Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - MARRIED WISCONSIN DAD FAKES DEATH, FLEES TO UZBEKI HOTTIE, BUSTED

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Ryan Borgwardt is back in the USA after months of living in the country of Georgia. After searching Green Lake for almost two months, a change in the investigation strategy gets results right away, wh...en it is discovered that Borgwart has his passport checked by Canadian authorities one day after he is reported missing.  Since local law enforcement found his Passport in his house when he disappeared, a simple investigation finds that Ryan Borgwardt claims his passport was lost and he is issued a new one three months before he vanishes.  Before returning, Borgwardt records a video saying he is safe and secure, wrapping up the video saying, "hope this works".  Borgwardt does not give exact details about where he is located.   The video is then sent to the sheriff's office.   Ryan Borgwardt tells authorities how he was able to fake his death and make his escape. First, he says he travels about 50 miles from his home in Watertown to Green lake. On the lake, he overturns his kayak, dumps his phone in the lake and paddles to shore using an inflatable boat for children.  Borgwardt tells investigators he chose Green lake because it is the deepest lake in Wisconsin, nearly 240 feet deep.  Now Borgwardt's wife has filed for a separation.    Joining Nancy Grace today:  Gregory Morse - Partner at the law firm of King Morse, PLLC. Current CJA counsel, Former West Palm Beach Public Defender's Office. Author: "The Untested" found on Amazon, website: kingmorselaw.com  Dr. Judy Ho - Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychologist, Author of The New Rules of Attachment; www.drjudyho.com; IG & X: @drjudyho; FB: doctorjudyho;  Irv Brandt - Former Senior Inspector, US Marshals Service International Investigations Branch, Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affairs; Country Attache, US Embassy Kingston, Jamaica, Author: “SOLO SHOT: CURSE OF THE BLUE STONE" AVAILBLE ON AMAZON, Twitter: @JackSoloAuthor Ben Dobrin - Emergency Medical Services Marine Dive Team and EMS Police Search and Rescue, Dean of the D. Henry Watts School of Professional Studies and Professor of Social Work: Virginia Wesleyan University Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", @JoScottForensic Christina Aguayo - National News Anchor, Salem News Channel, website: www.ChristinaAguayoNews.Com, Facebook: @ChristinaAguayoNews, Instagram: @Christina.AguayoNews  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A married Wisconsin dad of three. Did he fake his own death in order to flee to Europe and his Uzbeki hottie mistress? And breaking now, is daddy home for Christmas? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Borg words, apparently back home on US soil and busted. He's home for Christmas. Is the wife even going to want him? Why would she want him?
Starting point is 00:00:46 But that's not my concern right now. I'm not a shrink or a marriage counselor. I'm a former prosecutor. And I want to find out, A, why he came home, and B, what is he charged with? Joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, straight out to Christina Arwayo. She is the national news anchor with Salem News Channel. Christina, thank you for being with us. What happened? We learned a lot from what Ryan Borgward told investigators about how he tried to pull this whole scheme off,
Starting point is 00:01:16 faking his own death from struggling to get out of the water because he was caught in waist-high muck to riding an e-bike 70 miles to Milwaukee to hit a greyhound to Chicago, Detroit, up through Canada. He actually struggled getting through with the Canadian officials, but he finally went back and forth with them. Christina, Christina Awayo joining us. Why do you keep talking about his struggling? Boo-hoo. He struggled to get out of the water. Why was he in the water? Because he faked his own death. Why was he faking his own death? To go, what's a nice way to put this? To go snug up with an Uzbeki mistress, a hottie in Europe. I don't care that he struggled to get out of the water. And I don't care that he, as you said, again, you're really hitting the struggling a lot as he struggled
Starting point is 00:02:04 to get out of the country. He shouldn't have been out of the country anyway. But okay, try to move forward without feeling sorry for Ryan Borgward, please. Absolutely no sorrowful feelings here for Mr. Borgward as he enacted a completely selfish scheme. He cost the county of Green Lake $45 45 000 plus dollars they did an extensive search in this length they had cadaver dogs they had diving teams they put their lives at risk not to mention he left behind his family he meticulously planned for at least seven months right because we know he took that life insurance policy out in january for375,000. So he meticulously planned every single day for about seven months on how to completely destroy emotionally every single
Starting point is 00:02:52 person that loved him and every person that he loved. And he actually went to church with his family the morning of his disappearance, the morning that he carried through with his plan to fake his own death. So the reason he came home, the sheriff's been a little tight-lipped about him. Hold on, Christina. Wait a minute. Wait a minute before I lose this thought. Out to high-profile lawyer joining us, Gregory Morse. He is a partner in the law firm of King Morse, joining us out of Palm Beach. Gregory Morse, No jury is going to believe him or anything he has to say. When we find out he's sitting at the 11 o'clock service and then he's got his plan already done, while he's sitting there while his wife is praying for her family, he's thinking, ooh, Uzbekki Hadi, got to get to Uzbekistan. Hurry, hurry, go fake my death and get to Canada. Really? The duplicity, the hypocrisy. I just, you know what? I can take a lot. A hypocrite?
Starting point is 00:03:56 No, N-O. Well, he's not going to make much jury appeal if his case were to go to trial. And Ryan Borgenwald should have listened to my advice to every citizen. If you want to confess, speak with a priest, not the police. He spoke with the police, told them, you know, that he was going, he planned this. He kind of inculpated himself. And he's charged under a statute, obstruction of justice in Wisconsin, section 946.41, which is a misdemeanor, Class A, under their statute. He doesn't really qualify for the felony enhancements. He faces up to nine months in jail. He clearly doesn't have any money for a lawyer or didn't plan yesterday or the day before. Greg Morse, please don't tell me that I, the taxpayer, have to pay this deadbeat dad, this two-timer, that I have to pay his legal fees?
Starting point is 00:04:50 Yeah, he says something in court like, I only have $20. Really? You should have thought about that before you got that first-class ticket across the ocean. Guys, this is how the whole thing started. Listen. On August 12th, 2024 at 5 32 PM, our office received a call from the Dodge County Sheriff's office in reference to a subject that did not return home, uh, that evening and the last known location he was, was Green Lake, uhuties headed that way and checked areas around the lake and found Ryan's vehicle along with his trailer parked in the area of Dodge Memorial
Starting point is 00:05:37 Park. We immediately deployed our boat and at 631 two of our deputies found a capsized kayak in the western part of the lake in the area of the 220 foot depth of water. 220 feet below the surface, deep, deep down where the water is so dark you can't see your hand in front of your eyes. You know, I want to go out to, before I tell you what else happened, to a special guest joining us, Ben Dobrin joining us. He is a police diver. He is an emergency medical services marine dive team member, and he is the dean of the D. Henry Watts School of Professional Studies. Ben, thank you so much for being with us. What are the dangers of diving that deeply? Oh, there's a lot of risks.
Starting point is 00:06:38 First of all, I mean, that lake, like you said, is deep and it's huge. It's 236 feet deep, so that's not a normal dive. You know, Most public safety diving, the standards are 60 feet or less. Some dive teams will train up to maybe 100 feet. But once you get past 100 feet, you're in what's called technical diving. And most public safety dive teams are not technical dive teams. And so they're not diving that deep. So then you're going to put a whole bunch of equipment in the water that is very expensive, whether it's sonar or some sort of unmanned underwater vehicle.
Starting point is 00:07:10 Those are hundreds of thousands of dollars of pieces of equipment that you're putting in there. There's all sorts of entanglement hazards. You know, it's dark, it's deep, it's cold. But once you put a human being in the water, you know, then you're putting life and limit at risk also So once you have divers in the water, it becomes a much more scary endeavor for us to put one diver in the water from that primary diver has a Second person a tender to help them then we have to have a safety diver and that person has a tender then we have what's called A 90% diver. They're kind of a backup safety to the safety
Starting point is 00:07:44 Then we have to have a a 90% diver. They're kind of a backup safety to the safety. Then we have to have a dive supervisor and a dive safety officer. So that's six people to get one diver in the water. And then most teams will also have an ambulance and a medic on scene just for the divers. So you're talking about a very, very labor-intensive endeavor to get one public safety diver into the water. And then when you talk about the training and the gear, it's very expensive to do this. And the risks are there. I mean, entanglements happen. Running out of air shouldn't happen.
Starting point is 00:08:14 Medical events happen. If a medical event happens above water, we've got medics on scene, ambulances, hospitals. But if you have a medical event underwater, that's a whole different and scary endeavor. So, I mean, once you start putting people in the water, the risks go up significantly. You know, another problem when you're searching, especially that deep, when you're diving that deeply, is that items on the bottom, the bottom surface get tangled up and you've got a diver down there that may have spotted a limb surrounded by water debris, you know, wrapped all together that may look like a body on sonar. So you have to go all the way down and it's pitch black.
Starting point is 00:08:56 You can't even see your hand in front of you. Find the object, feel it and determine, is it a body? That is very dangerous, Ben Dobrin. Oh, absolutely. And then, you know, let's say it is, then you've got to recover. Recovering something from hundreds of feet has its own host of difficulties and problems because, you know, you're going to have to do, the diver's going to have to do safety stops on the way up. Do you just lift the body, tie, you know, an airbag to it and lift it up? Well, then there can be problems and it can drop and
Starting point is 00:09:22 you'll have to do your search all over again. Or if you're going to have lift, you know, lift capabilities, that's another entanglement hazard for the diver. You know, once you're on the bottom, you're right, there's all sorts of garbage on the bottom that can make the diver entangled. And, you know, once you put a human being in the water, the risks are really, really high. And once you start adding the depth, it just makes it even more incredibly risky. Straight out to Joe Scott Morgan joining us, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of the hit series Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, I really can't stress how dangerous that was for the divers, for the dogs out there, for everybody manipulating the boat to kind of help and facilitate the divers so far down below they can't communicate with them.
Starting point is 00:10:12 You heard that 225 feet below the surface of the water. How dangerous is that for everyone involved? And think about the planning that went in to Borgwartz's escape plan. Yeah. You want to know something about these lakes, Nancy? I've been up there before, been in this region of the country and it's beautiful. Do you know these are glacial lakes? These lakes originated as a result of the ice sheet that came over North America. This is not too far away from Lake Winnebago. These lakes are really, really deep. And he's not overstating this when you talk about
Starting point is 00:10:54 you can't see your hand in front of your face in this location. It's amazing to me that he would choose this methodology in order to try to facilitate an escape like this because these people are prepared up there with their maritime services. Now, the sheriff just a second ago said, we launched our boat. Well, everybody up there, every little jurisdiction has dive teams because these lakes are all over the place. So you can get several of these people. And this reminds me, I got to tell you, this reminds me of the runaway bride. Do you remember that all those years ago? Jennifer Wilbanks.
Starting point is 00:11:35 Yeah. Where they had to call in all of these resources to track her down. And I'm thinking about this case and all of these guys and gals that are out there on the surface of this lake. You've got people, this is in August, you've got people that are recreating out there. It's summertime. And they're going out there into this lake, this deep water, and they're risking life and limb to try to find this bozo. And, of course, they don't turn up with anything, Nancy. Let me go out to Irv Brandt joining us. Irv, longtime friend and colleague, former senior inspector with the U.S. Marshals Service, International Investigations
Starting point is 00:12:13 Branch. He has been around the world looking for felons. I want to talk about this. When you're hearing the dangers and the money, over $50,000, this little jurisdiction sunk into this, much less a lot more money from other sources, but the danger, the danger involved. It's amazing. This guy is slung up in an Uzbeki apartment with a hottie. I'm going to have to go to a shrink about what the wife and the children are going through, thinking he's dead. But of all of your travels and the children are going through thinking he's dead. But of all of
Starting point is 00:12:45 your travels and the dangers you have faced trying to track down people around the world, can you believe this guy? Nancy, this case strikes me as, out of all the cases that we've covered together, this one strikes me as the most absurd when it comes to the amount of time and the resources and the hard work put in by law enforcement agents. For someone to do this, it was completely unnecessary. If he wanted to leave, he could have just left a note and left the country. He did not have to stage such an elaborate scam to try to convince people that he was dead. He could have just... I've got a tidbit for you, Irv Brandt, waiting to hear this. Let me make sure I got it right with Christina Wayo. Christina, isn't it true that he went to the link of buying a life preserver at Walmart so he could
Starting point is 00:13:48 leave it out there to be found? Exactly. He wanted them to think he needed to sell it. He needed people to think that he had drowned. So he left. He bought it earlier in that day. He left it there so that way investigators could find it. So they would be completely thrown off the track and think that he actually drowned. What we are hearing is the wife of the Wisconsin man who faked his own death in a kayak accident. The wife has filed for separation. Do you blame her? We assembled around 8.30 that Monday morning
Starting point is 00:14:22 to get our plan in place as to what we were going to do. As you can see in the screen behind me, it shows the location of data guides that guided our search. There was a number of pings that we got from the phone that Ryan had contact with his wife. The last last one, where it shows you on there, it says last ping. That was one where he told her that he was going to be turning around and heading towards shore soon. We then got another ping around 1150-ish, and that was just the last ping that we got on the phone.
Starting point is 00:15:12 I don't know yet what he's going to face legally because he has just been busted and shown up in a court of law. But how do you explain that to your children as they grow up and start to understand what you did to their mother and to them. But the level of planning goes beyond capsizing a kayak and leaving a brand new life preserver out in the water to be found. I mean, Gregory Morse, you're in church on Sunday, and then the next day, you are leaving your fishing rod out in the water to be found and then brought to your wife to identify? I mean, I'm just projecting here, but I remember when my fiance was murdered and I was a witness in court, and I remember the first moment that I saw Keith's bloody shirt. I walked in off the witness stand and was walking by state's council table, and I saw his denim shirt covered in blood. I remember that moment.
Starting point is 00:16:14 I don't remember a lot more about it, but I remember that moment. And his wife had to identify his fishing rod? Really? Well, again, those are powerful things. He's not going to be well liked by a jury if this were to go to a jury, which it's probably not going to. It's a misdemeanor. Also, his biggest consequence here is the family situation, how he's going to be perceived. He has to deal with that now. And he's,'s he's a person who's weak, who had better options like talking to a therapist about these feelings instead of planning this ridiculous escape. And he really started planning it well before, you know, when he got the insurance policy. As he said, he thought that would take care of his family. That's why he did it when he faked his death. So this is a guy like a lot of people, Nancy, who put on a face and go around and hug
Starting point is 00:17:09 and go to church and look like altruistic, great people. But behind the scenes, they're just lost in a, you know, a real moron and a heartless person to his family. Morse. Morse. Two words. Don't care. I don't care. He's not running from his sweet potato. Nobody's going to judge him. He's not part of the swimsuit competition. I don't care who likes him or doesn't like him. But these pitiful, empathetic charges are not enough. What about insurance fraud, for Pete's sake? Didn't he? Hold on, Christina Arroyo. Didn't he get a $375,000 life insurance policy and then fake his own death? That he did. He got it back in January, seven months before, and it was for the purpose of taking care of his family.
Starting point is 00:17:54 Again, he's trying to look like the good guy here, but he needed that money to take care of his family. So that, in effect, is insurance fraud because he didn't die. He faked it. So I do believe that should be added onto it, should be an underlying factor, and he should get more than just a misdemeanor obstruction charge that faces $10,000 fine and a mere nine months in prison. Guys, not only that, there is more and very intricate planning. Listen. Through that forensic analyst, we recovered that he replaced his hard drive on the laptop. He cleared the browser on the day of his disappearance. He synced the laptop into the cloud on August 11th. He took photos of his passport.
Starting point is 00:18:49 We found out that he moved funds to a foreign bank, changing his email and communication with a woman in Uzbekistan. and used back to stand. He took out a $375,000 life insurance policy in January, and he purchased airline cards. Due to these discoveries of the new evidence, we were sure that Ryan was not in our lake. To Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert and professor of forensics, now explain to me, Joe Scott Morgan, how valuable this information is that it's going to be amassed by an insurance investigator, a fraud investigator. What length did Borgworth go through to clean,
Starting point is 00:19:47 to wipe his computer? Yeah, he did. And the idea that he synced this with this cloud, as the sheriff had pointed out just a second ago, he didn't want to lose everything that he had, all of that data. And he changed out the hard drive as well. So this is something that requires some planning. He'd even created a new email address so that he could communicate with whomever. I think what's going to be interesting is when they begin to dig into what is contained on that cloud. And I think this goes to this earlier supposition talking about how they could come forward with potential insurance fraud charges here, which is going to be huge in this particular case. They're going to put
Starting point is 00:20:30 this narrative together that he was purposed to defraud at this point in time. It's not just about him banishing off the face of the planet, but it's also that he's trying to create a new life and leaving this other one behind. And he's really got himself into, I don't know, as British would say, a bit of a sticky wicket here because he can't escape this digital footprint that he's left. Stop right there. Joe Scott, I don't appreciate the way you said he's got himself into or he landed into a sticky wicket. Okay. These things didn't just happen. He didn't just fall into computer and insurance fraud.
Starting point is 00:21:09 He did it himself. You know who you remind me of? You remind me of my felon defendants who would say, Ms. Grace, I caught a drug charge. You caught it. Like somebody threw it at you? Like you were just standing there and suddenly you have a kilo in your apartment yeah i'm not following that's not how it happened
Starting point is 00:21:30 find himself in a sticky wicket specifically counselor was that he got himself into it okay that's a that's a move on his like it's kind of an accident oh i'm in a little bit of a mess no uh-uh no he's in a hell of a lot of mess here. And we're learning, to top it all off, Borgworth's wife, Emily, has filed for a legal separation. She did that the day after Borgworth landed back on U.S. soil. In her separation petition, I'm surprised it's not a divorce petition, she states, the marriage is irretrievably broken. And she's right. On August 12, 2024, our office received a call from the Dodge County Sheriff's Office
Starting point is 00:22:29 in reference to a subject that did not return home. Ryan Borgward fails to return from kayaking on Green Lake and volunteers join law enforcement in searching for the 44-year-old father of three. That search ended far, far away when they found him slung up with his Uzbeki hottie. I wonder what made him finally come home. Did he run out of money, or was she not what he thought she would be?
Starting point is 00:22:57 Was that it? Was she not all he dreamed? Whatever. He's busted now. I've just got to see him again. Let's roll Borgwert's. Good evening. It's Ryan Borgwert. Hello, Matt. Today is November 11th. It's approximately 10 a.m. by you guys. I'm in my apartment. I am safe, secure, no problem. Hope this works.
Starting point is 00:23:32 Safe, secure, no problem. Well, I don't know about that. You know, before I go back to Christina Awayo joining us from Salem News Channel, let me go to a shrink. And, boy, do I need a shrink right now. To Dr. Judy Ho joining us. Dr. Judy, clinical forensic neuropsychologist, author of The New Rules of Attachment. And you can find her at drjudyho.com. Dr. Judy, thank you for being with us. You know, after my fiance's murder, I had a recurrent dream.
Starting point is 00:24:06 And the dream was that he wasn't really dead, that he was alive, and he just went on a walkabout. And that he came back. And in the dream, which happened over and over and over, I guess I was wrestling with his death, his murder. I don't know what I was wrestling with. I'm just a lawyer. I'm not a shrink, Dr. Judy. But how could his wife possibly reconcile this? For so many days and nights, she believed he was dead. Finds the kayak capsized. Finds the life preserver floating in the water. Finds his fishing rod, which she has to identify. And has to think every night that his body is decomposing at the bottom, 225 feet below level of the lake.
Starting point is 00:25:07 Well, Nancy, because Borgward spent so much time staging his own death, his wife, his poor wife, had to go through all of the stages of grief, from denial to anger to depression to bargaining. Well, maybe he's not dead. But as you mentioned, when we lose the ones that we love, oftentimes we're reflecting on the good times, what we could have said to them last, what was the last memory we had of them.
Starting point is 00:25:39 And she's dealing with this as well as trying to help her three children process losing their dad. Of course, as the search is going on, there's that tiny sliver of hope. But as the days go on, the longer the days go on, the more people get involved, the more she's thinking, this is hopeless. He's probably dead. We just have to accept it. And then to discover at the end of this journey that he did all of this so selfishly without regard just because he wanted to have an affair. This is completely ridiculous. And I feel so sad for the trauma that his wife and his three children have to go through
Starting point is 00:26:20 now having to reconsider all of this. who is this person who is his dad or husband that we lived our entire lives with it's not the person that they thought he was and it's not just leaving for another woman dr judy ho he left for a woman he had never met he left for the idea of a woman it just he hadn't even had an affair yet. He left because of somebody he was texting and emailing and, and snapping with to leave his wife and his children for what? An idea? That's exactly what happened. It basically, he was sick of his living his life, it seems. And he's thinking, well, this is going to be my better life. But as you mentioned, he doesn't have any experience with this woman. And I know that you've been questioning, well, why did he come back?
Starting point is 00:27:13 Maybe he came back because like you said, it wasn't the life that he thought it was going to be. I mean, what was his next recourse if he didn't come back? Was he going to design a third life? Was he going to try to run off with another person that he hasn't had a relationship with, but has the idea that maybe this is going to be the savior? I really don't know what he was thinking, but something dire must have been happening in his head. And he thought this was going to be the only solution. It is a ridiculous solution because you can't run away from whatever problems you're dealing with. They're going to follow you wherever you go. The wife is between a rock and a hard spot because she's got her three children that would probably want their bio dad with them. But I got to tell you something, Judy Ho,
Starting point is 00:27:51 I would send him back to his Beckstein COD, cash on delivery. She can pay for the postage. Here's another thing, Dr. Judy, the money, the money. You know what? You get a man. All right. Maybe they're attractive. Maybe they can dance. Maybe they can speak flowery language to you and make you feel happy. But then they mess with the money, the money, the money that you work for, the money that you're going to put in your children's education fund, your nest egg, your emergency money. This P.O.C. took the money. He didn't just leave to go have sex with a woman he's never met. OK, that's bad enough. But worse, he took the money, nearly six thousand dollars plus everything he spent to get over there.
Starting point is 00:28:45 He took the money out of the children's fund for Pete's sake. Right. nearly $6,000 plus everything he spent to get over there. He took the money out of the children's fund for Pete's sake. Right, this is clearly not a person who was thinking at all about his family. Otherwise he wouldn't be essentially making a plan to ditch them forever. When you fake your own death, there's no coming back from that, right?
Starting point is 00:28:58 I mean, in this case, obviously they discovered him, but if this plan actually went according to his own thoughts, then there is no coming back from that. You'll never see your children and wife again because they think you're dead. And even in that moment, how selfish is he to say, you know what? Who cares about their future? I'm going to secure my own future. Taking that money, it's like, what kind of relationship did he even have with these children before? I'm so curious as to what the family dynamics were before he left. Did these children actually think he was a loving, doting father who had their best interests
Starting point is 00:29:32 at heart? Well, now the children have to contend with that idea. I have a dad who doesn't love me. You know what that does to children's attachment and what they think about human beings and relationships in general? He could be creating a cascade of negative mental health outcomes for his children. And we learned that court records confirm Emily, Borgward's wife, who lives in Watertown, Wisconsin, has filed for separation almost immediately after he touched down on U.S. soil. In the documents that the wife, Emily, filed in Dodge County Circuit Court,
Starting point is 00:30:07 she said she wants full custody of their three children. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, so how did the sheriff You're viewing this, but there's a family that wants their daddy back. Okay, so how did the sheriff get him home? Listen. Christmas is coming. And what better gift he could give his kids than to be there for Christmas? That from our friends at WLUK-TV. That's Fox 11.
Starting point is 00:31:06 Well, Borgworts has landed in a whole heap of trouble in court. Look. Yes, Your Honor. Do you want me to read that to you or not? You don't have to, it's fine. The criminal don't receive a waiver of the reading. Obstructing an officer faces a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine, nine months in jail, or both. The court has reviewed the criminal complaint. That's why the probable cause for the charge. And there's more. Listen to this guy poor-mouthing. From our friends at WLUK-TV, that's Fox 11. What? He's got $20 in his wallet. I hope they don't ask the wife to pay his court fees. Straight back out to the national news anchor, Salem news channel, Ryan Borgwort in court. Those charges are not enough. I don't know who came up with those charges, but tell me what's happening now.
Starting point is 00:32:25 Is it true he walked out on a $500 bond? That is true. And I thought the very same thing when I first saw the charges. This is not enough for what he did, what he put everybody through, how much money he cost the county. But yes, they gave him, the judge gave him a $500 bond that he doesn't even have to pay unless he misses any court hearings so what was interesting about that court hearing too we talk about the the emotional family impact of all of this is his parents were in that courtroom however they didn't speak to him he was let out through one set of doors by the bailiffs and the parents were let out the back door to
Starting point is 00:33:00 avoid the reporters of course they probably didn't want to speak with him. But that emotional impact it's had on the family, apparently it looks like he might be speaking to his parents, but he definitely deserves more than a $500 bond. And he should have had to pay it, at least. And if he can't, he should be behind bars. He shouldn't be able to sit back there and think about what he's done. He just got back from a vacation from Europe, essentially hanging out with a woman that he left his family for. He just got back from a vacation from Europe, essentially hanging out
Starting point is 00:33:25 with a woman that he left his family for. He faked his own death for. He should have to sit behind bars for a little while and think about what he has done. So that bond should have been higher, and he should have been made to pay it. You know, I'm very curious. Christina, didn't the judge say he was not a flight risk? Which was also interesting. How is this guy that faked his own death? He planned it for seven months at least. How is this man that faked his own death and took off to Europe, this intricate route of Greyhound buses and hopping flights to Paris, how is he not a flight risk? Is it because he has $20 in his pocket? How do we know he's not going to get money from this mystery woman overseas? How do we know he doesn't have a stash of money in those foreign accounts? We don't know any of this.
Starting point is 00:34:09 So it doesn't make any sense to me that he is not a flight risk, considering that the very reason he's sitting in court is because he hopped out of the country. To Greg Moore's high profile lawyer joining us out of Palm Beach, this is another issue. Of course, he can be prosecuted for insurance fraud. That would be a felony given the amount of $375,000. But this is unequal treatment under the law. That's due process. Is the 14th Amendment ringing a bell in your head, Morse? Let me point out a couple of people that ended up going to jail for a Picadillo's like this. And I'll start with the one that Joe Scott Morgan brought up earlier, Jennifer Wilbanks. This is hysteria with regard to Ryan Borgwatt.
Starting point is 00:34:55 Everybody thinks people should go to prison for every indiscretion. This is absurd. The judge was absolutely right. He is not a flight risk. He came back on his own. He gave his passport up to the court. These people called the police. He's also, maybe you can charge him with attempted insurance fraud.
Starting point is 00:35:12 Put him up. What do you mean he handed over his passport? He's already made a copy and used it to get into Canada and then leave the country. And the only reason about the money is because he spent it all. Well, one, these are middle income people. It seems he had five thousand dollars, which the stories reported was life savings. So all you're going to do by keeping this guy in jail on this nonsense charge in this this ridiculous situation that is not serious criminally is to destroy his family even further because he can't work. But he you're not getting to me.
Starting point is 00:35:45 Irv Brandt, could you straighten out Gregory Morse? Irv Brandt, I know Gregory Morse is just doing the party line about he's innocent, blah, blah, blah. But what about all the money and expense and the danger that was incurred trying to find him? You know what? We just talked about Jennifer Wilbanks, the so-called runaway bride. What about Carly Russell, Irv? Listen.
Starting point is 00:36:13 Alabama nursing student Carly Russell calls 911 to report a stranded toddler on the side of a busy highway. Describing the toddler as three to four years old and only wearing a diaper, walking alone on I-459 in the Birmingham metro. Russell then calls her brother's girlfriend, tells her she's watching the toddler until police arrive, but the call ends abruptly. Police arrive at the spot Russell called from and find her wig, cell phone, and purse on the roadway near the vehicle, but Carly Russell is gone.
Starting point is 00:36:37 And we're learning, to top it all off, Emily, Borgward's wife, has filed for separation. Caitlin Armstrong murders pro cyclist Mo Wilson after Wilson goes out with Armstrong's boyfriend. Armstrong flees town right after the murder using multiple identities, changing her hair color and style and even gets a nose job. Flying from Texas to New York to Costa Rica, U.S. Marshals take a flyer and run an ad in Costa Rica.
Starting point is 00:37:04 She's arrested and flown back to Texas where she's tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. Irv Brandt, remember our target, Caitlin Armstrong, now convicted of murder? Do you remember what she put the U.S. Marshals through? I do remember, Nancy. it was an extensive search and it was very, very manpower intensive. That case, when it goes international, takes a lot of time and effort by multiple agencies to conduct the search. In the same way that the search that we're talking about today. And I disagree with defense counsel that he isn't a flight risk. This man did an elaborate plan to fake his own death.
Starting point is 00:37:53 This wasn't a spur of the moment thing. This was a very detailed, well planned out scheme to make people believe that he was dead. Then he left the country. I mean, I'm just thinking it through, Irv Brandt. Let me throw this to Judy Ho, clinical forensic neuropsychologist. To go through all of this, the wife thinking he's dead at the bottom of a lake, trying to explain it to the little boys, all just to have sex. It's just it's mind boggling that you would do that to your family and incur all the danger and expense to law enforcement trying to find him. this is obviously not reasonable. This is an incredulous attempt to get away at a situation that you're not happy about. That's fine. You're not happy with your marriage. Maybe you're not
Starting point is 00:38:51 happy right now being a father, you're going through a midlife crisis, whatever the case may be. This is obviously the worst case to handle it. Men and their midlife crises. I mean, you know what? Joe Scott Morgan, jumping off what Dr. Judy just said, but the degree of planning, the technical expertise, and, you know, you've been on plenty of homicide or missing people investigations. You know what it's like. But then the stunner of finding out he's alive and well and someone's bed in Uzbekistan for Pete's sake.
Starting point is 00:39:30 And catch this, Joe Scott, talk about evidence. He was apparently speaking to law enforcement on FaceTime every day. Yeah. To what degree do you want to try to disappear if you're not actually going to disappear? And he went to great lengths, Nancy. Remember, you know, listen, I'll speak as a man here, you know, carry a wallet. Right. And he even sacrificed that. He leaves this behind in the tackle box in order to give the impression that credit cards, driver's license, his car keys, they're all gone. They're sinking to the bottom along, allegedly with his body, which of course never pops up out of the water, which is something that we would be very interested in seeing if we were searching for a body that might be in a lake and it's not turning up. So you could smell a rat early on in this, but he did go to great lengths, Nancy, in order to try to facilitate this, but he wound up not being able to finish the deal relative to bring this to a conclusion. He didn't just fall
Starting point is 00:40:31 off of the map here. And we've had a lot of cases over the years where people did actually fall off the map. Hell, there's people all out there right now that folks are still looking for. This guy did a miserable job at attempting to do this. And all along the way, he winds up destroying his children's lives, not to mention his wife's. We wait as justice unfolds for Ryan Borgwart, but I got to tell you, justice for Borgwart may end up hurting the family and the children even more. But that is not a consideration for Lady Justice. Nancy Grace signing off. I'll see you tomorrow night, 6 to 9 o'clock, sharp Eastern.
Starting point is 00:41:13 And until then, good night, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.

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