transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Support for This American Life comes from Squarespace. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid, all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences, showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Plus, connect with your audience and raise support for your cause by fundraising directly on your website with built-in donation tools. Visit squarespace.com/american to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. A quick warning, there are curse words that are un-beeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.

Speaker 2:
[00:42] From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, Myra Glass, and I am joined in the studio by M. Gessen. Hello.

Speaker 3:
[00:47] Hi, Ira.

Speaker 2:
[00:48] So nice to have you back here.

Speaker 3:
[00:50] It's always lovely to be here.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] And the story that you're about to tell today is one that you've been telling for years?

Speaker 3:
[00:58] Yeah. First, it was just, you know, there's something weird going on in my family, but also of insane ways that my family talks about these crazy events.

Speaker 2:
[01:10] And is this story a story that when you would tell it to friends and loved ones, was it a funny story?

Speaker 3:
[01:21] I hesitate to say it was a funny story, but yes, yes, it was a funny story. And I mean, maybe that's also just the only way that we can deal with things that are unbelievable. It wasn't until I started reporting it that I realized how horrible the story actually was.

Speaker 2:
[01:40] And when you started to report it, this was years ago, originally, this was going to be a story for This American Life. And then at some point, it just got too big. It was like, we cannot contain this in one episode of our show. And you turned it into this podcast with Serial.

Speaker 3:
[01:56] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[01:57] And it's now a five-part series with Serial that was released this week. And you've been doing read-throughs of drafts, you've been writing drafts that I've set in on. And I just want to say, I love this show, and feel like this show is so different from other podcasts that I have heard in a bunch of interesting ways. And what we're going to do today on our program is we're going to walk through enough of the story so that listeners here can hear what I'm hearing in it. And then if they want, they can go and listen to the whole thing. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm Ira Glass, that's going to be our show today. And we're going to begin by playing the first episode of this series, which is almost like a prologue and sets the whole thing up. Is there anything else we should say before we play that?

Speaker 3:
[02:39] No, I think we can jump in.

Speaker 2:
[02:41] Okay, let's just jump right in with that.

Speaker 3:
[02:45] My family, if I have to give it an adjective, is elastic. Forty-five years ago, my parents, my little brother and I came over to this country from the Soviet Union, extending the family across continents. Over the decades, the family, my father really, stretched to absorb spouses, in-laws, even though they spoke a different language, children both biological and adopted, ex-spouses who chose to stick around, and eventually grandchildren. Over those same decades, as in any family, people made bad decisions, said things they hoped no one would remember, got mad at each other, held grudges, came around, and the family stretched as needed. And then it snapped. Someone did something that bad, that shocking. That person was my cousin Allen. He and his mother, my father's sister Lena, came to the US from Moscow in 1990 when Allen was 15. They stayed with my parents and brother for almost a year. By the time they arrived, I no longer lived at home, so I didn't have much relationship with them. Allen is a clown, a blowhard, a pompous ass. He would call himself an entrepreneur. He started his first business in college. He hired students to go strike papers for other, wealthier students. He went to law school and got fired from his first job. He later told me this was because his fine legal mind made the other lawyers insecure. Then he lived in Russia, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, working a series of increasingly shady jobs. In Africa, he was involved with diamonds and worked with an Israeli company that provided security for mining. If someone had set out to write an unlikable international huckster character, they couldn't have laid it on any thicker. Allen married a Zimbabwean woman. Word in the family was that she had been that country's beauty queen. They had two kids. Last I knew, all of them, including my aunt Lena, were living in Moscow. And then, in the summer of 2019, everyone on the American side of the family got a Facebook message from Allen, informing us that he had arrived in the US with his five-year-old son, who I'm going to call Oh. Allen wrote they'd come for Oh to, quote, commence his studies. I repeat, Oh was five. His wife, he wrote, was still in Russia with their baby daughter. They had separated. Allen added ominously, quote, things are less than amicable. She might make attempts to contact you with requests detrimental to mine and Oh's interests, unquote. I immediately texted my brother Keith, who was closer to Allen. So our cousin has kidnapped his son and abandoned his daughter? The answer would appear to be maybe, my brother responded. Just a note, this isn't the big shocking thing I was talking about earlier. We were still a few years away from that. I called my dad. He told me that Allen had just shown up at his house on Cape Cod without warning. His five-year-old son was with him, as was Lena, my dad's sister. I asked my dad if we should do something about the maybe kidnapping, like, I don't know, contact the FBI? This was the wrong thing to say to a guy who grew up in the Soviet Union. He would never call the authorities on his sister and nephew. What he did do was post a picture of Oh on Facebook, perhaps a message in a bottle for Oh's mom. Sure enough, my father immediately heard from her. Her name is Priscilla. Priscilla wrote to my dad describing the deal she was enduring. She said she had gone on a short business trip to Zimbabwe, and when she returned, she discovered that Allen had left with her son. It had been about a week, and only now, from seeing my father's Facebook post, was she learning anything more. Priscilla wrote, I beg you please to help me get my son back, or to at least speak to him. Please do not tell them I have written to you. If you are unable to help me, then just ignore my message.

Speaker 4:
[06:57] I received a long, long letter from Priscilla, but I just ignored it.

Speaker 3:
[07:02] My father can be quite literal. So, what did you think was going on then? Did you think she was lying or...?

Speaker 4:
[07:11] Honestly, I didn't pay much attention. I don't know. No. I understood that something is wrong with their marriage, but beyond that, no.

Speaker 3:
[07:23] Like I said, my family is elastic. To keep it that way, my father preferred not to know too much. And it wasn't just him. My three younger brothers, their partners, my own grown son, assorted friends of my father's, everyone acted like, hey, sometimes men and their mothers just changed continents with a five-year-old in tow. And here was the thing. They were fun. My father loves having family around. The whole reason he lives in a big house on Cape Cod is so that his four kids and five grandkids gather around him. But the house has seen better days, and all the kids and some of the grandkids have busy lives. Allen and Lena and O's arrival on the scene breathed new life into the house and the family. Lena would come up with ridiculous activities like, let's write the Gessen family anthem, and was always taking black and white pictures that made us all look like more stylish versions of ourselves. Allen was always driving up in his Tesla with new gadgets and tales of new business ventures. I found him ridiculous. But my youngest brothers and my oldest son hung on every word. Allen would sit on the couch with these very young men and scroll through pictures of women on Tinder. They all looked like models. Allen was bald as a billiard ball and had a giant protruding belly. He claimed that he had matched with all of those women. After a while, Allen was eager to talk about why he had taken L. He claimed that Priscilla was a bad mother. She partied all the time. She did drugs. She cheated on Allen. To me, these sounded like good reasons to get a divorce, not to take your child from his mother. Lena had her own complaints. She said Priscilla didn't read to her child and perhaps even worse, didn't read books herself. The only book she kept in the house, Lena claimed, was the Bible. I thought, wait, this was why Lena and Allen took Priscilla's son away? There are few things that I think justify separating a kid from his parent, but Lena and Allen didn't seem to think that much justification was required. I couldn't stop thinking about what Priscilla must be going through. Without telling anyone in the family, I decided to reach out to her. I had met her only a couple of times and barely had a sense of her. I knew that she worked in fashion. I knew from Lena that Priscilla's father owned a huge farm in Zimbabwe, and I knew that she would have no reason to trust me. I wasn't sure she'd respond. I texted her that I knew only Lena and Allen's side of the story. Priscilla wrote back right away. She was stuck in Russia. Her daughter, whom I'll call Elle, had been born via surrogacy because Priscilla was unable to carry a pregnancy to term. The baby was eight months old, but Priscilla still didn't have a birth certificate for her, which meant that they couldn't leave the country. We traded short messages back and forth. Our exchange was friendly, but guarded. I didn't want to overstep, and I think Priscilla tried to say only what needed to be said. It was enough for me to sense that she was in anguish, and I was horrified. How could this woman's child just be taken away from her? How could my family just sit by, and what was going to happen to O now? Priscilla told me that the Russian police would not help her. The Zimbabwean Embassy said that she could file a petition under the Hague Convention, a treaty that specifically addresses situations when one parent abducts a child and takes them to another country. But Priscilla needed legal help in the US. I could be useful here. I called a friend who connected Priscilla with a person in the Justice Department, who specializes in these kinds of cases. Priscilla also needed Lena, Allen and O's physical address in the States, so she could begin the Hague process. This I could definitely help with. I knew that they'd left Cape Cod for New York, which is where I live. I invited my aunt, cousin and nephew over for dinner. Allen was away on business, so Lena arrived with O, who got conscripted into a human pyramid by the young people of my household. As I slid turkey steaks into the oven, I asked Lena the question all New York City parents ask all other New York City parents, where will O go to school? He was about to turn six. Lena said that she had no idea how schools even functioned in the city. Do let me explain this to you, I said, and took out my phone. What is your address? Let's see what district that is. Bingo. I had their address. I sent it to Priscilla. Some weeks later, apparently on a lark, they moved to Massachusetts. I figured out that address too. I was a double agent now. I tracked Lena, Allen and O through their Facebook posts, messages to the family chat, and occasional weekends at my father's house on Cape Cod. When they moved to a new house, I left Priscilla now. If I had news about O, I texted Priscilla. Sometimes she just asked for reassurance that he was all right. From all the men in my family, my father, my three brothers, and my son, I hid the fact that I was in touch with Priscilla. I thought they'd see what I was doing as disloyal and might wrap me out to Allen. My daughter knew. It was a little bit exciting, but it also gave me an excuse for maintaining peace with my newly enlarged family. But the more I hung out with them, the more I just hung out with them. Oh was growing. Allen and Lena were building a life. I watched. Sometimes I caught myself thinking that it was a pretty good life. Allen, Lena, and Oh moved into a farmhouse in Concord, Massachusetts. Lena furnished it stylishly. They seemed to spend most of their time actively raising Oh. They enrolled him in Jewish school, violin lessons, fencing, horseback riding, and I'm sure I'm still forgetting something. They dressed Oh like a tiny little gentleman, complete with brogues and fedora hats, and by some sort of miracle, the result wasn't annoying. Oh was a delight, curious, entertaining without being overbearing and unfailingly polite. He seemed happy. Whatever damage being separated from his mother had done, I couldn't see it. What I could see was that he was doted on and thriving. To put it another way, and it wasn't easy for me to admit that I was seeing this, Allen seemed like a great dad, kind, attentive, devoted, and fun. Two years passed like this. Eventually, Priscilla and Elle, who was now a toddler, made it to the United States. I hadn't messaged with Priscilla in over a year, but I heard from my father that Priscilla's claim, filed under the Hague Convention, was going to be heard in federal court in Boston. The case would probably drag on for a while, but I assumed that Priscilla would now be able to see her son. And then there it was, on social media. Priscilla posted a picture of herself, embracing Oh. I liked the picture. I figured my job was done. My time as a double agent, long over. About four months later, Allen was arrested for kidnapping Oh. Not for the time he took Oh from Russia. This was new.

Speaker 2:
[14:28] That incident, which I need to say, is still not the big shocking thing that rocked Masha's family. That's coming up. Stay with us.

Speaker 1:
[14:39] Support for This American Life comes from Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for creating a fully custom on-brand website. Choose from a wide range of professionally designed award-winning templates with options for every user category. Showcase your offerings with a website designed to grow your business, and manage payments seamlessly with branded invoices and online payments. Visit squarespace.com/american to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Speaker 2:
[15:09] This American Life, let's just pick up with M. Gessen's story where we left off. Allen taking O a second time.

Speaker 3:
[15:17] Allen was arrested in Montreal at the airport when he, Léonard and O were waiting to board a flight to London without apparently Priscilla's knowledge. This time Allen went to jail. But no, this arrest and what Allen did to get himself arrested weren't the things that shocked my family. We didn't exactly act like Allen's arrest was normal. We acted like it was absurd. I entertain my friends with stories of my serial kidnapper cousin. Léonard kept the family updated with over dramatic notes on the Facebook family chat and at least one video from Canada in which Allen, wearing a striped uniform, sings her Russian prison song. It looked like a cartoon. Allen spent a couple of weeks in Canadian detention, then another few weeks in a jail in upstate New York, and was finally released on his own reconnaissance to await trial in Massachusetts. Oh was now living with Priscilla. Allen got out of jail in February 2022. A couple months after that, he sent out a missive on the family chat, as self-important as the one that began this whole story. This time he was telling us that he and Priscilla had resolved their battle, which actually turned out to be true. They would now have shared custody of both kids. Allen said he was very pleased. I thought, my God, did you have to go through all this, absconding with your son twice, keeping him separated from his mother for more than two years, just to arrive at a standard 50-50 custody agreement? This, child support and shared custody, is the boring end of this crazy story? I felt a little relieved and a little dumb. Like maybe I had bought too fully into other people's drama. Kidnapping charges against Allen were pending. They would later be dropped. And still, Priscilla was able to reach a peace agreement with Allen. After all, he had apparently put her and their son through. Well, maybe this was just the way they did things, with extreme flair.

Speaker 4:
[17:17] Then, yeah, kind of exotic parts started.

Speaker 3:
[17:26] Then it happened. The thing, the bomb that went off in the middle of my family.

Speaker 4:
[17:33] So the day before, Allen called me and said that he promised his kids to take them camping.

Speaker 3:
[17:45] July, 2022. Under the new custody arrangement, it was Allen's weekend with the kids. He asked my dad, Hey, do you mind if me, my mom and the kids camp out in your backyard on Cape Cod?

Speaker 4:
[17:56] I said, of course. So they came. They brought some huge, huge tent. I never saw such a tent before with a lot of furniture, lights and devices.

Speaker 3:
[18:10] Solar charges, rugs, two full mattresses, a treasure trunk with treasures, I guess. It was very Allen. Awesome, spectacular, ridiculous. Though later it occurred to me that this time at least, there may have been a point to this. He wanted everyone to remember his camping trip to my father's backyard. Because it was summer, my father's house was full. Two of my younger brothers, one of them with his girlfriend, were there. Everyone had a nice dinner together and then went to bed. Some people in the house and Allen, Lena and the kids in the tent. And then around 6 the next morning, the dog, Alton, started going nuts. Someone was banging on the front door.

Speaker 4:
[18:52] So I opened the door a bit because not to let Alton out. Also, I didn't put my trousers on yet. And the guy, the policeman, said, we are state police. Could you step out with your phone?

Speaker 3:
[19:10] My dad is surprised, but he's not panicking. He goes to get his pants and his phone.

Speaker 4:
[19:15] But by that time, because of all this noise and commotion and all this barking, Alyosha woke up.

Speaker 3:
[19:25] Alyosha is my cousin's Russian diminutive.

Speaker 4:
[19:27] Allen. And he came to the house to see what is going on. And police figured out that they are looking for him and not for me.

Speaker 3:
[19:39] FBI agents go around the house, banging on doors, and make everyone sit down on the couches in the living room. No one understands what's going on. But soon, through the picture windows that look out on the backyard, they see two male FBI agents take Allen away, in handcuffs. Then a female agent escorts the kids to another car. They all drive off. State troopers follow. Lena leaves, too. And did you know once everybody left, did you have any idea what he had been arrested for?

Speaker 4:
[20:12] Not immediately, but then I learned from Lena about that. She was totally lost, but the only thing she knew was what was in this paper they gave her.

Speaker 3:
[20:31] What was in the paper?

Speaker 4:
[20:34] Oh, that he is arrested for, I don't remember, but murder for hire was there, yes.

Speaker 3:
[20:43] And did you have any idea who he might have hired somebody to murder?

Speaker 4:
[20:56] It didn't take long.

Speaker 3:
[20:58] It was Priscilla. Allen, it seemed, had hired someone to kill Priscilla.

Speaker 4:
[21:04] The question was if it was true or not, that's another story.

Speaker 3:
[21:11] Some of us took the news in faster than others. The day after Allen's arrest, my brother Keith and I had a fight over the Justice Department press release, which identified the target only as PC. I was saying that it was obviously Priscilla, whose last name begins with a C. He was saying that it was obviously not Priscilla. Then I kept telling everyone that Allen had been set up by business rivals or Russian Asians or the FBI or someone. But over the course of a few days, it sank in. My cousin had been caught hiring someone to murder his ex-wife, the mother of his children. This was when it felt like we snapped. I certainly snapped. I was shocked at how shocked I was. It's not that I felt bad for Allen or Liana, it's just how does something like this happen? How had it happened right here in my family, in between our silly dinners and chess games and kids' birthday parties? In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Anyone's first cousin could be plotting murder. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals, and I wouldn't even call Allen an upstanding citizen. But it's one thing to know and another thing to understand. I'm a reporter. At some of the hardest times of my life, like when I faced a dire medical diagnosis, I put on my reporter's hat and ask everyone a lot of questions. It has allowed me to wrap my mind around unthinkable things before. Allen was in jail, awaiting trial, so my project had to begin with Priscilla, who was, thankfully, alive. What she told me was so much worse than what I thought I knew. That's next time. From Serial Productions and The New York Times, I'm M. Gessen, and this is The Idiot.

Speaker 2:
[23:01] Okay, so that is the first episode of your new podcast, The Idiot. Does Allen know the name of the show yet?

Speaker 3:
[23:09] You know, I mean, obviously, there are some parts of that title that might be appealing to Allen. It's a reference to a classic work of Russian literature, Dostoevsky's novel, The Idiot. So, and I think there's a little bit of kindness in that title. I think that I'm giving him the grace of perceiving what he did as just an incredibly dumb thing, and not only a very scary, mean, and evil thing. And also, he was very lucky that he was bad enough at trying to hire a killer, that everyone in the end is alive, and he's serving only a ten-year sentence.

Speaker 2:
[24:02] Yeah. So, after that, you begin reporting, and as you say at the end of episode one, you start with Priscilla. What happens?

Speaker 3:
[24:12] I'd only met Priscilla a couple of times in my life. I didn't know her. I just knew she was this beautiful, poised woman who'd been through hell at this point, and had come to the US to try to get custody back of her child. But I didn't know how the story had unfolded for her. So, let me play an excerpt from that conversation. I started with something that had mystified me for a long time. So, can you tell me what you saw in Allen when you first met him?

Speaker 5:
[24:52] Wow. I think like most people that meet him. The first time you meet him, he's very charismatic.

Speaker 3:
[24:59] This was 2011, at the party in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Allen was there in business, scoping out investment opportunities for Ukrainian oligarch. He was hustling. As my son described in once, he was an egg who knows how to talk to people. And did that seem appealing?

Speaker 5:
[25:17] It did. I'll be honest, I was 30 when I met him. It seemed very appealing and it was like very different from anybody that I had met. So, different was interesting. He came from a very different part of the world, which I knew nothing about, which was also exciting in its own regard.

Speaker 3:
[25:36] It wasn't just exciting. It was convenient in a way. Allen was unreadable to Priscilla the way someone from Zimbabwe might be. She could project her desires onto him, including her desire for success. Priscilla was working at a new lifestyle magazine and had launched Zimbabwe's annual Fashion Week. She wanted a life that was big and fast, like Allen's. It's true that Allen seemed to know how to make big, fast money and spend it.

Speaker 5:
[26:00] It's like, oh, let's go to Joburg. I'm like, okay, you get up and you go. Just like at the drop of a hat, and then we would go here and there and here and there. So it was very exciting. The only strange thing that happened at the beginning of our relationship when his mom came.

Speaker 6:
[26:18] Right.

Speaker 3:
[26:20] One of those hiccups that happened early on in a romance and should raise a giant red flag, but somehow never do. My aunt Laila came to visit a few months into their relationship. She joined Allen and Priscilla on a trip to the countryside.

Speaker 5:
[26:35] We went on a trip to Kariba. It's a big lake in Zimbabwe. And I think it was like on the second day or something, we had a disagreement, like a fight. And he left our room and I didn't know that he had done this, but he went to his mom's room and I found him later. I was walking past her room and she had these doors that opened out. So I just looked in and I saw him lying on her bed and she was lying there stroking his hair. I found that, well, his head. I found that so weird. I was like, wow, this is a grown man. And it seemed a little too intimate. For me, in my culture, I guess maybe because we're very distant, you don't even hug. You wouldn't hug your father because it's a little too intimate. So for an adult to be lying on his mother's bed and for her to actually be, it just seemed very peculiar. I saw that and I was like, okay.

Speaker 2:
[27:41] And as the series unfolds, Lena and Allen's relationship is one of the things you talk about more. Did you talk to Lena for this story?

Speaker 3:
[27:48] I didn't. She didn't want to talk to me.

Speaker 2:
[27:52] And so, you're interviewing Priscilla. And the story she's telling you, you knew kind of the basic plot points of the first time they took O, the second time they took O. What did you learn that you hadn't known?

Speaker 3:
[28:06] So, you know, now I realize that knowing those two plot points which were two and a half years apart, is a little bit like knowing the date the war began and the date the war ended. And, like, I didn't know about all the carnage that had happened in between. At first, she was stranded in Moscow. She didn't really have any way to support herself in Moscow. She's a Zimbabwean woman who doesn't speak Russian. And that dragged on for months. And then she got back to Zimbabwe. She thought she was getting back to her regular life from which she was going to try to make it to the US to get O back. And then things just start happening to her in Zimbabwe. She gets beaten up by thugs. She gets picked up in drug charges. She gets picked up again and thrown to prison for two weeks. And she thinks that Allen is behind all of this. Allen denies that he had any involvement.

Speaker 2:
[29:04] And then eventually, like, she goes through all of this and she eventually gets to the United States, right?

Speaker 3:
[29:09] She eventually gets to the United States. She, it doesn't mean that she's going to get custody of him, she even visits with her son. Because at this point, it's been two and a half years, but she does get to see him for the first time since he was taken from her.

Speaker 2:
[29:29] Wait, and so now he's how old?

Speaker 3:
[29:31] So now he is, like, eight years old.

Speaker 2:
[29:35] So from five to eight, she hadn't seen him.

Speaker 3:
[29:39] And also, she doesn't know what his grandmother and his father have been telling him about her.

Speaker 2:
[29:46] Yeah, let's play an excerpt of this part of the episode. So this is Priscilla explaining about seeing her son for the first time after that two-year absence.

Speaker 3:
[29:59] When did you see him for the first time?

Speaker 5:
[30:01] I saw him that weekend on the Sunday for the first time. It was... It's so strange. I almost can't remember how I felt. I know I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. I think I just looked at him. I just stared at him for a while.

Speaker 3:
[30:23] Can you describe that meeting? I mean, you had to meet outside, I think, right?

Speaker 5:
[30:28] Yeah. We met at a little tea house in the town where Allen was living. Concord is called Concord Tea Cakes, actually. So, he was sitting outside. I saw him sitting there and he was sitting by himself. Allen was inside the shop. When I approached him, I could actually see that he was shaking. He just seemed so small and so scared.

Speaker 3:
[31:02] What had her little boy been thinking for the past two years? Why did he think his mother wasn't with him? What had Allen told him? Oh, he knew that Priscilla had been in prison. What other stories about her had taken hold in his mind?

Speaker 5:
[31:15] And I kind of felt, I felt hopeless in a way, you know? I just said hi. I didn't try to touch him because I could tell that he was scared. So I just said hi and I just sat next to him and I let him kind of come to me.

Speaker 3:
[31:37] Do you remember anything he said to you?

Speaker 5:
[31:40] He asked me for this porridge that he used to like, like it kind of, he had loved it since he was a baby. And he called it blue porridge. He just said to me, did you bring blue porridge?

Speaker 6:
[31:51] I said, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[31:54] They make it in Zimbabwe. And I had carried it with me. He asked me to make it for him, like immediately. And I did, like in a little cup with warm water. I made it for him and he ate it. And yeah, I knew that he would slowly remember me and things would get back to the way they were if he could remember simple things like that, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[32:23] You know, that was just so heartbreaking to listen to and to imagine.

Speaker 7:
[32:30] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:32] And then you also talked about the second time Allen and Lena take O, the one for which he was charged with kidnapping.

Speaker 3:
[32:39] Yeah, so this is this scene at the Montreal Airport where they think they're going to board a flight to London and instead Allen gets arrested. And it had been reduced to this ridiculous story that Lena told in this over-the-top way. And I would quote from her wacky Facebook messages to close friends.

Speaker 2:
[33:07] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[33:08] And hearing this story from Priscilla's perspective, which is really O's perspective, just how absolutely terrifying it was for him. He's a little boy, that's his dad who gets tackled by several armed, uniformed men and thrown to the ground. He gets dragged off. O gets taken into foster care for two days before Priscilla can come and pick him up. And again, she's separated from him. Like it's the distance, it's the international border. It's just the pain of it is kind of unbearable.

Speaker 2:
[33:47] Yeah. And so then another thing that you did in your reporting is that you went to Allen's trial for attempted murder.

Speaker 3:
[33:56] So the trial didn't happen for another 10 months, which is pretty normal. It's in federal court in San Francisco. So I went to the trial and by that point, I think I fully believed that Allen had taken out a hidden Priscilla. I sort of tried and convicted him in my mind. But I think most other members of my family, including Priscilla, were kind of waiting for something to emerge during the trial that would make it easier to take, something that would make it seem like not such a horrible thing.

Speaker 2:
[34:32] Like maybe it wasn't true or maybe it was true in some way that wasn't quite so bad.

Speaker 3:
[34:38] Which, I can't imagine what it would be, and I'm not sure they could either, but they were sort of holding out hope that something would explain it away.

Speaker 2:
[34:49] Did you go to Allen's trial partly to convince your family of his guilt?

Speaker 3:
[34:54] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[34:55] I have to say that makes this podcast so different from any podcast I've ever heard that it has this second mission, in addition to the mission of like, let's find out the truth of what happened. It's so directed at your family to like, nail this down so everybody can agree on the truth.

Speaker 3:
[35:11] Well, it's important in a family to have a common truth, especially about your relatives. But it got weirder as it went on.

Speaker 2:
[35:20] Okay. So let's just take a break. When we come back, we'll go to the trial, which includes recordings of Allen arranging for the hit, which feel, I have to say, way less like The Sopranos and way more like Parks and Rec. All of that will be in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

Speaker 1:
[35:40] Support for This American Life comes from Squarespace. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid, all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences, showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Plus connect with your audience and raise support for your cause by fundraising directly on your website with built-in donation tools. Visit squarespace.com/american to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Support for This American Life comes from Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award-winning service, low costs, and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Support for This American Life comes from Mint Mobile. Ditch overpriced wireless and get 3 months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for $15 a month. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com/american. Upfront payment of $45 for 3 months 5GB plan required. New customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.

Speaker 2:
[37:06] It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, The Idiot. We're playing excerpts from M. Gessen's new podcast, new serial podcast called The Idiot. M is here with me. Now we get to an incredible part of the story, which is the trial because for the first time, Masha, you get to hear the details of how Allen arranged for the hit on his own wife and you actually get to hear the undercover recordings of Allen meeting with the supposed hit man who's actually an FBI agent. Just explain why was this FBI man meeting with Allen in the first place.

Speaker 3:
[37:44] This is something that began as a money laundering investigation into this guy named Alex Kiselev, who was one of Allen's business partners. Then this business partner asks one of these agents who he thinks is a mobster, but also maybe connected to the government somehow. It's not clear what he thinks the guy is. The business partner asks them to help Allen out, because Allen has a problem with his ex-wife. And that's how we get to this meeting between Allen and the undercover, who is going by the name David. And so Allen thinks that he is meeting with David to arrange to bribe a government official to get Priscilla deported.

Speaker 6:
[38:31] This is UCE 4735, and today is Thursday, June 2nd, 2022. It's approximately 11:55 a.m. And this is a recording with Allen Gessen. The meeting is taking place at the Boca Raton Resort in Boca Raton, Florida.

Speaker 3:
[38:53] David had told Allen to meet him at the Boca Raton, in Boca Raton. You know those places that added the to the name of the actual place to indicate that it's everything you ever imagined, but so much more. This resort has 19 bars and restaurants and four beach options. The Boca Raton. Allen drives up in a white rental car, an Audi sedan. The jury was shown surveillance photos. He meets David in the lobby, which is like an Italian castle, Florida version. David is wearing a wire. Which, as you're about to hear, is not great for field recording.

Speaker 8:
[39:27] Yeah, Allen. Sorry. How are you? How are you? How you doing?

Speaker 3:
[39:32] They fist bump. Allen is wearing what looks like a black cashmere sweater. David is dressed in all black. Polo shirt, shiny pointy black shoes. They're not dressed for Florida. Everyone around them is wearing light colors, but they're dressed to perform their roles. Allen is being international man of mystery. David is going full mafioso. They're macho. They're gangsters. They are the Allen and the Dave at the Boca Raton.

Speaker 8:
[39:57] Yeah. How are you?

Speaker 9:
[39:58] Excellent.

Speaker 10:
[39:59] Thanks for coming. I appreciate it.

Speaker 9:
[40:00] No, 100%.

Speaker 8:
[40:01] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9:
[40:02] I read in my picture that a longer beard is in the end.

Speaker 10:
[40:05] I was like, what's going on?

Speaker 3:
[40:06] They take a shuttle to one of the Boca Raton's restaurants, the Marisol, where the seating is couches in earth tones and the views beach umbrellas as far as the eye can see. On the way, Allen summarizes his very impressive career.

Speaker 9:
[40:19] In 2010, I started a massive diamond mining project in South Africa. It is sued to Congo and Gola, and maybe it has had several…

Speaker 3:
[40:29] Millions of dollars, some misadventures, and a triumph or two later. Allen gets to the story of his marriage.

Speaker 9:
[40:37] But I went to Zimbabwe once to explore some opportunities there, and met this incredibly beautiful woman, which was the end of me.

Speaker 10:
[40:46] Ms. Priscilla?

Speaker 9:
[40:46] Yeah.

Speaker 10:
[40:48] Listen, I always say, it's the bitches that will get you. It sounds like you're a problem, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[40:53] David testified on court that the character he was playing was crass. He seemed to have that part down. At the restaurant, it's David's turn to talk about how impressive and real he is.

Speaker 10:
[41:04] So, we have a lot of obviously business in South America, I'm sure.

Speaker 6:
[41:08] Alex has told you.

Speaker 10:
[41:09] So, you know, my clients are in Cartel Hanna. They're all, I'm going to tell you right now, they're all cartel level guys.

Speaker 6:
[41:15] They're all badasses.

Speaker 10:
[41:16] They are the real deal. They, when I talk, they don't have fuck you money. They have fuck everyone money, right?

Speaker 6:
[41:23] Like, you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, you know?

Speaker 10:
[41:27] I don't touch the product side. I don't want to, I don't want to fucking do it with the fucking coke. I don't want to do anything with any of that shit. But I just do the money stuff. I set up companies and we launder money and that's it. And it's been great.

Speaker 8:
[41:39] I've been doing it for 15, 20 years.

Speaker 3:
[41:42] Having established their gangster bonafides, Allen and the undercover talk business. There are two items on the agenda. The bulletproof vest factory Allen wants to build and Priscilla.

Speaker 10:
[41:53] I understand, you know, through Alex, that you have some problems. You know, I get it.

Speaker 6:
[42:01] You know, we have a solution for you.

Speaker 10:
[42:03] But I guess the question is, like, in a perfect world, tell me what you want.

Speaker 8:
[42:10] Tell me what you like.

Speaker 10:
[42:11] And there's a blank slate. Just tell me what you want.

Speaker 3:
[42:16] Allen says he wants Priscilla deported. He needs this for peace of mind.

Speaker 8:
[42:20] And you know, be able to come and harass us.

Speaker 7:
[42:22] Okay.

Speaker 8:
[42:24] All right.

Speaker 3:
[42:24] He doesn't want her to, quote, be able to come and harass us ever again. He then explains what he means by harass. A few months earlier, Priscilla had the nerve to tell the police that he had kidnapped Oh. But he had, in fact, been arrested for taking Oh across the border to Canada, and spent five weeks in jail, and was now awaiting trial and kidnapping charges. He tells David, Let's just say that I'm a little bit pissed off.

Speaker 11:
[42:48] Let's just say that I'm a little bit pissed off.

Speaker 10:
[42:50] Yeah, yeah, no, I get it.

Speaker 11:
[42:51] But it's a woman who will go the length of the world to make my life miserable.

Speaker 3:
[42:58] But it's a woman who will go the length of the world to make my life miserable, Allen says. Women, am I right?

Speaker 10:
[43:04] Yeah, I'm telling you, man, yeah, like I said, you know, historically, over time, men have made the worst decisions, you know, when it comes to women. You know, it's, I don't know what it is. They're that aphrodisiac, you know, it's that weakness or Achilles heel. But yeah, I understand that. I wish I had known you earlier, because, you know, a lot of that shit we could have cleaned up. You know, there's no doubt about that. Let's just put it this way. That would never have happened in my family.

Speaker 3:
[43:37] Amid all this bro-y, gang-stree, hot air, the vaguest outlines of a plan appear. A bribe will be paid. Some government officials will pull some strings, and Priscilla will be ordered to leave the country. And it will cost $100,000. At first, Allen seems taken aback by the price tag.

Speaker 11:
[43:56] Now, I'll need to check to Allen, because a group is going to handle the material side of things.

Speaker 3:
[44:02] Okay.

Speaker 8:
[44:03] Because he never mentioned to me any, like he didn't mention to me the defense side.

Speaker 3:
[44:07] Kiselyov didn't discuss the money with Allen, he explains. But he quickly recovers from the sticker shock.

Speaker 8:
[44:12] The price is eminently reasonable. But what it's worth, there's no question that it's a good investment.

Speaker 3:
[44:20] A good investment. Allen's done the math. He'd pay more in child support.

Speaker 11:
[44:25] I'll pay more in child support.

Speaker 10:
[44:26] Oh, yeah, you would.

Speaker 8:
[44:28] Yeah, I can guarantee you.

Speaker 3:
[44:32] After everything Priscilla had gone through to get to the US to see her son again, Allen was going to send her back to Zimbabwe. After everything Oh had gone through, being separated from his mother for two and a half years, meeting her again, watching his father get arrested, going to live with his mother and a sister he barely knew, Allen was going to yank him away from Priscilla again. And he was going to deprive Elle, who was three, of the only parent she had ever known. All for the eminently reasonable price of $100,000. And we hadn't even gotten to the Murder for Hire plot yet. On the tape, Allen and David move on to the details of the bulletproof vest factory scheme. This part of the conversation goes a little less smoothly. Allen had it all figured out. They'd get US government funding and build a factory, and he thought David was in a position to get him that money. David though is much more interested in the bribe part. In court he testified that he went to the meeting expecting to talk about the deportation scheme, not the factory. But he is nimble. He tells Allen that he could bring in money from the Colombian drug cartels to invest in the factory. Remember, the FBI has been trying for years to get Kiselev, and now Allen, on money laundering. But Allen isn't really incriminating himself. He actually expresses some concerns about the drug money. After an hour or so, the conversation turns back to Priscilla. Allen says, quote, the first order of business is to get her the fuck out of here, end quote, to get Priscilla deported. Or, and this is where he suddenly, offhandedly, turns the conversation in a different direction. This is the heart of the prosecution's case. Let's listen carefully.

Speaker 11:
[46:22] I mean, certainly, there's a cheaper way to get rid of her.

Speaker 3:
[46:25] If there's a cheaper way to get rid of her.

Speaker 10:
[46:27] I mean, I have, listen, I have family in your area.

Speaker 3:
[46:35] Remember, David is supposed to be a mafioso. That's the kind of family he's talking about. A minute later, he will refer to friends in the North End, historically an Italian neighborhood in Boston. He's opening, for Allen, a door to the underworld.

Speaker 10:
[46:50] So, I don't know how to say this, but, like, there is a cheaper way and probably a more permanent way to do it, but...

Speaker 3:
[47:00] A more permanent way, in case Allen didn't understand what David was getting at.

Speaker 8:
[47:04] Is this?

Speaker 10:
[47:05] Yeah. I mean, that's up to you.

Speaker 8:
[47:08] I'm pretty prepared to proceed.

Speaker 3:
[47:10] Allen would like to proceed. The time that elapses between the agent saying, that's up to you, and Allen's agreement to proceed with the more permanent option is a fraction of a second. He doesn't take a breath, he doesn't pretend to consider the decision, he doesn't double check that he understood the agent correctly, he doesn't even ask how much money he'll save by going for the cheaper option. He jumps right in with both feet. And then it gets worse. Allen says that he had looked into this more permanent option before, that he talked to Israelis and Eastern Europeans and Italians, and the lowest estimate he got was $220,000. The prosecutor stopped the tape and repeated what Allen had said. I researched my sources, the lowest price was 220, and then that is run through the Israelis and Eastern Europe and Italy. She asked the undercover agent what he had understood Allen to be saying. The agent answered, my understanding was that Mr. Gessen had already researched the option to kill his wife, and had been in conversation or had done some research with other organized crime syndicates, in this case Israelis or Eastern Europe, for the price of $220,000. The agent, who had worked on Murder for Hire cases before, testified in court that it hit us cheap. He'd seen people agree to kill someone for as little as $200. On the tape, David assures Allen that his friends in the North End are more dependable and affordable than those other guys, the Israelis or the Eastern Europeans, and as that they can get the job done quickly. Allen likes this, and he clarifies, more definite. The prosecutor asked, when you heard Mr. Gessen say, and more definite, what was your understanding of that? The agent answered, more definite is permanent, dead. I'd seen FBI agents testify in court before. Often I've been skeptical. Their interpretations of what people say to them can be far-fetched. Their entrapment techniques are often crude and mendacious. I've seen cases where the undercover agent talks a person into a crime they had no intention of committing. But this was different. I couldn't imagine any alternative interpretation of the tape I'd just heard. Allen wanted Priscilla killed, and he wanted David to know that he wanted Priscilla killed. He said that with the bribery scheme, he was worried that Priscilla could fight her deportation in court and maybe even win. Murder is better than deportation that way.

Speaker 10:
[49:49] Of course, we can handle that. I just didn't know what your appetite for that was. But if you feel that way and we can make that happen, it will be very clean, it'll be quick, and it will be final. But you got to tell me if that's the route that you want to take.

Speaker 7:
[50:05] My single concern is, are you to be sure that you can knock off the children for the kids? No.

Speaker 3:
[50:11] This was the only thing that gives Allen pause. He doesn't want the kids to see their mother getting killed.

Speaker 8:
[50:17] No, no, no.

Speaker 9:
[50:17] God, God, please.

Speaker 8:
[50:19] Yeah, no, no, no.

Speaker 10:
[50:20] You know, we're all family men. Like, this is strictly business.

Speaker 7:
[50:23] Okay, no, because like, because like, that was my one concern, because that's the best route, is it? You know, I want to make sure that, like, forever all the kids are matured.

Speaker 10:
[50:32] No, no, no, no, no, no. No, this would be, this would be a very clean, professional job.

Speaker 3:
[50:37] Reassured, Allen asks about the cost.

Speaker 10:
[50:40] I think it's probably half the cost, to tell you the truth.

Speaker 8:
[50:43] Yeah.

Speaker 7:
[50:44] Much easier. Much easier.

Speaker 10:
[50:45] Okay.

Speaker 8:
[50:46] I'm very happy to proceed with it.

Speaker 10:
[50:47] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[50:48] Very happy to proceed with it. What a productive meeting for the undercover agent. He came for bribery and was leaving with murder for hire. Now, he just needed Allen to confirm that he intended to go through with it, so that when Allen eventually went to trial, he couldn't say that he was misunderstood. Now, here we were at that trial, listening to and looking at all the times and all the ways, Allen said that yes, he really meant it. He wanted Priscilla killed.

Speaker 10:
[51:21] But you have to be sure that this is what you're...

Speaker 8:
[51:23] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[51:24] This is the first time. The agent asks Allen if he is sure, and Allen says, I'm sure. And he adds, I'm sure.

Speaker 8:
[51:34] And this is more like...

Speaker 6:
[51:35] Oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 10:
[51:37] This sounds like it's been well thought out. Listen, yeah, I didn't want to... I'm glad we talked about it, because honestly, that's the way I would have handled it. But you got to be comfortable. Okay, good.

Speaker 8:
[51:47] All right.

Speaker 3:
[51:50] Allen says that this is not an emotional decision, not spur of the moment. He is comfortable with it.

Speaker 10:
[51:55] Sometimes they dig their own fucking face.

Speaker 8:
[51:58] Right, yeah. Don't fuck with me.

Speaker 3:
[52:01] There's a bit more back and forth. David will need pictures of Priscilla, location, everything for the people who will do the job. And then, just like that, Allen is showing David pictures of the kids.

Speaker 8:
[52:13] This is my son. Ah, what's his name? His name is Pau.

Speaker 11:
[52:17] And then, this is my daughter. Beautiful.

Speaker 8:
[52:23] Gorgeous.

Speaker 11:
[52:23] I can give you the movie footage.

Speaker 2:
[52:25] Yeah, gorgeous.

Speaker 11:
[52:26] Over there.

Speaker 8:
[52:29] First vlog is that.

Speaker 3:
[52:30] Beautiful kids, beautiful poodle, beautiful life. The only problem is Priscilla. Surely, after seeing these photos, David would see what a great father Allen was. Surely, he would feel even better about helping Allen get rid of the fly and the ointment. But David has a question. What is this going to do to the kids, emotionally?

Speaker 10:
[52:52] How do we protect the kids?

Speaker 9:
[52:55] Like, I guess they're too young to, they're young too, but how do we, how do we protect the kids? Look, they're going to lose their mother, right?

Speaker 10:
[53:02] She's fucking gone.

Speaker 2:
[53:04] How do we protect the kids?

Speaker 11:
[53:06] As long as they're not witnessed to violence.

Speaker 3:
[53:09] As long as they're not witnessed to violence. That's the word he used. Violence.

Speaker 2:
[53:13] No, they're not.

Speaker 10:
[53:14] They won't be. Yeah, they won't be. I mean, she'll be, she'll be taken out without them present. Then I guess you can explain it, how you explain it. But just know that, you know, like, I, I, now that I'm seeing pictures of that, I just want to make sure that they're okay. I got a heart, too, you know, like, I fucking, you know, don't get me wrong, I'll, I'll put the light switch when I need to, but, you know, when I look at those kids like that, you know, they're beautiful, I mean, I just want to make sure they're okay.

Speaker 3:
[53:39] The undercover agent is methodical. He keeps coming closer to saying she will be killed, and he keeps pushing Allen to consider the hypothetical stakes. The children will lose their mother forever. Allen blithely keeps incriminating himself. As long as the kids wouldn't see the murder happen, he didn't have other concerns. They wrap up their meeting. Allen has a plane to catch. The undercover agent has a lot to work with.

Speaker 6:
[54:06] This is UC 4735, and today is Thursday, June 2, 2022. And this is the conclusion of the recorded conversation with Allen Gessen.

Speaker 2:
[54:21] So that all sounds very damning and very conclusive.

Speaker 6:
[54:26] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[54:27] And then a few other people testified against Allen, including Priscilla. And then Allen took the stand, which is also very unusual for a criminal trial. Usually people don't testify in their own defense. And he tried to convince the jury that he had only wanted Priscilla deported and that he did not want her killed. And so he went through with his attorney, all those exchanges on tape and on text, trying to argue that all of them were just vocabulary misunderstandings.

Speaker 2:
[55:04] And that they were just misunderstanding each other somehow.

Speaker 3:
[55:06] They were just talking at cross purposes.

Speaker 2:
[55:09] And so how does it go over with the jury?

Speaker 3:
[55:12] The jury doesn't buy it. The jury convicted him pretty fast of murder for hire. And then almost a whole year later, he was finally sentenced. And at the sentencing hearing, his lawyer again tried to say that he was only trying to get Priscilla deported, at which point the judge said, you know, that crime that you were describing is actually called kidnapping, and it's punishable by up to 20 years in prison. So maybe just stop. And then she sentenced him to the maximum, which is 10 years in prison.

Speaker 2:
[55:46] And there's this whole other chapter to the story. Because once he was incarcerated, you started talking to Allen. You finally talked to Allen, which I feel like when we started on the story, like we didn't even know if that would ever happen. We assumed he probably would never talk to you.

Speaker 3:
[56:03] Yeah, I can't even describe how excited I was when I got an email from him saying that he was happy to talk.

Speaker 2:
[56:10] And it was interesting because once you started talking, I remember this so vividly, you were genuinely surprised where the conversations went and how they nudged your own ideas about Allen and who he is.

Speaker 3:
[56:23] So, at first it didn't, at first he was just trying to sell me what the jury didn't buy, which was that he was framed, he was only trying to get Priscilla deported. But then I think we both proved to be very stubborn, and I was like, okay, well, maybe his job is to try to bullshit me and my job is to try to cut through the bullshit. And 35 hours of conversations later, I genuinely felt compassion for him.

Speaker 2:
[56:57] And then you ran by Allen and you led for the audience to your own theory of the case.

Speaker 3:
[57:05] Which is not Allen's theory, and not exactly the undercover agent David's theory either.

Speaker 2:
[57:14] And we will leave it at that, if people want to hear what that theory is, then they need to listen to the show. The show again is called The Idiot. It's from Serial Productions and The New York Times. And you can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Master, thank you so much for doing this.

Speaker 3:
[57:29] Thank you, Aaron.

Speaker 2:
[57:35] I'll just say before we go to all of you who are listening, you may remember how serial productions basically invented and launched the true crime podcast genre back in 2014 with its first season and the story of Adnan Syed, which is a global phenomenon. Twenty million people downloaded every episode. This new show, The Idiot, takes serial back to their true crime roots, but with this very personal story from M. Gessen added to it, which adds so much. All the episodes are out right now. The Idiot was produced by Daniel Giehmett with Fia Benen and Andrei Boizenko and Lika Premer of Lebo Lebo Studios. The series was edited by Julie Snyder, and researched and fact-checked by Ben Phelan and Marisa Robertson-Texter. Scoring is by Alison Leighton-Brown with additional music from Dan Powell and Marion Lozano. Phoebe Wang and Katherine Anderson mix the show. The people who will help put together this episode of our program today include Cassie Halley, Seth Lind, Tobin Lowe, Stowe Nelson, and Alyssa Shipp, our managing editor Sara Abdurrahman, our senior editor David Kestenbaum, our executive editor Emanuel Barry. Our website thisamericanlife.org. We can stream our archive of over 850 episodes for absolutely free. Have you visited? Again, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tory Malatya. You know, he's telling me this week, by this time, long ago, his dad took him to see the circus in Queens, in New York. As they left the venue, he overheard another kid, this kid with a puff of blonde hair, just amazed.

Speaker 4:
[59:58] They brought some huge, huge tent. I never saw such a tent.

Speaker 2:
[60:03] I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

Speaker 1:
[60:24] Support for This American Life comes from Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus, get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award-winning service, low costs, and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more.