Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Dad Spiked Smoothies For Daughter's Friends at Sleepover: Prosecutor

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Mike Meyden, 57, is accused of making smoothies for his daughter's friends that contained sedatives during a sleepover at his home in Oregon. Meyden has pleaded not guilty to several felony and misdemeanor charges. One of the girls called for help and got her friends out of the home before anything else happened, according to court documents. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with predator expert Chris Hansen about the disturbing allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefix and access information about almost anyone!Host: Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Chris Hansen https://twitter.com/chrishansen?lang=en CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A father accused of spiking smoothies at his daughter's sleepover, her friends testing positive for dangerous sedatives. Thanks for joining me here on Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Sleepovers are something most preteen boys and girls look forward to, but this case just goes to show you you can't be too careful where you let your kids hang out. Mike Maiden faces a number of charges in Oregon. Prosecutors say he mixed sedatives in

mango smoothies that he made for his daughter's friends at a sleepover. The details in a search warrant affidavit are disturbing. Investigators claim Maiden arranged all of the activities for this sleepover last August, taking the girls to get their nails done, ordering them pizza, and then dictating their activities at his home. Then detectives say Maiden made mango smoothies for the four girls. Each had a different colored straw and Maiden insists that the girls drink all of the concoction. Thank goodness, one of those girls became suspicious. She described cuddling with one of her friends and said Maiden came to the basement a couple of times and actually took her arm from

around her friend. One time he put his finger under her nose to see if she was sound asleep. The girl texted her mom, Please pick me up and say I had a family emergency. I don't feel safe. I might not respond, but please come get me. Please, please pick up. Please, please. The girl then texted a family friend who came to get her, and they returned to the home and picked up the rest of the girls. Detectives say the girls tested positive for benzodiazepines at the hospital. Those are sedatives that can be used to reduce anxiety, muscle spasms, and reduce seizures. For his part, Mike Maiden has pleaded not guilty to a laundry list of felony and misdemeanor charges,

including causing another person to ingest a controlled substance. His lawyer, Mark Kogan, saying Mr. Maiden is presumed innocent, and we hope that people will reserve judgment until all of the facts and circumstances are known. With me to discuss this ultra creepy case is somebody who knows all about creepy cases. He's Chris Hansen. He's the co-founder of the True Blue Streaming Crime Network. He's also the host of Takedown with Chris Hansen and also the host of the Predators I've Caught podcast. He wears a lot of hats. Chris, thanks for coming on.

Thank you. Your first thoughts about Michael Maden. Well, it's disturbing on so many different levels, Anjanette. And, you know, it starts with the grooming process. I mean, here you've got a guy who has plotted this sleepover. He's had calls with the parents of the other girls. His wife apparently doesn't speak English. So he's controlled this entire event, taking them for manicures, all the things that young

girls like to do. And then, according to the criminal complaint, drugged them and initiated a process of what can only be described as sexual assault. And so not only is this a horrific crime on its own, but it was a premeditated, planned crime to take advantage of these young girls who only wanted to sleep over and to hang out with their friends. It's just offensive and criminal and predatory at every level. It's completely predatory. And, you know, at this point, these are allegations. But the information in the affidavit here is so damning and so disturbing. I mean, you hit the nail right on the head with the grooming going on. You know, he takes them for a spa day, you know, the nails.

And then they do little spa things in the basement, you know, things that girls like to do, especially maybe pre-teenage girls, you know, things that are fun for them. And so he's kind of softening them up. And he's also trying to control everything they do. Exactly. And that's what takes this to the next level. It's all bad, all of it. But it's truly one of the most disturbing cases I've ever seen. And to add to it, you've got the fact that he talked to each and every one of these parents.

These parents did their due diligence. This wasn't just drop their daughter off at some sleepover where they didn't have a lengthy discussion with the parent of the child hosting the sleepover. There were a lot of discussions here. Promises were made, guarantees were made that these kids were going to be safe, that they were going to be chaperoned. And then at the end of the day, it was the victims, the young girls at the sleepover themselves who were desperately texting their parents and friends of the family to come get them because they were afraid this guy is creeping around and putting his finger under their nose to see if they're sleeping or awake. He's drugged them with anti-anxiety medication, according to

the complaint. And God knows what could have happened had he given them more drugs. Is there a reaction? Is there somebody who dies? Is there somebody who's sexually assaulted? But this is the takeaway point, I think, having covered hundreds and hundreds of these cases over the years. The girl had the common sense and the courage, some of the girls, to actually reach out to their parents and call and say, hey, this is a bad situation. It's making me uncomfortable. I need help. I need to

be picked up. And it goes to my absolute mantra in all these cases, your best defense is the relationship and the exchange of information with your child, especially if they're going to go over to a sleepover. I mean, here's a guy who lives in a million dollar home, has a job, is married. You think this is the safest thing in the world for your daughter to do. It wasn't in this isolated case. So if your daughter or your son is uncomfortable in any way, they have to be very comfortable coming to you and saying, this is a problem. This makes me feel weird. This isn't right. And whether it's an online predator or a predator like this guy allegedly is, who is known to the parents, whose child is known to the victims in this case, you have to have that

open conversation, that open line of communication. So your child feels comfortable to say, hey, this is not good. And look what happened. They ended up taking them to the hospital. They were tested. There were the drugs found in their system. And ultimately, the local police made a case and arrested this guy. I don't know about you, but I'd like to think that I could send my child to a sleepover and know that he'd be safe. But you just can't be so sure these days. And this story makes that very clear. That's why you can use Truthfinder.com as a tool in your parent toolbox to keep your kids safe.

Truthfinder is one of the largest public record search services in the world. The goal is to help people like you learn the truth about the people in your lives. Truthfinder background checks anyone you search to look for any possible red flags. It will show you things like someone's past and current addresses, criminal records, even sex offender status. Here's how it works. Log on to truthfinder.com and for example, type in the name Michael Maiden or the name of the parents of your kid's friends. Results will appear in seconds, telling you everything that Truthfinder knows about the person that you search. If you'd like to check out Truthfinder, and I think you should, you can get 50% off of all confidential background reports. Just log on to www.truthfinder.com slash lccrimefix and start accessing information about almost anyone.

You make a really good point there, I think, because the one girl is an absolute hero. Absolutely. She and her parents taught her right because she knows something is not right. You know, he's taking her arm off of her friend. She describes cuddling with her friend on the couch. They're young girls. I'm still mad reading the affidavit. I just got to be honest with you.

I see a lot of this stuff, and I try to approach it somewhat clinically, but also with the outrage and emotion of a parent. I'm a parent. My guys are much older now. But if I'm the parent of one of these kids, oh, my God, I'm going to raise hell about this. And I'm going to be overly protective. And now what has happened, because this predator has acted in this way, none of these girls are going to be allowed to do any of this stuff ever again.

Who's going to take a chance on that? You know, so not only did he victimize them by drugging them, scare them, attempt to assault them. He's altered their future and the way their parents protect them. And they're going to be, you know, arguably and understandably overprotected coming in. This this I mean, just because he didn't actually sexual sexually assault them doesn't mean they've been victimized, traumatized. This is a this is an attack on these young women. Yeah. And this guy needs to be held accountable for it. This is among the worst of a lot of bad predatory cases I've ever seen. But God only knows what would have happened, Chris, had that girl not texted her parents.

Her parents didn't answer, of course, because maybe they were asleep. Well, yeah, it was truly morning. She texts the family friend who's like, I will be right there. Right. They go back and they get the other kids and they take them to the ER and they get them tested and they find these drugs in their system. And one other thing that's that's important to note here in these horrific cases where kids are victimized or preyed upon, oftentimes online and traditional social media platforms, it is this trip to the emergency room and the skilled nurses and first responders in that emergency room who often get to the bottom of this story, this crime, and it leads to successful prosecutions.

And that is a critical component here too, because we've seen this over and over again. We've reported on it for True Blue and there've been a lot of, you know, notorious cases here where law enforcement got the tip from the person at the ER, the nurse or the, you know, the first responder. And, you know, based upon what I've seen in the affidavit, these law enforcement officers are heroes. They did everything right here, you know, and you wish you didn't have to do investigations like this, but sadly you do. And in an earlier time, without the courage to step

forward, without a good conversation and relationship between this girl who reported this and her parents, this is way worse. There's an actual physical victimization here beyond what already occurred. Yeah. Think about what could have happened in the world before cell phones, because that's how the girl got a hold of the family friend. She's texting. She's texting mom and dad. And then she texts the family friend and says, I need to get out of here. I'm not safe. And thank goodness she did that. There is one thing. She saved these other girls too. Yes. And she, she did. She saved her friends. One thing I think that we can take away from this though, that I think parents can learn from this. They do mention that, you know, none of the families were particularly close with the

maidens and hadn't been in their home before. So I think that's, you know, they had spoken with Mr. Maiden, but really when you're sending your kids to somebody else's house for a sleepover, it can seem okay. You know, even if you've spoken to them on the phone, but really, if you're going to leave your children overnight, you really maybe should take that extra step of being in the house. Talk to the mom. Talk to the mom. Yeah, exactly. Um, what do you see happening with this? You know, since this happened back in August, you know, the, the indictment just

was unsealed. Um, you know, it took some time to investigate this case. Michael Maiden and his wife have since divorced. He's apparently living in Vancouver, Canada now, just across the border in some type of recreational vehicle. Wife is not. She is still living, I guess, in the family home. They got divorced rather quickly. So he's no longer employed from what we understand. Do you think that's possibly all for show? Or do you think she was like, hey, you're out of here, dude? Well, you know, it's hard to get inside anybody's mind or inside anybody's relationship. But I mean, look at the evidence. If that's your husband, are you going to stick with that? No, that's that's a stone cold predator. And based upon the affidavit, here's a guy who's

guilty of his homemade sin, a phrase from an old time prosecutor. And the fact that he's living up in Vancouver, I'm nervous that he'll skip bail. And if he's not punished, if he's not put away, what is to stop him from trying to do this again? I mean, this takes predation, predatory behavior to a whole new level. And guys like this have been thinking about this, have been fantasizing about this, have been planning it, and they get to the point where they can't stop from fulfilling this fantasy. And this is when we see these predators come into our sting operations as we did last week

in Florida, working with Sheriff Brady Judd, that's when we see these people show up and do things like this guy did in this case. It's very disturbing. And again, what I hope parents take away from this is to continue to create and nurture this dialogue with their children. Weird things are out there. There are adults online and sadly in person who like to trick kids. You need to be aware of this. Kids don't like to be tricked. If you sense you're being tricked, come talk to me and together we'll deal with it. Just one final question for you, Chris. You know, this guy is 57 years old. I mean, this stuff does not happen in a vacuum. You can't tell me if this is indeed true,

and he's innocent until proven guilty. Absolutely. You can't tell me this is the first time. It's too premeditated. It's too calculated. It's too creepy, weird. It gives you the sense of a true fulfillment of a fantasy. I would have to guess based upon the criminal math here that if he hasn't tried this before or done something along these lines, he's been really, really plotting it and fantasizing about it. And if you check his computer and what he's been doing online,

does he have a dummy computer that he's been using? I would predict without fear of contradiction, you'll see things that back that up. Chris Hansen, thank you so much. Thank you. And that's it for this edition of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us.

We'll see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law & Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki.

Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.