Bad Magic | The Data are the Data | S4-E5

Summary

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Dr. Death, S4-E5: "Bad Magic | The Data are the Data"

Podcast: Dr. Death
Host: Laura Beale (Wondery)
Date: February 12, 2024

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

Episode 5 of Dr. Death’s fourth season peels back the layers of deception, greed, and failed oversight that enabled Dr. Serhat Gumrukcu—once celebrated as a genius, now infamous as a fraudster and accused conspirator in a murder-for-hire plot. This installment traces the fallout affecting patients, investors, and the scientific community after his arrest, and interrogates the systemic flaws that allowed "bad magic" to masquerade as medical innovation.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Patient Betrayal & Personal Fallout

• Jeffrey Drew's Disillusionment:

  • After years of participating in Serhat’s HIV trial, patient Jeffrey Drew grew frustrated and emotionally exhausted, feeling used as the company poised to make billions with no recognition for his personal risk or contribution.
  • Quote (Jeffrey via Zebariah Newman, 01:56):

    "I think that they might make a billion dollars and I didn't get anything. I didn't even get a fruit basket."

  • Despite hope for a game-changing cure, Jeffrey ultimately had to quit the trial and return to conventional antiretroviral drugs, left doubting the veracity of the treatment.

• Emotional Toll on Patients:

  • Jeffrey’s story highlights the human cost: "We'll never know how much this has affected his physical body and what the ramifications...will be." (Zebariah Newman, 23:41)

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2. Hindenburg Research Investigation & Industry Response

• The Shocking Arrest:

  • Investors like Ulay Abogo in Denmark reeled at news that Serhat was arrested for murder-for-hire.
    Quote (Ulay Abogo, 04:03):

    "I walked out to the bathroom and threw up. At first I didn't believe it."

  • Serhat’s checkered past—fraud, theft, and claims of being a “doctor” without credentials—stunned even seasoned investors.

• Publishing the Hindenburg Report:

  • Hindenburg Research, led by Nate Anderson and Thomas, rushed to finalize an ironclad exposé.
    • Relentless fact-checking to avoid "an investment loss on top of all the research expenses, on top of the legal bills..." (Nate Anderson, 06:23)
  • Revelation of Fraud:
    • Report exposed Serhat as a serial fraudster, a "low level Turkish street magician who had fled the country after charges of defrauding locals in Turkey" (Nate Anderson, 11:46) and perpetrated extensive white-collar crime.

• Market Reaction:

  • The report’s publication caused Enochian’s share price to plummet, causing investors major losses while Hindenburg profited on its short position.
    Quote (Nate Anderson, 18:24):

    "Fake magician who lies about scientific research is not the norm for criticism of a public company listed on the Nasdaq."

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3. Company Damage Control and Lawsuits

• Enochian’s Response:

  • Post-arrest, CEO Mark Deibel issued letters to shareholders, and officially distanced the company from Serhat.
    • Notably, company statements stopped using "Dr." and simply referred to him as "Serhat," signaling a subtle but significant change in stance.
  • The company claimed "the data are the data," but later admitted Serhat had faked preclinical data (animal study results) for Covid and hepatitis B projects.
    • "In this case, the data wasn't the data." (Laura Beale, 24:48)

• Legal Action:

  • Enochian initiated legal proceedings to sue Serhat for damages related to falsified data.
    Quote (Nate Anderson, 25:39):

    "They sued Serhat alleging that they had been duped and had no idea that it was just a big fraud all along...but that was just entirely disingenuous."

• Impact on Patients vs. Executives:

  • The biggest financial losers were Serhat and his inner circle, but the emotional and physical toll was borne by patients, especially those who risked their health for hope of cure.

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4. The Nature of the Scam & Systemic Issues

• Targeting the Vulnerable:
  Quote (Nate Anderson, 27:02):

  "He preyed on vulnerability wherever he could find it...pretended he was going to solve their most horrific problem in exchange for a lot of money."

  • The show interrogates Serhat’s possible motives: money, fame, respect, as well as the intrinsic "delight of deception"—hallmarks of a pathological con artist.
    Quote (Nate Anderson, 28:07):

    "A lot of times with someone like him, they're also motivated by a joy in tricking people and using his wits to get money from people."

• Corporate Continuity Despite Scandal:

  • Enochian, now rebranded as Renovaro, shifted focus to new biotech frontiers (cancer, AI partnerships) and saw their stock price recover as it "sold a new story" to the market. Quote (Nate Anderson, 29:49):

    "I think it's just a cheap tactic to gloss over the fact that they had just run this massive entity filled with lies..."

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5. Serhat’s Whereabouts and Legacy

• Awaiting Trial:
  • As of the episode, Serhat is in custody awaiting trial for murder-for-hire charges tied to the kidnapping and death of Gregory Davis. He has pleaded not guilty.
    • "If convicted, he faces up to life in prison." (30:36)
• Continued Charisma in Jail:
  • Friends claim Serhat is "raising the consciousness" of inmates, teaching meditation and yoga—continuing his pattern of seeking followers and influence even behind bars.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with timestamps)

• [01:56] Jeffrey (via Zebariah Newman):

  "I think that they might make a billion dollars and I didn't get anything. I didn't even get a fruit basket."

• [04:03] Ulay Abogo (Enochian investor):

  "[After hearing of Serhat’s arrest] I walked out to the bathroom and threw up."

• [06:23] Nate Anderson (Hindenburg):

  "All you have to show for your 12 month investigation is an investment loss on top of all the research expenses, on top of the legal bills..."

• [09:08] Thomas (Hindenburg) recalls:

  "Did you know...that you were dealing with a felon?"

  [09:26] Renee Sendlev (Enochian Chair), in response:

  "Yes, we knew, but he only had to pay a fine of 400 bucks."

• [11:46] Nate Anderson describes Serhat as:

  "...a low level Turkish street magician who had fled the country after charges of defrauding locals in Turkey."

• [20:03] Nate Anderson:

  "Noticeably in the press release where they claimed everything was great, they stopped referring to Serhat as Dr. Serhat. They just started calling him Serhat."

• [24:48] Laura Beale:

  "...the company also disclosed that Serhat had faked the results of animal studies.... In this case, the data wasn't the data."

• [27:02] Nate Anderson:

  "I think what he did was he preyed on vulnerability wherever he could find it and looked for the absolute most vulnerable people he could find."

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Timeline & Key Moments

• [00:02–03:12] — Patient story: Jeffrey’s growing doubts about the trial and his sense of betrayal.
• [04:03–06:57] — Investor shock, Hindenburg investigation, pressure mounts.
• [06:57–11:17] — Hindenburg’s confrontation with Enochian leadership and discovery of Serhat’s criminal history.
• [11:46–14:22] — Exposure of Serhat’s fraud, publication of Hindenburg’s report, market reaction.
• [17:10–18:40] — Global spread of the exposé; reaction from podcast host Guy Rokin and the industry.
• [19:24–21:53] — Company’s attempts at damage control and the reality for trial patients.
• [24:48–26:22] — Legal action against Serhat and the reality of the company’s losses.
• [27:02–29:49] — Discussion on Serhat’s predatory approach, company’s rebrand, and future predictions.
• [30:36] — Serhat’s current status: in jail, awaiting trial, still maintaining influence.

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CONCLUSION

“Bad Magic | The Data are the Data” masterfully illustrates how illusion, greed, and systemic failures coalesced in Serhat Gumrukcu’s rise and fall. The episode is both an exposé of one charismatic conman and a broader cautionary tale about the perils of unchecked ambition in medicine and biotech. With patients and investors alike left to pick up the pieces, the final question lingers: How many more "bad magicians" are out there, hiding behind the white coat and a smile?

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Transcript

[Laura Beale]

Wondering. A year before Serhat was arrested, the filmmaker Zebariah Newman climbed out of his car in the parking garage of Serhat's clinic. This was as close as Zeb and his camera were allowed to come to the building itself. In the dim light, he spotted his friend Jeffrey Drew waiting for him. Jeffrey was about to undergo yet another blood draw at Serhat's clinic. It had been almost two years since Jeffrey started his HIV trial, had been getting his blood drawn regularly, and each time he was told that his HIV levels were undetectable. The experimental treatment seemed to be working, but Jeffrey was starting to get impatient. He wanted to know if Serhat's donor cell injections had retrained his immune system to fight the virus. As Zeb turned on his camera that morning in the parking garage, Jeffrey was having trouble summoning his usual charisma.

[Zebariah Newman]

He's, you know, he's annoyed, he's lacking patience. He even says that morning on film, like, I'm feeling bratty, I don't want to be here, do this anymore.

[Laura Beale]

Eventually, Jeffrey got up and trudged inside alone. When he came back out, his mood wasn't any better. The two men sat in Jeffrey's car talking.

[Zebariah Newman]

Jeffrey doesn't cry. He's not a very emotional person, but he was very emotional and he got angry, you know, and he felt a little used and abused.

[Laura Beale]

If it was a cure, then Sarah stood to make a lot of money.

[Zebariah Newman]

He said, I think that they might make a billion dollars and I didn't get anything. He said, I didn't even get a fruit basket.

[Laura Beale]

But Jeffrey kept going on with the trial. He'd been risking his life now for nearly two years. It was too late to stop now. Even if someone else made billions from it, he was still hopeful his contribution could make a difference in the fight against HIV aids. Then one day, Zeb heard from Jeffrey. He'd gotten some good news.

[Zebariah Newman]

There was this idea that Jeffrey was going to go to Washington D.C. and sit with Dr. Fauci and have a conversation about HIV. And he's going to sit before some organization, they're going to look at his data and they're going to either grant us the money to do a nationwide government funded trial or not.

[Laura Beale]

But there was something even more exciting in the works.

[Zebariah Newman]

And they're either going to say Jeffrey is HIV cured or not.

[Laura Beale]

Jeffrey waited to hear more about the trip. He kept reaching out to the clinic, but they kept putting him off. Eventually, in the spring of 2022, Zeb heard from Jeffrey.

[Zebariah Newman]

I think Dr. Serhat's in trouble.

[Laura Beale]

That was a serious understatement and Jeffrey would soon have a lot more than a trip to worry about. Like was anything he thought he knew about the Doctor actually real?

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[Laura Beale]

from Wondery. I'm Laura Beale and this is Dr. Death Bad Magic. This is episode five the data are the Data. Over 5,000 miles away from Los Angeles, Enochian investor Ulay Abogo sat in his home in Denmark, staring at an email he'd just received, his mouth hung open in shock. On his screen was an article saying that the company co founder had been arrested on murder for hire charges. As he told The Danish podcast, Dr. No, I walked out to the bathroom and threw up. At first I didn't believe it. Abigo was used to the boom and bust roller coaster of investing, and he'd stared down major losses in the past without even blinking. But this arrest was different. This time someone had been killed and the motive prosecutors were pursuing connected right back to the biotech company. He found the many sides of the company's scientific founder hard to square. As he told the podcast, it is difficult for me to understand that you can call yourself a doctor without being one. You can be arrested for participating in and hiring assassins and at the same time be a genius. Abilgo turned off his phone and locked himself in his bedroom. He knew many people would be calling him with questions and he wouldn't be able to answer any of them.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

What's at stake for Minoken at this point is its absolute survival.

[Laura Beale]

The Hindenburg team was scrambling to finalize their story after news of Serhat's arrest. The market was watching Enochian, but that could change any day, so they needed to get their report out as quickly as possible. They worked around the clock, checking and rechecking every claim in their article, making sure that every accusation was backed up with evidence. Anything short of that meant all you

[Nate Anderson]

have to show for your 12 month investigation is an investment loss on top of all the research expenses, on top of the legal bills. And in a case like Enochian, you might also have an incredibly wealthy murderous psychopath who's not Very fond of you.

[Laura Beale]

It wasn't enough for the report to be true. It had to be ironclad. Thomas, from Hindenburg knew he needed to put the team's findings to Enochian's executives before the story published.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

You have the privilege of putting in a final phone call that you've got them banged to rights. Hey, your top scientist has been arrested on murder for hire charges. What have you got to say? I mean, that is a real, real buzz.

[Laura Beale]

But this time, things weren't quite that cinematic.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

That feat of trying to get anybody on the company on the record was an absolute nightmare.

[Laura Beale]

The CEO, Mark Dibel, wouldn't take Thomas's calls. Neither would a key member of the board of directors, Carol Brosgaard, or the man who brought Serhat into the company, chairman, Renee Sendlove. They were stonewalling, and the strategy was working because each day that Thomas failed to get someone to comment, Enochian's stock was climbing back up. By May 27, two days after Serhat's arrest, the stock had almost erased its losses. And if it kept climbing, it could be financially disastrous for Hindenburg.

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[Laura Beale]

Please check the number. Two days before Hindenburg planned to go to press, Thomas was still trying to find someone to talk to at Enochian.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

I just kept trawling and trawling through SEC filings and other documents and finally came across a US phone number, probably several years old. But I thought, hey, I think it was a Florida number from Recollection, and so think, wow, well, what the hell? Put in the call, guy answers the phone, hey, is this Rene?

[Mark Deibel]

Yeah.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

Yeah, it's Rene.

[Laura Beale]

It was the Renee Sendlev, the chair of Enochian, the man who had merged his company with Serhat's. Thomas said he was a journalist, and Renee stayed on the line.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

I said, did you know at the time that you did this merger deal, at the time that you announced it, that you were dealing with a felon?

[Laura Beale]

In 2017, Serhat had been arrested on 14 felony counts relating to fraud and theft. It had never been clear how much Renee and Enochian knew about Serhat's criminal charges. Renee's response caught Thomas off guard.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

And he said, yes, we knew, but he only had to pay a fine of 400 bucks. And I knew exactly what that was about, and I didn't see that there was any need to discuss that.

[Laura Beale]

He also said that he didn't think Serhat had been convicted. Thomas didn't think that was the whole picture. If anyone looked at the case file, they'd see A series of high value financial thefts and frauds that might concern any potential business partner. So he tried again.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

Why didn't you stop it? You know, Rene Sindlev said to me, he says, regardless of anything that's happened, I still have to admit he's a genius, whether he's a doctor or not.

[Laura Beale]

Rene's belief in Sarah Hut's abilities had not changed.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

It's like, how do you square that circle? You know, just how do you do it? You hired him because you thought he was a doctor. Everything pointed the fact that he's a doctor, he can't be a genius whether he's a doctor or not. He's either a genius and a doctor or he's an absolute con man that you've fallen for. But Sindlev seemed to believe that both things were possible.

[Laura Beale]

Thomas pressed Renee about Serhat's arrest in the murder for hire plot.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

He said, I don't care whether he's guilty or not. If he is guilty, he needs to be punished for it. And if he's not guilty, well, good for him. How, as chairman of a U.S. listed company, can you be telling me that you do not care if your founder and scientific founder is guilty or not of conspiracy to murder?

[Laura Beale]

We reached out to Renee Senlev for this story, but he declined to comment. It was June 1, 2022, a week since Serhat was arrested. The markets were going to open in just over an hour and Enochian stock was down just 60 cents from where it was before. Nate sat in his office chair reading the story one last time.

[Nate Anderson]

We focused largely on his background, so we focused on how he had apparently fabricated every bit of his educational background that we could find, that he didn't graduate with multiple PhDs, that he didn't have any medical degrees or license. He was in fact a low level Turkish street magician who had fled the country after charges of defrauding locals in Turkey. And we also highlighted of course his massive white collar crime spree that he undertook right when he got to the US Just really a buffet of various different flavors of white collar fraud.

[Laura Beale]

The article also detailed his treatment of cancer patients from Denmark and Pennsylvania.

[Nate Anderson]

We really focused on his history to date to show that this is not the Michelangelo you think you have. This guy is a complete con artist.

[Laura Beale]

Nate checked in with his team and when everyone gave the all clear, he pressed the button to publish their investigation into see their hatch and just went

[Nate Anderson]

outside and took a long walk and smoked a cigarette. And the reaction when I came back was pretty much instantaneous.

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[Laura Beale]

AU the article began to rocket around the Internet. It made its way to Guy Rokin, the podcaster who'd interviewed Sara Hunt.

[Guy Rokin]

I get a DM, a LinkedIn message from someone who, I don't know, being like, hey, have you seen this article? Your podcast episode is referenced, I open it up and the title is Miracle Cures and Murder for Hire. How a Spoon Bending Turkish magician built a $600 million NASDAQ listed scam based on a Lifetime of Lies. And boy was I. I was just blown away by this article.

[Laura Beale]

He thought back to Sarah Hut's party he'd gone to in the Hollywood Hills. Suddenly all the magicians that were there made more sense. But nothing else did.

[Guy Rokin]

The hiring of the hitman is some next level shit for me, that is. And then, and then those like the medical fraudulence and the degree of just. I mean, it's really baffling.

[Laura Beale]

The Hindenburg team began hearing from people all over the world.

[Nate Anderson]

The reaction was like, holy shit. Like what are you even talking about? Fake magician who lies about scientific research is not the norm for criticism of a public company listed on the nasdaq.

[Laura Beale]

Sure enough, Enochian's share price dropped again. Hindenburg's report had spooked investors and their short sell had worked.

[Nate Anderson]

Yes, in this case we did make more than the cost of research for our short.

[Laura Beale]

Nate won't say how much they made, but the Risk had paid off.

[Nate Anderson]

Sometimes you can even be right on facts, wrong on timing. There's all sorts of reasons why a stock can go up. So it is often a very risky, I mean, always really a risky endeavor. But yeah, no, this one was one that worked for us.

[Laura Beale]

Enogian's reaction to the story was immediate. The day the story went up, its CEO, Mark Deibel, wrote a letter to Enochian shareholders. I have spoken to some of you about the serious and disturbing news that broke last week about Serhat Gumruchu.

[Thomas (Hindenburg Research)]

They try and tell us in the press release there has never been a formal role for Gumruchu in the company and his remaining informal role as his scientific advisor is concluded. So they kind of say we stand by his credentials, but he's not got a hand in the day to day running of the company.

[Laura Beale]

This was damage control.

[Nate Anderson]

So the company came out and said that they strongly refuted our findings. But noticeably in the press release where they claimed that everything was great, they stopped referring to Sirhat as Dr. Sirhat. They just started calling him Sirhat.

[Laura Beale]

At that point, Enochien called Hindenburg's article, quote, misleading propaganda intended to drive the company's stock price down. They said there had never been a formal role for Serhat in the company and that his informal role of scientific advisor had concluded. And they were insistent that their patents still had the potential to cure deadly diseases. In other words, they were saying that even if Serhat was a multiple fraudster and suspected murderer, his ideas still had merit. Deibel wrote, the science is the science, the data are the data. But how could Serhat's medical miracles be believed if it lied about everything else? One of the people focused on that question was Zeb. He was wondering what it meant for his friend Jeffrey.

[Zebariah Newman]

The very first thing I was concerned with was, is Jeffrey okay? I started to trace back in my mind all of the times where he appeared sick or run down. I started to question, like, was his undetectable status real? You know, like why? It just. Everything started to flash in my mind and, and Jeffrey was very quick to reassure me and everyone that he was okay, but I don't believe that he was super okay.

[Laura Beale]

Zeb knew that Jeffrey didn't want to ruin the trial by going back on his old medication. Even when he'd been too sick to leave his house, he hadn't given up on Sarah's cure. So Jeffrey called Sarah Hut's clinic and called and called. No one there could tell him what to do. So he went back on a regimen of antiretroviral drugs and ended his HIV treatment trial. We reached out to Mark Deibel from Enochian about Jeffrey's treatment and he responded we had no involvement in the administration of this treatment to Mr. Drew. Moreover, Enochian had no involvement with any treatment conducted by Seraph Clinic and did not work with the Seraph Research Institute on any HIV treatment. Mark Deibel, however, was aware of Jeffrey's trial and Enochian stood to benefit financially from any positive outcome. As far as Zeb could tell, the whole thing was a huge loss for his friend.

[Zebariah Newman]

When we would do these press events and these Q and A's, the just pride that he felt for potentially being a part of something that would help so many people was just massive for him. And so when all of that got taken away and suddenly he got put back on medication, it was devastating.

[Laura Beale]

Jeffrey had spent two years of his life sacrificing his well being in the search for a cure. Had it all been a sham?

[Zebariah Newman]

We'll never know how much this has affected his physical body and what the ramifications of this will be. And will he be able to withstand like cancer or some other type of sickness or disease that comes with life? It's incredibly infuriating.

[Laura Beale]

We did reach out to Jeffrey for this story, but he declined to comment. Not long after Serhat's arrest, Zeb's documentary on Jeffrey was taken down by the streaming service that bought it for Zeb. That was tragic.

[Zebariah Newman]

I feel like in this entire tsunami of terrible bullshit, Jeffrey's story has been totally lost. And his active service and his just willingness to put his life on the line to honor his fallen brothers that have died from this disease has turned totally been lost.

[Laura Beale]

A month after Hindenburg's article came out, another statement was posted on Enochian's website. The company said they'd been reviewing Serhat's test results. Quote, the results of this investigation verified key primary data for the company's HIV and cancer pipeline. But that wasn't all. The company also disclosed that Serhad had faked the results of animal studies for their Covid and hepatitis B treatments. In this case, the data wasn't the data. As a result, the company will initiate legal action against Gumrookchoo over the falsified data Enochian was now taking to court its own inventor and co founder, the man they described as a genius.

[Nate Anderson]

They sued Serha alleging that they had been duped and they had no idea that it was just a big fraud all along. And how could this happen? Just such a horrific surprise. And my thought was that this was just entirely disingenuous to show. If anyone asks, like, look, we were also surprised by this. We had no idea. I mean, we were in line to make, you know, tens of millions of dollars from these lies. And there are red flags all over the place. But how could anyone have seen this?

[Laura Beale]

By the time the lawsuit was filed, Enochian's share price had fallen to $2.11 a share, and the company and its investors had lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result.

[Nate Anderson]

The largest holder of Enokian stock was Sirhat Gamruku himself and his family members and religious entities. So the biggest loser in the stock market was Serhat himself, which is exactly how it should be in our view. The CEO and several other executives and board members had stock, so they also lost significant amounts of their paper holdings.

[Laura Beale]

The fallout from the revelations about Sarah was worse for the patients and the people who loved them, those who had placed their hope in Serhat's hands.

[Nate Anderson]

I think what he did was he preyed on vulnerability wherever he could find it and looked for the absolute most vulnerable people he could find. And came in with a smile on his face and a calm voice and credentials and the white lab coat and pretended that he was going to solve their most horrific problem in exchange for a lot of money. And people bought it.

[Laura Beale]

What was going through Serhat's mind as he offered these treatments?

[Nate Anderson]

It's tough to, like, pinpoint the motivation for Serhat. Certainly money. I think he was motivated also by fame. I think possibly motivated by a desire for respect amongst peers or intelligent people.

[Laura Beale]

But perhaps there's something else. That same look that his old school friend saw in his eyes long ago back in Turkey, that same hysteria when he first saw a magic trick. The delight of deception.

[Nate Anderson]

A lot of times with someone like him, they're also motivated by a joy in tricking people and using his wits to get money from people. Like a predator that feels a sense of joy from his prey.

[Mark Deibel]

All right, welcome back inside our proactive newsroom. And joining me now is Dr. Mark Deibel.

[Laura Beale]

In late 2023, Enochian CEO, was excited to make an announcement.

[Mark Deibel]

He is the CEO of Renovaro Biosciences.

[Laura Beale]

And Dr. Deibel, great to see you. How are you?

[Guy Rokin]

Great, how are you?

[Zebariah Newman]

Nice to be with you, Steve. Thanks for inviting me.

[Laura Beale]

Enochian had a new name and a new focus.

[Zebariah Newman]

Renobaro, it means to renew, is focused on platform approaches to strengthen our own immune system, to renew the immune system, to retrain it so that it can control diseases on its own with A

[Laura Beale]

new name came, a new Focus on cancer. They were planning a merger with an up and coming AI company to supercharge their cancer detection and that HIV treatment that Jeffrey went through so much for. In their annual report, the company announced they were dropping plans to make it into a clinical trial. In a separate statement to us, Mark Deibel said the results from the patient were promising and that he's hopeful the approach will be evaluated. As Enochian went public with the rebrand, their stock surged once more. Nate has seen it all before.

[Nate Anderson]

I think it's just a cheap tactic to try and sort of gloss over the fact that they had just run this massive entity filled with lies and just change the story a little bit and see if they can sell the new story to people. And sadly, I think it will work. I think it's already clear that they've managed to pump their stock back up. They've got people excited about this new AI venture that seems completely outrageous. And my guess is they will, if they haven't already, dump stock on the people that are buying into the new story. And I think they'll probably just keep doing it over and over and over again until and unless they are actually stopped.

[Laura Beale]

Meanwhile, one of the largest shareholders of Renovaro's stock is behind bars. Serhat is still awaiting trial on murder for hire charges relating to the kidnapping and death of Gregory Davis. He has pled not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison. Cerhat's trial isn't scheduled to start until October 2024. We reached out to him, his family and his attorneys, but all declined to comment. In the meantime, according to Sarah Hut's friend Brooke Casey, he's making the most of his time behind bars. He sort of sees this as an opportunity. He's been, you know, raising the consciousness of the people that he's met in incarceration, teaching meditation, teaching yoga. He's taking this as this moment to, you know, meditate and to, you know,

[Nate Anderson]

have access to people that he wouldn't

[Laura Beale]

have had access to. People who might be looking for a guru or a magician or a genius who can make a, all of their problems vanish.

[Nate Anderson]

I, I think in that respect, I'm very fortunate. I can, I can say pretty much over 90% of things I've come up with panned out. And, and the less than 10% that didn't pan out taught me a lot.

[Laura Beale]

Listen to Dr. Death, the cowboy on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Dr. Death, the Cowboy early and ad free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

[Mark Deibel]

Whether you're exploring your current fascinations or discovering new ones, Audible has all the stories that'll introduce you to your most fascinating self. Tap into a whole new world of heated conversations with a saucy romantasy series, become your friend group sci fi expert on the latest blockbuster book to screen adaptation, or find unexpected reveals through the exclusive episodes of a viral true crime podcast. However you choose to listen, Audible keeps you fascinated so you can be just as fascinating all in one easy app. With plans now starting at $8.99, you'll get access to over 1 million audiobooks and podcasts, including trending bestsellers, the hottest new releases and exclusive podcasts you won't find anywhere else. Sign up now to become a member and get any audiobook every month plus exclusive podcasts. Plans now start at $8.99. Audible be fascinated, Be fascinating.

[Laura Beale]

From Wondery this is episode five of five of doctor Bad Magic. I'm your host, Laura Beale. This series is written by Benjamin Gray. Producer is Nikka Singh Senior producer is Russell Finch Story editor is Alison Weintraub Senior senior editor is Rachel B. Doyle Fact checking by Jacqueline Colletti additional reporting by Gulsan Harman and Alyssa Jong Perry Production assistants by Mariah Dennis and Emily Locke Sound design and mixing by Kyle Randall Senior Managing producer is Lata Pandya Coordinating producer is Heather Baloga produced by Storyforce. Music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Frisson Sync. Special thanks to Jesper Peterson, to Ali Dashti and Guy Rokin of the Fancy Lab Coat Guild podcast, and to Nate Anderson and the staff at Hindenburg Research for use of their reporting. Executive producers are Bly Pagan Faust and Corey Shepard Stern for Storyforce. Our executive producers are George Lavender Marshall Louis and Jen Sargent for Wondery.