Wondery subscribers can binge all episodes of happily never after. Dan and Nancy early and ad free. Join wondery in the wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Abby flattened herself under a car. Her husband's associates strolled through the parking lot, taking his time. He knew she was somewhere nearby. He'd killed her husband, and now he was going to kill her. She was the last loose end. Come on out.

I know you're here.

She watched the footsteps head toward the hood. She slid further underneath. Waves of cold emanated from the concrete, but once the pavement sucked the heat from her body, only cold sweat remained. The wingtips tilted immaculately. Pressed trousers knelt on the concrete before her. She didn't have to aim to hit him. All she had to do was prop the gun on the ground and squeeze the trigger. Not once, not twice, but three times. Her stomach lurched as she swallowed bitter bile. She refused to give in to nausea. She closed her eyes. And then Travis was there, prying her fingers off the gun, holding her, murmuring in her ear, wrapping her in his protective arms.

It's okay. Cry it out.

She hated crying, but she buried her head in his chest and let the tears fall.

I thought I'd lost you.

Travis scooped her into his arms.

I'm taking you home.

Her heart thrilled with happiness. She loved this man, and she was free. Free to spend the rest of her life being cared for by someone who truly loved her. Five days of hell had freed her from twelve years of prison, and she had a really good idea for a new story.

Nancy's novel, the Wrong Hero, ended the same way most of her stories did, with a happily ever after. The ex Navy SEal professed his love, the heroine escaped her dangerous husband, and finally she was free. But in real life, the conclusion to Nancy's own story was still unfolding.

It is day one of a high profile trial for Oregon romance novelist Nancy.

Crampton Brophy, the wife, a romance novelist who once wrote an essay entitled how to kill your husband, now accused of.

Doing that very thing.

On day one of the trial, Nancy's lawyer announced that her client was going to take the stand.

That is the bombshell right there, Michael. That is the big headline, the takeaway from today. Nancy Brophy, this romance novelist. She's had four years behind bars to write what she's going to say on the stand, and now she is going to do it.

Nancy always ended her stories with the heroine as the winner, leaving her past behind and starting a brand new life. But it was one thing to write a story on the page and another to tell a story on the stand with her freedom on the line. How would Nancy write this final chapter? From wondery and the Oregonian. I'm Heidi Trethewey.

If they ask me, I could write a book.

And this is happily never after. Dan and Nancy and the simple secret of the fly. This is chapter six. The wrong wife. All the cameras in the courtroom were trained on Nancy Brophy. She sat next to her lawyers in the front row, wearing a baby blue cardigan with her white hair perfectly curled.

I have never been in a trial that had this much attention on it.

Assistant DA Nicole Herman sat across the aisle from Nancy and her lawyers. She could hear running commentary on every aspect of the trial.

The judge is in the courtroom. The jury is standing, you know, which is kind of like, oh, there's someone talking behind me.

Dan's family filled the rows behind the prosecution. Nancy's friends and family sat behind her and her lawyers.

Mister Overstreet, when you're ready.

Nancy folded her hands on the table and watched attentively as district attorney Sean Overstreet took his place behind the podium at the front of the room.

At the conclusion of the evidence in this case, I will be asking you to return a verdict of guilty for the single charge of murder.

Sean and Nicole were confident they had enough to convict Nancy, but they knew the optics worked against them.

I mean, she looks, you know, she's in her late sixties. She looks put together. She looks like someone who could be your grandmother.

They had to convince the jury that that sweet old lady in the blue cardigan was a brutal killer.

I think we had some apprehension of. Okay, we gotta just go and we're gonna see what's gonna happen.

Nancy made claims on ten separate life insurance policies in which she was the beneficiary of over $1.4 million.

Shawn described all the guns and gun parts Nancy had bought to carry out her plan, including a handgun, a gun kit, and a separate slide and barrel. And a few months before the murder, while Dan was at work, Nancy had visited a gun range that didn't require id.

She executed what she perhaps believed to be the perfect plan when she ended the life of beloved chef Daniel Brophy.

Sean took his seat. Nancy's lawyer, Lisa Maxfield, walked up to the front in a dark pantsuit. Her hair was gray and cropped close to her ears.

I had several people warn me that she is very, very good and so, you know, be on your game.

Nancy's lawyer smiled calmly at the audience and began, during this trial, the state.

Will present a circumstantial case that begs you to cast a blind eye to the most important circumstance of all. What's that? Well, it's love.

The whole room was silent, save for the clerk's typing.

Nancy Crampton Brophy has always been thoroughly, madly crazy in love with Daniel Brophy, and she still is today.

One by one, Lisa countered the evidence Sean had laid out, starting with the insurance policies. Nancy had taken out all those policies on Dan because it made practical sense. She was a few years older than him.

The older one gets, the harder it is to get really good insurance at a reasonable price. There were times in their marriage that he was eligible for policies for which she was not.

She explained the guns and gun parts. Nancy bought them for research. In late 2017, shed begun dreaming up a new story. In this story, the woman is afraid.

To leave her partner, but shes also afraid that shes going to get killed if she stays. The woman cannot legally buy a gun because she'd been hospitalized for depression as a young woman.

So Nancy did what she thought her character would do. She bought a gun kit and a separate slide and barrel as research for her story. Nancy's lawyer argued this wasn't unusual for writers.

I want to show you then what's been marked as exhibit 298. It's going to show up on that little television screen in front of you.

What is that?

It's a victorian chastity belt. Did you buy that as a part of your writing? I did.

Friends from Nancy's writing group took the stand and described all the unusual things they'd bought or done for research.

You also have actually learned to fire a gun as part of your research, is that right? Correct. We got to fire assault rifles and a sniper rifle, which was really interesting looking through a scope. Are you pretty careful to keep your personal life separate from your writing life? I do.

Nicole Herman didn't think that proved anything.

The people who had bought these items were writers who were successful and had the money to afford these expensive items. They didn't go into debt to buy the items for their research. Whereas obviously with Nancy, why would you spend, you know, 1200 plus dollars on firearms when you can't pay your mortgage?

Nicole called to the stand another friend of Nancy's, someone who'd also been close to Dan.

Miss Medlin, we're gonna come and have you stand in the witness box here.

Tanya Medlin arrived in the courtroom still in her white chef's coat and a hairnet. She'd come straight from work.

She's able to explain. Look, I was both their friends. I'm not partial to one side or the other.

She walked over to the witness box just a couple feet away from where Nancy was sitting.

I didn't even want to make eye contact with Nancy just because I don't want anybody to think that for some reason, I know something more than I know.

It was hard not to be nervous on the stand, but there was one thing that kept Tonya going.

I really believe in all my heart that Dan would. Would want me to, for his love for Nancy, give her the benefit of the doubt. And that's what I did.

Nicole Herman asked Tanya about the day of Dan's death.

Did she tell you at all what.

She was doing that morning?

My exact words were, where the hell were you when this was happening? And she said, I was at home in bed, writing.

Did Nancy ever talk to you further or tell you anything more about the investigation or.

I asked her constantly. Have you heard from the police? I asked her constantly, and it was, no, I haven't heard anything.

When it was Nancy's lawyer's turn to question Tanya, she stayed focused on her main argument, how much Dan and Nancy loved each other. Tanya would often turn to Nancy for marital advice.

Nancy would say, what's going on? And I'd tell her, what's going on. And she would be, Tanya, you want a long marriage, correct? Yeah. Okay. 50 years down the road. Is this the argument you want to keep having? Pick your battles. This is one you can let him win.

Tanya said that was the attitude Nancy took toward all of Dan's passions. The chickens, the backyard with all his science experiments.

Oh, lord, it was a mess. I used to say to Nancy, how do you do this? Because my husband would be out here cleaning this. Nancy responded with, this makes him happy. This makes my husband happy. As long as he's happy, this is not a battle I'm gonna pick.

And Tonya knew Dan felt the exact same way about Nancy.

I never saw Dan hinder her, nor her hinder him. It wasn't a one way street.

Nancy's lawyer asked one final question about the last night of Dan's life, which he'd spent working with Tanya side by side in a kitchen. You get close to someone.

We had a great conversation tonight before he died.

And that was about his son.

Yes.

Tell us about that.

It was based around my grandson who was graduating high school. And I said to Dan, what did you get Nathaniel for graduation? And he said, I wasn't there. I was estranged from my son at that time in his life. And he said that he regretted it to this day because he wasn't there during his graduation, like he should have been.

At some point, while Tanya was talking, she heard Nancy laugh.

I made the mistake of glancing over at her. Nancy has a certain laugh, and, you know, it's happy. 30 years of her laughing makes me smile, you know what I mean? And she laughed. And I glanced over at her, and she freaking winked at me.

It gave her a weird feeling. When she got home, she told her husband, she winked at me.

She literally winked at me. He goes, do you think it was just Nancy being friendly? And Nancy, I go, I'm sure it was. But, my God, her husband's dead. If that was my husband, I would have been a. I would have been a mess. Like, I thought, oh, my God, she's not taking this seriously. Or she thinks this is a joke. I had a pit in my stomach from that moment on because I knew something wasn't right.

The trial was a chorus of witnesses, from gun specialists to friends and colleagues to financial experts. And about six weeks into the trial, the star witness for the defense took the stand.

My name is Nancy Crampton Brophy.

She wore the same light blue cardigan she'd worn on day one. Nicole hoped Nancy's testimony would show the jury who she really was.

There's a lot more going on here than just someone who could be her grandmother who's been wrongly accused.

Nancy's lawyer began with questions about Dan.

Did you and Dan brophy complete each.

Other or balance each other out completely? I'm a flawed person. Dan's a flawed person. We came together and made up one really good team. His weaknesses were my strengths. My strengths tended to be his weaknesses. And together, it just fit immediately and never stopped.

She was very comfortable up on the stand.

From across the room, Shawn and Nicole watched Nancy closely.

She puts her arm over the back of her chair, she settles in. She's very comfortable.

Nancy's style was off the cuff, charming and a bit self deprecating.

If someone said earlier, I'm a chatter, and I don't remember who said that, but I am a chatter, and I can just start running. I never met a rapper rabbit hole I didn't like.

It was surprising to watch the way she laughed, the way she sat back in her chair. She had a lot of kind of running commentary and quips that she would throw in there.

I got my detective's license on tv, and I can guarantee you I had ideas on how this case should have.

Gone the way she was sort of presenting was this way of like, well, gosh, I mean, of course I didn't do this. I'm this likable person. I'm, like, really smart. I'm all these things.

You said there was a time that you came up to buy a gun kit. When was that?

December's, the 24th. Dan was working. I was drinking wine, which probably one might construe to be a mistake. And when he walked in the door, I said, guess what, I'm buying. And I gave him a glass of wine, because guess what? I'm buying. You know, that kind of thing always helps.

She wasn't distraught. She wasn't serious. She acted like she was just having a chat with girlfriends at a book club.

Did you ask Dan about tools that you would need to put this together?

I said, do we have a drill press? And he said, no. But I also knew that if we didn't have it, other people would. I wasn't that worried.

This gun kit, is that separate in your mind from the gun?

Yes.

Why?

Well, because the gun is a gun, and it's for protection. The gun kit is a toy, and it's for writing.

On June 2, after you learned that your husband had been killed with a gun, how did you feel about your decision to buy a gun?

Well, in the lighter moments, I thought it was karma kicking me in the ass. But in the heavier moments, I thought, we own a gun, and it didn't protect us. We bought a gun to protect us, and it didn't do its job.

The defense finally arrived at the day of Dan's murder.

Did you learn that the police had video, or were you told that the police had video of you driving in Beaverton?

It was one of the DA's strongest pieces of evidence. Nancy's van driving by the crime scene right before and after Dan's murder. And Sean wondered how Nancy's lawyers were planning to explain it. Maybe they were going to say he.

Forgot his wallet at home, and I drove it down to him. Kind of what we always. One of our running theories. We thought, well, maybe they'll just go with that. I mean, we can't disprove that. She drove a wallet down to him. His wallet was there. So maybe that's what happened.

Instead, Nancy was about to introduce a new storyline, a plot twist she'd used before in her writing. For almost two decades, a man named Rick Singer standardized the side door to college admissions for wealthy families, funneling bribes and false information to elite universities so that the wealthiest kids could get into the best schools. Stay tuned until the end of this episode to hear a preview of Scamfluencers.

What kind of podcasts are you in the mood for? Award winning? What about edge of your seat thrillers? Interested in a thought provoking mystery? Or perhaps something that will teach you more about the world around us? Either way, Wondry has you covered with ad free episodes of your favorite podcasts and number one hits. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

Tanya Medlin had been watching a live stream of Nancy's testimony, just waiting for this moment.

I was hoping she was gonna somehow get up there and be able to prove that that wasn't her van.

And now Nancy's lawyer, Lisa Maxfield, had finally arrived at it.

Did they tell you that they had video of you near the murder scene?

Yes.

Did you believe that was true?

Not for 1 second. I thought, they're making this up. This isn't true.

But then Nancy was shown a photo.

A photograph of what looked like my van and what looked like me in it and what looked like me in clothes I recognized. But I can tell you it looked like me. I can tell you that I was, uh. Oh, man. I was frightened to death.

Nancy looked straight at the jury.

I'm looking at this and thinking, oh, man, I'm now losing my mind because that's what you think. You think, how can this have happened and me not remember this? How am I sitting here in a vehicle and have absolutely no memory of how I got there?

Nancy said she couldn't remember long stretches of the morning Dan was killed.

Even now, as I think about it, my mind kind of goes blank with the horror of it.

The technical term for Nancy's memory loss is retrograde amnesia. The shock of learning Dan was dead wiped out the memory of what had happened right before. At least that's what Lisa Maxfield was arguing.

The disruption, the chemical disruption, will affect a person immediately, but it can also leave large memory holes for events that happened before, during, and after a traumatic event.

Well, just garbage.

Sean didn't buy it.

It was something that clearly was just made up for the trial. Try to explain why she's there.

Amnesia was a writing trope Nancy had used before. Maybe you remember it. She wrote a story about some guy.

Who was in the construction business, and he got hit in the head and.

He lost his memory.

That was Nancy's ex, Joe. He hadn't been impressed by that story. And Shawn and Nicole hoped the jury wasn't going to buy this story either. Lisa asked her final question.

Did you kill Dan Brophy?

No, I did not.

I have no further questions.

Thank you.

All right. Cross examination.

Shawn leaned forward into the mic.

Yes. Thank you, judge. I never talked to her. The first time I talked to Nancy Brophy was during the trial when she was. When she was on the stand. Good afternoon, Miss Brophy.

Good afternoon.

I knew that I couldn't come at her right away. I couldn't just go in there hitting her hard with the tough questions. I wanted her to continue feeling comfortable.

So he started slow and easy.

Back in 2018, did you carry a purse?

No.

Carry a wallet?

No.

What we did was we peppered my cross examination questions with innocuous questions, questions that just didn't mean anything. How did you carry your critical pieces of information, like an id and stuff.

Like that, in my bra. I know that's weird, but so much of what I did was not aided by having a purse.

She launched into this whole explanation about her purse.

So I had my phone in my bra. If I needed a driver's license or a car to, you know, and I barely had cash.

What became apparent to me was that she thought that I was getting at that. She concealed a gun in her purse when she went to the corner institute that day, and I was not getting at that at all. That was not the intention. It was supposed to be a throwaway question. And so once she did that, I knew that I was going to be able to ask her whatever I wanted, and she was going to be just. Here's an answer for everything. Here's my explanation.

Nancy liked to hear herself talk, so they were going to give her every opportunity to keep on talking. They asked her about the gun kit she claimed she bought as research for her story.

What steps did you take to actually try to build it?

I didn't take any because I wasn't ready to write this story yet.

You decided to write that story months prior.

Yes.

But you weren't ready to start writing it.

That's right.

What was the need to buy the gun at that point?

I was celebrating. It was Christmas.

Right, but what was the need to buy the gun if you weren't writing the story yet?

Mister Overstreet, we have had testimony upon testimony upon testimony by the. Dan was a collector. Dan wasn't a collector by himself. I had my little piles of stuff.

And so now you're a gun collector?

No. Now I have a piece of writing information, research. I was watching videos to see how to put it together.

But I thought you weren't ready to put it together.

I'm not ready to put it together. But that doesn't mean I'm not researching what I have to do to get it ready to get put together.

I think she couldn't help herself. But to outsmart or give an explanation.

Sean wanted Nancy to explain how the slide and barrel she bought for research and that the DA's office believed was the murder weapon conveniently went missing.

Where is it?

I have no idea. If you'd asked me on the day of my arrest, I would have told you that it was either in the house or it was either in storage. I haven't seen it for months and months and months and months.

Do you see the irony in not being able to locate that? And that being the allegation that that was the murder weapon?

You know, I see nothing ironic about this case at all. I see nothing happy about this case at all.

Shawn stayed focused on the facts.

You would agree that you're driving around in front of the culinary institute at the exact time that Dan is being murdered.

I. No, actually, I don't agree with that. I was driving around for a full hour before Dan got murdered. I was down there before Dan ever got to school. I was driving around riding for a full hour. I was only in that vicinity for six minutes. And I don't know that Dan was murdered in that six minutes.

Nancy always boasted about how much she knew when it came to the police and the legal system. It seemed like she thought she knew so much that she could answer Shawn's questions the same way she wrote her novels. Telling the story by the seat of her pants.

I'm sorry, did you just say that you were driving around riding?

Yes, that's what I was doing, was driving around riding.

Shawn glanced over at the defense team.

You could tell they were very frustrated. It seemed like. Cause Nancy just couldn't help herself. I thought you didn't know that you were driving yesterday.

What I testified for was that when I was sitting in there, I could remember being in the. Being in the parking lot, riding. Didn't I say that yesterday?

Yeah.

How can you sit here today and say that? I was driving around writing?

Because if I was down there, that's what I was doing.

How do you know you didn't go in the building?

I know I didn't go in the building because I didn't kill Dan. You know, I know that for a fact.

If you have no memory, how do you know you didn't go in the building?

You know, I'm reconstructing this, but I'm reconstructing this based upon what I know in my heart. And what I know in my heart is the reason why I have no memory is because I was stunned by the fact Dan was dead. And I wouldn't have been stunned if I'd been in the building and shot him.

I didn't suggest that. You did go in to shoot him.

Nicole watched the jury to see how that landed.

There's no way that these twelve jurors aren't gonna think she did it.

This is.

This is that missing piece that we had. We had a really strong case, but she just put the final piece in place.

I think your case is held together with real, frankly, band aids, you know?

Anything else you wanna add to that?

No, I think I'm done. Probably more than I wanna be.

Isn't it possible, with your memory problems of the morning that you actually went into the building and shot your husband and you just don't remember?

No, it is not. It seems to me like if I had shot him, I would know every detail. You know, I could have told you all sorts of things. That was true. I did not shoot my husband. And I don't know even how to defend myself against the truth.

My last question to you, Miss Brophy is if there's one thing that you know about murder, is it that anyone is capable of doing it?

I absolutely believe that. I think most people don't murder for flimsy reasons. I think people get pushed into a corner where they have no other option.

She went on a tirade, I would call it. For several minutes. I set my pen down and sat back in my chair and let her talk about how anyone's capable of murder.

Some of Nancy's friends, like Kim Wallenberg didn't know what to make of Nancy's testimony.

There was a lot of strong evidence against her. The reason I listened is because I wanted an answer to those things. And I didn't get that. So I don't think I can come out and say, yes, she's guilty or no, she's innocent. But she was a smart woman, so some of those things were not smart, which is what I'm struggling with.

Tanya was pissed.

Amnesia, my ass. This woman forgot nothing, especially when it came to business or money.

She felt like she'd been lied to and used.

She had to have been rehearsing this and she had to have been purposely keeping me in. In a spot that she wanted me so that she was able to use me as a character witness. Because I knew enough, but just not enough. And it wasn't until all this shit started coming together that I was able to start putting pieces together. And as long as she could keep all of it separated, I couldn't put the pieces together.

The jury began deliberations on May 24, 2022, around ten in the morning. By noon the next day, they announced they had a verdict. The trial had lasted seven weeks. The deliberations only lasted 8 hours. Nathaniel scanned the faces of the jurors as they filed in.

I remember one of the jurors who I had observed kind of watching us as the family, you know, throughout the trial, she was staring at us and smiling. All right, if we can have misses brophy, right?

Nancy stood up. She looked straight ahead.

The we, the jury, duly empaneled and sworn in the above entitled cause, do find our verdicts upon the count submitted to us as follows. Count one, murdering the second degree, guilty.

Nancy's lawyer sighed and shut her eyes.

Nancy profile didn't change.

She didn't even flinch. She didn't have any reaction.

Like, it is more devastating to her lawyer than it was her. I literally wondered, like, if mentally, she's okay. Normal people can't do that. Normal people would act like the lawyer did.

I think she truly believed she was gonna get away with this, but I have to believe on some level that she wasn't surprised at that point, because she really had no reaction.

On the other side of the courtroom, Nathaniel and his family took in the news.

It was so much emotion to get to that point. I think it was just an exhale. I think it was just finally an opportunity to take a breath.

Three weeks later, Nancy Brophy was sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole after 25 years. It's now been about six years since Dan's life was taken. Nancy is still in prison and currently appealing her guilty verdict. She has never confessed to killing Dan, and the people in her life are still grappling with the reason why Nancy did it.

When my ex boyfriend and I were splitting up, and I was back and forth and back and forth, she's the one who said, tanya, you're at the beginning of the end. Only you can decide how the ending happens. So why would she want this to be hers?

Some people, like Dan's mother and son, wondered if she started living in her novels. After all, being a writer can feel like playing God. You create characters, and then you tell them what to do and who to be. Nancy wrote in one of her blogs. One of the most satisfying things about writing fiction is the ability to sculpt everyone's lives to give the hero and heroine a happily ever after. Yet my own life refuses to respond to my pen.

And I do think, in a way, that her writing melded into her life in that way. But I also believe that she was not so delusional that she thought she was just acting out a story, rather that she believed she could get away with it.

For Nicole Herman, Nancy didn't simply get carried away by her fiction. She was a person that truly felt she deserved to get whatever she wanted.

I think she's just very narcissistic as a person. She is the controller, she is the mastermind. And I think she sees herself as really the writer of her life. Right.

Nancy believed her own wants and needs were more important than Dan's, and she decided to pursue them the same way the women in her badly written novels did, by killing off the man standing in the way of her freedom. But people are not characters in a novel. In real life, actions have consequences.

I just wanted to share some thoughts and share how her actions had affected our lives.

During Nancy's sentencing, Nathaniel took the stand to give a victim impact statement. He hadn't spoken to Nancy since her arrest. He sat in the witness box only a few feet from Nancy.

Your largest financial contribution in the latter years was sending my father off to work an extra job so you could continue to pretend to be an author. My father possessed more knowledge, depth, accomplishments, recognition, and joy in life than a person as shallow and self serving as yourself are capable of.

Between every sentence, he looked straight at Nancy.

Your repayment for decades of dedication, trust, and love. Plot his murder on Christmas Eve. The pain you have delivered to us is immeasurable. You were, to borrow from your catalog, the wrong wife. There's no greater misfortune than dying alone. Yet for you, Nancy, I can't imagine a more fitting end to this tragedy.

Nancy won't be eligible for parole until she's 97 years old. She'll spend her old age in prison. Maybe some of her friends will still call her once in a while. Maybe she'll continue to play scrabble against people with atrocious spelling. And maybe she'll find another way to live out her happily ever after. Maybe one day she'll write a story about an older woman sitting by herself at a beachside bar in in Portugal. The sun is bright. Her bare feet are in the sand. She signals a waiter to come refill her glass with his most expensive wine. She's got money to spend, at least a million in the bank, and between sips of her drink, she puts pen to paper. She has all the time time in the world to finish her next novel. Follow happily never after Dan and Nancy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad free right now by joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com. survey from Wondery and the Oregonian. This is the final episode of happily Never after Dan and Nancy.

Happily never after Dan and Nancy is hosted by me, Heidi Trethewey. This series is reported by Zane Sparling. Additional editing by Margaret Haberman. Senior producer is Tracy Egboss. Senior story editor is Natalie Shisha. Associate producer is Sam Hobson. Production assistants from Mariah Dennis, Emily Locke, Evangeline Barrass, and Seth Bodine. With writing from Nicole Perkins. Casting by Rachel Reese. Voice talent by Kristen Egermeyer, Dustin Rubin, and Kristen Price. Special thanks to Russell Finch sound design mixing an additional composition by Daniel Brunell assistants by Daniel William Gonzalez. Sound supervisor is Marcelino Viel Pondo. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. For free Sun Sync fact checking by Annika Robbins senior managing producer is Latta Pandya. Managing producers are Olivia Weber and Heather Beloga. Executive producers for advanced local are Richard diamond and Selena Roberts. Executive producers are Niggery Eaton, George Lavender, Marshall Louis, and Jen Sargent. For wonder e, you're about to hear a preview of Scamfluencers. While you're listening, follow scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's November 2023, and 60 year old Felicity Huffman is in a dark studio in LA, waiting for cameras to roll. She's a veteran and knows a drill, but she's probably more nervous than usual because she's not here to film a tv show. She's going to sit down with a reporter from ABC Seven News, and it's the first time she's speaking publicly since her brief stint in prison. Three years ago, Felicity was arrested for paying someone to cheat on her daughters. Sat through it all. Felicity hasnt said a thing, even as she became a tabloid punching bag. But now shes ready to break her silence. The reporter wants to know one thing thats been on everyones how did you get caught up in this?

People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys. But that was not the case. I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer and trusted him implicitly.

Rick Singer was the mastermind behind the entire scheme. He was charged alongside Felicity and others, but he didn't get nearly as much media attention. Felicity tells a reporter that at first, Rick's work was all above board, but she says that as the application deadlines approached, his advice turned from helpful to criminal.

After a year, he started to say, your daughter's not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to. And I believed him. And so when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like, and I know this seems crazy at the time, that that was my only option, to give my daughter a future.

You can listen to scamfluencers early and ad free right now by joining wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.