Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is a Betrayal bonus episode.
Speaker 1: We know a lot of you have been wondering about Ashley,
Speaker 1: where she is now and how her divorce is going.
Speaker 2: Well, we sat down with her to find out.
Speaker 1: Just start saying Country Roads. What you're hearing in the
Speaker 1: background is a TV crew.
Speaker 3: Take one Mark.
Speaker 1: I'll explain later, but right now we're here to get
Speaker 1: an update from Ashley. I'm so excited to be doing
Speaker 1: this in person. We haven't recorded in person in like
Speaker 1: a year and a half.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a different lifetime for me.
Speaker 1: So much has happened. But today I really want to
Speaker 1: focus on the major updates in your life, and that
Speaker 1: is the topic of tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: what's going on.
Speaker 3: We've been in mediation for a little over two years now.
Speaker 3: Because of how I was represented in the very beginning,
Speaker 3: there were some things put into the divorce that put
Speaker 3: me at a really big disadvantage now this late in
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 1: Wait, so, just as a point of clarity, you've gone
Speaker 1: through two attorneys for this. So the first one you
Speaker 1: weren't aligned.
Speaker 3: No, no, we looked around and I found a new attorney, Laura.
Speaker 3: She's been fabulous in her team. But what it looks
Speaker 3: like to me, as long as Jason is fulfilling what
Speaker 3: the criminal court said he had to fulfill, and he's
Speaker 3: meeting all of those expectations and requirements to be rehabilitated
Speaker 3: and to be able to integrate into society, then the
Speaker 3: family law recognizes that as him no longer being a threat,
Speaker 3: he can have unsupervised visits with our youngest daughter within
Speaker 3: six month months.
Speaker 1: So on the criminal side, he has stipulations of his probation.
Speaker 3: I don't get to know all of that because of
Speaker 3: hippoprivacy laws. Even as far as his psychosexual evaluation, I
Speaker 3: don't get to see.
Speaker 1: That, which is court mandated therapy.
Speaker 3: Yes, court mandated therapy that he will graduate in August
Speaker 3: of this year.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so what they're wanting is just to go
Speaker 3: by like regular family court, like every other weekend, half holidays,
Speaker 3: things like that, like you and sleepovers.
Speaker 1: I imagine not really having insight on how the processes
Speaker 1: with therapy. You're really in the dark. It's a big
Speaker 1: leap of faith to ask somebody to take I.
Speaker 3: Don't have a choice, And to me, it seems reckless
Speaker 3: that any court would allow this, but he has rights
Speaker 3: as a father, and there's nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 3: Our court system is putting a ten year year old
Speaker 3: in the position of possibly being a victim. How terrible
Speaker 3: is that?
Speaker 1: How are you emotionally dealing with all of this?
Speaker 3: It pisses me off. It makes me angry. Like I've
Speaker 3: said over and over and over to anyone that will listen.
Speaker 3: As you know, I didn't get the chance to protect
Speaker 3: a Veya. I didn't know I needed to. I know
Speaker 3: I need to protect my youngest daughter. I don't get
Speaker 3: that opportunity. So what I am doing is giving a
Speaker 3: ten year old is much age appropriate information. I can
Speaker 3: to make sure she's aware of her surroundings and she
Speaker 3: knows what it would look like if something was weird,
Speaker 3: and what would she need to do next.
Speaker 1: Did you ever imagine having to have a conversation like
Speaker 1: that with your kid about their own father.
Speaker 3: No, I mean she loves her father. He's so much
Speaker 3: fun and they do all these really great things together.
Speaker 3: For her to see that and then to hear like,
Speaker 3: you need to be aware, you need to put your
Speaker 3: guard up.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you have to carry that, and I
Speaker 1: can't believe a ten year old has to carry that responsibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think her being so young now, that's
Speaker 3: why it's so important to have some type of guardian
Speaker 3: EDLIGHTEM there to make sure that she's represented appropriately.
Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people know this, But
Speaker 1: what is a guardian at lightem and why did you
Speaker 1: decide to work with one.
Speaker 3: What I was struggling with in the beginning when I
Speaker 3: first hired my new lawyer was I want to do
Speaker 3: what's best for my youngest daughter. So the guardian edl
Speaker 3: item essentially comes in and acts as a lawyer for
Speaker 3: my daughter. He looks at the facts, takes an account
Speaker 3: what's safe for her, what's best for her mental health.
Speaker 3: He'll put in a suggestion and say I recommended this.
Speaker 3: Do I feel like that was a good idea at
Speaker 3: this point? No, I'm not saying guardian ed items aren't valuable,
Speaker 3: because they absolutely are. But they can only ask as
Speaker 3: far as the law will let them. And I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that. I really thought there was going to be
Speaker 3: more of like a human to human parent to parent
Speaker 3: type of thing in there, and it's not.
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry that you're navigating that. What's going on
Speaker 1: with the house. What's going on with the financial aspect
Speaker 1: of everything?
Speaker 3: Early on in the divorce, there were things that were
Speaker 3: drafted and agreed to that I just didn't know, things
Speaker 3: like you pay your legal fees. I pay my legal fees.
Speaker 3: The resource that I was using for my divorce was
Speaker 3: a free service at that time. That seems like a
Speaker 3: no brainer because my legal fees are nothing. Another thing
Speaker 3: that's interesting is Jason had signed the deed of the
Speaker 3: house over to me right after he was arrested. I
Speaker 3: had been working on a refinance on the house, already
Speaker 3: getting our credit where it needs to be, fixing his YadA,
Speaker 3: YadA YadA. During that time, I had received and notice
Speaker 3: that our home had a pending lean on it in
Speaker 3: his name. I went to the gel and told Jason,
Speaker 3: I'm going to lose this house if the mortgage stays
Speaker 3: of the payment that it's at right now. I had
Speaker 3: already at this point, taken out as much of my
Speaker 3: four oh one K and my wroth IRA that I
Speaker 3: could to pay off any debt that we had, his
Speaker 3: medical bills, credit card bills, everything, tens of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: So how is this coming to play in the divorce?
Speaker 1: If you're on the DAED and it's your home now.
Speaker 3: Because it's still marital asset. Okay, it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 3: it's debt or income. Those are shared things. And so
Speaker 3: he wants me to sell my home and in his words,
Speaker 3: he wants a fresh start. Where am I going to
Speaker 3: go when the homes around my area are going for
Speaker 3: three times the amount? There's nowhere for me to go
Speaker 3: with my children.
Speaker 1: He's all this support to get his life back together
Speaker 1: and on track. You've had to pick up yourself by
Speaker 1: your own bootstraps, right since everything went.
Speaker 3: Down right, And don't get me wrong, like my family's
Speaker 3: been wonderful, I'm supposed to be established. It's not what
Speaker 3: I was supposed to be doing. It's not what was
Speaker 3: in my plan. None of this was a part of
Speaker 3: what I was supposed.
Speaker 1: To be doing. If he was truly sorry and remorseful
Speaker 1: for what he's done to you, avea your family, What
Speaker 1: do you think that would look like?
Speaker 3: What he could do if you cared about our well being?
Speaker 3: He would just walk away.
Speaker 1: Anything that comes your way I know you can handle.
Speaker 1: Will you make sure to give me an update when
Speaker 1: your divorce is finalized so we can tell the audience.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, hopefully we're cheering. You can have a glass of
Speaker 3: champagne where you're at, and I'll have one where I'm at.
Speaker 1: I'll send you a bottle of boove done. Okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: I really hope we can send her an entire case
Speaker 1: of champagne soon, and as soon as there are updates,
Speaker 1: we'll keep you guys posting. In the meantime, we'll get
Speaker 1: an update from Ashley's attorney, Laura next. I always have
Speaker 1: to be reminded that family court and criminal court operate separately,
Speaker 1: So Ashley and I wanted to sit down with her
Speaker 1: attorney Laura and understand how those two separate systems are
Speaker 1: impacting Ashley and her divorce, specifically when it comes to custody.
Speaker 3: Hi, Laura, Hi, so glad to have you. I wanted
Speaker 3: to introduce you to Andrea.
Speaker 1: Hi Laura, it's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 4: Andrea, nice to meet you too.
Speaker 3: So just to give you a little backstory, Andrea is
Speaker 3: segal who did the podcast with me and been like
Speaker 3: a huge part of just my overall journey through Jason's
Speaker 3: criminal case and even with my divorce. So I wanted
Speaker 3: to get you guys introduced so we could have a
Speaker 3: conversation about how our divorce is going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lara, when Ashley first wrote in, I think the
Speaker 1: subject line was my future ex husband and that was
Speaker 1: two years ago and you're still working through the divorce.
Speaker 1: But I just wanted to ask you questions about where
Speaker 1: you guys are now and what you're currently working to
Speaker 1: negotiate for Ashley's behalf sure, no problem. What are the
Speaker 1: things that you guys have to navigate in terms of
Speaker 1: custody and financials? Just give me a little bit of
Speaker 1: a background of all the things that you guys have
Speaker 1: to take into consideration and why family court is different
Speaker 1: than criminal court and why they're kind of treated separately.
Speaker 4: So the way it works in Utah is similar to
Speaker 4: most states where there are separate court systems for criminal
Speaker 4: cases than civil cases. So family law, divorce cases, custody adoption,
Speaker 4: they fall under the category of civil law, which means
Speaker 4: that they're heard by a district court. Now that same
Speaker 4: court can hear criminal cases, but they're entirely different cases.
Speaker 4: They don't get linked together, and then they are just
Speaker 4: different systems. They have different standards, they have different laws
Speaker 4: that are applicable, and they don't cross, so there's not
Speaker 4: really a mechanism that you can join the two cases together.
Speaker 4: Ashley's case is a little bit easier in that we
Speaker 4: have a criminal conduction, We have criminal charges that he
Speaker 4: served time for, and so that helps in terms of
Speaker 4: the standards that we apply for determining custody. But unfortunately
Speaker 4: it doesn't really translate over to the money side of it,
Speaker 4: which is very frustrating in this case.
Speaker 1: What are some of the hurdles that you guys have
Speaker 1: faced in this divorce.
Speaker 4: Ashley started this divorce off with a different law firm,
Speaker 4: so by the time we came on the case, there
Speaker 4: already were a lot of things in motion. There were
Speaker 4: already a lot of things that we couldn't go back
Speaker 4: and fix and change. So it's always an uphill battle
Speaker 4: where certain things have already been decided. It's also been
Speaker 4: a really difficult case because I think Jason and his attorney,
Speaker 4: we're making representations to ash and to our firm that
Speaker 4: Jason was agreeing to certain things. You know, for instance,
Speaker 4: that Ashley could have the house without there being a
Speaker 4: problem and all the equity in the house, and then
Speaker 4: when it came right down to it and we were
Speaker 4: drafting it up. All of a sudden he had changed
Speaker 4: his mind, and he's insisting that he be entitled to
Speaker 4: half the equity. We have different strategies in place on
Speaker 4: trying to figure out a way that she can keep
Speaker 4: the house and pay him out a portion of his
Speaker 4: equity or equity over time, or trade it for something else.
Speaker 4: So I have confidence that she'll be able to stay
Speaker 4: in the house. You know, that's our goal to keep
Speaker 4: some stability for her, instability for her kids.
Speaker 1: What else are you guys pushing for in the divorce.
Speaker 4: The other area that I think is the biggest area
Speaker 4: of contention is whether or not he's going to at
Speaker 4: some point be allowed unsupervised visits. He's been pretty insistent
Speaker 4: that he thinks that should happen relatively soon and that
Speaker 4: he's not a risk, and now is using a not
Speaker 4: surprising tactic of saying that this was like a one
Speaker 4: off thing that's never going to happen again because of
Speaker 4: some interaction of some medication he was on at the time,
Speaker 4: which is relatively common in cases that we're dealing with.
Speaker 4: There tends to be blame, oftentimes placed on something else
Speaker 4: or someone else. It's unfortunate because I think there's been
Speaker 4: a perceptible shift in his attitude where now he's trying
Speaker 4: to place blame and not take responsibility and accountability, and
Speaker 4: part of that has been him pushing for unsupervised visits.
Speaker 4: So I think our goal is to try to keep
Speaker 4: visit supervised for as long as possible, and then if
Speaker 4: we transition to unsupervised visits, to make sure that those
Speaker 4: visits are safe moving forward.
Speaker 1: You guys are going to trial, but you may not
Speaker 1: have to go to a full blown trial. What's the difference.
Speaker 4: There's all sorts of issues that have to get resolved
Speaker 4: to get a divorce, so like custody and parent time
Speaker 4: and dividing retirement accounts and dividing house equity in this case,
Speaker 4: some of those things we either have agreements on or
Speaker 4: we're pretty close to agreements on. So if we can
Speaker 4: avoid trial, that's always ideal because trials are really expensive
Speaker 4: and just really in a sense, they cause victims or
Speaker 4: individuals to relive trauma. In my view, you know, after
Speaker 4: doing a family a lot for twenty years, trials almost
Speaker 4: always make it more difficult for people to move on
Speaker 4: with their lives, just because it's so conflictual and doesn't
Speaker 4: really allow for healing to occur. So if we can
Speaker 4: get items settled where the parties come to an agreement,
Speaker 4: everyone feels better about it, and people are more likely
Speaker 4: to follow orders that they agree on than orders that
Speaker 4: a court just dictates.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you guys are close to coming
Speaker 1: to a middle ground to avoid trial.
Speaker 4: I would give it ninety percent odds that we agree
Speaker 4: without going to trial. In terms of the timing, who
Speaker 4: knows when that's going to happen. My guests would be
Speaker 4: at some point during the summer.
Speaker 3: I don't know if personally you've dealt with cases that
Speaker 3: are similar to mine in nature as far as, like,
Speaker 3: you know, his criminal case really doesn't have any say
Speaker 3: in like what happens financially and and divorce. Is that
Speaker 3: usually pretty common?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there is a lot of surprise that
Speaker 4: people have. They just kind of assume that courts are
Speaker 4: about creating fairness and about creating sort of equal situations.
Speaker 4: And to be clear, courts do have a lot of discretion,
Speaker 4: so they can award things differently than fifty to fifty,
Speaker 4: but the majority of the time it's just equal, regardless
Speaker 4: of the reasons for the divorce. Or who was at
Speaker 4: fault or who had criminal charges like it just really
Speaker 4: doesn't impact the money part of it, and it feels
Speaker 4: very frustrating and not fair because it's not. And Ashley's
Speaker 4: done just an amazing job in terms of really pulling
Speaker 4: herself up and fighting to support her family and keep
Speaker 4: them stable through this entire process. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: women and a lot of victims of crimes that aren't
Speaker 4: able to do that, and I really respect that, and
Speaker 4: I think you've done a great job in that regard.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate it. I said this to you and
Speaker 3: one of your colleagues not too long ago, but I
Speaker 3: told you that you guys should wear capes because you
Speaker 3: guys are superhero.
Speaker 1: I'll be patiently waiting to see how everything gets resolved. So, Laura,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you both of you, And thanks you guys
Speaker 4: for being so supportive of Ashley and helping to have
Speaker 4: her story be heard. I think it's so important, So
Speaker 4: thanks everybody.
Speaker 1: It's complicated, and thankfully Ashley now has someone truly fighting
Speaker 1: for her. I wanted to thank all of you our
Speaker 1: Betrayal listeners as we prepare to launch another season of Betrayal,
Speaker 1: and in addition, we have big updates for the Betrayal community. First,
Speaker 1: we're thrilled to announce what's coming your way. In season
Speaker 1: three of Betrayal, when Stacy laid eyes on doctor Justin Rutherford,
Speaker 1: she was sure that she was looking at her soulmate.
Speaker 1: They fell in love and life was perfect. But this
Speaker 1: family doctor, beloved father, and treasured husband had dark secrets.
Speaker 1: The man who had sworn an oath to do no
Speaker 1: harm would go to great links, using any means necessary
Speaker 1: to save himself. Listen to Betrayal Season three on iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts on May twenty third. Second,
Speaker 1: the response from the first two seasons has been overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Many of you have shared your stories of betrayal and deception.
Speaker 1: After reading thousands of your comments, messages, and emails, we're
Speaker 1: pleased to announce the launch of Betrayal's weekly series about
Speaker 1: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 1: change everything. This new series debuts end of July. Lastly,
Speaker 1: because of your overwhelming support, Betrayal Season one became the
Speaker 1: number one podcast in the world and was turned into
Speaker 1: an ABC News Studios and Hulu docuseries. We are excited
Speaker 1: to share that Ashley's story has also been turned into
Speaker 1: a docu series that, like season one, is a must watch.
Speaker 1: Stream Betrayal season two this summer on Hulu. If you
Speaker 1: want to contact the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayal
Speaker 1: pod at gas. To report a case of child sexual exploitation,
Speaker 1: call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's cyber
Speaker 1: tipline at one eight hundred the Lost. If you or
Speaker 1: someone you know was worried about their sexual thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings towards children, reach out to Stop It Now dot org.
Speaker 1: Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of
Speaker 1: Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show
Speaker 1: was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted
Speaker 1: and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by
Speaker 1: Carrie Hartman, and also produced by Ben Fetterman and associate
Speaker 1: producer Christin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Speaker 1: Jessica Crincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Nico Aaruca and
Speaker 1: Matt Dolvecchio. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music Library
Speaker 1: provided by my Music. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.