Rehabilitation | EP 9 | Saskia's Story

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He recently hired a consultant who is helping guide him on what to expect.

Bernie Madoff has hired a prison consultant.

Actress Lori Laughlin has reportedly hired a prison consultant.

Luigi man Joni Martha Stewart. NFL player Michael Vick has hired a prison consultant. Willis new prison consultant tip the scales in his case. Prison consultants assist people who are facing time. Many of these consultants promote their services on YouTube and TikTok.

Have you been indicted?

You think you're gonna be indicted? You need someone who speaks inmates and institutions.

So if you are a.

Loved one that's been recently arrested, you can go ahead and text me.

I'll be happy to help you in any.

Way I can for the right price. Prison consultants will advise those facing time on how to get a lesser sentence or how to get out of jail early. They'll tell you what programs to join and what gangs to avoid. Many of these consultants have served time themselves, often for fine antil crimes or nonviolent offenses. But what if the person giving out that advice was a convicted rapist? What if they were someone like Mike Levengood. I'm Andre Gunning

I'd always learned you'd never touch your four O one K, like you always need three months of bills in the bank just in case a rainy day, and I'd always live by that. And I had to kind of throw that out the window to fight this. I remember the first withdrawal I made was for sixty ten thousand dollars and that was just for attorney's bills up to that point.

In the end, the divorce cost her about one hundred thousand dollars. It's a financial hole she's still crawling out of. All of this got us thinking about Mike's financial status, how he's doing today after this crime. So we did some digging and what we found surprised us. By early twenty twenty one, Mike had served his sentence. He was

He was very smart yet a master's degree. He was working as vice president of marketing for Bank of America, So I mean he made a good salary.

It was more than a good salary. Before his conviction, he was making between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. He was an executive, and a good one. If you look at his LinkedIn recommendations, he was well liked and respected. One recommendation reads.

He's not only a tremendous professional, he's also a person of integrity, kindness, and old school values.

While another says Mike is a top notch professional and a pleasure to work with. Even during his sentencing hearing and after pleading guilty to second degree rape, a former colleague showed up to defend him.

As long as I've learned Mike, he's really always been an outstanding character of people, grow mentoring, providing kindness, and a good will towards people.

Nice is the jumble soul.

It's one of the hardest things to wrap your head around the fact that someone can commit a disturbing personal crime and people will still line up to call them kind and gentle. Most sex offenders struggle to find any work after they get out. When they do, it's usually construction, waste management, or warehouse gigs. But Mike had a plan. In fact, he had it before he went to jail. During his sentencing hearing back in twenty nineteen, his lawyer shared that plan with the judge.

He has started an LLC so that he can provide consulting to businesses using the information and knowledge that he had from his career, and hopefully not let the record be an impediment to some companies hiring him. Because he can use the LLC, he'd use.

His expertise in banking and marketing to support himself financially, and by running that business through an LLC, his clients could work with him without the bad pr Then, in February of twenty twenty one, out of jail, and a month later he filed a trade name application for a new company. But this company wasn't a business consulting firm.

My name is John Fuller. I started my prison consulting business in two thousand and four.

Like a lot of prison consultants, John has a criminal past.

That since the ten years for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute.

He did time for drug and forgery charges. But since prison, John's built quite the career for himself.

I've worked primarily with white collar criminals, professional athletes, entertainers, mostly high profile individuals.

Multiple outlets say he coached Martha Stewart when she was heading to prison. He didn't comment on that. But no matter the client, his job is essentially the same.

I prepare my clients on things that they should do before incarceration, ways they should behave during incarceration, and any assistance or the reality of their circumstances post incarceration.

Every prison consultant offers different services. Some explain sentencing guidelines or strategized on getting their clients' lesser sentences. They facilitate mock trials and in some cases assist in writing remorse letters to victims. Others focus on eliminating the unknowns of prison, what the foods the fellow inmates might be like, and they also explain those unknowns to family members who are

What ninety percentities of the prison consultants are doing. They'll make promises and tell you that they can save your life.

In our reporting, we spoke to several prison consultants. Every one of them had something to say about the others. But John brought up a lot of interesting examples of how other consultants will say they can gain the system to their client's advantage.

For instance, they'll lie and charge you fifteen twenty thousand dollars and tell you as soon as you get to the prison they can get them in a residential drug and alcohol program.

You might be wondering, why would anyone who doesn't use drugs or alcohol pay twenty thousand dollars for addiction treatment. Well, John says can be part of a larger strategy.

Because if you can get into the residential drug and alcohol program, you can get eighteen months to three years off your sentence.

So of course they're gonna go that route.

And this wise guy of a prison consultant says, we're gonna lie and you're gonna tell your probation officer that you do use drugs. You do use alcohol as a matter of fact, go report next week with the smell of alcohol on your breath and that's what's gonna qualify you for the residential drug and alcohol program.

A few years ago, a prison consultant pled guilty to conspiring to defraud the Federal Bureau of Prisons for running that exact scam. But John says that's not the only scam people in his industry are operating.

These prison consultants are literally stealing money from people, saying, you're not gonna do any time, but if you don't pay me this ten fifteen, twenty twenty five thousand dollars within the next thirty six hours, I can't help you. And the client is so scared that he's going to do it.

Mike declined our requests for comment, so we don't know how much Smith and Good charges or the specific strategies they use, but on their website they do advertise a wide variety of services. They support clients in mitigating their sentences and prepping for their time behind bars. They also provide guidance on parole hearings and sex offender registry requirements. But there's one line that stands out to me on the Smith in Good homepage. I had my producer Trey read it.

We emphasize the importance of rehabilitation, how to do this safely at the Department of Corrections, and what loved ones can do to support rehabilitative efforts. It also with a plan.

It's not for us to say whether Mike was rehabilitated while behind bars, but we can say that Mike had a plan for himself. Very soon after Mike got out of jail, he had a business name, address, and tax id number, and on top of that, he found himself a business partner. His associate is a former army ranger with a criminal pass of his own. But unlike Mike, he wasn't a sex offender. He was charged with murder, and when questioned by detectives, his story changed three times.

Are many examples in mister Smith's life where he was a good person. He was a mentor to young soldiers. He was promoted the rank of sergeant fairly quickly, which is no easy tax. He was assigned to a very responsible unit with a very important job in the defense of this country. But when good people do bad things, they have to be held accountable. He made a horribly bad decision, and in making that decision, it crossed the life of another young man.

That young man was twenty two year old Michael McQueen. He was also an Army ranger an intelligence analyst. He and Gary served several tours together in Afghanistan. When they came back to the US, they moved in together. The queen's friends and family said he was excited to be home. He had plans to go to college, then law school, become a sports agent. But then in the early morning hours of September twenty six, two thousand and six, Michael McQueen was found dead. He had a gunshot wound to

In it.

Gary is distraught. The nine one one operator could barely understand him. If you'd like, you can skip ahead thirty seconds.

What's the problem there.

When the cops arrived, Gary remained inconsolable. He insisted he had nothing to do with McQueen's death, but the police they didn't buy it because Gary was covered in McQueen's blood and that wasn't all. Here's the prosecutor a trial's.

Outside at this point, over the top, uncontrollably crying and they were officers. Well, Sargeant said, I know she was crying loudly, but there.

Were no tears coming.

And each time the authorities pressed Gary, he changed his story. During the investigation, he gave three very different versions of what happened that night. Story number one came the first time the police asked Gary what happened. He said he wasn't even home at the time of McQueen's death. They'd been out drinking and Gary dropped McQueen at their apartment before running out for a quick errant. Here's Gary on the police interrogation tapes.

He went upstairs.

I said, I to go pick up some queen socks.

I drove over my mother's house, crabt the logic, bask good for clothes. Put him in my car. Turning about it went back to the house that went stared open the door. I saw Mike sitting in a chair, and I saw blood up over the place.

Maybe it was a suicide, or maybe someone killed McQueen. Gary offered a few possible theories of who could have done it, some neighbors McQueen had argued with, or maybe a drug dealer in the building. Gary said when he found McQueen, there were no weapons nearby. He kept all of his guns at his mom's house, but later he told officers something very different. Here's story number two.

I came home. Michael was dead, gumbles in his hands.

It was Gary's gun. He knew his fingerprints would be all over it. Anti panicked, going best.

I realized he was dead. I got back to my car. I drove to la and Evily and I threw here I need to preach. I got back from my car. I drew back to my house.

Gary confessed that before calling nine to one one, he took the time to get rid of the weapon. He said, he threw the gun in a lake.

I was so scared he was dead.

He was dead, and it was mind ol.

I left that gun there.

It was my going.

I didn't pop it up.

Now Gary was suddenly sure this had to be a suicide. And then there was story number three, also a suicide. But in this third account, Gary didn't come home to find McQueen dead. He was in the apartment when McQueen fired the gun. The prosecutor summarized this version for the court.

Says, he comes in, he puts a gun on the floor, he was back in the bathroom, who came out, and Mike killed himself. And then even of story three, he gives different versions of that I put on the table, I was here, I did see it, I didn't see it. I might have been closed, I might not have been closed.

Three different stories and one dead man. And with each version, Gary moved a little closer to the scene, from nowhere near the apartment and no gun in sight, to finding the gun and throwing it in a lake, to being inside the apartment when his friend died. The problem with all three versions, none of them clearly lined up with the forensic evidence, and the interpretation of that evidence was heavily debated by both the prosecution and the defense. There

An Alfred plea is essentially a guilty plea where you say that I'm not saying that I did it, but I acknowledge that there's a sufficient evidence in order to find me guilty.

That's Max fris Loan, a defense attorney in Maryland and the founder of Friswood's Criminal Defense.

So you have somebody who spent years in jail, the state has put on multiple criminal trials of pen numerous witnesses who have testified multiple times under oath, and so sort of the whole entire goal of an Alfred plea is that the person's found guilty, but the person themselves doesn't have to say it, but ultimately it is a conviction.

An Alfred plea is a compromise. The state still gets a conviction, but the defendant gets the ability to maintain their innocence. Plus. As part of the plea, Gary's legal team negotiated his charges down significantly. What was once a murder charge was now reckless endangerment and he got sentenced to time served. In the end, Gary Smith served just six years behind bars. We reached out to Gary for comment, but he didn't respond to our call. The same goes

Hi, I'm Gary. I'm a law clerk here at the office of Jessega Moise.

I served six years in prison.

Before that, I was an army ranger.

If you were a loved one who'd been charged with a crime, base get our office as a call and we'd love to help you.

And now I'm happy to say that Gary works for me full time as a law clerk on all my homicide cases and my serious fellon cases.

That's Andrew Jessick, Gary's boss, speaking on his firm's YouTube channel.

I'm proud of him, and I think we were able to show in the end that Gary was innocent and that Gary deserved to get every break that he could. And now he's married, he's got a child, he's my lockerck, he's going to go to law school, and he's hopefully going to be my partner one day.

If that boys sounds familiar, it's because you've heard it before.

Every scene has.

A past and every sinner has a future, and Mike.

The great hearts of him will continue and dominate for the rest of his life.

Andrew Jessick was also Mike levin Goood's defense attorney. He also didn't return our call. In many ways, Gary and Mike had a lot in comment. Both of their cases ended in a mess of legal technicalities, and they were both convicted, but they each maintained their innocence in spite of the judge's ruling. It's no wonder then that these two became partners, that they came together to help other people like them. On the Smith and Good site, they invite people to reach out and give them a call.

So I called them up and surprisingly answered.

By twenty twenty one, both Mike Levinood and Gary James Smith had served their sentences, and together they launched Smith and Good Associates, built on their experiences with and contacts within the criminal justice system. On the surface, their business is like any other consulting firm. They've got clean headshots and a polished website with a promise to help guide

At some point, you do have to earn enough money to comply with probation, right.

That's Max frizz Alone, the lawyer you heard from earlier. He's referring to something we discussed at the top of the episode that X cons are required to hold down a job as part of the terms of their probation.

For a lot of people who have been convicted of crimes, especially crimes of violence sexual offenses, traditional employment might be impossible. You know, you're unlikely to get through a background check if you have a prior violent felony, or you know you're a sex offender, so you might have to get creative about how to keep making money.

And making money doesn't just benefit the offender, it benefits their families, who often suffer from the lack of income that comes with their relatives incarceration. But the idea that X cons are now profiting from that past raises a lot of moral, ethical, and legal questions.

One of the pitfalls and problems with the industry is your qualification for the job is the fact that you committed a crime.

That's Trey Morgan, one of my producers. He's been reporting on crime for eight years now and he did a lot of the investigation for this episode. One of the biggest problems he sees with this industry is that there's no certification process to become a prison consultant.

I mean, almost every other industry that deals with our criminal justice system has some sort of licensing and some sort of board that establishes rules and guidelines, but for some reason we have decided that this one doesn't need oversight.

A lot of these crimes are about control, and being a consultant puts you in a position of power. And then there's the concern of people like Mike getting close with fellow criminals. Remember started this business immediately after getting out.

For sex offenders like Mike and violent offenders like Gary, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, they encourage limiting contact with other offenders, and the goal there is really I mean, it's common sense to reduce the risk of reoffending, especially right when you get out of jail or prison.

Mike and Gary working together likely goes against that advice. So would Mike consulting other convicted felons while he was still on probation. Maybe there's a world where I could get past all of that. Mike and Gary did serve their time. They're technically free to do whatever they want to do and make money in most ways you could think of. But there's one thing I keep coming back to, what does this business mean for people like Michael McQueen

I hate to say it, but in a lot of ways, we are an offender first society. Post conviction, our focus turned to the convicted to say, okay, well, they're serving their time, they're getting their life back together, and we start forgetting about the actual victim.

When you go to Smith and Good's website, you see a lot about Mike and Gary's accolades home Mike was a business exec at Fortune five hundred companies, and how Gary was an intelligence specialist in Afghanistan. Nowhere on the website do they make any acknowledgment of the details of the crimes they've been convicted of and the victims whose lives they've altered forever.

And I couldn't imagine what it would be like for Saskia to first learn that her perpetrator is selling the experience that he gained from what he did to her. I just can't imagine.

Saskia had no idea about Like's business. She only found out about it from us once we started investigating for the podcast.

I can't say that I was really surprised, but I just thought it was really a low, shameful.

Thing to do.

He's not helping victims or not helping rehabilitate people, and instead of making something good out of it, he decides to capitalize on it. He's like they laughing at everything that he put me through.

As for Michael McQueen, he will never know what Gary went on to do. He was long dead by the time Smith and Good began. But those who loved McQueen, his family, his friends, those he served with overseas remain. As we said earlier, we tried contacting his mother for comment. She never replied to our messages. We do have audio from Gary's final sentencing hearing in twenty fifteen when McQueen's mother got up to give a victim impact statement, and we'd like to share what she had to say.

There must be concerned for victims, And for my son, who under no reason was murdered and chilled by someone whom he considered a friend.

Whether or not is called one.

Thing, whether or not is called Ma's blood, it is still murder. He chilled an innocent young man who had everything to look forward to. And so I asked myself, where is the fairness for my son? Where's the fairness for him?

Mike and Gary get to move on. Victims live with these crimes forever.

I'll never be the same. I'll never be able to assume that because I'm a good person that I'll get treated as one.

It would be one thing for Mike to start a business like this if he'd made amends with Saskia.

If he would have said, I'm a sex addict and I will do anything I can to show you that I'm sorry, If he would have done anything in good.

Faith, then maybe Saskio would feel differently about all of it. But if his actions in the divorce trial are any indication, Mike's not trying to minimize harm.

There was no regret, no accountability taken immediately right away. The only thing he cared about was saving his face.

This question of accountability is one that comes up in many of our stories, but it's rare that we have a case where the perpetrator has built a career around his conviction and incarceration, which is one of the reasons we wanted a call Mike to ask him about this ourselves. So Trey rang them.

Up and surprisingly he answered, I don't know what I imagined after listening to all the court audio and all of that, but he just sounded like a normal guy.

You know.

I introduced myself. I'm Trey, I'm a producer. We're doing a story about Taskia Inwood and wanted to talk to you about your business. And he paused for a.

Second, and then Mike started asking Trey questions, questions like, so you're a reporter, what's the angle of the story?

And then he said something to the effect of, what does my business have to do with my personal life? What does my business have to do with Saskia. His business is a result of serving time, and he served that time because of his relationship to Saskia.

Trey laid this out for Mike, but at this point Mike was done talking. He said he didn't want to comment on his business, his criminal trial, or his divorce. Case, so they ended the call. Afterwards, Trey sat there frozen for a while, processing Mike's questions, what's the story here? What do his crimes his personal life have to do with his business?

When he said that, I was caught off guard, like, how do you answer that?

On the final episode Betrayal Season five, we turned back to Saskia and her healing journey.

I don't think that I can ever trust anybody. I don't think that I could ever fully be confident that someone wasn't misleading me or manipulating me because I was so sure that he was a good person and that you love me. How can I ever get to the point where I truly don't fear that.

For resources on sexual violence, visit RAIN dot org slash betray That's our ai n N dot org slash betrayal. You can also get free confidential twenty four seven support through Rain's National Sexual Assault Hotline. Just text Hope to six four six seven three or call one eight hundred sixty five six hope. You are not alone. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team or want to tell us your story, email us at betrayalpod