Speaker 1: Hi, it's Andrea and we are re releasing some of
Speaker 1: our past Weekly episodes and there's a good reason why.
Speaker 1: For the last year, I have been working with ABC
Speaker 1: on turning some of your favorite episodes of Betrayal Weekly
Speaker 1: into a TV show. The show is called Betrayal, Secrets
Speaker 1: and Lies, and it airs every Sunday at ten pm
Speaker 1: on ABC. Some betrayals don't just break your heart, they
Speaker 1: change your entire life overnight. Andrea thought she knew her husband, Sean.
Speaker 1: She trusted him, built a life with him, a family,
Speaker 1: a future that felt secure, and then came the confession.
Speaker 1: What followed wasn't just emotional fallout. It was legal, it
Speaker 1: was public, and it was completely out of her control.
Speaker 1: The life she thought she was living in an instant
Speaker 1: was gone, replaced by something she never chose. Andrea's story
Speaker 1: is one that really stays with you because it forces
Speaker 1: you to ask a difficult question. How much responsibility do
Speaker 1: you carry for something you didn't even know was happening.
Speaker 1: This is something we don't talk about enough, how often
Speaker 1: women are held accountable for the actions of men in
Speaker 1: their lives, even when they are completely in the dark.
Speaker 1: It's complicated, it's frustrating, and it's incredibly important. So please
Speaker 1: check out Betrayal Secrets and Lies on ABC and Hulu.
Speaker 1: See Andrea and where her story takes place. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon up over the hill, I saw a caravan
Speaker 2: of dark vehicles with dark denned windows. They're all in
Speaker 2: FBI or US Marshals jackets. They've got their sunglasses, they've
Speaker 2: got their weapons, and they come to my house. They
Speaker 2: rang the doorbell. I let them in.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 1: the people we trust the most and the dece options
Speaker 1: that change everything. Andrea Merriman came from money, a lot
Speaker 1: of money.
Speaker 2: As a kid.
Speaker 1: Her family had a huge house, a vacation home in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and even a private plane.
Speaker 2: We flew everywhere. We didn't do road trips. It was
Speaker 2: so my family to pop in the plane at midnight
Speaker 2: and fly to Arizona for the weekend to enjoy the sun,
Speaker 2: and then be back when school started on Monday.
Speaker 1: But if you met Andrea, you wouldn't know that's how
Speaker 1: she grew up. She's not flashy, She's hard working and honest.
Speaker 1: Her parents raised her that way.
Speaker 2: We had jobs around the house. We didn't get allowance
Speaker 2: for it, or if we did, it was a dollar
Speaker 2: a week, because my parents wanted to teach us responsibility
Speaker 2: and accountability.
Speaker 1: Her family belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of
Speaker 1: Latter day Saints. Some people call it the Mormon Church,
Speaker 1: but that's not the name she uses.
Speaker 2: That's a name given to church members who are not
Speaker 2: of our faith. It's just a mouthful to say the
Speaker 2: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saith.
Speaker 1: From a young age, Andrea took her faith very seriously.
Speaker 2: When you're a child, they give you a ring and
Speaker 2: it says ctr on it. That stands for choose the right.
Speaker 2: So part of the culture was to be obedient to
Speaker 2: good principles, doing well in whatever I attempted to do.
Speaker 1: And in her religious community, she felt empowered as a woman.
Speaker 1: The women around her were ambitious and well educated. Many
Speaker 1: of them had both families and careers.
Speaker 2: My mom had a master's degree, and I remember going
Speaker 2: to my dad asking for help with homework. My dad
Speaker 2: would say, I can totally help you, but who really
Speaker 2: could help you. The person who's the smartest in our
Speaker 2: family is your mother. So I was raised that women
Speaker 2: could do and be anything.
Speaker 1: She was a straight a student, a great athlete. She
Speaker 1: played three instruments and excelled at piano.
Speaker 2: Anything I did, I did to the best of my ability.
Speaker 1: When she got older, she took that determination to Bringham
Speaker 1: Young University, where she immediately got to work on building
Speaker 1: her future.
Speaker 2: My dad wanted me to be a lawyer, and that's
Speaker 2: what I went to school thinking I would do.
Speaker 1: Along the way, she found a dream of her own.
Speaker 1: She wanted to start a career in advertising and public relations,
Speaker 1: and her work ethic extended outside the classroom. She got
Speaker 1: a job in her apartment complex. That's how she met Sean.
Speaker 2: He came into the office to pay his rent and
Speaker 2: I processed that for him.
Speaker 1: She would see him around the building, but they'd never
Speaker 1: really talked before.
Speaker 2: My roommates in my apartment were good friends with the
Speaker 2: guys and his apartment people thought highly of him and
Speaker 2: his roommates, and they did fun things and seemed to
Speaker 2: be good people.
Speaker 1: Soon after they met in the office, Sean asked her out,
Speaker 1: and right away he impressed her. He knew she liked music,
Speaker 1: so for their first date, he took her to the symphony.
Speaker 1: After that, they started going out together every weekend.
Speaker 2: He did not do the typical cheap, low budget, crazy
Speaker 2: college dates. He took me to the best restaurants, two concerts,
Speaker 2: and then he'd take you out into his BMW. He
Speaker 2: was always a very engaging, outgoing, charming person.
Speaker 1: On one date, she wore a pearl necklace. Sean complimented
Speaker 1: her on it, and she told him it was borrowed
Speaker 1: from a friend. So a few days later, he.
Speaker 2: Just showed up at my door unexpectedly with a jewelry box.
Speaker 2: I opened it up and it was a pearl necklace,
Speaker 2: and he said, any woman as beautiful as you should
Speaker 2: not have to borrow pearls. I mean, that was what
Speaker 2: it was like to date Sean Merriman. I remember thinking, Wow,
Speaker 2: all the other boys I've dated, if they tried to
Speaker 2: do these grand gestures or date this way, it would
Speaker 2: seem really cheesy and corny. But it works for Sean,
Speaker 2: and it was just like in the movies.
Speaker 1: Even though he had expensive taste, Sean didn't come from money.
Speaker 2: His dad was a construction worker. They had moved all
Speaker 2: around the country during his childhood, eleven times in seven
Speaker 2: or eight years. There was a lot of alcoholism, divorce,
Speaker 2: and he was one of the first members of his
Speaker 2: family to go to college.
Speaker 1: Getting into college wasn't easy for Sean. He didn't have
Speaker 1: the grades, but he made up for it with his
Speaker 1: trademark charm.
Speaker 2: He started sending flowers to the woman in charge of admissions,
Speaker 2: and eventually he got admitted.
Speaker 1: He was proud of this story, and he always had
Speaker 1: fabulous stories to entertain people with. He was interested in
Speaker 1: things most college kids weren't.
Speaker 2: He was into photography, he was into cars, he was
Speaker 2: into building things.
Speaker 1: Still, Sean didn't let his interests take over their relationship.
Speaker 2: We did everything that I loved. He knew that I
Speaker 2: loved the beach. He knew that I loved eighties music,
Speaker 2: he knew that I loved travel, and I thought that
Speaker 2: I was finding someone who believed the way I did
Speaker 2: on everything.
Speaker 1: After a few months of dating, the two took a
Speaker 1: trip to California, and there on the beach, he got
Speaker 1: down on one knee.
Speaker 2: Going through my head mostly was wait, I'm only twenty two.
Speaker 2: I'm too young to do this.
Speaker 1: Andrea was still in school. She'd always planned to graduate,
Speaker 1: start a career, and then get married, but saying yes
Speaker 1: to Sean just made sense.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I thought he was the one,
Speaker 2: but I thought that he would be a great friend,
Speaker 2: great partner, great companion, great provider, great father, And am
Speaker 2: I going to find somebody just like him again if
Speaker 2: I pass this by. I saw enough of those good
Speaker 2: qualities and the things that I wanted as part of
Speaker 2: my future. So when he proposed, I said yes.
Speaker 1: So they got married and graduated college in that order.
Speaker 2: We were on a good course together, were equally yoked
Speaker 2: as a couple to move forward and create the life
Speaker 2: of our dreams.
Speaker 1: Sean had a vision of moving to DC. He even
Speaker 1: interviewed with the CIA. He also considered getting an MBA
Speaker 1: and an Ivy League school, but ultimately they decided to
Speaker 1: plant roots in our home state of Colorado.
Speaker 2: We chose to move to Denver for my career. I
Speaker 2: got a job working for a government agency doing public
Speaker 2: relations for them.
Speaker 1: Sean came to love Denver and he found a great
Speaker 1: job at an investment firm.
Speaker 2: He had immediate success, so then he actually started being
Speaker 2: a stockbroker that fall.
Speaker 1: When it came to investing, Sean had a minus touch,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Will tell you from September to December that quarter he
Speaker 2: made fifty thousand dollars, and that was in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money. Especially right out of college,
Speaker 1: Sean was bringing home two hundred k a year, but
Speaker 1: that was the nineties. In today's money, that's the equivalent
Speaker 1: of four hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year. And
Speaker 1: the money just kept coming.
Speaker 2: Other firms would reach out to him and say, hey,
Speaker 2: come and work for us. We'll give you a signing bonus,
Speaker 2: and so he would take a fifty sixty seventy eighty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars signing bonus and go work for a different firm.
Speaker 1: He hopped from firm to firm for a few years,
Speaker 1: and then soon after they had their first child in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Sean came to Andrea with a business idea.
Speaker 2: He came home from work and told me that he
Speaker 2: had some very wealthy, blue blood old money clients in
Speaker 2: Kansas City that had been so impressed with the money
Speaker 2: management he had done for them that they had asked
Speaker 2: him to step back from his career as a stockbroker
Speaker 2: and managed their money privately for them.
Speaker 1: She supported him one hundred percent, so he made the
Speaker 1: leap and launched what became Market Street Advisors. It started
Speaker 1: with those Kansas City clients, but pretty soon he was
Speaker 1: investing for family, friends and neighbors too. And even in
Speaker 1: the madness of starting his own firm and finding new clients,
Speaker 1: Sean made it a point to spend time with Andrea
Speaker 1: at the end of every day.
Speaker 2: He came home at night, had dinner with me, had
Speaker 2: great stories about trades that he'd made that day. He
Speaker 2: had no shortage of stories. He could tell, conversations, he
Speaker 2: could share ideas that he had.
Speaker 1: Life was good for the Merryman's. Sean's investment firm was
Speaker 1: taking off, and the two of them were living comfortably,
Speaker 1: more than comfortably. Even the house got bigger, cars got nicer,
Speaker 1: and for Andrea there was only one thing missing more kids.
Speaker 2: One of the things we talked about before we got
Speaker 2: married was that I wanted four to six children. He
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, that's great, That's what I've always wanted.
Speaker 1: They had another child, a baby girl, and Andrea was
Speaker 1: the happiest she'd ever been. When Sean got home after
Speaker 1: a long day at work, he didn't have the bandwidth
Speaker 1: to help with the babies.
Speaker 2: He was fine to play with the baby when he
Speaker 2: was home, et cetera, that he was not a hands
Speaker 2: on let me help bathe the baby, let me change diapers.
Speaker 1: And when she asked him about having a third kid,
Speaker 1: he was hesitant. She assured him she'd take on the
Speaker 1: responsibilities that he couldn't.
Speaker 2: And so I did everything, handled everything for the baby
Speaker 2: so that it wouldn't impact his life too much. And
Speaker 2: I could have another child. And I continued to do
Speaker 2: everything and manage the kids so that it didn't impact
Speaker 2: his life. By the time we had our fourth kid,
Speaker 2: I could count the number of dirty diapers on one
Speaker 2: hand that he had changed. It really became he was busy,
Speaker 2: he was working on his career, and I was the
Speaker 2: partner in the relationship who was focused on home and family.
Speaker 1: All in all, they had four kids together. She was
Speaker 1: the homemaker, he was the provider, and she provided very well.
Speaker 1: It was the life she always wanted. Over time, Sean
Speaker 1: started to be more open about the life he wanted.
Speaker 2: I found out he didn't like dancing, he didn't like beaches.
Speaker 2: Let's go on a trip to California. No, I hate
Speaker 2: the beach. What yeah, I hate the feel of sand
Speaker 2: between my toes. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: He started developing expensive new hobbies, ones that required him
Speaker 1: to travel.
Speaker 2: He was a big African safari guy. He would go
Speaker 2: to Cameroon, in Tanzania and South Africa and Zimbabwe, all
Speaker 2: over the world to hunt and go on safaris for animals,
Speaker 2: and coincidentally, very wealthy people are engaged in those hobbies.
Speaker 2: He sold it as well, I'm actually doing this for work,
Speaker 2: to get more clients to build my business.
Speaker 1: These trips could be dangerous. One time, when he returned
Speaker 1: from a safari in Ethiopia, Sean was acting strange.
Speaker 2: He was keeping his distance and I said why, and
Speaker 2: he said, I have got to go to the doctor.
Speaker 1: He was worried he could have contracted something. He told
Speaker 1: Andrea a wild story.
Speaker 2: We were climbing a mountain and one of the people
Speaker 2: and the party flipped and he was going to fall
Speaker 2: off a cliff, and so I reached down and I
Speaker 2: grabbed him and saved his life. But he and I
Speaker 2: both got cut up in the process, and I need
Speaker 2: to go and get tested to make sure I'm okay.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, Sean was negative, and even though the story was
Speaker 1: far fetched, Andrea believed him.
Speaker 2: He had so many stories about saving people's lives or
Speaker 2: dramatic things. I used to tell him, if I didn't
Speaker 2: live with you and see that your life is true,
Speaker 2: I would never believe your life. What I didn't know
Speaker 2: was most of those stories were probably lies.
Speaker 1: As Andrea and Sean built a family together, Sean started
Speaker 1: to change. He was around less and less working at
Speaker 1: his investment firm, and when he wasn't working, he was
Speaker 1: taking extravagant hunting trips on his own. It became Sean's world,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that bothered her, but she was committed to
Speaker 1: him no matter what.
Speaker 2: For a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Speaker 2: Latter day Saints, you marry forever, and you make your choice,
Speaker 2: and then you love your choice and you figure out
Speaker 2: how to make up work. I was taught that pretty
Speaker 2: much the only reason you had ever divorced, as if
Speaker 2: in the case of physical abuse or something beyond that,
Speaker 2: you marry forever.
Speaker 1: His behavior was a challenge, but not marriage ending.
Speaker 2: It wasn't anything that I would have divorced over. It
Speaker 2: was more, oh, I guess I'll make this work.
Speaker 1: And she really did want to make it work. There
Speaker 1: was still so much good in what they had together.
Speaker 2: I felt like we were very connected. We went on
Speaker 2: dates every weekend together. He would call me when he
Speaker 2: had downtimes at work, once every morning and once or
Speaker 2: twice in the afternoon. He'd just called me to check in,
Speaker 2: see what I was doing, see how I was.
Speaker 1: And when he did have the time, she could see
Speaker 1: he was really trying. Especially as the kids got older,
Speaker 1: he became more involved. He led fifty mile hikes for
Speaker 1: their son's boy Scout troop. He drove their daughter around
Speaker 1: on errands, He joked with them, talk with them, and
Speaker 1: above all, he made sure his kids had everything they
Speaker 1: could ask for, all the things he didn't have growing up.
Speaker 2: My son played baseball and they won the championship of
Speaker 2: their league. So he bought a batting cage and pitch
Speaker 2: machine that he put in our backyard. We put in
Speaker 2: a pool, We put in a sport court so that
Speaker 2: our kids would have a great fun place to bring
Speaker 2: their friends to.
Speaker 1: Sean wanted their kids to be cultured. He took them
Speaker 1: to museums around the world, and he even started their
Speaker 1: own private art collection.
Speaker 2: We ended up with a collection of rem brands that
Speaker 2: was worth quite a bit of money, and sculptures by
Speaker 2: Frederick Hart, all kinds of things like that, to make
Speaker 2: things beautiful and to help educate our children.
Speaker 1: The batting cages, the private courts, the Rembrandts. Sure it
Speaker 1: was a lot, but they could afford it. In Sean's hands,
Speaker 1: Andrea had watched their money multiply.
Speaker 2: I had watched our account slowly grow up to a million,
Speaker 2: and then I watched our account slowly grow to three million,
Speaker 2: and then I watched my statement grow to total about
Speaker 2: ten million dollars.
Speaker 1: In the early two thousands, that was closer to eighteen million.
Speaker 1: Andrea also invested her own inheritance with Sean's firm, everything
Speaker 1: she had saved and everything she got from her parents.
Speaker 2: I had my own money. My parents had passed away.
Speaker 2: At this point, unlike all of his investment clients, I
Speaker 2: was getting, you know, monthly financial statements.
Speaker 1: Still, she wanted to make sure that they were being
Speaker 1: smart with their spending.
Speaker 2: I am very conservative financially, so my first goal was
Speaker 2: I want our home paid off. And so I remember
Speaker 2: I think it was my fortieth birthday. He gave me
Speaker 2: the deed to our house, and our house was paid.
Speaker 1: Off, and Sean kept making the house better and better.
Speaker 2: He ended up building a building behind our home that
Speaker 2: he called his shop. It was actually bigger than our home.
Speaker 2: His work office was in the top level and then
Speaker 2: the bottom was just cars and trophies. He had an
Speaker 2: Aston Martin, he had several Porsches, a Ferrari, Mercedes, Sedans, BMW's,
Speaker 2: you name it.
Speaker 1: Sean spent pretty much all his time in his shop,
Speaker 1: working on business or taking care of his cars.
Speaker 2: He would go out to his office from probably seven
Speaker 2: am to five pm, come in, have dinner, and then
Speaker 2: he'd be like, Oh, I'm going to go out to
Speaker 2: my shop and do this, and then he'd come in
Speaker 2: at ten at night.
Speaker 1: Andrea knew all that hard work was funding their lifestyle,
Speaker 1: but she missed him. She wanted him around more.
Speaker 2: After seventeen or so years of marriage, I've said, we
Speaker 2: don't need more money. We have plenty for our needs
Speaker 2: and our wants and things we've never dreamed of, but
Speaker 2: we need you, and he just said I can't. I've
Speaker 2: got to build my business.
Speaker 1: He'd spend twenty years prioritizing his work above everything else.
Speaker 1: He didn't know how to shift gears. Maybe he didn't
Speaker 1: want to, So Andrea made peace with the fact that
Speaker 1: her husband would be around when he could be.
Speaker 2: I was kind of raised. If you look for the
Speaker 2: good in others, you will find it. If you're looking
Speaker 2: for bad things and looking to tear people down and
Speaker 2: to hate them, you'll find reasons for that too. He
Speaker 2: was gone a lot of the time, but when he
Speaker 2: was home, he would be there for dinner and do
Speaker 2: other things with us. Now, I don't think any life
Speaker 2: is completely perfect, but it was a good life.
Speaker 1: March seventeenth, two thousand and nine, was a really good day.
Speaker 1: It was Saint Patti's Day.
Speaker 2: There is a little irish in the Merriman's side of
Speaker 2: the family, so I always tried to make it a
Speaker 2: fun day. I had gold coins and I made green
Speaker 2: pancakes and green milk for breakfast. As I sent my
Speaker 2: kids off to school, I took fun photos of them
Speaker 2: dressed in their Saint Patrick's Day attire. What I didn't
Speaker 2: know at the time was those were the last merrim
Speaker 2: And family photos that I would ever take. The next day,
Speaker 2: March eighteenth, unexpectedly, I was headed out on some errands.
Speaker 2: I dropped my youngest child off at daycare to have
Speaker 2: a babysitter while I quickly got some things done, and
Speaker 2: Sean called me as I was driving down the highway
Speaker 2: and he's like, what are you doing? And I said,
Speaker 2: why do you need something? He said, well, actually, I
Speaker 2: was hoping to spend some time with you this morning.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh, well, I can turn and I'll
Speaker 2: come and get you and you can do my errands
Speaker 2: with me. And he said, no, I need you to
Speaker 2: come home.
Speaker 1: So she turned the car around and went back to
Speaker 1: the house. He was waiting for her in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: And he said, I've been running Market Street Advisors for
Speaker 2: the past sixteen years, but I need you to know
Speaker 2: that every day when I got up and left and
Speaker 2: went to work and was gone all day, I was
Speaker 2: actually running a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 1: Andrea thought that her husband John had dedicated his career
Speaker 1: to running his own investment firm, but then Sean confessed
Speaker 1: that it was all a lie. Life of luxury was
Speaker 1: funded on stolen money. For the past sixteen years. He
Speaker 1: had been running a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what a Ponzi scheme was. I
Speaker 2: had heard a Bernie made off. I didn't pay too
Speaker 2: much attention to those types of things. I knew he'd
Speaker 2: done something wrong, but that's pretty much all I knew
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Sean explained that when he first started his firm was legitimate,
Speaker 1: but in his first year one of his investments went
Speaker 1: south and he panicked.
Speaker 2: So he omitted the five thousand dollars loss from his statement,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure he thought that he could make that
Speaker 2: up with another trade, and then he never did.
Speaker 1: So he kept fudging the books, selling people on his
Speaker 1: big wins, and using money from new investors to pay
Speaker 1: old ones. There were no million dollar trades or miracle investments.
Speaker 1: The conversations he told her about and all the financial
Speaker 1: documents she'd seen were fake. He was a total fraud.
Speaker 1: His clients had lost millions of dollars. Some of them
Speaker 1: lost everything they had. Not only did he lose other
Speaker 1: people's money. All of their own money was gone, to
Speaker 1: the money she'd inherited from her parents and their kids'
Speaker 1: college funds, it was gone.
Speaker 2: Then he said, yesterday, I, in the company of my attorney,
Speaker 2: turned myself into the US Marshals, to representatives of the
Speaker 2: federal government, and I will be going to prison. And
Speaker 2: when he said the word prison, I about died. My
Speaker 2: mind was just swirling. When he said that, I thought
Speaker 2: this cannot be real.
Speaker 1: She thought back to all the Outlandis stories he told
Speaker 1: over the years, like the one about saving someone's life
Speaker 1: on a safari. Was any of it real? As the
Speaker 1: reality set in, she tried to cling to anything she could.
Speaker 2: I was trying to find the positive, like I'd been
Speaker 2: raised to do. And I said, at least the house
Speaker 2: is paid off. And he said, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 2: The house is gone, the cars are gone, everything's gone.
Speaker 2: I just kind of felt like I was witnessing the apocalypse.
Speaker 2: I remember apologizing, saying, I'm so sorry, but I have
Speaker 2: to get out of here. And I got up and
Speaker 2: I ran out, and I got in my car and
Speaker 2: I took off up my driveway and started driving out
Speaker 2: of my neighborhood. Uncontrollably, tears were just streaming out of
Speaker 2: my eyes.
Speaker 1: Andrea pulled over just minutes after leaving her home. She
Speaker 1: couldn't see much less drive, and as she sat there
Speaker 1: alone in her car, the weight of it all finally
Speaker 1: hit her.
Speaker 2: I felt like everything had been destroyed. Everything was a
Speaker 2: humiliation to me as well as a shock, as well
Speaker 2: as deeply sad and devastating. My biggest wish and desire
Speaker 2: would have been to just walk to the edge of
Speaker 2: the horizon and drop off the face of the earth.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't because I had four kids relying on me.
Speaker 2: I was their only resource.
Speaker 1: She had to keep going, so she made a plan.
Speaker 2: When I went back to the house, I told him
Speaker 2: that he was going to be the one to tell
Speaker 2: the kids. So that night we gathered our family together.
Speaker 2: He was in a chair in the corner of the room.
Speaker 2: I was on the couch across the room from him,
Speaker 2: and he told the kids, I have done something wrong.
Speaker 2: I've made a little mistake, and from across the side
Speaker 2: of the room, I am just furious, shaking my head, going,
Speaker 2: you've committed a crime. You've made huge mistakes over and
Speaker 2: over every day, twenty four hours a day, three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty five days a year. That is not one
Speaker 2: little mistake.
Speaker 1: Andrea was angry. The kids, they were terrified.
Speaker 2: I was standing there with four kids ages three to sixteen,
Speaker 2: tears streaming down their face, looking at me for answers
Speaker 2: and strength. Before I could even say anything, my little
Speaker 2: third grader said, does this mean You're going to divorce Dad?
Speaker 1: She knew in that moment that the answer was yes.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an easy answer, though.
Speaker 2: I was so humiliated, humiliated to be married to a criminal,
Speaker 2: humiliated at what he'd done. I to know that I
Speaker 2: would be getting divorced. I was raised that divorce is
Speaker 2: not what you do. Knowing that I had been married
Speaker 2: in a temple forever added a layer of difficulty, a
Speaker 2: layer of guilt, a layer of regret.
Speaker 1: But she was done. She couldn't be with a man
Speaker 1: who had spen decades cheating so many others out of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. She would walk away, while making the
Speaker 1: transition as easy as she could for her kids.
Speaker 2: I felt like my kids had been in such shock
Speaker 2: that they probably needed things to be as normal as
Speaker 2: possible in whatever ways they could be. So I fed
Speaker 2: them that night. Sean stayed in the home with us, and.
Speaker 1: He continued to stay in the home and come to
Speaker 1: family dinner, just as he had for the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: Even though Sean had turned himself in, the FED still
Speaker 1: needed time to build a case against him, so they waited.
Speaker 2: I even remember cooking dinner for my kids, saying, would
Speaker 2: you like to call your dad and let him know
Speaker 2: dinner's ready. I am appalled that I am doing this
Speaker 2: for this man. Who's done this, But it was for
Speaker 2: my kids. I was trying to be kind, set an
Speaker 2: example of divorce and not changing who you are just
Speaker 2: because you've been betrayed. You choose the right. You are kind,
Speaker 2: you are good to people, no matter what.
Speaker 1: The destruction of her life didn't happen all at once.
Speaker 1: She watched it being taken apart, piece by piece. After
Speaker 1: a few weeks of this purgatory, she got a call
Speaker 1: from the US Marshals. They set a date to come
Speaker 1: to her house and seize the family assets.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon, up over the hill, I saw a caravan
Speaker 2: of dark vehicles with dark dinned windows. They all pull
Speaker 2: up in front of my house. Everybody starts getting out
Speaker 2: of the cars. They're all in FBI or US Marshall's jackets.
Speaker 2: They've got their sunglasses, they've got their weapons, and they
Speaker 2: come to my house. I think the only difference is
Speaker 2: I knew they were coming, and they didn't break my
Speaker 2: door down. They rang the doorbell. I let them in.
Speaker 1: The authorities took everything of value, Sean's computer, his cars,
Speaker 1: his art collection, and most of what Andrea owned too.
Speaker 2: I had the thought, you should hide some of your jewelry,
Speaker 2: and I thought what, No, that would be stealing. No,
Speaker 2: you don't know where you're going to live, how you're
Speaker 2: going to keep your kids alive. You don't have a job,
Speaker 2: your parents are dead. If you could just end up
Speaker 2: with something, then you'd have something to sell to start
Speaker 2: a life with. And I went back and forth in
Speaker 2: my mind a couple of times, and then I thought, Nope,
Speaker 2: I am not going to abandon my integrity just be
Speaker 2: because the person I'm married to has and I left it.
Speaker 2: I left it all in my jewelry box because I
Speaker 2: am not compromising my ethics.
Speaker 1: She watched all their belongings get carted away, and she
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one.
Speaker 2: Several of my neighbors at the house next door up
Speaker 2: on the deck drinking, barbecuing, having a great time, rejoicing
Speaker 2: in the downfall of my family and the asset. Seizer.
Speaker 1: Sean had scammed so many people, neighbors, friends, and family alike.
Speaker 1: She couldn't blame anyone for wanting him to pay, and
Speaker 1: yet people wanted her to pay too, even though she
Speaker 1: had done nothing wrong. She had been married to the
Speaker 1: Mormon made off. As the media soon dubbed him. Even
Speaker 1: neighbors and friends assumed that she must have known something.
Speaker 2: One time I was out front with my three year old.
Speaker 2: He was just playing, you know, around the trees or
Speaker 2: the bushes, and I could hear kitchink kitchink, kitchenk and
Speaker 2: I turn around. My neighbors is over the fence with
Speaker 2: a lens photographing every move I make.
Speaker 1: For the short time she had remaining in their house,
Speaker 1: she was paranoid for the safety of her family, and
Speaker 1: for good reason.
Speaker 2: One of the victims, who was also a neighbor in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood and who had lost probably all of his money,
Speaker 2: came all the way up my steps to my front porch,
Speaker 2: to my front door with his loaded gun, ready to
Speaker 2: blow Sean Merriman away, and who knows who else before
Speaker 2: he came to his senses, and he turned around and
Speaker 2: went home without hurting anyone.
Speaker 1: Andrea wanted nothing more than to take her kids and
Speaker 1: get out of that house, especially since Sean continued to
Speaker 1: live there waiting to be taken to prison. It took
Speaker 1: time ninety days for the divorce to be processed, but
Speaker 1: then finally.
Speaker 2: On July thirteenth, I drove to the courthouse with him
Speaker 2: to finalize the divorce. We came home. I packed my
Speaker 2: car with my two dogs and my kids, and I
Speaker 2: moved that day. And I didn't say goodbye to anything.
Speaker 2: I did not look back. I drove away, and I
Speaker 2: didn't look in the rearview mayor the whole way at
Speaker 2: a Denver.
Speaker 1: While Sean went away to prison, Andrea went to Utah. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: she was able to leave her old life behind without
Speaker 1: her husband's debt hanging over her head.
Speaker 2: I had to write my own divorce because I couldn't
Speaker 2: afford an attorney. I made sure that I wrote that
Speaker 2: he was responsible for his debts and I was responsible
Speaker 2: for mine. Now credit card companies don't apparently have to
Speaker 2: abide by that, but I think they saw that I
Speaker 2: was penniless, so they didn't actually come after me.
Speaker 1: She and her kids moved in with her brother, and
Speaker 1: a friend connected her with a job in marketing so
Speaker 1: that she could rebuild. But she was starting from nothing
Speaker 1: for the first time in her life. She was worried
Speaker 1: about having the money to eat.
Speaker 2: For years. I would just have a knot in my
Speaker 2: stomach every time I drove to the grocery store, thinking,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I have to buy this food. But
Speaker 2: it's so much. I don't have money. I mean, we
Speaker 2: just had to adjust.
Speaker 1: Part of that adjustment meant facing her own self blame.
Speaker 2: I was ridden with guilt that I had enjoyed a
Speaker 2: nice life at the expense of others. I remember Sean
Speaker 2: said to me before we parted ways, well, at least
Speaker 2: she got a lot of good trips out of it.
Speaker 2: And I just looked at him and went, I hate
Speaker 2: every trip I went on. I hate every photo, I
Speaker 2: hate every memory. There was all kinds of guilt, Guilt
Speaker 2: that I'd brought him into the lives of my friends
Speaker 2: and family that got shafted by him, Guilt that I
Speaker 2: had chosen him to be the father of my children.
Speaker 1: She turned to the ar for support and started meeting
Speaker 1: regularly with a church leader.
Speaker 2: And he said, how are you doing? And I said, honestly,
Speaker 2: I am trying to figure out how this happened. I've
Speaker 2: tried to do everything right in my life. I've tried
Speaker 2: to be a good wife, a good mother, a good citizen,
Speaker 2: a good person. How did I get here? And he goes, well,
Speaker 2: in all of that, you forgot one thing, the agency
Speaker 2: of the other person, the other person's opportunity to choose
Speaker 2: this is not on you. He did this. There's nothing
Speaker 2: you could have done. What I had to do was
Speaker 2: recognize and forgive myself for the fact that I made
Speaker 2: the best decision I could with the facts I had
Speaker 2: at hand.
Speaker 1: But she also knew that she wanted to forgive Sean.
Speaker 1: That was the only path forward.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of friends who'd gotten divorced and
Speaker 2: who who had not gotten past it. They were very,
Speaker 2: very hateful towards their former spouse, and I saw how
Speaker 2: it was impacting their kids and destroying their family. And
Speaker 2: so the one thing I knew was we are going
Speaker 2: to forgive, not for him, but for us, so that
Speaker 2: our hatred doesn't destroy us.
Speaker 1: Sean was ordered to pay twenty million dollars to his victims.
Speaker 1: On top of that, he was sentenced to twelve and
Speaker 1: a half years in prison. During that time, Andrea was
Speaker 1: a single mom. She raised her kids with honesty, kindness,
Speaker 1: and forgiveness, just like her parents raised her.
Speaker 2: And my kids have turned out to be everything I
Speaker 2: could have hoped for. Hard working, educated, they all help others,
Speaker 2: they all have skills, They're kind, good people and couldn't
Speaker 2: ask for anything more.
Speaker 1: Andrea's been able to rebuild her own life too.
Speaker 2: I can honestly say I am super happy today. I
Speaker 2: am a homeowner, I have a great career that's been
Speaker 2: so memorable. I've gotten to travel, I have done many
Speaker 2: things that I've dreamed on. I've actually even remarried, if
Speaker 2: you can believe it or not.
Speaker 1: She ended up married to another man in finance.
Speaker 2: Someone who is everything I thought I was getting but
Speaker 2: didn't get the first time, and more. He's even tall
Speaker 2: and handsome.
Speaker 1: And here's the kicker. After they got married, her new
Speaker 1: husband started a second career.
Speaker 2: As a fraud investigator, busting Ponzi schemes.
Speaker 1: We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
Speaker 1: why did you choose to tell your story?
Speaker 2: Life can be good, That's what we're all here to
Speaker 2: have and to be. I believe in being happy, So yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe I chose to be optimistic more than I should have.
Speaker 2: And I did smile when the smiles were totally fake,
Speaker 2: And I remember having my heart so broken it literally
Speaker 2: ached in my chest. But I've plotted one foot in
Speaker 2: front of the other for a decade when I wasn't
Speaker 2: sure if it was making any difference. But when you
Speaker 2: lift your eyes up and you see, you're on the
Speaker 2: top of a mountain that's of view worth all the
Speaker 2: persevering for.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 3: Minute I did that, I had this deep shame flood
Speaker 3: over me, like you've made a really grave error here.
Speaker 3: You've dibulged something super private and you'll now never know
Speaker 3: why this person's in a relationship with you, because is
Speaker 3: it for the money or is it for you?
Speaker 1: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 1: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 1: us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 1: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and
Speaker 1: review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A
Speaker 1: big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
Speaker 1: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group,
Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by
Speaker 1: me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Caitlin Golden, with
Speaker 1: additional production by Monique Leboard and Ben Vetterman. Our associate
Speaker 1: producer is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry
Speaker 1: and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,
Speaker 1: additional editing support from Nico Aruka and Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's
Speaker 1: theme composed by ever Bain's music library provided by mybe Music.
Speaker 1: And For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts