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