Dan & Sage | Betrayal Weekly

Summary

Betrayal Weekly – “Dan & Sage” (December 18, 2025)

Host: Andrea Gunning
Podcast: Betrayal Weekly
Producers: iHeartPodcasts | Glass Podcasts

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Overview

This episode of Betrayal Weekly explores an extraordinarily complex, intergenerational story of financial and emotional betrayal within a family. Told from the perspectives of Dan Kimball and his daughter, Sage Kimball, the episode traces how Farah—wife to Dan and mother to Sage—gradually isolated, manipulated, and ultimately left them both reeling after absconding with the family’s entire fortune. Throughout, we witness not only the pain of unraveling trust but also the resilience and healing as Dan and Sage rebuild their relationship in the aftermath.

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Main Themes

• The slow erosion of trust and mounting manipulation within a family
• The intersection of faith, feminism, and financial control as a tool for abuse
• Parental alienation and the long-lasting effects of psychological manipulation
• The legal and emotional labyrinth of international financial betrayal
• Healing, reconciliation, and redefining justice between father and daughter

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Childhood, Family Dynamics, and Early Influences (03:41–11:47)

• Sage’s Upbringing: Grew up in Santa Barbara in the 1990s, surrounded by outdoorsy, progressive culture.
• Parents’ Relationship: Farah and Dan bond over a shared love of Buckminster Fuller and ideals of making the world better.
• Evolving Roles:
  • Dan described as gentle, stable, curious, supportive.
  • Farah is a peace activist, religious, loving, but also capable of sudden sternness.
• Early Red Flags: Farah’s tendency for extremes, rigidity in faith and parenting, and demand for control emerges.

“My dad would be curious about what I was interested in, and then he'd get excited about it... I was really obsessed with, like, space for a little bit, and he, like, built a planetarium with me.”
—Sage Kimball (05:36)

Faith, Activism, and Social Pressures (06:23–13:14)

• The family identifies as Sufi Muslim, hosts large spiritual gatherings.
• Farah’s faith is central to her identity, which she instills deeply in Sage.
• Impressions of “outsider” status, especially post–9/11, and experience of Islamophobia in Santa Barbara.
• The family sells everything and relocates to Bali, Indonesia, seeking acceptance and a new start.

“We all called ourselves Sufis, which is a sect of Islam. We'd have these, like, Sufi gatherings at our house with, like, dancing... Those Sufi parties were a lot of fun.”
—Sage Kimball (06:39)

The Move to Bali & Financial Risks (13:14–15:46)

• The Kimballs invest all their assets (including Dan’s inheritance) into building a sustainable, Indonesian-style “raw food” villa estate.
• Sage, at 14, understands that “buying this property was like everything we had. So, like, you're putting all your eggs in that basket.”
• The family comes together to build, but money is extremely tight.

“Oftentimes people think, oh, you must have been so wealthy to do all that stuff. No, we weren't. We just were brave enough to go do it right. I mean, it was risky...”
—Dan Kimball (26:50)

Gold Bars, Conspiracies, and Financial Secrets (15:46–18:05)

• Farah begins making secretive trips with Sage and the twins to buy gold bars, influenced by conspiracy thinking (Alex Jones, fear of economic collapse).
• Sage is brought into banking and financial tasks, repeatedly told these activities must be kept secret from Dan.

“There was a safety deposit box in Malaysia that her and I had the key to. That was a secret and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that it existed.”
—Sage Kimball (15:57)

Manipulation and Parental Alienation (18:05–20:09)

• Farah tells Sage and the boys that Dan is a “deadbeat,” doesn’t love them, and is a financial threat (despite evidence to the contrary).
• Sage is manipulated into becoming the signatory on the family trust as part of Farah’s plan for a “matriarchal” financial system.

“She would say to us that, like, your dad doesn't care. He doesn't care about you. He's a deadbeat... I know you love him, but if he cared about you, he would be doing something to protect you.”
—Sage Kimball (18:49)

The Malaysian Move, the Trust, & the Betrayal Unfolds (30:06–41:08)

• Family sells the Bali property for $3 million, moves to Malaysia, and starts over—literally reconstructing their dismantled Bali house.
• A large trust is set up in Malaysia for the whole family, 50/50 between Dan and Farah, but increasingly Dan is excluded.
• Farah, asserting a vision of matriarchal control, systematically pushes Dan out—eventually changing the locks and leaving him homeless and penniless in Malaysia.
• Dan discovers, via an accountant, that all trust shares have been transferred to Farah’s sole name, without his knowledge or consent.

“I go there, try my key. It doesn’t work. And I realized, oh, she's changed the key... I was homeless. It pushed me into homelessness.”
—Dan Kimball (36:52, 37:12)

“They said, well, the shares were transferred into your wife’s name. I said, what? Those are the trust shares... I was just dumbfounded.”
—Dan Kimball (38:49)

Court Case, Emotional Fallout, and Sage’s Awakening (41:08–54:05)

• Dan is forced to sue not only Farah, but also Sage (as signatory to the trust) in Malaysian court.
• Sage, who had been deeply alienated from Dan by Farah’s campaign, is forced to confront two divergent narratives about her parents.
• Therapy and confronting hard evidence help Sage see through years of manipulation.
• Sage refuses to “take sides” by signing documents for her mother that would finalize Dan’s financial exclusion—at great personal and emotional cost.

“It felt like me choosing not to sign it was me choosing to not have a relationship with her... And that was, like, the first time that she truly stopped speaking to me.”
—Sage Kimball (50:18)

“She would pretend she had a knife, and she’d be like, this is what you’re doing to me. Like, stabbing her. Like, it was awful.”
—Sage Kimball (51:42)

• In court, Sage testifies about her mother's manipulation. The court dismisses the case, disregarding her testimony and leaving Dan with no recourse.

“They dismissed the case. How could that be? ...The core part of that shock to me was that they had completely ignored Sage’s testimony. It basically said in there, she's not believable.”
—Dan Kimball (54:42, 55:32)

Aftermath, Healing, and Rebuilding (58:55–63:23)

• Dan returns to the U.S., nearly destitute, living on his late father’s small inheritance and Social Security.
• Sage steps away from religion, focusing on personal healing and understanding the difference between faith and its abuses.
• Dan and Sage rebuild their bond through honesty, therapy, and shared life—emphasizing the value of their relationship over lost wealth.

“One of the things that I think was extremely positive about this was that suddenly Sage and I could have a relationship that was based on truth.”
—Dan Kimball (59:41)

“The justice that we have is that we have this relationship which is more valuable than any of the money or any of the things. And she doesn’t get to have that.”
—Sage Kimball (62:05)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Alienation and Manipulation

“I was alienated from my dad for years because she told me he wasn’t trustworthy.”
—Sage Kimball (46:03)

On Parental Betrayal

“I was so intertwined with what [my mother] wanted. I don’t think I was even always told what I was doing. I just did whatever she asked me to do.”
—Sage Kimball (16:28)

On the Power of Therapy and Truth

“It was through therapy that I started to set boundaries with her. And then it’s over.”
—Sage Kimball (51:13)

On Rebuilding

“Suddenly Sage and I could have a relationship that was based on truth... I could be a parent again.”
—Dan Kimball (59:41)

On Justice

“It may not be just. I mean, justice doesn’t have to exist. It sometimes doesn’t.”
—Dan Kimball (61:59)

“The justice that we have is that we have this relationship which is more valuable than any of the money or any of the things.”
—Sage Kimball (62:05)

On Telling Their Story

“How can I be better as a result of the impact of this? ...We should build a better world and design a better world. So I’d like to go from an understanding of this betrayal to building a blueprint for a better world.”
—Dan Kimball (63:29)

“All of this is not to make her the devil... It’s more to be able to share our experiences and be 100% truthful.... And I think part of that is being heard and believed. I’m sorry he had to go through what he’s going through, because he didn’t deserve it.”
—Sage Kimball (63:57)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:41 – Dan and Sage introduce the start of their family’s story
• 05:36 – Sage on her close relationship with her curious, supportive dad
• 07:02 – Sage describes unique childhood as a white Muslim girl in Santa Barbara
• 13:07 – The family risks everything to build a new life in Bali
• 15:57; 16:24 – The secrecy of gold bars, banking, and mounting financial isolation
• 18:16; 18:49 – Farah begins campaign to convince kids their father is unloving and a threat
• 20:09 – Dan reflects on being totally in the dark about what’s happening
• 36:52; 37:12 – Dan comes home to find the locks changed: “I was homeless. It pushed me into homelessness.”
• 38:49 – Dan discovers the trust has been fully transferred to Farah
• 46:03–47:12 – Sage on the years of alienation and the conflicting stories she receives
• 50:18; 51:13 – Sage’s refusal to sign a crucial document and her resulting estrangement from her mother
• 54:42–55:32 – Malaysian court dismisses the case, ignoring Sage’s testimony
• 59:41 – Dan and Sage reflect on finally having an honest, restored relationship
• 62:05 – Sage defines the true justice as the restoration of their bond, not the recovery of lost assets
• 63:29–63:57 – Why they chose to tell their story publicly

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Conclusion

The Kimball family saga is a wrenching look into the long-term, slow-motion effects of betrayal—how secrets, manipulation, and the abuse of ideology can destroy not just finances, but relationships and self-concept. Yet the episode ends with hope: Dan and Sage, after the loss of so much, reclaim what matters most—a relationship rooted in honesty and love. Their story stands as a powerful cautionary tale and a blueprint for resilience, emphasizing the possibility of healing even after unimaginable pain.

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For community, resources, and more stories of resilience, visit betrayal.substack.com.

Transcript

[Andrea Gunning]

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[Sage Kimball]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Sage Kimball]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Sage Kimball]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Sage Kimball]

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[Andrea Gunning]

Just try it.

[Sage Kimball]

There was a safety deposit box in Malaysia that her and I had the key to. That was a secret and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that it existed. And we'd, like, go put gold bars in this, like, safety deposit box that has the big vaulted door. It was like the slow burn to, like, that wasn't weird to me.

[Andrea Gunning]

I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Usually, each episode of Betrayal Weekly follows one person's story, but today's episode is told by two members of the same family, a father and daughter.

[Dan Kimball]

The betrayal wasn't something that happened in a moment. It happened over a long time, and I didn't even recognize it was happening.

[Andrea Gunning]

That's Dan Kimball. He is a mild mannered Midwestern man in his late 60s. He and his daughter Sage had their world shattered by the person they both trusted most. Here's Sage.

[Sage Kimball]

In my normal life, I don't talk about this to my friends or my people. Except for some very close friends. Because, like, how do you even start to tell this story?

[Andrea Gunning]

When we first reached out to them about telling their story on Betrayal, to

[Dan Kimball]

be honest, when I got that message from you, I thought it was a scam.

[Andrea Gunning]

But the title of our show caught his attention.

[Dan Kimball]

Betrayal. The word betrayal was the thing that kind of struck my mind.

[Andrea Gunning]

Our team spent months talking with Dan and Sage. They went back and forth about if they wanted to use their real names. In this episode, after taking time to think, they came back with a clear answer.

[Sage Kimball]

If we're telling the truth, what do we have to be afraid of?

[Andrea Gunning]

We're going to start this story from Sage's perspective. She grew up in picturesque Santa Barbara, California, in the 90s.

[Sage Kimball]

At the time, it felt more like a hippie town. You could do outdoorsy stuff. I have very fond memories there of, like, finding banana slugs and being outside.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her parents were both eccentric citizen of the world types. They originally met because of their mutual love of the visionary architect and designer Buckminster Fuller.

[Sage Kimball]

They met at Buckminster Fuller's birthday party, and then they were friends years before they ever were in a relationship.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her dad, Dan, spent most of his life doing sustainable Design, working on cutting edge computer technology. He's the one who nurtured her childhood curiosity.

[Sage Kimball]

My dad would be curious about what I was interested in, and then he'd get excited about it. I was really obsessed with, like, space for a little bit, and he, like, built a planetarium with me and, like, let me go on the street and, like, sell tickets for people to, like, look into my planetarium show.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan was a constant and gentle presence for Sage and her mom, Farah.

[Sage Kimball]

She was affectionate. She would hug me, she would kiss me, she would play with me. Like, outdoorsy things she loved doing with me.

[Andrea Gunning]

As a kid, Sage always wanted to be close to her mom.

[Sage Kimball]

I felt like she was the thing that made me safe. I couldn't exist without her. Like, I believed that I wouldn't exist without her.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah was a Sufi Muslim. She came to the religion as a teenager when her dad was working as a diplomat in Iran. That's where Farah fell in love with Islam. It became a part of her identity, and she raised her daughter, Sage, in the faith.

[Sage Kimball]

We all called ourselves Sufis, which is a sect of Islam. We'd have these, like, Sufi gatherings at our house with, like, dancing. There would be, like, 40 people coming over and, like, I'd just get to, like, hang out. Those Sufi parties were a lot of fun for Sage.

[Andrea Gunning]

Growing up as a white Muslim girl in Santa Barbara was a unique experience.

[Sage Kimball]

Friends would ask me, like, are you embarrassed to walk around with your mom because she wore this? It's a hijab, but it's also like a cape thing. People would ask me if my mom was a nun.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her mom started wearing long white robes that looked like a nun's habit. Dan sewed them for her by hand. Sage wasn't embarrassed about her mom. She wanted to be like her because her mom, who really lived out her values, she was a peace activist.

[Sage Kimball]

We'd go to a lot of anti war or peace rallies. When I was growing up, I remember feeling really cool that we were out there doing something about the world.

[Andrea Gunning]

In the 90s, Farah organized a movement to send medicine and supplies to civilians in Iraq. Sage remembers watching her mom's work with pride.

[Sage Kimball]

I was about 5 or so. My mom was going on a humanitarian aid trip where a group of people were going to be breaking the sanctions to deliver medicine and things to the people in Iraq. That was a super cool thing that my mom did. Like, that's so brave and so cool.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan was deeply involved in this movement too. It was a family effort. The Kimballs Were instrumental in raising millions of dollars for medicine to be sent to children in Iraq. As much as Sage loved her mom and wanted to be just like her, Farah could be stern.

[Sage Kimball]

I remember from a very young age knowing that what mom says goes like, if you did something wrong, you knew immediately to like get it together. And it almost like her eyes changed.

[Andrea Gunning]

Whenever Sage did something wrong, Farah taught her how to make amends.

[Sage Kimball]

My tactic from an early age was writing her a note or a letter. I'm going to see if I can find it actually. Oh, here it is. I found it. There's a part here that says, thank you for teaching me what Islam is. I don't know where I would be today if not for you. Even though it may not seem like it now because I didn't live up to my duties or help you out. I truly love you. You are the most important person in the world to me.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah was often upset with Sage's dad, Dan. Sage didn't know why, but she wanted to help.

[Sage Kimball]

Once I was like 8, 9, 10, I learned that I should try and fix it. So I would go and talk to him and then I would go and relay information and I would go tell him, here's what you should do. I know how to fix these problems.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage was confused by her parents relationship.

[Sage Kimball]

I never saw them be affectionate with each other. I don't think I ever saw them kiss or like hug. They said they really loved each other. But I'd see like my friend's parents and they'd be like, arm around each other or like holding hands.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farrah put pressure on Dan to bring in more money for the family. That became a source of a lot of their fights.

[Sage Kimball]

At a certain point my mom started saying that, well, it's the man's job to provide. Like I shouldn't have to provide anything because it was his job to make sure that there was food on the table.

[Andrea Gunning]

Their family was growing. When Sage was 8 years old, her parents had two more kids. Twin boys.

[Sage Kimball]

I was pumped because I was like, great. Even better. Now I get two friends, not just one.

[Andrea Gunning]

Money was a stressor. Dan had one unsuccessful tech startup of his own, but he always landed on his feet. At the time, he worked for an early microcomputing company doing user interface design. Plus, they were in the middle of building their dream home in Santa Barbara. Farah and Dan had been designing it together. It would be a sustainable home that incorporated Islamic architecture.

[Sage Kimball]

There was a house that we were trying to build in Santa Barbara that got Cut because it had a dome. And people said that the dome was, we're trying to build a mosque.

[Andrea Gunning]

It was 2005, a time when Islamophobia was rampant in the U.S. sage encountered it at school.

[Sage Kimball]

I do remember that being like, Muslims are terrorists, like that being said, and me fighting with people about that.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah and Dan learned that it was one of their neighbors who made Islamophobic comments about the design of their house. It made them want to live in a place where they weren't outsiders.

[Sage Kimball]

I was in ninth grade at the time, and I remember coming home and there were, like, boxes packed.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah wanted to move the family to a Muslim majority country. Dan quit his job and planned to work remotely on tech startups in Asia. A few months later, they went to visit a family friend in Bali, Indonesia.

[Sage Kimball]

And then we didn't leave.

[Andrea Gunning]

Bali's actually majority Hindu, but Farah felt comfortable there. And they found the perfect property.

[Sage Kimball]

It was a big piece of land, and there's a river down below, and you look across at, like, rice fields, and you could see on a clear day, like, Mount Agung, which is the big volcano in Bali, in the distance. Like, it was incredible, beautiful, beautiful. But at the time, it was just a piece of land. There was nothing on it.

[Andrea Gunning]

The family packed up their whole lives, put most of it in storage, and relocated to Bali. They got to work building an estate complete with an organic garden and a set of traditional Javanese villas.

[Sage Kimball]

They're called joglos, and they're these really cool Indonesian structures that are like no nails.

[Andrea Gunning]

The family came together with neighbors and friends to help with the construction. They also started a main house where the family would live. It was a huge undertaking, and though she was 14, Sage knew her parents were taking a big risk.

[Sage Kimball]

Buying that property was like, everything we had. So, like, you're putting all your eggs in that basket.

[Andrea Gunning]

To afford this piece of land and the construction costs, Dan and Farah had used all of their resources. They sold their property in Santa Barbara and put their savings, including all the money Dan had inherited from his parents, into the Bali property. Once it was completed, it would be an oasis, a tropical paradise for their family, one they could monetize. Farah had the idea to start a raw foods business at the house in Bali. They would host tourists and chefs who were leaders in the raw food movement. It's a diet of mostly fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

[Sage Kimball]

Health and wellness was another big thing that she was into. She got really into, like, raw food and actually made a cookbook with, like, delicious raw Food recipes. But like, there were always extremes in that.

[Andrea Gunning]

That year, Farah took Sage on a solo trip to visit a community run by women.

[Sage Kimball]

There's an Indonesian tribe that's still a matriarchal society, which was actually really sick. Like, it was a very cool, beautiful, peaceful society.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage was about 15. After that trip to visit the matriarchal society, Farah brought her daughter along more often, including for business matters and important errands.

[Sage Kimball]

I started going to banks with her to do banking things.

[Andrea Gunning]

Around that same time, Farah began bringing the kids on trips with her where she was buying gold bars.

[Sage Kimball]

A gold bar. I remember at the time, it being like $10,000 and us going and getting like six gold bars or something like that. This was also the time she was getting into Alex Jones and like, money and corruption.

[Andrea Gunning]

Alex Jones is an American media host. He's built a large following through commentary on politics, culture, and government institutions. He's best known for promoting conspiracy theories and fear mongering about economic collapse.

[Sage Kimball]

I think that was where the influence to get the gold came from because it was like, this is how you keep your money safe.

[Andrea Gunning]

Some of those trips are seared into Sage's memory. Like when they went to Singapore, we

[Sage Kimball]

would go to Singapore to buy gold because it was a good place to buy gold. And then she would have me and my brothers put, like, you have those, like, you know, those like travel bags that go like under your clothes. She made it seem like it was a normal thing.

[Andrea Gunning]

She started talking to Sage more and more about finances. And Farah told her these trips, the gold, the banking, it was their secret.

[Sage Kimball]

There was a safety deposit box in Malaysia that her and I had the key to. That was a secret and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that it existed. And like, there's like armed guards outside of this, like, safety deposit area. And we'd like go put gold bars in this safety deposit box that has the big vaulted door and like a guard at the door. It was wild. But, like, again, it was like the slow burn to like, that wasn't weird to me.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage knew she wasn't allowed to question her mom.

[Sage Kimball]

I was so intertwined with what she wanted. I don't think I was even always told what I was doing. I just did whatever she asked me to do.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage trusted in her mom's connection to God.

[Sage Kimball]

That was so central to how she parented me was here's God and then we are all serving God. The understanding was that she's like a step below God. God is speaking to Her. It was like, if you're going against her, you're going against God.

[Andrea Gunning]

Eventually, Fara let her daughter in on her plan. She wanted to create a matriarchal financial structure within their own family.

[Sage Kimball]

She's a feminist, and she wants a matriarchal society, and the women should be in charge of the finances. That was the first time I heard that, like, we are going to do this matriarchal thing as part of this structure.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah wanted Sage to be the signatory on their family trust instead of her dad or one of her brothers.

[Sage Kimball]

When I became the signatory on that trust document, it was because we were treating this like the women have power over the finances, like, it's going to be so progressive.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage was on board. She signed the documents. Her mom asked her to.

[Sage Kimball]

The understanding was like, if you're a feminist or if you care about women, you will also support this.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah explained to Sage that this had to be done because she said their dad wasn't good with money. Farah told the kids that Dan's job in tech startups wasn't good enough.

[Sage Kimball]

He'd go get investment in a company that he was working on, and then she would say that investment isn't income. That's stealing money from people for these businesses. And so she would say to us that, like, your dad is just swindling these people out of their money because he won't get a job. And if he cared about you, he would get a job.

[Andrea Gunning]

But it wasn't just Dan's job that was the problem. She started telling the kids their dad didn't love them anymore.

[Sage Kimball]

She would say to us that, like, your dad doesn't care. He doesn't care about you. He's a deadbeat. He doesn't care about his kids. I know you love him, but if he cared about you, he would be doing something to protect you.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan was often traveling for work, away from the house, but whenever he was home.

[Sage Kimball]

I remember later on in my teenage years, my dad was sleeping in, literally this, like, outdoor shack. But it was because I begged her not to kick him out fully.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah explained to the kids that she was scared of Dan.

[Sage Kimball]

She would ask me to be a witness if he was talking to her because she wanted a witness when he was abusive to her. Like, if I cared about her, I'd be there to protect her in that.

[Andrea Gunning]

By the time Sage left for college, she believed she had to protect the family from her dad. And a big part of that meant keeping the family money out of his hands.

[Sage Kimball]

The understanding was like in order for us to have anything, we have to make sure he doesn't have access to these things because he's just going to squander it. And my dad didn't know any of this.

[Andrea Gunning]

All of this, from the trips to the bank to the stories she told the kids.

[Dan Kimball]

I was completely oblivious. And I think it was orchestrated that way.

[Andrea Gunning]

Secrets, Lies, Infidelity, Deceit so what happens when the person you love the most turns out not to be who you think they are? Your Sunday nights just got a lot more interesting because Betrayal is now a primetime TV show. I implore you to watch Betrayal, Secrets and lies, Sundays at 10pm 9 Central on ABC and stream on Disney and Hulu Every Sunday. A new story of staggering Betrayal.

[Public and Orderly Meds Advertiser]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures when people turn to telehealth for weight loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com orderlymeds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP1 medications like semaglutide and Tirzeptatide. No guessing, just a more supportive experience and all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com podcast for an exclusive offer. That's orderlymeds.com podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice, eligibility required C site for details.

[Redfin Advertiser]

Let's talk about modern home shopping. It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right? Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in. All from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop. That's where Redfin flips the script. With listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app, you can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now, liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it, that's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2200 agents with local expertise. And Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win. Not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com.

[Andrea Gunning]

Once the Kimballs moved to Bali, Farah began acting differently. She isolated her oldest daughter Sage, and told her stories about how her father didn't love her. It got in Sage's head. Her mom started taking her to the bank and asking her to sign documents. Now we're going to hear Dan's perspective starting from when they moved to Bali. It's something that was difficult for him to revisit. Dan met Farah when they were teenagers. They were friends for 15 years before they became a couple. They shared the same core value, wanting to make the world a better place.

[Dan Kimball]

And I appreciated that about her, definitely very much a global thinker and she's a very charismatic person. I mean, a really beautiful soul in many ways.

[Andrea Gunning]

By the time they got to Bali, they'd been married for almost 20 years. Dan didn't share the same religious zeal as Farah did, but he respected her values. So when she said she wanted to move to Indonesia, the decision had already

[Dan Kimball]

been made for me really. She wanted to be in a Muslim culture. And you know, I've never one to really complain. I was always wanting to just go along with what we were trying to do.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan had been the breadwinner for most of their marriage. Working in tech startups meant that sometimes he had a high paying job and sometimes he was in between gigs. But through it all, he made sure the family was okay financially. In fact, Dan had been the one managing the couple's money since the beginning.

[Dan Kimball]

I took over responsibility for all the finances. I just, I made the books every month and just did it and paid the bills. I tend to knew the cookbooks and putting it all together and working with the tax people and just getting it all organized. I don't think that she had ever really had a desire to handle money stuff.

[Andrea Gunning]

Over the course of their marriage, Dan watched his wife become more and more religious. She'd chosen her own name, Farah. Religion became her whole life. By the time they got to Bali,

[Dan Kimball]

there was kind of a delusional nature to her describing herself. She was so close to God that she could understand things that were beyond my understanding.

[Andrea Gunning]

But Dan saw the value in living abroad. Once he toured the property in Bali, he was sold. Anfara's dream to make that happen financially,

[Dan Kimball]

we moved all of our assets to Indonesia through. We started a company in Indonesia so money would go to this company. We have to have one Indonesian director. So a good Indonesian friend was the director. My wife and I were the other directors, and we owned it. 50, 50. The Indonesian director didn't own any. And most of the assets then to buy the property were bought through this company. We paid a huge down payment to buy the property.

[Andrea Gunning]

It was a big financial risk and it brought Dan and Farah closer. They both believed in what they were building together in Bali, even if it meant pulling all of their available resources.

[Dan Kimball]

Oftentimes people think, oh, you must have been so wealthy to do all that stuff. No, we weren't. We just were brave enough to go do it right. I mean, it was risky in the sense that we spent a lot of money to buy that property, and we just. We didn't mind living with that kind of risk.

[Andrea Gunning]

At the beginning of their move, the family had to stay in a hotel for a couple weeks there. Dan noticed Farah was taken by the new lifestyle they could afford abroad.

[Dan Kimball]

We lived for quite a long time in this fancy hotel, and I didn't know why we were staying there because it was costing us too much money and I was kind of complaining about it. But she was very pushy around money like, you know, no, we're going to do this. We're going to spend the money that it takes to do this. And of course, it's all our money.

[Andrea Gunning]

That hotel stay was temporary. Dan was busy orchestrating and designing the construction project. He was there for nearly every step of the process.

[Dan Kimball]

And we built it up into this beautiful little mini resort which was all based on raw food, which is a wonderful kind of niche for us, because anyone anywhere in the world that was interested in raw food would come to our place. It was the only place in Bali that you could get raw food food at the time. And so we trained people in how to make raw food. In fact, some of the people that went to these New York raw food restaurants were trained by us.

[Andrea Gunning]

Farah loved living in Bali. They both did.

[Dan Kimball]

I just fell in love with Bali.

[Andrea Gunning]

Once most of the construction was done, Dan started traveling around Asia, consulting for a series of tech startup. Sage was finishing high school. The twin boys were in elementary school, and Farah seemed to be pulling away from Dan every time he came home from a business trip. Farah became increasingly distant. After a year or two, it got

[Dan Kimball]

to the point that we didn't have a relationship anymore. I mean, we never slept together. We never. I was in separate quarters from her, but I just went along with it.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan was under pressure to keep bringing in a steady income, and he was scrambling to make that happen. He figured it was normal for he and his wife to go through stressful years where they drifted apart. The only thing that bothered him was when Farah started taking the kids on trips and telling Dan she didn't want him there.

[Dan Kimball]

There was a lot of exclusion, like, okay, Sage and I are going to go to Indonesia now and buy some more teak to try to find the teak for the house. And you're going to stay here, right. It's just like telling me what I had to do and how I'm going to do it.

[Andrea Gunning]

This had been their dynamic for almost their whole marriage. Farah called the shots, and Dan was happy to go along with her choices. But after they moved abroad, her choices began to exclude Dan.

[Dan Kimball]

There are many vacations that they went on that I didn't go on because I was pushed out of it.

[Andrea Gunning]

One of those trips, my wife wanted

[Dan Kimball]

to visit this community in Malaysia that is a Muslim society where the women are in control of everything. So it was of interest to her.

[Andrea Gunning]

A few months after that trip, Farah started taking an interest in managing their finances herself. She told Dan she wanted her own private bank account, and he didn't see any issue with that. After about five years at the raw food resort in Indonesia, they were approached by a land developer. He wanted to buy their land at a premium. Sage was about to go off to college and the twins were 10. The family was ready for a new chapter. So they made the sale.

[Dan Kimball]

We sold the property in Indonesia for $3 million.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan and Farah put that money into a new family trust that they established in Malaysia. That's where they would be moving next. They'd had something similar in Indonesia but not with nearly this amount of money in it. So the formation of this trust in Malaysia was a big deal.

[Dan Kimball]

This notion of a trust was very important to us. We both understood what it was. But the word trust I don't think had the same meaning to her that it had to me.

[Andrea Gunning]

For Dan, the family trust was about ensuring safety for their kids futures. It was for his and Farah's future too. Like always, ownership of the trust would be divided evenly.

[Dan Kimball]

The company we created in Indonesia was 5050 held. The company that was created in Malaysia was held by the trust which we were co creators of. We were named in the trust as co granters. We moved all the assets to Malaysia.

[Andrea Gunning]

When they sold their property in Bali, they'd actually just sold the land, not the houses they'd built. Those were theirs if they could find a way to move them. The big house had been a special project of Dan's.

[Dan Kimball]

So then we decided, well, hey, let's bring the house from Indonesia to Malaysia. Because we didn't want to start from scratch.

[Andrea Gunning]

Their plan was to deconstruct the house and Bali piece by piece so they could rebuild it somewhere else.

[Dan Kimball]

We asked everybody from the village to come and help us knock down these houses. And within three days they tore it down, packed it all up. So a few months later, we had two giant shipping containers come to us in Malaysia with our house.

[Andrea Gunning]

They found a piece of land in Malaysia where they could reconstruct their dream home. And now they could afford to take their time. They hired an architect who saw their vision. The project became Dan and Farah's focus.

[Dan Kimball]

We had a lovely time designing and building and working with the architects and like we were working on something other than us. It wasn't about us, it was about this thing we were doing together.

[Andrea Gunning]

When the house was completed, it was breathtaking. Picture a jungle oasis with flowers, floor to ceiling windows and towering hand carved doors, Tropical plants and natural light flooding every room. And because it was the same structure they originally built in Bali, it wasn't just beautiful, it was meaningful. The house was a symbol of what their family could accomplish.

[Dan Kimball]

Together we rebuilt our property, this gorgeous place, into this extraordinary house.

[Andrea Gunning]

Once they got settled in Malaysia, Dan got back to work.

[Dan Kimball]

During this time I opened a kind of a consulting company and I had some contracts with technology development work.

[Andrea Gunning]

One of his main contracts was in a city a few hours away. But this time when he would come home from work trips, he experienced a new level of isolation. It was as if the whole family was giving him the silent treatment. When he asked Farah what was going on, she said she didn't know what he was talking about. So Dan responded by throwing himself into work and building up his own social network.

[Dan Kimball]

With lots of my friends and people that I built relationships with, like this architect and our next door neighbor. I became good friends with them, but she never wanted to even go over there.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan was making enough for the family to live comfortably, and he liked his work. Around this time, Dan was offered a salaried job. It paid a lot, but it was a role he didn't want. When he brought it up to Farah, she showed a renewed interest in Dan.

[Dan Kimball]

My wife was pushing to try to get me to take this job. When I told her I turned it down, it's like she blew up. She was upset by this.

[Andrea Gunning]

This is when Dan first heard about her desire for the women in the family to control the finances. You heard Sage talk about that earlier in the episode. Sage had been in on this for years, but she was told not to talk about it with her dad. So Dan was just learning about it in Malaysia.

[Dan Kimball]

Of course, it's all our money, but she's the one who's kind of now starting to control it.

[Andrea Gunning]

If it was important to Farah to control the finances, he was okay with that. It gave him peace of mind knowing that the trust was still held. 50 50, with a friend of theirs serving as director. But after Farah took over management of the family's daily spending, the marriage deteriorated even further.

[Dan Kimball]

And it was like, very tumultuous time. She argued with me and demanded that I move into the maid's quarters.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan didn't even know what he'd done to make his wife so upset. But now he was always walking on

[Dan Kimball]

eggshells, and I thought we were still in love. This is where I realized that love wasn't the same thing. Love was transactional for her.

[Andrea Gunning]

Now that the house was nearly completed, Dan felt like he wasn't useful anymore.

[Dan Kimball]

There was no need for me anymore. I felt like I was. Yeah, I was like a discard.

[Andrea Gunning]

Around that time, Dan was on a business trip when he was robbed.

[Dan Kimball]

Two guys on a motorcycle went and grabbed my bag and drove off with my computer and my passport and everything else.

[Andrea Gunning]

He had to call Farah and beg for her help.

[Dan Kimball]

This issue of me needing to get enough money to buy a computer that had been stolen and, like, what kind of position had I got myself into to be so subservient to funds that were ours, to thinking that I had to beg for it.

[Andrea Gunning]

For Dan, this was an emotional breaking point.

[Dan Kimball]

I realized, hey, there's. There's something seriously wrong here. There was something that cracked.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan managed to get himself back home. But when he arrived at the house,

[Dan Kimball]

I go there, try my key. It doesn't work. And I realized, oh, she's changed the key. The doors had been locked, and I wasn't welcome anymore.

[Andrea Gunning]

With no other place to stay and no access to their money, Dan started sleeping in a friend's car.

[Dan Kimball]

During that time, I basically ran out of funds. We had plenty joint funds, and she just wouldn't send any money. I felt suppressed from even asking, you know, I was literally living out of a friend's car. I don't think she thinks of it that way, but I was homeless. It pushed me into homelessness.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan still believed that if he could just sit down and talk with his wife, they could figure out a path forward. It would probably mean divorce and separating their assets. He just wanted to look her in the eye and make the decision together. A few days later, I remember going

[Dan Kimball]

to the house once, trying to see her and just talk with her about this in just a very calm way. Just like, what's going on? What did we do about this?

[Andrea Gunning]

He knew Farah went on a bike ride every morning. So he waited for her by the front gate of their house.

[Dan Kimball]

She was riding a bicycle toward me, and I was there ready to greet her. She looked straight ahead and acted as if I was a tree. Just drove past me without even glancing my direction.

[Andrea Gunning]

That moment when Farah passed him on the bicycle was one of the last times Dan would ever see his wife, because the next time he met with their accountants, he learned something that would alter the rest of his life.

[Dan Kimball]

I went there, and we were going over the documents, and they said, well, the shares were transferred into your wife's name. I said, what? The shares were? Those are the trust shares that were transferred into. My wife's name is. Yeah. On this date. And there's something. And they were just dealing as matter of factly. Right. They showed me the documentation that said that this is the transfer. And I said, well, what about the directorship? And he says, yeah, she was made director, too. And I was just. I was just dumbfounded.

[Andrea Gunning]

At that meeting, Dan had been completely locked out of their family trust.

[Dan Kimball]

She only needed the approval of the trustee. So somehow she talked to the trustee.

[Andrea Gunning]

The trustee was a friend of theirs who lived locally.

[Dan Kimball]

I think she started to work on him and. And said, okay, I'm transferring all this stuff over into my name. I'm Going to be the director now. I mean, he went and did it. He just signed the papers thinking, I mean, that's what his claim was. Oh well, you know, she's your wife, you know, it's all been approved by her and you.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan had not approved for his half of the trust shares to be transferred into his wife's name. That gave her sole access to their entire life savings. But he hadn't signed any documents. He had no knowledge of this transfer. Dan immediately called their friend who'd been the trustee.

[Dan Kimball]

I just remember being outraged that he would do this. And how did this happen? We can't move on like this. Change it back. It has to be corrected and I was absolutely adamant about it.

[Andrea Gunning]

But this isn't the kind of thing you can just request to change back. There was a lot of red tape.

[Dan Kimball]

I worked for months, literally most of the rest of 2017. I talked to multiple attorneys about how do we do this because it's already been signed over. I talked to the trust attorney. He finally said to me, listen, you're going to have to get an attorney to. I can't do anything because she's not going to agree to it. And the trustee can't do it on his own. And but you know, there's all kinds of crap.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan's life was on pause as he tried to educate himself about international trust laws and marriage laws.

[Dan Kimball]

My entire life savings are tied up in this and I'm literally penniless.

[Andrea Gunning]

If he wanted recourse, he would have to go through the Malaysian court system.

[Dan Kimball]

I'm going to have to file suit and I'm going to have to file suit against my wife and the company that's in the trust. Even my daughter has to be on the suit because she was the signatory to the trust. It was just mind bendingly painful.

[Andrea Gunning]

Secrets, lies, infidelity, deceit. So what happens when the person you love the most turns out not to be who you think they are? Your Sunday nights just got a lot more interesting because Betrayal is now a primetime TV show. I implore you to watch Secrets and lies Sundays at 10pm 9 Central on ABC and stream on Disney and Hulu Every Sunday. A new story of staggering betrayal.

[Public and Orderly Meds Advertiser]

Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures lost support

[Orderly Meds Advertiser]

through telehealth, but it feels overwhelming and rushed. Check out orderlymeds.com now. Orderlymeds.com was built to be different. Here you connect with real doctors who take the time to understand your goals, review your eligibility, and guide you through a plan that's right for you. Orderly Meds provides access to proven GLP1 medications like semaglutide and Tirzepatide, including both name brand options and personal compound versions when appropriate. So you have choices backed by clinical oversight, not guesswork. It's a simpler, more supportive telehealth experience designed around people who want clarity, care and confidence in their weight loss journey. And your medication is delivered directly to your home in discreet packaging so your experience stays private from start to finish. Do your research, ask the right questions, then visit orderlymeds.com podcast for an exclusive offer. Again, that's orderlymeds.com podcast. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice, eligibility required. See Cite for details.

[Redfin Advertiser]

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[Andrea Gunning]

for the final act of this story, we're going to hear from both Dan and Sage. Because what happened next didn't just unfold around them. It happened between them.

[Sage Kimball]

Can I add on to that, dad?

[Dan Kimball]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrea Gunning]

We wanted to bring them together to tell the end of the story from their joint perspective.

[Dan Kimball]

Sage, your experience was very different than my own because it comes from, you know, me being a husband rather than being a daughter. Totally different, but yet the same thing happens.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage had been hearing horrible stories about her dad. They'd been kept away from each other for so long that they weren't living in the same reality.

[Sage Kimball]

I was alienated from my dad for years because she told me he wasn't trustworthy.

[Andrea Gunning]

When Dan was locked out of the house, Sage was in college. She was barely speaking to her father at the time. She only heard her mother's version of

[Sage Kimball]

the story when she changed the locks. She then was posing it at the time as like, he's trying to break in and being like, I'm terrified. And I remember being angry at my dad, like, leave her alone, because she's making it seem like he's trying to, like, hurt her or something. And I never thought he was capable of hurting her.

[Andrea Gunning]

After the trust was transferred out of his name, Dan reached out to Sage to tell her what was going on. That's when he began putting the pieces together about why Sage was so distant.

[Dan Kimball]

I didn't realize that I had been spoken ill of for many years, and so that the impressions that I got from my early discussions with Sage were that, wow, you don't know me.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage was 23 and living in New York City when her dad called her.

[Sage Kimball]

He said, hey, I want you to know I am filing a lawsuit against your mom. But because you are on that document, I also have to sue you. But it's like, I'm going to cover your lawyer fees. We're going to just get your statement, and then you'll be recused. He was talking to me about how this was all going to work before doing it.

[Andrea Gunning]

But when Sage talked to her mom, she heard a completely different story.

[Sage Kimball]

It escalated to like, why would you want to have a relationship with my abuser? Like, you're an abuser, too, if you want to Have a relationship with my abuser, even if that person as your father.

[Andrea Gunning]

Her mom's story was confusing to her. Sage had mediated her parents fights before, but she had never seen anything physical. In fact, Sage's personal experience of her dad was that he was a quiet and gentle guy.

[Sage Kimball]

From the time I was born, he was gentle and he listens in all of the fights. The times when my mom would be crazy, he wouldn't even raise his voice. I think I've heard him yell twice in my life. I've never seen him hurt an animal. I've never seen him hurt anything.

[Andrea Gunning]

When he first came to her in crisis, Sage was deeply conflicted about who to believe.

[Sage Kimball]

I was like, I don't believe you. Show me the proof. And seeing the proof of like, here's this money that was given to me. Here's this, here's what we bought. A huge part of that was his inheritance. That even got us the house in Bali. And I was starting to believe in him.

[Andrea Gunning]

But Sage still didn't want to be in the middle of this. She tried to completely remove herself from the situation.

[Sage Kimball]

I got like a notarized letter that was just like, this should be solved between my parents. I should have never been on this document.

[Andrea Gunning]

This notarized letter didn't change anything. She was legally implicated in this.

[Sage Kimball]

My dad was like, I don't want you to be in the middle of it either, and you are in the middle of it. And I would start listening to him more. I was trained that he was so awful that, like, you're just lying to me. But I was like, I want to know what his side is. So I listened to and, like, we had a conversation where he, like, told me all the things like that were going on.

[Andrea Gunning]

Then Farah came to Sage with a new document, one that would close the trust entirely and make it much harder for her dad to ever access his life savings. If she signed this piece of paper, she would be taking a side. There would be no going back. Sage didn't want to be responsible for the millions of dollars in shared assets her parents were fighting over.

[Sage Kimball]

And she posed it as, I just need your signature on this thing. I just need your one signature. And I told her, no, I'm not gonna sign it because I don't want to be in the middle of this.

[Andrea Gunning]

But saying no to her mother was the red button.

[Sage Kimball]

It felt like me choosing not to sign it was me choosing to not have a relationship with her. I could just sign it and then this would be over and I wouldn't have to deal with this excruciating pain, but I didn't. And that was, like, the first time that she truly stopped speaking to me.

[Andrea Gunning]

And then came the call from her dad.

[Sage Kimball]

He called me and was like, did you sign the document? And I said, no, I didn't. I promise you, I didn't sign the document. And he was like, you didn't sign? Are you 100% sure? And I'm like, this was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm 100% sure I didn't sign the document. And he was like, your signature is on the document. I just told my dad again and again I didn't do it. And he believed me.

[Andrea Gunning]

Then how did her signature get on the document? Sage felt like her own boundaries had been violated.

[Sage Kimball]

And then I started therapy. And that also really, really was the thing that helped me process and understand and start to gain clarity. It was through therapy that I started to set boundaries with her. And then it's over.

[Andrea Gunning]

Going to therapy helped Sage understand that her dynamic with her mom was not normal. Like, how her mom would react whenever Sage wasn't doing what she wanted.

[Sage Kimball]

She would pretend she had a knife, and she'd be like, this is what you're doing to me. Like, stabbing her. Like, it was awful.

[Andrea Gunning]

When Sage moved to New York, she began forming her own identity separate from her mom. She started making new friends and forming new ideas about the world. Instead of being happy for her, Farah began ignoring Sage's calls and distancing herself emotionally from Sage. Meanwhile, Dan seems case moved forward. A hearing was set in Malaysia, and Sage made a decision she never thought she would.

[Sage Kimball]

Ultimately, I decided to be involved in the court case. I think it was also for myself because I think there was something about that that was healing to get to finally say this happened to me in a public way.

[Andrea Gunning]

Sage submitted a notarized affidavit to the Malaysian court declaring that she did not sign sign for the revocation of the trust, nor did she have any knowledge of the transfer of the trust assets or knowledge of Farah becoming director. When the hearing date came, she and her dad went together to Malaysia, and Sage took the stand, giving an emotional testimony about the ways she felt manipulated by her mother. Sage didn't expect the way her mom's lawyers responded to her testimony.

[Dan Kimball]

During her testimony, they showed a picture of us happily, you know, in a family gathering with us together. We're all smiling in the picture, and they say, this looks like you're being abused. Or is this Like a picture showing that you are abused. And of course you look at the picture and say, no. I mean, I look happy, you know, but the reality is, is that what is in a picture doesn't show what's really behind the scenes.

[Sage Kimball]

Being told literally to my face. Would someone who's being abused look like this on a holiday vacation? Would someone who's being abused be smiling like this? Your mom has done this, this, and this. Humanitarian for the world. Like, you're just lying.

[Andrea Gunning]

That contradiction between her humanitarian work and her family's lived experience with her was also something Dan and Sage had to come to terms with themselves.

[Sage Kimball]

It's not always just a black and white. Someone is good or evil, that you can have parts of you that are good. And it doesn't take away from the fact that you can do something terrible.

[Andrea Gunning]

When Dan looks back on all the humanitarian work Farah has done, he sees a pattern.

[Dan Kimball]

In retrospect, it looks like she was doing a lot of these right things for the wrong reasons. The right things were like medicines to Iraq, doing all these wonderful things. But it wasn't for the reasons I thought. It was for the reasons that. It got her attention. It got her notoriety. That's what she loved.

[Andrea Gunning]

After the hearing, they waited for the ruling, and when the decision came, they were shocked.

[Dan Kimball]

They dismissed the case. How could that be? They didn't know why. I didn't know why it had been dismissed. There was not a judgment. There was only a dismissal. My attorney said, that's strange, is this never happens.

[Andrea Gunning]

Even Dan's attorney was confused. He'd been confident in their case. An outright dismissal wasn't even on the radar. But the court was saying Dan didn't even have a leg to stand on.

[Dan Kimball]

I just immediately said, that's wrong. We can't have that. This.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan's dad had been a judge as a kid. He'd sit in his dad's courtroom and bang the gavel. He was raised to value justice and fairness. And when his case in Malaysia was dismissed, he felt justice had been denied.

[Dan Kimball]

The core part of that shock to me was that they had completely ignored Sage's testimony. It basically said in there, she's not believable. And this was like, hit me to the core. It's like, how could that be? You know, this is not something that you ignore. I don't know, Sage. How did that make you feel?

[Sage Kimball]

That felt so degrading. I spoke the truth. To then not be believed hurts even more.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dan wanted to appeal the dismissal, but to move forward, he would have to pay $50,000. They didn't have that money. So Sage had an idea to start a GoFundMe sharing their story and trying to fundraise for the appeal fees.

[Dan Kimball]

I had to promote this GoFundMe thing to my professional community. I'm sure I, you know, lost some respect because people just didn't maybe just

[Andrea Gunning]

didn't believe was embarrassing for Dan. Sage helped write the fundraiser page, telling the story of what happened to their family trust. Friends and colleagues of Dan submitted testimonies about him. But after they put up the page, Farah sent a letter threatening to sue Dan for defamation.

[Dan Kimball]

This letter was trying to silence me and trying to literally prevent me from raising money to protect myself.

[Sage Kimball]

I think initially when she sent the letter, my response was, put it in my name. Then she has to sue me, and that looks worse. And then I think we didn't even end up doing that because it's like we're telling the truth. You actually don't get to keep silencing the story. Stop. We're allowed to have our voices.

[Andrea Gunning]

In the end, they didn't raise the money they needed for the appeal.

[Dan Kimball]

I lost the appeal, not on grounds, but on procedural. And it was like we didn't pay the money. He lost the suit.

[Andrea Gunning]

There are safeguards in place in California, where Dan filed for divorce. California imposes a temporary restraining order over financial assets. While a divorce is pending, those laws don't apply in Malaysia. Dan worries that even if he can get access to the trust again, the money may not be there anymore. And the same goes for his cherished home in Malaysia.

[Dan Kimball]

Not only did she put it up for sale in January against those odors, I found out since that there's a crypto site that sells real estate promoting the property.

[Andrea Gunning]

Today, Dan's case is trapped in a thicket of international law. It's been seven years since he discovered he was removed from the family trust trust. It's meant Dan spent most of his 60s locked out of his life savings. His late dad had left a safety deposit box with a few thousand dollars worth of coins and stocks that Dan was able to access.

[Dan Kimball]

It was only because of that money that I was able to depart Malaysia.

[Andrea Gunning]

He moved back to the US and found a cheap apartment to rent and

[Dan Kimball]

just kind of scraped by until I could apply for Social Security. And then I lived basically on a thousand dollars a month. And I have been ever since.

[Andrea Gunning]

For those first few years back in the U.S. dan was in a dark place. He felt like he'd failed his children. He spent a Lot of time reconnecting with his daughter and grieving with her. These days, Sage is no longer religious. While the decision to step away from religion has been healthy and right for her, she knows that Islam as a religion was never the problem. It was the way that Farah used religion as a tool of control to elevate herself, to demand obedience and to justify her behavior. The harm Farah caused was specific to her, not to Islam. Going to therapy has helped Sage understand those patterns in her mom's behavior. She's even brought her dad to some of her therapy sessions for them to process together.

[Dan Kimball]

One of the things that I think was extremely positive about this was that suddenly Sage and I could have a relationship that was based on truth. We basically said everything to each other about how we felt about each other and understanding ourselves. I mean, there were things revealed that Sage didn't know about me and me about her. I heard that Sage had a crisis in Bali that I was oblivious to. I was oblivious to partly because of the hiding and the keeping things from me. But I'm sad now because I wasn't there to recognize that and to see it. And, you know, I'm sorry that I wasn't there. There was kind of a breaking of the silence and allowing us to, you know, I could be a parent again.

[Sage Kimball]

Getting to process that was really healing because that anger can then turn into forgiveness. And the relationship that we have now, he's not just my dad, but we're also really good friends.

[Andrea Gunning]

Their relationship today is incredibly strong. They live 15 minutes away from each other. They have breakfast together once a week and walk Sage's dog on the beach.

[Sage Kimball]

I think part of the healing too is like just getting to have a relationship that's not about any of what we went through and having just fun and like, kind of a fresh start. He will design woodworking tables for me and we'll go build it at the woodworking studio. So we're making a dining table, Dad, I sent you the ones I like and you have to make the cad dries. You promise.

[Dan Kimball]

I know, I know. We have to figure that out.

[Sage Kimball]

And you're so good at building and crafting and creating.

[Andrea Gunning]

Anger and resentment just aren't in their nature. Even though they experienced a life changing betrayal and a loss of that they might never see resolved. Dan wants to spend the rest of his life focused on what he does have now, which is a relationship with his kids.

[Sage Kimball]

Justice is like a huge word for you that, like, you want justice and you want. And like, what does that look like, and I think the reality of where we are now is it might not look like what we wanted it to look like in our heads.

[Dan Kimball]

Yeah. It may not be just. I mean, justice doesn't have to exist. It sometimes doesn't.

[Sage Kimball]

Well, but I think. But I think it's more that it. Like, the justice that we have is that we have this relationship which is more valuable than any of the money or any of the things. And she doesn't get to have that. In many ways, I still love my mom, and I still have worry and concern for her. And I think, damn it, I think that, like, she's very lonely. Like, that's sad. You know, she's pushed everyone away so much that she's alone and, like, what an awful. Like, underneath all of the personality stuff that goes on is someone who's deeply alone and probably. I don't know, like, it's just. I think we're pretty cool, dad. And, like, getting to have this relationship is actually more valuable than any of the money or any of the things. And maybe that is justice.

[Dan Kimball]

Now that I have my family back, literally, my daughter and my two kids, that is the thing that feels just and feels right and feels like something that's been denied and is now restored.

[Andrea Gunning]

We end every weekly episode with the same question. Why do you want to share your story?

[Dan Kimball]

This is about transformation, right? How can I be better as a result of the impact of this? I could just wallow in it like I did for a long time. But if we want a better world, we should build a better world and design a better world. So I'd like to go from an understanding of this betrayal to building a blueprint for a better. A better world.

[Andrea Gunning]

As for why Sage is telling this story with her dad, all of this

[Sage Kimball]

is not to make her the devil, you know, that's not what the goal of this is for any of us. It's more to be able to share our experiences and be 100% truthful. I'm aware that she's not gonna like it. She has vilified him to so many communities. But I think getting to see him tell his story matters and getting to have him get some sort of justice matters. And I think part of that is being heard and believed. I'm sorry he had to go through what he's going through because he didn't deserve it. I hope that on the other side of this is healing for him, too, because he deserves that.

[Andrea Gunning]

On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly. They had a recording that showed the hillside just calm, quiet, settled. And then right after that it was the recording of the same exact spot, the same exact house burning to the ground. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email [e-mail] that's betrayalpodmail.com or follow us on Instagram betrayalpod. You can also connect with me on Instagram tsandreagunning to access our new newsletter, view additional content, and 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. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Laborde, with additional production from Ben Federman casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krynczyk. Audio editing and mixing by Matt d' Alvecchio Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins Betrayals theme 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.

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Sage Kimball]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Sage Kimball]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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