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The Fallen Badge · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So imagine you dedicate 10 years to building a completely
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: sterling reputation in a super competitive career. I mean, you
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: win awards for literal heroism. Right.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: The kind of stuff that ends up on the front
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: page of the local paper.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And then you just decide to burn it all
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to the ground in a single night.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's a completely jarring contrast.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It really is. So today, our mission for this deep
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: dive is to unpack the spectacular, just Overnight Fall from
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Grace of Rebecca Sage. She was a former award-winning New
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Jersey police officer.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have a really incredible set of sources
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: to go through for this one. We're looking at detailed
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: breakdowns of police body cam footage, the raw 911 audio,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: and all the court transcripts.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Plus the documents from the civil lawsuit, right?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. We have everything documenting the night a cop
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: basically became the suspect all the way through to her
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: eventual sentencing.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because... To really get the sheer
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: whiplash of this story, you kind of have to understand
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: where we are. We're talking about Tom's River and Berkeley
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Township in Ocean County, New Jersey. Right.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: And for anyone listening who hasn't been there, you should
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: picture these really picturesque, highly desirable beach communities. Yeah.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: They're known for good schools. They're consistently recognized as like
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: some of the absolute best and safest places to live
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in the entire state.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: And that environment is so crucial to understanding the mindset
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of the officers there. I mean, it's a highly competitive
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: region for law enforcement.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: You really have to fight to get a badge in
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: a town like that, don't you?
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. And once you have it, the community expectation
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: is just incredibly high. But you also get a massive
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: amount of respect. The uniform carries just a ton of
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: social capital in a place like Tom's River.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And Rebecca Sage, she had accumulated so much of that
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: social capital. I mean, She was sworn in as a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: patrol officer back in 2016. Yeah.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: And she actually graduated from Montclair State University with a
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: degree in justice studies just a year before that.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Which is wild to me. Like, this was her lifelong dream.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: She studied the theoretical limits of the law for four
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: years before enforcing it. Right.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just a job for her. When you shape
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: your entire educational path around getting that specific badge, it
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: completely fuses with your identity.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Totally. And the validation she got was just Off the charts.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Like in 2022, she was awarded a Class B award.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Which is a really big deal in the law enforcement community.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It is. For those listening, a Class B award is
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: given for extreme bravery where you face a substantial risk
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: to your own life. She literally ran into a burning home. Right.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: She went into a blazing fire to save the homeowner
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and their pets.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Before the fire department even secured the scene. Like
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: she was celebrated on the township website, her alma mater.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: put her face on their homepage.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It creates this immense psychological armor. You know, you internalize
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: this narrative that you are the savior.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: But see, I have to push back on that a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: little bit. It's like reading a superhero comic where the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hero suddenly decides to become the villain in the very
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: next issue.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a massive pivot.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: How do you even reconcile that? How does the person
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: who risks her life for a stranger's pets in a
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: fire become the person who, just a couple of years later,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: is violently kicking down a door?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Well, that dichotomy is exactly what makes this case so
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: compelling to look at. I mean, it forces you to
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: question what actually happens when the intense pressure of wearing
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: that badge collides with, like, extreme personal turmoil.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So it's not just burnout, then?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: No, it's more like a total implosion. It shows how
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: the exact traits that make someone a rising star in
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: law enforcement, being aggressive, taking control of chaotic scenes, can
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: just become weaponized in their personal life.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: That makes sense, yeah. Because when we pivot to the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: actual night in question... The body cam reality is just,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it's chaotic. We go from this abstract hero to this concrete,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: messy reality caught on tape. Right.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: The 911 call from her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Chiarello, really sets
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the scene.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He calls dispatch and he says, she's upstairs throwing
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a tantrum. And he makes sure to note that she
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: hasn't lived there for two and a half years.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Which completely strips away her authority. I mean, throwing a
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: tantrum is not how you describe a police officer in control.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. And she didn't just show up
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to yell. She showed up with her police-issued baton.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Which elevates the whole thing to a potentially lethal situation.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, bringing a compliance tool issued by the state
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: to settle a personal dispute is a massive corruption of
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: her power.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And when the responding officers get there, the entitlement she
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: displays on the body cam is just staggering.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's fascinating. You hear her trying to basically lawyer
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: her way out of the arrest. Yeah.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: She looks right at the responding officers and yells, criminal
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: mischief isn't an arrestable offense.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that psychological phenomenon of a cop
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: trying to use their insider knowledge to intimidate the arresting officers.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: But she was completely wrong, right?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She was completely wrong. But in the heat of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: the moment, her cognitive dissonance just blinds her to the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: reality that she is the suspect now.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And when citing fake laws doesn't work, she zeroes in
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: on the officers themselves. Like, she starts calling one of
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: them by his first name, Kyle. Right.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: She's trying to leverage that professional courtesy. Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: She says, this is ridiculous, Kyle. and then she complains
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: about being manhandled, she actually yells, I'm calling my PBA rep.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Which is just wild. For you listening, the PBA is
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the Police Benevolent Association, their union.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So she's basically treating a violent felony arrest like it's
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a scheduling dispute at work. Yes.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: She's relying on this professional shield, expecting them to just
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: pause the criminal justice system because she's in the club.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: But they don't give her that courtesy, thankfully. And as
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: they're arresting her, She's screaming about this bizarre mix of motives.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It's a complete emotional unspooling.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: She's yelling about her dog. She's yelling about some clothes
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: she left there two and a half years ago. And
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: she is just livid about her ex's new girlfriend being there.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Over a dog and some old clothes. It really shows
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: how far she'd fallen from that hero persona.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: And then she just hands him the case on a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: silver platter. She's on the phone. Body cams are rolling.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And she yells... Well, I just smashed his front door in.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It's an unforced, voluntary confession on tape. You can't walk
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: that back.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: No, you really can't. But here's where it gets really interesting.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Because the source material shows this wasn't just some spontaneous
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: emotional meltdown. Right.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It was actually an orchestrated abuse of power.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to talk about the civil lawsuit filed
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: by Mr. Chiarello and his new girlfriend, Brianna Grokowski. They
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: didn't just sue Rebecca. They sued two entire police departments.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: The Toms River Police Department and the Berkeley Township Police Department.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Because the lawsuit alleges a straight-up conspiracy.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, so paint the picture of this conspiracy. Because they
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: were just watching a movie, right? Exactly.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: The victims are just hanging out. But outside, a Wyze
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: camera catches a marked Berkeley PD vehicle driving past the house.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And not just once.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Right. It drives by at 10.58 p.m. and then again
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: at 11 p.m.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Which is so creepy. It is. And the lawsuit claims
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: this was Officer Kyle Hunt, the exact same Kyle she
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: was yelling at on the body cam later.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. The allegation is that Officer Hunt was essentially doing reconnaissance.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: He drove by, got the license plate of the new
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: girlfriend's car, and passed it to Rebecca.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And Rebecca isn't even on duty. So what does she
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: do with the plate number?
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Well, she allegedly contacts a Toms River dispatcher and has
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: them run the plates through the restricted police databases to
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: figure out who the new girlfriend is.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait. The defense later argues this was just an
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: out-of-character moment where she snapped. But enlisting an on-duty officer
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and a dispatcher to run plates, that feels incredibly premeditated,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: It completely ruins the crime of passion defense, yes. And
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: it highlights something really terrifying for the listener.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Which is?
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: The idea that public servants can use these highly restricted
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: federal databases as their own personal surveillance tools.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Just to stalk a romantic rival?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: That's insane.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: That is insane. It is.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: And it left this massive swath of destruction. I mean,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: because of that digital audit trail, both Officer Hunt and
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: the dispatcher ended up being fired.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: She took them down with her over a bad breakup.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Three careers gone in one night.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's follow the timeline to the station. Because
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the contrast between the crime scene and her behavior at
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the police station is just bizarre.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: The adrenaline crash really exposes how detached she was from reality.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's sitting there in custody and she literally asks,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: does my hair look good at least?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: While simultaneously realizing and saying out loud, oh, I'm totally
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: getting fired.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: It's so strange. It's like she's treating her own booking
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: like a bad Yelp review of a hotel she's being
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: forced to stay at.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: That is the perfect analogy.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: She's like asking for alcohol wipes for a tiny cut
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: on her hand and complaining about the service of the
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: arresting officers.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: The vanity of worrying about her hair while facing felony
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: charges is just, it shows that the invincibility of the
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: badge hadn't completely worn off yet.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: But then the panic finally sets in, right? We get
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to that phone call to her mother.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's the exact moment the reality check hits.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: She's on the phone just crying, terrified of going to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the county jail. She actually says, they're going to post
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: me all online.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Which is so revealing. She's not crying about the victims.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: She's crying about the public exposure. She knows her mugshot
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: is going to destroy her curated reputation.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: But here's the twist. She's booked on burglary, criminal mischief,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and simple assault. But she doesn't actually sit in that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: jail cell. She gets released immediately.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: And that detail made a lot of people really angry.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: They assumed it was professional courtesy.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Right. Cops protecting cops.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: But that's not what happened here. No.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It was actually due to New Jersey's bail reform measures.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It's a really important systemic detail.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: So how does that work?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Because letting someone go after a violent home invasion seems crazy.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Well, New Jersey eliminated cash bail. Instead, they use a
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: public safety assessment algorithm. It scores a defendant based on
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: their risk of fleeing or committing another crime.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. So because she was a first-time offender
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: with a steady job. Exactly.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: The algorithm scored her as a low risk, so she
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: was released with conditions rather than waiting for a judge
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: in a cell.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So the system worked the way it was designed to,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: even if the optics were terrible.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Precisely.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, so fast forward to November 2025, the sentencing hearing,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: because we have two wildly different narratives being presented here.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the legal battle lines were very clearly drawn.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: The prosecution was not messing around.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: They asked for 180 days in jail. And they really
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: hammered home that premeditation we talked about.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They argued it wasn't a split-second decision. They brought
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: up the baton, the terrifying violation to the victims in
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: their own home, and the ruination of those two other
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: officers' careers.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor called it a massive breach of the public trust.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: But then the defense gets up. And they asked for
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: extreme leniency, basically just the five days she already spent
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: in jail. Right.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: They cited the trauma and job stress of being a cop.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And a bad breakup, which, I don't know, it doesn't
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: really justify a home invasion.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: No, but they also leaned heavily on her rehabilitation. She
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: completed inpatient and outpatient treatment and anger management.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: They really emphasized the tragedy of it all. Like, They
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: pointed out that this woman who saved lives in a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: fire can't even volunteer as a local lifeguard now because
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: of her felony record.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And this raises a really important question for the listener.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: How does the justice system treat its own? Right.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Do the years of saving lives offset the night of
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: destroying a home?
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate dilemma for a judge.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And Judge Guy Ryan, he really struggled with this, didn't he?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, he scolded her pretty harshly.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. He told her that as a 10-year veteran
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: of a highly competitive department, she, of all people, should
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: know better than to handle a dispute like this in
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: the dark.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: But then his final rationale was super interesting. He asked
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: himself a specific question. Yes.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: He asked himself if he would give 180 days in
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: jail to any other first-time offender with a 14-year law-abiding
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: adult record.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: For offenses that carry what he called a presumption of non-imprisonment.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Right. Under New Jersey law, lower-level felonies for first-time offenders
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: come with a presumption that they won't get state prison time.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: So he had to strip away the uniform and just
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: look at her as a standard defendant. And his answer
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: to his own question was, no, he wouldn't jail an
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: average citizen for this.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So he couldn't jail her just because she was a cop.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So she received three years of probation, she has
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to pay restitution, and she's mandated to continue mental health treatment.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: It was a very strict application of the law, devoid
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: of the emotional weight of the badge.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? I want you listening
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to really think about this. Was it a fair application
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of the law? Or did her badge subtly shield her
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: from a harsher punishment?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can certainly argue both sides. But we
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: also have to acknowledge that she undeniably lost her career,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: her reputation, and her identity.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The arc of this story is just incredible. We've gone
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: from an award-winning hero saving lives to a disgraced former
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: cop on probation who took down two colleagues over a dog.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: It is a profound fall from grace, and I think
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: it really reminds you about the fragility of trust.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Well, in our modern world, you know, with wise cameras,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: body cams, and digital audit trails and license plate databases,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: there really is no such thing as a secret abuse
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: of power anymore.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The technology always leaves a timestamp. Exactly. I think the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: thing that's going to stick with me the most, you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: when a public servant falls from grace... We always ask
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: how they could throw away a decade of good work
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in a single hour. Right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: How does it happen so fast?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: But maybe the more terrifying question is this. Was the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: person who kicked down that door with a police baton
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: always hiding right beneath the surface of the hero who
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: ran into the fire?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: That is a really unsettling thought to end on.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: It really is. Thank you for joining us on this
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: deep dive. We'll catch you on the next one.