The Full Picture | EP 4 | Saskia's Story

Summary

Betrayal Weekly: "The Full Picture" | EP 4 | Saskia's Story

Podcast: Betrayal Weekly
Host: Andrea Gunning
Release Date: February 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

This harrowing episode centers on Saskia, a woman whose husband, Mike, secretly recorded and streamed videos of her while she was unconscious—evidence of repeated sexual assault. Host Andrea Gunning guides listeners through Saskia’s discovery, the search for justice, and the legal and emotional complexities that followed. The episode provides an intimate look at the failures of the justice system, the resilience of survivors, and the horror of betrayal by a trusted partner.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Horrific Discovery

• Initial Shock:

  • Saskia learns her husband secretly streamed exploitative videos of her (03:23). She is told by a social worker, "There's probably nothing that we can do." (03:42, Saskia).
  • Saskia and her family scramble for evidence, eventually finding short video previews online, showing Saskia unconscious and being sexually assaulted by Mike.

• Emotional Fallout:

  • Saskia is overcome by the trauma:

    "I just flipped out because of how wrong I knew it was and how traumatized I felt." (04:08, Saskia)

  • Her friend Colleen and sister-in-law Megan play crucial roles in comforting and supporting her through the shock.
  • The video evidence finally triggers a police investigation and a protective order (08:01).

2. Gathering Evidence

• Prosecutor’s Initial Impressions:

  • Assistant State's Attorney Ashley Enderfurth immediately finds Saskia credible and committed to pursuing justice:

    "With Saskia, there was never a doubt in my mind that this happened. She was extremely credible." (10:29, Ashley Enderfurth)

  • Saskia’s openness about her mental health does not weaken, but rather strengthens, the credibility of her case in Ashley’s eyes.

• Deep Dive into Digital Evidence:

  • Authorities and Megan uncover over 30 videos, many over an hour long, showing Saskia unconscious and abused (13:14).
  • There is speculation that Mike may have drugged Saskia, but toxicology results are inconclusive (16:36). The possibility remains because of suspicious medication found in the home.

• Reflection on Responsibility:

  • Ashley Enderfurth stresses that how Saskia became incapacitated is irrelevant; what matters is Mike took advantage of her helplessness:

    "She could have taken all the drugs she wanted herself voluntarily, or he could have drugged her. It doesn't change our analysis...as to whether she was...able to resist any sort of unconsented to sex act." (19:23, Ashley Enderfurth)

3. The Scope of Betrayal and Online Complicity

• Chatterbait and Audience Complicity:

  • Mike streamed his crimes on Chatterbait, engaging with viewers in real time and receiving hundreds of payments (20:20–25:36).
  • Viewers were fully aware of Saskia’s unconsciousness and encouraged Mike's actions, deepening the sense of societal betrayal.

• Connecting Dates and Saskia’s Health Decline:

  • The dates of the videos align with the most difficult moments of Saskia’s life—family loss, missed milestones, unexplained health issues (26:54–28:26).
  • In reflection, Saskia realizes her decline was not only personal struggle but a physical manifestation of ongoing abuse:

    "I was a basket case for those years and crying on the shoulder of the person that was doing all this to me." (28:55, Saskia)

4. Legal Barriers and the "Marital Exemption"

• Rape Law and Its Limits:

  • Prosecutors are initially confident—then shocked to discover the "marital exemption" in Maryland law, which exempts spouses from rape prosecution if the victim is incapacitated (34:07).
  • The law means Mike could only be prosecuted if force was used, not simply for raping an unconscious spouse.

• Searching for Evidence of Force:

  • Prosecutors comb through videos for any sign of resistance—finding moments where Saskia tried to move away or shield herself (36:16–37:14).
  • Charges are ultimately brought (December 2018): 31 counts of illegal surveillance, three charges of rape, and one attempted rape where force can be argued (37:31).

5. Trial Preparation and Defense Tactics

• Mike’s Release and Defense Strategy:

  • Mike is released on bail, hires high-powered attorneys, and attempts to discredit Saskia’s character (41:48–42:46).
  • The defense alleges consensual participation, presenting a "consent" video and Chatterbait agreement that, upon closer inspection, was orchestrated by Mike (47:31–49:20).

• Readiness for the Stand:

  • Despite immense pressure and fears of not being believed, Saskia resolves to testify against Mike, seeking to reclaim power:

    "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." (50:38, Saskia)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the depth of betrayal:

  "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." (08:31, Saskia)

• On proving her case:

  "I'm going to work as hard as I can to charge as many rapes as we can prove." (12:21, Ashley Enderfurth)

• On the injustice of the law:

  "At the time, raping your sleeping wife was okay." (34:07, Ashley Enderfurth)

• On the prevalence of victim-blaming:

  "We are trained to question rape victims. But then I listened to the rest of the pre trial hearing..." (48:03, Andrea Gunning)

• On seeking justice:

  "For good, for bad, for ugly. I knew that it would lie on me." (50:07, Saskia)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:23: Opening—Saskia learns her husband broadcasted her assault.
• 04:08: Saskia reacts to the trauma.
• 10:29: Prosecutor forms positive impression of Saskia.
• 13:14: Authorities recover 30+ videos.
• 16:36: Toxicology results and speculation on drugging.
• 19:23: Legal irrelevance of how victim became incapacitated.
• 25:36: Revelation of viewer payments and Chatterbait’s token system.
• 26:54–28:26: Dates of videos aligned with Saskia’s life decline.
• 34:07–35:01: Explanation of the marital exemption in Maryland law.
• 36:16–37:14: Identifying moments of resistance in videos.
• 41:48–42:46: Mike hires criminal defense, attacks Saskia's credibility.
• 47:31–49:20: Discrediting consent; evidence reveals Mike’s deception.
• 50:07–50:38: Build-up to Saskia's testimony.

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Tone & Language

The episode's tone is raw, compassionate, and unflinching—marked by the gravity of the harm done to Saskia, the courage of survivors, and the outrage at legal loopholes that allowed such abuse to go unpunished for so long. Andrea Gunning and her guests maintain a sensitive, trauma-informed approach, centering survivor experience and accountability.

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Conclusion

This episode of Betrayal Weekly is a deeply personal and disturbing account of marital rape, legal barriers to justice, and the persistence required to hold perpetrators accountable. It highlights the critical role of survivor support, the failures and evolution of the legal system, and the profound emotional and psychological impact of intimate betrayal. Saskia’s story is both a cautionary tale and a testament to survivor strength, driving home the importance of listening, believing, and fighting for change.

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For support or more information on sexual violence:
Visit rainn.org/betrayal or call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE.

Transcript

[Andrea Gunning]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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.

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They didn't know what had happened. They just heard this scream and came sprinting down after her.

[Andrea Gunning]

Colleen ran after her too. She found Saskia in the hall, crying, shaking.

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She was just in shock, like, what is going on?

[Andrea Gunning]

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 five, episode four, the Full Picture. Really quick. Before we get into the episode, I have a small favor to ask you. If you're enjoying listening to the trial, please take a second to hit the follow button on your podcast app and please rate and review. We read all the comments and your voices help our show improve and evolve. I really mean it when I say thank you for listening and helping us grow. Also, if you want behind the scenes content or resources, follow betrayalpod on Instagram or follow me. Itsandreagunning. Alright, onto the show. 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.

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[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.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

That first 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 going to work as hard as I can to charge as many rapes as we can prove.

[Andrea Gunning]

The 10 second previews were enough to kick start 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 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 appeared 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.

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And she's like, why is this here?

[Andrea Gunning]

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 the mix, or if he just sat

[Ashley Enderfurth]

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.

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[Martha Stewart]

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[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 13th. 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 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 coworker, 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 looked nervous, she lost weight. It wasn't until this moment that Vera realized those symptoms could be signs 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

[Saskia]

against Mike, 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 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 at the time.

[Ashley Enderfurth]

The spousal defense to rape was in

[Saskia]

effect for rapes that occurred when the

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victim was mentally incapacitated.

[Andrea Gunning]

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

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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 under the law.

[Andrea Gunning]

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. 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 forced, 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.

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[Andrea Gunning]

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 ten thousand dollar 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 pre trial hearings. That's when both sides go before the judge to argue what evidence should or should not be admitted.

[Saskia]

Good morning, you, honor. Rebecca McVitie on behalf of the state.

[Mike's Defense Attorney]

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.

[Saskia]

Your honor, the state has a motion in lemonade to exclude any of the what I would refer to as pornographic images or videos or photographs that were not charged in this case.

[Andrea Gunning]

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.

[Mike's Defense Attorney]

We don't want the jury to think that she is just somebody who Woke up on October 12, 25th, 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 Sasia'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 consent requirements for performers.

[Mike's Defense Attorney]

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.

[Saskia]

As defense counsel mentioned, Chatterbait requires a photograph picture with your passport visible. That photograph defense counsel mentions is actually a picture of the victim smiling at the camera with the defendant's arm behind her. You can see it's his arm by the watch that he's wearing, holding the passport.

[Andrea Gunning]

It was Mike's hand, not Saskia'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 confirmat

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base 135063 stand down as Michael Paul

[Saskia]

Leven I was very familiar with the statement of charges, but knowing the facts of the case is very different from watching those videos.

[Andrea Gunning]

For resources on sexual violence, visit rainn.org betrayal that's R-A-Inn.org betrayal. You can also get free 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 [e-mail] that is betrayalpodmail.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. 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 Kaitlyn 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 Kristen 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. Betrayal'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 Sophia Donner from OK Storytime this Summer. Find your next obsession on Prime Video and listen. We're not saying you need another obsession, but there could be a lot worse ones. Steamy romance, addictive love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice, so why not watch them a third time off campus? Elle, the Love Hypothesis and more Slow Burns Second Chances chemistry you can feel through the screen and it makes you wish you were actually in that movie. We've got binge worthy series can't miss movies perfect for when you're ignoring your own problems or procrastinating as one does. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

[Martha Stewart]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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