We're All Insane - I Married a Ponzi Schemer

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

For 20 years, Andrea believed she was living her dream life. Then her husband confessed he had been secretly running a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme, shattering everything she thought she knew. In this episode, Andrea shares the devastating moment her world fell apart, how she navigated betrayal, financial ruin, and single motherhood, and what it took to rebuild her life after losing everything. She hopes her story reminds others that even after unimaginable trauma, healing is possible. Check Out Andrea:  → Instagram  → TikTok Topics Discussed: → Ponzi Scheme Survivor → Marriage Built on Lies → Financial Betrayal → Life After Losing Everything → Healing After Trauma Sponsored By: → AirDoctor | Head to https://AirDoctorPro.com and use promo code INSANE and get up to $300 off ANY of their select AirDoctor models, plus you will get a 3-year warranty, absolutely FREE! All AirDoctor air purifiers come with a 30-day money back guarantee. → ZocDoc | Taking care of your health just got easier – start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/insane #sponsored → HERS | Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://forhers.com/insane to get personalized, affordable care that gets you. On This Episode We Cover:  → 00:00:00 - Introduction → 00:00:46 - What was Andrea's childhood like? → 00:03:06 - Why didn't wealth seem like a red flag? → 00:06:34 - How did she meet her future husband? → 00:08:08 - Why did Sean seem so charming? → 00:10:56 - Did their relationship seem too good to be true? → 00:12:42 - How did her father's death change what she wanted in a partner? → 00:16:31 - What were the first red flags in their marriage? → 00:19:10 - How did they build their dream life together? → 00:22:26 - How wealthy did they become? → 00:24:56 - What happened on March 18, 2009? → 00:29:38 - What did he confess first? → 00:31:50 - What is a Ponzi scheme? → 00:35:12 - How did she find out they had lost everything? → 00:35:12 - How did she find out they had lost everything? → 00:39:44 - What do you do after your entire life falls apart? → 00:44:34 - Why did she need her own attorney? → 00:49:18 - What was it like during the federal investigation? → 00:55:05 - How do you tell your children their father is going to prison? → 01:00:08 - How did she prepare her family for prison? → 01:04:00 - What happened when the first victim came to their door? → 01:08:54 - How dangerous did things become after the fraud was exposed? → 01:13:50 - How much money was stolen? → 01:17:20 - Why did she refuse to hide her jewelry? → 01:21:22 - How was she cleared by the government? → 01:23:12 - Why did her family move to Utah? → 01:27:00 - How did sharing her story help her heal? → 01:30:20 - How do you help your children recover from trauma? → 01:33:18 - Why is forgiveness the key to moving forward? → 01:35:02 - When did the shame finally disappear? → 01:36:44 - How did rebuilding her life lead to new opportunities? → 01:39:24 - Is recovery possible after losing everything? → 01:44:26 - How much prison time did her ex-husband serve? → 01:46:12 - Was it difficult to trust and love again? → 01:49:30 - How did she meet her current husband? → 01:50:52 - What does Andrea want others to know?Further Listening → I Sent My Boyfriend’s Brother to Prison More We Are All Insane: → OFFICIAL MERCH NOW AVAILABLE - code INSANE10 gets you 10% off for a limited time → Join We’re All Insane Mailing List for EXCLUSIVE Content + Discounts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Andrea Merriman. I am a true crime survivor. Currently, mother of seven, working full-time as a career director at a university, helping engineering professionals and others transition from education to full-time employment and building successful careers and happy lives, I think, are a part of that. Yes, I love that. Mother of Seven. That's amazing. Yes. Wow. I'm like, that's me, but with my cats, my owl, you know, so I can kind of relate. Oh, yeah, we have one dog. Right. I love it. I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Of course. And wherever you want to begin, go ahead. So probably I would begin at the beginning with how I came to be. I think our background plays a lot into not just maybe the lives that we live, because I think we all end up with unexpected events in our lives, but what we end up deciding to do with them. I was fortunate to, I was born in California,

raised in Arizona, Missouri, and Colorado, had phenomenal parents. And the older I get, the longer I've lived, I think I've discovered what true privilege is, and that is having good parents. You can teach you hopefully the right ways to live the type of good person to be and equip you with the tools and skills you need to handle all of the unexpected things that come in your life. So I had good parents. I grew up in a family oldest of five kids, a little bit more diverse than usual and that all of us were adopted. And I grew up in the 60s, 70s, 80s, when things were just a little bit different. So I have a sister who is Latina,

and I have two brothers who are half Armenian. And I am blonde, blue-eyed. I do not look like my siblings. So growing up wherever we went, and it was five kids, which was a decent amount of kids for families in that day, people would look at us sometimes, comment quite a bit. A very common thing would be, you know, they would look at me or one of my other siblings and tell my parents, whoa, I think you forgot to tell them they're adopted.

And my parents would always say, oh, no, we're pretty sure we let them know that. Right. So we grew up in a diverse family. It was a financially successful family with a lot of privilege that way. we had a nice home that we lived in, we had nice cars to drive, we had a private plane, we had a summer home in Hawaii. So that will come to play later on in my story. A lot of times people say, how did you not know you were living this crazy, possibly false life? Because I did live in a fluent life as an adult. And in some ways, I blame my childhood because I came to you.

from an affluent background. So having money to live a fun life wasn't a red flag to me that anything else might be going on. Despite that, though, my parents really emphasized traditional Christian values, honesty, integrity, being a good person, contributing to society, working hard, getting an education, serving others. So I think it was a very balanced in that way. upbringing. I know for sure, although my parents probably had more money than a lot of people and a lot of my friends, I was never the one that had the most lunch money or anything like that. They kept it very just casual and made sure that we learned how to work and weren't spoiled to the degree that they could. So that's how I was raised. And eventually, I,

grew and matured, they also were very good at helping us grow personally and develop talents. And so they had all of us in music lessons. I was thinking about it the other day. I don't know how my mom did it with five kids. But I as the oldest was in music lessons and sports, church activities, school activities. All of the kids in my family were. And And so I remember I took piano, violin, and guitar lessons pretty much throughout my childhood. Plus, I played basketball and volleyball. Plus, I was involved in school and church things. Then another sibling, my younger sister took piano, violin, flute, and cello lessons.

I mean, when I counted how many musical instruments we all were educated in, there were a ton in the different sports we played. So it was a really happy family life, busy, but happy. But the type of family, my dad worked, my mom had had a career until she got kids, and then she stepped away to focus on the family. So it was a family where we literally ate breakfast together every day before school that my mom prepared, and we had dinner together every evening. So probably the type of family, it's a little more rare these days.

but just a very traditional, happy family with lots of happy memories. So I think one of the impacts of that type of upbringing where I was raised by good honest people who were genuine, I think I believed that most people operated that way, which I have since learned. I don't know if that's true. And that came back to haunt me as well in the future. So I grew up, graduated from high school, set my sights on college, ended up going to Brigham Young University for my schooling. And after a few years, being at BYU and dating a variety of different young men ended up meeting one that kind of stood out. He was very intelligent. He was very intelligent.

He was very well liked. He was the kind of person that, believe it or not, walked into a room and kind of changed the energy of it a little bit. He came off as very down to earth, but a nice, good guy. He was involved in a lot of different things. He also was hardworking. He had a good sense of humor, friendly to everyone, helped everyone, and was, like, majoring in economics and the story that all the students, you know, in our common group of friends was that he was, you know, from back east, he was a wealthy college student. He was planning on grad school at Dartmouth. He'd already been accepted. He spoke a foreign language, had been interviewed for a job with the CIA, just a sharp kind of trustworthy type person.

And I noticed that he seemed to date the cutest girls in our apartment complex. And eventually he asked me out on a date. So we began dating. He took me to do very atypical college student things. I was, you know, college student on a budget like most people. and he took me to the symphony, and he took me to concerts, and took me to the nicest restaurants.

I remember one time he showed up to pick me up for a date, and I was asking my roommate if I could borrow her pearl necklace because I was wearing a black dress, going for the total Coco Chanel look, and I didn't think anything of it. And the next date he showed up with this long velvet-covered, box flipped open the lid and there was this pearl necklace in there. And he said, any girl as

beautiful as you should not have to borrow pearls and gave me pearls. So that was the kind of guy he was. His name was Sean Merriman and eventually he proposed to me, asked me to marry him and I did. Hello, juicy crime lovers. I'm Heather McDonald, host of Juicy Scoop, the number one longest running comedy interview podcast for over a decade. Well, now I'm bringing you some of the juiciest true crime episodes. We'll dive into the most outrageous crimes of passion, greed, deception, and scandal. From cunning grifters to shocking betrayals, and yes, sometimes a love affair so twisted

that someone ends up dead. maybe even at the hands of their hot dentist. I'll be joined by a rotating panel of special guests, including my sister Shannon, a criminal defense attorney, along with police officers, detectives, and even my own husband, Peter, who's always ready to break down those infamous cases where a wife takes out her husband. So buckle up because we're about to revisit classic juicy crimes

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Now, I do have to preface this with, it seemed to be the storybook type of romance. I remember writing in my journal. I've been a journal keeper since I was 12 years old, But writing in my journal that he made, well, I felt he was romantic, but he also made life kind of like Hollywood movies do. Only it wasn't corny. It seemed to work for him. So he wrote me love letters. He wrote my mother a letter about what a great daughter she had raised. And he really knew how to work every, you know, person.

in his circle, and so he proposed to me. He was all of those things, yet at the same time physically, a different type of person than I'd ever dated before, so different in fact that when my sister first met him, she said, oh my gosh, you're going to marry him. And I said, no, I won't. She said, yeah, you will. If you're even dating him, you'll marry him. I usually prefer. I usually preferred tall athletes, that type of guy. He was not that. He was my height, if that, not athletic, but he was smart. And I think his intelligence is kind of what I found attractive. He was also very different than me. So he was interesting to talk to because he knew about things that were very different. I kind of opened my mind to dating someone like that. I think because of

some personal experiences that had happened shortly after my 19th birthday, my dad died in a plane crash, which kind of upended our world and our whole family. My mom ended up going back to work and moved. It was a traumatic time. She was left with five teenage kids to raise on her own, but that really impacted me. I remember I came home for his funeral, and I saw, his Mercedes sitting in the driveway. And I thought, wow, it really is true. You can't take this stuff with you. So that was an impactful moment to me. It kind of changed not my values, but what I was looking for. And I decided that I needed to be pretty real in the people I knew and how I evaluated others and chose to go for more lasting and enduring qualities other than looks. So

that really impacted why I changed who I was dating and dated John. So in the end, he proposed to me. I evaluated it really carefully because I was young. I was just turning 22. And I had never wanted to get married before I was 25 at least, which sounds even young these days. But in the Christian culture that I was raised in a living, it was not uncommon for, you know, girls to get married at 20 to 22. So I evaluated his proposal. I was not very romantic. His proposal was, it happened on a beach, my favorite place.

He was down on one knee in the sand, flips open a ring box. that had a huge ring compared to what I was used to seeing as a college student. And I didn't really give my answer then, which kind of became a joke over the years. I thought, this is a huge decision. And I'm in this beautiful place. I need to make sure that when real life happens, which I didn't live on a beach or near a beach. So I wanted to make sure that I was making my decision for the right reasons. So I just said, I'll think about it, but I'm not going to think about it here.

So he said to me, oh, okay, so your answer is yes pending verification. I look back on that now and I'm like, I think he was manipulating me a little bit there. I hadn't said yes. I said, let me think about it. So I returned back to Utah where I was going to school, finishing up my bachelor's degree. And thought about it a lot, did a lot of analysis. I decided I was going to be old a lot longer than I would be young. So I thought, who would I want to be married to when I'm 40 and older?

And made a list of pros and cons of Sean and some other boys that I'd been dating. And in the end, decided to marry him. And I talked to people that had been married. I did my investigative work. if you could do it all over again, what would be your top things you would look for in a husband or whatever? And he seemed to fit all the criteria. So I did say, okay, I've thought about it. I will marry you. And we proceeded with our engagement. He was a very patient, calm, kind of the world revolved around me type of guy to date. And I will say as we got engaged, that changed a little bit. I mean,

he was still a nice, good guy and considerate of me. But I saw he was impatient a little bit, and he would have goals or projects in mind and have me help with him. But I thought, well, that's what you do when you're a partner with someone. So it didn't really set off any red flags. and then we got married. And there were a few instant changes. So he'd proposed on the beach, acted like he loved the beach. And we got married, went on our honeymoon, and it was in the summertime. And so I don't just love beaches.

I love sunshine and pools and being out, you know, enjoying that type of thing. Love the smell of sunscreen. I know not everybody. I mean, I loved everything. about summer. And I discovered, after we were married, he didn't like the sun. He didn't like swimming. He didn't like those types of things. So I think I went to a pool for one hour of my honeymoon. I had envisioned this big summer pool and that type of activity honeymoon. It wasn't that. So that was a small change, kind of overlooked it. Went back. I had two semesters.

to finish after we were married. And I worked my tail off. I took more than full-time credits. I had a job. I had an internship. Plus, I was now trying to be a wife doing all the cleaning of our apartment, all the cooking, the grocery shopping, the laundry.

He didn't do so much. He had delayed his graduation since I wasn't done so that we could walk together. and it allowed him access to take classes. So he kind of did his own thing, worked part-time, and had quite a bit of feedback on how I ran a home. Didn't like the way I did laundry, didn't like the way I cooked,

but instead of him taking it on or helping, I just tried to be better. Looking back on some of that now, I see a few red flags, but I was young, I wasn't experienced in life, and I definitely thought, this guy is different than he was when I dated him, but I didn't realize that could mean anything. In fact, I probably took it on me and thought it was my fault that he was a little bit different. So we ended up graduating, moved to Colorado to start our careers and family. He decided that he wanted to become a stockbroker.

So he started his career doing that and was immediately successful. So I got my first PR job. I think it was making like $21,000 a year back in 1990, which was, I think, a standard wage for that industry. And in the first three months of his job as a stockbroker, he made $50,000. So he made in three months, you know, two and a half times what I made in a year. So he was successful. It was a high-pressure job, but he didn't seem bothered by it. We went on to make friends with people. As he got success, he started rewarding himself and me. He upgraded his car to a BMW N5 and bought me a BMW convertible.

We bought a bigger home. We had a really nice house, especially for me being a car. I'm a BN5 and bought me, 23 years old. We just had a really nice financial life as a result of his success. We were active in our church. We were just living a great life, and then we began having kids. So over time, we were eventually married 20 years. We had four kids. At the time, my oldest was 15, and I had a 13-year-old. Then I had a third grader who was eight to nine years old, and then I had a three-year-old. And we had grown over time to have those four kids. We made a lot of good family memories. We would go somewhere fun for spring break, go somewhere fun for fall break, and every year we would try to do an international trip with our kids, just to show them the world and let them meet people of different backgrounds.

have different, you know, cultural food people experiences. And it was great. I really thought I was living my dream. I remember how stressed I was over the decision to marry and how unromantic I had been in the way I chose who I was going to marry. But over time and over those 20 years, as I saw him grow in his career and saw him grow in his career and saw him grow in his service to others through our church

and the way people really liked him. And he was a good friend to many. And I thought he was a good husband, father, family man. I thought he was gone a lot, traveled a lot, but I thought he was hardworking. So I really thought I was living my dream. And although he had changed a little bit after we'd gotten married over time over those 20 years,

years, I thought I saw him improve and become more of what I thought I was picking in the beginning. So we come to the year 2009, and that's the one high and very low point in my life experience. So at the time, four kids, great home, great life. I actually had watched my investment accounts rise over the years to become $10 million. So, again, some people say, well, that should have been a clue to you that that wasn't right. Well, we still didn't have a private plane. I'd grown up with a private plane. So I knew I was blessed.

I knew I was fortunate. But it wasn't a degree of affluence that was out of the realm of possibility for me. I remember after my dad passed away, my mom told us they'd lived for a financially affluent life, and we did have a nice house, and we did have a plane, but they were very down to earth in many ways. So I remember after he died, she told me that, you know, in the 70s and 80s, my dad had made like some years, 700,000 a year. So he made a good living for back then. but I didn't think that my husband had ever made $700,000 a year. I wasn't really involved in the bookkeeping, the business details.

So I knew we were fortunate, and I had slowly over 20 years watched our net worth grow and our investments grow. So I thought I was set for life. Now I would live my life and kind of think I was trying to parent my kids in a good way and prepare them to be successful adults. So I would evaluate, okay, what challenges do I need to prepare my kids for? So I taught them to be honest, and I taught them to work hard, and I taught them to serve others and to be good people, things like that.

And I taught them to manage money, but I never really thought finances would be a challenge for them, me or any of us. In fact, I used to worry more on the flip side of that, that how are my kids going to learn to work hard if they're going to inherit all of this? Like, what do I do so that they feel their own sense of accomplishment rather than just being trust fund babies or something? So I woke up one day. It was March 18, 2009, and had some errands to run. My kids were all in school, dropped my youngest off at daycare. And as I was heading on the highway to run my errands, my husband called. He said, what are you doing? And I said, oh, I'm running some errands. And he kind of acted disappointed. And I said, what? What's wrong? He said, well,

I was just hoping to spend some time with you this morning. And I said, oh, okay, well, why don't you come run my errands with me. We can spend time that way. He said, no, I'm not going to do that. And I said, okay. He said, I actually need you to come home. So there was something serious in his tone that I said, okay, I'll turn around. I actually remember having the thought as I turned around, kind of patting myself on the back. Oh, you're such a nice wife. You have this whole plan. You've worked out daycare, yet at the drop of the hat, you're going to turn around and go support and help your husband with whatever he needs. So he told me to meet him in the kitchen. Now, the kitchen of our motor home, not our home. He, as part of his success, he, I should say, was a big spender.

We had a good-sized house. We had a good-sized property, and a lot of it was landscaped. By the morning of this conversation, we had a beautiful swimming pool and all of that in the backyard. We also had a pond that had tears of waterfalls flowing down into a big pond that was floating water lilies in it, filled with quayfish, very exotic quayfish. like some coy fish that were five grand a piece or 10 grand or 15. I mean, expensive fish. We had bronze sculptures throughout our yard by Frederick Hart, who designed the National Cathedral in D.C. I mean, it was a nice, I used to sit in my yard and kind of look around

and feel like I was at a Four Seasons Hotel or something. And I liked it. That had been intentional as we'd design. designed our yard. I loved feeling like I was on vacation when I was in the yard. But the man I was married to never did anything normally. So we didn't just have one pond. We had a second pond in another location that was even bigger with more sculptures, more fish, more coy. We had a sport court. We had all kinds of outdoor things. And as part of that, he bought a lot of cars, fancy car, Aston Martins. We had a Ferrari. He also, he also,

He also collected vintage cars from the 1930s called Auburds and Cords. He traveled the world doing exotic things, doing a lot of safaris, that type of thing. And he had also purchased a very nice motorhome. It was, I think he told me it was almost 700,000, the motorhome that he bought. So it wasn't like the National Lampoon's Vacation Motor Home. It was a nice one. When you walked up the Travertine steps to enter it and you went into the kitchen, it had the full kitchen fridge, microwave, dishwasher, stove, and it had crystal glasses anchored in hanging.

I mean, it was a nice motorhome. So he asked me to meet him in the kitchen of the motorhome. So I go and I sit down and he was on the phone in another part of the motorhome. I just sat down at the kitchen table of the motorhome and, waited for him to finish his call. He'd spent a lot of our marriage on the phone, having conversations with people. I kind of learned to tune it out, not listen, and figured I'd chat with him when he was done. So as I sat there, I saw a yellow legal pad on the table, and it had the names of three of his business ventures. His investment company that he ran, Market Street Advisors, he had a construction

company and then he had an art company. And the names of those three companies were on the yellow legal pad. And when he finished his call and sat down, I kind of pushed the pad over to him and said, all right, what is, what's going? Why do you have this here? Why am I here? And he said, well, these companies are why I asked you to meet me here. I need to talk to you about him. And I'm thinking, okay. And he said, I need you to know, that Market Street Advisors, which was his investment company, is actually a sham. It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at White House Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

I know there's going to be a twist, won't they, a massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case. I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and the New Yorker. Find it now in the In The Dark podcast feed. When it comes to making doctor's appointments, that is something that I am so guilty of putting off to the side. It's one of those things that it's always in my notepad on my phone

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be doing with their careers for the most part. And he told me, right after that, that he had hired an attorney two days before. And I remembered that day. I remember he normally dressed really casually when he went to work. So over time, he'd been a broker. Then he'd retired from that and started his own financial company, Market Street Advisors, which he began operating out of the basement of our home. But then as it grew, he built a building behind our homes. So I guess you could say he worked out of a backyard office, but it was about a 5,000 square foot, huge office. His actual work quarters were in the top level of it,

and then he had the rest of this giant warehouse just filled with his things, his interest is obvious. He began collecting art, and so art was down there. He collected sports memorabilia, and had all kinds of sports memorabilia, including signed baseballs by Babe Ruth and anybody you can think of. He had a trophy from shoeless Joe Jackson. I mean, just all kinds of amazing things.

Plus his cars, plus he had a woodworking shop. He had whatever he was interested in. It was filled with all of that. So he dressed casually to go to work, but I did remember two days before. He dressed in a suit and gone downtown for a meeting with a potential client. That's what he told me. In that moment on March 18th, he revealed that had been a lie

that he actually had gone to meet with an attorney and had revealed his crimes to the attorney. Then he told me that the day before on that Tuesday, he and his attorney had gone to the government and he had revealed his crimes to them and turned himself in. And then that night, he had gotten up in the middle. We were all watching, like, American Idol as a family, and he'd gotten up in the middle of that

and headed out to a meeting with our church leader and then came home. And I said, how did everything go? He's like, oh, it's fine. It was just some, you know, a conversation from some previous. you know, service that he'd rendered in our church and finish watching the show with us as if everything was normal, but that they had all given him until that morning, that moment, that day to tell me the truth, which was he'd been running a Ponzi scheme. He told me at that time,

right in that moment, that he, all of our assets were frozen and would be seized by the government. everything would be gone. He told me that he anticipated being charged within a week, sentenced within two to three weeks, and taken into custody within four to six weeks, that he would be heading to federal prison. He anticipated it would be for about five to seven years, and that I was on my own to raise our kids. And, it's hard to describe a moment like that. I mean, of course, my mind was reeling, my head was spinning. Your life was flipped upside down in a matter of seconds. Yeah. And at the same time, though, it was like I couldn't understand English or speak English. Like, I kept going, wait, that can't mean what I think it means.

That can't be what I think it means. And then also at the same time, he'd always been, I called him an absent-minded professor. He'd get dates wrong. He'd forget things. Not like he never forgot a birthday, but sometimes he celebrated birthdays or anniversaries more than once. I remember a few years prior to this, we'd been on a cruise at dinner. The waiter comes and brings out this flaming cake and all the staff gather and say happy anniversary. And it was October. And our anniversary was in August. So after they left, I was really confused by that. After they left, I'm like, hey, what is this about? He's like, well, happy anniversary. I said, our anniversaries, not now. Right. It's not October. And he looks stunned. He goes, well, happy birthday then.

I said, my birthday's in August, too. I said, and you didn't forget my birthday or anniversary in August. So he just did. weird things like that now that I know what I know, I think when you are juggling so many lies and so many secrets, I think he made mistakes like that. Yeah. I think you lose track of more than just your anniversary, maybe the lies that you've told. So I thought he was an absent-minded professor and it kind of became a joke. But in that moment of horror when he's telling me all this, that I couldn't comprehend it, especially did not imagine it would ever happen to me, this normal private citizens, stay-at-home mom to four kids,

just serving on PTO committees and in our church and trying to, you know, make the world a better place in my own tiny corner of it. I never thought that crime or lies or even divorce, frankly, or prison would ever, be something that touched my life and it was. I really thought this has to be an April Fool's Day joke because April Fool's Day was in about two weeks. I thought maybe he's got the dates wrong again. Like this can not be real, but it was. He, I think he finally started crying when he told me, which for him was rare in the 20 years I'd known him, probably saw him cry twice. And, And when he started crying, that's when I realized, oh, my gosh, this might really be real.

Yeah. And in that moment, I was just so overwhelmed and so filled with horror, I got up and ran. I don't know that I ever thought I was the type of person that got up and ran when things were shocking. But that's what I did that day. I just had this overwhelming feeling of, I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him. This cannot be happening. Well, it's scary too, because I think it was.

Not only was your life flipped upside down, but then it's like, oh, my whole 20-year relationship was a lie, too. Yeah. Everything thought you knew. Everything. Kind of that sensation they portray in the movies of like this roaring freight train coming and you want to get away. It was very much like that. So I remember I got a. up and thought, I have to get out of here. And I remember apologizing to him, feeling guilty that I was

a wife leaving her husband and his moment of need, but I didn't care. I got out, jumped in my car, drove up my driveway, took off down the street, and I was crying so hard, I couldn't see anything. And I thought, all right, I might accidentally hit someone, hurt someone, I got to stop. So I just pulled over where I was, sobbing, and thought, what do I do? So I tried to call my sister. And I don't know if I couldn't dial the phone right or if she wasn't home, but I couldn't get the call to go through. So I called a good friend who had become over the years almost like a sister to me. And I was crying so hard trying to tell her what was happening. She finally understood, and she was as horrified as I was.

And I remember saying to her, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? I have four kids. Should I go to my bank? Should I try to get some money? What should I do? She said, yes, go to the bank, try to get some money. Now, I had been told in that moment that all of our funds were frozen, but I kind of wasn't thinking clearly. So I drove to my bank and went through the drive-thru, ATM machine. And it gave me some money, gave me a couple. couple thousand dollars. And I drove around and then I thought, what do I do now? And I drove around for a while, couldn't figure out what else I should do and didn't really have anywhere to go. So in the end, I drove back home. And I thought, okay, I got to make sure this isn't a joke.

I need to see what really is going on. And I went back down to the motor home. And I went back down to the motorhome. And as I got out of my car and started walking toward the door, I thought, if I were him and I had done what he said he had done and I was going to lose everything and go to prison and all of that, I think I might kill myself. And that's when it hit me. I wonder if he has. I wonder why he wouldn't. So I was a little bit afraid to go into the motorhome thinking I got up and ran. who knows what he did after that. So I opened the door bracing for the worst, and he wasn't there.

So I thought, where would he be? So I went, I think I went up to my house after that to see if by chance he was in the house, and he wasn't there. So I thought, oh, he's probably down in his office. And so I went heading that direction to see if I could. could find him. And he ended up, he was in the backyard. So we kind of met in the backyard. And he was on the phone again and he handed me the phone. And I heard a voice say, Andrea, this is so-and-so, I am Sean's attorney. And he said, can I first just say how sorry I am for the day I know you're having?

And at that point, I was completely insane. Yeah. I remember saying to him, like, the whole day was so surreal. I just didn't believe anything or anyone. So I remember saying to him, how do I know this is really who you are? How do I know you're not in cahoots with him? How do I know? I mean, and I knew how crazy it was as I said it.

Right. But the whole thing's crazy. else to say. The whole thing was so unimaginable. And he finally just said, I don't know what to tell you other than to assure you. I've never heard of or known your husband until two days before when he came in. So he told me the same story that my husband had. And he, so he finished all of that. I said, okay, he said, well, do you have any questions for me? I said, yeah, what do I do? And he said, said, well, the first thing you should do or not do is, whatever you do, do not touch any money. Don't access any money, whatever you do.

And I just sat there holding the phone like, are you kidding me? Right. The one thing that I've done is the one thing I shouldn't have done. Right. And I just thought, yeah, you should never be a criminal. Clearly, you were not cut out for this. Yeah. So I just said, oh, no.

And he said what? And I said, well, I actually went and got some money. He's like, why would you do that? I said, because I have four kids. I've got to figure out how we're going to survive. So he asked me how much money I got and then said, okay, I'll let the government know, but do not touch any more money. Right.

And at that moment, that's when it hit me, oh, they told me all of our money was frozen. Yeah, I was able to get some money from the bank. So I realized that was kind of a unique thing. However, my husband and I had always bank separately. Okay. Always had our own accounts. So I had gone to my bank to get my money. And I had an account there that had been funded by insurance money I'd receive when my mom passed away.

Okay. And I hadn't invested it in anything. I just kind of kept it there as an emergency fund. So I wasn't stealing money from anyone. I went and got my own money. Later on, the bank, however, froze even that account that wasn't involved in crime. And I learned that when you are married to someone who breaks the law and married for 20 years the way we had been, they consider everything to have been commingled.

And it's very hard to differentiate whose money is who. So I'm in the yard. He tells me, you know, whatever you do, don't touch any money. I also at that point found out that I would need an attorney. And I thought, what? I haven't done anything. I didn't commit any crime. I didn't even know a crime was being committed.

My husband said, hey, it's just how it is in these cases. I know you're innocent. you haven't done anything. It's just part of the process. Well, no, it's not part of the process, technically. It is part of the process because they always look at the spouse to be complicit in something like that. So I needed an attorney because I was going to be investigated.

I just didn't know that. That's not how my husband sold it to me, but that's the truth of it. Right. So I find out we've lost everything. My husband's headed to prison. I'm responsible for four kids by myself. And now I need an attorney, but I've also been told there's no money, not to touch any money. So I remember saying to my husband, well, if I need an attorney, how in the world do I pay for an attorney?

Right. There's no money. I said, what do I do? Just put a retainer on one of our credit cards and pay for my attorney that way. And that was when my husband said, no, you can't do. that. And I said, why? And he said, because I maxed out all of our credit cards paying for my attorney. So he knew that he was going to turn himself in, and he knew he would need an attorney. He also knew I was going to need an attorney. And he left me high and dry. He knowing that went and maxed

out all of our credit cards paying for his. So that was a bit of a problem for me. I'd say. Yeah. Yeah, that was just the beginning of the most unimaginable, horrific experience that I never imagined. If you're a fan of true crime, horror, or creepy encounters, you've got to listen to disturbed true horror stories. Each episode shares the terrifying experiences of real people. told by professional actors.

I bet down on his hand and he pulled back, but he puts the knife a little harder against my sweatshirt. I began to hear the breathing and growling of what could only come from a monster. Find disturbed true horror stories wherever you enjoy your podcasts. If you have tried everything to lose weight and you're still just feeling stuck, I am here to tell you that this summer is about to be different. Weight loss by hers is designed to help support you in reaching your goals with an access of affordable range FDA-approved GLP-1 medications such as the Wagovy pill and the Wagovy Pen. I am somebody that has been working out for years and always tries to eat healthy,

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Will Govi clinical study information and restrictions. Visit for hers.com. I just felt like I had been thrust into the deepest, darkest, blackest pit of a nightmare, and I didn't see how there would ever be any way out of it. Thankfully, I had four kids because I really had the thought, man, I would love to just walk to the edge of the horizon and drop off the face of the earth. Well, I think it's great. What makes it so crazy and shocking, too, is how long you guys were to get, you know, it's like you really, you start to build obviously this routine and this life. And it's not like it was a couple months or even a couple years.

I mean, that's a long time. It was a long, it was half of my life. I was 41-ish at the time. So literally half of my adult, half of my life. And it's like everything you knew. Married to him, everything to him. And by that point, both of my parents had passed away. So he was my family.

And our kids, that was my family unit. And it had been two decades of family. And so it, I did. I just had no idea what I was facing or how I was going to get through it. This unimaginable event has happened and I don't know what to do. I've run out, access some money, come back, found out I needed an attorney, didn't know how I was going to pay for it. And then it hit me, oh my gosh, my kids, they're all at school, they're going to be coming

home to this nightmare. How am I going to tell my kids? So I called a friend of mine who was a counselor and told him what had happened and he said, Andrea, what are you going to do? And I said, I have no idea. That's why I've called you. I said, the only thing I know is I'm going to do what's best for my children. And he kind of went, oh. And I said, what? And I said, what? is that not the right thing to do? He said, no, that's absolutely the right thing to do. He said, I wish every parent in trauma had that attitude. He goes, I'd have a whole lot less messed up adult clients if every parent felt that way.

But I now had the advice, yeah, that's the right tactic, but what is the right thing to do? So I kind of spent, I mean, it felt like endless hours. but it couldn't have been that many. Kids don't go to school, you know, for 20 hours. So I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell them. I mean, I was trying to figure everything out, and it was a mess. I thought, okay, I have no money. I have no car.

I have no job. I have nowhere to live. I have no way to keep a family alive. What am I going to do? I am going to have this public humiliation, and it was a humiliation. It wasn't just shocking and horrifying and devastating to me. I was mortified that anyone I knew would be dishonest or steal money or ruin lives or whatever. So I was trying to figure all kinds of things out, but you know when you have a to-do list that is so huge,

you're not really solving anything. That's kind of where I was that day. Although I do remember, I called another friend who was a counselor and told him what had happened and said, I'm trying to figure out how to tell my kids. And he said to me,

why are you going to tell him? You didn't do anything. He said, I would get your husband to tell your kids if you can. This is his problem. Don't you take it on you. So that was my only thing that I knew. So I went and found my husband and said, tonight, 7 p.m. will have family counsel,

and you are going to tell the kids. Yeah. And he just kind of looked at me, but he agreed to. And we had another conversation that day. I remember looking at him and I said, you realize that I have no choice but to divorce you, right? Like the things that you have done had given me no choice in that. Now, that was an earth-shattering thing for me to even contemplate divorce. I had been raised that you get married, you make a commitment, and you make it work, and you create a happy marriage and a happy home life. So for me, I mean, divorce for me and my life was as unexpected, almost as crime.

like I never imagined I would divorce. So that was another huge, hard thing for me. And how did he explain it to the children? Well, like a narcissist. This whole story that I've lived through has been an education not just in true crime, but in narcissism, in sociopathie. Those were things that I didn't really know about.

But now I have vocabulary for them and a shining example of that. that. So the kids started coming home from school and they, I didn't tell them what was wrong. They told me later, my older two kids said, we knew something was that because we could see your eyes were red from crying and there was tension and stress in the air. They told me that they thought we were meeting to tell them that their Merriman grandparents had passed away or something. And I thought, those are my kids. in-laws. I would not, I mean, I like them fine, but I wouldn't feel like the world ended.

But that was their only frame of references to what might be wrong. I also had a really scary experience that day. I went and picked up my littlest one from daycare. And I remember when I went and picked him up, this was the first real person I told face-to-face. I showed up at the door to pick up my youngest, and the woman took one look at me and said, what in the world has happened? What is wrong? I must have looked so bad she could tell. And I told her, and she was very empathetic. I remember sitting on her couch crying, but I also remember her telling me, Andrea, I know it doesn't seem like this now. She said, but you're going to be okay. She said, I think you're even going to be happy.

again. I didn't believe it, didn't see how that was possible, but I do remember the very first person I told also ended up reassuring me. So I go back home with my three-year-old and in the chaos, in the whatever, maybe while I was on the phone, he disappeared and wandered off. And I remember I ran all around the house, Colin couldn't find him, thought, well, he must be in the yard, ran out, ran all through the yard, couldn't find him. I didn't know what else to do, so I went and got my husband, even though I was furious at him and didn't want to have a thing to do with them, but I needed help. He and I are looking all around, and I thought, this is so strong. Where could he go? I got in my car and started driving around the neighborhood, and that's when I became a different person than I had ever

become or had ever been before. And it's because of the crazy situation I found myself in. And I think when trauma hits, sometimes that happens. I'm driving around the neighborhood and it's filled with people that I've always thought were good and they were my friends and kind. And I remember thinking, someone has kidnapped my son. Like, I wonder if any victims have found out that their money's gone and maybe they came to get their revenge. Like your mind just starts going to all kinds of crazy solutions. But I couldn't find him. I drove around for, it seemed like 30 minutes. I don't know how long. But I went back home and as I was standing in the yard with my husband saying, I think we need to call some authorities or someone to help us. Who knows,

what's happened to this boy? He came wandering out of the trees. He'd just been on our backyard. the whole time and I'd missed him. So I'd also had that. So we gathered together that night to tell my kids what had happened and we've predetermined he will be the one. And it was really interesting. We gather as a family and there was a red chair in the corner of the room. And normally I probably sat somewhere near that chair because that's the chair my husband always sat in. But that night, I was as far away from him as I could be opposite side of the room on the far end of the couch. And he, I like to call it communicated. So I refer to my husband as Thing One.

Now, I don't use his name. If you've ever read the Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat, Thing One and Thing Two, come into a home wreak havoc and then leave. And the person in the house is left to fix it all up, put it all back together. So he told the kids typical thing one style, he minimized it. I think he began with kids. We're, you know, we've gathered here tonight because I need to tell you something. I've made a little mistake.

I believe that's how he told the kids. Now, that little mistake, the truth and reality of it, was he'd been running a Ponzi scheme for about 15 to 16 years, which means every minute of every day for 16 years, he's been lying, he's been stealing, he's been a criminal, which means every day when he'd come home from work and we'd sit and have dinner together as a family, and he would talk about the investments that he made and the conversations he had, blah, blah, blah.

That was all a lie. So I felt like he was really minimizing it. So he said, I've made a little mistake, and I'm over on the far side of the room, correcting him going, you've committed a crime, and it's not a little mistake. It is a huge crime. You've devastated countless lives, destroyed countless people's finances.

And then he said, so I'll be going away for a little while. And I'm over on the other side of the room going to federal prison for five to seven years. And my kids are looking at me in horror, like, is this true? There is no way this can be real. So that's how he told the kids. Thing one style, minimized it. I would say the only good thing that ever came out of his mouth after, you know,

my company, Marcus Street Advisors is a sham. At least he never had the audacity to say, I did it for you. Yeah. So I will give him credit for that. He never blamed it on me. And of course, he did it for him. He was greedy, he was selfish, he was self-centered. He spent money like a sieve.

I would say we had overall a very peaceful relationship. We didn't fight very much, but we did have an underlying argument that was always money and the way he spent money. However, I thought he made a lot of money. So we kind of worked it out. say, well, as long as we have this 10 million invested, I guess, do whatever you want. So anyway, that's how we did our money. So he's told the kids, the kids are filled with shock and disbelief the same way I had been. And then after he told them that, I remember watching them

spontaneously. They all got up from wherever they were sitting, and they all went over to him crying and they hugged him, which I thought was very kind and considerate. That was not the reaction I'd had. I'd run. They went and hugged him. Didn't even dawn on me to hug him and come for him. No. But anyway, after that, he stood up and he walked out of the house. And I am there with four kids whose world has just been destroyed. They're all looking to me for answers. And I did not have have any. I do remember as we stood there in the kitchen and they're all looking at me, my eight-year-old, my middle son kind of had a light, bold moment go off in his head. And he looked and said, wait, does this mean you're going to divorce dad? And before I could answer, one of my older

kids said yes, at the exact same time the other older kids said no. And I knew in that moment, nothing I would decide from that point of my life going forward was ever going to be the perfect solution for everyone. And that is another hard part of life, especially trauma-impacted life. You have to make decisions and somebody's always going to pay the price. That's what I, that's a lesson that I've learned from that in the short term anyway. So we're standing there filled with horror. Now my kids are really upset because they know the family dynamic is really different and going to be changing. And right about them, the doorbell ring. Now, thing one had told me, that some leaders from our church were going to come over and check on us.

So I go to the door expecting that it's them, and it was not. I opened the door. My four kids had followed me in, so we're all standing there, and it was a victim of Thing One, who had heard about what had happened, and he was there to tell us what he thinks. I can't remember if he asked for my husband or not, but the second I opened the door, he just started ranting and raving and yelling at my kids and I,

telling us that my husband was the most despicable man on the planet. Not that I disagreed with his assessment, but we were just so broken and devastated and destroyed. All of us are standing there with tears, running down our faces. Right. And he just screams and yells like a lunatic at all of us. And then turned around and left.

And we closed the door and didn't know what else to do. And I didn't know if the kids were going to go to school or not or what, but it was a school night and it was late by this point. So I sent everybody to start getting ready for bed. and had a big job ahead of me to try to figure out what we were going to do now. Ironically, I've probably never slept, or at least for many years from that moment on, ever slept well again. But ironically, thing one went to sleep and slept that night, woke up, told me it was the best sleep that he'd had in years.

And I thought, oh, good for you. You've destroyed me. And now I never sleep, but good for you that you're sleeping. So the big question of that first day everybody seemed to have was, what are you going to do? That's what the attorney had asked me when I first talked to him. That's what the counselor had asked me when I first talked to him. So what are you going to do was the question of the day. I didn't know what I was going to do.

but I got out of bed the next morning and started trying to figure it out. I think looking back on it, regardless of what happens to you, that's what worked for me. I got up out of bed every day, put one foot in front of the other, didn't know where it was going to take me, but knew I had to try something. I don't think we can put something together or make something happen if we're sitting on our rears. So I kept getting up trying to figure stuff out. And it was a roller coaster. It seemed like every idea I thought of to try or that might work,

I found out wasn't going to work. Like it was half step forward, 10 steps back, four days, weeks, months. And I had to hire an attorney and have meetings with my attorney. And the government is called. calling me. I had bankruptcy attorneys. I had every possible scenario you can imagine that I was facing and having to deal with. But at the same time, I also had to try to figure out how I was going to support a family. And then I had kids in trauma that needed parenting. And I was in trauma

and needed help. I just really didn't have time for me. I just thought, I got to find a job. I got to help these kids and I got to handle whatever emergencies are coming. So I got really lucky or blessed, some might say. Within about a week, a friend called, he said, I hope you're okay with this, but the word was starting to get out about what had happened. He said, I called a mutual friend of ours who and told him what happened to you. And he told me to tell you he has a job for you. Don't worry, you have a job. He said, so call him. Did I call him? No. I thought, he doesn't have to give me a job just because my life is a disaster. I didn't want to like be that type of burden to anyone. So I didn't call him. And I'm like trying to put together a

resume and trying to make sense out of being a stay-at-home mom for 20 years. Now, I had tried to keep my skills up. I had done volunteer work. I had done some part-time consulting. I had done things to keep my skills up, which I think is really important. I continually tell people, even if you make a pivot or if you step away for a while to focus on something else, stay current in your training. You've got to be doing something to add value to you professionally so that you can get a job if you need to. And you just never know. My mom, I'm sure never thought she would ever have to work a day in her life.

Then my dad dies and she has to go back to work. Thankfully, she was an educated, skilled woman and she got a job. She made sure I was prepared for life. And I had an education and I'd, you know, had skills. But I never in a million years thought I would have to work. And I did. So I'm so grateful that I kept my skills up. Putting together a resume was still a struggle,

but I lucked out because I had a job before I'd even perfected my resume. The friend that I hadn't called me within the week and said, hey, didn't so-and-so tell you to call me? Didn't he tell you I have a job for you? And he ended up hiring me, which was great because I was, dealing with so many other things. So at least I knew I had a job. I still had to find a place for us to live, but at least I had a job. So all of my attention, all of my efforts were directed at just surviving the true crime story and trauma that we had been forced into as a result of that.

So I had, within days, the FBI come to my home to inventory, assets for seizure. It's just like it is in the movies. They came up over the hill to my home, this caravan of black SUVs with black tinted windows. They pull up. They get out. They're all in their sunglasses and their FBI in U.S. Marshall jackets with their guns strapped on their waist and they entered my home. The only difference was they didn't break the door down. I knew they were coming. They rang the doorbell and I let them in. But they came with video cameras to video everything and clipboards to make notes on and they went around item by item piece by piece you know noting what's there noting what has value deciding what they're going to seize then i

had victims calling and coming by you know we lived in a remote neighborhood that was kind of off the beaten pass so there was never traffic and yet all of a sudden cars were slowly cruising passing past our house all hours of the day and night. We had media descend on the house, you know, trucks with big satellite dishes mounted onto them, surrounding our home, reporters outside. If I went on an errand, you know, it was just like in the movies, running along side the car, calling, asking questions, taking photos. One victim made it to the front door of my house with a loaded gun.

ready to blow away my husband and who knows who else. Thankfully, he turned around and went home before he did anything. It's a dangerous time when you're involved in the aftermath of a crime. And the government knew that from day one, my very first conversation with them was, you need to get out, you need to get away. Is there anywhere you can go? Well, where does one woman go with four kids, two dogs? kids are in school, kids of all different ages.

I had a kid in high school, a kid in middle school, a kid in elementary school, and a kid in preschool. Like every school calendar, there was nowhere for me to go. And I kept telling him that. And they said, well, these can be dangerous times. You know, people do crazy things. That was another blind spot or bit of experience I didn't have or understand. I did not realize how crazy people can get in their trauma. How insane.

Do you know how much money total he stole from people? He was prosecuted for more than 20 million. Now, if you're a fan of true crime, horror, or creepy encounters, you've got to listen to disturbed true horror stories. Each episode shares the terrifying experiences of real people, retold by professional actors. I bet down on his hand and he pulled back, but he puts the knife a little harder against my sweatshirt.

I began to hear the breathing and growling of what could only come from a monster. Find disturbed true horror stories wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Juicy Crime Lovers. I'm Heather McDonald, host of Juicy Scoop, the number one longest running comedy interview podcast for over a decade. Well, now I'm bringing you some of the juiciest true crime. episodes. We'll dive into the most outrageous crimes of passion, greed, deception, and scandal. From cunning grifters to shocking betrayals, and yes, sometimes a love affair so twisted that someone

ends up dead, maybe even at the hands of their hot dentist. I'll be joined by a rotating panel of special guests, including my sister Shannon, a criminal defense attorney, along with police officers, detectives, and even my own husband, Peter, who's always ready to break down those from his cases where a wife takes out her husband. So buckle up because we're about to revisit classic juicy crimes and uncover the latest cases everyone is talking about. Subscribe to Juicy Crimes for free at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. That's what they prosecuted them for. I think it was actually probably a little more than that. But he lived a very lavish life for a lot of years. That was after all of his possession.

had been sold. So it was a lot of money that he stole. He destroyed a ton of lives, including my own. I was not formally considered to be a victim because I was married to him. But I lost a substantial amount of money. All the money from my parents. You lost your whole life, too. I did, but my parents' estate money had gone into that investment as well.

So my brothers and sisters and I lost a degree. So, yeah, I wasn't formally considered a victim, but I lost beyond what I had built with him. I lost my parents' money as well. And had moments of temptation in the middle of that. I remember the federal authorities were coming to inventory, the assets for seizure. And I knew they were coming. They'd made an appointment with me. And so I was cleaning my house up, making sure everything looked good.

And in the middle of that, I stopped and went, you are crazy. What are you doing? Like cleaning your house so it's perfect just because your life is a mess. But I kept cleaning, made sure it was ready. They came. They went through the house. But right before they got there, as I was cleaning and putting things away, I had the thought, you should hide some of your jewelry before they get here.

And I thought, what? I can't, that's not honest. You should hide some of your jewelry before they get here, not to wear, but if you could end up with anything, then you could sell it and use it to rebuild your life. And I had been raised to be a really honest person. Like my parents at the grocery store didn't even let us eat a grape. before we paid because grapes were sold by weight. So if we ate a grape, we'd be stealing from the store.

So I had a really high standard of honesty and ethics. And in that terrible moment, I was still tempted to steal and hide. And I finally just thought, nope, I don't care if the man I'd been married to has abandoned his ethics. I'm holding on to mine. So I left my jewelry where it was. and thought if I meant to end up with it, if I'm supposed to have anything to start over with,

it's going to have to come the honest way because I'm not going to steal. And later, after they inventoried everything, and I saw the lists of assets they were seizing, my jewelry wasn't on it. And I thought, see, Andrea? Yeah. You choose to be honest.

It's all going to work out. They're giving that to you. But I had a funny feeling about that. It's not like I had the crown jewels, but I had some good jewelry. And I thought, if they really need to make restitution to victims, I think that might add, you know, to the money they could get back. So I contacted the government and said, hey, I got the list of assets for seizure. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't leave anything off, that this is all you're taking.

They said, nope, we didn't leave anything we're taking off. That is the list. And so I thought, oh, yeah, I totally get this jewelry. I still had just kind of a nagging feeling about that. I said, well, I have jewelry and my jewelry is not on your list. And they said, yes, we know. I said, oh, you know? They said, yeah, we know.

Your jewelry's not on the list. We're not taking your jewelry. I said, you're not? You're not taking my jewelry? No, we're not. So I hung up the phone, and then I really felt good. I thought, okay, it seemed hopeless, but maybe I can sell some of this and have a way to start over with my kids.

And I told Thing One that they weren't taking the jewelry. He goes, if they say they're not taking it, get it out of the house as fast as you can. And I thought, no, they're not taking it. I'm not going to, you know, run away with something. So I didn't. And then a few days later, the government called and said, hey, we actually do need you to make a list of your jewelry. And so I'm like, okay, so I sat down to write out the list of jewelry that I had

and shockingly had the thought, again, hey, you don't need to put every bit of jewelry that you own on this list. you can leave a few things off. Nobody's ever going to know. And I'm like, I don't think that would be honest. And then that voice in my head, it doesn't matter. You don't know how you're going to live. You don't know how you're going to support these kids.

If you end up with even a couple pieces of jewelry, you'll have a way to start over. And I had to, again, make that decision. I don't care what has happened. I'm going to be honest. So I made out the list, filled out every piece of jewelry that I knew. And these moments of hardship that we have, I think there are moments of choice. We can be true to who we are or we can abandon ourselves and go another way. I was surprised how tempting it was to do something like that.

I'm grateful that I didn't make that choice. But, I mean, when you've lost everything, how horrible to lose yourself too. But I understand, I guess, why some people make a different choice. But I was like, nope, I am going to be honest. So I made out the full list of my jewelry, gave it to the government. And then a couple of days later got a very sad phone call. One of those conversations that starts out, we have some good news and some bad news. I hate conversations like that.

So the good news was that the list, apparently the government had already had a list of my jewelry. And I didn't know that. The other news was that the list that I gave them, the good news was I had given them a more complete list of my jewelry than they had. So that was good because I'd been honest. I was going to say, yeah. The bad news was that they were now taking all of my jewelry. So I lost that. However, in the end, I was thoroughly investigated.

They do that with spouses. They check all kinds of things. And one day, within just a few months, it was probably ended June or 1st of July. So less than four months after finding out about the crime, my attorney called me one day and said, you won't believe it. You have been investigated and cleared by the government.

And I was like, well, yes, I will believe that. I've not done anything wrong. She said, no, you don't understand. I never have seen a spouse investigated as completely as you have been and cleared as completely. as you have been. She said, and they haven't just investigated you and cleared you, they've put it in writing.

She's like, I never see them put it in writing. So they basically wrote a document that I'd been investigated, cleared, was released of any responsibility for the crimes of my ex-husband. And that, you know, that was how it was. Things were settled. So I think honesty shouldn't just be the best policy to live by, but your only policy. I would assume that had something to do with their clearing of me. That and that they investigated me and there were no links.

There were no connections. So I was cleared, but that still left the what do I do now part. It ended up that I was living in. in Colorado, the job that I was hired to do was a PR job and it was in Utah. But I had a kid in high school. He would be starting as junior year of high school, which isn't like the ideal time to move a high school kid. I had a daughter who was starting ninth grade high school. So I talked to the company that hired me.

And this was before remote working was as common as it is now. just said, all right, I'm hired for this job in Utah. Do I need to move to Utah? And I remember him saying, well, you may want to get out of Colorado, like it might be. He said, but no, you could work for up to two years from home, which would give me the two years to get my oldest graduated from high school and then move. But then I realized, well, then I'll be moving my daughter, her junior. year of high school. So in the end, I kind of met with my kids and said, I am so sorry. But I need to

consider everyone in the decisions that we make. And we need to go now and just start rebuilding a life. Just leave this behind. Start rebuilding a life. So you're going to have to take the hit on this one. And we moved. And he moved his junior year of high school. And it was hard. But he survived it. So we moved from Colorado to Utah, and we moved in secrecy to some degree. Like, we kind of made a conscious decision. We were not going to talk about prison and crime, and we were going to just leave that part of our life behind us. And so when we moved to Utah, my ex-husband did help us move,

but I told him, I mean, we were divorced. moving, but I said you wear a hat, you keep your head down, you don't talk to anyone, you don't explain who you are, you're just someone moving a sin. So that was the degree of secrecy that we moved there under. And I worried about even the mailman because eventually my husband went to prison and regularly letters would arrive in the mailbox, stamped, uncensored inmate mail. And I thought, we just can't get away from this.

I mean, the mailman, whoever, they're going to know. And then I was at work, and I worked in a marketing department. And one day they had a team meeting and announced that we all needed to do a blog as part of our professional development. And I remember thinking, what am I going to write about? They're like just a passion subject.

Well, that was right. early months of building a new life. And I thought, I have no passion. I used to like art. Arts gone. I used to like travel. Travel's gone. I mean, there's not money to go to a movie or eat out. I lived a very sparse existence. We didn't have TV. We didn't have, there was just not money for anything but basic survival. And so I said, yeah, I think I'm not going to be able to do this assignment. I don't have any passions. And one of my co-workers said, well, of course you do. What, I mean, what's most important to you? I said, well, I don't know, parenting kids and raising them the right way. And they said, well, that's it. That's what you blog about. And so I said,

okay. And this coworker said, if I build your blog, do you promise you'll write in it? And he was like a young man. I think I was old enough to be his mother. And I said, yeah, if it's a work, I'll do it. So he built me a blog and I started writing it. This was in 2010. And pretty much my blog became me telling my story and how we got through it and how we overcame it. And I remember, like, the day after I posted my first posting, I went into work and two of my co-workers were, waiting there for me like expectant parents. And they said, Andrea, you have deceived us. I said, what do you mean?

No, I haven't. They said, have you looked at your blog? And for no one knowing I was blogging, it had like 300 views or something, which was pretty good. And it just kept going up. They said, people are interested in you and they want to know what's going on.

And so I had thought I would blog under the radar, but I went to my kids said, look, I know we moved here under secrecy, but if I'm in a blog and people are going to know, I need to make sure we're all okay with it. And they all said, yeah, mom, go for it. So I did. And what I learned was that is when we started healing. I think trying to leave it buried or trying to bury it,

trying to ignore it, trying to move on without conquering it and feeling it and all of that was holding us back. And I really think our comeback started when we got open about it. Now, it wasn't always well received. I'm sure there were families that wanted nothing to do with my kids or my family as a result. I know one of my kids was bullied throughout his childhood for having a parent in prison. But at the same time, that's when we started recovering. And I also, when everything happened and I felt so alone like I didn't know anyone

who'd gone through something so traumatic and disastrous in the same way. And I couldn't find anyone who was owning it and talking about it. So I thought, you know what? I am going to talk about this. If it helps even one person feel less alone. I'm going to own my story and own how I, you know, what I went through and how I came out on the other side, I think we need more survivors in this world. And I think knowing other people who've had hard things, yet they've conquered them, helps me be stronger. In fact, in the middle of that mess,

I took my kids to counseling and I went to counseling. And I, that was, that was, was one of the things the counselor told me to do as a parent. She said, she told me a lot of things. But one thing was, you need to talk about stories of hard things from your own life or people that you know and acknowledge their hard, but then talk about what they did with it and where they were five to ten years out of it so that your kids can learn and see that you can have trauma, you can have hard things, but you can move past it or grow past it and achieve success. So that was one thing that I did. Another thing that I did, this came from my mom when my dad died unexpectedly in a plane crash

and our world was destroyed. I remember talking to her thinking like, that was the absolute worst thing in the world that could have ever happened. And she said, yeah, maybe so. but I just need you to know that what is expected of you has not changed. Just because life got hard, I still expect you to be a good person. I expect you guys to stay off drugs and stay in school and work and achieve all of your goals. She said, it may have gotten harder for you to do that because we can't pay for you to do that now,

but the expectation hasn't changed. And knowing that gave me somewhere to direct my efforts. And it gave me a goal and it gave me power to know, yeah, things are hard, but you're still you. You're still the same. You're still capable. So that was another thing that I did with my kids. I let them know, hey, expectations haven't changed. It just got harder.

and then the third thing that I required was that they forgive. And we had that discussion the very night that they found out about it. As we stood in the kitchen and they were all looking at me, like expecting me to have the answers and I had none. I just said, I can promise you two things. One, I can get a job and I will get a job, even though I didn't know for sure if I would. Sometimes you've got to be an imposter. Yes.

Make it till you make it, right? I said, and I will work my tail off. I will make sure I always have a job and keep a job and that we survive. So I promise you that one. But the second thing I know is we have to forgive, not for your dad, not for the other person, but for you. Because when you hold on to hatred and that desire for vengeance and your anger, it ruined you. I'd live long enough. I'd seen a few people, you know, go through betrayal.

And when they couldn't get past it, they ruined themselves. And I thought ruined their kids to some degrees. So I was like, I don't know much, but I do know. We will survive. I'll get a job. We'll go to work. And then we will forgive. And I had to model it.

You can't ask, you know, your kids to do things. You're not willing to do. do, so we did. I've learned a lot about forgiveness through overcoming betrayal and true crime and the wrong things that people do that negatively impact us. And that's how we move forward is through forgiveness. But I think it's kind of more like... If you're a fan of true crime, horror, or creepy encounters, you've got to listen to disturbed true horror stories. Each episode shares the terrifying experiences of real people, retold by professional actors. I bet down on his hand and he pulled back, but he puts the knife a little harder against my sweatshirt.

I began to hear the breathing and growling of what could only come from a monster. Find disturbed, true horror stories wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Ever feel like healthy eating is harder than it should be? I get it. Nutrition can feel complicated, but it doesn't have to be. On Be Well by Kelly, I simplify the science of nutrition so you can feel better, balance your blood sugar, and build healthy habits that actually last. Each week, I talk to leading experts, doctors, and researchers about practical ways to nourish your body and make wellness accessible in real life. Listen to Be Well by Kelly wherever you get your podcasts.

New episodes every Wednesday. Waves of the ocean. You forgive and you're good, but then a new wave rolls in or something new is. discovered that you have, I mean, it's been 17 years and I keep finding out lies that I was told, betrayals that I didn't know about. And that gives me one more thing to forgive. So I think overcoming trauma just gives you a good exercise in continual forgiveness. It's so true. And I think, you know, something you mentioned about the blog with owning your trauma, I think, you know, no matter what your trauma is, it's so easy to build shame around that and not want to talk about it

because there's so many different, I think, emotions that come with that and heaviness. And it can seem easier just to lock it in a box and put it to the side. Because why would you want to explain it? You know, why would you want to relive some of the worst times of your life? But I think, like you said, by owning that and being open about it, it not only can be so healthy and therapeutic to yourself, but when it's something that can make others feel moved and not alone, that I think is where the big change happens.

Yeah. And you know what? For me, the shame didn't go away until I owned it and started talking about it. I might have tried to be secret about it or put it away, but it never went away. it was terrible and horrible to the point. I remember intentionally faking, smiling. Like, I did not feel for months like smiling, like smiling, which is not me.

I had been raised to be a cheerful, optimistic person. And I remember walking down the stairs one day. I'd moved to Utah. I was working. I was divorced. I mean, we were in a whole new life, yet my smiles were still fake. and forced. And I remember thinking, my gosh, are my smiles ever going to feel real again? Yeah, genuine. And they eventually did. But yeah, it was owning. I mean, the shame wasn't truly mine.

I hadn't done anything wrong. But I still felt it. And I think a lot of us do that. We take things, whatever we take on or whatever our shame is. But it certainly never one. away until I owned it, talked about it, healed from it. And I think as you do that, you eventually come to see the truth that it wasn't yours. So it doesn't bother me anymore. I never thought I'd get to that point back in the early days. The fact that this whole experience now feels like another person living a different life, I guess it was. Different person living in a different life. But yeah, you move past it. And then as you move forward and you rebuild, you know, creating a career, watching my kids move forward, it's kind of funny how things come full circle. I remember I've had some awesome career opportunities and some amazing experiences I never would have had in my old life, as good as the old life was.

I remember I got a job for a while working with a celebrity. And it was somebody that, like, I really used to like when I was just admire them. Never imagine meeting them working with them. Right. But I remember going, this is so crazy. Like, this is my life now. And I think everybody could have that. We could all look at these crazy lives that we live with these unexpected experiences.

is some of them amazing adventures, some of them really hard. But if we can use them as stepping stones to growth, rather than letting them destroy us, I mean, I could have taken to my bed, March 18th, 2009, and never gotten out of it. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I felt like doing. But if I'd made that choice, I would never have enjoyed and had all these other great, new, different experiences. And I think it says a lot that you were able to pull yourself out of that. For you, for your children. I mean, that's not, that is a pretty defeating thing.

Because not only, I mean, I think anybody can understand how overwhelming and stressful finances can be on their own. But then on top of it, you lost a marriage, you lost a friend, you lost, you lost, you lost, you lost, a lot, security, you know, so to be able to just, and I know it wasn't just an easy decision, like, okay, here we go. You know, it took time and didn't know what to do, but you did it. You know, and I think that that is extremely powerful and important and inspiring. Well, thank you. I have two names for it. One, the Merriman Depression era of 12 years. It was a long, and the second name is a long, hard slog. Yeah. It is. It is, never got better or easier, it seemed.

Every single day, I would end the day looking at the finances or looking at the challenges going, this is ridiculous. Why do I keep trying? Nothing is working. But it's those small, incremental decisions and efforts that we make over time. And sometimes it's over a decade or over more than a decade that eventually you can start going, okay, all right, we've at least moved the needle a tiny bit. And recovery as possible. I remember after we moved to Utah and my daughter was in high school, she came home one day

and said, Mom, I was walking down the hall today and two girls were walking in front of me talking about me and I heard him. And I thought, oh, great, high school, mean girls. And I had this kid who was being bullied all the years that he was growing up, I thought, I wonder what she has just experienced. And she goes, yeah, they were talking about how Sarah Merriman is so lucky that Sarah Merriman has such a good life and every good thing always happens to Sarah, blah, blah, blah. And we just looked at each other and laughed. I said, boy, those girls don't know you at all. She goes, no, they don't. That is funny.

I said, well, good for you. Right. That is how you're living. Yep. And people think that because this was probably two years after our huge disaster and she lost everything. And the fact that that's what the girls were gossiping about her for. I just said, wow. Okay.

It would be worse. Yeah. So it was kind of funny that that was their assessment of her. But, you know, they move forward my oldest. ended up becoming, getting voted the most inspirational athlete of his high school. It's funny, too, because he always had this dream. He was a big hockey player. We're from Denver, Colorado, Abbs.

His dream was to play pro professional hockey. And he looked around at hockey schools, and in the end, we kind of had to give all that up because we didn't have the money for hockey. And I think somehow somebody at the high school heard that he played hockey. So I got a call once and the coaches said, hey, can your son come and play hockey? We need him to play. And I said, I'm so sorry, but we just can't afford hockey. But thank you for the invitation.

He'll be thrilled to know someone thought he was good enough. And they said, what have we covered his hockey? So I think, now, trauma makes you forget a lot. Like, I read this in a journal, so I've forgotten about it. But they must have paid his hockey fee because I certainly didn't have the money for it. And he played hockey. He ended up playing on the state All-Stars hockey team. And this was the best part.

While he was in high school, Brigham Young University contacted him and asked if he would play on their development team. So basically they invited him to practice with their team, and he ended up getting to play college hockey. And I said, you know, I don't know if you would have been able to play college hockey in our old life, as we called it. But isn't it funny that somehow the destruction of the old life led to you being put in position to achieve your actual dream? Right. And I think sometimes that's what can happen. as you move forward in trauma.

So I don't think, I mean, it's nice to stay in the comfort zone of life and have things easy. That seems what we all want. Right. And that's our goal. But in the end, I don't think that's where you grow. I think you grow from overcoming hard things and getting out of bed when you feel that you don't want to or why. What's the purpose? But as we conquer those hard things and move forward, we grow.

And we become better people. We develop new skills. We build resilience. And it leads to amazing experiences. Absolutely. Different. Right. Different life.

Completely different. But a very good life yet the same. I think it teaches you so much about yourself. You know, your strengths. I think you're able to turn. weaknesses and weak moments into some of the most powerful life-changing moments. Absolutely. And I remember when my dad died, my mom told me, she said, you know, if you handle this right,

she said, I think you'll be able to look back and see that you became an even better person than you otherwise would have been. And I looked at her like, no. Yeah. She said, no, not that you'll be thankful that that hard thing happened to you, but you'll be able to see what you became because of it or despite it, however you want to put it, and you'll see that you were better than you would have been. And all I can tell you is this massive adult trauma that I lived through, my mom was totally right. Yeah, absolutely. How did he end up

getting the full seven years? Well, longer, shorter. So the day that he revealed his crimes and told me, you know, he thought he would be charged within a week, sentenced within a few weeks, be taken into custody. He didn't get what he expected in that or his prison sentence. In the end, he was sentenced, he was expecting five to seven years. He did everything he could to try to qualify for that because the prisons has a scoring system. That seems short to me for what he did.

Yeah, based on like your number of victims and the number of money you stole, You qualify for this amount of prison time. So he was doing everything he could to qualify. For the five to seven years, he ended up getting 12 and a half years, which I think is what happens when you break the law. You get a heck of a lot more than you bargained for. So I think he served 10, 10 and a half, maybe up to 11 years.

President Trump had some get out for good behavior type policy. impacted him a small degree. So I think he got out, he only had to serve 10 or so years of his 12 and a half year's sentence. But then he was in a halfway house. Oh, first, yeah, first he was in a halfway house, then he was on parole and now off everything, just a normal citizen walking around with a felony. Now he has to rebuild his life. He does. And boy, it's a struggle. Yeah, right. You're like been there and done that with the four kids. So one more question I had for you as well, did you find that after you kind of rebuilt your life and it came time to find love again? Did you find that that was a difficult thing for you to trust and to kind of, okay?

Yeah, I had, well, it's like life. There's this balance. I was struggling. financially and had need and I was alone and wanted a partner. Yet at the same time, I didn't want a partner. I didn't want to trust. It's scary. And we make mistakes on that. I have made some massive mistakes in that area as I've tried to trust and tried, you know, to move forward in that area.

But I think it's like everything else. Yeah, you're going to have to have. some, you're going to step forward and you're going to try. You're going to have some big failures, but do you stop with the failures or do you try again? And eventually, despite arriving to the point where I was done with men. Yeah. I felt my contribution to the whole love thing was just to keep my mouth shut and not bad mouth men, even though I wanted to. So I got really good and very comfortable very happy, very satisfied being alone. And I thought, you know what, I'm just going to be a mom, I'll be a grandma, I'll be an old lady who lives alone in her house, and I was good with that.

Yeah. And then I had an experience that made me realize I was meant to be social and to cultivate friendships and relationships. So I ended up going online. How many years was it after the disaster? Probably 12 years or so after. And I was doing it more because I felt it was the right thing, not because it's what I truly wanted. I had no interest in marriage or anything again. But I thought it'd be nice to just be social a little bit. So I wrote a very, very welcoming and engaging profile online. I believe my intro to myself was, if you're a liar, if you're a cheat, if you're a thief, if you're a criminal, if you can't manage money, if you betray people, if you do this, this and this,

don't even bother. Right. And I think I also added in, I was done with the whole not being shallow thing, the whole mistake that had led me to my first time. husband. So I also put, if you're not at least six, two, don't bother. Yeah, good for you. Right. At this point, you're like, I'm going to be very specific. And believe it or not, I heard from a few men, one of them said, can I ask a question? Do you have a problem intimidating men? And I heard from another one who said, well, I think I at least meet your height requirement. Right. Oh, my gosh. That is funny. I'm sure people got a kick out of it. Yes. And that's the one I married. the tall, handsome former athlete,

who also turned out to be financially responsible with money. That I did put in there. You can't manage money. Right. You know, and ironically, he's a fraud investigator. So I ended up married to the person who would have busted the first husband if anyone had ever known what was going on. I would say, I think that it's been easier for me to trust

than anyone I've been married to would say, I think he's pointed out a few times like, you have to trust me or you're not trusting. I'm like, yes, I am, but I see I'm not. So it's not trust without verification. It's probably trust, but you also have to prove it over and over and over again. So it takes a very patient person

to marry someone who's been through trauma. Right. And I think in general, like especially, I feel like everybody's going through something. They are small and it's tough. It's really, really hard. And I feel like you never know. And it's not to live in, you know, fear, but it just goes to show.

I mean, you can, I just can't get over that it was 20 years of thinking one way, having life one way. And then. Yeah. And it's really interesting, too, because I've been talking about this for a while. Yeah. I've been blogging for, well, 16 years ago. That's incredible. And you still do it, right?

Or not as much? I've transitioned my blog to TikTok. Gotcha. So I do TikTok. It's Andrea. And send me every link and everything. We'll put it all in the description to you for people. And then I'm launching an Instagram, I think on Monday.

Okay. It's going to be at real Andrea Merriman. And I have a website, Andrea Merriman.com. So I've been talking about it for a long time, and there have been TV shows. There's a new show, well, I don't know if it's new, but ABC has a show called Betrayal, Secrets and Lies. It's on on Sunday nights. I'm in that. Amazing.

I love it. I think May 3rd is when my episode will air. So I've been talking about it a long time. Yeah. But what I have found is the astounding number of people that have reached out saying this exact Same thing happened to me, except, and it has really opened my eyes to how many people have trauma, big or small, but even similar trauma to what I or other people have had. And I think back to 2009 when I felt so alone and thought I was the only person on the planet

other than Ruth Madoff, maybe, who knew what I was going through, and that's not true at all. There, sadly, is so much fraud, so much betrayal, so many hard things. There's a lot of people in our same boat. And knowing you're not alone changes something about it for you. I know. It's the incredible thing. And that's even when I started this show and I'll still have some people reach out. And they're like, I feel like my story's not as crazy.

And I'm like, that's not the point. Yeah. Because there's always, always somebody that needs to hear it. And, you know, if years ago we had access to things like this where you could just type it in and somebody's story pops up. I could have had a roadmap on how to survive. Oh, and I'm not alone on this. Yeah. So it's so, these conversations are so important.

And I think the people that are at that point in their healing journey where they're ready to talk about what they've been through so openly and being so vulnerable, it's so incredible. It's so inspiring and important. never stop sharing it. You know, I think it's something that it's so, like I said before, it's so good for you, I think, and it's so good for people that need to hear it. And also it brings awareness. Even for somebody that hasn't been through it, it brings a lot of awareness to things.

And that's just as important too. Oh, absolutely. I've kind of transitioned not just from, you know, surviving true crime and betrayal and all of that to building a career and re-entering the job force. all of that, and then to financial awareness and how to protect yourself and things to look for. Yeah, I think our moving forward and our growth is a journey, and it takes us to so many places where we can help ourselves, but also share the hardened wisdom we've gained from our

experiences to help others. Are we going to stop all the hard things that happen now? But we can help people know how to move forward or just be a cheerleader for somebody else. I think we need survivors and we need cheerleaders.