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- [00:01]
Starli
Suddenly, Candice, she had all this money.
- [00:03]
Jason
And she was financially well off, like.
- [00:08]
Starli
Overnight a millionaire after Afghanistan.
- [00:11]
Jason
And to me, it was odd. Like, why are you suddenly rich after.
- [00:19]
Charlie Webster
Afghanistan, Candice returned from the Afghanistan operation, Captain Morgan, and claimed she rescued 1,000 people. As far as most people knew, the mission was a great success. But she never actually set foot in Afghanistan. She only made it as far as Dubai. The only people who knew what really went down was the team of black ops operators that accompanied Candice on the plane to Dubai. But when they got back, they went their separate ways and never spoke about it again. When Candice got back to Utah, her bestie Matt, noticed that her lifestyle changed drastically.
- [01:02]
Jason
I'm confused that all of a sudden you have this brand new Escalade. Where did that come from? Literally, things were happening out of nowhere.
- [01:12]
Charlie Webster
Candice came back from Dubai with a bag that had $50,000 cash in it. She took that bag of cash to a car dealership and handed it over. In return, she got a car. Not car. It was a Cadillac Escalade, a massive luxury SUV that can see eight people comfortably. The color, champagne. Candice said the car was for Exeters to help with outreach work on the streets of Salt Lake City. But whatever way you look at it, she appeared to be doing really quite well financially.
- [01:48]
Candice Rivera
My accountant came over to my home late in the evening as tears filled my eyes. He said, Ms. Candace, you took your company from $50,000 to well over $2 million, and the year isn't over yet. I'm gonna take a picture so you remember how you felt when you made your dream of impacting actually a reality. There were no words, just tears.
- [02:17]
Charlie Webster
This is Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast produced by Seven Hills, hosted and executive produced by me, Charlie Web Webster. Candice updated her Facebook picture with a new black and white headshot, poised in an armchair, staring straight into the camera. It's a powerful picture. On top of the photo are the words Candice Rivera, single mom, CEO, hell shaker. As well as her new headshots and fancy car. There was something else she needed. She'd been working out of her house, and it just wasn't up to scratch.
- [03:13]
Aura
Candice told me that the house was too small and it didn't have a CEO vibe to it. So she said her home did not look CEO enough. So the upstairs was going to be for Exodus and for meetings, and then she wanted a basement that would be treated like a safe house and then a top floor that would be for her kids.
- [03:39]
Charlie Webster
Candice moved into her new CEO house. It cost her about $1 million to buy. Her ambition didn't just stop at Exetus. She wanted to build a business empire alongside her nonprofit.
- [03:54]
Aura
I'm trying to run multiple companies, save.
- [03:56]
Starli
The world, and be a killer rock.
- [03:58]
Aura
Star mom in really high heels.
- [03:59]
Charlie Webster
This is Candice speaking on an empowering podcast. Her early media appearances were all about Exodus and its impact. But now she was centering herself as a businesswoman. She was starting up companies left, right and centre and sharing her intention. As a female entrepreneur.
- [04:17]
Aura
I'm proud of being able to raise kids and house companies. It's not a negative braggy proud. My goal was to have seven companies that were seven figures running before 40. We're two away. Every one of my companies has a female base, female foundation, specifically celebrating demographics of females that aren't seen as part.
- [04:39]
Charlie Webster
Of her branding house CR House & Co CR for Candice Rivera. Candice wanted to start a program for women, something she wished she'd had when she first got divorced. It was an online course about managing finances. She called it handle your money girl. Candice needed someone to help. So at the beginning of 2022, she approached a woman called Starli.
- [05:04]
Starli
I created her brand kit and did her website and created these online courses with her. You know, I set up all the tech and helped her create the content.
- [05:15]
Charlie Webster
Starley and Candice are another pair that met through their boys sports. Soccer mums. Well, kind of, except this was through basketball.
- [05:24]
Starli
We met at a basketball game. Our sons were on the school basketball team together. We were essentially soccer moms. She just invited me over and was like, hey, while the boys are playing, you know, do you want to just come and hang out? I was like, yeah, totally. I started asking her, you know, I saw some of her social media posts. I'm like, what do you do for work? It's just like, this is a crazy, crazy world. It was mind blowing and exciting to be like, knowing her firsthand because she was just in the thick of all of this. Good. And she would talk about, you know, the elite that she would run with the elite of Utah. And being on a conference call with Ashton Kutcher when he offered to let her use his plane for one of her operations.
- [06:14]
Charlie Webster
Aside from the work, Starlie and Candace became close. Quickly. They opened up to each other. Starlee was going through a divorce. Candice shared advice from her own experience with divorce and what she'd been through with the loss of her twin girls.
- [06:30]
Starli
She told me about how she was pregnant with twins and was hit by a drunk Driver. And she lost both babies, two little girls. And just how tragic that was. When my divorce was final, Candice wanted to take me out for a celebration dinner. So we drive up to Salt Lake together and we had just parked her car and she gets this call. This woman gives her a tip that a traffic victim was missing. And she's actually in your area where you're at. So Candace, she's like, well, I'm with a friend. And I'm like, it's cool, we can go track down the lead. That's fine, you know, let's do it. She was like going really fast and she passes a car and it just looked like a regular car to me. But she was like, that's a law enforcement vehicle. And she like held something up. And she's like, these are my credentials, so they know who I am. And she was telling me how she pushed some buttons on her car and they were like tracking where she was at and tracking her movement. The police were so that she would have backup at a moment's notice if she needed it. And she was telling me about this device. She had that it hooked to her phone and she could like see through cars and stuff to see, like body heat mapping, you know, to see is there one person in there, two people in there. So we spent about two plus hours on this stakeout that night. She never freaked out. She was very collected and calm, but so focused and just a complete boss.
- [08:33]
Charlie Webster
One night in mid February 2022, Candice needed Stali's help. Candice had sent an exodus nurse to Ukraine to rescue an orphan right as the Russian army was lining up on the border.
- [08:45]
Starli
Her team was over in Ukraine trying to extract some children. They were only able to get one, but. But they are at the airport. And this is just right before, you know, Russia is threatening to invade. So it's just, you know, very heightened situation and they will not let him through even though he has the necessary documentation to leave.
- [09:10]
Charlie Webster
The orphan was a four year old boy and had severe medical needs. The airspace around Ukraine was closing because of the imminent threat of war and all the flights out were being canceled. The nurse and the orphan rushed to the airport, but were stopped from leaving and couldn't get out. As this was happening, Candace and Starlie were pulling into the parking lot of the chain restaurant Chili's.
- [09:35]
Starli
Candice and I were going out to dinner, just gonna go hang out at Chili's. And as we're pulling into the parking lot, she starts getting calls and there's this woman at the airport I don't know if it was security or. But she would not let him. It was just going on for so long. We were in the car for probably an hour, just sitting there. I believe she was on the phone with a government official. And she hands me the phone really quick, and she's like, pretend you're the U.S. consulate.
- [10:11]
Charlie Webster
What?
- [10:12]
Starli
And I'm just like. I had no clue. I completely flubbed it up. I don't. I didn't know what to say. I had, you know. But she just handed me the phone and she said, I'm here with the US Consulate. I did not even know what to. To think or to do. Meanwhile, we're just sitting at Chili's in the parking lot, and I finally just put an online order in, grabbed it, and we ended up, I think, finally about midnight, back at my house, eating our cold chilies.
- [10:47]
Charlie Webster
The nurse and the orphan finally were allowed to leave Ukraine on one of the last commercial flights out. Though it wasn't because of Starly's acting skills. The author made it safely to his adoptive family and is now living in Texas. Just three days later, Russia invaded Ukraine. Children in Ukrainian orphanages are often placed there due to disability and poverty and are already vulnerable. Now the situation was even more urgent.
- [11:18]
Aura
The war in Ukraine broke out, and Candace came up to me and said, the US Government has asked me to go in and save. Save the orphans.
- [11:33]
Charlie Webster
Candace knew what the orphanages in Ukraine were like firsthand. She was going to go there and try to get more orphans out of Ukraine. Although there was no request from the US Government. Candice spoke to her nursing school bestie and Exeter's nursing director, Danny Remington, about taking a team and going in.
- [11:53]
Danny Remington
Candace was so hopeful that she could go to Ukraine and by going in person, just push hard enough to get these kids out. But when I had pushed her on asking, how are you going to get them out? She said in, like, a joking tone, I'm just gonna go get them. I'm just gonna go take them. And she laughed. I pushed her again on, but really, how are you gonna do this? And she said, many of these orphanages, especially the more corrupt ones, encouraged, quote, unquote, donations. Maybe we could, you know, give them a quote, unquote donation. And in interviewing the adoptive parents, there's no doubt that they would do better with them. However, it wasn't lost on me that you're offering this monetary exchange in hopes to receive a child for adoption on the other end. And so you're sitting here trying to fight human trafficking and Orphan trafficking almost with the same, you know, standard of the problem's origin.
- [13:10]
Charlie Webster
Candace did not see it like that, though. She was going and she told her besties in the for the love book group. Candice's posts are read by Emmy Jory.
- [13:21]
Candice Rivera
I'm headed to Ukraine. Man, oh, man, why do people like Putin have to be here? I'm angry. He's a bully. I'm so tired of bullies and thugs. It would give me no greater joy than to walk out of Ukraine with orphans over my shoulder and two middle fingers held high, saying F you to Putin.
- [13:41]
Charlie Webster
Then Candace told Aura that she was coming, too.
- [13:44]
Aura
I originally told Candace I didn't feel comfortable going because I wasn't going to put my life at risk. But then these emails came in.
- [13:53]
Charlie Webster
Candice had updated the Exodus website to give the news that she would be into Ukraine and getting orphans out. Once again, the request started flooding in, this time to Aura's inbox.
- [14:07]
Aura
It was my email on that website. And so the emails came pouring in from people begging, please save me. Please save my family. This is where we are. Please save us. And other emails of people begging to be able to adopt disabled orphans and telling me what their families were like and how many children they had and how that was their dream and how they knew that they could help. So these are flooding me daily. I just. I couldn't say no. So I told my family, and they were terrified.
- [14:49]
Charlie Webster
Aura's daughter, Bailey, knew how much her mom cared about Exodus and the people they were helping, as did she. But her mom going into an active war zone was taking it to a different level.
- [15:01]
Aura
That was terrifying. When she told all of us, I feel like we all had horrible reactions. We all just kind of, like, joked about it, just kind of, like, shook it off and made jokes about it like, you could die. Which it isn't funny. It's not. But I think we just didn't know what to do or say. The more I thought about it, the more, yeah, I didn't know if she.
- [15:29]
Charlie Webster
Was gonna be safe.
- [15:30]
Aura
I mean, I don't know what's gonna. I don't know what was gonna happen out there.
- [15:35]
Charlie Webster
Man.
- [15:35]
Starli
I mean, that's my mom.
- [15:38]
Aura
So, yeah, it was scary. And then I was really mad at Candace for doing that. My husband and I made sure my affairs were in order in case I didn't come back. I don't think I understood how afraid they were. And I thought, well, Candace has done this a million times. So I said, I will not cross the border into Ukraine. She agreed to that and talked to me about how great my heart was, which made me even feel more like it was the right thing to do.
- [16:14]
Charlie Webster
Ora was on board, but Candace needed more people on the team. She'd seen a post that a local philanthropist, Mary Krass, had put on her Instagram, trying to find a way to go to Ukraine and volunteer.
- [16:28]
Mary Krass
The war breaks out in Ukraine, and I'm watching it on tv, where this old man is out there with both his hands on a tank, a Russian tank, and he's not going to let that tank come into his country. I immediately made plans to go to Ukraine. I called Delta. I made my flight into the town in Romania that was closest to the border. Then Delta contacted me and said, we've stopped flights into that. It's right on the border. There's no flights going there. Well, what do I do? How do I go? How do I help them? And I was sharing on my social media that I didn't know how I was going to. What I was going to do. Now I still knew I had to get there. Candace reached out to me, and I had known Candace before. I had contributed to her organization. She reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to go with her. And I immediately thought, oh, that could be a good thing. She was telling me all these big things about how that they were going to go rescue orphans that had been abandoned because the workers had just fled, and that's why we had to go now. And most of them, the orphanages in Ukraine, unfortunately, as in many areas of the world, they keep those orphans just by keeping them drugged. She said, in moving these orphans, we'll have to deal with withdrawal and all those kinds of things. We need the doctors and the nurses. I'm like, okay.
- [18:00]
Charlie Webster
Now that Mary was on board, Candice needed the right person to help her oversee the logistics of the operation. She tapped up a cybersecurity expert. She knew a guy called Jason, who she also met. You wouldn't believe it.
- [18:15]
Jason
My involvement with Candace started. It was her son played soccer, and my son played soccer for the same club. That's where it started.
- [18:24]
Aura
Yep.
- [18:24]
Charlie Webster
Another soccer parent, Jason.
- [18:26]
Jason
I was in my master's program studying cybersecurity, and I was in a course, ethical hacking. So I had my certified ethical hacking book. I was studying, trying to get my homework done. So I'm sitting on the sidelines of the game, and Candace looks over at me, and she sees the book I'm reading, and she's like, I didn't know you were into Cybersecurity. And I said, yeah, I'm working on my master's degree. And she's like, oh, so, you know, ethical hacking? And I'm like, yeah, that's. It's what I study, it's what I do. And that's what got the gears turning. I got an understanding that she worked with Exodus, this organization that helped sex traffic victims.
- [19:02]
Charlie Webster
Jason was working and studying at the time and was initially hesitant to work with Exodus. But the very next day, after Candice spoke to him, he was laid off from his job. So he had some spare time on his hands and could help out with the Exodus Ukraine mission.
- [19:18]
Jason
Candace had a team that was going to be driving in Ukraine to go to the orphanages to talk to the orphanage directors and get them to release these kids. And then we were going to go and we had two options, right? There's Romania, that's next to Ukraine, and there's Moldova, that's next to Ukraine. And setting up at one of the border crossings a place to stage these kids until we could get a flight to take them home.
- [19:47]
Charlie Webster
Did you know how many kids there were?
- [19:48]
Jason
There was about 22 on the list.
- [19:50]
Charlie Webster
22 orphans?
- [19:52]
Jason
Correct. In orphanages all throughout the country.
- [19:57]
Charlie Webster
Through our reporting, we managed to get hold of the list and verify that it did exist and so did the orphans on it. Although the process to get these children to their adoptive families in America had started before the war. When the war broke out, Ukraine implemented a blanket ban on all adoptions.
- [20:18]
Jason
So there was a lot of questions on the legality of can you take these kids out if they haven't been adopted? I believe the reason Exodus was involved in this is what Candace said is that the special needs children in Ukraine were being pimped out or sexually abused by the orphanages. And I don't know how true or not true that is.
- [20:43]
Charlie Webster
It is true, although I wouldn't particularly put it how Candice did. Sexual exploitation and physical abuse is a problem in orphanages in Ukraine and so is trafficking. Often, medical restraints, sedation, are used on the orphans. Ukraine is one of the largest source countries for trafficked persons in Europe, and orphanages are a target for traffickers to manage withdrawals from sedatives. A medical team, including nurses, would accompany Candice's Exodus team. The core group was assembled. Jason, Aura, Mary, Candice, and a local news reporter to cover it all for television.
- [21:24]
Aura
We get to the airport, and Candice had booked my ticket. She didn't use my flight full name. And so the people at the airport flagged Me. And they're like, the ticket does not match your id. We can't let you on the plane. And I had a suitcase with Candace's plates in it. She brought plates?
- [21:48]
Charlie Webster
Like as in dinner plates?
- [21:49]
Aura
No, like plates to put in, like a bulletproof vest. And I was carrying her bag with a minute or her suitcase with a.
- [21:57]
Charlie Webster
With plates with a bulletproof vest in it. For her?
- [22:01]
Aura
Yeah, like weighted plates?
- [22:03]
Mary Krass
Yeah, for her.
- [22:04]
Charlie Webster
Did she wear a bulletproof vest?
- [22:07]
Aura
Not around me. I never saw.
- [22:09]
Charlie Webster
Did any of you wear bulletproof vests?
- [22:11]
Aura
Not that I ever saw. So it ended up being a real pain once I got to the airport to be clear to get on the plane.
- [22:20]
Charlie Webster
As the team got on the plane, Candice had to shoot off a message to her flight. The love group.
- [22:26]
Candice Rivera
We are traveling right now. I will have a bulletproof vest, a phenomenal security team, military escort, the ambassador on WhatsApp, Zinski's wife on speed dial. A very big God on my side. And will be delivering some documentation to orphanages that makes them evacuate or allows us to evacuate the abandoned ones under martial law. I just bought a bag of avocados and we all know how those go bad so quickly. I want to be eating those next week. Love you all and that I can come here and ask for prayer and prayer and prayer. And I know you will.
- [23:00]
Charlie Webster
With avocados on her mind, Candice said goodbye to her two boys, now 9 and 14, and wrote them letters in case she didn't make it back. The Exeters team left Salt Lake City. Candice and her team decided to hit both Ukrainian borders. Aura, Candace and the news reporter went to Moldova. Jason and Mary, Romania.
- [23:30]
Aura
Candace and Jason flew business and everyone else flew economy.
- [23:35]
Charlie Webster
When Jason and Mary landed in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, Mary was surprised that they were put in an expensive hotel.
- [23:43]
Mary Krass
The first night we landed in Bucharest, we stayed in a beautiful hotel. I'm like, wow, this is nice. And Candice says, I wanted this first night to be nice for you. And I'm like, okay.
- [23:56]
Charlie Webster
That night, Jason and Mary bumped into Jack Osborne of the Osbournes. He was there volunteering with Third Wave, another non profit group. They all had dinner together that night. Jack even cooked it. The next day, Jason took Mary and they met up with a team of volunteer nurses that would be working with Exetus. They went north to the border where Romania meets Ukraine.
- [24:20]
Mary Krass
So we had a small van, an 8 passenger van that we shoved 10 people in, and we headed towards the border the next morning.
- [24:27]
Jason
And when we got to the border, it was Fascinating. It was like a massive expo center. There were so many tents, canopies with companies, brands all over it, everywhere, lining the streets, both sides of the street, all the way up to the border. And there was a lot more supporters than there were refugees. And so we made our way up this street, and one thing they all have in common is they're all wearing vests, right? You can clearly distinguish the people that are there to support, to help the refugees because they've registered, they have their spot, they have their tent, they have everything all set up. We walk up through all of these stations, and I say, there's really nothing we can do here. We didn't see any refugees at all coming across the border. So Candice said she would make a few calls and figure out where we needed to be and what we needed to do. She found a church where refugees were being taken and said, I need you to take the medical team over to this church and help out there. So I called our driver, and rather than have him try to drive through the expo of volunteers, I told him, just wait for us at the bottom of the street and we'll walk back down to you. And we look pretty sad. I don't know. We're all bundled up in coats. We're walking down this street, and we looked like refugees. We weren't wearing the vests, we weren't registered. People started snapping photos of us, and I was worried we were going to show up on a magazine somewhere like, this is a story of these refugees coming out of Ukraine. We were just there to try to volunteer and help. It was humorous, it was surreal. It was strange. And so we made our way to the church, and sure enough, the church was full of refugees, and they did have medical needs, and our nurses were going through and assessing them and finding out how they were doing, what they needed. Candice had contacts in Moldova and was talking to them. And so Candace called us and said, I need you guys to come down here. We're going to set up down here in Polanca where we can do a lot more.
- [26:51]
Charlie Webster
So from the north Romanian border to the southern Moldovan border to Ukraine.
- [26:56]
Jason
Correct. The driver that we had had a limitation on not being able to drive across international borders. And so we're talking this back and forth with Candace, and she said, okay, look, don't worry about it. I will find you a driver who will meet you at the border from Moldova. You can switch vehicles. And so we did. We jumped in the van and we made this long drive all the way down to Moldova. We switch vehicles into this other guy that met us at the border, and we're riding with him, and then out of nowhere, the driver says, I gotta stop and pick this guy up. Slide over. And he pulls over. And so I slide over, and this other guy just jumps up into the car next to me, right? And they're talking back and forth. I could understand words here and there and sounded like something to do with cocaine on the bus. It didn't make me feel super comfortable. When we finally show up at the house that we're going to stay at, Candace is saying, hey, look, we pulled in some favors with the Moldovan mafia, right? This is this Moldovian mafia house that we're going to stay at. And I'm like, wait a second. Here I am riding in this truck with this guy doing a deal with someone else about cocaine at a bus stop, and now we're staying at a mafia house.
- [28:15]
Mary Krass
Candace was laughing and joking about how that this was a mafia house and it totally looked like a mafia house. I mean, it was shambles on the outside, but when you went inside, velvet, wallpaper, blah, blah, all this stuff. She said, oh, well, we're perfectly safe here. They would never harm us. I asked her why. She said, because they know we're here doing good work.
- [28:41]
Charlie Webster
All right, okay.
- [28:44]
Jason
They had decorations up on the wall and just very not typical of anything that I was used to seeing. I don't know. We all kind of had a good laugh at it. And we even took the pictures because it did stand out. And they said, better not post it on social media, though, or else the Moldova mafia is going to chase us down. Right? Like execute us.
- [29:05]
Charlie Webster
Jason shared the pictures with us of the mafia house in Moldova. It looks like it's straight out of the 80s. We're not sure if this actually is a mafia house, but Jason also showed us pictures of an oligarch's house Candice said she stayed in, which certainly does look like one. It was pretty extravagant. But then we checked it out. Turns out it was actually just a normal hotel that costs 40 books a night.
- [29:33]
Jason
We were all 100% invested in what we were doing. There were long hours. We didn't sleep very much. I was up till, I think, four in the morning working on the papers, the documents, and the things the drivers needed. Over in Ukraine, there was a lot of things happening.
- [29:53]
Charlie Webster
Candice had teams over the border in Ukraine that were trying to pick up the orphans on their list, but they were coming up against roadblocks.
- [30:01]
Jason
We had a couple teams that were driving from orphanage to orphanage. When the team would show up at the orphanage and they would show them the papers. At first, initially the papers were all in English. And they're looking at these and saying, this isn't even our language. Like, we're not going to release kids to anyone's custody. They gave a lot of pushback, rightfully. So we had to get the documents translated and back in their hands, they're saying, okay, until you have something from our government commanding us, saying, this is how the case is going to be, we're not going to let these children go. And so Candace is calling contacts in Ukraine and the Ukraine government, she's also contacting people in the US to try to facilitate these deals and the communication between the two countries to make these agreements work.
- [30:52]
Charlie Webster
In the meantime, Mary, Jason and the rest of the team in Moldova got to work at the border doing what they could to help out.
- [31:00]
Mary Krass
We helped people come across, we helped get them food, helped them, you know, where they're going to stay tonight. Some of them could speak English, you know, and their one big question was, how do I get to America? I met three women there. They said, even if we get passports, we don't have any money to get to America. And I gave three of them my card and I said, if you get immigration papers, I'll pay for your ticket. And I paid for three of them to come. Candice arrives the next day in this sports car. I saw her get out of it and come. I'm like, well, you had a fancy ride here. And while we're jammed in this little van, 10 people in an eight passenger van. The next day we were going to the border again and we were working in this huge supply tent. My job was to organize this supply tent because they said, we don't know what's in there. They're just donations. So I went in there and there was a 20 by 20 foot tent that was wall to ceiling. So I began sorting it out. People would come into the supply tents and ask, do you have any warm coats? And it was so cold that day. I'd just walk outside. I'd go, I have found a coat. And people would come over and grab it. Candace worked in the tent with us that day. I was very impressed with that. Candace didn't work the next day and she was doing something else.
- [32:42]
Charlie Webster
Candace had been invited to sit down for a meeting with the Moldovan government. Yes. Really. Jason went with her.
- [32:51]
Jason
Candice and I went and sat in a government meeting with the Moldovan government. And we're sitting around the table with them, and they're asking us for help. I wasn't dressed for an occasion of sitting down in a government meeting. Right. I'm wearing my 511 pants with a T shirt. They had a large conference table set up really nice. They had a coke on the table and maybe a candy bar or snack for everybody to sit down and eat. The guy that was heading the government had actually been to the states a few times, so he spoke a little bit of English. And they're saying, like, we don't know how to handle a situation like this. What can we do? And how do we get these groups to work together? And what advice do you have? And they were leaning on us to try to provide the answers for a situation on how to improve the way they were offering aid at the Polanca border, which was fascinating. She was in her element. She just takes charge. She's got a very commanding presence. She just, okay, this is what needs to happen. Like, she's been there before. That's the thing about Candace, is she always seemed very well composed, very well spoken, and she always knew exactly what to say.
- [34:02]
Charlie Webster
Did she know what she was doing?
- [34:04]
Jason
It sure sounded like it, yeah.
- [34:06]
Charlie Webster
All the humanitarian efforts were focused on the Romanian border. Moldova didn't know how to direct the resources they had. Candice put people to work. She sent the nurses working with Exodus to assess what was needed and where. Candice then put together a comprehensive needs assessment report and delivered it to the Moldovan government. The government used this report to inform their humanitarian response. The Moldovan border went from having nothing for refugees to a fully fledged support system.
- [34:40]
Jason
And I'll tell you that now you had more tents, more resources, heaters set up for the people, and a lot more food and a lot more awareness going on and a lot more collaboration from other organizations around the world. It felt like, yeah, we'd made a huge difference. We made an impact. And, you know, it wasn't what we came there to do. We came there to try to help these orphans make it to their homes in the United States. But we were able to find a way to contribute in a meaningful way, and it was impactful.
- [35:22]
Mary Krass
Finally, I said to Candace, when do we get to work with the orphans? Where are the orphans? And she said, well, the government won't release them. We're still working on documents.
- [35:34]
Charlie Webster
Even though Candice had worked with the Moldovan government to make a big difference in resourcing the border, which she did. We've seen the pictures. That was not the original purpose of the trip. People were getting frustrated with Candice.
- [35:48]
Jason
The nurses all kind of pulled together and they said, okay, Candace, we need to know, are there going to be orphans? And she couldn't promise anything because she didn't know when things were going to happen.
- [36:01]
Aura
Candace went in arrogant. She was just bragging, no one else can do what I can do. No one expects someone like me to show up at the door. Basically a woman who's powerful, who's successful, and nobody says no to her. So she just expected to go in and have kids handed to her, and that didn't happen.
- [36:25]
Charlie Webster
Aura had been working in Moldova with one of Candice's contacts. They were at an orphanage there. When the orphans Candace was trying to rescue made it out of Ukraine, they would need a place to wait for flights and documentation to be sorted. This orphanage was the perfect place. Aura went to assess the needs of the children who were already there.
- [36:46]
Aura
Candice said, exodus has purchased these buildings. You know, we're paying for their childcare, we're paying for their food and their clothing, all of their needs. I go inside the building and the stench, it smelled so bad, like BO and just filth. So there's a lot of teenagers in there and some little kids and some special needs children, and then a woman feeding them. And they each got, like, a little piece of fish and a little piece of bread. I was just horrified and humiliated because I'm watching this is all that they're getting. So I reached out to Candace, basically assessing their needs and saying, like, they're hungry, they smell, they need hygiene items, they need soap, and they're bored. They have nothing to do. And so I asked, what do you guys want? And they wanted soccer balls and they wanted clean underwear. And Candace said, no, no, no. She said, all of those items have been donated in Utah. When you get home, you can shoot. She was mad at me for asking for things, and she's like, we are spending so much money feeding these kids. That made me furious because I knew she wasn't going to let me pay that much for shipping from donated items from Utah. It seemed ridiculous. It devastated me because I saw how poor these kids were, and they just needed care and we couldn't give it to them. We stayed for hours and played with him and walked away without being able to provide anything for him. Not even soccer balls or not even soap. I could have spent very little there and met some of their needs, but it wasn't an exodus house. I. I have no idea what it was.
- [38:49]
Charlie Webster
According to Jason, it really was An Exodus safe house. Exodus didn't purchase the building, but they were paying for some of the necessities.
- [38:58]
Jason
Candice made a deal that she would pay for the food that the orphans needed. I believe she bought a washing machine for them to replace the washing machine that they had. So she was going to financially support it. This would be Exodus orphanage. And not that Exodus owned the orphanage, but this was a contract relationship with this orphanage in exchange for when we could get those kids out of the orphanages in Ukraine. Now we had a place to stage them until we could bring them back to the US the whole second floor, rooms open and available. So we make sure we had these resources shored up in the case that we were ever able to get these orphans out.
- [39:42]
Charlie Webster
It sounds like you just had so much resource.
- [39:44]
Jason
We did, but zero orphans.
- [39:48]
Charlie Webster
There were no orphans until we got word.
- [39:52]
Mary Krass
Candace told us that orphans had been rescued from this one orphanage and that they were coming to arrive. And I thought, oh, okay, great. But the day before the orphans were to come, she said, we don't need you anymore. You can go home. I'm like, we came to help with orphan. She goes, well, there aren't as many of them coming as we thought there were. And I said, okay, well, don't you need help with that? Well, we have our people here, so you can go. And to be honest with you, I was tired sleeping on the floor all the time. I'm like, you know, I'm an old woman. And so I went home.
- [40:30]
Charlie Webster
Mary wasn't the only one going home. Ora also headed back to Utah via New York.
- [40:38]
Aura
I got on a plane to come home. Got to JFK airport. As I scanned my id, all the sirens went off in the airport.
- [40:51]
Starli
And.
- [40:52]
Aura
Security came and got me and took me to interrogate me. I just thought, well, maybe this is because I just came from a war zone or from the border of a war. That has to explain this. They dumped out all my stuff and then they put it back together and they dumped it out again. And they interrogated me about why I was in Moldova. So I named the organization and I said, I'm here with a non profit called Exodus and here's what we've been doing. And he didn't really seem to care. He wanted to know about Candace. I said, well, that is my boss. She's the CEO of Exodus. Just explaining her and don't worry like this is a legitimate organization. You can look it up. And he just kept asking me questions about Candace. It seems like they had a file.
- [41:51]
Charlie Webster
On her Jason had the same experience.
- [41:56]
Jason
Ora flew home separate and I fly home and got stopped at the airport and pulled into secondary inspection. And they said, okay, where are you coming from? What are you doing? And asking me all sorts of questions about my relationship with Texas. I said, yeah, I'm a contractor. They've hired me to help with the project, planning on some of these things that they're doing over here, and they're going through our luggage and X raying it and whatever. And so I'm starting to wonder, like, wait, what's, what's going on here? Then they started asking me questions about was I ever in Afghanistan or in the Middle east and had I ever, like, had guns over in there? And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never been to the Middle East. I've never flown with guns anywhere. I had no idea why they were asking me these questions.
- [42:50]
Charlie Webster
It wasn't just Aura and Jason. Everyone who was part of the Ukraine operation got stopped by airport security on their way back into the US and interrogated about Candace. But they weren't asked about Ukraine. They were asked about Afghanistan, the operation, which had happened six months earlier.
- [43:12]
Aura
Every single member of the team had the same experience.
- [43:23]
Charlie Webster
When she got back, Candice sent out an email to the Exodus mailing list, updating them on the work she did in Ukraine, including all the orphans she claimed to have saved. This is what she wrote.
- [43:36]
Candice Rivera
We have established medical aid and relief to 300 orphans that we have placed in host families. We are committed to taking care of this vulnerable population and maybe stealing a baby or two ourselves. Just kidding.
- [43:50]
Aura
She was telling everyone that she saved orphans.
- [43:52]
Charlie Webster
Candace bent the truth about how many orphans were rescued. It definitely was not 300, though she did post multiple pictures of herself on social media with disabled orphans. In one, she has a stethoscope on listening to a child's heartbeat. The next part of Candice's email update was closer to the truth.
- [44:14]
Candice Rivera
Exodus has solidified partnerships with the Moldovan government and Romanian to help provide infrastructure and support. When Exodus shows up, they show up. In the words of Rihanna, tell your friends to pull up.
- [44:29]
Mary Krass
I said afterwards, Candice, I did great work there, but I did not work with orphans and I did not rescue orphans. And you had led us to believe we were rescuing a lot of orphans. Oh, no. We brought way more that you didn't know about and we didn't have pictures of.
- [44:48]
Charlie Webster
In the space of three months, there were five extus trips to Ukraine in total. Exodus was Able to get two orphans out. The four year old boy the Exodus nurse rescued before the war started at the beginning of our episode and another an 8 year old girl who was finally rescued in May 2022.
- [45:10]
Aura
There's one girl who we did end up getting to her adoptive families. We were her medical escort home. We sent her to a hospital and she had a seizure after they landed and so barely made it, barely survived the trip. And we got her care at a hospital. Candice promised pay all the medical bills.
- [45:36]
Charlie Webster
The girl was one of the orphans on Candice's Original list of 22 children to save and did have a family waiting for her in America. She was severely malnourished and her life was at risk. Jason and an extras nurse facilitated the transport on the final extras trip to Uncle Ukraine. Candice couldn't make that trip. She was in South Carolina with her family. But she was managing everything from the US and when the orphan landed on American soil, Candice flew in to be with her. The notes from the rescue state in capital letters ruined Candace's vacation. But if not for Candace, the orphan could have died. The orphan was so that she had to spend 40 days in the hospital. When she arrived in the US we.
- [46:24]
Jason
Actually got an orphan out legitimately instead of 22. It was one. But like there was a lot of sense of accomplishment finally getting it done.
- [46:36]
Aura
And then I started getting emails from the hospital asking for the bills to be paid. She ghosted the hospital.
- [46:47]
Charlie Webster
A family from Georgia adopted her before the war broke out and the papers had finally come through. The family paid Candace to get the orphan out. And though Candace promised to pay all the hospital bills, she never did. Candace found this orphan's adoptive family on an online messaging board.
- [47:07]
Jason
Candace would jump on these forums and she would see these parents and see their concerns and she would reach out and say, I, I have a solution.
- [47:15]
Charlie Webster
Candice was soliciting families on online messaging boards who were desperately trying to complete the process and get their adoptive children out of Ukraine.
- [47:32]
Jason
I came back and I got back to the States just in time to go to my class because I still had the graduate program I was finishing up and man, I almost, I almost didn't even make it through the graduate program last semester. Trying to get my thesis done and everything on top of what was going on with this. And I showed up to class just looking like hell and there's two guys in my class and they're like, what in the world happened to you? I just looked like a ghost.
- [48:03]
Charlie Webster
Despite the toll the Ukraine operation took on him. Jason did manage to finish his thesis and graduate. Candace did not get to finish her vacation. There was no rest for her. She was about to go and speak at a widow's conference, even though she's not a widow, and she had the next big ex to Scala to prepare for.
- [48:25]
Starli
And I turned and I looked at Candace and Candace just looks so pissed.
- [48:29]
Charlie Webster
And I'm like, what is going on?
- [48:31]
Starli
She goes, I can't believe that they would do that.
- [48:33]
Aura
Everybody just left before the auction and.
- [48:37]
Starli
Candice is like, we're not going to.
- [48:38]
Aura
Be able to sell the things I'd.
- [48:39]
Starli
Probably promised we'd sell.
- [48:41]
Aura
So I said, candace, can I please talk? And so I went up to the auctioneer and I said, sir, can I grab that mic for just a second?
- [48:52]
Starli
And I stood up in front of.
- [48:53]
Aura
The room, in front of everybody, and I said, I need to tell you.
- [48:57]
Starli
Guys who I am.
- [48:59]
Aura
I'm not just your photographer for the evening. I'm also one of the survivors.
- [49:06]
Charlie Webster
That's what's next on Unicorn Girl. This has been Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast produced by Seven Hills and hosted and executive produced by me, Charlie Webster. Unicorn Girl is produced by me, Charlie Webster and Jackson McLennan. Original score and theme music by Ryan Sorenson, editing and sound design by Nico Polella, assistant producer and fact checking by Emmy Jory. Candice's social media posts are also read by Emmy Drury, mixed by Little Big Room, additional production support by Fun Meter. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.