The Girlfriends S5/E3: The Sting

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe
Episode: S5/E3 "The Sting"
Release Date: April 27, 2026
Host: Anna Sinfield

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Episode Overview

This episode, "The Sting," delves deeply into the unraveling of Derek Alldred's web of deception. After Lisa discovers that her boyfriend, who she knew as "Steele Aldridge," is actually the prolific romance scammer Derek Alldred, the narrative follows her journey from heartbreak to determination as she seeks justice—despite a justice system seemingly indifferent to the kind of psychological and financial harm he caused. The episode highlights the camaraderie and resourcefulness of a network of Derek's victims, the frustrating law enforcement response, and the mounting evidence against a serial conman who continues to slip through the cracks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Dramatic Airport Arrest: Realization and Aftermath

• Lisa's Shock: The episode opens with Lisa witnessing "Steele" (Derek) being arrested at an airport after their trip to Hawaii. At first, Derek tries to blame an imaginary twin brother for his troubles, but cracks begin to show.
  • Notable Quote:

    “Steel goes, oh, it’s probably my brother. He impersonates me a lot, gets me in a lot of trouble…”
    (Lisa, 03:45)

• Friends Protecting Friends: Lisa discovers, through a call from her friend Steph, that Derek is not who he claimed to be. Her friends had been trying to protect her, sensing something was wrong.
  • “It strikes Lisa…all holiday her friends had been calling and texting. They’d been unusually persistent…” (Anna Sinfield, 05:01)

2. The Sting Operation Backstory

• Victims Left Unheard: Paul Meskin, a U.S. Marshal, recounts an earlier attempt to catch Derek following a tip from a victim’s mother. Authorities initially dismiss romance scam cases, revealing flaws in the system’s view of financial crimes within relationships.
  • “Any court...is going to say...‘well, you did that willingly. Because you were in a relationship.’”
    (Paul Meskin, 09:13)
• Sting Details: They try to catch Derek using a reactivated stolen credit card, leading to a major but ultimately unsuccessful stakeout at a train station.
  • Notable Moment:

    “The only people that left the train station were those that had gotten off the train.” (Paul Meskin, 14:09)

• Eventually Caught: Derek is eventually arrested in Portland, but after only nine months in jail, he's back out and quickly preying on new victims.
  • “He literally had just gotten out of prison. Like a week or two before I met him, so he wasted no time.”
    (Lisa, 16:10)

3. Lisa’s Investigation and Heartbreak

• Shattered Trust: Back home, Lisa pours over Derek’s belongings and digital traces with Steph. She realizes that everything she thought she knew—his friends, his family, their shared expenses—was a lie arranged through apps and calculated trickery.
  • “It just had my bank account, my Amex stuff, my Wells Fargo account, anything that I had used on my computer, and then my Social Security number.”
    (Lisa, 22:39)
• Financial and Emotional Fallout: Lisa uncovers unauthorized charges totaling nearly $10,000—every trip, meal, and gift was at her expense. She also suspects she was drugged at one point in Hawaii, an allegation Derek denies.
  • “It just makes you feel so...just used, and just upset that someone can do that to a human being.”
    (Lisa, 23:32)

4. Frustrations with Law Enforcement

• Systemic Failure: When Lisa provides her statement, police seem indifferent. Prosecutors refuse the case, viewing Lisa’s consent to share her laptop as permission, despite her being systematically deceived.
  • “I just feel like they think, oh, another stupid woman got, you know, swindled by a guy.”
    (Lisa, 26:30)
  • “If he doesn’t admit to it, we really can’t do anything. And more or less, we have more important things to do.”
    (Lisa, 25:41)
• Attempts to Elicit a Confession: Lisa is advised to call Derek in prison and try to get him to confess on tape. He refuses to admit wrongdoing, instead gaslighting her further.
  • “He would not. I would fight with him on the phone. I’m like, you are lying to me…He’d kind of get angry on the phone: ‘You misheard me. I never said that.’”
    (Lisa, 31:28)

5. The Victims Unite: Building a Case

• Derek Turns the Tables: In a shocking twist, Derek, upon release, files a restraining order against Lisa. She must hire a lawyer to get it dismissed, suffering further financial and emotional abuse.
  • “I spent more money on him...to get this restraining order canceled. And then he doesn’t show up.”
    (Lisa, 33:33)
• Connecting the Dots: Through her niece, Lisa connects with Cindy, another of Derek’s victims, and then with other women via a Facebook group. These women meticulously chronicle Derek’s movements and scams, sharing evidence and support.
  • “She was hell bent on getting this guy. Cindy had started this big file going on him about all his past women.”
    (Lisa, 34:21)

6. A Pattern of Destruction: More Victims, Growing Boldness

• Mounting Evidence: The group uncovers Derek’s escalating crimes—draining retirement accounts, multiple acts of forgery, impersonation, and emotional manipulation, targeting accomplished women (doctors, scientists, teachers).
  • “My heart broke for them thinking he’s doing it again.”
    (Lisa, 35:18)
• Extreme Control: Chilling stories emerge, including one where Derek held a woman’s passport and drained her accounts, effectively holding her hostage.
  • “He takes her license, her passport. He basically holds her hostage.”
    (Leona Hamid, 38:46)

7. Another Narrow Escape from Justice

• Pattern Repeats: Even when arrested, Derek is released while police “build a case,” giving him yet another opportunity to disappear.
  • “Woodbury PD had released Derek while they built a case. And…he simply disappeared again.”
    (Anna Sinfield, 41:02)
• The Women’s Resilience: Despite repeated setbacks and trauma, Lisa and the others refuse to give up. The episode ends with Lisa vowing to end Derek’s scams—setting the stage for the next chapter.
  • “I vowed I will be his last target.”
    (Lisa, 41:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Law Enforcement’s Response:

  "It was just money taken by somebody I dated."
  (Lisa, 26:44)
  "There’s no way we missed him. It’s like, damn, that was about as cut and dried and perfect as we thought it was going to be.”
  (Paul Meskin, 14:23)

• On Female Solidarity:

  “Cindy had started this big file going on him about all his past women.”
  (Lisa, 34:21)
  “I vowed I will be his last target.”
  (Lisa, 41:39)

• On the Emotional Toll:

  “How can I ever trust anybody again? Like, he just got into my heart. I trusted everything he said and he just ripped it out.”
  (Lisa, 24:26)

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Key Timestamps

• 03:09 — Lisa confronts Derek at airport, story starts to unravel
• 07:00 — Paul Meskin’s investigation begins
• 12:05 — The train station sting operation setup
• 16:10 — Derek is arrested, released after a short sentence
• 22:39 — Lisa finds evidence of identity theft and fraud
• 23:32 — Lisa suspects non-consensual drugging
• 25:41 — Police show little interest; prosecutors pass
• 31:28 — Lisa attempts to get a confession from Derek
• 33:33 — Derek files a restraining order against Lisa
• 34:21 — Victims’ network forms, sharing evidence
• 38:46 — Story of a woman held hostage by Derek
• 41:39 — Lisa resolves to be “his last target”

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Conclusion

Episode 3 underscores the immense harm that romance scammers inflict—not just financially, but emotionally and psychologically. It shows how deeply flawed the justice system can be in addressing these crimes and highlights the power of collective action. Through meticulously explored interviews, personal reflections, and investigative reporting, "The Sting" illustrates both the systemic indifference faced by victims and their unbreakable resolve to protect each other and see justice done.

Stay tuned for the next episode, where the fight continues, and the stakes get even higher—this time as Derek turns his sights on Texas…

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If you've been affected by the issues in this episode, see the show notes for support resources at nomore.org and fightcybercrime.org.

Transcript

[Kel Penn]

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[Anna Sinfield]

Novel hey Girlfriends, Anna here. Just a quick heads up on what to expect in this episode of the Girlfriends. We'll be exploring themes of coercive control and there'll be a reference to non consensual drug use. But it's also a story, as always, of true friendship, and there's going to be some cool as hell nurses. If any of the themes feel difficult, you'll find links to mental health and support organizations in the episode Description Last time on the Girlfriends Trust me, babe,

[Lisa]

are you Derek Aldridge? And he goes, yes.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa is walking through baggage claim when two cops on Segways arrest the man she thought was named Steele.

[Lisa]

And I looked at him like, what the hell? One cop goes, you're good to go, but we're taking him. I'm like, what the hell's going on?

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa and Derrick, formerly known as Steele, have just returned from what should have been a romantic holiday in Hawaii. Now they're standing face to face with two airport cops. Time for Mr. Steele Finns to start explaining himself.

[Lisa]

Steel goes, oh, it's probably my brother. He impersonates me a lot, gets me in a lot of trouble, so there's probably some warrant out or something for him.

[Anna Sinfield]

Now, Steele had told Lisa he had a good for nothing twin brother, but that doesn't explain why he just answered to the name Derek.

[Lisa]

He hands me his suitcase. He's like, here, just take this. You know, everything's okay babe. Don't worry. I'll see you soon.

[Anna Sinfield]

After a week of increasingly irritating assurances, the power of Derek's patented Don't worry, babe has really begun to wane. Especially now as he's carted away by an airport cop.

[Lisa]

And the other cop goes, you're free to go.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa's left standing alone in a state of shock. She doesn't know what to do with herself when suddenly rays of light beam down. A choir of cherubs sing. A phone vibrates in her pocket. Stephanie texts me, her guardian angel from the past week who has stopped at nothing to get her girl home.

[Lisa]

She goes, did you land? I said, yes. She says, good.

[Anna Sinfield]

It strikes Lisa in that moment, all holiday her friends had been calling and texting. They've been unusually persistent about her whereabouts, her flight details, the license plate of her Jeep rental. Even her boss's very chill attitude over Lisa missing her morning shift seemed a little unusual. Suddenly, looking down at that text from Steph, it all Makes sense. Steph knows something.

[Lisa]

She says, let me know when you get home. I need to talk to you. And I said, oh, hell no, I'm not waiting. Like, what the hell is going on?

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa calls Steph as soon as she can.

[Lisa]

Okay, I'm on the shuttle bus. What is going on? And so she then says, well, I'll tell you.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sitting on the bus with her luggage and Steele's carry on briefcase, Lisa learns the truth. One, there is no Steele Aldridge.

[Lisa]

No, that is not his name.

[Anna Sinfield]

The guy Lisa thought was her boyfriend is actually Derek Alldred. Two, she's not the only woman he screwed over. Steph tells her he also dated a colleague's friend.

[Lisa]

He had swindled her out of money. She dated him before you.

[Anna Sinfield]

Three, the reason he was arrested in baggage claim has absolutely nothing to do with a dastardly twin brother. There is actually no twin brother, by

[Lisa]

the way, he wasn't supposed to leave the state because he's a felon.

[Anna Sinfield]

And four. Oh, that's just a casual one. Turns out almost 10 months before their first date, Steele had been the target of a multi agency undercover sting operation.

[Paul Meskin]

I want to get this guy because he was just a parasite.

[Anna Sinfield]

But that sting operation didn't quite go to plan.

[Paul Meskin]

Crap.

[Anna Sinfield]

I'm Anna Sinfield and from the teams At Novel and iHeart podcasts, you're listening to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe, I I. Episode 3 the sting. It's the fall of 2014. About a year before Lisa witnessed that dramatic airport arrest. Paul Meskin is sitting in the Office of the U.S. marshal Services fugitive Task Force in Minneapolis. His job is to catch people on the run from the law.

[Paul Meskin]

Murderers, rapists, gun cases, bad people that really need to get off the street.

[Anna Sinfield]

He's printing out a few documents when an assistant grabs his attention.

[Paul Meskin]

Hey, can you take this call from this lady who has concerns about an information on a guy that's wanted? Okay, yeah, no problem.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's a concerned mom.

[Paul Meskin]

She was almost in tears.

[Anna Sinfield]

Her adult daughter, Joanne, has recently been the victim of fraud.

[Paul Meskin]

Her daughter was a teacher, met this guy named Derek that claimed all this stuff and bilked her for a lot of money. Thousands of dollars.

[Anna Sinfield]

Our least favorite man, Derek Alldred, reportedly racks up 20k on her credit cards before she discovers the truth and reports him to the police. And in a story that's becoming depressingly familiar, she's told taking her case any further would be a waste of time.

[Paul Meskin]

Any court in the country is going to say, well, you know, you did that willingly. Because you were in a relationship. Yeah, well, it was a relationship. It was all a fraud. But there's no prosecutor that would ever charge a case like that.

[Anna Sinfield]

But Joanne's mom's got chutzpah, so she does some of her own research on the guy. She found out that In June of 2014, Derek stayed at the swanky St. Paul Hotel, racking up a significant bill while pretending to be a doctor. Drinks, room service, the whole hog. And then when it came time to pay the bill, he disappeared. By the time his sentencing hearing came around yet again, he was nowhere to be found. Authorities had issued a warrant for Derek's arrest, but was anyone actually looking for him? And that's where Paul comes in. Joanne's mom thinks if the cops won't catch him for defrauding her daughter, they can at least put him in jail for a hotel scam. And she's come armed with info.

[Paul Meskin]

Receipts, credit card bills. Here's a business card. And with this business card, it had an address.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's not the kind of case that Paul's unit would normally prioritize. But something about this call gets to him, so he gets to work. First, he heads to Derek's office, the one on that business card.

[Paul Meskin]

I went to the address and showed pictures that never heard him. The law firm that he's listed as working for never existed there. In fact, the suite number that they had never existed in this building.

[Anna Sinfield]

Paul, now even more perplexed, enlists the help of a financial investigator on the team who comes up with an idea. They know that Derek still has one of Joanne's credit cards. She blocks it once she learned the truth. But the investigator reckons if she unblocks it and Derek uses it someplace, they'll know where he is.

[Paul Meskin]

And so I reactivated. And that's when we learned of the Amtrak ticket.

[Anna Sinfield]

Derek had used Joanne's card to buy

[Paul Meskin]

a train ticket out of St. Paul

[Anna Sinfield]

to go to Portland, the 6:40am train on November 7, 2014. The cops have a time and a location. Now all they need to do is wait. It's stakeout time. Saint Paul Union Depot is a big, ostentatious station. Grand columns, large vted ceilings, people everywhere. And dotted around the station, oh so casually, are about a dozen undercover officers.

[Paul Meskin]

We had three guys on the train platform, other guys that were up in the train station itself. Couple parking lots, a couple parking ramps on the streets around.

[Anna Sinfield]

They've been in place since 4:35am Scanning faces, waiting for the appearance of one balding, middle aged white guy about Yay tall. Paul's in charge of this whole operation, so he's waiting in his truck outside the station listening in over the radio.

[Paul Meskin]

Any updates? Any updates? Any updates you heard anymore?

[Anna Sinfield]

They could be waiting for some time, but no worry. Paul is guaranteed to bring supplies.

[Paul Meskin]

Honey roasted peanuts, dry roast, licorice, gumdrops, crackers, Skittles. The guys on my team always called me snacks.

[Anna Sinfield]

Then something interrupts the picnic. As the train approaches, Paul decides he has to see this guy taken down with his own eyes.

[Paul Meskin]

I came inside kinda like I was coming pick somebody up.

[Anna Sinfield]

And Jen watched the train Derek is due to catch. Pulls in at the platform. Undercover officers board, searching faces among the passengers. No sign of him. As the clock ticks down, the train prepares to leave.

[Paul Meskin]

The train pulls off. Let's just give a couple minutes.

[Anna Sinfield]

Maybe he'll come tearing down the station lobby, running late. Maybe he noticed suspicious police like activity and didn't board.

[Paul Meskin]

Everybody just hold your position.

[Anna Sinfield]

And then it's gone. Trundling into the distance, headed for the west coast.

[Paul Meskin]

The only people that left the train station were those that had gotten off the train.

[Anna Sinfield]

The message from surveillance is unanimous. There's no Derek in a nearby car watching. He's not scanned his ticket at all.

[Paul Meskin]

There's no way we missed him. It's like, damn, that was about as cut and dried and perfect as we thought it was going to be.

[Anna Sinfield]

The next day, Paul gets a call from the financial investigator. Paul's still not sure how it happened.

[Paul Meskin]

He's on the train. We confirmed he's on the train.

[Anna Sinfield]

Maybe Derek missed a local service, had to board the train at a later station. Maybe he got tipped off somehow. Whatever the reason, they're sure of his location now.

[Paul Meskin]

He's an hour and a half out

[Anna Sinfield]

of Portland, Oregon, on the literal other side of the country from where Paul's team is.

[Paul Meskin]

Crap.

[Anna Sinfield]

But no matter, because Paul snacks Meskin has won. Some friends over the years.

[Paul Meskin]

Called Kevin and say, Kevin, here's my situation.

[Anna Sinfield]

And those friends have some of their own friends.

[Paul Meskin]

And he reached out to his contact

[Anna Sinfield]

in Portland and they assembled a team and arrived just in time to see the train pulling in.

[Paul Meskin]

Derek came walking off and they took him into custody without incident. Got shipped back to Minnesota and went to court and got sentenced to the county workhouse.

[Anna Sinfield]

Derek is finally sentenced for theft by swindle of the St. Paul Hotel. On top of his sentence for skipping court, Derek is released back into the community after a grand total of nine months. A reformed man,

[Lisa]

He literally had just gotten out of prison. Like a week or two before I met him, so he wasted no time.

[Anna Sinfield]

So no, Derek is not a reformed man, but he's fast becoming a man with dangerous enemies. Derek's victims are about to find each other, and if I were him, I'd be very, very nervous.

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[Public Investing Advertiser]

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 disclosure is available at public.com disclosures kids, pets, life.

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[Kel Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Kal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project, Hail Mary Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. There's places in this book that that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great, cuz it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kel Penn]

Listen to Irsay the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa spent the whole journey home from the airport, all two hours of it, on the phone to her friends. She now knows all about the St. Paul Hotel scam, Derek's probation violation, his total and utter betrayal of her.

[Lisa]

And I'm grateful there wasn't a lot of people on the bus because I'm bawling my eyes out.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa finally gets back to her car. By the time she makes it home, her friend Steph is already there waiting with open arms.

[Leona Hamid]

We just embraced each other.

[Anna Sinfield]

I do think there were some tears.

[Lisa]

She goes, I have just been a nervous wreck since you've been gone in Hawaii.

[Leona Hamid]

I was just relieved that she was home, safe.

[Anna Sinfield]

And the two of them waste no time. They start the search immediately for anything and everything they could find, which might help them build a case against Derek.

[Lisa]

I'm going through all his stuff, seeing his real name, like, thinking, holy crap.

[Anna Sinfield]

Searching the luggage he handed off to Lisa.

[Lisa]

I'm finding his phone. He had this app for people calling. Like, you could hit it and they could call you pretending to be somebody. Or if you hit him, they would call him.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's all starting to click into place. None of those calls were real. None of the texts she got from his friends and family.

[Lisa]

He had his roommate's name there, his sister's name there, his mom's name there.

[Anna Sinfield]

So he'd be talking to no one.

[Lisa]

Literally no one. I think he had the one Friend that was pretending to be his sister. Because I would actually, like, hear a female voice when he was talking to his sister, but no one else.

[Anna Sinfield]

Looking back, his calls had seemed strangely well timed.

[Lisa]

We'd be talking about his daughter and then like two minutes later, oh, she would call.

[Anna Sinfield]

Even though Derek talked to various women he dated about sisters, brothers, a daughter. I want to make it really clear. None of Derek's family members have ever been implicated in any of his crimes or accused of any wrongdoing. When Lisa goes through her credit card statements, she finds that she isn't just out of pocket for the stuff Derek or Steele had asked her to pay for. It was everything. All their flights, their hotel stays, their meals, all of it, unbeknownst to Lisa, had been charged to her own card.

[Lisa]

How it did, I don't know, because I always had my credit card on me, on my body. It was in my purse, attached to me. Then I start going through his briefcase and I'm finding these USB ports.

[Anna Sinfield]

She opens one on her laptop.

[Lisa]

It just had my bank account, my Amex stuff, my Wells Fargo account, anything that I had used on my computer, and then my Social Security number.

[Anna Sinfield]

Going through his phone, Lisa realizes that Steele, AKA Derek, wasn't volunteering at the homeless shelter.

[Lisa]

I found out he lived there. The hotels, the resort, the cheap. And the, er visit and this visit and that visit and the dinner cruise. I think it was close to almost ten grand.

[Anna Sinfield]

Bombarded by all this new information, Lisa thinks back on her relationship, casting memories into a new light. She remembers the time she blacked out in Hawaii.

[Lisa]

I really think he drugged me and brought me upstairs because I don't remember any of that. It just makes you feel so. It just, I don't know, just used and just upset that someone can do that to a human being.

[Anna Sinfield]

Derek says this allegation is completely untrue. But it's a suspicion that has stuck with Lisa for years.

[Lisa]

I was just furious at him and furious at myself for trusting him all these times.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa feels angry, but also like she's somehow to blame, which of course, she isn't. It's the sort of moment when you want to regain some control, but Lisa doesn't get there. Normally when you go through a breakup, you have a bit of time to process it on your own. But in a way, Lisa is the last to know.

[Lisa]

I just felt like the most stupidest person in the world. Like, how could I let this human do this to me? When I'm not a stupid woman, I'm all educated. I thought I, you know, I thought I knew him. But then looking back at like, oh, here's this red flag, here's that red flag, here's that one, and here's that one. But I didn't listen. My heart was just broken. Like, how can I ever trust anybody again? Like, he just got into my heart. I trusted everything he said and he just ripped it out.

[Anna Sinfield]

But it's more than just heartbreak.

[Lisa]

I'm angry beyond words.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's time for Derek to be held accountable. It's late November, and it's cold out in St. Paul, Minnesota. It's been just one day since Lisa learned the truth about Derek. And two officers are pulling into her driveway. The cops want Lisa to provide a statement. She tells them everything. The first date, the Hawaii trip, the credit card stuff. They confiscate Derek's belongings. A black smartphone, three USB sticks, one gray, one white, one black. A phone charger. But really, they don't seem hopeful.

[Lisa]

He's kind of like, whoa, I'm sorry this happened to you, but if he doesn't admit to it, we really can't do anything. And more or less, we have more important things to do.

[Anna Sinfield]

The investigators explained to Lisa that the county's attorneys won't prosecute a case like this. Of all the theft that took place over the holiday, it's only really the initial flight purchases that land within their jurisdiction. And Derrick bought those on her laptop, so he can just claim that she was well aware of the charges.

[Lisa]

With me handing over my laptop and saying, sure, you can use it, you know, it was more or less my fault that I allowed him to do that.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's worth mentioning she gave Steel Aldrich permission to use her laptop. A man who does not actually exist. It's not exactly informed consent.

[Lisa]

It's not like he broke in and took this information from me. I let him in my house. So I just feel like they think, oh, another stupid woman got, you know, swindled by a guy. I wasn't killed. I wasn't beat. It was just money taken by somebody I dated.

[Anna Sinfield]

The investigators tell Lisa she could try contacting local police in Hawaii, but otherwise

[Lisa]

he more or less just said, you know, I'm sorry, you know, if we don't have any more evidence against him, we can't do anything.

[Anna Sinfield]

Then she says they offered her some off the record advice.

[Lisa]

You can call him in prison and try to get him to confess on the phone.

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[Kel Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary Massive Sci fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.

[Ray Porter]

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections, and it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo. Is this indulgence? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply, emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

[Kel Penn]

Listen to Irsay the Audible and I Heart Audio Book Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's November 2015. Lisa is back from Hawaii, grappling with the news that her boyfriend is a con man. And it doesn't seem like the cops can or will do much about it. And Derek, he's back in prison over his probation violation, serving out the remainder of his sentence. Lisa has been informed that in just a few weeks time, Derek is due to be back out on the street. So if Lisa can find some evidence that Derek didn't actually have her permission to buy those flights, maybe the prosecutors can actually do something about it.

[Lisa]

So I bought a little recorder, and I would, you know, call him and I would try to, you know, make him confess.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa speaks to Derek over the phone from prison. It's the first time she's spoken to him as Derek, not as Steele, the man she thought she'd been building a life with.

[Lisa]

I'm like, well, you bought these tickets. He's like, no, I told you I was putting them on your card and I'd pay you back. He would never confess to anything he did. I honestly believe he knew I was trying to record him, but he just. He would not. I would fight with him on the phone. I'm like, you are lying to me. Like, you took my card. You said you'd pay me back, and he'd be like, lisa, I did not. And he kind of would get angry on the phone. You misheard me. I never said that. He even sent me a handwritten letter saying how much he loved me and how much he forgave me for accusing

[Anna Sinfield]

him, and he'd do the same on phone calls.

[Lisa]

You know, I still love you. This is all just a mistake. I'm not this person that you think I am. He was getting out Christmas Day. He wanted me to go out to the prison and pick him up and know, start over again.

[Anna Sinfield]

Needless to say, Lisa doesn't pause the present, unwrapping to pick Derek up from prison. But she does continue to call and text, trying to get him to admit what he did.

[Lisa]

I was so upset and so hellbent on getting him.

[Anna Sinfield]

A couple of weeks after Derek's release, Lisa is at work when someone approaches her, asks her name, and hands her an envelope.

[Lisa]

I remember opening up going, are you freaking kidding me?

[Anna Sinfield]

It's a restraining order. Derek has taken one out against her.

[Lisa]

I started crying and I think I went home. How on earth did this happen?

[Anna Sinfield]

Having already had ten grand stolen from her, Lisa now needs to hire a lawyer. She challenges the restraining order, and by February, she is sitting in court. The park bench where Lisa and Steele had their first date just six months ago is a five minute walk down the street from the courthouse. Lisa anxiously watches the door for a familiar face to appear.

[Lisa]

And every time the door opened, my heart just like, stop. He never shows up.

[Anna Sinfield]

The judge dismisses the case, cancels the restraining order.

[Lisa]

I spent more money on him, on this lawyer, you know, to get this restraining order canceled. And then he doesn't show up.

[Anna Sinfield]

Not only was the justice system ignoring her, it was also being used against her by the man who'd lied and stolen from her. Then she gets some news.

[Lisa]

My niece texts me and says I was googling him and found he had done this with this girl in California,

[Anna Sinfield]

a woman in San Francisco.

[Lisa]

That night, I found her on Facebook connecting with her and talking to her. I was like, holy cow.

[Anna Sinfield]

Cindy, who you heard about in episode two, hadn't seen Derek in two years, but she had spent her time wisely.

[Lisa]

She was hell bent on getting this guy. Cindy had started this big file going on him about all his past women.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's Cindy who puts Lisa in touch with all the other women who'd had the misfortune of dating Derek Alldred. They've got a shared Facebook group chat. By the time Lisa joins, they'd already started plotting out Derek's moves.

[Lisa]

Okay, show me when you dated him. Just keeping a chronological order of all his little steps that he was doing and where he was at. He gets out of prison, gets settled wherever he stays, and then onto the next person.

[Anna Sinfield]

By now, it's a familiar story. Women who'd been targeted by Derek all seem to be falling through a particular crack in the justice system. A crack that Derrick appears to be taking full advantage of. Over only two years, Derrick strikes three more times with three different women in the Minneapolis area alone.

[Lisa]

My heart broke for them thinking he's doing it again.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa Reid's allegations that he'd opened credit cards, stolen jewelry, and even drained a retirement savings account of nearly $200,000 in the space of a few months.

[Lisa]

This was just his power trip of doing this to women because he just for some reason, hated us.

[Anna Sinfield]

Two of those women, once they learned of each other's existence, actually teamed up to try and stop him. And initially it works. An arrest warrant is issued for Derek Aldred. On August 8, 2016. Word spreads through the group chat that Derek has been arrested in Minnesota by local cops. It says at the top, Woodbury Public Safety Police Services incident report. Name Derek Milan Aldred. Check forgery redacted. Told me that at the end. The report describes how a woman files a report against Derek and the cops go to her house to arrest him. He was handcuffed using plastic cuffs in front of his body due to having a wrist brace on his left wrist that made using standard handcuffs impractical. Also on this police report, Derek Alldred's long and complicated arrest history. It's a long list and it's broken down by year. And we start in 2005. Forgery, felony burglary, obtain controlled substances by fraud, felony impersonate fireman, misdemeanor, and I'm sure that's not as a stripper. Burglary, second degree felony false worker comp. Insurance claim. What's frustrating is the list doesn't really tell us much about what happened in between all of these arrests. So we did a bit of digging into some of the statements women have made to investigators, to journalists over the years about their experiences with Derek and discovered even more stories, like one allegation from 2011. An ex wife of Derrick's alleges that he convinced her to briefly move into a hotel while some wiring in her home is being fixed. But when her mother in law visits,

[Leona Hamid]

there are men moving out all of their belongings and the house has been foreclosed on.

[Anna Sinfield]

Producer Leona fills me in on the details.

[Leona Hamid]

The woman that he married loses the house.

[Anna Sinfield]

That's crazy.

[Leona Hamid]

There's another story about a woman who she's dating Derek. She loses her job and she can't afford the rent.

[Anna Sinfield]

She'll explain to the investigators he told her that he was taking care of the rent at a new place, one he had encouraged them to move into, but he wasn't. Not only that, he'd put the property in her name. And once she learned the truth, she was evicted.

[Leona Hamid]

She goes on to lose her entire life savings because he's Drained her bank accounts.

[Anna Sinfield]

He's a proper, proper con man.

[Leona Hamid]

At the end of 2013, after Wendy, after Cindy, he meets another woman from Hawaii, and she's a doctor.

[Anna Sinfield]

The two go on a holiday to Puerto Rico together, where Derek's charming facade seems to drop.

[Leona Hamid]

He takes her license, her passport. He basically holds her hostage.

[Anna Sinfield]

What?

[Leona Hamid]

He reroutes all of her calls and texts to his phone. At one point, she tries to run away and even flags a car down, and he chases her down. By the time she makes it home, she learns that he's wiped all her financial accounts of more than 35,000. Thousand. He's made $60,000 in fraudulent credit card payments. He's taken a $28,000 advance out from her job in, like, unworked shifts. So she's basically fucked. Her business goes bankrupt, she's deeply traumatized, and he's disappeared.

[Anna Sinfield]

Wow, that one feels scary.

[Leona Hamid]

All of these women are skilled, professional, smart, educated women. One of them is a nuclear scientist. And it shouldn't matter. Obviously, it doesn't matter if they're not any of those things or if they were manipulated into handing over money. But it's not even that. What he's done is convince them to be in a relationship with them and then stolen their money.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah, they're not aware about what's going on.

[Leona Hamid]

So I just want you to picture in your mind Derek standing out front of a house in Minnesota with plastic handcuffs on. And now the Woodbury police have arrested him.

[Anna Sinfield]

When I first read the arrest thing, I was like, oh, I'm struggling to get that excited, because it just feels like this man gets away with everything. But having all of this information, it makes it feel like Derek's time is up. But don't get too excited. My suspicions were right. Earlier, Woodbury PD had released Derek while they built a case. And in a move right out of the Derek Alldred playbook, he simply disappeared again. Lisa was trying to move on with her life.

[Lisa]

I'd forget about it for a while, and then another text would come.

[Anna Sinfield]

An update from one of the girlfriends in the group chat. It would bring all the pain back

[Lisa]

for Lisa, who he did this to, who this and that. And it just would make me cry. And just like, this has got to end. I need to let it go. It needs to come out of my life.

[Anna Sinfield]

And just when Lisa resolves to put this whole thing behind her, a new message pings into her inbox. An update so irresistible that Lisa is drawn right back in.

[Lisa]

I vowed I will be his last target

[Anna Sinfield]

next time on the girlfriends. Trust Me Babe Derek sets his sights on a new target in Texas.

[Lisa]

I realized that I can stop him

[Anna Sinfield]

and he learns the hard way that you don't mess with Texas.

[Lisa]

I moved my bookcase in front of my door, I went upstairs and got my gun and I just waited.

[Anna Sinfield]

If you have found any of the themes explored in this episode difficult and you need support or advice, please reach out to our charity partners. Know [e-mail] we'll add some useful links to the episode description. Look after yourself. The Girlfriend's Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit Novel Audio. The series is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield. It's produced by Leona Hamid. Our assistant producer is Valeria Rocker. Our editor is Jo Wheeler. Production management from Cherie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolf. Fact checking by Dania Suleiman Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alex Alexander. The Girlfriend's theme was composed by Daniel Kempson and Louisa Gerstein and performed by Daniel Kempson with vocals by Louisa Gerstein. Music supervision from Daniel Kempson and Anna Sinfield. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemkul, story development by Susie Baker and Olivia Smart. Novel's Director of development is Selena Mehta. Max o' Brien is the Executive Producer for Novel, Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor are the executive producers for iHeart podcasts and the marketing lead is Alison Cantor. Special thanks to Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts. Julie Sensullo, Anne Langston, Carolyn Shirlevin, Katie Gillis, Kelly Hunt, Rachel Munro, Tom Oldag and Tad Vesna.

[Inner Balance Advertiser]

If you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance. The first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again. That's innerbalance.com sink into affordable luxury.

[Washable Sofas Advertiser]

Anabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out with stain resistant slipcovers and a cloud like frame duvet. Everything goes right in the wash. Plus the modular design lets you change the look of your space anytime. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Shop up to 60% off site wide with sofas starting at just $699 and a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Kel Penn]

Hey everyone, it's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode episode, I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lisa]

This is Bethany Frankel from Just Be with Bethany Frankel. Most dog food is marketing, not nutrition. That is why Biggie and Smalls eat just food for dogs. Real 100% human grade food with ingredients I actually recognize.

[Anna Sinfield]

And yes, I do see the difference.

[Lisa]

Better digestion, healthier skin, more energy. Dogs that feel better. My babies.

[Leona Hamid]

If you've been on the fence about

[Anna Sinfield]

switching, stop overthinking it.

[Lisa]

What's more important than your furry babies and their health? Go to justfood4dogs.com right now and get 50% off your first box. No code needed. Just try it. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.