Andrea | Featured on ABC's Betrayal: Secrets and Lies

Summary

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Betrayal Season 5: "Andrea" (ABC's Betrayal: Secrets and Lies)

Podcast: Betrayal
Host: Andrea Gunning
Guest: Andrea Merriman
Date: May 6, 2026
Duration: ~42 minutes

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on Andrea Merriman’s harrowing experience discovering her husband’s shocking secret: for over 16 years, he had been running a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme, robbing family, friends, and clients alike. Andrea recounts her journey from a seemingly idyllic family life filled with stability, faith, and ambition, through devastating betrayal, public scrutiny, financial ruin, and ultimately, her painstaking path toward forgiveness, accountability, and rebuilding.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Andrea's Idyllic Upbringing and Ambition

• Background: Grew up in an affluent and religious family, with a strong emphasis on hard work, accountability, and the ideals of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
  • “We had jobs around the house we didn't get allowance for, or if we did, it was a dollar a week because my parents wanted to teach us responsibility and accountability.” (Andrea Merriman, 03:12)
• Faith & Role Models: Raised with the belief that women could achieve anything, inspired by her mother’s education and capability.

2. Meeting and Marrying Shawn Merriman

• Early Relationship: Shawn’s early charm and lavish gestures stood out (BMW, fine dining, grand gifts).
  • “Any woman as beautiful as you should not have to borrow pearls.” (Andrea Merriman, 06:31)
• Contrasting Backgrounds: Shawn came from a more modest, turbulent family but displayed resourcefulness and ambition.
• Marriage: Andrea chose Shawn seeing him as a dependable partner.
  • “I don't know that I thought he was the one, but I thought that he would be a great friend, great partner, great companion, great provider, great father...” (Andrea Merriman, 08:57)

3. Building a Life: Success, Family, More Success

• Career Moves: Both Andrea and Shawn built successful careers in Colorado; Shawn excelled in finance, quickly making significant money and taking signing bonuses to switch firms.
• Entrepreneurship: Shawn started Market Street Advisors, gained clients, and seemed to create a thriving business.
• Family Dynamics: Andrea took charge of the household and children, while Shawn focused on work and developed expensive hobbies.
• Material Success: Luxuries grew—house paid off, expensive cars, an art collection, and even Rembrandts.
  • “I had watched our accounts slowly grow up to a million, and then I watched our account slowly grow to 3 million. And then I watched my statement grow to total about $10 million.” (Andrea Merriman, 19:51)

4. Subtle Shifts and Fraying at the Edges

• Sean’s Distance: Increasingly involved in work and travel (e.g., hunting safaris), less present at home, and changing in interests versus how he first presented himself.

5. The Collapse: Shawn’s Stunning Confession

• The Reveal: On March 18, 2009, Shawn confesses to running a Ponzi scheme for 16 years.
  • “I need you to know that every day when I got up and left and went to work and was gone all day, I was actually running a Ponzi scheme.” (Andrea Merriman, 24:19)
• Immediate Fallout: Andrea learns all their assets, including her inheritance and the kids’ college funds, are gone. Shawn faces prison.
• Disbelief & Grief: Andrea is devastated, shocked, and humiliated.
  • “I felt like everything had been destroyed. Everything was a humiliation...My biggest wish and desire would have been to just walk to the edge of the horizon and drop off the face of the earth.” (Andrea Merriman, 28:37)

6. Facing the Community and the Law

• Legal Process: The federal government seizes their possessions. Andrea confronts the moral dilemma of hiding valuables and chooses her integrity.
  • “I am not going to abandon my integrity just because the person I'm married to has.” (Andrea Merriman, 33:04)
• Community Backlash: Neighbors and friends, also victims, ostracize and surveil her, assuming complicity.
  • “I could hear ka chink, ka chink...One of my neighbors is over the fence with a lens, photographing every move I make.” (Andrea Merriman, 34:24)

7. Divorce, Relocation, and Poverty

• Final Separation: Andrea finalizes her divorce, leaves Denver, and starts over with her children and dogs in Utah, living with her brother.
  • “I packed my car with my two dogs and my kids, and I moved that day. And I didn't say goodbye to anything. I did not look back.” (Andrea Merriman, 35:30)

8. Personal Guilt and Self-Blame

• Survivor’s Guilt: Andrea struggles with having unknowingly benefitted from others’ losses, as well as having introduced Shawn to others he hurt.
  • “I hate every trip I went on. I hate every photo. I hate every memory. There was all kinds of guilt. Guilt that I'd brought him into the lives of my friends and family...” (Andrea Merriman, 36:58)

9. Finding Forgiveness and Rebuilding

• Seeking Counsel: Andrea is reassured by a church leader that Shawn’s actions were not her fault.
  • “In all of that, you forgot one thing. The agency of the other person, the other person's opportunity to choose. This is not on you.” (Church leader, as recounted by Andrea Merriman, 37:40)
• Conscious Forgiveness: Determined not to let hatred consume her or her children.
  • “We are going to forgive, not for him, but for us, so that our hatred doesn't destroy us.” (Andrea Merriman, 38:31)
• Resilience: Despite everything, Andrea’s children grow up well, and she manages to build a new, happy life—including remarriage to a man in finance who later becomes a fraud investigator.

10. A Hopeful Perspective

• Hard-Won Wisdom: Andrea’s optimism and perseverance shine throughout the episode.
  • “When you lift your eyes up and you see you're on the top of a mountain, that's a view worth all the persevering for.” (Andrea Merriman, 41:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Marriage and Betrayal: “I was so humiliated. Humiliated to be married to a criminal...” (Andrea Merriman, 30:28)
• On Integrity: “I am not going to abandon my integrity just because the person I'm married to has.” (33:04)
• On Forgiveness: “We are going to forgive, not for him, but for us...” (38:31)
• On Perseverance: “I've plotted one foot in front of the other for a decade when I wasn't sure if it was making any difference. But when you lift your eyes up and you see you're on the top of a mountain, that's a view worth all the persevering for.” (41:08)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:56] Andrea recounts the arrival of federal agents and the beginning of the end.
• [08:38] Shawn proposes marriage on a California beach.
• [19:51] Discussion of growing wealth and the illusion of success.
• [24:19] Shawn’s confession of the Ponzi scheme.
• [26:51] Shawn reveals everything is gone—including their home and savings.
• [29:10] Andrea and Shawn tell their children about the crime and impending changes.
• [32:31] The U.S. Marshals seize their assets.
• [34:24] Andrea describes community suspicion and surveillance.
• [35:30] Leaving Denver for a new life in Utah.
• [37:40] Church leader’s advice on agency and self-forgiveness.
• [38:31] Andrea’s decision to forgive for her own family’s sake.
• [41:08] Andrea’s final thoughts on moving forward and embracing happiness.

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Tone and Language

Andrea is candid, humble, and emotionally raw, balancing frank discussion of pain and humiliation with remarkable optimism and self-awareness. There is a consistent emphasis on integrity, faith-based values, and the complexity of being viewed as a "perfect victim" in a public disaster not of her making.

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Summary

This episode provides a powerful, firsthand exploration of life after betrayal—not just of trust, but of everything a person builds and believes about herself, her marriage, and her community. Andrea’s resilience, self-forgiveness, and eventual reclamation of happiness offer a compelling blueprint for finding purpose and hope on the other side of devastation.

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Transcript

[Andrea Gunning]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

And, Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

Anyways, get a'@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Andrea Gunning]

Hi, it's Andrea. And we are re releasing some of our past weekly episodes. And there's a good reason why. For the last year, I have been working with ABC on turning some of your favorite episodes of Betrayal Weekly into a TV show. The show is called Betrayal, Secrets and Lies, and it airs every Sunday at 10pm on ABC. Some betrayals don't just break your heart. They change your entire life overnight. Andrea thought she knew her husband, John. She trusted him, built a life with him, a family, a future that felt secure. And then came the confession. What followed wasn't just emotional fallout. It was legal, it was public, and it was completely out of her control. The life she thought she was living in an instant was gone, replaced by something she never chose. Andrea's story is one that really stays with you because it forces you to ask a difficult question. How much responsibility do you carry for something you didn't even know was happening? This is something we don't talk about enough. How often women are held accountable for the actions of men in their lives, even when they are completely in the dark. It's complicated, it's frustrating, and it's incredibly important. So please check out Betrayal, Secrets and Lies on ABC and Hulu to see Andrea and where her story takes place. Enjoy the episode.

[Andrea Merriman]

Pretty soon, up over the hill, I saw a caravan of dark vehicles with dark tinted windows. They're all in FBI or US Marshals jackets. They've got their sunglasses, they've got their weapons. And they come to my house. They ring the doorbell. I let them in.

[Andrea Gunning]

I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Andrea Merriman came from money, a lot of money. As a kid, her family had a huge house, a vacation home in Hawaii, and even a private plane.

[Andrea Merriman]

We flew everywhere. We didn't do road trips. It was so my family to hop in the plane at midnight and fly to Arizona for the weekend to Enjoy the sun and then be back when school started on Monday.

[Andrea Gunning]

But if you met Andrea, you wouldn't know that's how she grew up. She's not flashy, she's hard working and honest. Her parents raised her that way.

[Andrea Merriman]

We had jobs around the house we didn't get allowance for, or if we did, it was a dollar a week because my parents wanted to teach us responsibility and accountability.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her family belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Some people call it the Mormon Church, but that's not the name she uses.

[Andrea Merriman]

That's a name given to church members who are not of our faith. It's just a mouthful to say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

[Andrea Gunning]

From a young age, Andrea took her faith very seriously.

[Andrea Merriman]

When you're a child, they give you a ring and it says CTR on it. That stands for choose the Right. So part of the culture was to be obedient to good principles, doing well in whatever I attempted to do.

[Andrea Gunning]

And in her religious community, she felt empowered as a woman. The women around her were ambitious and well educated. Many of them had both families and careers.

[Andrea Merriman]

My mom had a master's degree, and I remember going to my dad asking for help with homework. My dad would say, I can totally help you, but who really could help you? The person who's the smartest in our family is your mother. So I was raised that women could do and be anything.

[Andrea Gunning]

She was a straight A student, a great athlete. She played three instruments and excelled at piano.

[Andrea Merriman]

Anything I did, I did to the best of my ability.

[Andrea Gunning]

When she got older, she took that determination to Brigham Young University, where she immediately got to work on building her future.

[Andrea Merriman]

My dad wanted me to be a lawyer, and that's what I went to school thinking I would do.

[Andrea Gunning]

I Along the way, she found a dream of her own. She wanted to start a career in advertising and public relations, and her work ethic extended outside the classroom. She got a job in her apartment complex. That's how she met Shawn.

[Andrea Merriman]

He came into the office to pay his rent, and I processed that for him.

[Andrea Gunning]

She would see him around the building, but they'd never really talked before.

[Andrea Merriman]

My roommates in my apartment were good friends with the guys in his apartment. People thought highly of him and his roommates, and they did fun things and seemed to be good people.

[Andrea Gunning]

Soon after they met in the office, Shawn asked her out. And right away he impressed her. He knew she liked music, so for their first date, he took her to the symphony. After that, they started going out together every weekend.

[Andrea Merriman]

He did not do the typical cheap, low budget, crazy college dates. He took me to the best restaurants, to concerts, and then he'd take you out into his BMW. He was always a very engaging, outgoing, charming person.

[Andrea Gunning]

On one date, she wore a pearl necklace. Sean complimented her on it, and she told him it was borrowed from a friend. So a few days later, he just

[Andrea Merriman]

showed up at my door unexpectedly with a jewelry box. I opened it up, and it was a pearl necklace. And he said, any woman as beautiful as you should not have to borrow pearls. I mean, that was what it was like to date Sean Merriman. I remember thinking, wow, all the other boys I've dated, if they tried to do these grand gestures or date this way, it would seem really cheesy and corny. But it works for Shawn. And it was just like in the movies.

[Andrea Gunning]

Even though he had expensive taste, Shawn didn't come from money.

[Andrea Merriman]

His dad was a construction worker. They had moved all around the country during his childhood. Eleven times in seven or eight years. There was a lot of alcoholism, divorce, and he was one of the first members of his family to go to college.

[Andrea Gunning]

Getting into college wasn't easy for Shawn. He didn't have the grades, but he made up for it with his trademark charm.

[Andrea Merriman]

He started sending flowers to the woman in charge of admissions, and eventually he got admitted.

[Andrea Gunning]

He was proud of this story, and he always had fabulous stories to entertain people with. He was interested in things most college kids weren't.

[Andrea Merriman]

He was into photography. He was into cars. He was into building things.

[Andrea Gunning]

Still, Shawn didn't let his interests take over their relationship.

[Andrea Merriman]

We did everything that I loved. He knew that I loved the beach. He knew that I loved 80s music. He knew that I loved travel. And I thought that I was finding someone who believed the way I did on everything.

[Andrea Gunning]

After a few months of dating, the two took a trip to California. And there on the beach, he got down on one knee.

[Andrea Merriman]

Going through my head mostly was, wait, I'm only 22. I'm too young to do this.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea was still in school. She'd always planned to graduate, start a career, and then get married. But saying yes to Shawn just made sense.

[Andrea Merriman]

I don't know that I thought he was the one, but I thought that he would be a great friend, great partner, great companion, great provider, great father, and am I going to find somebody just like him again if I pass this by? I saw enough of those good qualities and the things that I wanted as part of my future. So when he proposed, I said yes.

[Andrea Gunning]

So they got married and graduated College, in that order.

[Andrea Merriman]

We were on a good course together. We were equally yoked as a couple to move forward and create the life of our dreams.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sean had a vision of moving to D.C. he even interviewed with the CIA. He also considered getting an MBA at an Ivy League school. But ultimately they decided to plant roots in her home state of Colorado.

[Andrea Merriman]

We chose to move to Denver for my career. I got a job working for a government agency doing public relations for them.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sean came to love Denver, and he found a great job at an investment firm.

[Andrea Merriman]

He had immediate success, so then he actually started being a stockbroker that fall.

[Andrea Gunning]

When it came to investing, Sean had a Midas touch.

[Andrea Merriman]

And I will tell you, from September to December that quarter, he made $50,000. And that was in 1990.

[Andrea Gunning]

That's a lot of money, especially right out of college. Sean was bringing home 200k a year, but that was the 90s. In today's money, that's the equivalent of $480,000 a year. And the money just kept coming.

[Andrea Merriman]

Other firms would reach out to him and say, hey, come and work for us. We'll give you a signing bonus. And so he would take a 50, 60, 70, $80,000 signing bonus and go work for a different firm.

[Andrea Gunning]

He hopped from firm to firm for a few years, and then soon after they had their first child in 1993, Shawn came to Andrea with a business idea.

[Andrea Merriman]

He came home from work and told me that he had some very wealthy, blue blood, old money clients in Kansas City that had been so impressed with the money management he had done for them that they had asked him to step back from his career as a stockbroker and manage their money privately for them.

[Andrea Gunning]

She supported him 100%. So he made the leap and launched what became Market Street Advisors. It started with those Kansas City clients, but pretty soon he was investing for family, friends, and neighbors, too. And even in the madness of starting his own firm and finding new clients, Shawn made it a point to spend time with Andrea at the end of every day.

[Andrea Merriman]

He came home at night, had dinner with me, had great stories about trades that he'd made that day. He had no shortage of stories he could tell, conversations he could share, ideas that he had.

[Andrea Gunning]

Life was good for the Merrymans. Sean's investment firm was taking off, and the two of them were living comfortably. More than comfortably, even. The house got bigger, cars got nicer, and for Andrea, there was only one thing missing. More kids.

[Andrea Merriman]

One of the things we talked about before we got married was that I wanted four to six children. He Was like, oh, that's great. That's what I've always wanted.

[Andrea Gunning]

They had another child, a baby girl, and Andrea was the happiest she'd ever been. When Shawn got home after a long day at work, he didn't have the bandwidth to help with the babies.

[Andrea Merriman]

He was fine to play with the baby when he was home, et cetera, but he was not a hands on. Let me help bathe the baby, Let me change diapers.

[Andrea Gunning]

And when she asked him about having a third kid, he was hesitant. She assured him she'd take on the responsibilities that he couldn't.

[Andrea Merriman]

And so I did everything, handled everything for the baby so that it wouldn't impact his life too much and I could have another child. And I continued to do everything and manage the kids so that it didn't impact his life. By the time we had our fourth kid, I could count the number of dirty diapers on one hand that he had changed. It really became, he was busy, he was working on his career, and I was the partner in the relationship who was focused on home and family.

[Andrea Gunning]

All in all, they had four kids together. She was the homemaker, he was the provider, and he provided very well. It was the life she always wanted. Over time, Sean started to be more open about the life he wanted.

[Andrea Merriman]

I found out he didn't like dancing. He didn't like beaches. Let's go on a trip to California. No, I hate the beach.

[Andrea Gunning]

What?

[Andrea Merriman]

Yeah. I hate the feel of sand between my toes. I'm not doing that.

[Andrea Gunning]

He started developing expensive new hobbies, ones that required him to travel.

[Andrea Merriman]

He was a big African safari guy. He would go to Cameroon and Tanzania and South Africa and Zimbabwe, all over the world to hunt and go on safaris for animals. And coincidentally, very wealthy people are engaged in those hobbies. He sold it as well. I'm actually doing this for work, to get more clients to build my business.

[Andrea Gunning]

These trips could be dangerous. One time, when he returned from a safari in Ethiopia, Sean was acting strange.

[Andrea Merriman]

He was keeping his distance. And I said, why? And he said, I have got to go to the doctor.

[Andrea Gunning]

He was worried he could have contracted something. He told Andrea a wild story.

[Andrea Merriman]

We were climbing a mountain, and one of the people in the party slipped, and he was going to fall off a cliff. And so I reached down and I grabbed him and saved his life. But he and I both got cut up in the process, and I need to go and get tested to make sure I'm okay.

[Andrea Gunning]

Thankfully, Shawn was negative. And even though the story was far fetched, Andrea Believed him.

[Andrea Merriman]

He had so many stories about saving people's lives or dramatic things. I used to tell him, if I didn't live with you and see that your life is true, I would never believe your life. What I didn't know was most of those stories were probably lies.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy. Diane is bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league. Anyways.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

Get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Liberty, Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Andrea Gunning]

As Andrea and Shawn built a family together, Shawn started to change. He was around less and less, working at his investment firm. And when he wasn't working, he was taking extravagant hunting trips on his own. It became Sean's world, and sometimes that bothered her. But she was committed to him no matter what.

[Andrea Merriman]

For a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you marry forever and you make your choice, and then you and you figure out how to make it work. I was taught that pretty much the only reason you would ever divorce is in the case of, like, physical abuse or something. Beyond that, you marry forever.

[Andrea Gunning]

His behavior was a challenge, but not marriage ending.

[Andrea Merriman]

It wasn't anything that I would have divorced over. It was more, oh, I guess I'll make this work.

[Andrea Gunning]

And she really did want to make it work. There was still so much good in what they had together.

[Andrea Merriman]

I felt like we were very connected. We went on dates every weekend together. He would call me when he had down times at work. Once every morning and once or twice in the afternoon, he'd just call me to check in, see what I was doing, see how I was.

[Andrea Gunning]

And when he did have the time, she could see he was really trying. Especially as the kids got older, he became more involved. He led 50 mile hikes for their son's Boy Scout troop. He drove their daughter around on errands. He joked with them, talked with them. And above all, he made sure his kids had everything they could ask for. All the things he didn't have growing up.

[Andrea Merriman]

My son played baseball and they won the championship of their league. So he bought a batting cage and pitching machine that he put in our backyard. We put in a pool, we put in a sport court so that our kids would have a Great fun place to bring their friends to.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sean wanted their kids to be cultured. He took them to museums around the world, and he even started their own private art collection.

[Andrea Merriman]

We ended up with a collection of Rembrandts that was worth quite a bit of money and sculptures by Frederick Hart, all kinds of things like that to make things beautiful and to help educate our children.

[Andrea Gunning]

The batting cages, the private courts, the Rembrandts. Sure, it was a lot, but they could afford it. In Shawn's hands, Andrea had watched their money multiply.

[Andrea Merriman]

I had watched our accounts slowly grow up to a million, and then I watched our account slowly grow to 3 million. And then I watched my statement grow to total about $10 million.

[Andrea Gunning]

In the early 2000s, that was closer to 18 million. Andrea also invested her own inheritance with Shawn's firm. Everything she had saved and everything she got from her parents.

[Andrea Merriman]

I had my own money. My parents had passed away at this point, and like all of his investment clients, I was getting, you know, monthly financial statements.

[Andrea Gunning]

Still, she wanted to make sure that they were being smart with their spending.

[Andrea Merriman]

I am very conservative financially, so my first goal was I want our home paid off. And so I remember, I think it was my 40th birthday, he gave me the deed to our house, and our house was paid off.

[Andrea Gunning]

And Shawn kept making the house better and better.

[Andrea Merriman]

He ended up building a building behind our home that he called his shop. It was actually bigger than our home. His work office was in the top level, and then the bottom was just cars and trophies. He had an Aston Martin. He had several Porsches, a Ferrari, Mercedes sedans, BMWs, you name it.

[Andrea Gunning]

Shawn spent pretty much all his time in his shop working on business or taking care of his cars.

[Andrea Merriman]

He would go out to his office from probably 7am to 5pm Come in, have dinner, and then he'd be like, oh, I'm gonna go out to my shop and do this. And then he'd come in at 10 at night.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea knew all that hard work was funding their lifestyle, but she missed him. She wanted him around more.

[Andrea Merriman]

After 17 or so years of marriage, I said, we don't need more money. We have plenty for our needs and our wants and things we've never dreamed of, but we need you. And he just said, I can't. I've got to build my business.

[Andrea Gunning]

He'd spent 20 years prioritizing his work above everything else. He didn't know how to shift gears. Maybe he didn't want to. So Andrea made peace with the fact that her husband would be around when he could be.

[Andrea Merriman]

I was kind of raised. If you look for the good in others, you will find it. If you're looking for bad things and looking to tear people down and to hate them, you'll find reasons for that, too. He was gone a lot of the time, but when he was home, he would be there for dinner and do other things with us. Now, I don't think any life is completely perfect, but it was a good life.

[Andrea Gunning]

March 17, 2009, was a really good day. It was St. Patty's Day.

[Andrea Merriman]

There is a little Irish in the Merriman side of the family, so I always tried to make it a fun day. I had gold coins and I made green pancakes and green milk for breakfast. As I sent my kids off to school, I took fun photos of them dressed in their St. Patrick's Day attire. What I didn't know at the time was those were the last Merriman family photos that I would ever take. The next day, March 18, unexpectedly, I was headed out on some errands. I dropped my youngest child off at daycare to have a babysitter while I quickly got some things done. And Sean called me as I was driving down the highway, and he's like, what are you doing? And I. I said, why, do you need something? He said, well, actually, I was hoping to spend some time with you this morning. And I said, oh, well, I can turn around and I'll come and get you, and you can do my errands with me. And he said, no, I need you to come home.

[Andrea Gunning]

So she turned the car around and went back to the house. He was waiting for her in the

[Andrea Merriman]

kitchen, and he said, I've been running Market Street Advisors for the past 16 years, but I need you to know that every day when I got up and left and went to work and was gone all day, I was actually running a Ponzi scheme.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

And, Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson (possibly Doug)]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Friend]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea thought that her husband Sean had dedicated his career to running his own investment firm. But then Sean confessed that it was all a lie. Their Life of Luxury was funded on stolen money. For the past 16 years, he had been running a Ponzi scheme.

[Andrea Merriman]

I didn't even know what a Ponzi scheme was. I had heard of Bernie Madoff. I didn't pay too much attention to those types of things. I knew he'd done something wrong, but that's pretty much all I knew about it.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sean explained that when he first started, his firm was legitimate. But in his first year, one of his investments went south and he panicked.

[Andrea Merriman]

So he omitted the $5,000 loss from his statement. And I'm sure he thought that he could make that up with another trade. And then he never did.

[Andrea Gunning]

So he kept fudging the books, selling people on his big wins and using money from new investors to pay old ones. There were no million dollar trades or miracle investments. The conversations he told her about and all the financial documents she'd seen were fake. He was a total fraud. His clients had lost millions of dollars. Some of them lost everything they had. Not only did he lose other people's money, all of their own money was gone too. The money she'd inherited from her parents and their kids college funds, it was gone.

[Andrea Merriman]

Then he said, yesterday, I, in the company of my attorney, turned myself in to the U.S. marshals, to representatives of the federal government, and I will be going to prison. And when he said the word prison, I about died. My mind was just swirling. When he said that, I thought, this cannot be real.

[Andrea Gunning]

She thought back to all the outlandish stories he told over the years, like the one about saving someone's life on a safari. Was any of it real? As the reality set in, she tried to cling to anything she could.

[Andrea Merriman]

I was trying to find the positive, like I'd been raised to do. And I said, at least the house has paid off. And he said, no, you don't understand. The house is gone. The cars are gone. Everything's gone. I just kind of felt like I was witnessing the apocalypse. I remember apologizing, saying, I'm so sorry, but I have to get out of here. And I got up and I ran out and I got in my car and I took off up my driveway and started driving out of my neighborhood uncontrollably. Tears were just streaming out of my eyes.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea pulled over just minutes after leaving her home. She couldn't see, much less drive. And as she sat there alone in her car, the weight of it all finally hit her.

[Andrea Merriman]

I felt like everything had been destroyed. Everything was a humiliation to me as well as a shock as well as Deeply sad and devastating. My biggest wish and desire would have been to just walk to the edge of the horizon and drop off the face of the earth. But I couldn't, because I had four kids relying on me. I was their only resource.

[Andrea Gunning]

She had to keep going. So she made a plan.

[Andrea Merriman]

When I went back to the house, I told him that he was going to be the one to tell the kids. So that night, we gathered our family together. He was in a chair in the corner of the room. I was on the couch across the room from him. And he told the kids, I have done something wrong. I've made a little mistake. And from across the side of the room, I am just furious, shaking my head, going, you've committed a crime. You've made huge mistakes over and over, every day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That is not one little mistake.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea was angry. The kids, they were terrified.

[Andrea Merriman]

I was standing there with four kids, ages 3 to 16, tears streaming down their face, looking at me for answers and strength. Before I could even say anything, my little third grader said, does this mean you're going to divorce dad?

[Andrea Gunning]

She knew in that moment that the answer was yes. It wasn't an easy answer, though.

[Andrea Merriman]

I was so humiliated. Humiliated to be married to a criminal. Humiliated at what he'd done. Humiliated to know that I would be getting divorced. I was raised that divorce is not what you do. Knowing that I had been married in a temple forever added a layer of difficulty, a layer of guilt, a layer of regret.

[Andrea Gunning]

But she was done. She couldn't be with a man who had spent decades cheating so many others out of millions of dollars. She would walk away while making the transition as easy as she could for her kids.

[Andrea Merriman]

I felt like my kids had been in such shock that they probably needed things to be as normal as possible in whatever ways they could be. So I fed them. That night, Shawn stayed in the home with us.

[Andrea Gunning]

And he continued to stay in the home and come to family dinner, just as he had for the last 20 years. Even though Sean had turned himself in, the feds still needed time to build a case against him. So they waited.

[Andrea Merriman]

I even remember cooking dinner for my kids, saying, would you like to call your dad and let him know dinner's ready? I am appalled that I am doing this for this man who's done this. But it was for my kids. I was trying to be kind, set an example of divorce and not changing who you are just because you've been betrayed. You choose the right. You are kind you are good to people no matter what.

[Andrea Gunning]

The destruction of her life didn't happen all at once. She watched it being taken apart piece by piece. After a few weeks of this purgatory, she got a call from the U.S. marshals. They set a date to come to her house and seize the family assets.

[Andrea Merriman]

Pretty soon, up over the hill, I saw a caravan of dark vehicles with dark tinted windows. They all pull up in front of my house. Everybody starts getting out of the cars. They're all in FBI or US Marshals jackets. They've got their sunglasses, they've got their weapons, and they come to my house. I think the only time difference is I knew they were coming. And they didn't break my door down. They rang the doorbell. I let them in.

[Andrea Gunning]

The authorities took everything of value. Sean's computer, his cars, his art collection, and most of what Andrea owned, too.

[Andrea Merriman]

I had the thought, you should hide some of your jewelry. And I thought, what? No, that would be stealing. No, you don't know where you're going to live, how you're going to keep your kids alive. You don't have a job. Your parents are. Are dead. If you could just end up with something, then you'd have something to sell, to start a life with. And I went back and forth in my mind a couple of times, and then I thought, nope, I am not going to abandon my integrity just because the person I'm married to has. And I left it. I left it all in my jewelry box because I am not compromising my ethics.

[Andrea Gunning]

She watched all their belongings get carted away. And she wasn't the only one.

[Andrea Merriman]

Several of my neighbors at the house next door up on the deck, drinking, barbecuing, having a great time, rejoicing in the downfall of my family and the asset seizure.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sean had scammed so many people, neighbors, friends, and family alike. She couldn't blame anyone for wanting him to pay. And yet people wanted her to pay, too, even though she had done nothing wrong. She'd been married to the Mormon Madoff, as the media soon dubbed him. Even neighbors and friends assumed that she must have known something.

[Andrea Merriman]

One time, I was out front with my three year old. He was just playing, you know, around the trees or the bushes. And I could hear ka chink, ka chink, Ka Chink. And I turn around, and one of my neighbors is over the fence with a lens, photographing every move I make.

[Andrea Gunning]

For the short time she had remaining in their house, she was paranoid. For the safety of her family and for good reason.

[Andrea Merriman]

One of the victims who was Also a neighbor in the neighborhood and who had lost probably all of his money, came all the way up my steps to my front porch, to my front door with his loaded gun, ready to blow Sean Merriman away and who knows who else before he came to his senses and he turned around and went home without hurting anyone.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea wanted nothing more than to take her kids and get out of that house, especially since Shawn continued to live there, waiting to be taken to prison. It took time, 90 days, for the divorce to be processed. But then finally, on July 13th, I

[Andrea Merriman]

drove to the courthouse with him to finalize the divorce. We came home, I packed my car with my two dogs and my kids, and I moved that day. And I didn't say goodbye to anything. I did not look back. I drove away, and I didn't look in the rearview mirror the whole way out of Denver.

[Andrea Gunning]

While Shawn went away to prison, Andrea went to Utah. Thankfully, she was able to leave her old life behind without her husband's debt hanging over her head.

[Andrea Merriman]

I had to write my own divorce because I couldn't afford an attorney. I made sure that I wrote that he was responsible for his debts and I was responsible for mine. Now, credit card companies don't apparently have to abide by that, but I think they saw that I was penniless, so they didn't actually come after me.

[Andrea Gunning]

She and her kids moved in with her brother, and a friend connected her with a job in marketing so that she could rebuild. But she was starting from nothing. For the first time in her life, she was worried about having the money to eat.

[Andrea Merriman]

For years, I would just have a knot in my stomach every time I drove to the grocery store thinking, oh, my gosh, I have to buy this food. But it's so much. I don't have money. I mean, we just had to adjust.

[Andrea Gunning]

Part of that adjustment meant facing her own self blame.

[Andrea Merriman]

I was ridden with guilt that I had enjoyed a nice life at the expense of others. I remember Sean said to me before we parted ways, well, at least you got a lot of good trips out of it. And I just looked at them and went, I hate every trip I went on. I hate every photo. I hate every memory. There was all kinds of guilt. Guilt that I'd brought him into the lives of my friends and family that got shafted by him. Guilt that I had chosen him to be the father of my children.

[Andrea Gunning]

She turned to the church for support and started meeting regularly with a church leader.

[Andrea Merriman]

And he said, how are you doing? And I said, honestly, I am trying to figure out how this happened. I've tried to do everything right in my life. I've tried to be a good wife, a good mother, a good citizen, a good person. How did I get here? And he goes, well, in all of that, you forgot one thing. The agency of the other person, the other person's opportunity to choose. This is not on you. He did this. There's nothing you could have done. What I had to do was recognize and forgive myself for the fact that I made the best decision I could with the facts I had at hand.

[Andrea Gunning]

But she also knew that she wanted to forgive Shawn. That was the only path forward.

[Andrea Merriman]

I had a couple of friends who'd gotten divorced and who had not gotten past it. They were very, very hateful toward their former spouse. And I saw how it was impacting their kids and destroying their family. And so the one thing I knew was, we are going to forgive, not for him, but for us, so that our hatred doesn't destroy us.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sean was ordered to pay $20 million to his victims. On top of that, he was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. During that time, Andrea was a single mom. She raised her kids with honesty, kindness, and forgiveness, just like her parents raised her.

[Andrea Merriman]

And my kids have turned out to be everything I could have hoped for. Hardworking, educated. They all help others. They all have skills. They're kind, good people and couldn't ask for anything more.

[Andrea Gunning]

Andrea's been able to rebuild her own life, too.

[Andrea Merriman]

I can honestly say I am super happy today. I am a homeowner. I have a great career that's been so memorable. I've gotten to travel. I have done many things that I've dreamed of. I've actually even remarried, if you can believe it or not.

[Andrea Gunning]

She ended up married to another man

[Andrea Merriman]

in finance, someone who is everything I thought I was getting but didn't get the first time and more. He's even tall and handsome.

[Andrea Gunning]

And here's the kicker. After they got married, her new husband started a second career as a fraud

[Andrea Merriman]

investigator busting Ponzi schemes.

[Andrea Gunning]

We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question. Why did you choose to tell your story?

[Andrea Merriman]

Life can be good. That's what we're all here to have and to be. I believe in being happy. So, yeah, maybe I chose to be optimistic more than I should have. And I did smile when the smiles were totally fake. And I remember having my heart so broken, it literally ached in my chest. But I've plotted one foot in front of the other for a decade when I wasn't sure if it was making any difference. But when you lift your eyes up and you see you're on the top of a mountain, that's a view worth all the persevering for.

[Andrea Gunning]

On the next episode of Betrayal.

[Andrea Merriman]

The minute I did that, I had this deep shame flood over me. Like, you've made a really grave error here. You've divulged something super private and you'll now never know why this person's in a relationship with you. Because is it for the money or is it for you?

[Andrea Gunning]

If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, you email [e-mail] that's betrayalpodmail.com we're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcast podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Caitlin golden, with additional production by Monique Laborde and Ben Fetterman. Our associate producer is Kristen Melchuri. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kryjack. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Del Vecchio additional editing support from Nico Aruca and Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines Music Library provided by Mib Music and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast guarantee.