The Girlfriends S5/E4: Stolen Valor

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe

Season 5, Episode 4: "Stolen Valor"
Host: Anna Sinfield
Date: May 4, 2026
Production: iHeartPodcasts and Novel

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode of "The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe," journalist Anna Sinfield delves into the harrowing story of Dori, a Texan woman whose budding romance with "Richie Taylor" unravels into a nightmare of identity theft, financial fraud, and elaborate lies. As Dori’s intuition and persistence collide with Derek Alldred’s prolific scamming, Anna details how a web of trust, community support, and dogged investigation brings new hope for justice. The episode centers on Alldred’s “stolen valor” — his audacious impersonation of military personnel — and how this federal crime finally becomes the linchpin to pursuing him coast to coast.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Meeting "Richie Taylor": A Too-Good-to-Be-True Romance (02:18–10:02)

• Dori, recently divorced and rediscovering herself in Dallas, meets "Richie Taylor" online, charmed by his claim to be a Navy pilot and professor.
• Memorable Moment: On their second date, Richie manipulates his way out of paying for parking and tries for free baseball tickets by flashing a fake NCIS badge.
  • “He always showed his NCIS badge." – Dori (03:50)
• Richie displays quick temper, unreliability, and grandiose stories.
• The military association made Dori feel safer, influenced by her family’s background.

Discovery of Fraud: Financial Red Flags (10:17–15:00)

• Dori notices suspicious charges on her credit card—gift cards, flowers, Airbnbs, eBay purchases—totaling close to $8,000.
• When she investigates, Richie oddly offers to “pay” the debt himself (11:23).
• She realizes her iPad, borrowed by Richie, is now locked and loaded with his own iCloud photos, including one labeled "Derek M. Alldred” (12:44–13:27).
  • Key Quote: "All of a sudden, like, six to nine mugshots popped up. Everything in me stopped. Like my heart just absolutely stopped." – Dori (14:14)
• Panic sets in as Dori learns she’s dating a serial scammer with a trail of mugshots.

Taking Action & Facing Trauma (15:00–22:03)

• Fearing Alldred’s anger, Dori barricades herself inside her house with her gun (15:25).
• She escapes to her brother's ranch for safety and realizes total losses reach nearly $20,000, with only a portion refunded by banks.
• Notable Reflection: "It was devastating, absolutely devastating to realize that 99.9% of the things that he told me were false." – Dori (19:19)
• With her brother’s support, Dori confronts Derek via phone — both terrifying and empowering.
  • "How's it feel to know that you've been caught?" – Dori’s brother to Derek (20:03)

Pursuing Justice: From Local Cops to Federal Agents (22:03–33:40)

• Dori reports the crime at her local police station, feeling the weight of many of Derek’s previous victims on her shoulders.
  • “I felt I was representing all of them, and I had to do it right.” – Dori (22:23)
• Detective Kelly Hunt, a fraud specialist and one of few women in her department, empathizes and goes beyond routine protocol.
• Evidence left behind—including a full “Hollywood costume department” of military uniforms and a fake NCIS badge—becomes key.
• Detective Hunt escalates the case to federal NCIS Special Agent Mike Elker, who recognizes the unique crime of "stolen valor."
  • “To pretend to be in the military or a police officer to me is fairly despicable. I have no respect for that and I have no tolerance for that.” – Special Agent Mike (33:13)
• Stolen valor—a federal crime for gaining goods/services by claiming fake military status—offers a legal route to unite Alldred’s offenses across state lines.

The Takedown Plan: Closing in on Derek (33:40–35:56)

• Special Agent Mike and Dori coordinate evidence handoffs, working together to build the case.
• The crime caught on camera at the baseball game is a turning point.
• Recognizing Derek’s tendency to flee when cornered, law enforcement rushes to act before he disappears.
• Discovery of another girlfriend, Tracy, presents an opportunity to trap Derek using information from multiple victims.
• Closing Sentiment:
  • “Never fuck with a country girl.” – Dori (35:56)
    • Anna echoes: “Never fuck with a country girl.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Dori's introduction and initial dates with Richie – 02:18–10:02
• Credit card fraud discovery – 10:17–14:34
• Finding the true Derek Allred – 14:14–15:00
• Dori’s fear, escape, and losses – 15:21–19:05
• Reporting to police and meeting Detective Hunt – 22:03–23:50
• Detective Hunt encounters the uniforms and badge – 25:00–26:50
• Special Agent Mike enters the case – 29:42–33:40
• Building the federal case, strategizing the takedown – 33:40–35:56
• Preview of next episode: Tracy’s involvement – 35:56–36:00

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"I vowed I will be his last target. I can stop him."
— Dori (05:48)

"All of a sudden, like, six to nine mugshots popped up. Everything in me stopped. Like my heart just absolutely stopped."
— Dori (14:14)

“I felt I was representing all of them, and I had to do it right.”
— Dori (22:23)

"To pretend to be in the military or a police officer to me is fairly despicable. I have no respect for that and I have no tolerance for that."
— Special Agent Mike (33:13)

“Never fuck with a country girl.”
— Dori (35:56)

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Tone & Language

The episode blends suspense, raw emotion, and determination. Dori’s storytelling is candid, alternating between vulnerability and gritty resolve. Anna’s narration combines empathy with journalistic rigor, punctuated by moments of humor (“Never fuck with a country girl”) and a backdrop of woman-to-woman solidarity.

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Key Takeaways

• Stolen Valor as a Federal Linchpin: Impersonating military personnel can elevate local fraud cases to the federal level, creating a powerful way to pursue serial scammers.
• Victim Solidarity: Dori’s commitment to justice is fueled by a bond (even if virtual) with Derek’s previous victims, highlighting the strength in survivor solidarity.
• Persistence Matters: Law enforcement success hinges on the vigilance of individuals like Dori and empathetic professionals like Detective Hunt and Special Agent Mike.
• The Scene Is Set for More: With Tracy entering the picture and law enforcement closing in, the hunt for Derek Alldred accelerates to a national scale.

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Transcript

[Anna Sinfield]

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[Anna Sinfield]

Novel. Last time on the Girlfriends Trust Me, babe Derek Alldred skips town.

[Dori]

They let him go and he then disappeared again.

[Anna Sinfield]

Lisa, our hockey loving mom in Minnesota, tries to put the past behind her.

[Dori]

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

[Anna Sinfield]

Only now there's been a new update, this time from Texas. It's spring 2017, and a woman named Dori has an exciting date with a guy she met online, Richie Taylor.

[Dori]

He asked me to go to the Ranger game, Texas's Major League Baseball team.

[Anna Sinfield]

He's pretty tall, nice smile, close cropped Hair flies jets in the Navy, teaches at the university nearby. It's their second date.

[Dori]

We pulled into a $50 parking lot and I'm like, I'm not paying $50 to park.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dori's the one behind the wheel. But Richie insists he claims to have a receipt that should get them in for free.

[Dori]

So I pull in, we get up to the guy, and he's ready to collect the $50. Richie says, you know, hold on a minute, I've got a receipt.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dorry. The guy at the ticket booth and a steadily increasing line of cars wait while Richie fruitlessly searches through his phone.

[Dori]

Nothing. Nothing, nothing.

[Anna Sinfield]

In the course of his searching, Richie flashes a badge to the ticket booth

[Dori]

guy he always showed his NCIS badge.

[Anna Sinfield]

The badge is gold. It's shiny. It's got an eagle on signifies that Richie, now furiously scrolling through his emails, is also a law enforcement officer in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, no less.

[Dori]

You know, the crowd is getting huge. The game's going to start. You're not going to sit there and wait for this guy to find this email. What's the guy going to do? And finally, the guy just goes, Just go. So we got parking for free.

[Anna Sinfield]

And the special treatment doesn't end there. Once they're parked up, they head to the stadium box office.

[Dori]

He goes up there and he says, I'm Captain Rich Taylor. Corporal, let's say John Smith left tickets for us here. They go and look, they can't find anything. And he starts getting louder and louder.

[Anna Sinfield]

You'll have guessed by now Richie Taylor isn't the jet flying college professor slash naval investigator he's making himself out to be. This is actually just plain old Derek Alldred appearing to chuck a tantrum for free tickets to a baseball game. But Dorrie doesn't know that yet.

[Dori]

He's getting angry and making a scene.

[Anna Sinfield]

This kind of identity fraud, the kind Derek Alldred seems to keep getting away with, it's hard to investigate, hard to catch, hard to prove, and it's hard to prosecute, never mind successfully. But what really helps is when the person doing it makes a mistake.

[Dori]

Finally, they just gave us two tickets,

[Anna Sinfield]

and Derek's made a big one.

[Dori]

We were there for quite a while. It's on camera.

[Anna Sinfield]

Messing with Dori won't prove to be one of Derek Aldred's smartest moves either.

[Dori]

I vowed I will be his last target. I can stop him.

[Anna Sinfield]

I'm Anna Sinfield and from the teams at novel, an iHeart podcast. You're listening to the girlfriends. Trust me, Babe. Episode 4 stolen valor.

[Dori]

I have to laugh because you know what I just found in my hair? A drill. I'm like, what is?

[Anna Sinfield]

When we first speak to Dory, she's tucked up on a gray sofa in her apartment on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas. There's a cinnamon scented candle burning, and she's plucking a single small flat bottomed crystal out of her hair. In the diamond art world, these glittering little beads are called drills.

[Dori]

My diamond art was in my hair. I'm like, what is this? It's from my beading.

[Anna Sinfield]

In her spare time, Dorie likes to do diamond art.

[Dori]

You take these little beads and put them on this sticky canvas and it makes a picture. My anxiety is still very high, and I'm telling you what I can get into that diamond painting, and it just takes my anxiety away.

[Anna Sinfield]

By 2017, Dorie had survived a tough divorce. And through the pain of that breakup, she was carving out a new version of herself.

[Dori]

Suddenly it was like, you know, what does Dori like to do?

[Anna Sinfield]

Self sufficient, artistic, independent.

[Dori]

I learned that I'm extremely crafty. I made wreaths and crochet and cross stitch.

[Anna Sinfield]

But don't get her wrong, she contains multitudes.

[Dori]

I have my license to carry, so I can carry my gun at any time.

[Anna Sinfield]

This is Texas, after all.

[Dori]

I was feeling good about myself. I was looking good. You know, everything was going right for me at that time. I thought, let's go.

[Anna Sinfield]

So Dorie decides to add dating into the mix.

[Dori]

Next thing you know, I met Richie. I still can't stop calling him Richie.

[Anna Sinfield]

When she first meets Richie Taylor, she's working in hr, loving her job, and living just outside of Dallas in a place called the Colony.

[Dori]

It's a big town, but has a very small town feel. It probably could be like a Norman Rockwell painting.

[Anna Sinfield]

I'm now picturing a Norman Rockwell in diamond art. A nostalgic picture book idealized America, but with dating apps.

[Dori]

I can remember his name on plenty of fish was Flyboy. Because he pretended to be a pilot

[Anna Sinfield]

is a story you've heard before. Their first date is magic.

[Dori]

I felt like my stomach dropped in a good way.

[Anna Sinfield]

The fact that this guy is a pilot in the Navy is hugely appealing for one reason.

[Dori]

My grandpa was in the Navy. I almost trusted him a little more, opened up a little more. So I'm hearing about this guy who flies jets and he's telling me all these big stories. I can distinctly remember one time he put on his dress blues, his formal navy uniform. And there was a couple times he wore his Flight suit, too. He had the helmet with a microphone on it. I was impressed by him.

[Anna Sinfield]

And so they kept dating.

[Dori]

He's telling me he loves me left and right.

[Anna Sinfield]

But soon the cracks begin to appear, like Richie's quick temper or the fact that he wasn't very reliable. He'd be on his phone a lot, or he'd cancel on their dates last minute.

[Dori]

At first I took it personally. I thought, well, he's not interested in me. He explained it was because of this military things going on and he needed to fly to Washington. This is around when the Korean crisis was going on.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The new level of threats and provocations from North Korea.

[Dori]

Just hours ago, the regime carried out

[Anna Sinfield]

a large scale artillery drill just 100 miles from Seoul, South Korea. Experts say the Kim Jong Un seems to be sending a message. It was frustrating. It's kind of hard to hold it against a guy who's just trying to prevent nuclear destruction. But then Dory receives a sign that's quite hard to ignore. One day, mid April, Richie is over at Dorrie's townhouse. They're in the living room when her phone pings.

[Dori]

So I checked my phone and it said that just to let you know your withdrawal is coming up for your credit card.

[Anna Sinfield]

The number on her credit card statement sends Dorian to shock.

[Dori]

Holy Moses. I don't come near that much every month. It was close to $8,000.

[Anna Sinfield]

How did it get that high? Dori logs in to analyze the charges. Gift cards, flowers, Airbnbs, ebay purchases.

[Dori]

It wasn't me. I didn't buy anything from ebay. Richie's sitting on the couch. I'm standing by the door, and I'm just looking at him with my mouth like, oh, my gosh, somebody's gotten a hold of my number. And he said, do you want me to pay it for you?

[Anna Sinfield]

While Dori panics, Richie goes over to the computer, attempts to make a payment into Dorie's account. Huge surprise incoming.

[Dori]

He attempted to send it three times and it did not go through immediately.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dori calls her bank, cancels the card. But until the bank processes her complaint, she has to pay it off. Dori gets a new card, and as the days go by, she pays much closer attention to her payments.

[Dori]

I saw it happening again right away.

[Anna Sinfield]

She stares at the payments. She can't figure out how it's happening again.

[Dori]

I didn't realize it was him yet till I got a hold of the iPad.

[Anna Sinfield]

Soon after they'd started dating, Richie asked Dorrie if he could borrow her iPad. She didn't use it much, and he could really use it for his college work.

[Dori]

I said, no problem.

[Anna Sinfield]

After that, dorie doesn't see her iPad for a while, until one night, she's up late watching television, and that's when she spots it.

[Dori]

He had left the iPad. My iPad. I picked it up, I opened it up, and I was shocked to see that the picture was changed. There was a passcode on it. I had seen the passcode he had put in his phone. So I tried the same passcode on my iPad, and I got in, and everything was changed. I'm thinking, where are my pictures at? So I went to pictures, and I hit it. All his pictures from his icloud had downloaded.

[Anna Sinfield]

One of those pictures is richie lying in a hospital bed.

[Dori]

He's got the blue pillow, the blue blankets pulled up to him. He's smiling, taking a picture. There's hospital equipment behind him. And at the bottom, it said, a big thank you for everyone's prayers and support. Surgery was a success. Should be out of the hospital Monday. And the name on the picture was Derek m. Allred. I'm looking at this, and I'm like, that is Richie. I go over to my computer and I googled Derek allred.

[Anna Sinfield]

Google doesn't recognize that name, but it makes a helpful suggestion.

[Dori]

It said, did you mean Derek alldred?

[Anna Sinfield]

She sure did.

[Dori]

All of a sudden, like, six to nine mugshots popped up. Everything in me stopped. Like my heart just absolutely stopped. All these things in the past that were not adding up, everything, everything started making sense.

[Anna Sinfield]

All those ebay purchases, the gift cards, flowers, airbnb charges. Those were all Derek. Her credit card had been sitting next to her computer for weeks. She'd left it there to remind herself to get the names on her cards changed after her divorce.

[Dori]

That's how Richie got the card. And I never noticed it was gone. I felt like I got hit by a truck.

[Anna Sinfield]

Attached to the mugshots were articles about a prolific con man with a habit of escaping justice. Articles featuring other women who claim they've been scammed by Derek.

[Dori]

I was terrified. Is he going to come back here?

[Anna Sinfield]

Dori knows Derek's anger can escalate fast.

[Dori]

I leashed up my dogs. I moved my bookcase in front of my door. I went upstairs and got my gun and waited.

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[Dori]

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

No judgments.

[Dori]

But that's weird.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a

[Dori]

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[Anna Sinfield]

By the time the sun rises, Dori has been sitting wide awake, gun on the table in front of her, for hours. There's been no sign of Derek.

[Dori]

The next morning I got ahold of my brother and I called him and told him what was going on. He said, you know, pack your dogs and get out here. My brother and his wife have a little ranch. I hid out there for two days.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dori feels terrified of what Derek might do to her. While she's in hiding, she has a chance to really process what's happened.

[Dori]

That's where I found out he had also gotten into my checking account. I had my checkbook sitting out on my computer. So I think he probably just snapped a picture of it. Then I had another credit card he had gotten a hold of, too. So I uncovered a bunch of charges on there, too.

[Anna Sinfield]

This was on top of the one she'd already noticed and canceled.

[Dori]

In total, it was just under $20,000 that he had gotten.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dori will gets some of that money back by reporting the fraudulent charges to her banks. Two of them will refund her, but one bank refuses, meaning Dori is still out close to $12,000.

[Dori]

It was devastating, absolutely devastating to realize that 99.9% of the things that he told me were false. They were absolutely all lies. I was embarrassed. I was humiliated. I thought, how could this happen to me? How could I have fallen for somebody that, you know, lied from the get go? But

[Anna Sinfield]

I don't know.

[Dori]

I'm like, why, God? Why am I going through this?

[Anna Sinfield]

Dori and her brother are sitting together on the deck of his Texan ranch. Dori hasn't spoken to Derek at all since she arrived.

[Dori]

My brother says, give me his phone number. So I said, okay. So we're sitting out there and we ring his phone, and Derek answers. And my brother says to him, so, Richie, Derek, Taylor Peterson, whatever, we should call you. How's it feel to know that you've been caught? It felt great at the time. I'm laughing about it now, but at the time then I thought, oh, my gosh, what have we just done? We have just told him that we know who he is. We've just basically told him, I know that you're a fraud.

[Anna Sinfield]

This unlocks a new fear.

[Dori]

Is he gonna come after me?

[Anna Sinfield]

Dory knows from her reading that Derek has a habit of skipping town when things get sticky. But what if his MO Changes?

[Dori]

And you hear all the time, oh, you know, that's one in a million. Oh, that's not gonna happen to you.

[Anna Sinfield]

That kind of thinking has lost all. All its power for Dorri in the last two days. Suddenly, every fear, irrational or not, is in play.

[Dori]

Anything can happen to me is what I think.

[Anna Sinfield]

Now she doesn't know what Derek could be capable of, who might be helping him, and how.

[Dori]

You know, he had ID cards for army, navy, marines. I was just so embarrassed that I had fallen hook, line, and sinker for somebody who probably didn't care two pennies about me. Okay, I'm gonna go in here and tell the police that I just totally used and fell for it.

[Anna Sinfield]

Despite the feeling of embarrassment. The next day, Doria is sitting in her car in the parking lot of the Colony Police Station.

[Dori]

I'd spent the weekend crying, and now

[Anna Sinfield]

she's gearing herself up for a difficult conversation. Dori has read all the same stories I've told you about.

[Dori]

I felt like I had every other girl, every other person on my shoulder or behind me, that he had wronged. I felt I was representing all of them, and I had to do it right. So I knew that I had one chance. This is serious. Please take me seriously. I almost felt like I was on a job interview.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dorie works in hr, and as an HR girlie, she knows better than most. A first impression is everything.

[Dori]

I looked professional, so it didn't look like I crawled out of bed. After crying for three days, I made sure I had my backup, my documentation.

[Anna Sinfield]

Dorie opens up her car door, gets out and heads into the station.

[Dori]

I explained briefly what I was there for, and they put me in a room where I wrote out my statement. What I've got had to be taken seriously. And not just, oh, gosh, another guy got some money from a girl and she's crying about it.

[Anna Sinfield]

The Colony PD assigns a detective to Dorie's case.

[Dori]

I thought I won the lottery. She listened to me with different ears than a man would have, I think Detective Kelly Hunt. She was just what I needed. Very calming. It's okay, Dori. We hear you. We've got this.

[Anna Sinfield]

When Detective Kelly meets Dorie in 2017, she's working for the Colony PD as a fraud and financial crimes investigator. And she's got enough experience to know that this is going to be a hard case to get over the line. But she sets about investigating it anyway. She speaks to a bartender at a local Irish themed bar, McSwiggins, where Richie appears to be a regular. She visits the local grocery store just a few doors down, speaks to some of the employees there. Both confirmed that Richie Taylor was using a card that didn't have his name on it. One clerk said he intended to question Richie on it, but once he spotted that shiny gold NCIS badge the guy was toting around, he dropped it. Both are able to identify Richie as Derek Alldred in a photo lineup. Detective Kelly is getting close, but there's only so much a local fraud investigator can do for a case like this. She's one of a small handful of detectives servicing a big community like over 40,000 people. And the pressure is building to move onto one of the other 50 or so cases waiting for her attention and let the banks deal with it privately. But then Dori arrives at the police station with new evidence her iPad and a duffel bag. The duffel bag is full of military uniforms. Luckily, Derek had left an entire Hollywood costume department at Dory's house. There's a formal black jacket with gold stars and stripes on the sleeves, two long sleeve jumpsuits, green and khaki, some black combat boots, a green flight helmet and a badge. That shiny gold NCIS badge. As Detective Hunt is sifting through these uniforms, she has an idea. Sure, she could nab Derek for credit card theft, but the Texas penal code doesn't distinguish between a stranger stealing your credit card and using it and a person who pretended to be your boyfriend for weeks in order to steal it. Those charges would barely touch the sides of the betrayal Dory is feeling, and it's not even clear that charging Derek with that would result in any jail time, let alone make it into a courtroom. If they even managed to catch up with him, he could just claim that he had Dorry's permission all along. If Detective Kelly wants to help Dory get justice, she needs to take this case up the ladder to someone with a bit more federal power. And these uniforms are the key.

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

It was kind of like a cold call.

[Anna Sinfield]

It's a Wednesday, and Special Agent Mike Elker is at his office in Arlington, Texas, when Detective Kelly Hunt gets a hold of him.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She was really pitching me the case on the phone.

[Anna Sinfield]

Mike works for the ncis, as in, he actually works for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She reached out to about Derek Aldred. Hey, listen, I kind of got this deal where we have a guy and he's kind of a fraudster.

[Anna Sinfield]

Detective Kelly explains the investigation she's been doing into Derek Alldred's jaunt around the Colony. The money he appears to have stolen from Dorie.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Just on the threshold alone, the monetary threshold, I would say 90 to 95% of agencies on the federal level would probably have dismissed that.

[Anna Sinfield]

She explains. He's been pretending to be in the military, the Navy, specifically. And as she predicted, that detail catches Mike's interest. The next day, Mike is at the Colony Police Department.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She invited me into the conference room. She kind of had everything laid out on the table. And so I think my first reaction, it was, what's that?

[Anna Sinfield]

Carefully arranged across a conference room table is the evidence.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A flight helmet, counterfeit Geneva Convention ID cards, the uniforms, the certificates, anything of value that he left that said, you know, he was a captain in the Navy or he was a professor, or any of these items that Dory had in the house. And she gave that up

[Anna Sinfield]

and among

[Narrator/Interviewer]

them a badge, a counterfeit NCIS badge that looked pretty darn real.

[Anna Sinfield]

Mike takes out his own badge, gold, looks like a shield, an eagle on the top, and places it down on the table next to Derek's.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It was darn near identical. I think for the average person you wouldn't know the difference if you saw that badge and my badge at the time. Is he committing crimes with that badge? Is he stopping women with that badge? Is he assaulting people with that badge? It was immediately apparent that likely this was going to be a bigger deal than just some isolated local issue.

[Anna Sinfield]

Together, Detective Kelly and Special Agent Mike can make this into a case. One that catches one all Derek's historical wrongdoing, state based or otherwise, into one investigation.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We have resources, we can travel, we can conduct interviews and we can charge in different states because we are federal law enforcement officers.

[Anna Sinfield]

And the crime that could link all those cases that gets the NCIS's backs really up. Not kidnapping, not fraud, not theft or the other allegations we know about now. What about stolen valor?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Somebody that's using the military or being in uniform and obtaining something of value.

[Anna Sinfield]

It may not be the most obvious crime, but it is a federal one.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

People are very patriotic in this country. In Texas, it's almost like to another level.

[Anna Sinfield]

You see, stolen valor is something that the good military lads and ladies of America get really pissed off about.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

To pretend to be in the military or a police officer to me is. Is fairly despicable. I have no respect for that and I have no tolerance for that.

[Anna Sinfield]

Girlfriends. We've found our in. Suddenly, the hunt for Derek Aldred goes coast to coast with Special Agent Mike at the helm. First port of call. Dorie.

[Dori]

I first met with Mike, I think it was in the parking lot of McSwiggins actually. He's just a good guy.

[Anna Sinfield]

This is the first of many meetings Dorie and Mike will have. Dory and her Camaro. Mike and his Dodge Charger in the parking lot of that Irish themed bar.

[Dori]

As I was finding stuff in the apartment, he'd be like, all right, meet me in the parking lot. And I'd give it to him.

[Anna Sinfield]

They talk about cars for a bit and then they get into business. Mike needs evidence that Derek used the uniforms to make financial gains. That's the crime of stolen not wearing the uniform just to trick people, but using the uniform to get things. And Dorrie has just the story. The one from their second date where richarderic flashes his badge at the baseball game. She can give Mike exact dates and the whole exchange was caught on camera. Special Agent Mike knows he has to tread carefully here. Derek has an M.O. when he's cornered, he gets a sense

[Narrator/Interviewer]

usually that he's in trouble and then he takes off. And so my fear was that he would figure out that he was in trouble, the police were onto him, he was being investigated, and then he was going to skip out of town. The objective was to really get him into custody as soon as possible. Let's get him off the street before he runs and then we can go from there.

[Anna Sinfield]

You see, Special Agent Mike has a new plan underway right at this moment. His team have realized if he's still in town, the fastest way to catch Derek is would be if someone still close to him just tells them where he is.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

While we were looking through all the material from the iPad, we also saw Tracy's Information.

[Anna Sinfield]

Another woman named Tracy, who Derek appears to be dating to at the very same time as Dori. Coming up next on the Girlfriends Trust Me, Babe Tracey turns out to be just the girlfriend for the job.

[Dori]

Never fuck with a country girl.

[Anna Sinfield]

Never fuck with a country girl. If you found any of the themes explored in this episode difficult and you need support or advice, please reach out to our charity partners no more. @nomore.org 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 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 podcast. Julie Sensulo, Ann Langston, Carolyn Shirlevin, Katie Gillis, Kelly Hunt, Rachel Munro, Tom Oldag, and Tad Vesna.

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That's innerbalance.com Ever wonder how to make hosting look effortless? Here's a secret when prepping for cooking and baking, get ahead of the mess with new Reynolds Kitchens countertop prep paper. Just lightly wet the counter so the paper grips. Lay it down and drips and spills stay on the paper, not on your counter. Cleanup is as simple as lifting it away to reveal clean counters. Effortless it is, thanks to Reynolds Kitchen's countertop prep paper. Wet it, set it, prep it, done. Available in the Reynolds Wrap aisle at Walmart, Target, Amazon, and Costco.

[Coldwater Creek Advertiser]

Your social media feed delivers plenty of advice, but it doesn't know you. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't give physical exams or order tests. Doctors do. At the American Medical association, we believe the best care starts with a real conversation, with someone who understands the science and your unique health. So stay curious, ask questions. But when it's time to make decisions, make them with a doctor. Learn [e-mail] that's amahealthvshipe.org this is an iHeart podcast.

[Anna Sinfield]

Guaranteed Human.