Something Was Wrong - S14 Ep9: Mind F*ck

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

*Content warning: emotional, sexual and physical violence, child abuse, sexual coercion, non-consensual pornography, suicidal ideation.  For info on how to report a crime related to this season and share related crime tips with our team, please visit somethingwaswrong.com/14 For free and confidential resources, please visit: somethingwaswrong.com/resources For more information & to purchase tickets for Something Was Wrong Live please visit: www.moment.co/SWW To purchase SWW S14 merch, please visit: represent.com/store/somethingwaswrongArtwork by the amazing Sara Stewart @GreaterThanOkay - Instagram.com/greaterthanokayFollow Something Was Wrong on Instagram @SomethingWasWrongPodcastSWW’s theme music –  U think U by Glad Rags, from their album Wonder Under

Oh, hey, how's it going? Amazing. I just finished paying off all my debt with the help of the Credit Counseling Society. Whoa, seriously? I could really use their help. It was easy. I called and spoke with a credit counselor right away. They asked me about my debt, salary, and regular expenses,

gave me a few options, and help me along the way. You had a ton of debt. And you're saying Credit Counseling Society helped with all of it? Yep. And now I can sleep better at night. When Debt's got you, you've got us. Give Credit Counseling Society a call today. Visit no more debts.org.

Hi friends, happy Mariah Carey season. I have a few exciting announcements before we jump into today's episode. Something Was Wrong Live is almost here this Tuesday, December 13th at 6 p.m. Pacific Time. Join Season 14's Kalin, Melissa, Sarah, and myself as we broadcast live from L.A. to your devices. During this special episode recording event, Something Was Wrong is partnering with Moment. to stream live video as we dig into listener questions and updates from the season. 33% of the net proceeds from this event will be donated in Emerson and Ivy's honor to the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, which supports and promotes court-appointed volunteer advocacy for children who have experienced abuse or neglect.

The organization ensures children's safety, permanent housing, and the opportunity to thrive. For more information and to grab your tickets, head to moment.com slash something was wrong. Audio from the studio recording will be broadcast on the podcast feed at a later date. Also, y'all are the best and have been asking for season 14 merch since the artwork dropped, and I'm super stoked to share it's finally here, and 33% of the proceeds will also be donated in Emerson and Ivy's honor to the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association of Seattle. This is a limited merch drop, so grab yours while you can. Head to Something Was Wrong.com.

Thank you so much and see you Tuesday. I'm so excited. This season, guests will be sharing their own testimony in regards to the criminal allegations against Jake Gravbrot. All persons are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Guest experiences are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself.

Something Was Wrong or Wondery. At the time of this episode's airing, Jake Gravbrot has not responded to our request for comment. If you have been a victim of Jake Gravbrot or have a crime tip in relation to these matters, please visit Something Was Wrong.com for more information. All names of minors involved in this story

have been changed for their privacy and protection. Some survivor names have also been changed for anonymity and safety. purposes. Season 14 covers a variety of mature topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence. Content warnings for each episode and resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes. The podcast or any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening.

The four of us, when we got on board, we were like, okay, we're all going to post and we'll share everything that we can. We went public. Each of us were like, we're not going to be anonymous anymore. We're just going to post about ourselves and our stories and own it. We put the evidence as much as we could that was tangible evidence that people could see, whether it was screenshots or court documents, anything along those lines.

We were deciding what we would post, what we wouldn't. But the plan was we would put it all out there and leave it. And that way, if anybody searched for him, they would find that Instagram and would be able to see it. It was never something that we were like, oh, yeah, we'll continue to post on here. I don't think any of us even thought we were going to get other people reaching out to us. So when the other women started following,

a lot of it was word of mouth. We weren't really doing anything to advertise us. I think people were talking about the Instagram and sharing it with their friends. Like, oh, did you see this? We would get sometimes upwards of 100 friend requests today that we would have to go through. I was trying to be extremely careful, like, hey, we should look up what is allowed and what isn't. They weren't venting posts. They were very matter of the fact.

Like, hey, this is my experience. Take without what you will. You can't really say what someone's going to do. You can provide the patterns and let them piece together what someone's behavior is probably going to be. I feel like that was really our only duty. I think people can really change. I hope that he changes and becomes a better person, but I think if you're looking at the patterns

and what he's done up until this point, it's just truly not in the cards for him or he has no true desire to change. This guy's been at the bottom of the barrel, rock bottom, and still has not chosen to change any of his behavior. I don't know that that day will ever come for him. With that said, I wanted other people who might have been affected or would consider dating him

to really see. for themselves and do without information what they will. So we make the Instagram public. From the Instagram, we learned a lot about his narrative and what he was spinning. It sounded like he was maybe morphing Mimi and I into one person so that he didn't have to kind of explain which ex-wife he was talking about. As far as this podcast goes, when you're listening, to certain women's accounts will say what he said.

And it might not match up to what it should match up to. That's by design. I think he did that on purpose. The same goes with Ivy and Emerson. I think that he says, my daughter, he groups Ivy and Emerson into one person. Or maybe is just acknowledging Emerson and disregarding Ivy, which is also awful and horrendous. I remember going and following people that I had remembered that had stuck out in our time period together. And sure enough, we were kind of laughing. I was like 20 for 20, each of them that I had.

had followed, they reached out with a story. And this is when a change happened for me of really trusting my gut. I don't think your gut leads you astray. And getting that kind of confirmation really helped me heal in so many ways. The whole time it was reopening some wounds and replaying so many things in my head. That was off and this was off and this was what was truly happening at the time. So many women came forward with like, yeah, like I was with him right before this trip and this trip. We all have different stories and different narratives of the exact same thing. It was a wild ride. That page started getting circulated in the Seattle area. And before I knew, we're getting hundreds of follows a day. It happened so fast, I didn't even know what was happening and we didn't

know what to do with it at that point. February is when I found out about the Instagram. March is when it took off. Women started coming forward. My name's Kit and I met Jake on Facebook dating. We dated for approximately a month. Jake's profile, he described himself as a kind and gentle man. We chatted a lot on the app and then we exchanged numbers. We chatted pretty constantly all day long. He was super charming, funny, attentive, all the things that you want somebody to be asking all the right questions, all the right answers.

He really pushed to meet that day. And normally I probably would have such. no, this sounds funny, but it was my hair washing night. And I'm usually like, yeah, it's my hair washing night. I don't want to go anywhere. But he was so attentive. I was just out of a bad relationship. I really wanted to keep that momentum. Because as we know in online dating, people are talking to lots of people. And if you're not attentive and engaged in that moment, they move on to the next person. I was enjoying the conversation. And he pushed to meet that night. He lives kind of on the other side of town for me, and he got a jump bike and rode to my neighborhood bar in the rain,

which I thought was super sweet. He opened doors. He paid for everything. He was very quiet, soft-spoken, thoughtful in his conversation and his responses. I think we were at the bar for like four or five hours. He asked to hold my hand. We like to do a lot of the same things. We had a really nice time. The only thing I can think of looking back that was a red flag, I feel like any time a man doesn't have visitation with a child, that's something to really pause and think about why that is. I drove him home that night because it was pouring down rain.

He'd driven on the bike that way. We talked in the car for another lengthy amount of time when I got there. He invited me in. I didn't go. He kissed me on the cheek and told me that he'd love to see me again tomorrow. I left feeling like things were great. We continued to see each other pretty frequently every couple days until there was a blow up. Looking back, I can see, oh my God, why didn't I stop this then? I had started to notice some things that Jake could be

really pessimistic, kind of easily irritated when things didn't go smoothly. Like if traffic was really bad. He would be in the car just like relentlessly bitching. I'm not a negative person, so that would bother me. One of the reasons I've chosen to be anonymous is that I'm HSV positive, which I shared with Jake on our second date and was not a big deal to him, but concerning that he was probably sleeping with other women at the same time without using protection. I know at least one woman on the pages had said that she thought that he had given her, I believe it was gonorrhea in her throat. There's that concern as well that I don't think he takes his sexual health. He doesn't make it a priority. Our first day, he paid for everything, but we were just at this little dive bar and we

drank beers and whiskeys, whatever, bill was probably 30 bucks. The second night when we went out, We went to watch the sunset at this cute little park. And then we went out and he forgot his wallet. After our first date, Jake never ever paid for anything. He constantly talked about how broke he was and how he didn't make any money and how he had to save every penny for this custody battle for his daughter. He really presented it in a way that you felt sorry for him. But yet, he always seemed to have money.

We went to the North Face outlet because he basically all he wears is North Face. And he bought bags and bags of clothes. Later, he had money that he claimed that he got from a benefactor and he bought an electric bike. And then it was, hey, can you step at REI and pick up this helmet for me and I'll pay you back? I pick up the helmet, which was stupid expensive. Of course he never paid me back. We went to REI and he needed to go to work afterwards. We were at his house. I offered to drive him down there. We got to REI, and we kind of had a small window of time. I needed to get something. He needed to get something. I got what I needed, and I went to find him. One of the things that I noticed is sometimes in stores and things he would walk really far ahead of me. We went there together, but it didn't feel like we were there together. I went and found him, and I was just like, hey, you know, I think we've probably got to get going. You're going to be late.

He ignored me and I walked away. And then when we got to the car, I didn't have the parking ticket. No big deal, whatever. Like, they'll let you out. So I'm not upset about it. And he is flipping out. He's like, I can't believe you lost the fucking ticket. He's just making this big dramatic thing about it.

And I'm like, it's okay. They're going to let us out. He said, you're probably going to have to pay the full day rate. And I said, you know what, Jake, I don't care. If I have to pay the full day rate, it's fine. He's like, wow, that's such a waste of money. It must be nice to have all this money to waste. When I'm struggling to take care of my kids, I, at this time, shut up.

We get to the exit, and there's a woman who, I don't know what her deal was, but she's trying to back out. I have a big car of an SUV. And so I'm trying to back it out, not my strong skill. It's also really narrow. And he's yelling at me the whole time about how I'm going to fuck up my car and how stupid I am. I'm like stunned. I'm sitting there literally in total silence. The woman backs out and I pull up to the call box where you would normally pay for your ticket.

I push the button and they don't answer right away. And he literally screams in my face that he didn't have time to be late because of a careless bitch and he was going to go in and get the ticket. So he gets out of the car and slams the door and I'm just sitting there. like, what the fuck just happened? They come on and I'm like, hey, I lost my ticket. They're like, oh, yeah, no big deal. They let me out.

I don't pay for anything. I park across the street and I, like, his stuff is still in my car. Finally, he comes back to the car. It's like 15, 20 minutes later. We could have already left. He would have been home by now. And he gets in the car, slams the door, and starts yelling at me again. So I'm driving him home in complete silence.

he yells the entire way, and now he is late. We get there and he gets out, slams the door, walks away. He texted me after that apologizing, telling me how I had put his job at risk, and by doing that, potentially ruined his ability to see his daughter because he wasn't going to be able to pay all of this money that he owes for back child support. At the appointment I had after that, I was recounting the story to my friend, who turns out knew him. was able to share some rather scary things about Jake.

I don't want to use her name, but she knew him personally. And when I was describing him, because we always talk about my dating life, she was like, wait, I know this guy. And she was like, oh, my God, you need to stop dating him right away. She said, I know that when he was in a relationship with Mimi, he had multiple affairs. She said that she was positive that he had a history of domestic violence and assault. And in her words, God only knows what else he has done that people don't know about. She said he was an awful, awful person.

Had someone told me this in the beginning, I probably would have been like, what? Because he presents so calm, so chill and unbothered. I went home and I decided to do a background check. My advice to any woman who is thinking about dating someone seriously, always do a background check. I learned that lesson from this. And when I did the background check, it was eye-opening. Sure enough, it's domestic violence, so it doesn't tell you who or why. And I found out later, at least one of those charges was against his child.

But after that, after I found the domestic violence charges and looked at his record, I never responded to his text again. And I never saw him again. he had sent me the message apologizing. I hadn't responded. He sent me a message again saying, hey, I just want to apologize again. You know, I was so frustrated, but then also blaming me because of you. This happened.

I didn't respond. And then later that I think it was that afternoon or the next afternoon. He messaged me again. But it was like, oh, so now you're just not going to talk to me. You did this. I never responded. And then I never heard from him again. Did he ever film you?

without your consent? I don't know, but after I read all of the comments in there, that has been a concern. Did he ever ask to film you? No. During sex, he was constantly asking for consent. And at first, it was like, oh, that's so nice. And then after we'd slept together a couple times, it made me wonder what had happened in the past that made him.

I never once thought I was being filmed. I thought that something had maybe happened previously, and he was just being super careful. Now I have definite concerns that I was taped. Ironically, both of my sons live a few blocks from Jake, and I was driving my one son home after lunch, and I was like, ugh, that's where that Jake lives, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wait a minute, you probably know him

because my one son's super involved in social justice movement in Seattle. He was like, oh, my God, you went on a date with him. All I've heard is what a dick that guy is. Two days later, my son saw the page. It was being shared in the social justice movement groups, kind of as a warning to women. My son sent it to me and he was like, oh my God, Mom, you have to look at this.

At first, I thought it was Jake's page. Like, he posted something dumb, which would have been unusual for him because I think he keeps a pretty tight rain on his social media. When I opened it, I started reading all the accounts of women. Hi, I'm Maria. My story starts with Jake personally in 2021. I had originally heard about him in 2020 because he worked for a company called Converge,

which was covering the protests here in Seattle. I was really drawn to the photojournalism and the rawness that was being captured and the important message that was going out. I thought, wow, this person is really dedicated to the cause and found it admirable. and was drawn into that. We had matched on Tinder, January 2021. He had in his bio converge. His bio was really captivating and well-written,

aligning with the things that I was looking for and somebody that I was interested in. He had great photos, but he never reached out. I never reached out. I dropped off the app. I dated somebody briefly for like six months. December, I saw on Instagram. They suggest friends or suggest people you may know.

based on people that you follow. At the time I followed Converge. I was like, this person looks familiar and wow, we were converged. I didn't really put two and two together that it was the Tinder person until later. I started following him on Instagram. I was drawn to his photos

and drawn to the captions. We started bantering a little bit back and forth based on his stories or like different things happening in Seattle. It was very basic. As the days went on, it became a little more personal with little tidbits here and there.

It was also right before Christmas. and I was very much in a place where I wanted to connect with somebody and it felt good. I'd just come out of this relationship. And so the connection was something that I definitely was very drawn to. The conversation was great. He was very complimentary. And we ended messaging back and forth constantly one night. He was like, I'm working at the studio.

Would you like to FaceTime? It'd be easier because I'm editing photos. I was like, oh, sure, that would be great. We ended up FaceTiming for several hours and having great conversations. It turned into like a little more precise. personal details. I was like, well, this person seems really cool. It seems like somebody that I would want to get to know and hang out with. I just wasn't really sure if it was on the same level that he was feeling the same way. I was also like, well, with men these days, they're very much like,

I don't want to text you or I don't even want to make a phone call. So I was very drawn by the fact that he was interested in wanting to FaceTime. Like, this is a mature man. He's not afraid of this kind of stuff. The next day, we're texting back and forth quite a bit. He was bringing me along, so to speak, via text. I was like, well, this is great. This is kind of fun. During the conversations he was at work or he was with Amari, what I gathered from the conversations that we had together about Converge and Omari.

And also what the post that kind of like drew me to him was a picture of him and Amari at, I believe it was a baseball game. And it was this long caption about how Amari is a mentor and Mari's a friend. He's much more than a friend. He's become family. And it was very much like, we are close. When he and I were texting that the second day or a third, day, Amari was with him. We messaged during that day. He said, hey, I have tickets to the Nutcracker

with my work. Are you interested in going? I have an extra ticket. And I was like, wow, okay, a man that wants to go to the Nutcracker. Wow, this is interesting. I was like, yeah, let me see what I can do. I would love to go. He made it seem like, oh, wow, I wasn't planning on taking anybody. I normally go to these things alone. Oh my gosh, I got to go home and change. Freshen up. I'm going to cut my hair. I want to look good for you. And I was like, oh, wow, okay. He's very much like, he's very much like, I usually go to things alone. I don't have anybody to take with me. I love this, which now we know is blatant lies.

It's just these small little details that you notice later about little things to get women to feel like, oh, wow, he knows what he's doing. And meanwhile, I'm thinking, what a compliment. He's decided to come out of his shell and invite me to a lovely event. I went and picked him up. We go into the Nutcracker.

We're seated in front of one of the converge people and they're lovely. I don't think he introduced me, but they were definitely friends and very friendly. It wasn't just like, I didn't introduce you because I didn't have the person's name. Later, Amari came up and was like, hey, Jay. They were like very cordial. He doesn't introduce me, but I'm sitting there waiting for him.

These are his friends, but he didn't. For the first half, we were definitely sitting there awkwardly. You don't know whether to like sit too close or, you know what I mean? So you're just kind of sitting there, a little frozen. Once the intermission happened, we were walking around. Amari came up and was talking to Jake and they were chit chatting. He took a picture of Jake and I together at the Nutcracker. But what I thought was interesting was the conversion people were all hanging out in a group,

and he didn't really take me and usher me over to that group. It was very much like us separate from them. And I thought that was kind of weird. I tend to be more of a people pleaser. So later I would ruminate on, oh my gosh, was I being standoffish? I was hard on myself for that happening. We went in for the second act. I made a move our arms touch.

And then we started holding hands and he kind of moved in and hand on the leg and stuff like that. And it was like, oh, this feels nice. When it was over, said goodbye to everybody. At that point in my head, I'm like, oh, it might be fun to hang out with this person after. But it's very awkward. I was driving him home. And I was like, oh, where was that place that you wanted to take me? He's like, oh, we'll do it another time.

And he got weird about it. I was like, okay, whatever. We drive him to his house and he was like, oh, do you want to come up? And I was like, okay, so I found a place to park. The area that he lives in is not necessarily an area that I would be feel safe as a woman walking in by myself. What's late at this point is 10 o'clock, I'm dressed up, I'm wearing four-inch heels. So we park down around the block. He's holding my hand.

Some of the things that I really enjoyed about him was that we had a lot of similar interest in traveling and national geographic and photography and more than just boring subjects. We'd come up and it's cute. He invites me to sit down and we'd engage in conversation about his favorite books and about his trips. He would show me some of his photos from the trip that he just went on with Converge to Mexico. It was very much just really kind of innocent conversation revolving around shared likes. I felt very comfortable. We were getting closer. This was a person that I could maybe like start to trust.

We didn't weren't touching. We weren't kissing. We weren't doing anything like that. But we were just enjoying each other's company or so I thought. Then he said, oh, do you want to see the photos from the trip? I said yes. And so we moved to his couch and he was showing me them on his TV. It was nice. We start kissing.

It was fine and whatnot. But then he started to ask, is this okay? Are you okay with this? Like every minute. At first, when he was asking for consent, like if he moved his hand or something, I was like, oh, that's nice. Wow. A man that's wanting to be consent.

sensual in understanding that I can say yes or no at any point. I was like, wow, that's great. But then as the moments were on and it kept happening, it seemed more forced. Now looking back, like something had happened in the past that he was now covering his bases. And it was more about him and less about me. We're making out and things got a little more hot and heavy. And he was like, hey, do you want to stay the night? I was like, okay, let me see. We moved to the bed. and we were just kind of laying down and making out. At first I was like, I don't want to have sex. Let's just enjoy this, you know.

So we made out for a while. And then the way that he was touching me was more like he was wanting to, in some ways, wear me down to consent to him, to having sex. And eventually I did give in. And he was like, are you sure, are you sure? In the back of my mind, I was torn. I was like, yes, no, yes, no. I want to, like the body says yes.

It's a hard thing to figure out. At the end of, I'm like, yeah. I was like, do you have a condom? He got a condom and we had sex. Then he was like, are you spending the night? Are you spending the night? He was very insistent on me spending the night. I don't normally like spending the night either.

That's not something I like to do normally. But I also was like, it's in the middle of the night and I don't necessarily feel comfortable walking to my car. So I stayed the night. I didn't sleep. I was tossing attorney and he was out. Where I had parked, I had to be moved by, I believe it was 7 a.m. My alarm went off and I was hurriedly getting ready.

I knew that he had to be up. And so I was expecting him to walk me to my car or get up and see me to the door. And it was very much like, don't let the door hit you on the way out type of thing. I was like, okay. And so I was just getting ready and walking out. I just kind of glance up in his room. And I was like, is that a camera? And I was like, no, it can't be.

And I knew that he had a camera in his living room. In my mind, I was like, he wouldn't have a camera. I'm just tripping. That's not a camera. Somebody wouldn't do that. It was just so foreign to me that that would even be a possibility later. I discovered the Instagram page and I was like, oh my God, I'm not tripping. This is crazy.

So I left and I was carrying my shoes in my hand and still kind of dark and I'm walking to my car in an unsafe neighborhood. He didn't even get out of bed. He was just like, the door will lock behind you on no way out. It was that day that things started to get weird. It was right around Christmas, so I was trying to be a little more cognizant of the fact that the holidays are hard. He had talked about a daughter that his ex-exam. ex-wife had taken away from him and he had this well sob story that was definitely trying to paint her as horrible mom separating him from his daughter. He was like, the holidays are hard for me.

And I was like, I understand. I would try to reach out. And he was very abrupt in his texts. They were very much delayed. It was opposite of what it had been when he was trying to pursue me. The holidays happened. He's like, I'm staying home. He made this big deal about, I can't believe people are getting together for the holidays. People are getting together in the group, but just disgust me. I'm going to hang out at home for several days. And I'm like, dude, you just went to the nutcracker. What are you talking about?

I get both points, but don't try to like, oh, now I want my alone time and make it a thing. I reached out to him a little bit and I was like, Merry Christmas. He didn't really respond. Another thing is, at the time, he had three phones, if not four phones. And so I was like, what phone number do I have? As the days went on, he was being less responsive. and actually over the Christmas thing, he didn't even respond to me.

It was several days later. I was still reeling and healing from the relationship that I was in before, that I was very raw and very sensitive to these kind of rejections, like, oh no, what did I do? Type things. It was several days after the holiday,

we started messaging back and forth and he was very curt and like, you're being too much. The holidays are hard on me. It was a very different tone, blaming me, like, you're overwhelming me with messages. I'm like, I'm not.

It was just such a bait and switch that I was stunned. We started messaging back and forth a little bit and it turns sexual. We're messaging and I'm getting into it. And I'm like, oh, this guy's, he was just no funk. This is a way to reconnect or whatever. I don't know. I wasn't looking for a serious boyfriend.

I was looking for something very casual, for just casual and sex-based. That could be great. At one point, he's like talking about, I don't know how graphic I can be. but like he's talking about he's like hard and he's like you should come do something about it for me. Otherwise I will need to take care of it myself. Kind of making me feel bad like this is your fault.

He was at work. They had offices downtown and he would be in the office editing videos for his video series. And he was like, this is my make of break. I have to focus on my career. I can't do anything else. I have to spend all my extra free time editing. So he was there in the office editing various things for his video series that they were helping him produce. He was like, I'm at work right now.

Why don't you come down? We can mess around. He's like, there's a shower locker room. And I was like, okay, this sounds kind of fun and like a little scandalous. But it was also, he was very much pressuring me in some ways. I was with family at the time. He's like, tell him that you need to run to the store for provisions. I was like, okay, fine, I'll come down.

I drove in the snow. He gives me the directions. And he's outside meeting me and lets me in. And it's this very old downtown Seattle building, palatial lobby. like marble, it's gorgeous. He walks me through this service door down this very beige hallway. He gets to this door and he points.

He's like, through that door is the studio. We can't go in there because it's covered with cameras. And then he opens this door and it's like a cell. There's a shower stall. There's a shower bench. There's a toilet. There's a sink. And he's automatically grabbing me.

I'm into it. So it's like I wasn't not consenting. But I was like, oh, this is weird. You know, he sits down. and he's wanting me to go down on him. I do. He pulled his camera out and he was filming us. I gave my consent because like, if I'm okay with it, then it's one thing.

But if I'm not knowing about it, it's another. So I was like, yeah, that would be great. That could be something fun for us to watch later. And then he was just like, let's have sex for a minute. But he didn't have a condom. And I was like, uh, we did it for like really quick. And then I was like, I don't feel comfortable with this. Before I could even say, he pushed me off of him.

He's like, get off. get off and then shoved my head back down onto him because he was coming too quickly, I guess. The fastest it had started, it ended. Once it was over, he was sort of being nice, but he got really weird. I'm buckling up my pants and he's readjusting himself. As quickly as it started, he's assuring me back out the door, back through the lobby, doesn't walk me to my car, doesn't even watch me walk to my car. He stands up the door and is like, bye.

What the fuck just happened? I just got fucking used and this dude got weird because perhaps his performance wasn't up to his standards or he got embarrassed or whatever. After I left, I was like, it was nice seeing you.

I had a good time. I was trying to smooth it over. Again, I'm a people pleaser so I'm in my feelings, but I'm trying to make it feel okay. I made a comment, oh, send me the video. I bet it's hot or whatever.

And he just got weird. He's like, I got to go back to work. And I was like, okay. He was going to walk home. I was like, let me know you got home. okay, it's really icy out there. His walk was uphill.

As the night wore on, he didn't check in with me. I finally reached out. I was like, did you get a home safe? And he's like, yep, very short, very curt answers. And I was like, what the fuck is happening? Why is this person being so weird and so standoffish and so rude? He kept refusing to send me the video that he took of us in the locker room. When I would ask him, he would just ignore the question or be like, oh, it's on, on my other phone.

He finally sent me a message and said something along the lines. I told you this is make a break time of my career. And I have to focus on working. You are pushing past my personal boundary when I've asked for space. And I've asked you not to text me. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Where is this coming from? We've gone from bantering at a regular level to you now being like, don't text me at all.

It's just very weird. He kept using the word boundaries. He was using it in a way to invoke like I did something wrong. He's like, you're violating my boundaries. I try to be very aware of what personal boundaries are. I want people to be respectful of mine. When he said that, I was like, oh, no. And I felt very guilt-ridden.

I sent a text. I apologize. I understand what you're doing. I was very contrite with how I felt I had wronged him. And he was just like, thank you. I realized that he had blocked me on Instagram stories. And I was like, what the fuck? This is weird.

I said, why did you block me? Did I do something wrong? That was his response to that. After that boundary's conversation, I think that I reached out to him a couple times, like, oh, I saw this post or I saw something like, oh, this remind me of you. You might be interested in it. We had some shared interest. And he would respond cordially, but nothing eliciting any sort of, oh, I'd like to see you again

or anything like that. It was very businesslike. I was in my feelings, feeling very raw about it, trying to navigate what had happened, basically. It just felt like a mind fuck. I sent him a podcast about a subject that we enjoyed, and he wrote back, I don't listen to podcasts. I'm too busy. I'm not a podcast person. It was very rude, and I was like, oh my fucking God, fuck you, basically. I didn't say that. I blocked his number.

I deleted him and blocked him on all social media. I went dark, essentially. I was like, I need to go off social media. This is too much. I just need a time to breathe. that was the last interaction that I had with him. And it wasn't until, I think a month later, like at the beginning of February, I think it was, that I reactivated my account. And I don't know if it was like people you might know. I don't remember exactly how I found the Jake page.

And I was like, oh, maybe he has a new Instagram. So I looked at it. And then I looked at the caption. I was like, wait, what? Because it's talking about survivors of the abuse. I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I friend did it. And once I was accepted, I fell down the right.

rabbit hole of their posts, their stories, and I commented on one of them. And it started a conversation with us, and they're like, may we ask how you know Jake? And so I told them my story, what I just told you. Everything was making sense. It was very healing to me. Oh, I'm not crazy. This person is a psychopath. This person is an abuser. This person absolutely has no morals, is a user. And every single thing that this person told me is a straight-up lie. I was delving into one of their posts, I think it was maybe from Kalyn about finding the recordings of other women on his computer. And I was like, my gut was not wrong. My gut was absolutely spot on. So much makes sense. I felt heard once I found the page. I hate that this has been something that many, many women have encountered with him.

I was just very stunned. Stunned and also like, oh, wow, I knew, I knew some wasn't right. I can trust my instinct. They say like the five stages of grief. My next was anger. How fucking dare you? You know what I mean? Wow. This is what you're doing. Now that this has happened, like where do I go from here? What's the next step? What's the next move? What's the level of accountability that will be held? What is the legal ramifications for him doing this? There's video of me and I assume that there is. I want him held accountable for that. It's heartbreaking to see so many women having the same story, but it corroborates what he is capable and what he has done.

I think that with this podcast, what's going to happen because he traveled so much for work is that I think that his abuses spanned countries and spanned states. Some of the videos that I saw from that page of him yelling, I was so thankful that my time with him was so limited. And my heart goes out to the women that endured for so much, longer, it's just mind-boggling to me the damage that he's done. When one of the women mentioned to me about doing this podcast with you, I said, listen, if it saves somebody, then it's worth it.

Because he's not stopping. He's still on social media apps. He's still out. Somebody saw him in a date recently. I don't think that he has it within him to stop. So if it saves anyone from going down that same road, it's definitely worth it. Hi, I'm Clementine. I met Jake on Tinder in February of 2021. We matched and started talking a lot. Some days we would talk all day and then I wouldn't really hear from him. We were trying to make plans to meet up. This was during COVID before vaccine, so dates were very much like, let's go walk and talk. I made it pretty clear to him that I didn't want to meet during the night because of a previous assault on a first date. This sticks out to me more than most anything. I told him that I wanted to meet during the day

just for safety reasons. And he said to me, I protect women at all costs. That was like, oh, this guy gets it. I'm always on alert. Like most women are willing to meet someone for the first time. But I was like, okay, that's a good sign. We meet up, and we decided to walk around and get to know each other.

I gave him a hug. And he said, I haven't been hugged in months, which I was like, oh, how sweet. I'll hug you. We watched the sunset. We had an amazing conversation. I felt a connection with him. One of my biggest passion in life is hiking. I don't really need a lot of hikers, especially men with lots of tattoos who like good

music, who want to talk about hiking. So I was really excited about that. And we seemed to connect. He was really charming but respectful. We went to dinner. He paid. He didn't make any moves. We walked and talked for a few more hours.

And I was the one who was like, hey, why don't we go back to your place? I definitely wasn't thinking anything more than just like more chatting. But I was enjoying myself. This is during COVID. and I was really lonely. We had been locked down for like a year. Throughout the night, he made a lot of jokes about his ex-wife. He was very casual about it.

Like, oh, ha, ha, she's in Seattle. That's why it's rating over there because she's there. He was recently divorced when we met. When we got back to his apartment, he went into it more, said that she was abusive and that she had gained weight and didn't want to sleep with him. And he had told her how beautiful she was all the time. She didn't want to hear it.

He did this little thing where he, like, danced around and said, marriage is a dance. And like, she didn't want to dance with me anymore. I, like most women, have had fucking body image issues my entire life. And so when I'm with this guy, I'm always insecure on a first day, wondering if I think I'm ugly, did he was telling me, oh, yeah, I thought she was beautiful no matter what. And she just didn't want to hear that.

It made me feel more secure. It's not judgmental. Maybe he's body positive. It was all these little things that I'm like clocking the entire time. After everything I've heard, I think everything that came out of his mouth was for a reason or for some kind of manipulation. There were some things as we kept talking that I was like, hmm, that's a little odd. The thing that sticks out to me the most was he was telling me the story about his cancer and how he owned a salon at the time. Then he, this beautiful story about how he always wanted neck tattoos, but he didn't want his grandparents to be disappointed in him.

But he decided to do it anyway, and that's when they found the cancer. He had this long battle with cancer that changed his perspective on life. And he told me at the same time that his wife left him with his daughter. He's like, yeah, she just disappeared for no reason. She wouldn't even tell me why. I was going through all this stuff and she abandoned me. I've noticed in my life whenever people have stories of someone who's very close to them leaving and they say they don't know why or they don't understand it,

there's always a fucking reason. Another thing he kept doing to her at the night was mentioning to me. I think this was another ploy for sympathy that his mother had never held him as a child. He didn't know how to love people because his mom never loved him. That was one of those things I was like, oh, God, this is another thing that got sympathy. Like the I haven't been touched in months or whatever. I was like, oh, this poor guy. I think a lot of women, at least women that I know are like, I want to be able to give you a little love, right?

So that definitely played to my empathetic, compassionate. I want to show you some sweetness, right? It's something I've been thinking about mostly since Jake. It's just so hard to even wrap your head around that kind of shit because I just can't even, I can't even imagine doing that to someone. So it's wild to try to get into the head of someone who thinks that way. We kept talking throughout the night. These little red flags were coming up.

Now, in hindsight, maybe big red flags. He was texting someone in the whole night. He told me he was texting his son. I'm assuming that it was probably just a woman or one of his girlfriends he had at the time. We kept talking, we were listening to music. I'm sober, so we were not, drink. or anything like that. And then it was like two in the morning.

At that point, I decided, I think this guy's hot, which pains me to say now. And so I kissed him. And then we just made out for a long time. I didn't want to have sex with him because I don't generally sleep with someone that I just met. But we just kept kissing. And then I was the one who's like, well, let's do that. He was really, really respectful the whole night.

He never pushed it. He didn't make the first move. I was the one that kind of initiated everything. And then I was going to leave because, I'm a horrible sleeper. I can't sleep even in my own bed. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go. And he begged me to stay. He's like, please, please, please don't go. Please stay. I really like you. I want to see you first thing in the morning. Please just stay and cuddle with me. And I was like, well, okay, men generally aren't like that. Cool. So I stayed and we had sex a few more times.

And in the morning, he was sweet and kissed me goodbye and said, I'll talk to you soon and I'll see you again. That was our first day. And then he hit me up pretty much immediately after that. So I think our first interaction, There were some stuff where I don't think this person's going to be like a long-term person in my life, but he seems interesting. He's really, really intense. I think that was part of what drew me to him. I took that intensity to be passionate about photography and hiking and nature and life. So I was kind of excited, even though I knew it was just probably going to be a casual fun thing.

We would text and then I wouldn't hear from him for a while. It was very hot and cold. I have a total anxious attachment style, so that triggered the fuck out of me. It made me feel more attached. Like, oh my God, this guy doesn't want to talk to me. I got to get him. He would text me and then he did tell me at one point. He's like, I don't think I'm emotionally available for a relationship.

And I was like, okay, that's fine. Well, we can still hang out. We didn't see each other for a while. I think it was about two weeks. He got back from a trip to the Grand Canyon. I just hit him up one night. I was like, hey, how's it going? He's like, hey, I'm in your neighborhood.

I'll be there in 10 minutes. I was like, what the fuck? It was 11 o'clock at night. But I was like, okay, cool, we'll sleep over. He came over. and I was like, let me see your pictures from the Grand Canyon. And this is one thing that sticks out in my mind, too. The very first time I met him, he showed me his pictures of Zion.

There's this really famous hike there called Angels Landing that is terrifying. You got to be on the edge. Super scary for someone that hates heights. First time I met him, he was like, man, I faced my fears. I did it. And I was so scared and I was shaking. But I faced my fears because I hate heights so much. When he came over the second time, he was showing me pictures from the Grand Canyon.

And I was like, oh, wow, you're on the edge. Was it hard for you because you hate heights? And he looked at me like I was a fucking alien. He was like, what are you talking about? I love heights. I was like, what I didn't say anything. I was like he completely told me last time how hard it was when he was high up last time. And now he's acting like I'm nuts for thinking that.

That was another one of those things where I was like, hmm, something about this guy feels off. We talked a lot and then we hooked up. Again, it was fine aside from one thing. We were having sex and it was getting. playfully rough, I guess you could say, which I'm fine with. But then he slapped me, I think, on my back. He's like, are you sleeping with anyone else right now? And I was like, no. It kind of made me sad that he asked that because when I like someone, I just want to see them. He's like, oh, I don't care, but I'd want them to see the marks I leave on you. It kind of broke my heart, like,

while we're having sex and he would say that to me. Weirdly, it was something that I didn't even really think about until later, until I met someone else through this. And I was telling her my experience. And I was like, oh, yeah, that made me feel pretty, pretty terrible. When I found like that, sorry, I think this is one of the hardest parts when you talk about, when I found all this stuff out later, and I saw the pictures of his daughter, and then remembering he said that to me, it was the biggest mind fuck.

As a child, the same things were done to me that he did to his daughter. The whole thing, it was just so sick, seeing those things and realizing what he'd said to me and done to me and knowing he'd done it to so many other people. It just was really hard to process. That was our second time together. He didn't ask him. He could say I didn't invite him to stay.

He fell asleep immediately after we were done having sex. I was up and hanging out and looking at him and I was like, I like this person, but there's something about him that I can sense there's something not right here. I couldn't put my finger on it. There was just an unease I felt with him. But I didn't want to believe it. I definitely ignored my intuition. even though I wanted to see him again,

but I knew that, like, this person's not good for me. I'm trying to heal my attachment wounds. I cannot be hanging out with this guy because he's all the wrong things for me. I didn't contact him for a while, and I didn't hear from him, which I was annoyed by, but also grateful for. And then one day I was like, man, I need to have sex. So I hit him up. He was like, hey, I'm kind of heading out of town.

If you want to come over and we can have some fun, and then I took him to the airport afterwards. This time, it was pretty quick. We went over. He seemed completely uninterested in. and anything about me. We had sex, and I was going down on him, and I looked up.

He had his phone out, and he was recording me. And I was just like, what the fuck? You didn't ask? And when I noticed, he was like, is this okay? And I was like, uh, in those moments, I just froze. I didn't know what to say. I'm like, performing oral sex on this man, and I look up and he's filming me.

It was an out-of-body experience, and I didn't know what to do. So I just said, okay. You're with someone, and you're doing the most intimate things with them, and then you look up and they're doing something like that you would, I would have never thought I would have looked up and seen that. It was done like five seconds later. And then I drove him to the airport and said goodbye. Immediately deleted his contact information.

I blocked him on Instagram. For some reason, I'd feel drawn to this person and I don't even really trust myself enough to like not reach out to him again in a month or two when I'm lonely. So I deleted everything myself. A friend of mine, he contacted me and he said, hey, what was the name of that guy with the face tattoos you went out with? I said, his name's Jake.

He's like, my friend Carrie's dating him and I need you to warn her. And keep in mind at this point, all I knew was my experiences. I didn't know any of this other shit yet. The Instagram page was not a thing yet. So I sent her a couple of waste memos. And I was like, hey, girl, like make your own choices. I just told her about what happened between him and I. I was like, there was something about him.

I don't think you should do it. He's kind of fucked up. Stay away. A couple days later, that same thing, friend who connected me with Carrie. He goes, hey, Carrie's really freaking out about that Instagram page. And I was like, what an Instagram page? And he sends it to me. I mean, honestly, fuck, too. Like, it took me a couple weeks to even. I felt like I was in a haze. Seeing this person I had been intimate with and close with, what a fucking monster he was.

The child abuse was the thing that definitely really destroyed me and broke my heart. It was all shocking. I knew this guy was like bad news. I had no clue. that he was capable of all of the things. The actual stories of the women that he had told me about, like his wife that just disappeared reading her story and what had actually happened was shocking reading Mimi's story, him actually berating her and abusing her. There was one woman who posted text messages between her and Jake

where he was basically, God, this would make me so sick. He was talking about how funny it is the way he treats women, like, oh, I fucked this girl. and I saw her walking on the street, I didn't remember who she was, and it makes me feel so good to make women feel awful, and I just use them. They're useless, and I hate that.

That one was just like, fuck, man, I was just another one of those women that he was getting off on making feel awful. How many women's stories were similar to mine was pretty shocking? Because obviously there's a few women in his life that he was for a long time that did horrific things too, but there was also so many women that they did him once

or for a month or a couple months that had these experiences, how similar they were. He would tell us the exact same things. He had the exact same moves for every single one of us. And knowing that someone that I felt a genuine connection with was just, it was all lies. And everything was planned out and thought out in order to manipulate me. He was so crazy to try to even understand. Hi, I'm Carrie.

I met Jake through Hinge in February of this year. We matched like midway through February. We started chatting right away pretty much. We set up plans to meet the next day. I was in a five and a half year relationship that ended the previous October. Then I had just been out of the two-month thing that got really intense, really fast, and had ended. So I was sort of getting back into using the apps for the second time. I was really excited because I thought he was really cute.

He just looked like my type. Tall tattoos looks like you might like good music type of thing. We started chatting and somehow it came up that I have health issues, which are mostly as a result of me drinking really heavily for a lot of years. I've been sober for in October will be seven years. My life is so different from what it used to look like. it's really incredible and quite the miracle. But I brought up at some point health issues. I was still sort of reclaiming my space. I was moving my bedroom from the bedroom that I had slept in with my

ex for years into the other bedroom. As I was chatting with Jake, I was disassembling this big bed and moving it. I was like sending in progress pictures because we were chatting and we connected really well, but he really quickly mentioned that he battles cancer every day. And I was like, oh, man, this guy is cancer. That's crazy. And come to find out later, that wasn't accurate at all. I mentioned that my aunt has cancer and that she takes a chemo pill every day. And he alluded to like having to do something similar. So right away, he established this like, I mean, now that I know the truth, it's very much a feel sorry for me type of thing. I battle with this every day and I know how it is to have chronic health issues or whatever. We sent a couple selfies back and forth and it turns out

that he works at a bar that's not far away and I kind of knew a couple of people that were also involved in this bar. This is probably me making excuses and justifications for what I decided to do. But I was like, People know this guy, so I'm just going to go hang out with him, even though I haven't chatted with him that long. We'll go to dinner. It'll be fine. Usually I would vet people for longer than that and talk to them and ask more questions. He was like, I probably won't be super hungry, but we can get an appetizer or whatever.

He bused over to West Seattle. I didn't tell him where I live, but I gave him the area so he can meet me outside. And we walked up to the junction in West Seattle, which is like our little downtown area, we sat down and had dinner. And we talked about his career, photography, and working for Converge. It's amazing how quickly finances came up with him. I'm a really open book. I'll talk about money with people, but money came up really quickly.

And it was this thing with him over and over again, basically saying that he's working for this company because it's a black-owned company and he's contributing to the causes, but that they don't pay him enough, and he doesn't make enough money to sustain himself. It was always like, I live in the worst neighborhood in the city. It's really dangerous. I'm always at risk. I get assaulted all the time.

I've been living in this place forever, and it's really inexpensive because of this deal that I have, but otherwise essentially I wouldn't make it. And then really quickly into, and this is all at dinner, really quickly into like his ex-wife, who is after him for more money, even though he already pays child support, and needing to pay orthodonic bills that he can't afford. A lot of saying that he's having a really rough time and people are after him, essentially.

I was just like, oh, that sucks. That sounds really difficult and unfortunate. We ended up leaving there, walking back to my place, which was a 10-minute walk. And I felt comfortable with him coming into my apartment. I never felt at risk or afraid or unsafe or anything along those lines, which I'll elaborate more on eventually, which is the part of this that was so difficult for me because I'm a survivor of some pretty complex trauma and a very, very abusive relationship in like pretty much every way imaginable. I'm walking into this with I can sniff them out from a mile away.

There's no way that someone could get this shit past me again. I felt like I can sniff a narcissist. I can tell when someone has an anger problem. I can tell when someone is going to harm me. And with Jake, it was like, oh, this guy's a mess and he's probably bad news. And he's got red flags, but never once did I feel like he was capable of hurting someone. I was like, this guy doesn't have a shit together. And he's emotionally unavailable.

And I'm going to get hurt. but I didn't think that he was dangerous. When we got back to my place, he showed me Converge Media's morning show on YouTube, which is significant because this is why I knew his last name. We were on opposite sides of my couch, and my couch is relatively long. So I'm thinking either maybe he's not that into me physically,

which whatever, sometimes you got to meet people to figure out if that's a thing or not. Or maybe he's being really gentle. I'm thinking the whole time he's here that nothing's going to happen. Eventually, he stands up and he looks at my bookshelf and he goes, oh, you have so many cameras. And I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, most of those are display, but I used to be really into photography all throughout from junior high into community college. He's like, oh, I have all my cameras in my bag because he said he always carried them and he's always out shooting or whatever, but that he's going to work the next day.

so he carries all this gear with him. Later on, I noticed that he always has this bag, and it's always full of clothes as well as a toothbrush. Later on, I started being like, oh, this guy's just bouncing around probably to different women's houses. We start talking about cameras, and I'm like, these are all display cameras out here in my room, are my real cameras.

And they're old SLR cameras, and he had his digital cameras. I was telling him, I don't really know anything about digital cameras, but I understand an SLR. He pulls all of his photography gear out on my bed and he starts showing you different lenses and different filters and he's mapping photographs. This is really fun. Even if nothing happens and we're just friends, like it's cool to know someone who's this in the photography.

The reason why I mention all of this is because later on down the line when I found out that he films people, sexual acts, without them knowing, it dawned on me that this backpack is giant. This guy is tall. He's a big dude and this backpack looks big on him. Like it is jam-packed full of stuff. When we slept together, which we do end up sleeping together, he set that giant backpack on this like really dainty antique vanity that I have next to my bed. I thought it was weird, but I didn't know why. I thought it was weird. And later on when I got all of the information, I was thinking like he'd so easily could have had something to film us with. in that bag. You would never do that. It belonged on the floor. It's a huge heavy backpack filled with shit, you know, and it was just sitting next to my bed on the vanity. Whether or not that actually occurred with me, I'll probably never know, but I've heard so many accounts of other women finding out that he filmed them or they look up and see him filming them. He said he wasn't going to

stay the night and eventually he started to go, I am kind of tired. I offered for him to sleep on the couch because I really didn't think anything was going to happen. I thought, oh, maybe this is platonic thing. That probably sounds naive, but he hadn't made any advances or asked to kiss me or anything. Now I know it's because this stuff had already started to come out. So he was being very careful with me because he was probably scared to cross any lines with me. Ultimately, it was really late. It was time to go to bed.

I was like, you're welcome to sleep in my bed. if you'd like, and he was like, okay, I'll probably do that. We were laying in my bed for like two hours before anything happened. Aside from, eventually I laid my head on his chest, and he like played with my hair a lot, and he scratched my back a lot, and he was super sweet. Those are my favorite things. I had already told him that. Eventually, we did kiss, and eventually we did have sex.

And the most significant thing about the sex is that every time he wanted to touch me in a new place, he asked for permission and he asked for consent. Is it okay if I kiss you? Is it okay if I touch you here? Now is it okay if I touch you here? And I was like, this guy's great. At one point I said, do I'm, you don't have to ask anymore. We're good. I really appreciate it, but it's okay, you have permission. So we had sex. He stayed the night. He left the next morning. Before he left, he kissed me on the forehead, goodbye. And then shortly after that, he unmatched me on Hinge. I I reached out to him and I was like, what's the deal? Like, you unmatched me.

And he was like, I deleted the app. Is that not okay with you? I believed him, sort of. I mean, my body was like, don't believe that. But in my mind, I was like, okay, he was like, I shouldn't be out there dating. Things are just too difficult. He started to tell me the next day. I'm going through this thing.

It's the most difficult thing that I've ever been. been through my exes coming after me and harassing me. And it's like the worst thing that I've ever been through in my whole entire life. And essentially, I shouldn't be out here trying to date. And I was like, oh, great, here we go again, another one of these. Because there's a lot of that out there. There's a lot of, I'm going to pretend I really like you or I'm going to like play it off really cool.

And then once we sleep together, I'm going to be like, oh, I shouldn't actually be dating. I'm not ready or whatever. So I was just like, all right, dude. But when the women started actually posting their stories was actually this time. So he got really weird and he told me that something was going on, but he told me and he told me this over and over and over again that he couldn't tell me what it was

because his lawyer told him not to speak on it. That's next time on something was wrong. He's trying to lure me into his apartment to have sex. He asked me to have sex with him, and then when I said I couldn't come over, he threatened suicide. When they're in these social justice or progressive spaces, generally, we think of men in power get away with things for a long time, but it also happens in these spaces that are trying to dismantle power. That's really upsetting that someone can use a social cause as cover for their behavior. He actually told me that his daughter Emerson had died, and that's why he

why he went through these long periods of no communication. Oh my gosh, I feel sick. I will be reaching out to Seattle PD. He was mad. I mean, he threatened to assault me and Bobby in front of witnesses. Hi, this message is for Tiffany Reeves. I'm an attorney and I represent Jake Gravrodrot. And I'm calling your response to your message that you sent him

regarding a documentary that you are putting together. This is Detective to Seattle Police Department, returning your call. I tried to tell Omari that he was a violent person. I knew that he was a violent person. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram. At Something Was Wrong podcast. Our theme song was composed by Gladrags. Check out their album Wonder Under. Thank you so much.