker 1: She was a woman in the midst of a breakdown.
Speaker 1: Her word couldn't and shouldn't be trusted. She had to
Speaker 1: have lost touch with reality because, according to Mike, he
Speaker 1: and Saskia were camming together having sex on camera all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: How many times had had the two of you canned
Speaker 4: on chatterby, you know, two to three dozen hives? And
Speaker 4: how many times had you observed other people camming on Chatterbay.
Speaker 7: Three four a dozen times?
Speaker 6: With the clip became were extremely adventurous.
Speaker 7: With not a lot of livius. There were no bound bee.
Speaker 7: That was something that they did not experience previously any relationship.
Speaker 1: But Mike wasn't asking the judge to take his word
Speaker 1: on all this. His divorce attorney, Alice Perey, said she
Speaker 1: could prove it. She had a plan.
Speaker 4: I would like to really admit all of the pictures
Speaker 4: in all of the videos because I think how much
Speaker 4: of them is relevant to mike client's case.
Speaker 1: And when Alice said all, she wasn't just talking about
Speaker 1: the videos from the criminal trial the ones detective rule
Speaker 1: recovered from twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, there.
Speaker 2: Are hundreds of photographs, hundreds of videos, and they take
Speaker 2: place over the course of years, in years six.
Speaker 7: Or seven or more years.
Speaker 1: There was more evidence, much more, and Alice claimed it
Speaker 1: would show Saskia consented to everything, every sexual act, every video.
Speaker 4: What happened is the defendant has under oath, been fleedings
Speaker 4: and requested responses to admissions, just denied everything. Right, never
Speaker 4: post her You're never participated in videos and.
Speaker 7: You say this never happened.
Speaker 4: And there is a picture of a living color or
Speaker 4: video of it in movie motion Israel.
Speaker 1: And according to Alice, it would show that Saskia was
Speaker 1: not to be believed in the criminal trial, there were
Speaker 1: about thirty videos recovered from Chatterbay. These videos were the
Speaker 1: key to prosecuting and convicting Mike, But in the divorce trial,
Speaker 1: Mike said he never raped Saskia or took images of
Speaker 1: her without her consent. She agreed to all of it,
Speaker 1: and to back that up, he said that he and
Speaker 1: Saskia often made pornography together.
Speaker 7: Which was done over the course of seven years, to
Speaker 7: the tune of over two hundred photographs and videos.
Speaker 1: Two hundred photographs and videos. His divorce attorney, Alice Perey,
Speaker 1: seemed confident the.
Speaker 2: Evidence will convinced Repoort that she was a willing participant
Speaker 2: in these matters.
Speaker 1: While working on this episode, we reached out to Alice Perrey.
Speaker 1: She declined to comment. In these additional images, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just that Saskia's eyes were open, as we've talked about
Speaker 1: in previous episodes. Alice claimed that in lots of instances,
Speaker 1: Saskia was a weak and she was posing and performing
Speaker 1: for the camera. If Saskia was saying she'd never consented,
Speaker 1: she was lying or she was delusional. From the early
Speaker 1: days of reporting this season, I knew that there were
Speaker 1: some pictures Mike took off Saskia consensually. Saskia was open
Speaker 1: about that with us and with detectives too. The kids
Speaker 1: would be out of the house and they'd be drinking,
Speaker 1: having a good time. Then Mike would pull out his phone.
Speaker 1: You heard about one of these incidents in episode one.
Speaker 3: I remember one time he took a picture of me
Speaker 3: and showed me how good my butt looked, or something
Speaker 3: like that, and I explicitly asked him, what are you
Speaker 3: doing with that picture, and he's like, well, of course,
Speaker 3: I'm going to erase it. I would never show it
Speaker 3: to anybody.
Speaker 1: But she can only remember this happening a handful of times.
Speaker 1: Mike said he had two hundred photographs and videos, and
Speaker 1: most of these images.
Speaker 3: I don't remember taking them. I never knew of their existence.
Speaker 1: All of this brings up another painful truth about rape case.
Speaker 1: No matter the corroboration, no matter the amount of prosecutors,
Speaker 1: family members, and experts standing behind a victim.
Speaker 5: There's an initial default doubt that is sort of culturally
Speaker 5: ingrained in US.
Speaker 1: That's law professor Debrah Turkheimer. Again. She says, doubt is
Speaker 1: built into the crime of rape.
Speaker 5: It's really difficult in the criminal setting to get past
Speaker 5: that very high standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 5: And that's true of every crime, but it's especially true
Speaker 5: of rape. Historically, there were special instructions that were given
Speaker 5: to juries that said you should be even more cautious
Speaker 5: about convicting in this case because accusers are so untrustworthy.
Speaker 5: Now those formal instructions aren't given, but we still have
Speaker 5: a default to.
Speaker 1: Doubt when someone comes forward. That's true even in a
Speaker 1: case like this where there's so much.
Speaker 5: Evidence, even sometimes when it's on video right, there are
Speaker 5: questions of interpretation.
Speaker 1: No judge or jury can turn back the clock to
Speaker 1: be in the room at the time a rape happened,
Speaker 1: and no one can get into the minds or bodies
Speaker 1: of the people involved. And that's also a challenge for
Speaker 1: us as reporters. That's my producer, Caitlyn Golden.
Speaker 10: We can't go back in time, and so in understanding
Speaker 10: the story, the only thing we can do is rely
Speaker 10: on the evidence that is available to us.
Speaker 1: When it comes to images like these, attorneys will always
Speaker 1: make arguments of what was really going on. But our
Speaker 1: team didn't understand the degree to which these were just
Speaker 1: arguments until we saw the images for ourselves. After months
Speaker 1: of reporting, we finally got access to the case files
Speaker 1: from the divorce and the criminal case. We saw the
Speaker 1: kinds of photos we heard so much about from Mike's attorney,
Speaker 1: ones where Saskia's eyes were open. One in particular has
Speaker 1: stuck with us.
Speaker 10: I remember the first time I saw that photo and
Speaker 10: I had to immediately close my laptop because I mean,
Speaker 10: it's so hard to describe as anything other than horrific.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, she's not there. No, No, she isn't there.
Speaker 1: I hate even describing it, but the only way I
Speaker 1: could describe what I saw is it's like a corpse
Speaker 1: with her eyes open. It's really upsetting. So when I
Speaker 1: look at that photo, I think, of course, she doesn't
Speaker 1: remember this.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And the idea that images like this where her
Speaker 11: eyes are open or being used to say that she
Speaker 11: was awake and consented to everything.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, is so disturbing. Seeing this image, it felt
Speaker 1: clearer than ever what happened to Saskia is real, it matters,
Speaker 1: and Mike, not Saskia, is to blame. But in the
Speaker 1: divorce trial back in twenty twenty one, there was only
Speaker 1: one person that needed to be convinced of all this,
Speaker 1: that was the judge, and Saskia was unsure what she'd
Speaker 1: make of these images.
Speaker 3: I knew that I wasn't going to be given the
Speaker 3: benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1: Before Mike's attorney could show the videos, the judge asked
Speaker 1: to review the content herself. She stepped into her chambers
Speaker 1: to watch in private. As everyone waited for the judge
Speaker 1: to return, Saskia sat in her kitchen, staring at Mike
Speaker 1: through her screen. The man who'd hurt her was now
Speaker 1: in jail. He was just a little box on zoom,
Speaker 1: and yet he had power to make her feel so small.
Speaker 1: He was the one behind bars, But the judge was
Speaker 1: deliberating over Saskia's actions, her character.
Speaker 3: It felt ridiculous and absurd and dehumanizing that I had
Speaker 3: to go through that. But I also knew that I
Speaker 3: just had to get through it.
Speaker 1: Saskia knew the truth, the truth is always the best defense.
Speaker 1: She just hoped the judge would see the truth too.
Speaker 1: After a brief recess, the judge returned, So, I.
Speaker 2: Have gone through the additional videos, and it looks as
Speaker 2: though Miss Ininwood knows. She at points that pictures are
Speaker 2: being taken and I'm not sure about knowing she's being videotaped,
Speaker 2: because I don't think I saw anything that expressly shows that.
Speaker 2: So this could very well be a situation where, you know,
Speaker 2: consending couple of Maria take pictures of each other. And
Speaker 2: I don't think that that is going to challenge miss
Speaker 2: Inwood's credibility, but I do believe that mister Levengood's attorney
Speaker 2: should have some opportunity to examine her about that.
Speaker 1: The judge couldn't say for sure that Saskia did or
Speaker 1: did not know she was being filmed, or whether she
Speaker 1: knew this content was being shared, so she asked the
Speaker 1: officers of the court to turn around, and Mike's attorney,
Speaker 1: Alice Perey, pulled up the evidence. She wanted to show
Speaker 1: Saskia the videos and make her answer for them in
Speaker 1: front of everyone. Saskia looked at the video on her screen.
Speaker 1: Despite what Alice said, this was a video of her
Speaker 1: being violated, a video that was now being shown to
Speaker 1: a room full of strangers and.
Speaker 3: Made me feel like a fool and made me feel
Speaker 3: like less than a person.
Speaker 1: The whole time, she couldn't stop thinking about Mike.
Speaker 3: It's heartbreaking to think that he put everybody through that
Speaker 3: just so that he could get away with humiliating me.
Speaker 1: With Saskia on this stand, the judge let Mike's attorney,
Speaker 1: Alice Perey, proceed in the same way, Do you recall
Speaker 1: this video? No, I don't.
Speaker 7: Do you recall when it was eight?
Speaker 6: Objection?
Speaker 12: She just said no, she doesn't recall.
Speaker 7: How root, ma'am.
Speaker 2: Do you recall when this video was taken?
Speaker 3: No, because I don't recall the video.
Speaker 1: The attorneys fought back and forth on objections and relevance
Speaker 1: as Saskia just sat there.
Speaker 3: It was so re traumatizing to have to defend myself
Speaker 3: as dehumanizing to have your life whittled down to that,
Speaker 3: and to have people talking about things that are affecting
Speaker 3: your life and you can't anything. You're just sitting there, helpless,
Speaker 3: having to listen to it. And it's something I wouldn't
Speaker 3: wish on anyone.
Speaker 1: Alice continued cross examining Saskia for just a couple more minutes,
Speaker 1: asking Saskia if she posed for pictures for Mike, and
Speaker 1: then the judge popped in, can you go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, Miss Parade, anything else you want to ask?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 11: No.
Speaker 2: Other questions of Miss Enwood.
Speaker 12: None, I will save my time for miss to let
Speaker 12: all right, all right?
Speaker 2: Any She didn't ask much any any redirect are all right?
Speaker 2: Thank you? Okay.
Speaker 1: Alice spent her remaining time questioning Mike again. Before long,
Speaker 1: she ran out of time. Both sides closed their cases.
Speaker 1: In the weeks that followed, Saskia waited and waited for
Speaker 1: the divorced decision. She wasn't expecting any kind of big win.
Speaker 1: She just wanted those papers in hand.
Speaker 3: I had no faith in the justice system anymore. I
Speaker 3: just wanted it to be over. I was already so
Speaker 3: disheartened about everything and not hopeful at all. It was
Speaker 3: like I was waiting for the time to rent out.
Speaker 3: Everything was just getting in the way of me just
Speaker 3: being divorced from this monster. I wanted nothing more than
Speaker 3: to be divorced and be able to move on and
Speaker 3: I could really say that this is not my husband.
Speaker 3: This is a monster who was posing as my husband,
Speaker 3: and now he's totally calm.
Speaker 1: Finally, a few months later, the judge released her decision.
Speaker 1: We're going to have a producer or read part of
Speaker 1: it for you. And remember, Mike is the plaintiff here,
Speaker 1: Saska is the defendant.
Speaker 12: The judge wrote, this court credits defendants testimony and expressly
Speaker 12: discredits plaintiff's testimony.
Speaker 1: In other words, she didn't believe Mike. She believed Saskia.
Speaker 12: Plaintiff attempted to convince this court that defendant was aware
Speaker 12: of the site and aware that she was being sexually
Speaker 12: penetrated and otherwise manipulated by the plaintiff. The court is unconvinced.
Speaker 12: The evidence revealed. Defendant has struggled during the party's marriage
Speaker 12: and before with addiction and mental health issues, making her
Speaker 12: particularly vulnerable to mistreatment by someone she trusted. Defendant learned
Speaker 12: only after very personal images were broadcast to the world
Speaker 12: on the Internet that she was married to someone whom
Speaker 12: she could not trust. The plaintiff betrayed his spouse in
Speaker 12: the worst type of way. He then lied about it
Speaker 12: and continued to lie about it.
Speaker 1: Another judge saw through Mike's lies and came to the
Speaker 1: same conclusion. On paper, she won, but in reality to Saskia.
Speaker 3: It didn't matter. Of course, yes, she found that he
Speaker 3: was not incredible and that I was credible, but it
Speaker 3: still didn't take away from what I had been through
Speaker 3: in this divorce and would have been taken away from me.
Speaker 1: It was exactly how Saskia felt after Mike's plea deal.
Speaker 1: She was told that this was a good outcome for
Speaker 1: the court system, but it didn't feel that way. Professor
Speaker 1: Debraah Turkheimer says that's often how these cases go.
Speaker 5: Even in the end, if the survivor is found credible
Speaker 5: and there's that vindication that comes along with it along
Speaker 5: the way, that process can be enormously difficult, degrading, even traumatic.
Speaker 1: Saskia was granted a divorce on the grounds of cruelty.
Speaker 12: The judge wrote, this court can think of few actions
Speaker 12: that weren't a divorce on this ground, more so than
Speaker 12: the rape and sexual exploitation that occurred here.
Speaker 1: I've had to live through two and a half years
Speaker 1: of proceedings to get there, when he'd already been convicted
Speaker 1: in criminal court. She spent two and a half years
Speaker 1: defending herself, having to answer for every drink, she had,
Speaker 1: every hospital stay, having all of her vulnerabilities put on
Speaker 1: display when Mike had raped her, and this crime isn't
Speaker 1: unique to Saskia.
Speaker 3: You can see his hands, his wedding ring, and then
Speaker 3: I realized that I am in these images.
Speaker 1: On the next episode, of Betrayal, we meet other survivors.
Speaker 13: It has been a real journey for me to get
Speaker 13: to the point of realizing that it's not my gut
Speaker 13: that's broken, it's him it's broken.
Speaker 1: For resources on sexual violence, visit RAIN dot org slash betrayal.
Speaker 1: That's our ai n N dot org slash betrayal. You
Speaker 1: can also get free confidential twenty four seven support through
Speaker 1: rain's National Sexual Assault Hotline. Just text Hope to six
Speaker 1: four sixty seven three or call one eight hundred sixty
Speaker 1: five six hope. You are not alone. If you would
Speaker 1: like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want
Speaker 1: to tell us your story, email us at Betrayalpod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That is Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Or follow us on Instagram at betrayal Pod. To access
Speaker 1: additional content and to connect with the Betrayal community, join
Speaker 1: our substack at Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful
Speaker 1: for your support. One way to show support is by
Speaker 1: subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way.
Speaker 1: A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal
Speaker 1: is the production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Speaker 1: Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is
Speaker 1: executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and
Speaker 1: produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Caitlin Golden.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Carrie Hartman. Our story editor is
Speaker 1: Monique le Board, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers
Speaker 1: are Olivia Hewitt and Leah Jablo. Production management by Kristin Melcirie,
Speaker 1: additional support by Curry Richman. Our iHeart team is Ali
Speaker 1: Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins, with
Speaker 1: additional editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Special thanks to Saskia,
Speaker 1: her friends and family, and special thanks to Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and Carrie Lieberman. Betrayal's theme is composed by Oliver Baines.
Speaker 1: Music library provided by my Music And For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.