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