The Full Picture | EP 4 | Saskia's Story

Summary

Betrayal Season 5, Episode 4: "The Full Picture | Saskia's Story"

Podcast by iHeartPodcasts and Glass Podcasts
Release Date: February 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

This searing episode of Betrayal dives deep into Saskia Inwood’s harrowing journey following the discovery that her husband, Mike, had secretly drugged, raped, and streamed her unconscious body online. As Saskia fights for justice, the episode explores not just the crime, but the fraught process of seeking accountability within a legal system stacked against “imperfect victims” — and questions what justice even means when society and the law are slow to recognize your pain. The episode elevates Saskia’s voice and chronicles her trauma, the community’s response, the legal obstacles (most critically Maryland's “marital exemption” law), and the courageous prosecution that took her case forward.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immediate Aftermath and Discovery

• Saskia’s Earth-Shattering Discovery

  • Saskia wakes up to the reality that her husband, Mike, had been secretly filming and streaming her naked and unconscious ([03:01][Saskia]: “There's probably nothing that we can do.”).
  • The initial shock is compounded when a social worker says that without video evidence, little could be done legally.

• Evidence Uncovered by Family

  • Saskia’s sister-in-law, Megan, relentlessly searches through porn websites and manages to find and identify short video previews of Saskia being sexually assaulted by Mike ([04:33]).

• Raw Initial Emotional Response

  • [03:27][Saskia]: “I just flipped out because of how wrong I knew it was and how traumatized I felt."

  • Memorable Moment: Saskia’s bloodcurdling scream which brings law enforcement running, highlighting the immediacy and depth of her trauma ([03:34]).

• Turning Point – The Evidence

  • The discovered previews, though only seconds long, are enough for authorities to issue Saskia a protective order and launch a criminal investigation ([06:44]).

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2. Psychological & Physical Impact

• Profound Sense of Violation and Loss

  • [07:15][Saskia]: “I felt like a bag of bones that someone had thrown to the side. He was honestly the only person that I ever thought truly loved me. ... It breaks you.”
  • The emotional devastation is palpable; Betrayal is layered—not only personal but systemic and societal.

• Saskia’s Health Decline

  • Episodes of passing out, picking at her skin, hair loss; at the time were chalked up to mental health decline, medication side effects, or alcoholism.

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3. Investigation, Evidence, and Legal Barriers

• Prosecutor Perspective: Initial Credibility

  • [09:36][Ashley Enderfurth, Assistant State's Attorney]: “With Saskia, there was never a doubt in my mind that this happened. She was extremely credible. She was willing to talk about her emotions about this entire thing. And then she also didn't hide anything.”

  • Ashley is clear that Saskia’s honesty — about mental health, substance use, vulnerabilities — adds to her credibility, not detracts from it ([10:51]).

• Collecting Concrete Evidence

  • Authorities manage to retrieve over 30 full-length videos from the dark web—a grueling process ([11:58]), revealing extensive unconscionable abuse.
  • Forensic investigation shows camera was often hidden, but Saskia’s unconsciousness is unambiguous ([12:28]).

• Did Mike Drug Her?

  • Physical evidence (discovered sedatives in nightstand and safe, including phenobarbital) raises questions about drugging ([14:39]), yet toxicology tests are inconclusive ([15:20]).
  • Regardless, prosecutor and community agree: how she was incapacitated is less relevant than the fact that she was sexually assaulted while unable to consent ([18:07][Ashley Enderfurth]: “It doesn't change our analysis from a legal perspective as to whether she was physically helpless or able to resist any sort of unconsented to sex act.”).

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4. Community and Social Response

• Support from Friends and Family

  • Saskia’s network rallies around her, unequivocally rejecting the “perfect victim” myth.
  • [17:46][Saskia’s sister Marisa]: “The more vulnerable she became, the easier it became for him to take advantage.”

• Online Enablers and Chatterbait

  • Chatterbait chat logs show active encouragement from viewers, some expressing concern, others suggesting or paying for abusive acts ([19:14]).
  • [19:41][Ashley Enderfurth]: “A couple of times people say, hey, even if she's fake asleep, that's against the terms and conditions. ... And he just says things like, she likes it like that.”

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5. Legal System, Marital Exemption, and Courtroom Battle

• The Marital Exemption Barrier

  • Crushing realization: In Maryland, “raping your sleeping wife was okay” — the marital exemption blocked prosecution for rape if victim was mentally incapacitated by substance or sleep, but not if ‘force’ was evident ([33:38][Ashley Enderfurth & Debbie Feinstein]).
  • [35:05][Saskia]: “My brain couldn't handle that he would not be punished for what he did or be held accountable.”

• Navigating the Law, Finding a Path Forward

  • Meticulous review of videos seeking any evidence of force or momentary resistance to support prosecution.
  • Authorities file 31 charges of illegal surveillance and several rape charges where some evidence of resistance is visible ([36:45]).

• Defense Strategy: Victim-Blaming

  • Defense seeks to admit evidence to suggest Saskia consented and fulfilled online consent requirements ([41:01]), turns up a photo of Saskia smiling with her passport. Prosecutors indicate Mike was holding the passport, and the account setup traces back to his email ([45:24]).

  • [41:59][Ashley Enderfurth]: “There's no doubt in my mind that Saskia had absolutely no idea what was happening to her.”

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6. Emotional Fallout and the Burden of Proof

• Living with the Aftermath

  • [30:02][Saskia]: “I felt like this is it. You don't move on from this."
  • The knife-twist: The assault files still live online; Saskia fears anyone can find and watch them.

• Weight of Testifying

  • [46:50][Saskia]: “For good, for bad, for ugly. I knew that it would lie on me.”
  • [47:21][Saskia]: “I wanted him to be in jail and I felt like testifying against him and holding him accountable would give me back some of my power.”

• The Unfairness of the Legal Threshold

  • [43:40][Ashley Enderfurth]: “The jury has to believe it beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if they are 75% there, their job is to acquit.”
  • The defense aims to muddy the waters, exploiting every possible doubt about Saskia and her story.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [03:01][Saskia]: “There's probably nothing that we can do.”
• [07:15][Saskia]: “...to realize that I wasn't anything more than a toy or a tool to him. It breaks you.”
• [09:36][Ashley Enderfurth]: “She was extremely credible. She was willing to talk about her emotions... She never acted like she was a perfect person or a perfect victim.”
• [13:28][Saskia]: “I started to question whether he was drugging me.”
• [18:07][Ashley Enderfurth]: “It doesn't change our analysis from a legal perspective as to whether she was physically helpless or able to resist any sort of unconsented to sex act.”
• [19:41][Ashley Enderfurth]: “A couple of times people say, hey, even if she's fake asleep, that's against the terms and conditions. ... And he just says things like, she likes it like that.”
• [33:38][Ashley Enderfurth]: “...at the time, raping your sleeping wife was okay.”
• [35:05][Saskia]: “My brain couldn't handle that he would not be punished for what he did...”
• [41:59][Ashley Enderfurth]: "There's no doubt in my mind that Saskia had absolutely no idea what was happening to her."
• [43:40][Ashley Enderfurth]: “The jury has to believe it beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if they are 75% there, their job is to acquit.”
• [46:50][Saskia]: “For good, for bad, for ugly. I knew that it would lie on me.”
• [47:21][Saskia]: “I wanted him to be in jail and I felt like testifying against him and holding him accountable would give me back some of my power.”

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [03:01] — Social worker tells Saskia: “There's probably nothing that we can do.”
• [04:33] — Megan discovers the video previews online.
• [06:04–06:44] — Saskia views some of the footage; secures protection order.
• [08:34–09:13] — Prosecutor Ashley Enderfurth describes meeting Saskia and forming credibility assessments.
• [11:58–12:28] — Recovery of over 30 full-length videos; evidence of unconsciousness.
• [14:39–16:21] — Discovery of sedatives/possible drugging, toxicology results.
• [18:07] — Legal context: Importance of physical helplessness, not how it occurred.
• [19:04–20:03] — Chat log evidence: Online viewers interact with Mike, encourage/acknowledge non-consensual acts.
• [27:24–28:52] — Saskia connects abuse timeline with her health decline and missed life events.
• [33:11–35:05] — The marital exemption and its chilling effects.
• [36:45–37:02] — Final list of charges and Mike’s arrest.
• [41:01–46:03] — Defense tactics: Alleged evidence of consent; prosecutor rebuts with evidence of coercion/fraud.
• [46:50–47:21] — Saskia discusses emotional burden of testifying.

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Thematic Takeaways

• The Myth of the “Perfect Victim”: The episode exposes how the legal system and society’s expectations can silence victims, especially those with mental health or substance histories.
• Legal Gaps Still Matter: Marital rape exemptions remain a chilling hurdle — justice hinges on technicalities, not the appalling facts.
• Survivor Power: Saskia’s journey showcases resilience, the messy and real recovery after extreme betrayal, and the importance of telling the full, complicated truth.

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Next Episode Teaser

The episode ends on the precipice of the trial, with stakes high and the outcome uncertain, promising further revelations and the climactic courtroom battle in Episode 5.

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For sexual violence resources: rainn.org
Contact for show: [e-mail]
Substack & Community: betrayal.substack.com

Transcript

[Andrea Gunning]

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[Ben Higgins]

You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty. I'm Ben Higgins and if youf Can Hear Me is where culture meets the soul. Honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people. Some have answers. Most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to if youf Can Hear me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Andrea Gunning]

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[Andrea Gunning]

Weight Watchers get started for as low as $[e-mail] GLP1 for over 60 years, we've helped millions of members find what works for for them. Now it's your turn. Weight watchers. Watch it work. Saskia had just learned the unimaginable, that her husband had been secretly streaming videos of her. Videos where she was naked and unconscious. Now she was sitting across from a social worker hearing one of the worst things any victim can hear.

[Saskia]

There's probably nothing that we can do.

[Andrea Gunning]

Saskia only had one thumbnail photo from Mike's webpage. It wasn't enough to prove he had done something wrong. To get a long term protective order, the social worker said Saskia needed video evidence. But she didn't have that. Saskia was so shocked she couldn't speak. She did the only thing she could do. Scream.

[Saskia]

I just flipped out because of how wrong I knew it was and how traumatized I felt.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her friend Colleen was there. She let out this blood curdling scream and ran down the hall. And the sheriffs came sprinting. They didn't know what had happened. They just heard this scream and came sprinting down after her. Colleen ran after her too. She found Saskia in the hall, crying, shaking. She was just in shock, like, what is going on? But Megan, Saskia's sister in law, stayed in the office with the social worker. She thought those videos had to be out there somewhere. Nothing goes away on the Internet. Once it's there, it's there. So she took out her phone. She had Mike's username. She scrolled and scrolled through pornographic websites, clicking through pages of graphic videos until finally she found clips of Saskia. These were previews, 10 second grabs from Mike's videos. In those short clips, Megan could tell Saskia was passed out, completely unaware and Mike was violating her. She was being raped by her husband. After seeing that, it made sense why she wasn't functioning. She was being tortured. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is betrayal. Season 5 Episode 4 the Full Picture these videos were the key to getting justice for Saskia. Evidence of what Mike had done. And even in those previews, it was clear his actions were criminal. The authorities confirmed this was enough for a protective order and it was enough to launch an investigation. So Megan went into the hall and told Saskia to come back in.

[Saskia]

I remember Megan saying, SaaS, look, they want to talk to you again. If you don't calm down, they're going to admit you to a hospital. And I was like, I don't care if they don't do anything about this, I will live in that hospital because I will not be okay.

[Andrea Gunning]

Megan brought Saskia into the office and started going through the videos with the social worker. Saskia wanted to see for herself, to know the full extent of what Mike had been doing while she was knocked out. She looked over Megan's shoulder at the screen, and she saw her bedroom walls, her sheets, her own undressed body.

[Saskia]

I was just comatose, and he was having sex with me. Then I told myself, like, I can't. I can't watch anymore.

[Andrea Gunning]

With the video previews, Saskia was able to secure the protective order she needed, and the authorities had enough for a warrant to begin investigating. Saskia handed Mike's computer to the police, and then she walked out of the building in a daze. She got in Colleen's car, and they drove back to her house, the home she'd shared with Mike and their kids. On that drive, she reached a new low.

[Saskia]

I felt like a bag of bones that someone had thrown to the side. He was honestly the only person that I ever thought truly loved me. And so to realize that I wasn't anything more than a toy or a tool to him. It breaks you.

[Andrea Gunning]

Colleen looked over at Saskia, crumpled in the passenger seat, and she could see Saskia was broken. It was a betrayal of everything that she thought was secure. It was sexual trauma and assault that was one of the most horrific things I could ever imagine for anybody.

[Saskia]

All I wanted to do was just scream at the top of my lungs. Screamed all of the pain that I felt.

[Andrea Gunning]

As Saskia and her community began to confront what Mike had done, so did the authorities. Detective Sherry Rule was tasked with the investigation. She declined our request for an interview. But around the same time, another key player was brought onto the case.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

My name is Ashley Enderfurth. I am an assistant state's attorney here in Montgomery County. At the time of this, I was a line prosecutor in the special Victims Division, prosecuting felony special victims cases.

[Andrea Gunning]

Special victims cases are those involving vulnerable victims. They deal with crimes like sexual assault, human trafficking, and child abuse. In these cases, detectives and prosecutors work closely in gathering evidence and figuring out what charges to file. Today, Ashley has spent 14 years as a prosecutor. Of the hundreds of cases she's managed to.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

This is one of the cases that has stuck with me. It was so horrific. In this unimaginable way to be living your life and then have everything that, you know be different in a minute.

[Andrea Gunning]

Ashley met with Saskia early on in the investigation. It's standard procedure. In working with special victims, that first

[Ashley Enderfurth]

meeting is about explaining our role to them, helping them understand what the court process might look like, and then also getting to know each other a little bit. Because part of my job as a prosecutor is making credibility determinations and figuring out if I think this is a person who can testify, who can go into court and explain what happened to them. And before I can charge anything, I have to believe it beyond a reasonable doubt. And with Saskia, there was never a doubt in my mind that this happened. She was extremely credible. She was willing to talk about her emotions about this entire thing. And then she also didn't hide anything.

[Andrea Gunning]

Saskia was open about her mental health history, about her prescriptions for psychiatric medications, and her use of alcohol on top of those meds. To Ashley, the prosecutor, these weren't reasons to doubt Saskia's story. They were important details in explaining Saskia's state of mind. How crimes were committed against her own body without her knowledge. Her honesty spoke to her credibility.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

She never acted like she was a perfect person or a perfect victim.

[Andrea Gunning]

After meeting Saskia and watching the video previews, Ashley was determined to prosecute Mike to the fullest extent of the law.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

I'm gonna work as hard as I can to charge as many rapes as we can prove.

[Andrea Gunning]

The 10 second previews were enough to kickstart the investigation, but they feared they wouldn't be enough to make the charges stick. In order to have a case, Detective Rule and Ashley had to get a hold of the four full length videos. They had Mike's laptop, but unfortunately there wasn't much there. Mike was careful to leave no evidence. Detective Rule tried to purchase the videos from the porn sites, but that didn't work either. The purchases led to other random videos.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

So Detective Rule had to figure out how to access these videos from the dark web.

[Andrea Gunning]

It took weeks and a lot of digging in the darkest corners of the online world, but eventually she was able

[Ashley Enderfurth]

to locate a little bit over 30 videos. Some of them were an hour or more in length.

[Andrea Gunning]

There was hours and hours of footage. In most videos, Saskia was completely unconscious. In some of the videos, her eyes appear to be open. We'll talk about that later in the episode. But in all of them, it was clear to Ashley that Saskia was being recorded and she had no idea.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

He did a lot of things to try to hide the camera. He'll cover it over periodically and sometimes you'll see the computer move quickly.

[Andrea Gunning]

For the most part, though, there was no need to hide the camera. As Megan remembers From the previews, she was just dead. Dead weight. Watching these clips, seeing her brother in law attack her friend, Megan was horrified. She could see that Saskia was completely gone. The question was, how did she get that way? Keep in mind, Megan's known Saskia since the first grade. She's seen Saskia at all levels of drunk. And in all the years she's known Saskia, I've never seen her like that. Except for in those videos. It made Megan wonder. Was Mike drugging her friend? When Saskia first saw the thumbnails, she had the same thought.

[Saskia]

I started to question whether he was drugging me.

[Andrea Gunning]

You see, in the aftermath of her discovery, Saskia did some digging of her own. Her friend Colleen was there on the day she took Saskia to the Family Justice Center. Colleen remembers going up to Saskia's bedroom. Saskia was opening drawers, looking under the bed, searching for any additional evidence she could. And then she found phenylbarbital in the nightstand. And she's like, why is this here? Remember when Saskia was hospitalized in the midst of her health crisis? The doctors theorized that she could be having bad reactions to certain meds she was on. One of those meds was phenobarbital, a sedative that can cause unconsciousness and amnesia. Her doctors had taken her off of it, but here it was. Is this what was making Saskia sick? That wasn't the only medication Saskia discovered. Mike had a safe in their bedroom.

[Saskia]

I had no idea what was in the safe. He had told me, it's like passports, stuff like that.

[Andrea Gunning]

But when Saskia got a locksmith to

[Saskia]

open the safe, we found a bottle of my sister's medication and about 10 of my own prescription bottles. A lot of them sedatives.

[Andrea Gunning]

Many of these were medications Saskia's body couldn't tolerate. And her sister's medication. She had no idea why Mike would have that. Saskia turned all this evidence over to the authorities. We asked Ashley, the prosecutor, for her thoughts. Having reviewed all of the evidence in

[Ashley Enderfurth]

the case, could he have drugged her? Sure, but we'll never know.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike has denied ever drugging Saskia, and there is no definitive evidence that he did. As part of the investigation, detectives conducted a toxicology test. Saskia gave a hair sample to test for drugs that entered her system in the last 90 days. The results of that test were inconclusive. The only substances identified were the psychiatric medications she knew she was taking. This could mean a few different things. One, that Mike wasn't drugging Saskia. Two, that the levels of drugs still in her system at the time of the test were too low to yield a positive result or three, that Mike was drugging her using medications she was already prescribed, double dosing her. For Saskia's sister Marisa, the inconclusive toxicology results were a blow. They left a big unanswered question, one Marisa has turned over and over in her head.

[Saskia]

It's one of those things that you just kind of have to answer that for yourself. I'll never know if he were spoon feeding her extra medication or if he acquired different medication and added that to

[Ashley Enderfurth]

the mix, or if he just sat and waited for her to get there herself.

[Andrea Gunning]

After all, over the last three years, Saskia was doing anything she could to get a solid night of sleep.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

Her goal was to feel better, and

[Saskia]

sometimes, more often than I would have liked, that included drinking to excess and then taking her medication.

[Andrea Gunning]

What matters to Marisa isn't why Saskia was passed out. It's about what Mike did to her sister while she was in that state. No matter how she became unconscious, this wasn't her fault. Saskia's friend Heather agrees. When she learned about the videos, she remembered all the times Saskia had been blackout drunk at parties, unable to stand by herself. Mike did not seem worried at all, ever. Even when some of our friends approached

[Saskia]

him with concerns, he was like, she's fine.

[Andrea Gunning]

Whether or not Mike drugged Saskia, it was to his advantage to keep her in this drunken, drugged up, bad mental health state.

[Saskia]

Because the more vulnerable she became, the easier it became for him to take advantage of her.

[Andrea Gunning]

Saskia's community rallied around her. To them, how she became incapacitated didn't matter. Raping Saskia was a crime. Ashley, the prosecutor agreed.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

She could have taken all the drugs she wanted herself voluntarily, or he could have drugged her. It doesn't change our analysis from a legal perspective as to whether she was physically helpless or able to resist any sort of unconsented to sex act.

[Andrea Gunning]

In other words, when it comes to drug facilitated sexual assault in Maryland, it doesn't matter how the drugs enter the victim's system. What matters is the perpetrator's actions when the victim is under the influence. The videos were just one piece of evidence in the case against Mike. But then there were the chats. Chatterbait, the live streaming website, sent the authorities everything they had on Mike. Hundreds of pages of chat logs and thousands of messages and comments from viewers going back at least a year before Saskia's discovery.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

The chats, coupled with the Video is really what put this together.

[Andrea Gunning]

From these records, the authorities could tell Mike was on Chatterbait multiple times a week.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

I can't say he was on that site every time doing things to Saskia, but there were numerous times where people were were saying things like, is she asleep? And he would respond, that's how we like to do it. And somebody said, when my wife plays asleep like that and then makes a sexual comment about what he does to her.

[Andrea Gunning]

Ashley is paraphrasing the messages here.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

Somebody said to him, my girl's passed out too. Pm me a lot of people telling him what to do to her body. A couple of times people say, hey, even if she's fake asleep, that's against the terms and conditions. You could get in trouble for that. And he just says things like, she likes it like that.

[Andrea Gunning]

These chats put Mike's crimes in a whole new light. It wasn't just that he was filming what he was doing to Saskia. He was sharing it with thousands of real people live. When she heard about the chats, Saskia's sister in law Megan was disgusted. People in the chat, is she alive? Is she okay? People thought she was dead. And the records revealed something else. Not only was she being raped by her husband, people were paying to see this go down. Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom, loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses and in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity and real life, this episode is a must. Listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast.

[Saskia]

What if mind control is real?

[Andrea Gunning]

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

[Saskia]

Can you hypnotically persu someone to buy a car?

[Ben Higgins]

When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings.

[Andrea Gunning]

Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

[Ben Higgins]

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

[Saskia]

Can you get someone to join your cult?

[Andrea Gunning]

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

[Saskia]

Nlp, AKA Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a

[Andrea Gunning]

user manual for your brain.

[Ben Higgins]

It's about engineering consciousness.

[Saskia]

Mind Games is the story of nlp, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits.

[Andrea Gunning]

He stood trial for murder and got acquitted.

[Saskia]

The biggest mind game of all, nlp, might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartrade

[Andrea Gunning]

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben Higgins]

What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me is where culture meets the soul. A place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life. Celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks. And we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to if youf Can Hear me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Andrea Gunning]

China's Ministry of State Security is one

[Ben Higgins]

of the most mysterious and powerful spy

[Andrea Gunning]

agencies in the world.

[Ben Higgins]

But in 2017, the FBI got inside.

[Andrea Gunning]

This is Special Agent Riegel, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the US Government is onto him. But the FBI has his chats, texts,

[Ben Higgins]

emails, even his personal diary.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast?

[Andrea Gunning]

I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer. No doubt, no question of his life. And that's a unicorn.

[Ben Higgins]

No one had ever seen anything like that.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

It was unbelievable.

[Andrea Gunning]

This is a story of the inner

[Ben Higgins]

workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

[Andrea Gunning]

Listen to the 6th Bureau on the

[Ashley Enderfurth]

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Andrea Gunning]

Chatterbait records showed that this crime went far beyond Mike alone. People were paying to see this go down Chatterbait has a token system. Users can buy tokens to tip performers or pay for private shows. Based on the records we received, users tipped Mike 347 times. People thought she was dead and they were watching it and paying for it. It's like, what the hell is going on in society? It was one thing to know these videos existed online, but to read the chats and to see the tokens exchanged was sickening. Mike didn't commit this crime in a vacuum. He was rewarded for it by thousands of viewers, people who got off on watching Saskia suffer. There was one more important thing authorities found in the Chatterbait records. In matching the chats up with the videos, Ashley Enderfurth and Detective Rule were able to establish a timeline of Mike's actions. They brought the dates of the videos to Saskia, and there were many, many

[Saskia]

dates that lined up with my decline.

[Andrea Gunning]

In the three years leading up to her discovery, Saskia's health had been in freefall. She was passing out, picking at her skin, pulling out her hair, and sometimes she was unable to get out of bed. Saskia, her friends and family were grasping at straws to figure out why she wasn't getting better. Was she drinking too much? Was she having bad reactions to certain meds? Or was this just a full on mental breakdown? No matter the intervention, Saskia only seemed to grow worse. And there was no clear cause of any of it. All of the videos that Detective Roll recovered were from the last year. And when Saskia saw the dates of the videos, she wasn't just looking at the dates of Mike's crimes, she was looking at a timeline of the worst year of her life. The first video that was recovered was from October 28, 2017.

[Saskia]

That date was right around time that my friends came over with lasagna because my mom had just died.

[Andrea Gunning]

There was another video on November 10, 2017.

[Saskia]

That was the day before my son's birthday party that I had been so excited about, but I couldn't get out of bed.

[Andrea Gunning]

And another on October 13, 2018.

[Saskia]

My high school reunion was October 13. That morning, I had woken up with the worst black eye I had ever seen, so I couldn't go.

[Andrea Gunning]

These were some of the lowest moments in Saskia's life. She had no idea why she was so sick, why she had to miss these moments. She thought she was failing as a sister, a friend, a wife, a mother. She thought, like her dad, she might never get better. But looking back on those years, knowing what Mike had been doing, it clicked.

[Saskia]

I Was a basket case for those years and crying on the shoulder of the person that was doing all of this to me.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her body knew something her brain didn't. Mike had been using her in the light of day. He was a loving husband. He wrote her love letters, cared for her children as his own. But when the lights went out, he was someone else entirely.

[Saskia]

Seven years of my life were with this person who never cared about me and humiliated me and enjoyed it.

[Andrea Gunning]

Saskia only has vague memories of the weeks that followed. She took time off work, so she sat at home on her couch, staring at the wall.

[Saskia]

I felt like I could not even breathe.

[Andrea Gunning]

People came in and out of the house trying to comfort her, but no one could really understand what she was going through. Even when she was surrounded by friends and family, she felt alone.

[Saskia]

I remember people wanting to bring me dinner and I didn't want to eat.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike was gone. She was no longer being abused. But realizing that this abuse had occurred, that she had been blind to crimes happening against her own body, was earth shattering. There were still many mornings when she couldn't get out of bed.

[Saskia]

I felt like this is it. You don't move on from this.

[Andrea Gunning]

One of the hardest parts of this reckoning was that the videos remained accessible online. She knew that her sister in law, Megan, had seen the videos. Surely she thought other friends would search for them too. And strangers all over the world could access her rape with a few simple clicks. During this time, she got coffee with another co worker, Vera. Like Saskia, Vera had spent years working in child welfare helping survivors of child abuse. Saskia explained to Vera what Mike had done and walked her through her discovery. And then she says, vera, have you seen the videos? Vera hadn't. Imagine what she's carrying. Thinking that everybody now has seen these videos. She broke my heart. Hearing Saskia's story, pieces started to come together. Over the past three years, Vera had seen Saskia's decline firsthand. The hair picking, the face, the skin picking. She was fidgety, she was anxious, she

[Saskia]

looked nervous, she lost weight.

[Andrea Gunning]

It wasn't until this moment that Vera realized those symptoms could be signs of of abuse. She often saw similar behaviors in the abused children she worked with. Kids sometimes will act out in so many ways and they don't know why. This is not that uncommon that people behave or act out because of the trauma that they're dealing with. Her body knows that it was going through trauma, Even though consciously she didn't know. Her body knew the signs of Mike's abuse had been there all along. But no one, not even Saskia, was looking for them. Why would they? A couple of weeks after she reported the crime, Detective Rule contacted Saskia. There was an update in the case against Mike.

[Saskia]

And she was like, we've got this son of a bitch big time.

[Andrea Gunning]

She told Saskia Mike was going to be charged with rape.

[Saskia]

When I was told that they were going to be able to charge him with crimes against me, I felt relief. I wanted him to be in jail.

[Andrea Gunning]

Ashley, the prosecutor, was ready to get the case going.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

We have to show that she was substantially cognitively impaired, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless, and that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known of her condition.

[Andrea Gunning]

The authorities had videos of Mike violating Saskia when she was completely unconscious. To Ashley, this would normally be considered rape.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

Initially, I had been like, okay, we're charging all of these.

[Andrea Gunning]

But then when Ashley and Detective Rule went to file the rape charges, they made a discovery. Detective Rule called Saskia again. It was a call Saskia would never forget.

[Saskia]

She said, I can't believe I even have to tell you this. We can't even believe this. We're watching these horrible things that he's doing to you on tape. We all know it's wrong. And now we hear about the marital exemption, and we don't know if we're going to be able to prosecute him for it.

[Andrea Gunning]

Marital exemption. Ashley and Detective Rule learned that in 2018, according to Maryland criminal code, at

[Ashley Enderfurth]

the time, raping your sleeping wife was okay.

[Andrea Gunning]

To Ashley, this was clearly incapacitated rape. But there was a catch. Because in the state of Maryland, you

[Ashley Enderfurth]

can't rape an incapacitated spouse.

[Andrea Gunning]

You can't rape an incapacitated spouse, because according to Maryland law, that wasn't rape. This is the marital exemption. If Saskia was dating Mike or if Mike had been a stranger who'd attacked her while she was sleeping, this would be rape under the law. But because she signed a piece of paper, a marriage certificate, what Mike did wasn't clearly illegal. Here's Debbie Feinstein. She runs the special victims unit of the Montgomery county state's attorney's office. She supervised Ashley.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

At the time, the spousal defense to rape was in effect for rapes that occurred when the victim was mentally incapacitated.

[Andrea Gunning]

Legally, that's when someone is unable to make or communicate their decisions, which was

[Ashley Enderfurth]

really the primary thing that was happening in Saskia's case.

[Andrea Gunning]

Saskia was knocked out when Mike filmed these videos. She'd consumed alcohol and taken her psychiatric meds. She had no way of knowing what was happening to her, let alone telling Mike to stop. Here's Saskia again.

[Saskia]

My brain couldn't handle that he would not be punished for what he did or be held accountable.

[Andrea Gunning]

But there was still hope because the authorities kept at it.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

We could argue that there was force involved.

[Andrea Gunning]

Under the law, it wasn't rape if the wife was unconscious, but if it was clear that the husband was using force on his wife to have sex, that was rape. So Detective rule and Ashley went back to their strongest evidence, the videos. If they could just find one moment a time when Saskia tried to shield her body or move away from Mike, maybe they could argue that Mike was using force.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

We looked at every time you could see Saskia do something that could show that she was not consenting.

[Andrea Gunning]

And they did find moments where Saskia seemed to resist. Sometimes she'd wake up in a haze, mid attack. She'd roll over or place her hands over sensitive areas. Then she'd pass back out and Mike would keep going. He continued to violate Saskia even as her body said no. There were even a few moments in which, with what little strength Saskia had, she tried to push Mike away. None of this was force exactly, not in the traditional sense of the word, but it was enough to charge Mike with a crime. The authorities brought 31 charges of surveillance in a private area based on the video content. And on top of that, we were

[Ashley Enderfurth]

able to identify three charges of completed vaginal intercourse and one charge of what was an attempted vaginal intercourse that we felt we could show to a jury and argue that there was force involved.

[Andrea Gunning]

Finally, on December 18, 2018, two months after Saskia's discovery, charges were filed against Mike Levingood and he was arrested. Two months after Saskia reported the videos. Mike was arrested, but he didn't spend long behind bars. He was able to get out on $10,000 bail. Based on the sentencing guidelines, Mike was looking at up to nine years in prison for each of the four rape charges and up to a year for each count of illegal surveillance. He could spend the rest of his life in prison. But first, there would be a trial. Ashley and her team at the state's attorney's office would have to prove that Mike was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And that was no easy feat. They'd have to convince a jury this was a crime because of the marital exemption law. And on top of that, they'd be going up against a strong defense team. Ashley, the prosecutor, remembers he immediately hired

[Ashley Enderfurth]

a really well known high powered criminal defense attorney in Montgomery County.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike's Legal team knew how to get their clients off. They did it all the time. Before the case even reached the courtroom, they tried to plant doubts about Saskia's

[Ashley Enderfurth]

story even before charges were brought. While the detective was reviewing the case, his attorney sent Detective Rule an email saying that Mike Levengood is this family man who has a great relationship with his ex wife and this great career. And then he sent pages of things that are, quote, unquote, wrong with Saskia.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike claimed that Saskia was a willing participant, that she knew about the videos and consented to them. His attorney ran with it. This wasn't Ashley's first sexual violence case. She'd seen this all before.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

You get your attorney involved and you try to get in people's heads about the victim right away. Luckily, Detective Rule and I didn't fall for it.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike's defense team failed to get the charges dismissed. But they weren't going to give up yet. They were going to come at Saskia hard. That's almost always the defense's strategy in a rape case, to put the victim on trial. In the months that followed, there were several pretrial hearings. That's when both sides go before the judge to argue what evidence should or should not be admitted. Good morning, you, honor. Rebecca McVidy on behalf of the State.

[Ben Higgins]

Good morning, you, Honor. Andrew Jessick and Dave Moise on behalf of the defendant.

[Andrea Gunning]

You're listening to real audio from Mike's court proceedings. In these hearings, the lawyers went back and forth about one the video evidence. Here's Rebecca McVittie. She worked with Ashley as one of the prosecutors on the case.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

Your Honor, the State has a motion

[Saskia]

in lemonade to exclude any of the what I would refer to as pornographic images or videos or photographs that were

[Andrea Gunning]

not charged in this case. Rebecca asked the judge to admit only a portion of the chatterbait videos, the ones where the prosecution could argue force to get around the marital exemption. Mike's attorneys had other ideas. They wanted to show the jury as many videos as possible. Here's one of Mike's attorneys.

[Ben Higgins]

We don't want the jury to think that she is just somebody who Woke up on October 2025, 2018, and realized, oh, my God, my husband has been secretly filming me for the last year and streaming me to 10,000 people. Because if we aren't allowed to show the whole picture, they may actually think that there are a lot of videos where it's very, very clear that she is playing to the screen and playing to the TV and playing to the camera.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike's Attorney pointed to a few moments in the footage where Saskia's eyes were open. He wanted to use those moments to argue to a jury that Saskia was awake, aware and consenting. Ashley Enderfurth has prosecuted dozens of rape cases, and she reviewed these videos. So we asked her for her professional opinion. Did Saskia know what Mike was doing?

[Ashley Enderfurth]

There's no doubt in my mind that Saskia had absolutely no idea what was happening to her.

[Andrea Gunning]

Ashley was familiar with the meds Saskia was prescribed, and she consulted with medical experts. In our reporting, we did the same. We spoke to psychiatrists who confirmed that Saskia's gaps in memory made sense. Her use of these meds in combination with alcohol could explain how she was completely unaware of her surroundings, unconscious even with her eyes wide open. It's a similar effect to when you get wheeled into the operating room before surgery. You might be awake and talking to nurses while you're going under, but when you wake up, any memory of that is gone. Ashley knew all of this, but more importantly, she knew the facts. This woman was raped and was just finding out about it.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

I think we all want to believe that things like this can't happen. We could all sleep better at night if Saskia was a crazy person who, for whatever reason, was out to get her husband and made all this up. But the evidence in this case is so strong, when you have the full picture of what happened, that what we don't want to believe is what we have to believe. So that's what happened. That's the truth. There's absolutely no way that Saskia knew what was going on.

[Andrea Gunning]

Ashley and her team weren't swayed by the defense's arguments, but maybe a jury would be. If they had any doubt in Saskia's story, Mike could walk free. That's how our legal system is designed.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

The jury has to believe it beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if they are 75% there, their job is to acquit.

[Andrea Gunning]

The defense's strategy is always to make the jury feel uncertain. And they weren't just going to sow doubt using the videos. They were prepared to use every shred of evidence they could find to discredit Saskia. Here's an example. At that same pretrial hearing, Mike's attorney alleged that Saskia fulfilled Chatterbait's cons consent requirements for performers.

[Ben Higgins]

In order for her to be seen on the screen as she's having sex with her husband, she needed to sign an agreement and put her passport up on the screen and essentially say, I know what Chatterbait is I agree to be on this portion of the screen live, being seen by tens of thousands of people worldwide. And she signed that in October of 2017. She agreed in writing and with her passport.

[Andrea Gunning]

The defense attorney had a copy of the written agreement and a picture of Saskia's passport held up next to her face. I know Saskia and I know what she went through. But when I first heard this, there was a moment when I questioned her story. In our culture, that doubt is never far. We are trained to question rape victims. But then I listened to the rest of the pre trial hearing. Here's Rebecca, one of the prosecutors again. As defense counsel mentioned, Chatterbait requires a

[Saskia]

photograph picture with your passport visible. That photograph defense counsel counsel mentions is actually a picture of the victim smiling

[Ashley Enderfurth]

at the camera with the defendant's arm behind her.

[Saskia]

You can see it's his arm by

[Andrea Gunning]

the watch that he's wearing, holding the passport. It was Mike's hand, not Sasia's, holding up her passport for the camera. And as for that signed user agreement,

[Saskia]

it is a electronic signature and the return on that is to the defendant's email address.

[Andrea Gunning]

Mike was holding the passport. The signed agreement could be traced to his email. In other words, all roads point back to Mike Levingood. Prosecutors worked for months prepping answers to every one of the defense's allegations. They secured experts to speak to Saskia's state of mind. They wrote opening statements and they prepared to talk about the content where Saskia's eyes were open. After the pre trial hearings, the judge ruled that Saskia could be asked about the other videos if it came up in her testimony. If the jury found Mike guilty, he could spend decades in prison. But in order for that to happen, the jury would have to believe Saskia

[Saskia]

for good, for bad, for ugly. I knew that it would lie on me.

[Andrea Gunning]

The trial was delayed to June, then October, and finally a date was set for December 2, 2019, a full year after Mike was charged. As the day approached, Saskia was nervous. What if the jury bought Mike's story? What if they couldn't see the truth? But none of those questions were changed. How she felt about taking the stand? She was ready.

[Saskia]

I wanted him to be in jail and I felt like testifying against him and holding him accountable would give me back some of my power.

[Andrea Gunning]

On the next episode of betrayal. Call from office 135063 statements as Michael Paul Levenit.

[Saskia]

I was very familiar with the statement of charges. But knowing the facts of the case

[Ashley Enderfurth]

is very different from watching those videos.

[Andrea Gunning]

For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org betrayal that's R A I N N.org betrayal. You can also get free confidential 24. 7 support through RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline. Just text HOPE to 64673 or call 1-800-656, hope you are not alone. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team or want to tell us your story, email us at betrayalpodmail.com that is betrayalpod adjacent gmail.com or follow us on Instagram etrayalpod. To access additional content and to connect with the betrayal community, join our [e-mail] we're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Listeners Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kaitlin Golden. Our supervising producer is Carrie Hartman. Our story editor is Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Olivia Hewitt and Leah Jablo. Production management by Kristin Melchiori. Additional support by Curry Richman. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krynczyk. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt d'. Alvecchio. Special thanks to Saskia, her friends and family and special thanks to Will Pearson and Carrie Lieberman. The Trail's Theme is composed by Oliver Baines Music Library, provided by My Music and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.